(2019 Archived) - The Interplanetary Dilemma and the Story of Humanity in the Cosmos
Having written this in 2019, and originally published in 2021.. when I was 15 and 17, there would be inaccuracies that I would correct here. Having removed it, I'm publishing again, for sake of completion so that the efforts wouldn't have gone to vain: There is no requirement for the dichotomy of choosing either Venus or Mars, but it would still stand true that one would objectively be better than the other with the right circumstances. Either way, in the present day, I believe that both would be hectic endeavors, the Earth is the best, and we should protect it. With the histories of real colonizations on this Earth, there would be bases that we would've seen only centuries ahead, and now with population decline, unlikely. The fundamental principle however still stand true.
Imagine today to be an ill-fated day – doomsday – the day on which a Global Catastrophic Risk was to be realized – Say, perhaps an asteroid impact or an unprecedented nuclear holocaust. Imagine that you’ve found-out it about at a few days notice. Think of everyone you love. Think of everyone you know. Think of all of humanity alive that day. After a few days, it’s all gone. You, Everyone you love, Everyone you know, All of Humanity – all of them gone, and never coming back. Think of all we’ve achieved for the past 200,000 years – all of them would have perished. Everything life did in its 3.5 billion-year history to evolve to us – all of it would be in vain. All the fields of opportunity and greener pastures out there in the many islets, islands, atolls and archipelagos – for us, all potential opportunities would have stumbled-across in our cosmic sojourns would have become ahōsi.
The cosmos is but an ocean, infinitely large in every direction. Yet, on the contrary; not infinitely void; rather flourishing with islets, islands, atolls and archipelagos. In this universal analogy, they are symbolic of anything that life could thrive on, or anything life could get its resources from: The islets and islands – planets, the atolls – planetary or stellar systems, and archipelagos- the galaxies, clusters and super-clusters. Every single islet is different and unique in its own way, with the ones sustaining life being biospheres in their own right. Some biospherical islets are more promising than others. Very rarely, in some biospherical random islet in the unfathomable cosmic ocean, life would have evolved into some organic intelligence. The Earth fits that description ever so perfectly. Humanity is but a tribe which arose on this islet, which went through a 2 million year journey of fighting the constraints of Mother Nature, and raised itself to dominance.
Over the millennia; we’ve formed our sovereign villages, threw sticks and stones at each other, and developed technology hitherto unseen in the entire history of the islet, which separated us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Over the years, unscrupulous people tried to grab power of this islet and we’ve almost driven ourselves to extinction, countless times before.
Yet, at present, the islet of Earth is the nurse of 197 sovereign villages which are more united and mutually-cooperative than ever before in the entire history of humanity itself. It seems as if; nothing could possibly go wrong, isn’t it? Well, it’s simply not true: There isn’t a biosphere which doesn’t go through some significant change within its lifetime; a biosphere could easily be subject to spontaneous change at any moment. Some changes might prove to be quite bad, sometimes to the extent of destroying modern civilization or damage human-wellbeing on a global scale [25], which might even have potential to drive us into extinction; we are constantly under a Global Catastrophic Risk.
A global catastrophic risk isn’t merely speculation; it is a risk to be taken seriously: For historic reference; the Earth saw 5 major mass-extinction events in her lifetime, owing to those risks being realized. The Trilobites and the Dinosaurs dominated the Earth in their respective geologic periods, and were relatively more successful than we would ever be. Yet, what happened to them? They met their end along with many others.
Couldn’t the same happen to us? Couldn’t a global catastrophic risk be realized within our species’ lifespan?
At any moment in our distant future, we might have to face mass explosions of super-volcanoes, or even an asteroid impact; which are speculated to have lead to the dinosaurs’ extinction. We might have to deal with a gamma-ray burst, which is speculated to have catalyzed the Ordovician-Silurian mass-extinction event. Similarly we may have to witness pandemics, run-away global warming or cooling events, mass famine, drought, a large geomagnetic storm or even an unexplained spontaneous crop failure [25].
Our potential extinction over realized global catastrophic risks doesn’t necessarily have to be natural, as with the case of previous mass extinction; they have the potential of being anthropogenic. We might create some biotechnology or nanotechnology which turns out to be destructive, or some hostile Artificial Intelligence which decided to work against us. The distant future might be run with malign governance which might result in a global war, accompanied by bioterrorism and nuclear holocaust [25]. Simply, if we were to take our universal analogy, the islet of Earth might be run-over by a tsunami, hit by an asteroid or destroyed out of our own conceits. And when that happens, there is nothing we could do about it; we would be sitting ducks and left with nothing else other than embracing our ill-fate. Then what about all we’ve achieved in the past 2 million years? What would happen to it? All we’ve achieved would all be in vain, and lost in the halls of history.
