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Comment by thevardanian | Hacker News Reader

When will Earth die? A million years? A billion years? I mean actually I don't really think that worrying about the Earth dying anytime soon is much of problem, and by the time Earth is in imminent danger I believe we would have more than enough technological progress to survive. If we can't in a million years develop technology to survive we won't be able to do it in the next 50 years.

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"When will Earth die? A million years? A billion years?"

Did the words "tomorrow", "next week", "next year" not suit your argument? It's wilderness from the centre of the Earth all the way out - myriad accidents waiting to happen.

"I don't really think that worrying about the Earth dying anytime soon is much of problem"

You've not based that on anything. It's also ignoring the word "ensure", the longer we sit idly by, the less sure we can be.

"If we can't in a million years develop technology to survive we won't be able to do it in the next 50 years."

Obviously, but what's a million years got to do with anything?

I take it the contingency plan is for, say, another Chicxulub sized impactor hitting the Earth. At which point even undersea or desert habitats will be in trouble, unless they were totally self-sufficient. My impression is the (current) lack of amenities on Mars demands establishing a self-sufficient colony; hard to imagine anything on Earth rising to that level.

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