Bernd Clemens Huber

• Bernd Clemens Huber 6 Nov 2022 3:12 UTC

  −11 points

  −1

  on: How much should we care about non-hu­man an­i­mals?

  Consider the following (for the purpose of avoiding unnecessary further delay) to be an extremely informal pre-editing version of my response and explanation attempts:
  

  TO BE EDITED:
  

  Please allow me to shortly explain how one ought to determine ethical value.

  For the emergence of the existence of an ethically relevant value or summand in this universe, it takes 3 components: Something that gives rise to, generates the ethically relevant stimulus, then the presence of sentience capable of receiving experiential stimuli, and finally a connecting structure for communicating the ethically relevant stimulus from its generator to a sentience, so that it is received by at least some 1 sentience. And only when all of these 3 components function, are active together, then it is the case that a (eventually numerically representable) summand consisting of a to the process specific (generally seemingly finite) level of goodness or badness that is added to all the goodness and badness ever generated anywhere in anyone in the universe. Any combination of just 2 of these, or just 1 doesn’t suffice for the process of generating ethically relevant positive or negative values. Parts of the brain appear to play the role of the sentience-providing receiver component of this interplay, neuron networks constitute the communicating, experiential stimuli transporting component, and finally, either by connection with neuro-transmitters chemically triggered or mechanically or thermally triggered receptors (as with nociceptors, i.e. pain-receptors or receptors at dopamine and serotonine releases) prepare the potentiality for existence of the experiential stimulus to be ready for acting on this world only when it is received by some being with sentience, similar to how the cone receptors in the retina of eyes prepare specific colour experiences to then be seen by someone.

  The in its ethical axiomatic, fundamental position unique ethical maxim super-ordinate to all other principles then is to maximize the total well-being that this universe generates throughout its development. This means to behave such that in the end of the universe, as little as possible suffering and as much as possible joy has been generated. Obviously such task that requires accounting for the far-future and the completeness of consequences of actions comes with risks and uncertainties to be utmost careful, mindful about.

  Now, on the question of if and how much animals (besides humans, homo sapiens, as species that has no clear cut boundary in its definition to separate it from other animals anyway) ought to be accounted for in ethical terms, let me lay out the following argument which I think makes a strong case for their moral relevance:

  Assume that the presence and interplay of the above 3 components—pain/​joy receptors, neuronal connections, and a sentience generating part of a brain—have not been present in animals already at the very beginning of the evolution of life but rather emerged throughout its development in accordance to nature’s sorting process based on determining survival via species’ fitness and in part also via pure chance.

  Then for all animal species that do have pain-receptors of any of the many kinds, if there is not also a substantial portion (e.g. 50%) of them around that don’t have any pain-receptors (in the case of humanity, that might be the vast minority of worldwide about 320.000 people with congenital insensitivity to pain), then that means the presence of those pain-receptors helped in evolution’s arms race, but only for the portion of the species that had them, while those without them dying out or becoming a small minority.

  And this in turn means that there had to be sentience present in those animals for there to be a receiving end that the pain-receptors could act on and to affect their behavior in ultimately towards survival guiding manner (i.e. paying as over hundreds of millions of years evolving species with further and further—until saturation of effect—increased levels of pain for survival), or otherwise the very first, initial emergence of pain-receptors would have made no difference in a species’ fitness, which then would also have not meant any relative disadvantage for those individual animals of the same species that’d just still lack pain-receptors.
  
  I suppose genetically modifying or changing a primitive enough lifeform or microbe such that it develops various kinds of pain-receptors without it then reacting in any way to that, not being influenced by that may mean/​indicate lack of presence of consciousness in those.
  
  ”How much should we care about non-human animals?”
  ^> Besides that, who says evolution cannot lead to human-like species if kick-started by us elsewhere e.g. under ice moon ice shells...
  
  -> and humans are animals, too, and where would one place a sharp or gradual cut-off then? And who says kick-starting evolution cannot lead to humans or human-like species?
  
  ^> first, I probably should apologize for just having even (kind of by chance, too) taken notice of the newly opened thread,… I’m new to the forum and its structure… and didn’t plan to check it out in its full generality, nor at regular basis
  ^> there’s a lot of considerations and explanations to go over for a response: neuro-chemistry as the physical causal tie to (so far seemingly all) ethically relevant experiences; distinguishing the case of never having existed yet to then not exist, versus existing already and asking the question of when and in what manner, course of life to eventually pass away 1 way or another, and in that regard, how dying may not be an escape from the universe, may not evade being forced a 2nd time to exist in it, the same way as one was forced the 1st time to exist in it;
  ^> if neuro-chemical processes not only weren’t the sole, all-encompassing mechanism by which joy and pain can come into perceived, experienced existence, but other speculated states, situations, processes, too, like the state of being dead, then that could of course conceivably change the assessment, but there is no evidence for either direction, if it’s enjoyable or uncomfortable to not yet have existed or to have existed but being dead already, nor would it be clear which side may dominate there or if it’d be a constant, same feeling, or variable, dependent on something else, yet, and if it were constantly bad, then that’d ruin this universe’s chance of generating any not up to infinitely negative meaning in the world, since that’d accumulate for everyone for all the time during which they are dead, for how ever long the universe may last, which could be infinitely long, but just as much on the other side (since in face of lacking evidence for either side, one possibly should consider a statement and its negation as equally plausible), if up to infinitey joy were generated somehow for everyone for all their time of being dead, then all finite ethical experiential summands to this qualia dimension, if negative or positive, were to become irrelevant; nothing would matter anymore in terms of changing what would inevitably happen anyway, except for it being at most finitely far delayed, possibly. Personally, given that there is states of being that approximate what it may be like to be dead, namely deep sleep, numbed-ness via anesthetics, or being knocked out by inhaling gas for a surgical operation, without known anecdotal stories by people after such experiences to have felt joy or suffering (though dreams may behave differently in that case from being numbed or in coma). And since partial numbing also
  [^> then of course there’s the question of others even existing with the same qualitative implications of oneself, but that skepticism can be brought up about any kind of ethical framework and doesn’t have to imply incompatibility to them or their implications for right courses of action]
  ^> regarding the “just having limited levels of care” point, that is just a common way of setting an arbitrary level of moral behavior above which to try to be/​stay, which if set lower and lower can allow for up to literally anything to be acceptable, passing such threshold, and the true principle if well-being optimization either way, and lacking further positive well-being by one’s own fault is as much bad (as well-being difference/​malus) as an equal difference in more caused suffering.

  
  “What if don’t buy the axiom that it’s my ethical duty to prevent the suffering of all other beings? “
  ^> That would ultimately just be an expression of or the extent of doubt in others’ existence, as if they didn’t count.
  ^> And here I could copypaste a long elaboration on that with a comparison to how one would manage parts of one’s own body of which one has no doubts of them existing, and that others should be treated as equally real (despite [in this age so far] lacking technological capability to somehow connect oneself up with others, if at neuron networks, synapses, or otherwise, to help improving one’s belief in others’ actual existence).
  Ja. Ich sehe das mit dem allg. Lebens-Sinn als Optimierung angenehmer Gefühle gegenüber Unangenehmen, mit Allen und Allem miteinbezogen, und alle Orte sowie die gesamte Zukunft. Und dazu muss man die Welt verstehen. Und die Kontributoren/​Summanden dieser “Mathematik der Moral”, bzw. Ethik, sind, bzw. entstehen allen anschein nach einerseits über Dopamin- & Serotonin-Ausschüttung etc., andererseits aber auch SchmerzRezeptoren (https://​​de.wikipedia.org/​​wiki/​​Nozizeptor), und die Summanden sind immer dann—in der Gewichtung nur von einer uniformen, allgemeinen Ursache-Wirkung-Beziehung abhängig—gültig, wenn es Jemanden gibt, der das spürt, was auch ein Tier sein kann.
  Dabei ist es zumindest prinzipiell nicht ausgeschlossen, abhängig von der “Natur unseres Universums” , dass das herbeigesehnte Prinzip der allgemeinen Wohlergehens-Maximierung inkompatibel mit dem Gerechtigkeits-Prinzip sein kann. In dem Fall würde ich mich gegen Gerechtigkeit entscheiden, wenn es denn tatsächlich für eine bessere allgemeine Wohlergehens-maximierung nötig ist. Wenn eine ganze Menge an Optionen zur gleichwertigen Maximierung des allg. Wohlergehens zur Auswahl steht, dann sind sicherer, stabilere Optionen zu präferieren, und wenn der Aspekt auch noch gleich ist für eine Menge an übrig bleibenden Optionen, dann ist wohl die gleichzeitig gerechteste Option unter Diesen zu Wählen. Und wenn es dann immer noch mehrere in all diesen Aspekten gleichwertige Optionen gibt.… dann kann man vielleicht nach der Anzahl der daran beteiligten Lebewesen unterscheiden.
  Warum ich die Gerechtigkeit “droppen” würde? Also wenn nur ein minimaler Gesamtwohlergehens-Vorteil durch extreme Ungerechtigkeit gegenüber einer gerechten Option entstehen könnte, dann wäre es verständlich trotzdem die gerechte Option zu präferieren (vorallem, wenn man mit Unbekannten und Unsicherheiten zu tun hat), aber im Extrem-Fall, wenn das allg. Wohlergehen beliebig katastrophal werden würde nur um gerechtigkeit erhalten zu können, dann ist selbst die Gerechtigkeit nicht mehr tragbar. Und man kann die persönliche Situation im Universum ja so sehen: Am Anfang des Lebens hat man einen Platz zugeteilt bekommen, der zu beliebig großem Maße ungerecht sein kann. So ein Platz entspricht dann in gewisser Weise einer Schiene aus dem berühmten Trolley-Problem. Diese Schiene kann dann den Umständen bedingt anfangs eine höhere Priorität/​Wichtigkeit (nicht darüber gefahren zu werden) haben als andere Schienen auf denen andere (metaphorisch) sitzen, und—objektiv gesehen—weniger Priorität haben als andere Schienen. Im Laufe des Lebens entwickelt sich die Situation und Positionen können sich aufgrund der Entscheidungen der Beteiligten ändern. Aber dennoch gilt: Selbst im idealen Fall hat man “eine Schiene zugewiesen bekommen”, und wenn man einsichtig ist kann man das akzeptieren. Wenn man sich dann so verhält, dass man mit dem Wissen, dass man evtl. auf einer “weniger wichtigen Schiene sitzt” sich trotzdem altruistisch so verhält bzw. dazu beiträgt, dass unter Betrachtung und Miteinbeziehung Aller auch eine allg. Wohlergehens-Maximierung ermöglicht wird, sich also nicht dagegen aus egoistischen Gründen anderen gegenüber querstellt, selbst wenn das Ungerechtigkeiten evtl. notgedrungenermaßen mit sich ziehen kann, dann kann man sich wenn man selbst von Ungerechtigkeit betroffen ist zumindest beim Universum beschweren darüber welchen anfänglichen Platz man bekommen hat.
  An dem Anteil an Ungerechtigkeit ist dann das Universum schuld, und nicht man selbst, denn man hat ja keine Kontrolle wo, wann, und in welcher Situation, unter welchen umständen man zu leben beginnt.
  Und wenn man Empathie wirklich vollkommen verinnerlicht hat, dann verhält man sich auch so als wären Andere so real wie die eigenen Körperteile. Und wenn man dann “als Fuß” geboren wird, dann kann es einfach blank faktisch den Umständen geschuldet sein, dass zum Erreichen des Besten für Alle man eben einiges mehr als Andere sprichwörtlich ertragen muss (aber auch umgekehrt, falls man—durch den intrinsisch an sich unfairen Zuordnungsmechanismus des Universums bestimmt - ein besseres Los gezogen hat, solange man sich seiner tatsächlichen Position gegenüber Anderen auch bewusst ist), für das Große ganze, sozusagen. Da hilft es dann nicht, wenn sich der Fuß (der Einzelne) dem Körper (Allen) in der Kooperation aus Fairness-Gründen (für die die Anderen ja auch nicht schuld sind, denn denen ist ihre Position auch vom Universum zugeteilt worden) verweigert.

