postfuturism, deep ecology, and colonization: a list of questions
is it ethical to strive for spacefaring abilities?
can lessons learned from terraforming be applied to a changing earth?
are those lessons worth the risk, the cost, and the damage?
is it possible to land on another planet, let alone settling there, without disturbing the exoenvironment?
what should you do if you land on a planet to find that unexpected life has arose in the time since you left the earth?
is it possible to learn from history instead of repeating it?
can we as a species expand to other planets without treating them as poorly as we treat other people?
is it responsible to begin spacefaring before we can answer these questions?
is it responsible to halt progress in favor of ethics?
is it irresponsible to stand by while unethical progress occurs?
is there any way to redirect a system so large towards more ethical behavior?
is it responsible to crash the system?
is technology a net benefit, despite the superfund cleanup sites in silicon valley?
is it responsible to abstain from technology or to eliminate it completely, if it's not beneficial?
is it responsible to eliminate an invasive species?
are humans an invasive species? is technology invasive?
do we owe technology any preservation or conservation?
should we consider technology as another distinct set of species, or is it disqualified because of its parasitic relationship with us? (i.e. technology would not have independently arisen without humans, so therefore it is not a candidate for life in the scientific sense)
is it anthropocentric to assume humans are the only species that would have developed thinking or calculating machines? is it foolish to assume some technology could have arisen here without us?
is it possible to manufacture technology ethically, without unnecessary detriment to the environment?
if technology was designed to be unbreakable (legacy hardware), would that improve or worsen its environmental impact?
if space mining garners minerals for electronic components, is that better than mining the earth?
who owns those rockets, and the production chain beneath them?
is it possible to manufacture at all without detrimental environmental impact?
what is the environmental impact on earth for the manufacture of one spacefaring rocket?
can a transistor be made disposably or biodegradably, so that discarded computers decompose within a short period of time?
would this be better or worse than legacy hardware?
how can you design a metric to identify the longterm impacts of technology production?
how can you ensure that metric is accurate, and that your conclusions are actionable?
