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They read the resolution not the plan- must specify beyond legalize

Vote Neg

a. Makes the plan void for vagueness- undermines policy analysis Kleiman and Saiger 90 lecturer public policy Harvard, consultant drug policy Rand, 1990, A SYMPOSIUM ON DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION: DRUG LEGALIZATION: THE IMPORTANCE OF ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTION, 18 Hofstra L. Rev. 527

Defining Legalization Legalization, like prohibition, does not name a unique strategy. Perhaps the most prominent inadequacy of current legalization

arguments is their failure to specify what is meant by "legalization . " Current drug policy provides an illustration of this diversity. Heroin and marijuana are completely prohibited, 74 and cocaine can only be used in rigidly specified medical contexts, not including any

where the drug's psychoactive properties are exercised. 75 On the other hand, a wide range of pain-killers, sleep-inducers, stimulants, tranquilizers and sedatives can be obtained with a doctor's prescription. 76 Alcohol is available for recreational use, but is subject to an array of controls including excise taxation,

77 limits on drinking ages, 78 limits on TV and radio advertising, 79 and retail licensing. 80 Nicotine is subject to age minimums, warning label requirements, 81 taxation, 82 and bans on smoking in some public places. 83 [*541] Drug legalization can therefore be thought of as moving drugs along a spectrum of regulated statuses in the direction of increased

availability. However, while legalization advocates do not deny that some sort of controls will be required, their proposals rarely address the question of how far

on the spectrum a given drug should be moved , or how to accomplish such a movement . Instead, such details are dismissed as easily

determined, or postponed as a problem requiring future thought . 84 But the consequences of legalization depend almost entirely on

the details of the remaining regulatory regime . The price and conditions of the availability of a newly legal drug will be more powerful in shaping its consumption than

the fact that the drug is "legal." Rules about advertising, place and time of sale, and availability to minors help determine whether important aspects of the drug problem get better or worse. The amount of regulatory apparatus required and the way in which it is organized and enforced will determine how much budget reduction can be realized from dismantling current enforcement efforts. 85 Moreover, currently illicit drugs, because they are so varied pharmacologically, would not all pose the same range of the problems if they were to be made legally available for non-medical use. They would therefore require different control regimes. These regimes might need to be as diverse as the drugs themselves.

What “the United States” means is a prerequisite to policy debates. Family Guardian Fellowship 9 AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE MEANING OF THE TERM "UNITED STATES", http://famguardian.org/subjects/Taxes/ChallJurisdiction/Definitions/freemaninvestigation.htm

I doubt if many Americans have ever given a second thought to the meaning of the term United States, or would believe that it could be a perplexing question . It would have my vote, however, as being by far the most important and controversial word (or term) of art, vocabula artis also referred to as a statute term, leading word (or term), or what the French call parol de ley, technical word of law in all American legal writings as well as the most dangerous. For it is ambivalent, equivocal, and ambiguous. Indeed, as you will see, its use in the law exemplifies patent ambiguity, which is defined as: An ambiguity apparent on face of instrument [sic] and arising by reason of any inconsistency or inherent uncertainty of language used so that effect is either to convey no definite meaning or confused meaning. (Black's Law Dictionary, 6th edition. Emphasis added.) Reading Hamlet in the park this afternoon, I chanced on to an intriguing way to put it. In the words of King Claudius: The harlot's cheek, beautified with plast ring art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it Than is my deed to my most painted word. O heavy burden! (III, I, 51-54. Emphasis added.) The editor,