  ^> And regarding the pseudo-dilemmas like the utility monster, that wouldn’t contradict overall well-being maximization to be a wrong goal, it’d just be scenarios laying out roles or positions one can be involved in, in such scenarios, that one wouldn’t like, but yes… that is not excluded, it’s rather a test of one’s strength in the belief of others’ ethical relevance to account for. If being fed to some utility monster were to actually generate more well-being, and one fully understood that to be the case, it’d depend on one’s ability, courage to cooperate, make sacrifices for the well-being of others, to accept the bad, unfair situation one can be born into, which… sadly, the universe creates such situations all the time. Coping isn’t a way out of that, nor healthy to deal with it.

  ^> I possibly should also mention how similar, but weaker, less far elaborated and explicated anti-colonization arguments have been brought up by brian tomasik, persis eskander, and possibly others (well, I guess also including those that agreed to my emails’ points).

  [it’s funny how my point is described as convincing with those 28 foolish downvotes...]

  
  ^> And I gues it’d also be an appropriate place and time then to explain that there’s only 1 true, axiomatically true ethical principle, with other principles always being subordinate to it, and not exempt from ethical scrutiniy:
  ”alien rights are inalienable”
  there is only 1 actually axiomatically valid, applying principle, and that’s that whatever further maximizes total well-being across all time is preferable to what does less so.
  All other principles in so far as they attempt to compete with this axiomatic principle are trash 🚮
  they are heuristic guidelines, deontological, fallacies
  because all of them can be easily lead into contradiction
  with an abstract simple method into placeholders of which one can put those principles to force them to fail if those principles were to hit just the critical scenarios that make them fail
  which cannot happen with the total well-being maximization principle, by definition and its axiomatic ties to ethics
  well… okay 1 more further point to clarify on this
  let’s say total well-being maximization is the principle that works out no matter what, no matter what universe, what rules, what anything. is a principle that cannot be forced to stumble over its own shoes
  but what is also possible to have is equivalently good principles, but only for specifications, i.e. when one’s provided with further information
  similar as in mathematical frameworks, one could either choose to start out with the very axioms
  OR alternatively, one could define the starting point to be the full set of all the very first from these axioms deducible next statements
  then one wouldn’t need the initial axioms anymore, because for anything one would need them to prove smth to get to some deduction, there’d be a possible to find intermediate step towards that which would be part of these next closest to the axioms statements.
  Or irl, if one for a given total well-being optimization problem would have certain knowledge of which specific course of action or decision were to actually do that
  then one could for this specific situation substitute the total well-being principle with that other, more specified one.
  And I mean for doing actual optimization, one would want to get to more and more concrete statements from the most safe abstract ones with most general applicability no matter what.
  but for that, one usually needs to get information, data about the system one’s dealing with, which specifies the situation away from the whole generality of situations one conceivably could have.
  Once more and more are ruled out to be irrelevant or not part of the situation one’s dealing with, portions of a statement that would address those impossible cases would be moot, irrelevant.
  Obviously in practice, it gets complicated as soon as unknown important factors have to be considered, and when dealing with mere probabilities, not certainties anymore.
  But that’s a separate problem from the theory side of it.
  well… technically, I cannot with absolute absolute certainty know that “human liberties are not inalienable”, for that to not be deducible from the generally total well-being maximizing principle + all specific circumstantial world state conditions and natural laws (where with both of that, one could be enabled to further specify what in concrete it actually means to do optimize total well-being), but it seems I’d say near certain for that not to be the case.
  all other principles.… are not principles but… secondiciples.… at best “disciples” of this principle

  
  ^> I probably should also point out my recent theoretical observations:
  pain and pain receptor spread across and through animal bodies basically is like a currency for the evolutionary perspective
  because they provide a way to get information, allowing for higher fitness, so species can pay for survival with more pain(receptors)
  (or rather… those without them, without the guidance get sorted out, die more likely)
  and as long as pain provides a bonus exploit or a “pay 2 win” bonus usable for survival… evolution’s gonna make use of it extensively
  ”Evolution—a P2W, pain to win, game”
  If you have pain receptors that make you feel your level of malnutrition or hunger all the time, that can guide you on timing of when one can rest or has to hunt as animal (or prehistoric people, too).
  If you have pain receptors that are mechanically triggered, then you can notice when a body part is—due to constantly to all applying gravitation (depending on exoplanet gravity strength) - under pressure for too long for when it starts feeling uncomfortable, which is hard to get rid of as feeling that one kind of has to feel somewhere all the time. Same for lifting limbs up, then the pressure is in the interior that holds it up against gravitation.
  pain receptors mechanically triggered but via scars, wounds help noticing that, to be more careful with that body part, lick over it for disinfection attempts by animals,… whatever can come to mind for the various ways of information to pay for that way.
  Some pain related feelings are just constant costs.
  (but again, wrong channel...)
  If you can sense bad, uncomfortable smell, then that can help you avoid bacterial and viral infections.
  And the fact that there is so many different kinds makes it seem like the probability of at least some to also come up at exoplanet evolutions to be not negligible.
  Meanwhile, for positive stimuli, they can just need to do the bare minimum to know what to do, except for those associated to reproduction...
  Animal species can’t even laugh. That in and of itself is sad, if you think of it.
  Then with receptors for heat and cold… similar deal as above.
  But I was speaking generally, for surely most species
  I guess humans are the furthest evolved death avoidance machines
  though that doesn’t mean pain avoidance machines
  however, if one has congenital insensitivity to pain in a age like our high-tech age...
  assisted/​guided by technology, eventually they could be both
  most evolved death avoidance… [well I shouldn’t call humans machine but yeah] people while also being able to avoid (never feel) pain (except iirc they are still susceptible to some kinds of pain like psychological stress(?)), and that for a species far into evolution
  and not near the beginning of evolution where one could assume there were epochs before any species was yet capable of feeling heat, or cold, or smelling smth disgusting
  and epochs before scars hurt and before pressure on body parts got nasty over time or before hunger, etc.
  wonder in what order those came to be
  ”there may be more to come or find out to exist already, though, who knows”
  Would seem like cheating against evil nature
  ”knowing smth to be bad for one’s survival without having to pay the pain to know it”
  sticking it back to the grim mother nature, I like it
  though people with congenital insensitivity to pain are a far minority, like 320.000 or so, iirc. But they may be the future of humanity eventually
  if eventually, humanity might start trying to optimize on that front of experienced suffering.
  For extremely dangerous missions, they could also be more inclined to agree to such or go further than other humans could go, or what for normal people would be harsh punishments for mistakes, they may… not have as hard feelings about it.
  I’d gladly leave the future of the planet to them if they could somehow ensure/​promise to not expand into space or play god, despite lacking immediate 1st hand, most direct understanding/​awareness of a spectrum of kinds of pain/​suffering, which they though by such ventures could bring upon others.
  Humanity possibly should be glad we have them.
  Wonder what the ratio of people with that “disease” to normal people would be for advanced civilizations. Technology may allow for them to have a high ratio without the disadvantages weighing in as much as it’d otherwise do.
  Over time, for the population’s portion of people with that insensitivity, their physiology might adjust further to naturally, “automatically” make it less likely that they’d by accident hurt themselves, even when unassisted by technology to avoid such.
  That basically may come with or imply costs in terms of reduced agility, mobility, as we can (if we wanted) (mis-)bite our lip or bend fingers too far back or… idk
  Wonder in what century or millennium humanity might—if ever—enter the phase where we “hand over the steering wheel” to the pain-insensitive ones among us.
  Probably would be a slow, continuous process.

  
  ^> I could bring up so many further relevant aspects (but not sure how far, how complete I should take it with a response… depending on what may be needed), conceivably plausible points though, like the “holy grail of neuro-chemistry” pondering:
  actually, more advanced civilizations thoughts:
  I guess the temporary phantasy delusion that advanced alien civilization may be in the scientific hunt after (but seemingly without success by anyone or the universe wouldn’t look the way it does) would be to search for the neuro-chemical holy grail, i.e. some kind of receptor which is capable of generating (and then via neuron network communicate) extremely pleasurable stimuli, i.e. it’d be a search for the highest joy intensity receptor (except that it in principle could also depend on how large such receptor if it existed would be and by how much its intensity level were higher than that of other such receptors, because if it were too heavy, were to require too much material, atoms, then there’d be a chance that different use of the same atomic material but differently arranged, namely possibly into a multitude of lower positive stimulus intensity could end up being preferable).

  
  ^> Or the point on hidden ethically dominant decision-determining factors, even for seemingly far detached banal decision problems:
  And then a bit about decision-making:
  Also, given that for the (overall total well-being optimization directed) decision-making on which decision or action amongs many to choose from for a given topic is dominantly determined by what the effects, implications of a given action or decision among multiple were to be with regard to direct & indirect forwards-contamination (or basically how likely it might barely, maybe after the 10th digit past the decimal point increase the percentage chance of further or extended, for the vast majority of animals gruesome evolutions of life), and that means that the further separated away an e.g. very banal, extremely low level decision topic were to be (like to take the bus or the car to get somewhere), the much less intuitive or clear or seemingly* associated to the action/​decision the true, applicable, ethical logic, reasoning for what actually were the better decision can become. Though at some level of detachment of a low level decision problem, the more the butterfly effect, chaos theory applies, meaning that any ethical logic’s and assessment’s “grip” on being able to provide guidance for the right decision becomes more and more loose. But it seems to be an interesting remark to make anyway, and especially so since such reasoning could (the further it’s detached from smth like the extremely important matter of playing god or better not doing that) meet less and less understanding of this logic by others, which can have important implications on their own (as it may lead to further arguments, problems), but that also means that if that’s the case, then that has to also be accounted for beforehand, for the initial assessment of how to decide, and so at some point, probably the decision that avoids such conflict rooted in ignorance can be (ironically) that way forced to ultimately be better, even if another decision were better, assuming others had the needed understanding to allow for it to be better for when it maybe should be.
  Or summarized differently: There can exist matters in the universe that have such extreme ethical level of importance (by being so large scale in how many beings’ fate, quality of life, depends on it and for how long) so that the magnitude of this large-scale-ness can compensate for or outweigh the fact that some banal seemingly (sufficiently) far from the matter detached topic matter may only affect this extremely important matter at a really low level digit past the decimal point (or at extremely low probability changes/​improvements associated to a banal matter’s decision). So that’s a way how the importance or access to finding the right logical path for correctly making decisions for banal matters can be hidden, can e.g. lead around many corners of possibly required lateral thinking in order to get there.

  ^> If I’d go really far with it, I could also lay out my proto-theory of the mind, but that’d “burst the frame”… be too much

  ^> For the AI. concerns… I mean they are legit, too, separate, parallel to the other concern, but I guess I could paste over my thoughts on that from PMs with pmbpanther...

