> Well, that's nice, but it's only possible at the space scale of, at most, the Earth. Or at least human scale - since it is you who are doing the choosing.

Hmm, my intent was to expressly claim those things at large scales, or more accurately, at all scales. It's just that it is easier for us to understand e.g. the organization and benevolence only in the things which are of the most immediate usefulness: we understand the biosphere as a resource because we can use that now, whereas we don't really understand how to harness the full power of a star because it's too far beyond our current capabilities.

> Earth's biosphere is nurturing agar, no doubt, over a short time scale and small space scale. But the solar system, galaxy, let alone the universe at large, is most definitely not, and nor is the Earth's biosphere on any large time scale.

I agree with you about Earth's biosphere space-wise though perhaps not time-wise. But if Earth is a cradle of intelligent life, surely we are not meant to stay here indefinitely? Even now the wild idea of mining asteroids, once relegated to science fiction, is reaching the point of feasibility. What was previously useless (not to mention unknown) to us is becoming useful, and will act as a stepping stone (or a catapult) to enable some other far-fetched ideas to come closer to manifestation. I believe this is a pattern that does not necessarily end.

> If there is intelligent life elsewhere, we are separated by impossible vastness: to get to another star, in any form, we must harness immense energy. More than is reasonable. And once there, the lifeboat must somehow found a colony, a self-sustaining biosphere, which itself is a gargantuan task.

There was a time, or more accurately various times for various peoples, that crossing an ocean was almost beyond imagination. As we continue to gain in knowledge and understanding of how the universe works, especially our understanding of spacetime, these problems become far less intractable. Interstellar travel is just a bigger ocean. The scale of the metaphor is logarithmic but so is the pace of the growth of our collective intelligence. My personal belief is that we will find a way around the immense time and energy requirements that we currently believe are necessary for interstellar travel. Terraforming is the harder problem: understanding ecosystems is IMO orders of magnitude harder than understanding fundamental physics, and building them from scratch seems like a pipe dream even for a dreamer like me. But if we figure out how to travel smarter then it becomes more a question of finding the most Earth-like planets that already have much or most of what we need. Still not easy, but probably easier and faster than trying to terraform Mars.

> Perhaps, though, this is a benevolent universe: maybe those great chasms of space protect intelligences from each other.

This seems plausible to me also. Seeds need a volume to grow in that is often tens of millions times larger than the seed itself. There could be a cosmic ecosystem that we are still too young to see or understand, and we may not catch a glimpse of it until we have spread through the stars.

> There is hope for long-term survival of intelligence, but it is very, very small.

If you mean small hope for human intelligence, then I would agree. I think this has less to do with the harshness of the universe out there and more to do with our own species' maladaptive behavior patterns. We are in a species-scale moment of crisis, which is to say one that has been going on for hundreds or thousands of years and may last a few hundred more, but there's no question in my mind that we need to get our shit together now if we want the species (and/or its children) to survive. This is why I think it is important to view the universe through a lens of possibility: it gives us a direction to steer towards. A more hopeful outlook inspires activity to push towards a better outcome.

Thanks for responding!