Harold Jenkins, in his notes on painted says: " fair but false in appearance, like the beauty of the painted cheek." What serendipity to find this, just as I am on my final proofing of this paper. It is so appropriate, to describe how 'United States' usually is used by the government . And it has indeed imposed on us all a heavy burden ! With dogged determination and perseverance, however, one can succeed in seeing through this meticulous and painstakingly contrived duplicity. For, fortunately, Congress must define all terms that it uses in a particular and special way. For example, in the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), chapter 79 Definitions, Section 7701 Definitions, it states: "(a) When used in this title, where not otherwise distinctly expressed or manifestly incompatible with the intent thereof " It goes on, then, to define many terms of art. These definitions apply throughout the code, "where not otherwise distinctly expressed" which will sometimes be done for a single chapter, section, subsection, or even sentence which, you will later see, can be very instructive. I fear that such analysis can be tedious, and for this I apologize. I will try to be as pithy and compendious as possible, but I am not writing merely to express opinions; I am writing to prove the points I discuss. And I will worry a question like a bull dog, until I am satisfied that I have presented enough hard data to conclusively establish my particular contention, especially in the eyes of those of a different persuasion. For there are intelligent and respected researchers, for whom I have the greatest regard, who do not agree, for example, with my interpretation of the meaning of 'United States' in

Title 26, as well as in all the other titles. The history of the usage of United States, from the time of the American colonies to the present, is remarkably complex. This is thoroughly investigated in an easy-reading yet scholarly book that I highly recommend, by Sebastian de Gracia, A Country With No Name, Pantheon, 1997. Herein, however, I will

have occasion to avail myself of virtually nothing from this wonderful tome. When I think of this, it astonishes even me. But my focus is primarily on the relevance of this term as it relates to the law, especially tax law, to which he simply doesn t allude at least in the way I do. Before getting started, let me give you just a hint as to why it is so extremely important to have an absolutely correct interpretation of the term United States , but also, in the two quotes below, nonresident

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alien, and gross income. This preview is an important section from the IRC, which is Title 26, also written in cites as 26 United States Code or 26 USC, Section (the symbol or, often, as in this paper, these are omitted) 872 Gross income: (a) General rule. In the case of a nonresident alien individual gross income includes only (1) gross income which is derived from sources within the United States and which is not effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business within the United States, and (2) gross income which is effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business within the United States Add to this 26 USC §7701(b)(1)(B): An individual is a nonresident alien if such individual is neither a citizen of the United States nor a resident of the United States and I think you will agree that the cardinal conundrum here indeed the very crux is the determination as to what is meant by the term "United States" and, above, nonresident

alien. For, under certain circumstances we see that the nonresident alien is not subject to any federal income tax if his relationship to the United States is of a certain nature. The United States is an abstraction given substantiality when delegated duties began to be performed, and when 1:8:17 of the Constitution was implemented, which provided for land for the seat of government, as well as forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings.

b. Neg ground- makes the 2AC a moving target.

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2The WTO and regulation are means of violent ordering of the worldNayar 99 Jayan, Law@UWarwick, Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems, "orders of inhumanity," 9 Transnat'l L. & Contemp. Probs. 599 lexis

In my identification of what may be regarded as the technologies of ordering, I have consciously omitted sustained discussion of one--the regulation of regulation. Regulation , as the coercive agent of ordering, means to be "included," kicking and screaming, into the global market-place , to engage in "free-trade" and be subject to the decisions of the WTO , to be persuaded of the necessary good of the M ultilateral A greement of I nvestment, to be "assisted" by the prescriptions of the "experts" of the World Bank and the IMF , to be good "subject-citizens" and be willing (or unwilling--it does not really matter) objects of "security"-related surveillance, to be modernized , trained, moved, developed . Regulation, then, is for the "critic" an obvious focus of analysis. My omission of any further discussion of the violence of the regulation of regulation, therefore, is not because I consider it unimportant, but rather, because this is the aspect of world (mis)ordering which has already been the subject of much sophisticated discussion. 39 For the purposes [*621] of the present discussion, I take it as a

given that we stand informed by the effective repudiations of much of contemporary regulatory endeavors aim ed at the coercive "integration" of human sociality into a universalizing and violent "order" of destructive globalization . Having said this, I wish instead to invite reflection on what is perhaps less often the focus of critiques of "ordering."

