We're considering these implications right now, so yeah it's preposterous, but you'd be surprised (or maybe not) with the number of people that would dismiss these considerations as pointlessly delaying progress.
replyThese planets are also so damn far away that we’d never hear from any ship we could possibly send out there again. Even if we could send information at the speed of light. It would be pointless.
replyGiven that after arriving everyone could just die from some weird protein floating around in the air and you might want to look before you spend the entirety of our economic efforts reaching it… erm, look before you leap.
Until we solve death, or at least postpone it by a few centuries, we simply don't have any business on planets beyond our solar system.
replyDo you realize just how much of human history ultimately boils down to "oh, shit. I should have considered the implications before I did that?"
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