You Can't Make Mistakes.

Thankfully, humans have finally discovered a planet out there that seems to be similar to Earth. What is the popular media response? Well, to suggest that we go there after we have totally destroyed this planet, of course. And why not?! We will have at least proved ourselves worthy of one thing: the ability to destroy a planet with complete disregard for the consequences of our actions. Even right now we see the ramifications of everything that we as humans do, and yet we make little to no effort as a collective to deal with it.

Such a response to a discovery has little to do with environmental disregard, or political faux pas. This is just a new kind of manifest destiny. We believed that we had not only the right, but the obligation—as new colonial Americans—to spread our population and growing technological influence from one end of this continent to the other. Now we can do the same things in outer space!

Was our first concern about whether or not there might be life on such a planet? No. Who cares! Even if there is, we’ll have to take a space-ship filled with whiskey-drunk, syphilis-ridden space sailors there and spread the love to the locals. Then, once we have paid them off in fire-water, raped their women—or whatever permutation of gender they have that can be seen as vulnerable, and run them off their land, we can put them in camps and give them few rights other than the right to own and operate casinos—which will eventually be taken over by some sort of immigrant crime syndicate.

Basically, our discovery of this little planet in the Libra constellation is the worst thing that could have ever happened to them. Even though it will currently take 20 years traveling at the speed of light to get there, we will. Besides, in no time we will have figured out how to move through space and time faster than that, just like we did with ships and airplanes. So the first couple of thousand years of space colonization will be a little rough, moldy bread and kegs of whiskey in the hulls of ships and all, but we will get through it and shall eventually prevail.

This sort of thing has been the wet-dream of science-fiction writers and enthusiasts for years and years. When there was world left to conquer, the heroic fiction of humans was all about conquering it. When there was no longer world to conquer, we shifted our attention heavenward, waiting for that moment when scientists would say, “Hey guys, we got one.”

It’s scary; we’re scary. We are a terrifying race of creatures who think first about ourselves, then about others of us who look the same, then others who don’t, and so on. We have complete disregard for the world—and now the universe—around us. And to top it off: we tell ourselves that our creator—who is oft billed as a benevolent, just, omniscient, and omnipotent being—supports us in our quest to dominate all things great and small. This creator must be benevolent, but taking a nap, or omniscient and omnipotent, but with a little mean streak—like a kid on an anthill with a magnifying glass—because it allows us to do some terrible things in its name with regard to conquering new frontiers.

Well, gods or not, we’re going to the moon, and from there Mars, and from there Gilese 581 C to set up poolside condos, strip clubs, casinos, and fair systems of taxation. Buckle up kids, the future is here and we’re in for a long ride.