Global ordering is a form of physical and ontological violenceNayar 99 Jayan, Law@UWarwick, Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems, "orders of inhumanity," 9 Transnat'l L. & Contemp. Probs. 599 lexis

The discussion above was intended to provide a perspective of world-order as an historical process of ordering which, contrary to the benign symbolism of universalism evoked by notions such as "one world" and "global village," is constructed out of the violent destruction of diverse socialities. World-order , when re-viewed, therefore, may be understood as follows: As a concept that seeks to articulate the civilizational project of humanity , it is at best nonsense, and at worst a fraudulent ideology of legitimization for the perpetuation of colonizing violence --"world-order" as symbolic violence. . As a material reality of violent social relations, it is a conscious and systematized design for the control of resources through the disciplining of minds and bodies--"world-order" as embodied violence .

Our alternative is to use this classroom space as a site of counter-education to challenge dominant forms of thought Bowers 11 (C.A. Bowers, University of Oregon. Ecologically and Culturally Informed Educational Reforms in Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies. Critical Education. Volume 2 Number 14 December 20, 2011 ISSN 1920-4125)

Classroom teachers and university professors do not have the political and economic power to challenge directly the global agenda of the military/corporate/religious alliances that are aggressively promoting a consumer-dependent lifestyle and winning converts in countries where political expediency dictates emulating the Western model of development. But teachers and professors can discuss the political, economic, and technological developments with students in the hope that it will raise awareness and thus the need for them to become more active in the political process —one that seems now to be heavily tilted to the advantage of corporations in exercising even more control over the federal and state governments. Given the slippery political slope we are now on, and the increasing perils that await classroom teachers who deviate from the test-driven curriculum and the market liberal and libertarian ideologies promoted by members of local school boards, it is still possible to introduce reforms that focus on educating students about the local alternatives

to a consumer-dependent lifestyle—which is, to reiterate a key point, the lifestyle that requires exploiting the earth’s natural systems and the economic colonization of other cultures. It is also the lifestyle that is dependent upon an industrial culture that is being radically transformed by information technologies. The Internet now enables corporations to ship jobs overseas to low-wage regions of the world, while computer-driven automation enables corporations to replace workers with machines that can run twenty-four hours a day, and do not require health insurance and other human costs. In effect, the consumer- dependent lifestyle that was based upon the assumption of lifetime employment is now only a possibility for the people who are highly educated, and for people who will perform the low-paying, low-status work that cannot be automated. The drive to further automate all levels of work, from the conceptual to the manual, means that everybody’s economic future is now insecure and dependent upon corporate policies for maximizing their profits. Professors have a great many more opportunities to raise questions, to address the cultural roots of the ecological and cultural crises, and to introduce students to alternative lifestyles that are less dependent upon consumerism —if they chose to do so. But this may also

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change, as the less expensive online courses begin to have the same impact on universities that online news has had on the country’s traditional newspapers.

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3Text: The United States should amend the Interstate Horseracing Act to prohibit online gambling on horseracing and legalize all online gambling except gambling on dog fighting, cockfighting, horseracing, dog racing, and bear baiting.

Online gambling should exclude activities that are cruel to non-human animals- that’s unethicalKIRBY GARLITOS, April 2, 2012PHILIPPINE AUTHORITIES NAB EIGHT KOREANS FOR RUNNING DOG-FIGHTING OPERATION, http://calvinayre.com/2012/04/02/business/philippine-authorities-nab-eight-koreans-for-running-dog-fighting-operation/

