Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 light years from Earth

Re:Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 l... by rocqua on Thursday February 23, 2017 @06:57AM (#13713197)

Honestly, as long as humans stay stuck to earth, losing all humanity on earth won't hurt anyone. As long as the extinction is instant. If we have colonies, those colonies need to suffer through the knowledge that we lost earth.

Establishing colonies is only imperative if the continuation of the human race is. I'd argue that humans have value only due to other humans. There is nothing inherently valuable about human life from a non-human perspective.

That is not to say I don't support space colonization, just that I don't think its a moral imperative.

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Re:Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 l... by jacobush on Thursday February 23, 2017 @08:53AM (#13713821)

"There is nothing inherently valuable about human life from a non-human perspective."

How would you know?

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Re:Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 l... by nkrisc on Thursday February 23, 2017 @09:14AM (#13713972)

It's a perfectly reasonable assumption until there's some evidence there is. Given the vastness and scale of the universe, it seems quite likely that our disappearance would never be noticed.

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Re:Seven earth-sized planets discovered circling a star 39 l... by jacobush on Friday February 24, 2017 @07:11AM (#13722859)

Going unnoticed is not the same as inherently not valuable. Imagine aliens finding us extinct, wringing their little tentacles in dispair at the lost probing opportunities. :)

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