  ^> though besides these points, there’s many more lines of reasonings against already in the 21st century risking playing god… it may force such triggered evolution into far less good (or far worse than just bad) pathways which may—once initiated—be impossible or extremely complicated to revert. It’s hard enough to deal with invasice species between continents on earth, especially once it spread rapidly, exponentially… at some point it may be at a size such that even the most effective possible rate of trying to get rid of an invasive species may not be able to compete anymore with the exponential growth once it spread far enough, locking humanity for all future out of better kinds of evolutions of life (though again there’s reason to believe that, when counted from beginning to end, there is no such thing) for all hundreds, thousands of generations to come later and have to deal with the specific random, accidental kind of evolution of life that the 21st century humanity generations light-heartedly triggered, rather than having any further science done on this for which almost surely one could expect a ton of progress to still be possible for centuries, millennia, maybe even tens of thousands of years, given how complicated biospheres and evolution are..… and this argument holds independently of what the particular ethical level would be for evolution of life, independent of how good or bad it’d be, it’s near certain that if humanity for god’s sake could just bring up some patience on this matter, that completely unnecessary extremely large-scale catastrophes could be avoided… ; i.e. far weaker assumptions on the situation to start out with would suffice for deducing that it’d be a bad idea to risk kick-starting life not 100 years after having started becoming at all capable of doing such...

  ^> And then there’s the “they wouldn’t deserve a better god themselves if they’d play as recklessly god that octillions then would be subjected to, themselves” argument:
  In a sense, those that irresponsibly risk kick-starting whole evolutions of life would be extreme hypocrites if they’d have wanted for some kind of responsible, caring god to have been some initial root cause of their own existence. They at that point kind of wouldn’t have deserved that themselves, based on standards established by their very own behavior.

  ^> And then potential further implications or egoistical reasons even for deterrence from playing god, for if the generalized re-incarnation based on physicalism does happen to apply:
  If it turns out the method of assignment of a person, an I, to a body were to be in part determined by particle identity, maybe “threatening” them (or rather kind of forcing them to consider a more empathic perspective) by telling them that some time in the future, some people among humanity might dig up their graves, get their what’s remaining from their deceased brain and send those to the very same ice moons or (exo-)planets they forwards-contaminated centuries ago, so that they have a chance getting a taste of the consequences of their own doing if they were to re-incarnate as an animal once or a few times there, maybe just bringing this hypothetical scenario up may deter them from doing so.
  At least there is physically plausible reason to believe in re-incarnation, albeit with likely or possibly very extremely low chance of occurrence, even if it may at first glance sound outlandish or absurd.
  In response to that video, I once elaborated on the concept in detail (if anyone may be interested):
  https://​​www.youtube.com/​​watch?v=h6fcK_fRYaI So on the topic of this video & reincarnation, actually (just in case people may not see much merit in at least seeing how it could actually exist in principle as a realistic, applying ″mechanic″ of the universe) I’ve come to some interesting considerations in regards to it.
  Though I should mention first that by reincarnation I mean and think of it less and not necessarily just in a sense which the literal etymological origins of the word may allude to (if it’s a reincarnation or living in another human body as therein carried consciousness later again), but just in a more generalized abstract sense in which the ″phases in which some given consciousness of a person is present has 1 or more significant gaps (in duration or difference in physical composition before and after, more-so than by sleeping or having been in a coma) in which the consciousness didn’t exist″, just like e.g. the set that’s the union of the intervals [0,1] & [2,3] has a gap in it.
  The first consideration is that the universe (quite evidently so, it would seem to me) has proven to be capable of incarnating any consciousnesses that have ever existed at least once (let’s say in this universe, that is), which is at least a good start if one were trying to demonstrate how this may have a decently much not entirely philosophically out-ruled chance to occur not only once but multiple times, since at least if one had been able already before one’s consciousness started to exist to from that point of perspective think about the universe’s capability to give rise to one’s own consciousness (rather than that of someone else’s, which seems to occur in the overwhelming number of cases) in the future and would have guessed or ″gambled″ against the universe being able to do so, then for any consciousness that actually was given rise to by the universe in some manner, one would have been wronged by the universe.
  So for when it comes to trying to estimate one’s future outlook (of emerging once more as consciousness, or not, with or possibly rather without remnants of previous memories) again, except with a perspective that corresponds to a (qualitatively) different situation than the situation one was in before, then if the rules that govern the in-time-dynamic of everything are themselves timelessly constant (which may seem plausible to assume for our universe), and additionally if (what may seem unlikely to be true for our universe) the dynamic of everything (and in particular all contents of the universe that undergo changes by laws that govern them) is in ever repeating manner time-loop-like cyclical (or may enter a loop at some point), so that everything relevant to the future behavior of the universe is at some point in time the same as at an unequal to that point in time, then the universe’s proof of being able to make a consciousness exist once (alike but not quite like the start of a mathematical proof by induction, as the absolute certainty of the validity of mathematical proofs is nonexistent for its application in non-theoretical physics) would be provided with an induction step argument with which one would be enabled to prove not only 1 further instance of incarnation, but at least a countable infinity of them, for all those consciousnesses part of the loop.
  However, without granting us any certainty about the above (just for the sake of speculative argument) assumed characteristic of the universe to eventually loop back to a state it already was in before (or doing so, but without timelessness of its governing laws), the induction step is missing, and hence the addressed question would be an open one which though may depend on the particular future behavior of the universe which may or may not in its future—in time and space locally—lead back to equivalent circumstances to those situations that gave rise to a given consciousness’ previous or initial existence, in order to do so again. But at least (if one attempted to still try to argue in favor of the universe’s capability to nonetheless do so), despite the universe in general undergoing a rather uniform but seemingly non-cyclical dynamic, at least this process appears to happen slowly across very large time-scales, and secondarily, the universe seems to have generated very many sub-systems of much smaller scale of which many of them may in their long term evolutions across time come into very similar particle arrangement states to each other, which—depending on the true conditions for giving rise to a previously present consciousness again—might be close enough to do it again, for example in the case of earth-like exoplanets with respect to humans.
  But depending on which aspects part of the (to us unknown but necessarily existing) truth behind this phenomenon (of the universe being able to bring consciousnesses into existence when they weren’t present before) are relevant for the differentiation between which consciousness it is (if any at all) that some process in the universe may generally give rise to in the future (like local conditions such as the formation of certain molecular structures to occur at the same time or at the same place again or with just for physical forces and behaviors indistinguishable particles, or with the very exact same particles and same arrangement they came together before), the chances for any kind of “reincarnation” of anyone to happen, conceivably can differ very much. And personally, intuitively I’d not at all expect the chances for such a scenario to repeat to be ″particularly″ high, nor am I sure if it’d even be a reasonable assessment’s conclusion to hope for such. But either way, if anything, it’d be a line of reasoning of this type that’d make me believe in the principal capability of the universe to reincarnate in this sense, rather than reasons that Buddhism provides for this, even though they may share the same conclusion.
  https://​​neurosciencenews.com/​​l5p-neuron-conscious-awareness-14997/​​
  But so if some variant of this is true, that means there can be valid “roundabout egoistic reasons” for altruism, too.
  ”not even death may be a safe evasion from the furnace universe”

  -> if we kick-start evolution elsewhere, all further generations (which can be up to VERY VERY MANY) are gonna be mad at us. The question then really is just how much, how bad and how many of mistakes will there be...

  -> there really is enough reasons… (let alone higher priority problems we have on earth alone, no need creating copies of the graph of problems that the international science council put up 2021, which I could also bring up)

  ^> bokov’s gonna have to wait until I can properly format my response, to be less informal...

  ^^^^^^^
  I’ll need multiple response posts for all this...

  -> And then there’d be surely many more points of considerations I noted down over the years but cannot just find and pack in there… quickly. it’d need time; don’t know exhaustingly all of them by heart either, is why I make notes.
  

  
  The response to my comment down there indicates that the forum moderators apparently are unaware that due to urgent & far higher priority matters of informing and warning more people about impending forwards-contamination risk space projects, it’d either been no response at all, a proper response with significant cost of my time to use otherwise, or an informal quick response (which I ultimately decided on, because I think it should suffice for the time being), given how much I have to say and properly formulate on the topic. That this isn’t considered but is reacted to so completely unnecessarily harshly without prior communication is unfortunate. Though it’s possible that the informality of my post is just a pre-text reason, and in reality, the true reason is the many downvotes my posts have gotten, despite the great irony that lies in the fact that bokov, the person with the most upvoted comment from the thread bokov links to from here, finding the points made from my there by far most downvoted comment very convincing.
  vvv

• Bernd Clemens Huber 4 Nov 2022 19:48 UTC

  −5 points

  −2

  in reply to: Bernd Clemens Huber’s comment on: Open Let­ter Against Reck­less Nu­clear Es­ca­la­tion and Use

  So many disagreements to my message, and not a single attempt to explain which point on the basis of what reasoning is disagreed with, so that I can refute it by specifying the fallacy in such reasoning, but if I had to guess, then cognitive dissonance should explain the origin of most of these disagreements:
  
  ”In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information, and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person’s actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environment. Cognitive dissonance is typically experienced as psychological stress when persons participate in an action that goes against one or more of those things.^[1] According to this theory, when two actions or ideas are not psychologically consistent with each other, people do all in their power to change them until they become consistent.^[1][2] The discomfort is triggered by the person’s belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction to reduce their discomfort.^[1][2][3]”
  
  So that is backbone-less and disappointing, but supposedly an appropriate commonplace level of mindset for humanity in the 3rd millennium, in the 21st century. But I’ll warn again: Humanity must get its act together and wake up out of its forwards-contamination puberty!

• Bernd Clemens Huber 4 Nov 2022 19:32 UTC

  −1 points

  1

  in reply to: Richard_Kennaway’s comment on: How to Take Over the Uni­verse (in Three Easy Steps)

  There were 65 responses, so about 1% to 2% of all replied. Generally it were understanding and agreeing response sentiments, except for Robin Hanson. Here is a list of those that did respond, and their responses:
  

  Center for Ethics and Technology /​ M.Sc. Mariska Bosschart
  Initiative for Interstellar Studies /​ John I Davies
  The Life You Can Save Organization
  Eurogroup for Animals
  TED Talks
  Royal Institute of Philosophy
  Vegan Society
  Prof. Chris Impey
  Prof. (apl.) Dr. Michael Schetsche
  Chris Williamson
  Prof. Dr. Greg Matloff
  Prof. Dr. Christopher E. Mason
  UPF—Centre for Animal Ethics
  European Union
  Prof. Dr. Tyler Cowen
  European Institute of Innovation & Technology
  Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
  Prof. Dr. Robin Dale Hanson
  International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
  Conscious Entities
  Mario Livio
  EarthSky
  Paul Gilster
  Südwestrundfunk
  Association for Practical and Professional Ethics
  Dr. Anthony Milligan
  Interstellar Beacon
  David Suzuki Foundation
  Founders Space
  Action for Dolphins
  Interstellar Research Group
  Prof. Dr. Roald Hoffmann
  Outer Space Institute
  Royal Anthropological Institute
  European Committee of the Regions
  European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
  Millennium Circuits
  Jenny Stanford Publishing
  Nintendo
  GRASP Laboratory
  Lunar
  Supertrends Institute
  Economics for Peace Institute
  Slush
  Marcus Chown
  Stanford Summer Humanities Institute
  Asher Soryl
  Friends of the Earth Melbourne
  National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
  Friends of the Earth International
  Investigation Office of the Volkswagen Group
  B.A. Kevin Weller
  Tunbridge Wells Friends of the Earth
  Dr. Tricia Lynn Lois Larose
  William Green
  Space4Water
  Prof. Armel Kerrest
  Rational Animations
  Prof. Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz
  Nishimura & Asahi
  AOC International
  Defence Command Denmark
  North Carolina Department of Justice
  Prof. Dr. Kent A. Peacock
  Prof. Philip Kotler
  

  -
  Dear Bernd Clemens Huber,

  Thanks for contacting us. Your ideas are interesting. Our centre is a collaboration between the technological Universities in The Netherlands. We don’t have our own projects. So, we cannot put this on our website. But thanks for informing us about this.
  drs. Mariska Bosschaert MA
  Coordinator 4TU. Centre for Ethics and Technology
  External PhD student Philosophy of Technology
  
  Philosophy group
  Department of Social Sciences
  Wageningen University & Research

  -
  Dear Bernd Clemens Huber
  Thanks for getting in touch with i4is.
  Your concerns about the ethics of Directed Panspermia are, I believe, widely shared.
  For example, Prof Greg Matloff has been writing about this since at least 1979.
  I’d be interested in what you are working on just now,
  John

  -

  Dear Bernd

  Thank you so much for reaching out to the Life You Can Save, and for sharing your concerns. You are correct in that there are several categories of what have been described as ‘existential threats’ facing humanity.

