For that matter, space tech of this level of magnitude is extremely likely to have massive positive impacts on Earth-bound humanity too.
We're still not really in a good position to judge the likelihood of a species-wide existential crisis right now, but we do know that the cumulative odds of one occurring only go up over time....
At the very least, it is not a clear-cut case in favor of either position. In the real world, you, perhaps unfortunately, can't afford to try to serialize your problems and attack them one-by-one... you must attack them in parallel.
If Larry thinks a Mars-shot would be a better investment for his particular (large) slice of the pie than other investments, that's his business. It doesn't imply that the rest of the world needs to either agree or follow him as an example.
I think we all agree that we have individual rights. When you make your opinions public you open them up to discussion.
I really find this morality baffling. As I see it extinction level event would be a tragedy on account of the deaths of billions. But the human species, as a whole, is not an individual; it does not think or feel or suffer. Its cessation has no moral value beyond the death of the individuals which make it up.
I'm open to hearing an argument to the contrary; usually discussions of space colonization, it's assumed obvious that perpetuating humanity is important. But I don't see it, and so I tend to view anything that helps actual individuals as a better use of resources.
Right. So technology that provides humanity, or some part of it, the means to get people out of the way of what would otherwise be an extinction level event saves the actual, individual lives of all those people that would otherwise have been in the way.
It is possible that humanity could be wiped out and Earth could re-roll another species that could do it instead... but once you dispose of the fashionable self-loathing and look at it rationally, it's not a good bet. (But that's a longer post.)
That said, there's also a pure research vs. direct action aspect, again going back to the fact that the tech for a true off-planet space presence will inevitably produce extremely useful technology for those of us still on Earth. It may be easier to see by putting it in the past... no amount of cooking bread and giving it to hungry people would ever have produced refrigeration technology, or the wide dissemination of it. Had people 100 years ago followed the advice of only taking direct actions to prevent poverty, we would, paradoxically, have a lot more of it today. Again... we can not serialize our approach to problems, we have to attack them in parallel.
I often daydream about what I'd do if I was billg rich. And I keep coming to the conclusion that there are certain, very specific charitable activities that I'd choose to fund, and they wouldn't necessarily be the same ones that gates chooses. For example, my prime angle would be to focus on poverty by contributing funds to help with education for disadvantaged people, and by focusing on programs that teach and promote entrepreneurship. Now, does that mean that I don't care about people with polo, or malaria, or people in developing countries who need clean water? No, it just means that I'd choose to address the things that resonate with me for whatever reason, while acknowledging that one person can't do it all.
It sounds to me like Page just has his vision of how he would want to help make the world better, and I don't see how it makes sense to criticize him just because his hot buttons aren't the same as yours (or mine, or whoever).
Which he has every right to believe, just as I believe saying something like that is lacking in empathy.
My only point is that Page's position is not implicitly "bad" or undesirable, in that he clearly is concerned about helping the world - he just has his own strategy for how to do it.