Ethics of terraforming

[kahlzun]

Here's a question i just thought of:

Eventually, humanity will set up a base on Mars. Most likely, they will set out to terraform the planet so that eventually humanity can live on its surface comfortably.

My question is, would it be ethical to terraform the planet if indigenous life was discovered?

What about if said life was single-celled organisms and/or lichen level?

What if the life forms were inimical to humans in some way? (virus or something)

Leave your thoughts below:)

[DaveofDefeat]

Humans>Everything else

[Dangerous_Beans]

Humans>Everything else

why? or is it just cause you are a human?

IMO, terraforming any planet with a biosphere is unethical; other species have as much right to exist as we do, so we shouldn't just exterminate them to make things easier for us. we shouldn't assume that our desire to live trumps everything else's existence.

of course those like DaveofDefeat above would argue that competition between species and driving other species to extinction is just a fact of life. so exterminating an entire biosphere to make more room for us is just business as usual, and the alien goo would do it back to us; but "every other species/person does it" is hardly a persuasive argument.

so i think if we can't find ways to coexist with other species, then we should just avoid interfering with them. terraforming that involves us supplanting entire ecologies is just the ultimate example of "Humans>Everything else" mentality.

which is the best argument i can think of that terraforming will happen.

slight tangent: some would argue that the logical consequence of my views above is extinction of our species, which i agree with. humans have a net negative impact on both humans and everything else. the world would be better without us, the best thing we can do for everything's welfare is to go extinct.

[drakesdoom]

Ethics? What is that?

There will be profit in terrarforming, just imagine all of that real estate to sell. Not to imagine rare minerals.

Someone will do it, if you won't help please take yourself over to the extinction train and enjoy the long trip off the short pier, your wasting my oxygen dammit.

[Turd]

I don't think there is enough native oxygen and nitrogen to terraform the entire planet. There is large amounts of nitrogen and oxygen in the soil, but in order to chemically separate them you would need oceans of reactive material, and the left over byproduct would likely STILL be reactive to nitrogen and oxygen, so it would slowly reabsorb the gases over time. Perhaps you could live in underground habitats, or domes. On top of the atmosphere problems the planet has a negligible magnetic field so you have to deal with all sorts of exotic particles and radiation from cosmic sources...

Better to just live in hobbit holes under the surface. About 24-36" of soil material would be plenty to stop most radiation exposure.

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On to "what if"...

Truly ALIEN life would likely be of no threat to us, you would be more like to catch a virus from a tree than an alien source unless panspermia theory is correct and Mars/Earth life share a common source.

Would it be UNETHICAL to transform the entire planet? Assuming there was no effort made to preserve local species, then yes. BUT, Mars is a dead and or dying world. Its not like life there would ever be able to evolve to a complex level.

[kahlzun]

Its not like life there would ever be able to evolve to a complex level.

So, ethical if prokaryote or equivalent?

[Turd]

As long as it is preserved, no problem for me. Eventually it will die off on its own even without human intervention anyways.

[Tiberion]

We've been Terraforming on Earth since we sprung out of the muck, and have radically changed lots of environments on the small scale (cities replacing forests or plains-lands, shrinking polar regions or rain forests, and lots of pollution) and even perhaps on the global scale with emissions. While most of it has been negative, we've even managed to make positive changes when we give things a little thought, but in the end changes are changes.

So I'm not really sure that doing it on Mars would be any different. Humans are pretty adaptable, but we also adapt our environments to us far more than any other living being that I can think of.

Of course we're also the only one that would even give it a second thought, so maybe we're ahead of the game in that regard

[jwenting]

survival of the fittest, I couldn't care less if some alien microbe or fern can't survive in an environment I find comfortable. It'd better adapt and adapt quickly or it has no right to exist, just as it would not give me any second thought if the roles were reversed.

Just as an alien species wouldn't blink about changing the earth into something they like even if it kills all life on the planet now, neither would I were the tables turned.

[Winter Man]

Ethics are just something we've made up to stop our society falling apart, they're irrelevant for activities outside society. There's no universal good or evil, so as a species we can do whatever we damn well please.

[Monkeh]

The Earth is dying. Sea levels are above 99% of all land mass. The air is a choking poison. We are barely surviving. We find a habitable planet within reach of our new colony ships. Awww, sorry human race, we found some lichen there. It's a no go. Best just die out and be done with it.

Nope. Screw anything else. We must come first. Burn the lichen. Build the power plants. Take the land.

[czokletmuss]

My question is, would it be ethical to terraform the planet if indigenous life was discovered?

What about if said life was single-celled organisms and/or lichen level?

What if the life forms were inimical to humans in some way? (virus or something)

You could be interested in Mars Trilogy by Robinson, there are whole chapters where the colonists argue about this issue - Green Mars faction (terraforming) vs Red Mars faction (preserving the true Mars).

[KOCOUR]

Ethics are just something we've made up to stop our society falling apart, they're irrelevant for activities outside society. There's no universal good or evil, so as a species we can do whatever we damn well please.

So much true here!

[Scotius]

*sigh* And here i was thinking we are finally outgrowing "Oh, a duck! Quick, murder it!" mentality. Agreed - humanity's survival takes absolute precedence. But if we are not threatened with extinction, do we really have to wipe out other species? If we reach sufficiently advanced level of technology to find exoplanets and terraform them, we can as well leave natives alone and look for another, lifeless planet.

[SargeRho]

If Mars has bacterial life, there is no reason why we should respect it when terraforming it. Life is more varied and complex on Earth, and I would say that in conclusion, Earth's life is more important.