  You may find of interest this short YouTube clip with Peter Singer speaking about extinction risk in an interview, and here is an article published in October last year where he speaks on the same topic. Professor Singer also recommends the book The Precipice by Toby Ord, where the author engages with the topic in more depth.

  As you correctly point out, this is a complex topic which deserves engagement and many great minds are making efforts in that regard. The Life You Can Save has a relatively narrow focus, which is ending extreme poverty, and the hope is that people engage with these immediate concerns, alongside considering the issues which may arise in the future.

  Kind regards

  Lydia

  -

  Many thanks for your email. Unfortunately, we are not the right recipient for your message. Our primary mission is to work at the level of the European Parliament to address, improve, lobby for animal welfare rights and legislation.
  -

  Hello,
  Thank you for your email!
  The best way to submit your idea to TED is through our speaker nomination process:
  http://​​speaker-nominations.ted.com/​​
  A few things to know about speaker nominations:

  The curators work on filling all conference programs throughout the year (so there is no deadline).
  Once submitted, your nomination will remain in a speaker database to be considered for all future TED events.
  Selection is based not just on the individual merit of a nominee, but also on how their idea fits within a particular conference’s theme and overall program.
  For these reasons, and the sheer volume of submissions our curators receive (25,000+ a year), they’re unable to respond with a status at any point or let you know if your submission will be a likely fit.
  Learn more about speaking at TED:
  https://​​www.ted.com/​​about/​​conferences/​​speaking-at-ted
  I hope this helps!
  With kindness,

  Katie
  TED Community Support Specialist

  -

  Thanks but if you’re interested in disseminating your research you should be submitting to journals. I can’t follow up on random introductoins to people’s work form the people themselves: I’d be overwhelmed.
  -

  Hello,

  Thank you for taking the time to get in touch and share your thoughts and wider hypothesis. It was interesting to read and understand your position.

  Kind regards,

  Joel

  -

  Some excellent points, but I regret pressure
  of work—end of semester, grading, projects,
  many demands from students—mean I can’t
  get into a dialog about this. CDI

  -

  Danke, Herr Huber, für Ihre Ausführungen!
  Inzwischen bin ich allerdings in Rente und beschäftige mich nur noch
  höchst selten mit wissenschaftlichen Fragen. Falls Sie einen
  Kommentar zu Ihren Thesen wünschen, schreiben Sie am besten
  meinen ehemaligen Kollegen und Mitautor Dr. Andreas Anton an:
  anton@igpp.de
  Vielleicht hat er ja die Muße, um Ihre Thesen mit Ihnen zu diskutierten.
  Beste Grüße aus dem Ruhestand
  Michael Schetsche

  -

  Hello Bernd

  Hope you’re well!

  We really appreciate you reaching out. I’ve passed it onto Chris and made him aware, he gets a large amount of correspondence so may not be able to reply directly, but he’s very grateful for your message.

  Let me know if there’s anything further I can help with, and if you haven’t already join our Locals community on https://​​modernwisdom.locals.com/​​

  Again, thank you!

  Benjamin Hancock

  Personal Assistant to Chris Williamson
  
  Instagram: @chriswillx
  Host of the Modern Wisdom Podcast
  Filling nightclubs at Voodoo Newcastle

  -

  Dear Bernd

  All the best with your research. I suggest that you publish your concepts or deliver them at an appropriate conference.

  Regards
  Prof. Matloff

  -

  Hi – thank you for your email…I actually just wrote a whole book about this; perhaps you’ve seen it?

  https://​​mitpress.mit.edu/​​books/​​next-500-years

  -

  Hi Bernd,
  Sorry for the late reply and thank you very much for sharing your reflections on this topic.

  -

  Sehr geehrter Herr Hubert,

  vielen Dank für Ihre Nachricht und für das Mitteilen Ihrer Ansichten.

  Bitte beachten Sie, dass wir in unserer Eigenschaft als allgemeiner Informationsdienst nicht in der Lage sind, Ihre Ansichten zu kommentieren.

  Ihre Nachricht wurde zu Informationszwecken an den zuständigen Dienst der Europäischen Kommission weitergeleitet.

  Wenn Sie sich an der europäischen Politikgestaltung beteiligen und Vorschläge machen wollen, stehen Ihnen mehrere Möglichkeiten offen, die Sie hier finden:
  https://​​europa.eu/​​european-union/​​law/​​have-your-say_de

  Falls Sie Fragen zur Europäischen Union, ihren Aktivitäten oder Institutionen haben, helfen wir Ihnen gerne weiter.

  -

  All very interesting stuff, and I do hope to write more on these topics soon...

  Tyler

  -

  Bernd,

  Thank you for contacting the American Society of Civil Engineers. We appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns regarding Ethics on Cosmic Scale, Directed Panspermia, Outer Space Treaty, Technology Assessment, (and Fermi’s Paradox). I will pass this information along to our volunteer leaders for their consideration.

  Best regards,

  Lindsay A. O’Leary, P.E., CAE, F.ASCE

  Director, Technical Advancement

  American Society of Civil Engineers

  1801 Alexander Bell Drive

  Reston, VA 20191-4400

  512-803-6358 (direct)

  1-800-548-2723

  loleary@asce.org

  www.asce.org

  https://​​www.asce.org

  -

  Sehr geehrter Herr Huber,

  vielen Dank für Ihre Anfrage an das Europe Direct Kontaktzentrum. Wir danken Ihnen für Ihre Nachricht und die Mitteilung Ihrer Ansichten.

  Wir haben Ihre Nachricht zu Informationszwecken an die zuständige Abteilung der Europäischen Kommission weitergeleitet.

  Sollten Sie zu irgendeinem Zeitpunkt Fragen zur Europäischen Union, ihren Aktivitäten oder Institutionen haben, stehen wir Ihnen gerne zur Verfügung.

  -

  Dear Bernd Huber,

  Thank you for you interest in the Kauffman Foundation. We support education and entrepreneurs. We do not do any work in any of the areas you listed in your email. Please seek out more relevant organizations for possible partnerships.

  Have a nice day,

  Shari Wassergord

  Brand Management Coordinator

  Public Affairs Department

  Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

  -

  I think I have a pretty opposite opinion to you; I’d rather there were lots more panspermia, including from Earth. Most all life is preferable to a dead empty universe. Robin Hanson

  -

  Dear Dr. Bernd Clemens Huber,

  Thank you very much for addressing ISPRS.

  I will share your email with my colleages to decide.

  Kind Regards

  Lena

  Lena Halounova

  President, ISPRS

  c/​o Czech Technical University in Prague

  Thakurova 7, Prague 6, Czech Republic

  Tel.: +420 22435 4952

  isprs-sg@isprs.org, www.cvut.cz

  https://​​www.cvut.cz

  -

  Thanks, Bernd

  You make some interesting points and I think I would agree that it is by no means too early for the issue to be raised, with a view perhaps to some international agreement. I do not think that would be easy to achieve, because we still have a colonising mentality and advocates of ‘directed panspermia’ would not, I think, be lacking.

  While subscribing to the overall proposition, I don’t think I accept the ethical case based on suffering. You can make a case that life is inseparable from suffering (I think that is a core Buddhist belief), but if I can put it metaphorically, I believe most organisms would rather be alive than not nevertheless.

  I fear, however, that that is all beside the point as I can’t really help with raising awareness. I haven’t blogged on Conscious Entities for a while and have no immediate plans to restart.

  I wish you success, however.

  Peter

  -

  Thank you for your note. I understand your point. This issue has come up in discussions of Space Agencies in the past. It is a matter for international discussion, which will probably take many years to resolve.

  Thanks again,

  Mario Livio

  -

  Hello, Bernd.
  Thank you for writing to EarthSky. We are always glad to hear from our readers.

  Have you looked into the National Space Society? It is actually international.
  https://​​space.nss.org/​​

  Cordially,
  Claudia

  -

  Thank you, Bernd. I can feel your passion for the subject and your concerns about directed panspermia. What you have written is along the lines of a paper that could be submitted to a journal of one kind of another. I would suggest you consider editing this piece and submitting it to the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, where it would receive a wide audience.

  To do this, check the BIS website to learn how to submit. I would strongly recommend a tight edit, however. This is a long piece, partly because the subject is complicated, but there are places here where you could easily cut the text in order to achieve a more forceful presentation. Be wary about sentences that are overly long in places where they may obscure meaning rather than enhance it.

  Good luck with this. It’s an interesting concept and not something I’ve heard voiced before.

  PG

  -

  Dear Mr. Huber,

  your mail reached us at the customer service of SWR television. We relieve the specialist departments and editorial departments of Südwestrundfunk (SWR), view inboxes, answer inquiries and channel messages. Thank you for your input.

  We have forwarded your lines to the editors of science. In the editorial meetings, feedback and suggestions from the public are discussed and evaluated internally. Please understand, that the editors have to weigh up editorially whether and to what extent reporting is possible, especially in the case of scientific studies. The editors are also not always able to initiate a dialogue or send out a rejection, this is simply due to the flood of submissions, that the editors receive every day.

  All the best to you and stimulating and informative entertainment with the offers of Südwestrundfunk (SWR).

  Kind regards

  Petra Votava

  SWR Fernsehen Zuschauerservice

  SWR

  -

  Hi,
  If you would like to submit a proposal for a talk on this topic at our conference next year, please review our Call for Proposals information.

  Thanks.
  APPE Admin

  -

  Dear Bernd Huber,

  Thank you for your email. The format is very Spinoza. It contains a good deal to think about.

  Best wishes.

  Tony

  -

  Interesting read….

  Are you Dr. Bernd Huber, The economist?

  Bill Kitchen

  -

  Thank you for your email and for sharing this information with us.

  Unfortunately, the Foundation has not conducted research on this specific topic and we are therefore unable to provide proper feedback. We do encourage you to visit our website, which contains specific information on our current campaigns, including publications and further internet links.

  Everything is interconnected, and there are multiple issues that fall into our program areas. However, in order to be effective, we need to focus our efforts on the specific campaigns that we have committed to and where we feel we can have the most impact.

  Fortunately, there are many organizations, communities and individuals, such as you, working across Canada on a number of important issues. We are inspired by the amazing work that is being accomplished.

  We appreciate your effort to stay informed and find solutions. We wish you luck in your research.
  Please see the handy link in our e-signature below.

  Kind regards,
  Sarah

  -

  Hi Bernd,

  I’m sorry, but I couldn’t understand what you are asking for.

  In one sentence, what would you like from Founders Space?

  Thanks
  Janet Harting
  Coordinator

  -

  Hi Bernd,

  Thank you very much for your email and for sharing that information with us.

  We really appreciate you taking the time to share all of that knowledge with us, it sounds like you are extremely passionate about this issue, and I will forward your email onto the rest of the team immediately, so that we can all have a read and then discuss together.