As much as we enjoy the thrills of gambling, there are still some lines that we wouldn’t dare cross. Dog fighting is one of them . We bring this up because recently, eight South Koreans were arrested in the Philippines for running an illegal online dog-fighting operation in Calauan, Laguna. In addition to the arrest, authorities also rescued 300 pit bulls that were being held captive in a dog farm in San Pablo City, Laguna.The eight Koreans that were arrested have been identified to be Lee Gwi Woo, 21; Kim Young Hwan, 29; Jeong Yeon Hwal, 31; Lee Kyung Won, 31; Kim Do Kyung, 41; Hong Jeong Oh, 43; Noh Min Chul, 44; and Hyun Ho Han, 45. What makes these incredulous story even more sickening is that according to Chief Inspector Renante Galang of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, this isn’t the first time these Koreans have been caught for running this kind of oppressive operation. In fact, five of those arrested – Noh Min Chul, Lee Gwi Woo, Lee Kyung Won, Kim Young Hwan and Jeong Yeon Hwal – have already been caught once organizing and hosting a similar dog fighting ring a few

months ago but they were released on bail. The problem is that in the Philippines, cruelty to animals is a bailable offense, which means that offenders can walk out of their arrests if they have deep pockets. The stiffest penalty these people can face, at least according to the Philippine Animal Welfare Act, is two years imprisonment. And even then, they could just as well be slapped on the wrist with just a P5,000 fine. You think Michael Vick could have

gotten away from his dog-fighting crimes for just a little over $100? The whole set-up of the operation also brings to light the utter shadiness of it all. Similar to how most underground dog-fighting operations go , a pair of pit bulls are made to fight one another to incapacitation from anywhere between three to five minutes. The fights are then captured through the use of high-end cameras and streamed live on the Internet, where bettors could place their wagers either through their credit cards or even Paypal. According to Galang, bets made on these fights could hit seven figures in Korean won, making it a lucrative operation for those involved. Fortunately, Galang and his team received a tip that the group was up to their old tricks – albeit in another location – and they managed to move in and perform the raid just before a fight was set to commence. “We received information that while they were out on bail they moved and set up another gaming facility in Laguna,” the inspector said in a telephone interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer. The arrested individuals are now in custody at the at the CIDG national headquarters in Camp Caringal in Quezon City where they will eventually be charged with illegal gambling and violation of the Animal Welfare Act. But when you compare them to the dogs, these idiots might get even get the longer end of the stick because most of the pit bulls rescued from the farm were in far worse condition than anybody anticipated. Anna Cabrera, the executive director of the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS),

said that the pit bulls were in such terrible shape that some of them had no chance of being saved and thus, we’re “put to sleep”. Like we said at

the top, there are a lot of forms of gambling that we endorse. But anything that deals with animal torture is not one of them. There are many other avenues of enjoying gambling without having to resort to putting two dogs against each other and watching the blood- thirsty spectacle unfold before your eyes. In addition to this whole thing being morally egregious, the whole spectacle of online dog fighting will permeate through and cast a negative light on online gambling as a whole. For one, there’s a pretty good chance that the people behind this dog-fighting ring have been operating this whole thing without a license , which is another indelible stain that anti- online forces can use in their fight against the industry. On top of that, using animal cruelty in an online gambling set-up is another black eye that taints the entire industry as a whole. But the bottom line is that there’s no place anywhere in this world for dog-fighting. Gambling should be a fun and enjoyable way to spend your money. But doing so at the expense of two dogs viciously – and forcibly – trying to mutilate each other ? That’s not only stupid; it’s downright cruel.

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Case

We’ll concede the extinction impacts –

A) Aliens

The best estimates put the number of Alien civilizations at 10,000 Drake, Astronomy and Astrophysics Professor University of California at Santa Cruz , 02 <July, Astrobiology Magazine, http://www.astrobio.net/news/article236.html>