Have you ever heard the old adage, “Never put all your eggs in one basket”? The saying is as true as the meaning it gives. The basket is always under a constant risk of falling or toppling over. If we were to put all our eggs in a single basket, and the basket were to fall or topple over; all the eggs in it would either be cracked or broken. There is always a risk of the basket falling or toppling-over, and if the basket were to fall, all its eggs would be destroyed. Our situation is no different; The Earth is always under a global catastrophic risk. And, if a global catastrophic risk were to be realized, all of humanity would likely be driven to extinction, with all our achievements perished. There is no denying of that dystopian future, unless we were to do something about it. Still remember the age-old saying? What if we were to put all our eggs in different baskets? The baskets would still be under the constant risk of falling or toppling over. But, the risk would be divided among the number of baskets, thus reducing the risk to a greater extent. Even if a basket were to fall or topple-over, the other eggs would still survive. In our context, we must distribute our risk under many islets; humanity must thrive in a plurality of worlds. Fortunately, we are accompanied by an archangel, who was and will be fundamental in our successes and longevity; she is curiosity and the exploratory drive it stimulates. It is part of our blood and flows in all of our veins. It is the same curiosity and exploratory drive that helped us in our seeking for greener pastures, and I believe that the fate of all civilization is solely based on it.
The immense cosmic ocean is breathtakingly spectacular with all its priceless treasures beheld to us. Far beyond the cosmic horizons of our miniscule rural islet, there are other glorious islets, islands, atolls, continents and archipelagos, which house much greener pastures and fields of opportunities, unlike anything we’ve seen before. And as a planetary civilization which was complacently wandering by the cosmic shore, in awareness of the global catastrophic risks; our archangel of curiosity and exploration whispered to us. The cosmos was calling. And we’ve picked up the phone, and answered:
Not far away from Earth (In astronomical terms), is an even smaller islet which we see almost every night; our one and only moon. In 1969, humanity made the historic attempt of sending 3 brave men on a raft, on 3-day voyages to the moon and back. The moon landing was a landmark in our history, and simply proves humanity of its capabilities. It was one small step for man, but one giant leap for mankind. We’ve never looked back ever since, and sent more brave men to the moon and back, around the frontiers of the Earth, and many unmanned rafts to the depths of our atoll; the frontiers of our solar system.
Now, we’re at a crossroad in our history; the time has come, to take more giant leaps for mankind; to physically pass our own cosmic horizon, and to take exploration over new horizons. Considering how low the chances are for intelligent life to arise, it’s a drastic step which we must be willing to take, least for future of humanity and its descendents, or merely the namesake of being the only intelligent life-form in our region of the cosmic ocean.
Deep in the far regions of the cosmic ocean, with distances so vast that we might never physically ever make it there; there are other tribes. Some less sophisticated, some equivalent to our calibre, or some much complex than we are. I would imagine some of the greater civilizations of the future-past to have perished in their own islets; either by the constraints of the Fermi paradox which deprived them from rising up the Kardashev scale, making the wrong cosmic move, or merely the normalization of their global catastrophic risks which was left uncorrected until it was too late. The greater majority of the others would have taken that step, perhaps eras-in-advanced to us. Many of them would have done so, and might continue to do so at present, perhaps thriving at every single co-ordinate of the 4-dimentional non-Euclidian geometry we all inhabit. They might be sailing the cosmos in an armada of magnificently grand spaceships which are complex to the extent of incomprehensibility. They might divide the very cosmic oceans themselves with mighty vessels, which could manipulate the very waves of the universal seas; and undergo space-time odysseys which might go on for eons.
The very thought might seem quite absurd; but, in an infinite universe, there is infinite room for anything to happen. We might even see ourselves in that strata, if we were to plan our future right. True, the great filters and the laws of Darwin are still capable of capitalizing on them; no civilization is safe from its extinction, perhaps until a point where the civilization would become theoretically immortal. Until then, only the fittest would survive the longest, and our cosmic fitness depends not only on our physique or intelligence, but rather the cosmic choices we make. We have to always make the right choices, as the one we have to address at the present day: We have to plan our next cosmic move, and it is our current priority as a planetary civilization, to make the right one. We have to spread our seeds in other islets; we have to colonize another world. Currently we’re at the mercy of two basic candidate planets; Mars or Venus. But, we face a problem: neither Mars nor Venus is ideal for human inhabitancy, with each world having its own repertoire of hostilities. Who should we choose? We can eventually make both worlds our home, but which one is of more convenient and feasible in the longer run?
[25] Wikipedia (at 2019, February). Retrieved from (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Catastrophic_Risk ).
Achinthya Nanayakkara (30.03.2025)
Originally published - 2021 (now removed)
Originallly written - 2019
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