  Thanks again Bernd, we really appreciate it and appreciate all of your incredible support for the cause too.

  Stay safe and have a wonderful day.

  Warm regards,

  Diana
  The AFD Dolphin Protection Team

  Action for Dolphins
  Email: info@afd.org.au
  Tel: 0427 399 056
  www.afd.org.au

  https://​​www.afd.org.au

  -

  Dear Mr. Huber,

  First, let me apologize for the extreme lateness of this reply. It
  turned out that no one was actively monitoring the info@irg.space email
  account (I guess we all thought someone else was doing it).

  I’m also sending this email to Kelly Smith, from the Society for Social
  and Conceptual Implications of Astrobiology (SSoCIA), as I think it may
  be of particular interest to that organization. It may be that you can
  have a productive conversation with Dr. Smith on this topic.

  If you would be interested, please submit your paper for consideration
  for our 8th Interstellar Symposium next year, in Montreal:
  https://​​irg.space/​​wp-content/​​uploads/​​2022/​​07/​​IRG_CALL_FOR_PAPERS.pdf

  -

  Dear Mr Huber,

  Thank you for contacting the European Committee of the Regions.

  We are kindly let you know that the ENVE Chair will be informed about the topic you raise in your message.

  With best regards,

  ENVE Secretariat

  -

  Dear Bernd Huber,

  Thank you for your message and most humble apologies for the extreme delay in response. We have taken note of your kind email and shared it with the respective team for this to be passed on to the right person.

  Kind regards,
  Farmaz
  To view your ticket, please follow your ticket link: https://​​support.eage.org/​​support/​​tickets/​​public/​​c78d53c119f9377111bad1b401eafb98fbfb875f3281d93672b31349f6e8dd00

  -

  Hello, thanks for reaching out.

  How can I assist?

  -

  Hi Bernd,

  Thank you for your reply and interest. An introductory book on this topic would be interesting. You’re welcome to propose a flexible time frame and you may also wish to collaborate with your colleagues.

  Once you have pondered on the book idea, please provide us with the following information

  1) Title

  2) Author(s)/​Editor(s)

  3) Publication type (monograph, review volume, textbook, lecture notes, etc.)

  4) Brief description

  5) Estimated number of pages

  6) Tentative deadline

  Based on the above, we will discuss your proposal together with our editorial committee and referees, and will get back to you soon on our feedback. Upon analysis of the book’s scope, academic level and potential market, we will share with you the royalties’ structure based on net sales received worldwide.

  There won’t be any costs incurred to you and financial fees from copyediting, proofreading, reformatting, indexing, etc. will be borne by us. Once everything is finalized, we will then prepare the publishing agreements for both parties to sign.

  In the meantime, please visit our website at www.jennystanford.com and our distributor www.routledge.com to know more of our other publications. Thanks again and we look forward to your reply soon.

  Best Regards,

  Jenny Rompas

  Director and Publisher

  Jenny Stanford Publishing

  101 Thomson Road

  #06-01, United Square

  Singapore 307591

  Tel: +65 6829 5445

  Email: jenny@jennystanford.com

  Web: www.jennystanford.com

  Inspiring Innovation through Publishing

  -

  Dear Mr Huber,
  
  thank you for contacting Nintendo about your concerns regarding these issues.
  
  Please keep in mind that this is the Customer Service for the German speaking market, so we are only able to handle cases in German, i will however handle this case in English out of goodwill.
  
  We are happy to hear your interest and your engagement about these important subjects.
  
  Thank you for these information, we have shared these with colleagues and made it internally visible to all.
  
  It was a very informative read and quite understandable, i personally am not new to these subjects, as some of my greatest interests are in the fields of astronomy and space exploration.
  
  Our company Nintendo does not have any product that currently is in deep space, nor are there any plans and rumours about anything like that coming any time soon.
  
  Hence why these information might not impact Nintendos products and procedures in the current times.
  
  We wish you the best and good success in educating the world about these topics, especially since they have an ever-growing importance with the development and future of humanity/​life as we know it.
  
  If you have any further inquiries, feel free to ask, we are happy to help.

  Thank you for contacting Nintendo Customer Support. We appreciate your trust in our support team!

  We’d like to take this opportunity to ask you a few questions about your experience with us.
  We place high value on your feedback which will be helpful to improve our service.

  The survey will be sent shortly to your email address. We are looking forward to your answers.

  Best regards,

  Richard Wegscheider

  -

  Dear Bernd,

  Thank you for your inquiry and interest in the GRASP Lab! You may feel free to reach out to any GRASP Faculty Member directly that aligns with your research interests to discuss further. GRASP encompasses a wide range of research areas that can be seen here and our GRASP Faculty page is a great resource as well.

  All the best,
  -Mariel Celentano

  -

  Hi Bernd Huber,

  Thank you for your message and interest in Lunar.

  I will reach out to the right person regarding this and they will get in touch if it is in our interest.

  I wish you a lovely day

  All the best,

  Lærke

  -

  Dear Mr. Huber,

  Thank you for this interesting piece on Panspermia. We are currently in a process of organizational restructuring and strategy building; therefore we currently don’t have the means for disseminating this type of content.

  In a couple of months, when the platform that we are currently building will be ready, we will invite you and other experts to contribute content or take part in debates on various topics, this one included.

  Thank you for your understanding.

  Kind regards,
  Catalina Sparleanu

  Head of Content
  Supertrends AG
  Erlenstrasse 16 | 6300 Zug | Switzerland

  -

  Hello. Thank you for explaining these matters and your transmittal through our website contact form.

  Please print the content you have provided and send it by mail to :

  Economics for Peace Institute
  PO Box 1837
  Port Townsend, WA 98368

  Please provide a return mailing address.

  Our organization is not issue specific and this is outside of our scope.
  We will forward your printed content to a reviewer or two.
  That person may be able to help you with outreach.

  Thank you again.

  In your mailed communication, please indicate in what ways you wish to support our organizational efforts at local social fieldwork to inform public decisions. We will keep you on our newsletter list if there is a clear indication that you understand the scope of our work and support it.

  Best regards,
  tech team at econ4peace

  -

  Hi Bernd,

  If this is important, can you please pitch this in three sentences? :)

  Kind regards,
  Maria

  —
  Maria Koskela
  Marketing & Comms
  maria.koskela@slush.org
  slush.org

  -

  Dear Bernd,

  Thank you for telling me aabout this topic, which seems very interesting.

  Best wishes,
  Marcus

  -

  Pre-Collegiate Studies Staff (Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies)

  Sep 26, 2022, 10:42 AM PDT
  Hello Bernd,
  
  Thank you for your message.
  
  Stanford Summer Humanities Institute (SHI) is a program offering academic enrichment courses for high school students in the areas of history, politics, literature, and philosophy.
  
  Should you be interested to share your research or raise awareness about this issue, we suggest to contact departments at Stanford University that are relevant to your academic discipline(s). Typically, their departmental email addresses can be found on their websites.
  
  You may also find helpful resources from the Stanford Office of STEM Outreach (Stanford OSO): https://​​oso.stanford.edu/​​programs/​​graduate-students-and-postdoctoral-fellows.
  
  We wish you the best in your studies and research.

  Regards, Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies

  -

  Hi Bernd,

  I’m sorry for the late reply, I have been travelling through Europe for the past few weeks with limited time to check my emails. All I can say is that I agree completely, and am currently in the process of shifting my career projects toward mitigating this risk. Perhaps we could have a talk sometime about this topic? I’m currently in Melbourne, Australia, but in several days I will be back home in New Zealand—if you’d like to chat, feel free to suggest a time for us to zoom (preferably in a week as I’ll be more settled).

  Best,
  Asher

  -

  Bernd --

  Thank you for contacting us, I will forward your enquiry to the appropriate team member at Friends of the Earth Melbourne.

  With thanks and solidarity.

  
  Jemila Rushton—Friends of the Earth Melbourne
  http://​​www.melbournefoe.org.au/​​

  -

  Dear Bernd Huber,
  A Ambrose mentioned you in the following request:
  Request #561457 Ethics on Cosmic Scale, Directed Panspermia, Forwards-Contamination, Outer Space Treaty, Technology Assessment, Planetary Protection, (and Fermi’s Paradox)
  @Bernd Huber
  Good Day Mr. Huber,
  Thank you for contacting the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Vehicle Safety Hotline Information Center.
  Unfortunately, this is not a matter that NHTSA has jurisdiction over. The Hotline Information Center can provide you with assistance and information regarding vehicle safety, recalls, or motor vehicle equipment defects.
  We hope that you find this information helpful. However, if you need additional information on our services please feel free to contact us at 1-888-327-4236.
  Thank you,
  NHTSA.dot.gov Response Team
  Disclaimer: “This response is for information purposes only and does not constitute an official communication of the U.S. Department of Transportation. For an official response, please write U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Ave, SE, West Building, Washington, DC 20590.
  https://​​nhtsa.4me.telesishq.com/​​requests/​​561457

  -

  Dear friend,

  Thank you for your email.
  You have contacted the Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) Secretariat, the administrative centre for the FoEI Federation. We have read your message with interest.

  For your information, we have a Friends of the Earth group in your residence country. Their contact details can be found on our website: https://​​www.foei.org/​​who-we-are/​​member-groups/​​

  Our member groups operate independently.

  Thanks again for getting in touch. Your support helps us to work at the forefront of the global environmental struggle, and enables us to advocate for the human rights of those who defend our world.
  Kind regards,
  Argy

  Argy Alexandratou

  Information Request Team

  -

  Sehr geehrter Herr Huber,

  vielen Dank für Ihren Hinweis, den wir im Zentralen Aufklärungsoffice unter dem Aktenzeichen 2022 0007 bearbeiten.

  Wir haben Ihren Hinweis und die dortigen Ausführungen ausführlich aufgenommen und uns genau angeschaut. Bitte beachten Sie, dass wir im Zentralen Aufklärungsoffice dafür zuständig sind, zu prüfen, ob ein Anfangsverdacht hinsichtlich eines möglichen Mitarbeiterfehlverhaltens von Mitarbeitern des Volkswagen Konzerns gegeben sein könnte.

  Könnten Sie gemäß Ihres Hinweises uns bitte näher erläutern, wo hier ein konkretes Mitarbeiterfehlverhalten liegen könnte?

  Ich erlaube mir, Ihnen auf Deutsch zu antworten. Gerne können wir jedoch auf Englisch kommunizieren.

  Mit freundlichen Grüßen

  Peter Böker, LL.M.

  Rechtsanwalt (Syndikusrechtsanwalt)

  Group Whistleblowersystem (K-ICW)

  Group Compliance

  -

  Why? What is the relevance of this? What makes you think it could be worth contacting me? Why is this a valuable use of your talents and intelligence? Good luck!

  -

  Dear User,

  We received your email sent via our website and will work on it.

  Kind regards,
  UNOOSA

  -

  Good morning
  Thank you for your message.
  I will read it. Having had a quick look, it seems to be food for thought.
  Yours sincerely
  Armel Kerrest

  -

  Hi!

  You should perhaps post your thoughts on the EA Forum first! Also, I have a script-writing contest going on (search for it on the forum). So, if you want to pitch anything, that’s a good way to do it.

  -

  Dear Dr. Huber:
  Thank you for bringing these ideas to my attention. Good luck with your endeavors.

  Prof. Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz, Emerita
  Editor-in-Chief Emerita, Journal of Space Law
  http://​​joannegabrynowicz.com

  -

  Mr. Huber,

  Thank you for your e-mail dated October 20.

  Our firm is unable to assist you with this matter.

  We greatly appreciate your understanding in advance.

