Huh, I never really thought about animal (and plant?) preservation as a goal in itself if humans become multiplanetary, and not just being human companions or convenience. I don’t find this a clearcut idea. if we care about Earth’s animals surviving a local apocalypse, shouldn’t we care about everything alive in the universe surviving? Where do you draw the line?
Excellent point Shminux. The answer is Yes and No. For every situation, no matter how evolved you are, the answer would be some level of “Me First”, unless it’s trained out of you militaristically. So in this case, I would expect future humans to say that we care about the survival of Earth animals above the survival of exoplanet animals. That said, there would be a faction on earth and in space who would regard both earth animals and exoplanet animals to be equally important and worth saving.
The question is whether future humans will even bother trying to carry Earth animals with them or not?
Plant preservation might be a goal that’s beneficial to humans in a more direct way—gene modified plants that don’t consume any oxygen and only consume carbon dioxide and produce a lot of food and need less sun to do so would be extremely valuable in space. That would cause future humans to take plants with them.
Huh, I never really thought about animal (and plant?) preservation as a goal in itself if humans become multiplanetary, and not just being human companions or convenience. I don’t find this a clearcut idea. if we care about Earth’s animals surviving a local apocalypse, shouldn’t we care about everything alive in the universe surviving? Where do you draw the line?
Excellent point Shminux. The answer is Yes and No. For every situation, no matter how evolved you are, the answer would be some level of “Me First”, unless it’s trained out of you militaristically. So in this case, I would expect future humans to say that we care about the survival of Earth animals above the survival of exoplanet animals. That said, there would be a faction on earth and in space who would regard both earth animals and exoplanet animals to be equally important and worth saving.
The question is whether future humans will even bother trying to carry Earth animals with them or not?
Plant preservation might be a goal that’s beneficial to humans in a more direct way—gene modified plants that don’t consume any oxygen and only consume carbon dioxide and produce a lot of food and need less sun to do so would be extremely valuable in space. That would cause future humans to take plants with them.
>The question is whether future humans will even bother trying to carry Earth animals with them or not?
Of course we will bring our pets! I don’t know about other animals though. If it’s up to me, mosquitoes will get left behind, for one.