If we discover the means to travel faster than light, but researching and developing the technology means that the Earth is destroyed in just a few decades, should the technology still be pursued?
Edit: A bunch of yall don’t seem to grasp the concept of a theoretical question
I don’t think a civilization which would destroy their home with the single-minded goal of spreading throughout the universe in the blink of an eye should be allowed to spread beyond their local star system at all. Maybe re-evaluate after giving them a few centuries to mature.
Unless FTL travel is significantly faster than light, it’s usefulness would be limited. Kepler-452 is located about 1,800 light-years from Earth, which means it would take light 1,800 years to travel that distance. Even if our theoritical FTL travel was twice as fast as light, it would still take us 900 years to get there…
Once we get there, it is still unlikely that the planet would be habitable for humans. Quoting Wikipedia:
However, it is unknown if it is entirely habitable, as it is receiving slightly more energy than Earth and could be subjected to a runaway greenhouse effect.
There are closer exoplanets (closest one we know about is Proxima Centauri b), but even those are likely to be poorly suited for humans since we evolved to live specifically on Earth.
1800 years as observed from someone else watching the light travel. However, when travelling at c, you experience no time. From a photon’s point of view, no time passes between when it is emitted and when it is absorbed.
It would depend on the flavour of FTL, if it means physically moving through space at supraluminal speeds (which would of course be impossible according to our current understanding), time would be flowing backwards.
Even traveling at the speed of light would be sufficient as it would mean getting to the destination the instant you achieved that speed.
But we do not even have to go as fast. Even doing constant 1G acceleration half the way with subsequent 1G deceleration for the other would enable us to reach the edge of the obervable universe withing the span of a human lifetime iirc.
And in addition to the peculiarity of relativistic travel, if we were to utilise something like wormholes, the elapsed time would be equivalent to the time traveled across the newly formed wormhole (plus getting to it and from it).
If you mean “make it uninhabitable for humans” ya sure, absolutely. It would mean we finally get off this rock and can leave it be. Earth will be fine without us and will soon enough (on the scale of time periods) return to business as usual.
Humans can move on like the parasites we are to new hosts, to extract and refuel and consume.
Starcraft tried to imply it was humans vs the zerg but we all have to accept the simple fact of the matter… we ARE the zerg
No. While faster than light travel might secure the human race’s survival and intergalactic presence, is the human race more important than our planet? I don’t think so…
While I value human life, we’re just hairless apes that are both too smart for our own good and still incredibly simple-minded and tribal. Our importance is self-importance. What is the benefit of human-kind for the universe? So far we’re making existence worse for other species. We’re already destroying our planet.
Emotionally and selfishly I want us to continue going, but I think our existence has been far more detrimental than neutral, and certainly far from a positive impact on nature. We’re parasites to this planet, and I think a life-supporting planet is more important than the selfish and detrimental endeavors carried out by one species.
The Earth is more important than our selfish asses.
we’re just hairless apes that are both too smart for our own good
By that same logic the Earth is just a rock floating through space with self replicating molecules on it. What makes it any more or less important than us? It’s all rather meaningless, no?
We’re a virus on Earth, but just like viruses don’t care about invading and killing the host - why should we care about killing the Earth? Don’t misunderstand me - I think we should try and stop climate change from getting out of control from a practical standpoint. We’re stuck here so rising temperatures will have serious long term impacts on our global society. But I think this idolization of nature argument falls flat.
Main reason for me is that we are just as part of nature as anything else. To assume otherwise is arrogance.
What is the benefit of nature? Worth and importance are intrinsically human judgements, the universe doesn’t give a damn about birds and plants any more than it does about us.
If you value life in general, humanity is the best chance life on earth has of ever getting off planet earth and into the galaxy.
Why not extend our environmental destruction into the farthest reaches of the universe? The heat death of the universe will be humanity extracting every last bit of energy from it to sell ads for the most trivial bullshit imaginable.
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