  Regards,

  Nishimura & Asahi

  -

  Sehr geehrter Herr Huber,

  vielen Dank für Ihre Anfrage/​Rückmeldung bezüglich eines/​Ihres Monitors.
  Diese Anfrage wird unter der Fallnummer 03269755 bearbeitet.

  Da Sie kein Problem mit einem AOC-Monitor haben, wird dieser Fall nun geschlossen.

  Entschuldigung für die späte Antwort.

  Da Sie kein Problem mit einem AOC-Monitor haben, wird dieser Fall nun geschlossen.

  Bitte kontaktieren Sie uns nur bei Problemen oder Fragen zu unseren Produkten.

  Mit freundlichen Grüßen
  Jonas Wagner

  AOC Monitor Support

  -

  RELEASABLE TO INTERNET TRANSMISSION
  Sir,

  Thank you for your email.

  Defence Command Denmark has no comments to your inquiry.

  
  Kind regards

  Anders Oakley
  Administrative Officer

  Defence Command Denmark
  Joint Operations Staff
  Administrative Section (J1)
  Herningvej 30, 7470 Karup J

  “The Joint Operations Staff employs the capabilities of the Danish Armed Forces for the benefit of Denmark”
  RELEASABLE TO INTERNET TRANSMISSION

  -

  October 28, 2022
  Bernd Huber

  Dear Bernd:

  Thank you for taking the time to write my office.

  As Attorney General, protecting the people of North Carolina is my top priority. Hearing views from people across the state helps me better do my job as your Attorney General.

  Please do not hesitate to share your perspective with me or my office in the future.

  Sincerely,
  
  Josh Stein
  Attorney General of North Carolina

  JS/​OW

  -

  Dear Bernd Huber --

  Thank you for your interesting thoughts, and sorry I could not respond sooner. The ethical implications of panspermia certainly do seem important, although I am inclined to think that it is not the most immediately crucial problem we face. Our immediate problem is how to do we survive our own effects on our own planet, as manifested especially in climate change and loss of biodiversity.

  Sincerely,

  Kent Peacock

  -

  Bernd,

  Your case is stated in great detail, almost ready for a court case.

  However, if you are trying to convince the public, you need to rewrite the material in a much more readable form.

  It should not occupy more than one page. It should consist of simple sentences and very short paragraphs.

  I suggest that you ask a marketer to restate your case in brief words.

  Good luck.

  Philip Kotler

• Bernd Clemens Huber 3 Nov 2022 21:52 UTC

  −23 points

  −14

  on: Open Let­ter Against Reck­less Nu­clear Es­ca­la­tion and Use

  This would be wonderful, because it would help reduce the probability of the greatest catastrophe in human history.

  As much as I would like to agree with this (since that would mean the existence of a far smaller upper bound to the worst that humanity could ever do), it is scientifically objectively false. The true, also very urgent, and by any mundane solely earth crust matters related entirely unchallenged, uniquely highest threat that humanity will ever encounter is that humanity ends up (in whatever manner, intentional or by accident) kick-starting evolution(s) of life on other celestial bodies, especially if that happens to cascade further and further by natural means such as litho-panspermia or in combination of ice moon geysers spewing material out to space from where it can be caught & carried by space rocks.

  
  For humanity to try to spread physical space exploration across the universe were to be among the very most macro-criminal worst unethical courses of humanity’s trajectory that it could at all possibly take, and—especially after having by now sent e-mails to almost 5.000 worldwide institutions and professors within the last half year to emphatically warn them about this impending danger—I’m baffled how ethics-detached scientists still dare to even advocate or advertise and support such astronomically gargantuan, massive crimes worse than all crimes from humanity’s past together, but it is worthy of condemnation and absolutely ought to stop as soon as possible, and here is 1 among many reasons for why:

  It is rather irrelevant if we could ever colonize other stars(′ exoplanets), because humanity—like any civilization in this universe—has the utmost important macro-ethical imperative to safely make sure to never even try to do so.

  
  1. Axiom: The ethical importance of an issue or decision axiomatically is proportional to the difference in generated well-being depending on it. Or in other words (using proxies to the definition), the ethical importance of a decision increases alongside the number of by it affected sentient lifeforms, the time duration during which they are affected by it, and the vastness of the affected space to the extent to which changes of it affect the lifeforms.

  
  2. Extremal case: By the standard that is set in the above statement, according to the current body of humanity’s knowledge, general forms of evolution of life (if on earth or on other habitable celestial bodies) forever constitute the most ethically important issue to exist in the universe: With billions of species—each with innumerable individual lifeforms—together with durations on the scale of billions of years, and spacial extension of at least a whole planet, it dwarfs any other conceivable ethical issue’s level of importance.

  
  3. Valuation Axiom for the extremal case: According to many scientific studies, such as by Richard Dawkins, Brian Tomasik, Alejandro Villamor Iglesias, Oscar Horta, pain and suffering dominates over joy for animal wildlife in general forms of Darwinian evolution of life due to the global, near eternal war-like situation commonly framed as survival of the fittest (rather than the demise of all unfit), and therefore—when accumulated across all logically entangled parameters such as duration and count of involved individuals—instances of such forms of evolution of life has to be kept at a minimum in the universe, as there never was and never will be anything that could be more important, to change the conclusion of this Anti-Panspermia-implying directive. To cite sources from Wikipedia on this matter: “Wild animal suffering is the suffering experienced by nonhuman animals living outside of direct human control, due to harms such as disease, injury, parasitism, starvation and malnutrition, dehydration, weather conditions, natural disasters, and killings by other animals,^[1][2] as well as psychological stress.^[3] Some estimates indicate that these individual animals make up the vast majority of animals in existence.^[4] An extensive amount of natural suffering has been described as an unavoidable consequence of Darwinian evolution^[5] and the pervasiveness of reproductive strategies which favor producing large numbers of offspring, with a low amount of parental care and of which only a small number survive to adulthood, the rest dying in painful ways, has led some to argue that suffering dominates happiness in nature.”

  
  1. Special Cosmos Ethics Theorem: Exoplanet-Wildlife-Development-Control-dependent Anti-Panspermia Directive for Humanity
  The current state of the art of scientific evidence and ethics without exception imperatively demands that humanity does NOT engage in outer space activities of kinds that could even just infinitesimally likely risk introducing life to for any kind of lifeforms habitable worlds, for at least as long as humanity’s practical capability of controlling the up to astronomically vast consequences of interstellar space projects doesn’t sufficiently improve in a for interstellar space endeavors safety guaranteeing, critical manner.

  Proof (by contradiction):
  This conclusion deductively follows from the concerningly plausible, by many scientific studies supported, Axiom that general animal wildlife—not only as it has been throughout evolution on earth, but on a more general level that would apply to exoplanet life of our biological kind, too—for the vast majority of it is dominated by pain and suffering rather than joy (reference: Center for Long-Term Risk).

  Assume the existence of a counter-example:
  It could be argued that IF overall worthwhile to exist life on a larger scale were to rely on previous evolutionary animal wildlife’s existence and that the former were to safely come from the latter, that THEN it could possibly be better for evolutionary animal wildlife to come into existence than not.

  Proof (by Ethical Dominance Principle) of the impossibility of the existence of counter-examples:
  However, given that aforementioned, dominant wildlife animal pain and suffering in its amount and hence importance and priority for macro-scale decision-making increases by the duration throughout which such a miserable, in itself unwantable state persists, and that in the case of general forms of evolution of life, we have to expect that it can last for extraordinary long times of what essentially is involuntary, if avoidable unnecessary torture by the banal means of nature’s own ruthlessness, namely that it can last for billions of years, and furthermore that these time-spans are unavoidable if it shall lead to intelligent species, we can therefore conclude that the severity of this issue dominates every other to this date conceivable, plausible ethical issue, since all other ethical issues absolutely pale in comparison to the magnitudes of magnitudes by which this central ethical issue overshadows them all, in such a uniquely outstanding way that risking billion years full of suffering for thousands of individuals of at any time billions of wildlife exoplanet animals each can for nothing in the world be a by any standards reasonable sacrifice to make.

  Therefore, by humanity’s current full body of knowledge, what happens to wildlife animals part of any actual, prospective, or potentially risked to exist instances of evolution of life constitutes the single most dominating, for ethical macro-scale decision-making behavior sole determinant factor of consideration.

  Corollary 1.1: Time-Global Anti-Panspermia Directive for Humanity
  If humanity is never able or can never be able to safely control exoplanet wildlife’s entire development for the purpose of guaranteeing its & all by its own activities potentially emerging foreign exoplanet wildlife’s pain-less flourishing, for any exoplanet wildlife risked to emerge or exist as consequence of humanity’s outer space activities, then it follows that humanity shall NEVER engage in activities that risk causing such.

  2. Central Cosmos Ethics Theorem: General Anti-Panspermia Prime Directive
  If the result of wildlife well-being evaluations of enough and sufficiently in time extended initial or lasting portions of expected or prospective cases of evolution of life is generally among all other ethically relevant factors the dominant ethical concern, and if furthermore a large enough unavoidable negative expected wildlife well-being has to be assumed of sufficiently common forms of expected or prospective cases of evolution of life, then imperative necessity of complete prevention of all preventable forms of contamination or panspermia follows.

  Corollary 2.1: Anti-Panspermia Directive on local Star System Contamination
  Any at least infinitesimally contamination or panspermia risking contamination of a celestial body within the local star system with (not necessarily extremophile) micro-organisms is to be prevented. This includes causing the emergence and spread of micro-organisms on a celestial body of the local star system, potentially followed by eventual interstellar transportation of by it emerging (extremophile) micro-organisms on the celestial body via natural panspermia, such as meteorites entering such celestial body’s atmosphere to pick the organisms up and continue towards interstellar space via sling-shot.

  Corollary 2.2: Anti-Panspermia Directive on Space-Faring
  Any at least infinitesimally contamination or panspermia risking space-faring activities are to be prevented. This includes not only space probes, satellites, solar sails, and light sails but also von-Neumann-Probes (self-replicating Spacecraft), (replicating) seeder ships, and space-faring of individuals where the Anti-Panspermia abiding behavior of them and later generations after them cannot be ensured.

  Corollary 2.3: Natural Anti-Panspermia Directive
  Any at least infinitesimally contamination or panspermia risking, preventable natural litho-panspermia processes are to be prevented. This includes (extremophile) micro-organism transportation methods via space dust, meteorites, asteroids, comets, planetoids, planets, and debris ejected into space upon celestial body collisions.

  Corollary 2.4: Anti-Panspermia Directive on Mega-Structures
  Any construction of a mega-structure that at least infinitesimally—due to literally far reaching psychological influences—risks contamination or panspermia being risked or pursued via outer space activities from any other—for the detection of such mega-structure in astronomy engaging—alien civilization is to be prevented.

  Corollary 2.5: Anti-Panspermia Directive on Super Volcano Eruptions
  Any at least infinitesimally contamination or panspermia risking, preventable natural super volcano eruptions on a by life inhabited planet that can reach beyond its exosphere are to be prevented, or altered so they safely don’t risk contamination or panspermia anymore.

  Corollary 2.6: Anti-Panspermia Directive on Space-Flight Infrastructure
  Any at least infinitesimally contamination or panspermia risking, preventable space-flight infrastructure construction or use is to be prevented, or at least sufficiently restricted, controlled, and regulated.

  Corollary 2.7: Anti-Panspermia Directive on Science, Technology, and Knowledge
  Any at least infinitesimally contamination or panspermia risking, preventable scientific or technological activities or knowledge is to be prevented or irreversibly deleted, or at least sufficiently restricted, controlled, and regulated. This includes solar sail and light sail related technology, science, and knowledge. This may at first glance seem to be excessive, but for comparison, by magnitudes far less in their potential damage severe dual-use technologies are classified & are subject of strict continual control, too.

