From: 18084TM@msu.edu (Tom)
Subject: Ethics of Terra-forming
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Organization: [via International Space University]
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU
Distribution: sci
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 21:08:35 GMT


>>Perhaps Mars has life already.  So what?  ...

>Perhaps the rain forest has life already.  So what?  Anthing we do will increas
>the amount of life in the rain forest, and probably won't even interfere with
whatever is there, assuming we aren't toxic to each other, as it is doubtlessly
>better suited to living in the rain forest that anything we could bring,
>engineer, or evolve.  Suppose we do hurt the indigenous life.  Again, so what?
>we can predict that its natural course would be to eventually grow more
>usefull to us through the mechanism of science and breeding.  But we would
>bring already-useful stuff along, speeding the process ... etc, etc.

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.

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

1) Your reply has incorrect statements...We have interfered with rainforests,
and have decreased the amount of life.  And, I doubt we could make the
rainforests more complex.  Are you saying that life on Mars will be as
complex as a climax tropical forest?  I get your drift, but Mars and
Earth are different places, and we are only affected by the one.

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 not value life, then messing with rainforests is OK, as are CFC's,
DDT, Aids, Polio, and lots of other DEMONSTRATED life-damagers.

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.

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 choose b) or c) is in contradiction to your own existence.
Therefore, terra-forming Mars is bad, if and only if you don't value Life.

Only dead people can conclude that terra-forming Mars is bad.  I dare any
of them to flame me :-)

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 >;->

As I said before, I was assuming, above, that knowledge of Mars-life was a
pre-req. to terra-forming; not part of the question of ethics.
I'll make that distinction clear next time.

-Tommy Mac                     .  "                  +
.------------------------  +                      *       +
|   Tom McWilliams; scrub       ,     .                        "        +
|  astronomy undergrad, at     *       +;.     .  '             There is
| Michigan State University   '                      .    "   no Gosh!
|   18084tm@ibm.cl.msu.edu                        '      ,   *
|       (517) 355-2178       ;  +  '                                 *
'-----------------------
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