First Post

Earth. A world unique in our Solar System, and perhaps in the Galaxy. Teeming with life. Full of varied wonders and great things. But where are we going? Through the void we travel, hurtling towards an unknown end. Content, for the most part, to live oblivious to the great tragedy that lies ahead - the end. The end of the planet, of the Sun, of the Galaxy. And why not?

Our lifetimes are long - to us. And our generations have lived, bred and transformed Earth for so little time. Several thousand years of recorded history, against the backdrop of billions of years that this rock has existed.

So why be concerned with events such as the death of our star? Why worry about events that will not happen for millions of years? Why be concerned with asteroids, meteorites, alien civilizations coming to exterminate us? These are all science fiction, and though we have records of mass extinctions, do we really think it could ever happen to us? Noone ever believes bad things will happen to them - break-ins, murders, store robberies, car accidents. And yet they happen. And happen these catastrophes will, to us, in time. It is only a matter of time.

But when that time is measured against a yardstick so long, is it really worth thinking about in our lifetime? Surely future generations will develop the technology needed to give us a fighting chance of surviving such calamities. Surely our children's children will settle the Moon, Mars, the moons of Saturn, Jupiter. Surely we will send out ships to explore and colonize Centauri, Barnard's Star, and beyond. And it will happen whether we sit here now and plan or not - reality will drive us, for humanity has proven over and over again that beyond any other imperative, to spread ourselves is innate to our nature. And so generations hence will find their way to the stars, whether we plan or not.

So why think about it at all?

Because we can facilitate. We can help. We can provide our thoughts and insight into problems that have not yet happened, and will not for a long, long time. Problems of survival in deep space. Problems of long-term livability conditions on remote planets. Problems of wars and famines yet to come. Just as we look back to the great philosophers and thinkers of bygone eras, so too will our grandchildren look back at our generations and see what we had to say. Some few will remain alive in the human consciousness. And those words will echo through the centuries, a distillation of the best we have to offer the future. Some, probably most, of what we believe and profess today will be outdated and wrong before long. But those kernels of truth, and wisdom, that are valuable enough to last - those will stay and give us our due reward in the depths of time. So why not look ahead, beyond even the centuries, to the millennia that await the human race? Why not dream?

So here I will try and put down what I think, and believe, to be the best course humanity can set itself upon. Most of what we do as a race, I believe, is unconscious. We build and destroy, procreate and kill, on whims and exigencies that we can never know. So most of what we plan comes unraveled, as new hurdles set themselves ahead of us to traverse. But adaptability is the keystone of our existence, from the time we proverbially left the trees to the latest techo-gadget that we must learn in order to thrive in today's society. The best plans allow for change, adaptability, and reconstruction in motion. But the real question is, Are any plans good, or necessary? Or do we do more harm through good intentions, rather than letting ourselves continue forward instinctively? These are the things that I want to explore.