I’m optimistic. If we spent less time engineering society and more time engineering the earth, I think we’d all be a lot happier.
Years of Dwarf Fortress have prepared me for this moment.
Even if that happens, I wonder if the hole would be so deep, that the magma cools and solidifies in the borehole before it reaches the surface. Similar to how pristine sub-glacial Antarctic lakes are sampled by drilling straight into them (!) and letting the water flow up into the hole, where it freezes.
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-just-drilled-in...
Without "engineering society" we'd still live in tribes killing each other at first sight. We have reduced that substantially. Some societies are a bit behind (like allowing lethal military-grade weapons at home), some are further advanced. Overall, it seems a good idea to use our intellect to advance societies and we've come a long way from the dark ages.
Our earth engineering has come so far that with the exception of a few national parks and reserves, we've used every little corner to cut off and kill everything that existed on it and turned it into less-and-less usable farmland. A few areas are cities or golf courses or transportation highways, the rest are terrible monocultures or their next stage: deserts. We've extinguished more species than we know and of those that we have not, we have brought lots to close to it. 95% of all fish are dead. Sea levels are rising rapidly. Large areas have water shortages. We need less "earth engineering", not more of it.
It is funny that we see things exactly opposite!
1. https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2021/0....
This is where AI applications could actually be of benefit. Also, instead of sending Harry Stamper and a bunch of misfit roughnecks to some asteroid of doom, we could just train AI on Harry's knowledge of deep well drilling. It'll be fine.