You’ve identified something real here: the loss of meaning, the drift, the way comfort and bureaucracy can hollow out purpose. And the cosmic scale you invoke does shatter comfortable anthropocentrism.
But I wonder if the solution you’re proposing carries the same pattern as the problem you’re diagnosing. Competitive hierarchies, extraction, dominance, the frontier as escape valve—these are precisely the dynamics that created the civilisational malaise you’re describing. Extending them into space isn’t transformation; it’s elaboration on a grander stage.
The question isn’t whether humanity should engage with the cosmos. It’s whether we can do so as something other than what we currently are: adolescents seeking new territory because we’ve fouled the old one, rather than adults who’ve learned to participate in living systems without consuming them.
Space won’t save us from ourselves. We’ll bring ourselves along.
At 84, having spent decades in systems thinking and complexity science, I’ve come to suspect that maturation—not expansion—is what’s actually required. The frontier we need to explore is internal, not interstellar.
Perhaps we need both. One of the criticisms of Jung is selection bias: he tended to gravitate towards creative, brilliant, high openness individuals who were plagued with mortality dreadfully or neurosis-then he generalized his findings for all people. It’s possible for a driven, meritocratic civilization to still create space for spiritual growth. The question for me is one of civilizational optimism, fundamentally. Most people will never be fully integrated or very enlightened, just as most will never be adventurers. Perhaps a healthy civilization creates opportunities for both, and uses these urges to drive the species forward?
The both/and framing is appealing, and in principle I'd welcome it. But the metacrisis suggests we may not have that luxury. Planetary resources are already strained; systemic turbulence is accelerating. If we burn through our material inheritance on expansion before we've learned to live within limits, we may not get the chance to do either well.
I share your civilisational optimism—but mine is conditional. It depends on whether we can pivot from elaboration to maturation quickly enough. The question isn't what a healthy civilisation could create. It's whether we can become one before the window closes.
Your comment about learning to live within limits sparks an interesting thought: western man used to view the natural world as limitless, and the internal world (human nature) as limited. Now, many/most view the external world as limited and the internal as limitless. Perhaps a blending/reconciliation of these is necessary, wherever we roam. We are limited both by our nature and by nature itself; at least as long as we are contained/constrained on this planet.
Wow! Great writing, James! Have you seen the film Ad Astra? I thought it was alright, it looked stunning and did a slightly better job of selling Space Travel than The Martian or Interstellar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6AaSMfXHbA
I agree. Stunning movie, meditative, poetic… a bit slow. I’m always just grateful when Hollywood produces a thoughtful film these days. I recently rewatched it.
On that subject I think you would mostly agree with Paul Kingsnorth's "Against the Machine".
All fair points indeed, but does that mean we should consign ourselves to the earth forever? A project beyond our capabilities fires our imagination in ways mere management cannot.
As for the contamination argument; also true, but surely at some point we have to say "we've studied it all, time to start building"
For real though, this drive for exploration is the higher-order (idea-based rather than merely biological) Darwinian evolution drive in action, it should absolutely be celebrated.
I never understood this "don't contaminate the solar system" from atheists of all people as it seems a very "god's creation" world-view.
The distinction between "idea-based" and "merely biological" is precisely what I'd question. That framing assumes symbolic elaboration is higher than biological intelligence—when it might be younger, faster, and more prone to error.
Biological evolution isn't "driven" anywhere. It's differential survival within constraints. The drive to expand without limit is a feature of symbolic intelligence imagining itself exempt from those constraints.
As for contamination: the concern isn't theological. It's epistemic humility. We don't yet understand the systems we'd be altering. Acting as if we do—because our ideas feel compelling—is the pattern that's already stressed Earth's systems. Exporting it seems less like evolution than repetition.
You’ve identified something real here: the loss of meaning, the drift, the way comfort and bureaucracy can hollow out purpose. And the cosmic scale you invoke does shatter comfortable anthropocentrism.
But I wonder if the solution you’re proposing carries the same pattern as the problem you’re diagnosing. Competitive hierarchies, extraction, dominance, the frontier as escape valve—these are precisely the dynamics that created the civilisational malaise you’re describing. Extending them into space isn’t transformation; it’s elaboration on a grander stage.
The question isn’t whether humanity should engage with the cosmos. It’s whether we can do so as something other than what we currently are: adolescents seeking new territory because we’ve fouled the old one, rather than adults who’ve learned to participate in living systems without consuming them.
Space won’t save us from ourselves. We’ll bring ourselves along.
At 84, having spent decades in systems thinking and complexity science, I’ve come to suspect that maturation—not expansion—is what’s actually required. The frontier we need to explore is internal, not interstellar.
Perhaps we need both. One of the criticisms of Jung is selection bias: he tended to gravitate towards creative, brilliant, high openness individuals who were plagued with mortality dreadfully or neurosis-then he generalized his findings for all people. It’s possible for a driven, meritocratic civilization to still create space for spiritual growth. The question for me is one of civilizational optimism, fundamentally. Most people will never be fully integrated or very enlightened, just as most will never be adventurers. Perhaps a healthy civilization creates opportunities for both, and uses these urges to drive the species forward?
The both/and framing is appealing, and in principle I'd welcome it. But the metacrisis suggests we may not have that luxury. Planetary resources are already strained; systemic turbulence is accelerating. If we burn through our material inheritance on expansion before we've learned to live within limits, we may not get the chance to do either well.
I share your civilisational optimism—but mine is conditional. It depends on whether we can pivot from elaboration to maturation quickly enough. The question isn't what a healthy civilisation could create. It's whether we can become one before the window closes.
Your comment about learning to live within limits sparks an interesting thought: western man used to view the natural world as limitless, and the internal world (human nature) as limited. Now, many/most view the external world as limited and the internal as limitless. Perhaps a blending/reconciliation of these is necessary, wherever we roam. We are limited both by our nature and by nature itself; at least as long as we are contained/constrained on this planet.
You’ve touched the heart of it—the reconciliation you describe is what maturation actually looks like.
Wow! Great writing, James! Have you seen the film Ad Astra? I thought it was alright, it looked stunning and did a slightly better job of selling Space Travel than The Martian or Interstellar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6AaSMfXHbA
I agree. Stunning movie, meditative, poetic… a bit slow. I’m always just grateful when Hollywood produces a thoughtful film these days. I recently rewatched it.
On that subject I think you would mostly agree with Paul Kingsnorth's "Against the Machine".
All fair points indeed, but does that mean we should consign ourselves to the earth forever? A project beyond our capabilities fires our imagination in ways mere management cannot.
As for the contamination argument; also true, but surely at some point we have to say "we've studied it all, time to start building"
Make panspermia great again.
For real though, this drive for exploration is the higher-order (idea-based rather than merely biological) Darwinian evolution drive in action, it should absolutely be celebrated.
I never understood this "don't contaminate the solar system" from atheists of all people as it seems a very "god's creation" world-view.
The distinction between "idea-based" and "merely biological" is precisely what I'd question. That framing assumes symbolic elaboration is higher than biological intelligence—when it might be younger, faster, and more prone to error.
Biological evolution isn't "driven" anywhere. It's differential survival within constraints. The drive to expand without limit is a feature of symbolic intelligence imagining itself exempt from those constraints.
As for contamination: the concern isn't theological. It's epistemic humility. We don't yet understand the systems we'd be altering. Acting as if we do—because our ideas feel compelling—is the pattern that's already stressed Earth's systems. Exporting it seems less like evolution than repetition.