The Earth's fossil record is quite clear in showing that the complexity of the central nervous system - particularly the capabilities of the brain - has steadily increased in the course of evolution. Even the mass extinctions did not set back this steady increase in brain size. It can be argued that extinction events expedite the development of cognitive abilities, since those creatures with superior brains are better able to save themselves from the sudden change in their environment. Thus smarter creatures are selected, and the growth of intelligence accelerates. We see this

effect in all varieties of animals -- it is not a fluke that has occurred in some small sub-set of animal life. This picture suggests strongly that, given enough time, a biota can evolve not just one intelligent species, but many. So complex life should occur abundantly. There is a claim that "among the millions of species which have developed

on Earth, only one became intelligent, so intelligence must be a very, very rare event." This is a textbook example of a wrong logical conclusion. All planets in time may produce one or more intelligent species, but they will not appear simultaneously. One will be first. It will look around and find it is the only intelligent species. Should it be surprised? No! Of course the first one will be alone. Its uniqueness - in principal temporary - says nothing about the ability of the

biota to produce one or more intelligent species. If we assume that Earths are common, and that usually there is enough time to evolve an intelligent species before nature tramples on the biota,

then the optimistic view is that new systems of intelligent, technology-using creatures appear about once per year. Based on an extrapolation of our own experience, let's make a guess that a civilization's technology is detectable after 10,000 years. In that case, there are at least 10,000 detectable civilizations out there . This is a heady result, and very encouraging to SETI people. On the other hand, taking into

account the number and distribution of stars in space, it implies that the nearest detectable civilizations are about 1,000 light years away, and only one in ten million stars may have a detectable civilization. These last numbers create a daunting challenge to those who construct instruments and projects to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. No actual observing program carried out so far has come anywhere close to meeting the requirement of detecting reasonable signals from a distance of 1,000 light years, or of studying 10 million stars with high sensitivity. Donald Brownlee: But how often are animal-habitable planets located in the habitable zones of solar mass stars? Of the all the stars that have now been shown to have planets, all either have Jupiter-mass planets interior to 5.5 AU or they have Jupiters on elliptical orbits. It is unlikely that any of these stars could retain

habitable zone planets on long-term stable orbits. On the other hand, many of the stars that do not have currently detectable giant planets could have habitable zone planets. But even when rocky planets are located in the right place, will they have the "right stuff" for the evolution and long term survival of animal-like life?

There are many "Rare Earth" factors (such as planet mass, abundance of water and carbon, plate tectonics, etc.) that may play important and even critical roles in allowing the apparently difficult transition from slime to civilization. As is the case in the solar system, animal-like life is probably uncommon in the cosmos. This might even be the case for microbes: how can scientists agree that microbial life is common in our celestial neighborhood when there is no data? Even the simplest life is extraordinarily complicated and until we find solid evidence for life elsewhere, the frequency of life will unfortunately be guesswork. We can predict that some planetary bodies will provide life-supporting conditions, but no one can predict that life will form. Frank Drake: Only about 5% of the stars that have been studied sufficiently have hot Jupiters or Jupiters in elliptical orbits. The other 95% of the stars studied do not have hot Jupiters, and just what they have is still an open question. The latest discoveries, which depend on observations over a

decade or more, are finding solar system analogs. This suggests that 95% of the stars - for which the answers are not yet in - could be similar to our own system.

This is reason for optimism among those who expect solar system analogs to be abundant.

Organic materials widespread – ensuring life is plentiful throughout the universeMcKay, NASA Planetary Scientist, 02 (Christopher, “Complex Life in the Universe?,” http://www.astrobio.net/news/article236.html)

Chris McKay: There is no solid evidence of life elsewhere, but several factors suggest it is common. Organic material is widespread in the interstellar medium and in our own solar system. We have found planetary systems around other sun-like stars. On Earth, microbial life appeared very quickly - probably before 3.8 billion years ago. Also, we know that microbial ecosystems can survive in a variety of environments

with liquid water and a suitable chemical energy source or sunlight. These factors suggest that microbial life - the sort of life the dominated Earth for the first two billion years - is widespread in the stellar neighborhood.

