<story><title>Rogue planets could outnumber the stars</title><url>https://phys.org/news/2020-08-rogue-planets-outnumber-stars.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>grawprog</author><text>&amp;gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s kinda cool to consider that rogue planets &amp;#x2F; brown dwarfs [0] could be candidates for extending human life beyond the solar system post-Sol. Assuming we have enough fissile material (or master cold fusion) to perpetuate the civilization&amp;#x27;s energy requirements, we could explore the stars in darkness for eons.&lt;p&gt;Every time I read a comment like this I wonder if people have actually taken the time to consider what living off the Earth would actually be like.&lt;p&gt;The quality of life for anyone living off the Earth would be abysmal. Think of the most barren, hostile, nearly uninhabitable places on Earth, they&amp;#x27;re still magnitudes higher in habitability than anywhere we&amp;#x27;re likely to find outside Earth.&lt;p&gt;Then if somehow we actually manage to find a place with a climate similar to Earth, that may even have some life or organic material, there&amp;#x27;s the issue of compatibility.&lt;p&gt;Look at the issues humans have just travelling from one side of the world to the other. Pathogens, the environment, even the food can cause problems, let alone a place with entirely alien life.&lt;p&gt;Take something as simple as the prion that causes mad cow disease, it&amp;#x27;s a protein.&lt;p&gt;What kinds of bacteria, virii, amoebas, fungi, parasites etc. Will we encounter? Would we even know we&amp;#x27;re infected until it&amp;#x27;a too late?&lt;p&gt;Maybe some kind of strange prion or virus that systemically and harmfully alters humans in a way that&amp;#x27;s undetectable until the whole population is infected?&lt;p&gt;I mean this happens still here, with life on our own world.&lt;p&gt;But, before all that is the endless darkness, entire generations living like nomads in the cold, black emptiness of space. Entire generations seeing nothing, living their lives only so their children&amp;#x27;s children&amp;#x27;s children can maybe someday see something.&lt;p&gt;Overall though, the idea that we can just escape the Earth someday so it&amp;#x27;ll be fine just leads to shortsighted neglectful actions that destroy the planet.&lt;p&gt;That colonial, we can just expand and keep growing indefinitely and just move to a new place, mindset stopped being reasonable the moment we spread across the world. Moving to a new planet is not the same as just hopping in a ship and sailing across the ocean. It&amp;#x27;s not a reasonable backup plan, it&amp;#x27;s not a reasonable solution.&lt;p&gt;We have one home, Earth, we are all made from this place, someday we go back to it. No other place we ever may find will be our home the way the Earth is. The idea we should just use and abandon the Earth is just so incredibly backwards to the way we should be thinking.</text></item><item><author>keithwhor</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s kinda cool to consider that rogue planets &amp;#x2F; brown dwarfs [0] could be candidates for extending human life beyond the solar system post-Sol. Assuming we have enough fissile material (or master cold fusion) to perpetuate the civilization&amp;#x27;s energy requirements, we could explore the stars in darkness for eons.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not sure how likely they are as candidates for life to emerge spontaneously, it seems like there&amp;#x27;s a very high energy input requirement over billions of years (Sol -&amp;gt; Earth) to get anything close to human civilization... but it&amp;#x27;s cool to think that, perhaps, some future humans could settle a planet eternally cloaked in darkness. Adapt to the reality of that planet over generations... and be unable to acclimate to life near stars at all.&lt;p&gt;Also, post-Andromeda collision, is this a &lt;i&gt;necessary&lt;/i&gt; future for posthuman life? [1] Billions of cold worlds will be flung into the far reaches of the Universe.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Brown_dwarf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Brown_dwarf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_co...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>senko</author><text>&amp;gt; Every time I read a comment like this I wonder if people have actually taken the time to consider what living off the Earth would actually be  like.&lt;p&gt;Parent is explicitly refering to human life post-Sun:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; extending human life beyond the solar system post-Sol.&lt;p&gt;It took us only a few million years to get off the trees and invent Bitcoin.&lt;p&gt;If, by some chance, civilization once called human will exist at that time (2000x longer than current span of human species), all the problems you described should be trivial for them.&lt;p&gt;And if by then, by some chance, due to countless generations of people sharing your view on the matter, they don&amp;#x27;t set off for the stars - they deserve to burn.</text></comment>
