From: jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Josh 'K' Hopkins)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Ethics of Terra-forming
Date: 15 Sep 92 02:12:29 GMT
Distribution: sci
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

18084TM@msu.edu (Tom) writes:

The stuff with one > and I belive the stuff with >>>

I wrote the rest.
>>>Perhaps Mars has life already.  So what?  ...

>>Perhaps the rain forest has life already.  So what?....

>The situation is different.  The negative value of messing with rainforests
>depends totally on the effects of that change reaching Humans.  Mars,
>obviously, I think, will not affect us adversely if we mess with it.

Well, there's always the (remote) possibility of diseases etc, but what I really
objected to was your apparently cavalier attitude in deciding that we can 
destroy any potential life on Mars.

>I should have known my post would have drawn fire from the anti-lifers..

Cute.  We've communitcated a couple of times and you already know I'm satan :)
You catch on fast.

>2) You totally missed the point.  Ethics questions are based on values.
>I submit that you either value life, or not.  No middle ground.

>If you do value life, then you will want to protect life here, particularly
>life-forms or -systems upon which your own survival may depend.  Protection
>of other, non-affecting life-forms may be desired for aesthetic reasons,
>or simply to have a 'cushion', or to be safe, in the case of systems or
>forms we don't know much about.

>But, if you do value life, than you must conclude that terra-forming
>Mars would be good, as it would support more life, and, especially, Human
>life.  Or, you may decide that the terra-forming question is intractable,
>unanswerable, nuetral.  In no case would you conclude that terra-forming
>would be bad, unless you are an anti-lifer.

I conclude that I don't know the answer to this, and that you can't possibly
know either :)  At least to the extent of deciding to hypothetically committ
genocide on hypothetical Mars life.  (It'll solve many problems if there is
no life on Mars).  I don't pretend to know how much more human/bunnyrabbit/
fungus life is worth compared to the existance of Marslife.  I do however 
know that _I_ personally get some joy in, for example, being in a woods with
no beer cans.  I don't know how to measure how much joy I will get from
knowing that Mars life is living out its existance like it used to, but I know
it will be non zero.  Thus, I choose to wait and see what the circumstances are
before I decide.

>The only way you can logically make the situation on Mars the same as on
>Earth is to a) Demonstrate that life there affects life here, or
>b) Assert that life-in-general has value without Human life. (This
>choice is the route many greens take, and it is for this reason that many
>people correctly identify them as anti-life double-thinkers.  Anti-life
>non-double-thinkers have to be dead.)  You can also jump out of the system
>and c) claim that value exists seperate from Human Choice.

>To choose a) above is damn-near impossible, unless you follow Astrology.

To suggest that the mere knowledge of life on Mars wouldn't affect us is a 
little loony.  Granted this probably wasn't what you meant.

>The point of my post was to show how the argument about whether we hurt
>Earth or not was intractable, while an argument based on our ability to
>hurt Mars was doomed to fail, and that's why Dave's argument was flawed.
>The only possible question about Mars-terra-forming;  "Is it good for us?"
>If you think there is some other, more important question, you are an
>anti-lifer, and, unless already dead, a hypocrite.

>Knowledge about Mars-life is different, and easily seperated from the question
>of co-existence or destruction.  We can know about it, but kill it anyway.
>Like AIDS, Polio, the Flu, rabid dogs, etc., knowledge has value, even though
>the thing known may not.  That's why I understand the Green Mind so well >;->

Granted knowledge of the hypothetical life would be most important.  I question
whether you can decide that you've learned everything of value from a life
form.  Basically, I objected to the fact that in 30 or so lines, you "proved"
the net worth of any life form we understood that didn't live on Earth was
zero point zero.

-- 
Josh Hopkins              "I believe that there are moments in history when 
                           challenges occur of such a compelling nature that to 
j-hopkins@uiuc.edu         miss them is to miss the whole meaning of an epoch.
jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu  Space is such a challenge"       - James A. Michener   
Newsgroups: sci.space