[bayindirh]

I recommend you to read Hyperion Cantos then. All four volumes. Takes a couple of months, but it's worth it.

It demands the reader to pay attention and think about what they read, though. I need to warn.

To add:

> Science is creation.

No. Science is knowing. How & why. You can create something with that knowledge, but it's up to you. You shouldn't create everything you can create (e.g.: mirror life, biological weapons, etc.).

> We can do it, so we will do it.

This mentality brought us up to here, but it's now harming us more than benefiting us. Maybe we should revisit this.

[lukan]

> We can do it, so we will do it."

This mentality brought us up to here, but it's now harming us more than benefiting us. Maybe we should revisit this."

But if it comes coupled with this:

"The lack of life here, and the lack of any finding in fifty years of the SETI program, indicates that life is rare, and intelligent life even rarer. And yet the whole meaning of the universe, its beauty, is contained in the consciousness of intelligent life. We are the consciousness of the universe, and our job is to spread that around, to go look at things, to live everywhere we can. "

I very much agree to it. But thanks for the recommendation, will look into it.

[bayindirh]

I feel that I need to clarify my stance on space exploration.

As a scientist, I believe that we should go places and look closer to understand and know. However, with the current hubris, this endeavor is not a result of curiosity, but of greed, hence my opposition to "we will do it, because we can do it".

Moreover, colonizing other planets as a solution to global warming and other catastrophes we might be heading into shows that the people who wish to do this didn't learn anything from our species' collective mistakes.

Seeing a planet as a plastic water bottle which can be crumpled and thrown to a trash bin, then getting another one when feeling thirsty is not a healthy perspective to have. Consumerism with no bounds is not sustainable at any capacity. This should be stopped.

As a person, I did my fair share of my mistakes on that front, but I also see that consuming less (from water bottles to planets) is possible, and I'm trying to do my best to reduce what I consume and recycle (mostly glass and metal).

Oh, if we can be absolutely sure that Mars has no life on it, building a lab for more sophisticated experiments is something I can support, but I'll be still wary of allowing contamination of Mars in uncontrolled way.

We can be gentle.

[lukan]

"Oh, if we can be absolutely sure that Mars has no life on it"

How can we ever be, if life might be hiding deep underground in vulcanic active areas?

That would mean stopping the advance of life for academic curiosity reasons.

For me science is mainly there, to help humans understand the universe to better find a place in it.

So yes, be gentle where possible, but a planet cannot be transformed in a gentle way. Life is rough where it spreads, it doesn't conserve things.