<story><title>Rogue planets could outnumber the stars</title><url>https://phys.org/news/2020-08-rogue-planets-outnumber-stars.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>grawprog</author><text>&amp;gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s kinda cool to consider that rogue planets &amp;#x2F; brown dwarfs [0] could be candidates for extending human life beyond the solar system post-Sol. Assuming we have enough fissile material (or master cold fusion) to perpetuate the civilization&amp;#x27;s energy requirements, we could explore the stars in darkness for eons.&lt;p&gt;Every time I read a comment like this I wonder if people have actually taken the time to consider what living off the Earth would actually be like.&lt;p&gt;The quality of life for anyone living off the Earth would be abysmal. Think of the most barren, hostile, nearly uninhabitable places on Earth, they&amp;#x27;re still magnitudes higher in habitability than anywhere we&amp;#x27;re likely to find outside Earth.&lt;p&gt;Then if somehow we actually manage to find a place with a climate similar to Earth, that may even have some life or organic material, there&amp;#x27;s the issue of compatibility.&lt;p&gt;Look at the issues humans have just travelling from one side of the world to the other. Pathogens, the environment, even the food can cause problems, let alone a place with entirely alien life.&lt;p&gt;Take something as simple as the prion that causes mad cow disease, it&amp;#x27;s a protein.&lt;p&gt;What kinds of bacteria, virii, amoebas, fungi, parasites etc. Will we encounter? Would we even know we&amp;#x27;re infected until it&amp;#x27;a too late?&lt;p&gt;Maybe some kind of strange prion or virus that systemically and harmfully alters humans in a way that&amp;#x27;s undetectable until the whole population is infected?&lt;p&gt;I mean this happens still here, with life on our own world.&lt;p&gt;But, before all that is the endless darkness, entire generations living like nomads in the cold, black emptiness of space. Entire generations seeing nothing, living their lives only so their children&amp;#x27;s children&amp;#x27;s children can maybe someday see something.&lt;p&gt;Overall though, the idea that we can just escape the Earth someday so it&amp;#x27;ll be fine just leads to shortsighted neglectful actions that destroy the planet.&lt;p&gt;That colonial, we can just expand and keep growing indefinitely and just move to a new place, mindset stopped being reasonable the moment we spread across the world. Moving to a new planet is not the same as just hopping in a ship and sailing across the ocean. It&amp;#x27;s not a reasonable backup plan, it&amp;#x27;s not a reasonable solution.&lt;p&gt;We have one home, Earth, we are all made from this place, someday we go back to it. No other place we ever may find will be our home the way the Earth is. The idea we should just use and abandon the Earth is just so incredibly backwards to the way we should be thinking.</text></item><item><author>keithwhor</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s kinda cool to consider that rogue planets &amp;#x2F; brown dwarfs [0] could be candidates for extending human life beyond the solar system post-Sol. Assuming we have enough fissile material (or master cold fusion) to perpetuate the civilization&amp;#x27;s energy requirements, we could explore the stars in darkness for eons.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not sure how likely they are as candidates for life to emerge spontaneously, it seems like there&amp;#x27;s a very high energy input requirement over billions of years (Sol -&amp;gt; Earth) to get anything close to human civilization... but it&amp;#x27;s cool to think that, perhaps, some future humans could settle a planet eternally cloaked in darkness. Adapt to the reality of that planet over generations... and be unable to acclimate to life near stars at all.&lt;p&gt;Also, post-Andromeda collision, is this a &lt;i&gt;necessary&lt;/i&gt; future for posthuman life? [1] Billions of cold worlds will be flung into the far reaches of the Universe.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Brown_dwarf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Brown_dwarf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_co...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>booleandilemma</author><text>Maybe any expansion does require a few generations to toughen up and live a spartan frontier lifestyle. It wasn’t easy for the first colonists to come to the new world, it won’t be easy for the first colonists in space. But in the long run humanity will be better for it. We have to take the first step, otherwise we never would have left Africa.</text></comment>