Comment by xenadu02
Was it part of beautiful nature when an asteroid strike killed most life on earth?
What does it matter if a bunch of non-sentient animals keep on trucking here on earth? Some disaster will eventually kill most of them just like it has repeatedly over the eons.
Then the sun will die and all life on earth with it permanently. In fact the sun's red giant phase will erase even the traces that life ever existed here. Is there some value in that abstract notion of everything being melted into slag and disappearing?
It is entirely possible we are the last chance life on earth has of becoming inter-planetary. Of surviving in the long term.
As for the heat death of the universe who knows. That's far enough into the future some future generation can deal with that problem. We don't know enough to say if that's what will happen or if there is any way to avoid it (like escaping into another universe).
Not that I think a planet full of non-sentient life is worth very much. It is no different than a huge factory of machines left on automatic. A bunch of biological machines fussing around accomplishing nothing and having no purpose. The concept of beauty only exists while there is an intelligence around to enjoy or contemplate it.
If I had been around at the time of the Chicxulub meteor strike, I don't suppose I would have been any happier about its after-effects than I am about the similarly devastating impact humanity has had - and continues having, knowingly, intentionally - on a world that was once beautiful.
I do not care whether humans become inter-planetary. We certainly will not survive in the long term, and that's okay.
> A bunch of biological machines fussing around accomplishing nothing and having no purpose.
We are no exception. Meaning is a fantasy we create for ourselves - or don't! - as it suits us.
> The concept of beauty only exists while there is an intelligence around to enjoy or contemplate it.
I think you under-estimate the intelligence of non-human life, and likely over-estimate our own.
In any case, there is no joy in the wanton destruction of beautiful things.