Articles

Earth Ungrateful

By Mark Antony Rossi

We hear much about space travel. Probes landing on an asteroid to mine precious minerals. The Indians sending missions to explore Venus. The Chinese seeking to land their astronauts on the Moon. There’s a waiting list for a one-way trip to Mars. This two year voyage is tantamount to suicide but there’s still a waiting list and it continues to add names.

How unhappy humans must be with their smart-phone connected lives that they would rather die on a lonely trek to another planet before considering staying on this one. Mars is planet that requires terraforming before it could support life. Mars is less a mystery than a thirty-three-million-mile walk to a cemetery. Death is not sexy on any planetoid.

If Earth is a miserable blue rock suffering from War, Terrorism and Pollution— why do we persist believing a distant world will be a new Garden of Eden. Humanity is the only culprit behind these problems; not intergalactic aliens. Someone should mention this to Hollywood instead of producing excuses for our irresponsibility. If we treat this planet like toilet paper how does this behavior improve on a new celestial sphere?

If we leave this washed-up world will our character magically improve overnight. Can human nature transform into a higher consciousness once we touch down on alien soil? These ethical, and perhaps spiritual, questions need to be raised before any major investment in the stars is contemplated.

The foundational weakness of our science permits leaps in ability but lacks the preparation know-how humanity needs to cope with improving itself as it improves technology. Because “We Can” is a poor substitute for intelligent introspection and ethical evaluation. Oversight is imperative for the human species to survive past this planet.

It may be romantic to see our future in the stars but it is intrinsically tragic since our present status on Earth is questionable if only on the adjudication of human rights. What sort of treatment should aliens expect when after thousands of years of recorded history we still cannot live in peace with our own kind?

About the Author: Mark Antony Rossi is a poet, playwright and author of the bioethics volume “Dark Tech” now available from Amazon. His most recent plays have been produced in Liverpool and New York.

http://ethical-stranger.webnode.com/ 

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3 Comments

  1. Mark, all this might be true but the reason there is a waiting list for Martian travel is much simpler; the pioneering Spirit to discover something new. That’s why I travel and why Naomi, a 102 .year old lady where I work flew a plane a couple of weeks ago. As she said, They offered me the opportunity and I accepted. One is not. andlways fleeing something , but rather open to something new and not predictable. It’s what makes life interesting, things are always different than one thinks it will be, have courage and jump off the cliff, into?

  2. No doubt on that Mars list are seeking adventure but that pursuit with full knowledge of pending death is still a commentary on a particular mindset. Hard to find comfort in their sacrifice but you make a valid point.

  3. every problem and situation has two sides just like the two sides of a coin, the good and the bad and the good angel and the bad … what matters is which one to choose and which to discard… the positive and the negative are like the north and the south pole, like parallel lines that never meet… so long as human beings vow not to pollute the celestial planets with selfishness, corruption, ethical devaluations and loss of spiritual emancipation, its good but conquering God’s territory might also bring chaos