# If the earth was doomed what would be the morality of seeding Mars with life ?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-earth-was-doomed-what-would-be-the-morality-of-seeding-mars-with-life/542304>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [June 7, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-earth-was-doomed-what-would-be-the-morality-of-seeding-mars-with-life/542304 "2010-06-07T17:13:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\
**Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-earth-was-doomed-what-would-be-the-morality-of-seeding-mars-with-life/542304/21 "2010-06-08T23:43:20Z")

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> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> See, [“The Big Space Fuck,”](http://pierretristam.com/Bobst/07/wf041307.htm) by Kurt Vonnegut.

I am the better for having read that.

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**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-earth-was-doomed-what-would-be-the-morality-of-seeding-mars-with-life/542304/22 "2010-06-09T00:36:45Z")

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> [@marshmallow](#):
>
> There’s a small chance the microbial life could evolve into more complicated lifeforms, possibly ones that are conscious. Why risk bringing more suffering and pain into the world if you can help it? Then again, I don’t see why you’d want to preserve microbes either, unless you want to really confuse some alien archaeologists.

We can also bring life to it. And I consider the existence of life even with suffering to be morally superior to the nonexistence of life.

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**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\
**Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-earth-was-doomed-what-would-be-the-morality-of-seeding-mars-with-life/542304/23 "2010-06-09T00:41:46Z")

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> [@AClockworkMelon](#):
>
> Even if there was, say, bacterial life on Mars, I fail to see how it would be immoral to contaminate it with Earth life.

This. Even if there _was_ life on Mars - fuck 'em. If they can’t compete, they die.

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