  Corollary 2.8: Anti-Panspermia Directive on (Mass) Psychology
  Any at least infinitesimally contamination or panspermia risking, preventable psychological influence is to be prevented, or at least sufficiently restricted. This includes the propagation of news of any astronomical discovery of a bio-signature or techno-signature or celestial body of special interest such as habitable exoplanets.

  Remark: The importance of prevention measures for types of panspermia (according to the above general line of reasoning) depends on the level of (lack of) controllability of the potential long-term consequences (in terms of kick-started evolution of life) that may emerge as result from such, and for the purpose of differentiating in a reasonable manner that has this control-related parameter in mind, it makes sense to differentiate between interstellar and interplanetary panspermia, as at least it seems more plausible that interplanetary panspermia—if it were to happen—would be easier and more timely to control (although not necessarily sufficiently controllable).
  

  
  Since it is tightly related, here is the macro-ethics-based key component that dominantly shapes the form of the compound solution of the Fermi paradox:

  
  It is possible that ethical assessment of general forms of evolution of life in the universe constitutes the central issue which intelligent alien species’ macroscopic decision-making, such as for the topic of natural panspermia, directed panspermia, space colonization, megastructures, or self-replicating spacecraft revolves around. If the result of generated well-being assessments of enough and sufficiently in time extended initial or lasting portions of expected or prospective cases of evolution is among all other ethically relevant factors the dominant ethical concern of intelligent alien species, and if furthermore a large enough negative expected generated well-being is assigned to sufficiently common forms of expected or prospective cases of evolution, then foregoing directed panspermia, space colonization, the construction of megastructures as well as self-replicating spacecraft, but also active attempts to mitigate the consequences of interplanetary and interstellar forms of natural (litho-)panspermia and abiogenesis may (and ethically ought to) follow. While in the case of space colonization it might ultimately stay too uncontrollable to—by technical or educational means—ensure settlers or emerging space colonies themselves consistently keep acting in accordance to the awareness of by colonizer considered major ethical dangers accompanying physical interstellar space exploration, and for the case of interstellar self-replicating spacecraft, due to potential prebiotic substances in interstellar clouds and exoplanets’ atmospheres and soils, it may forever stay impossible to ensure their sterility to avoid contamination of celestial bodies which may kick-start uncontrollable evolution processes, reasons to forego the creation of a megastructure, even if such may be beneficial to an intelligent alien species itself and also to some other intelligent alien species imitators of their behavior, may mainly have psychological origin. Since certain megastructures may be identifiable to be of unnatural, intelligent design requiring origin by foreign intelligent alien species, for as long as the by an intelligent alien species expected number of (especially less experienced or less far developed) from them foreign intelligent alien species capable of identifying their megastructure as such is large enough, the by them rather uncontrollable spectrum of interstellar space endeavor related influences this may have on those foreign intelligent alien species might constitute a too strong ethical deterrence from creating megastructures that are from outer space identifiable as such, until eventually a lasting state of cosmic privacy may be attained by natural or technological means.
  

  So if in this critical current time, the continuation of humanity makes sense or not mainly depends on if humanity were to otherwise be cause of more suffering in the world, or less. The more humanity risks playing god on celestial bodies, the worse humanity’s situation gets. But on the other side, the higher the natural rate of evolution of life triggering processes in the universe via e.g. abiogenesis and litho-panspermia is, and the higher the ethically viable capabilities of humanity are and can get to inhibit these processes, the more (macro-scale) grounding reasons for justification for humanity’s continued presence on earth is. And (though on a far lower level of importance compared to the number of astronomically gruesome evolutions of life to happen or be prevented by humanity), to the extent to which humanity could otherwise eventually employ advanced ethical breakthrough technologies such as lab-grown meat in order to feed humans and meat-eating animals alike, in order to approach an (albeit temporary, local, due to the all-powerful cosmic forces long-term unstable) utopia on earth, the more important it is also for humanity to stay present as caregiver of life on earth.
  
  If space agencies and others that light-heartedly play with the thought of projects that may lead to forwards-contamination within the next hundreds of millions of years dare to risk further forwards-contaminations such as the by NASA Science Directorate Associate John Grunsfeld confirmed contamination of Mars, they will in unprecedented ways by their recklessly bold, respectless, anti-humble actions become by magnitudes worse criminals than the worst criminals humanity has ever encountered.
  
  As reminder: The climate, biological and nuclear and chemical threats, autonomous A.I., microplastics, and other topics—in our history, humanity had to learn after mistakes were already made, which often times turned into burdens that later generations had to carry. While for these cases the—still devastating—consequences may be more limited in scope, I think when it’s about the cosmos, it’d be wiser to approach this matter in a more reluctant, mindful manner, with long-term foresight, and without forgetting about ethics. Power & knowledge demands responsibility in its use, and it cannot be allowed for anyone to play god with exoplanets by kick-starting evolution of life there. And just because the universe contains so far uninhabited but habitable hells, this doesn’t mean we should even just infinitesimally risk populating them, especially in those instances in which they are so far away that it is utterly impossible to control what happens there. Contamination of celestial bodies with rapidly exponentially in numbers growing multi-cellular microbes would constitute a forever irreversible point of no return, especially for those several very near-future missions aiming at those moons estimated to be most capable of allowing life on them & therefore carrying the highest contamination risks: Enceladus, Europa, Titan, Ganymede, Callisto, Triton. As reference, even the microbes on the ISS eventually started to for their metabolism consume the cleaning substances meant for sterilization. And according to John Grunsfeld, the associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Mars already has been contaminated with microbes by accident. Let’s think of the possibly thousands or even millions of future generations that will judge us, our behavior. If nothing’s done about it, the clock until forwards-contamination happens keeps ticking down. The entirety of humanity together—including whatever the future can be—does NOT sit on the most populated Trolley Problem track, and we ought to better know our due place in this universe and act accordingly. Those who do not understand the all-species-encompassing, dominantly widespread extent of pain can never understand true peace. To express the matter in a metaphor, a chain is only as strong as its weakest element, and for ventures into new technological and scientific frontiers, history repeatedly demonstrated that the weakest element is at the beginning, when the knowledge and experience with a subject matter is the smallest (without the entirety of people being entrustable to act carefully enough, namely in accordance to this circumstance), especially regarding long-term consequences and far away, subtly and with delay accumulating large-scale effects of which their prevention can require having predicted them long ago already. So it seems extremely concerningly plausible that if (interplanetary or interstellar) forwards-contaminations happen ever at all (until finally never anymore), that it happens within this very—new space rush mentality plagued—century (which then were to negatively affect generations across thousands of future centuries). Positive & negative (alike other SI-units of measurement very well quantifiable) feelings—by the precise causal means of emergence via a specific set of neuro-chemical processes—contribute to and in summation determine the development of the value and meaning generated within our universe, independent of who experiences those feelings—it solely matters if they actually happen and therefore need to be accounted for. And absolutely no principle ought to get in the way of the in its logical position unique axiomatic principle of total sum of overall generated scalar levels of well-being maximization across all time, not even the principle of justice (as it isn’t absolved from scrutiny in ethics either and isn’t allowed to cause misery), though just solely precisely in those instances of it in which following it were to be required to come at an unavoidable cost in terms of reducing the total sum of overall generated well-being, since otherwise, justice serves the well-being maximization principle as well. To quote the most famous physicist: “Compassionate people are geniuses in the art of living, more necessary to the dignity, security, and joy of humanity than the discoverers of knowledge.” Interstellar directed panspermia en masse, if ever perpetrated, potentially causes up to a—once initiated naturally self-feeding and out of control—near eternal chain-reaction of cosmos-wide calamity, and therefore this warning message is about nothing less than saving the Milky Way galaxy (or even the world beyond it) from the worst possible case scenario that could ever befall it. Here is a quote attributed to Hunter S. Thompson: “For every moment of triumph (and for every instance of beauty), many souls must be trampled.” Furthermore, in case appeals to reason or negotiations may fail, interception of forwards-contamination-risking spacecraft enacted by nations on earth’s crust that grasp the non-negotiably imperative importance of preventing kick-started entire evolution of life processes by irreversible biological forwards-contamination may unnecessarily risk international misunderstandings of (far less harmful but still) grave consequences alike mutually assured destruction.

  
  Here is my empathic advice for humanity, as the ethically most educated, intelligent person in the solar system:

  MAKE FINALLY ASAP SURE THAT HUMANITY IS NOT A FORWARDS-CONTAMINATION RISK TO THE SOLAR SYSTEM OR INTERSTELLAR, TO MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE NUCLEAR ESCALATION CANNOT POSSIBLY HAVE ANY CHANCE WHATSOEVER TO BECOME AN UNNECESSARILY EXTREME MEANS OF AVERTING GREATER SUFFERING!
  
  Furthermore, in case humanity may be too heartless to help banning physical outer space exploration for the ethically utmost important reason of averting the impending s-risk of octillion wildlife animals part of hundreds of millions of species beneath ice moons suffering for hundreds of millions of years in the future as result of humanity recklessly happening to play god by kick-starting naturally cascadingly multiplying instances of evolution of life due to forwards-contamination, at least help banning it for averting that several further nations with spaceports soon turn into global superpowers by virtue of realizing their own capacities to bring about DART-mission-like, deliberately earth-directed giant-impact using near-earth asteroid-belts.

  What links here?

  • How much should we care about non-hu­man an­i­mals? by bokov (4 Nov 2022 21:36 UTC; 16 points)

• Bernd Clemens Huber 27 Oct 2022 22:00 UTC

  −2 points

  0

  in reply to: rsaarelm’s comment on: How to Take Over the Uni­verse (in Three Easy Steps)

  There’s some disingenuous (or at least ignorant) framing in there, but ultimately, the message insight needs to get out there and be taken extremely serious, and I’m slowly but surely running out of suitable contact points, and so alongside the contact search, after some months of daily contacting without results, I extended my approach so that if I find any other contact points during the search that wouldn’t be much of a detour (just few minutes) of adding them, I decided to do so, and there is a variety of lines of reasoning by which that can make sense, as the main point (which if it’d finally happen were to obsolete my e-mail contacting efforts, which I’m still waiting for but will also not allow time to pass by unused, if I can still significantly increase the chance of sooner outreach by myself) is that this extremely urgent news hits the worldwide public, and if every person I contact were to at least inform 1/​5000th as many other people as me, with that each being further people not yet having heard of the matter, then these earth shattering news would already be known across the globe. And it’s frustrating seeing how that still hasn’t happened yet. And no, this is all done manually, and to frame the most important insight & warning messaging—a godsend to this civilization’s current situation—spam is extremely ungrateful.

• Bernd Clemens Huber 26 Oct 2022 7:34 UTC

  1 point

  1

  in reply to: the gears to ascension’s comment on: How to Take Over the Uni­verse (in Three Easy Steps)

  Okay, I’ll lay out 1 major argument to explain my point, and maybe that’ll be sufficient.
  
  Let’s assume first that—according to what the current scientific body of studies & analysis appear to support—sufficiently many general forms of evolutions of life—in whatever manner they may play out on exoplanets or also beneath the surface of ice (exo-)moons—dominantly aggregate (with among all ethically relevant phenomena in the cosmos by magnitudes highest priority & therefore solely decision-making determining) gargantuan levels of suffering
  (i) before (if ever at all) not only a human-intelligence-like species eventually may emerge in the midst of them, but also one where its individuals have suitable physiology for manipulating their environment, and additionally, where the environment is suitable to allow for such technological transformation of it towards a local, labile, temporary, by its own biosphere forwards-contamination risking approximate utopia (until the situation may revert back if such species dies out, leaving the wildlife behind)
  (ii) and as long as sufficiently many (in numbers and kinds, if thermally, mechanically, chemically triggered, or salient) nociceptors emerge in those evolutions of life, increasing fitness of species in the process (by providing otherwise not as easily and immediately as waste of energy or harm identified incidents part of courses of actions of animals, as people with congenital insensitivity to pain may see), making them pay with pain for survival in nature wildlife’s arms race to the bottom until further spread of nociceptors across skin & interiors were to hit a saturation limit at which they don’t further boost survival of a species anymore.
  
