Comment Re:Send a robot (Score 1) 84
Best estimates put this at 15000 years ago. Again, what evidence is there that this triggered a cultural evolution?
I was referring to the more recent settling by Europeans, thus the comment about "first emptying them of their former occupants."
Then it could hardly be considered "settlement". We might more accurately call it "annexation", "genocide" (in the south), "real estate fraud", "failure to comply with treaties", amongst other things. And none of those things is at all like constructing a habitat for humans in space. For one thing, there were humans there already, and air, and gravity, and soil, and game, and reasonable levels of radiation. The Europeans who travelled to America did so on the understanding that there was lot's of free stuff, a big land where they could build a house and/or make money. They didn't go there expecting to live in a tiny box, surrounded by vacuum and blasted by radiation. They would think of those environs as a prison - as would any sensible person who had to endure it for more than a few months.
If you want to go into space, that's fine, you and your mates are welcome to fund it, just don't interfere with the funds we need to explore (using robots). And don't imagine it is like Star Trek, it is not like Star Trek.
It's not like star trek. Robots are even less like star trek.
?? That doesn't even make sense.