My experience of engineering teaches me that what can happen, will happen eventually. Freedom tends to be utilized, and resources attract exploitation. One of life’s most paradigmatic characteristics is its tenacity. It colonizes incredibly hostile environments, not out of bravery or ambition, but because it’s programmed to do so. The thermophiles in sea vents are often cited, but I prefer the example of barnacles. After a barnacle attaches itself, it must stay where it is for better or worse, and if a barnacle could experience remorse, in many cases it would. As Whitman observed, animals suffer their fates uncomplainingly, but this only highlights the impersonal cruelty of life. Even if the universal constants were slightly different, so long as they permitted resources to develop, something like life would arise to exploit those resources. If microbes live on Mars, they struggle hopelessly because they have no choice. If they exist, they exist because they can. What separates us from them is the extraordinary privilege of meaningful choices, including the choice to stop existing.
