Which isn’t to say a tempering perspective isn’t at all helpful, I just think in the absence of all optimism (& hope), there’s no room for constructive change
To illustrate, your viewpoint seems consistent with the statement: “There can be no great progress, no humanity taking root among the stars unless led by monstrous men.”
I hope you don’t consider this a straw argument, but it’s worth considering. To believe that statement is to either believe that a “good” future is necessarily one of stagnation and extinction (whether in 1000 years or 500 million years) OR to excuse the actions of monstrous men. A pessimistic, cynical perspective means no counter-movement, no inclusive cooperative with the goal of space settlement. This isn’t exactly motivating.
(And to be clear, from the perspective of history, I do not consider Elon—definitely not perfect—to be monstrous. Neither is SpaceX the work of one man. Gwynne Shotwell is as much the leader of SpaceX as Elon is—although you wouldn’t know it by reading headlines as she doesn’t care for the spotlight—plus thousands of passionate workers (who are co-owners) who believe in this vision and many of whom would be pushing for it even without Elon’s leadership.)
And it doesn't matter how many Dyson spheres are made, if humans aren't dedicated to improving the collective opportunity to live life without suffering, there's little real 'significance' to extending the project of humanity compared to any other life-form.
You cannot eliminate suffering.
> Life will go on in other parts of the universe, and all life, no matter where they locate themselves, will have some kind of existential threat.
There's no guarantee or evidence that there is sentient life in the universe
!= improving the collective opportunity to live life without suffering
> There's no guarantee or evidence that there is sentient life in the universe
Do you at least consider a possibility that life originated only once?
The second reason to get off-world is the more far-fetched one, but assuming we can establish that other worlds are dead or sterile then we are free to customize it as we please without having to feel bad about it. In the long run we could leave Earth completely, allowing whomever comes next to develop freely without our intervention.
There’s a lot of evidence that points to the fact that on a global scale, we can barely care about stuff geographically adjacent to us, or worse, socially (class) adjacent to us, but here we are claiming we care about generations beyond us.
Big old lie.
I'm not saying there are no existential risks at all, but being on other planets would not make us any more likely to survive to them than to simply being very well isolated on Earth (which would cost 1000x less).
Developing space technology already has all sorts of benefits and it doesn't need this poor argument in its favor.
I see no immediate risks to life on Earth, and considering we're quite hard to get rid of, I suspect the human race will be here for quite some time yet. The ability to do a large-scale settlement on other planetary bodies on the other hand, might go away considerably sooner, and who knows if/when we will be able to do it again if we ever end up in a situation where it might be needed.
Regardless, there are other reasons, as you say. For one, space-based manufacturing would allow us to increase the standard of living on Earth without having to worry about things like CO2 levels and pollution. If we start commercializing space then I expect colonization to follow as a natural result of that and we won't have to worry about the more philosophical side.
Mars would also offer cultural redundancy. Also, sometimes people choose to do things brcause they are hard.
If I were a betting person, I'm not sure I'd go all-in on a CEO-Emperor-King of Mars over existing nation-states on Terra
Having a self-sustaining outpost somewhere other than earth is valuable not only for its own sake, but also due to the developed technology and industry and infrastructure implied by its existence.
If tomorrow you suddenly need a huge fleet of fully reusable ships for some reason, the right time to start working on them was 20 years ago, or as soon as basic science and technology level allow.
There are also political risks (we are all too close to each other).
Of course, this machinery can be medically disrupted by toxins and genetics (air pollution has an impact for example, lead ions, etc.), but there is a ‘healthy’ reason for depression (similarly there is a ‘healthy’ reason for ‘scabs’ and physical wound healing).
Most people in the modern era with ‘healthy’ depression are medicating away the effect (you will be shocked if you look into the rates of antidepressant usage in France for example), and this diversion can inadvertently prolong the depression as would be expected (e.g. dealing with symptoms and not cause).
Lots of interesting research in this area.
tl;dr yes, depression and depressive thoughts are useful for humans in certain cases, which is why we have them
Regardless, unless we manage to come up with a new system that actually works, chances are that commercialization of space is one of the few ways for us to establish a presence off this planet.
Seems like a pretty good perdition of our future, really. UBI recipients with no labor of value to offer won't have power to change their government for long.
It's unfortunate that the authoritarian future of Star Trek probably wouldn't lead to paradise. Or at least, that's how our culture's view of the future has changed.
Both fictions are a product of their time. I still wish we had the optimism of Star Trek now.
There should really be no reason that people can't be trained or educated even if most of the skills are utterly useless in the face of automation.
If the negative aspect of the future portrayed in the Expanse are culturally absorbed, then there is a strong possibility that the people dreaming of and building the future could see that as a road sign to help them avoid that future.
E.g. it makes the point that we would need to work out ways to create better habitats in space and to concentrate on making a workable biosphere where enough food can be cultivated and raised (yes, cows in space) to survive.
Misleading road signs about the future may be worse than no signs at all.
If UBI was implemented as in The Expanse (food, shelter, and meds are free), I would expect the population of the earth to plummet. The UBI would allow for more people to pursue learning and educating others. It has been shown that when people feel safe from threat of violence and starvation, and when they are more educated, the desire to breed decreases.
On the flip side, perhaps knowing that you are off the hook for paying for the expense of many children would increase the desire to reproduce?
We have birth rate comparison between "first world" and "third world" countries plus migration experience studies (basically, even one generation after migration from a poor to a rich country, there is a massive drop in birth rate, and after something like 3 generations the birth rate is equal to the rest of the country).
Additionally, there is a noticeable drop in birth rates when a whole country gets richer.
I suspect that summarizing collectivism as authoritarian is like summarizing libertarianism as selfish: they go well together, but you can also get one without the other.
I don't know Star Trek very well, but as a utopia I guess they imagine a form of collectivism that largely preserves individual freedom? Of course most of the show centers on Starfleet, an authoritarian organisation like any military, which doesn't tell much about the whole society.
The 1890s demonstrated what a Libertarian regime would dissolve into, instantly: Absolute rule by the biggest dog. It has happened myriad times in human history, from all kinds of pre-conditions. We were lucky, 130 years ago, that the armed forces still believed in voting. Not sure they still do...
TOS-TNG: Klingons were Soviet-Russian, Romans were Chinese, the Federation was sexist (but much less so in TNG than in TOS) and pretended gay people didn’t even exist.
DS9: Lesbians and trans people exist, but only as exotic outsiders. Bajor feels inspired by Tibeten Buddhism and the final parts of the Northern Ireland Troubles.
VOY: ???
ENT: Nostalgia gone wrong followed by 9/11
DIS/PIC: Oh no Cold War enemies are a threat again / Oh no A.I.