[extropy-chat] Runaway consumerism explains the Fermi Paradox.

[Russell Wallace]

On 1/12/06, spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> I don't understand why he considers this a darker
> solution to Fermi's Paradox.  Sounds much brighter to
> me.  Far preferable is it that humanity should turn
> inward and simply fail to breed than the alternatives
> that I have dreaded for years: mass starvation or
> mutual nuclear annihilation.
>

In the domain of Ethos, perhaps arguably so.

In the domain of Pathos, I disagree. That the greatest civilization the
world has ever seen should die, taking with it humanity's one shot at
ascension; that the rest of humanity should stumble along until the hands of
evolution turn past the point where any other outcome is possible; that the
remains of sentience should decline in a long slow whimper until the sun
boils the biosphere to steam and ash, and a hundred billion galaxies burn
unwitnessed down to heat death, *all for no better reason than that people
prefer watching television to raising children*; these things are plausible
- might well actually come to pass - but to me, are far more depressing than
flaming out cleanly at our brightest.

- Russell
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