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http://www.accelerating.org/articles/answeringfermiparadox.html
Abstract
I propose that humanity's descendants will not be colonizing outer space. As a careful look at cosmic history demonstrates, complex systems rapidly transition to inner space, and apparently soon thereafter to universal transcension. For sixty years answers have been attempted for the Fermi paradox, the intriguing question of why we haven't had contact from older advanced civilizations in our galaxy, given that life-supporting stars and high-metallicity planets apparently identical to our Sun and Earth emerged much earlier a bit closer to the galactic center than our Sun and Earth (1 to 3 billion years earlier, according to Lineweaver 2004), yet a fully replicative process of cosmic expansion by any one of these civilizations, traveling at just 30 kilometers per second (just twice as fast as our existing New Horizons spacecraft) would take just two million years to cover the entire galaxy with automated robot probes (Beech 2008).
The vast majority of attempts to explain the paradox neglect what may be the most parsimonious explanation—a process of constrained universal transcension as civilizations develop. I propose that any species or von Neumann probe complex enough to improve its intelligence while traveling through interstellar space would transcend shortly after beginning its journey, and less complex probes would not be sent for information-theoretic reasons. As our universe creates intelligence at any point within it, the portions of the universe that are distant to that intelligence are likely to rapidly becomes an "informational desert" (an environment from which little marginal information or complexity can be created) to that intelligence. In an analogy to living systems, our universe appears to be a finite developmental soma (body) that is deeply simulated in evolutionary terms by each local emergent intelligence (germline), and eventually outgrown, in a cosmic evolutionary developmental process we may term a "developmental singularity."
Intelligent life on our planet may be engaged in the creation of such a developmental singularity, a process that should be rapidly accelerated by the technological singularity likely to occur in this century. This trend is apparently driven and elucidated by the mechanism of space, time, energy, and matter (STEM) efficiency and density increase, or "compression," in all known universal computation. Emergent complex systems consistently discover how to use less of these finite universal resources (space-time and energy-matter) to encode information and perform computations/simulations/thoughts. This leads them to become dramatically more materially, energetically, spatially, and temporally dense (accelerated) over time, rapidly approximating black hole-equivalent energy densities. Systems of emergent local complexity thus lead rapidly to "intelligent" cosmological developmental singularities, highly compressed structures, censored from universal observation, which are very likely distantly related to the quasars and black holes that are developmental endpoints of simpler (universal, galactic and stellar evolutionary development) cyclic physical-computational substrates in the multiverse.
Fortunately, researchers in astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) may provide empirical confirmation of this transcension hypothesis within the next few decades by actively seeking and identifying "radio fossils," which we define as unintentional, weak, by-product transmissions of kHz, MHz, and GHz radio signals (radio, TV, radar, etc.), that are statistically likely to emanate from the surface of all planets with early technological civilizations. We further argue that a predictable fraction of such signals must inexplicably cease transmitting as each civilization enters its own local developmental singularity. We argue that intentional, high-powered transmissions (aka 'beacons')
the space search, the colonization of other planets, it's seems like the old solution we had in the past, when we had no more resources around us, we moved, we Europeans, "discovered" other lands, full of resources, even gold and, people? No, we are the chosen! The others had been made slaves or/and killed. Now it's the time when we have to recognize that our world will not offer so much more, so much time, so some say we have to move, to another planet, to take what we need. Like a disease.
I think we should learn to live with less material things. Hour evolution should be spiritual and there's a lot to do on that sense.
Too bad we can't ask the Russians and Chinese to get together with us on space. But they have their agendas; we have ours.
I voted yes for the colonizing. Inhabiting other terrestrial bodies within our solar system is common sense for the mitigation of existential risk to this civilization. However, instead of government-only vs. commercial-only options, we should consider a hybrid system; subsidies on commercial programs with specific goals, such as colonization, propulsion, and automation could help start new industries which benefit long-term space programs and simultaneously create new jobs and markets today. The problem with a commercial-only option is that there isn't enough incentive to start programs, even when we know they are beneficial to the long-term health of our civilization -- case in point: biofuels and renewables. Government programs alone can be extremely costly and inefficient. This is why a mixture of both, with medium and long-term foresight accounted for, would be of tremendous benefit to a fifty and one-hundred year strategy to mitigating existential risk.
Personally, I think we should stick to robots for the time being. Manned missions should be shelved until a better, faster propulsion system is developed.
Sure, let's turn it over to big corporations; the predatory capitalist empire is hungering for fresh blood...
Space exploration yes. Manned space exploration no.
Biology doesn't belong in space. We can't really go there until we transcend biology. Until then, keep sending as many satellites and probes to space as we can. There's a lot to learn out there that can help us back here on earth, so it's not an either/or choice. There are real, practical benefits to space programs.
However, I can promise you that biological humans will never colonize space, and it's a waste of time and money trying to figure out how.