  Now, if a civilization’s attempt to spread across the universe were to require or sufficiently much increase the chance that any as such clear to make out indication of their existence (as advanced, organized, intelligent lifeforms) becomes accessible in this very see-through universe to any alien civilization in it close enough (and for reference, in our case, exoplanets have been possible to find also in nearby galaxies by now, not just the Milky Way galaxy) that developed eyes for sight to be able to do effective astronomy and space-faring, then this sole visibility fact (with quite literally far-(across-the-universe-)reaching consequences) alone can easily constitute a massive forwards-contamination & evolution of life kick-starting en masse risk, which can turn into an uncontrolled naturally self-feeding process via abiogenesis and interstellar & interplanetary litho-panspermia together with non-sterile ice moons’ geysers spewing materials out hundreds of kilometers to space where it won’t fall back and can be caught & carried away by space rocks.
  
  A reason for why as such from far away identifiable techno-signatures can lead to unnoticed, accidental, or (initially) intentional forwards-contamination events (with dire consequences) perpetrated by ignorant, young, foreign, far away alien civilizations could possibly be studied by analysis of the various, diffuse manners in which humanity itself might react to such (very dangerous if it happened and became public, and therefore top secrecy warranting) finding.
  
  In a philosophy server, I made it a poll question if people think humanity’s physical outer space activities were to be boosted, were to increase (and hence boosting forwards-contamination risks alongside that), if we were to find a techno-signature (even if it were extremely far away), and almost all people think those activities would be increased. Though generally speaking, for gauging how an alien civilization might react to finding a techno-signature, one might at first consider all thinkable interpretations they may make of this, as well as how easily conceivable such interpretations individually may be, which may affect how long it may take for them to come up, relative to each other, and it’d also seem relevant to then consider how many of them (e.g. based on pure curiosity, or intention for light-based or physical messaging, or wanting to make friends, or fear of potential threat, or indifference, or intention towards hiding, possibly with or without prepared infrastructure with which to—catastrophically—send life-seed probes out to exoplanets in case a global threat based on something to be perceived of as an attack originating from such techno-signature were to approach) might end up increasing the forwards-contamination-based s-risks they may cause as result. Though if such civilization doesn’t react uniformly to a techno-signature, multiple interpretations may co-exist and lead to multiple separate reactions parallel to each other, and the same can be true even for uniform interpretation and reaction of such civilization, namely for if this interpretation and reaction isn’t long-term stable but might change repeatedly, each after many years, which would be a blink of an eye for astronomical time-scales. A civilization cannot nearly expand out to space or keep control of space at as fast of a rate at which a techno-signature originating from it can expand through space and become noticeable by alien civilizations and have s-risk effects there where nothing can ever be done about it, let alone in manners that themselves wouldn’t further worsen the situation. The best way in which an alien civilization can cooperate with other civilizations in the cosmos appears to be (quite sadly, and frustratingly, for as much as one might want to help) to make it seem like they don’t exist and hence just not communicate and not be visible to not at all risk misleading others by giving them false hopes which in turn can be cause of cascading s-risks across the cosmos, especially if other civilizations were to repeatedly make the same mistake, which could trigger a whole step-wise wave (with delays in between, due to travel time for light) of civilizations becoming visible due to striving towards an own techno-signature. As side-note, something similar to this can hold true for interstellar forwards-contamination if it were to be employed en masse, where—once initiated—an uncontrollable, irreversible chain-reaction of cosmic calamity could be triggered, even if the initial civilization that tried to seed exoplanets would at some (far too late) point realize of it to have been a giant mistake, since far into the future, on at least a small portion of all such exoplanets, once again unknowing civilizations may emerge to repeat the mistake towards all the nearby exoplanets that may exist in space near them in those billions of years into the future.
  
  The vast, ethically extremely relevant psychological effects of one civilization’s for possibly very many other civilizations across astronomical time-spans visible techno-signatures are not to be understated, and ought to be considered by a civilization prior to creating a techno-signature of their own.
  
  ---

  
  Oh, and by the way, next year in April already, space agencies start (possibly still unbeknownst of it) risking to force humanity alongside them into a long-term fate determining point of no return, by possibly forever irreversibly kick-starting evolution of life on various ice moons but also planets like Venus, namely by means of the JUICE mission to an ice moon, and the russian Laplace-P ice moon lander mission at unknown date in 2023, and in later years the same with Europa Clipper, EnEx, Dragonfly, VERITAS, DAVINCI+, Tianwen-4, but for interstellar matters there is also the following highly concerning projects: Yuri Milner’s project Starlight & Breakthrough Starshot, and Prof. Dr. Claudius Gros’ GENESIS project.
  
  And then there is the current beginning of mass-production of solar-/​light-sails (still) planned to explore all celestial bodies of the solar system with, which is a forwards-contamination risk and therefore s-risk nightmare.
  
  Mind you, NASA Science Directorate Associate John Grunsfeld already (bafflingly just as mere side-note, even) confirmed that Mars accidentally got contaminated by unknown microbes carried there, with unknown fate (which was a matter relevant to a COSPAR meeting), so I mention this to highlight that the risk is not at all hypothetical but absolutely real.
  
  But this is a matter I have been (maddeningly) busy continuously, tirelessly informing & warning so far roughly 5.000 worldwide institutions, professors and many others about throughout the last half year, including the UNOOSA & the Space Operations Command (SPOC), and not only because the Outer Space Treaty prohibits harmful forwards-contamination & legally binds states to be liable for damage caused by space objects they are responsible for (independent of if space agencies realize the existence of such risks or not). In my opinion it would be relieving & great if this extraordinary, once-in-a-civilization’s-life-time matter could soon at least reach the public, as it appears to be in need of a mass peer-review.

• Bernd Clemens Huber 26 Oct 2022 5:22 UTC

  0 points

  1

  in reply to: the gears to ascension’s comment on: How to Take Over the Uni­verse (in Three Easy Steps)

  Because that would be impossible for the overwhelming vast majority of all evolutions of life that ever were to happen across the universe as result of humanity’s direct & indirect forwards-contamination mistakes (let alone humanity’s inability to do anything about evolution on earth in the past). I shouldn’t have needed to explain this simple fact. Next time give yourself time to think about the reasons yourself first. The many foolish downvotes on my initial comment really demonstrate the lack of topical education, intelligence and ethical maturity of not insignificantly many on this forum. But I guess I should start expecting that, since it’s only the 3rd millennium and 21st century so far, where irrationally unconditional humanity-preservation-priority centered worldviews as well as denial & coping—the first stages of grief—in the face of the existential question on if this for almost all to ever exist in it animals miserable giant Stockholm syndrome furnace universe is worth trying to be colonized by any macro-ethically matured alien civilization to begin with are still commonplace. Don’t worry though, humanity will grow up eventually.

• Bernd Clemens Huber 18 Oct 2022 23:13 UTC

  −15 points

  −19

  on: How to Take Over the Uni­verse (in Three Easy Steps)

  For humanity to try to spread physical space exploration across the universe were to be among the very most macro-criminal worst unethical courses of humanity’s trajectory that it could at all possibly take, and—especially after having by now sent e-mails to almost 5.000 worldwide institutions and professors within the last half year to emphatically warn them about this impending danger—I’m baffled how ethics-detached scientists still dare to even advocate or advertise and support such astronomically gargantuan, massive crimes worse than all crimes from humanity’s past together, but it is worthy of condemnation and absolutely ought to stop as soon as possible, and here is 1 among many reasons for why:

  It is rather irrelevant if we could ever colonize other stars(′ exoplanets), because humanity—like any civilization in this universe—has the utmost important macro-ethical imperative to safely make sure to never even try to do so.
  

  1. Axiom: The ethical importance of an issue or decision axiomatically is proportional to the difference in generated well-being depending on it. Or in other words (using proxies to the definition), the ethical importance of a decision increases alongside the number of by it affected sentient lifeforms, the time duration during which they are affected by it, and the vastness of the affected space to the extent to which changes of it affect the lifeforms.
  

  2. Extremal case: By the standard that is set in the above statement, according to the current body of humanity’s knowledge, general forms of evolution of life (if on earth or on other habitable celestial bodies) forever constitute the most ethically important issue to exist in the universe: With billions of species—each with innumerable individual lifeforms—together with durations on the scale of billions of years, and spacial extension of at least a whole planet, it dwarfs any other conceivable ethical issue’s level of importance.
  

  3. Valuation Axiom for the extremal case: According to many scientific studies, such as by Richard Dawkins, Brian Tomasik, Alejandro Villamor Iglesias, Oscar Horta, pain and suffering dominates over joy for animal wildlife in general forms of Darwinian evolution of life due to the global, near eternal war-like situation commonly framed as survival of the fittest (rather than the demise of all unfit), and therefore—when accumulated across all logically entangled parameters such as duration and count of involved individuals—instances of such forms of evolution of life has to be kept at a minimum in the universe, as there never was and never will be anything that could be more important, to change the conclusion of this Anti-Panspermia-implying directive.
  

  Since it is tightly related, here is the macro-ethics-based key component that dominantly shapes the form of the compound solution of the Fermi paradox:

  
  It is possible that ethical assessment of general forms of evolution of life in the universe constitutes the central issue which intelligent alien species’ macroscopic decision-making, such as for the topic of natural panspermia, directed panspermia, space colonization, megastructures, or self-replicating spacecraft revolves around. If the result of generated well-being assessments of enough and sufficiently in time extended initial or lasting portions of expected or prospective cases of evolution is among all other ethically relevant factors the dominant ethical concern of intelligent alien species, and if furthermore a large enough negative expected generated well-being is assigned to sufficiently common forms of expected or prospective cases of evolution, then foregoing directed panspermia, space colonization, the construction of megastructures as well as self-replicating spacecraft, but also active attempts to mitigate the consequences of interplanetary and interstellar forms of natural (litho-)panspermia and abiogenesis may (and ethically ought to) follow. While in the case of space colonization it might ultimately stay too uncontrollable to—by technical or educational means—ensure settlers or emerging space colonies themselves consistently keep acting in accordance to the awareness of by colonizer considered major ethical dangers accompanying physical interstellar space exploration, and for the case of interstellar self-replicating spacecraft, due to potential prebiotic substances in interstellar clouds and exoplanets’ atmospheres and soils, it may forever stay impossible to ensure their sterility to avoid contamination of celestial bodies which may kick-start uncontrollable evolution processes, reasons to forego the creation of a megastructure, even if such may be beneficial to an intelligent alien species itself and also to some other intelligent alien species imitators of their behavior, may mainly have psychological origin. Since certain megastructures may be identifiable to be of unnatural, intelligent design requiring origin by foreign intelligent alien species, for as long as the by an intelligent alien species expected number of (especially less experienced or less far developed) from them foreign intelligent alien species capable of identifying their megastructure as such is large enough, the by them rather uncontrollable spectrum of interstellar space endeavor related influences this may have on those foreign intelligent alien species might constitute a too strong ethical deterrence from creating megastructures that are from outer space identifiable as such, until eventually a lasting state of cosmic privacy may be attained by natural or technological means.