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From: John Savard <quadibloc@servername.invalid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Relevant - Plate Tectonics Might Only Occur on 0.003% of Planets. That Makes Earth Very Special Indeed.
Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2024 07:22:54 -0600
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I remember back in the day it being claimed that Earth's very unique
giant Moon may have been essential for the development of life on
Earth along the lines it took.

So this claim about plate tectonics reminds me of that.

But I don't see this as bad news, if it were true. It would just mean
that we don't life in the kind of claustrophobically overcrowded
Univese that we see on the TV show Star Trek, and I would be glad of
that.

By building O'Neill-type space habitats, or through terraforming, we
could still establish a human presence on star systems which have
rocky planets, even though those planets are all lifeless and don't
have breathable atmospheres. It's to the better that, if we gain the
ability to travel among the stars, that we won't find that every place
to which we might expand is already taken... and to the better that we
aren't going to be conquered, enslaved, or destroyed by vastly
superior aliens as soon as we start to get ourselves noticed.

Which TV and FM radio might already have done.

John Savard