[stringyquark]

Don't care if mars had little kerbal rabbits vastly populating the whole planet. If mars is the most or only viable option, it will be taken and terraformed. As long as all humans are stuck in the single basket, which is the earth, the human race as a whole is under constant threat of extinction. If the same is true of the nearest star with a planet capable of being terraformed, well I feel for the bunnies.

Now sentient life might be a different discussion.

[Amram]

Your worried our terraforming might hurt other life forms? Ha ha ha , oh, wait, your serious, ok, um, what other life forms? Our survey said the planet was bland, and uninhabited, and, wait, you want to buy them, well, why didn't you say so, we found 47 varieties, choose your flavour, im sure we can come to an agreement......

Money and politics, especially so far from the prying eyes of the general populace will all but ensure that whatever we find will be thoroughly exploited if possible, ignored if not, and ruthlessly obliterated if its so much as a nuisance. Even moreso if its a corporate entity that arrives first and not say, a government that ~might~choose to save some of them. Not that i think its likely, just moreso than if a corporation was in that position.

[Simon Ross]

No, alien life forms must be protected at all costs !!!

After all, we are going to need something to deep fry when we get there :-)

Edited November 6, 2013 by Simon Ross

[TMS]

In thinking about this problem, I have always been less concerned with the inherent ethical dilemma of terraforming, and more concerned with the possibility that the disturbance of a pristine environment might irreversibly destroy something that we could learn from.

Other than that, full steam ahead!

[Skyler4856]

Everyday (hopefully) you wash your hands eradicating countless bacteria. In the 20th century we eradicated small pox and polio with no remorse. Placing Martian bacteria above continued human exploration and continuity, while eradicating forms found on earth is the real ethical dilemma.

[Thourion]

Ethics are just something we've made up to stop our society falling apart, they're irrelevant for activities outside society. There's no universal good or evil, so as a species we can do whatever we damn well please.

So lemme get this straight. Lets say tomorrow (as in now) you got a ship, that can take you to a new planet full of alien forms. Lets make them humanoids, but with not much intelligence other than their survival instincts.

So you go there, grab your M50, and slaughter a thousand, then you come back to earth, kiss your wife and kids goodnight, and fall asleep?

Or does that other sole planet included in your idea of "society" so its a no go ?

Or does your off world actions, affect you in some way, that in turn have an impact in your beloved inner society, so no M50 dance either way?

Or maybe you prefer to nuke them out of orbit, that way you dont do the trip, you just push a button so you sleep better right?

Oh and btw, how does someone "make" ethics ? They either exist based on your consciousness existence if present, or they dont. (This leads to different idea of what is ethical or not, but thats another story)

Now that we moved from ethics, lets go about the UGE (uni-good-evil).

Some God may exist. God as in the God of the many forms of religion here on earth, God as in some higher cosmic alien entity-unity, or God like some star trek federation that utilizes those UGE laws. And yes there could be a "Devil" in similar forms like above, out there included as well. You dont know this, and i surelly dont.

Only real reason you say theres no "Universal good or evil", i think its because you're either sure that we are the only species around the kosmos, or that all the rest are inferior to our own. Or perhaps that all of the other intelligent species if they do exist, are just plain "eat-sleep-do the smooth moves-and go to the toilet" beings.

And tbh "activities outside society" ? I trully believe that once you start fiddling about with something, either a celestial body, an off world civilization and all the rest of the things we probably wont see in our life time, then you make that something a part of our society.

And yeah i could keep going on, in a more plain fashion, explaining that Mars, as in the OP's case, is just next door. I mean it should be already a part of our society, imagine in the future with terraforming tech and whatnot, it could take a few days/hrs (at worse) to get there.

[Moon Goddess]

Everyday (hopefully) you wash your hands eradicating countless bacteria. In the 20th century we eradicated small pox and polio with no remorse. Placing Martian bacteria above continued human exploration and continuity, while eradicating forms found on earth is the real ethical dilemma.

I'm not wanting to argue either side of this...

But I think you cannot say that destroying every member of a biosphere eliminating the only discovered life to have evolved separately from the earth is the same as removing one member of a ecosystem.

The extension of any species is a loss, even smallpox (that's why it's not completely gone we store it to study.) The extension of an entire ecosystem is many many more orders of magnitude above that.

[Simon Ross]

Much as I would love to think that we as a species will evolve to the point of losing our aggressive streak, I somehow don't see it happening. I suspect that the very first questions that will be asked during any encounter with alien life will be the following...

Is it a danger to us ?

How do we kill it ?

Can we eat it ?

Can we exploit it ?

I would like to think I am wrong, but somehow I think that is pretty much the way it will go

[Seret]

Eventually, humanity will set up a base on Mars. Most likely, they will set out to terraform the planet so that eventually humanity can live on its surface comfortably.

I don't think that's inevitable. Creating long-term habitats in space or Earth-environment enclaves on Mars would take far less energy and resources than terraforming an entire planet. If we had the technology to terraform a planet we're likely to have the technology to not need to. Terraforming seems like an incredibly messy, destructive, expensive way of solving a problem that could probably be fixed cheaper and easier.

So given that terraforming is unlikely (IMO) to be necessary then it would seem foolish to irreparably damage an alien ecosystem just for our benefit.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Seret

[magnemoe]

In thinking about this problem, I have always been less concerned with the inherent ethical dilemma of terraforming, and more concerned with the possibility that the disturbance of a pristine environment might irreversibly destroy something that we could learn from.

Other than that, full steam ahead!

yes, first simply doing an manned landing on Mars or other places will bring all sort of bacteria with them. The current Mars probes are sterilized by heating but this obviously don't work for an manned mission.

Note that invading species is the main reason why other species become extinct. Global warming and pollution don't even come up as an factor. Habitat destruction is very minor. Cats really loves flightless birds, most is not planned, seeds and insects end up together with cargo, eggs in the ballast water on ships.