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in a culture saturated with inbred notions of “progress” and an obsession with worlds seemingly just beyond our grasp, there is an expectation that sooner rather than later, we will be building an interstellar culture. In a kind of cosmic version of Manifest Destiny we assume that, unless something terrible happens, our science will be taking us to the stars sometime in the next few hundred years. Simply say “warp drive” to just about anyone and see if they know what you mean.

How many people would be surprised to know that warp drive isn’t even a coherent concept, let alone a near-future technology?

No salvation from population pressure on the shores of alien worlds. No release from the threats of biosphere degradation in the promise of new biospheres. No escape from our own destructive tendencies by spreading out among the stars like seedpods in the wind. For as many epochs in the future as there are epochs of human history in the past, we may simply have to make do, get by with what we have and, in the end, learn to get along.