Post No5

On Finding Other Homes in the Solar System:

Elon Musk is right. We do need to make sure we have humans living in other places other than earth at some point in the future. As many people have argued before, from Physicists to Science Fiction writers and those in between, such as Eric Weinstein and Musk, we need a plan B in case something goes wrong on earth. We need to preserve human life and the precious consciousness we are familiar with. So, we need to do lots of building to accomplish that.

In fact, we need to completely transform the way we harness energy. It’s ridiculous how inefficient we are at harnessing energy and how far behind we are from what is physically possible according to our current understanding of the laws of physics. Putting aside all the different sources of energy we have to our disposal, the one that is the most powerful is of course, our closest star, the Sun. Yet, we only recently started capturing that energy, reflecting our sad current state of affairs. And while we may have to use a combination of energy sources for now, our long term goal should be to capture a majority of the energy our Sun produces, which right now sounds like something out of Science Fiction.

I believe we should be striving to become a Type II civilization, one that has expanded into the Solar System and is capturing most of the Sun’s enormous energy. Now, that is an audacious and difficult goal, but perhaps that is what we need to gain a new perspective on our place in the universe. Either we expand into the Solar System and eventually the Galaxy, or we go extinct (for a number of reasons) while on earth with no secure settlements elsewhere in space. We should aspire to ensure humanity lives on and our future generations are able to explore the universe, while preserving the flame of consciousness for as long as possible.