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B) Framing

Utilitarianism Extends To Extraterrestrials and Gives Weight To Future Events R.I. Sikora and Brian Berry—respectively: professor of philosophy @ University Of British Columbia; professor of Political Science @ Chicago University—1978 (Obligations To Future Generations; p. 101-2)

Utilitarianism impartiality is an absolutely essential element of utilitarian morality. It ensures that utilities are not weighted or manipulated so as to favor individuals distinguished only by what (for the theory) are in themselves morally irrelevant characteristics: sex, race, nationality, species, etc. Equal consideration is extended to all sentient creatures; this is, surly, one of the grander ideas inherent in utilitarian ethics. Among characteristics of individuals which are morally irrelevant must be included spatial and temporal location. If a person is (or will be) affected for better or worse by an action then that effect must be reckoned in whether it is proximate or remote over space and/or time. It is, after all, equally real regardless of where and when it occurs. This is the reason for the theory’s insistence that the consequences of the future (as yet nonexistent) generations must be taken into account in deciding on population or resource policy.

It May Seem Immoral To Allow Human Extinction, But It Also Immoral To Destroy The Universe Along With Countless Alien Civilizations. This Is Why We Must Use Utility In Our Decisions.Philip Pettit—professor of Philosophy @ Australia National University—1991 (A Companion to Ethics, ed. By Peter Singer; pg 234)

It is usually said against consequentialism that it would lead an agent to do horrendous deeds, so long as they promised the best consequences. It would forbid nothing absolutely: not rape, not torture, not even murder. This charge is on target but it is relevant of course in horrendous circumstances. Thus if someone of ordinary values condoned torture, that would only be in circumstances where there was a great potential gain—the saving of innocent lives, the prevention of catastrophe—and where there were not the bad consequences involved, say, in state

authorities claiming the right to torture. Once it is clear the charge is only relevant only in horrendous circumstances, it ceases to be clearly damaging. After all, the non-consequentialist will often have to defend an equally unattractive response in such circumstances. It may be awful to think of torturing someone but it must be equally awful to think of not doing so and consequently allowing, say, a massive bomb to go off in some public place.

C) Equality

Humanity must acknowledge the equality of alien life to prevent universal genocide. Packer, Master in communication Wake Forest, 2007 <Joe, Alien Life in Search of Acknowledgment, pg 62-63>

Once we hold alien interests as equal to our own we can begin to revaluate areas previously believed to hold no relevance to life beyond this planet. A diverse group of scholars including Richard Posner, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago, Nick Bostrom,

philosophy professor at Oxford University, John Leslie philosophy professor at Guelph University and Martin Rees, Britain’s Astronomer Royal, have written on the emerging technologies that threaten life beyond the planet Earth . Particle accelerators labs are colliding matter together, reaching energies that have not been seen since the Big Bang. These experiments threaten a phase transition that would create a bubble of altered space that would expand at

the speed of light killing all life in its path. Nanotechnology and other machines may soon reach the ability to self replicate. A mistake in design or programming could unleash an endless quantity of machines converting all matter in the universe into copies of themselves. Despite detailing the potential of these technologies to destroy the entire universe, Posner, Bostrom, Leslie, and Ree’s only mention of alien life in their works is in reference to the threat aliens post to humanity. The rhetorical construction of otherness only in terms of the threats it poses, but never in terms of the threat one poses to it, has been at the

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center of humanity’s history of genocide, colonization, and environmental destruction. Although humanity certainly has its own interests in reducing the threat of these technologies evaluating them without taking into account the danger they pose to alien life is neither appropriate nor just. It is not appropriate because framing the issue only in terms of human interests will result in priorities designed to minimize the risks and maximize the benefits to humanity, not all life. Even if humanity dealt with the threats effectively without referencing their obligation to aliens, Posner, Bostrom, Leslie, and Ree’s rhetoric would not be

“just,” because it arbitrarily declares other life forms unworthy of consideration. A framework of acknowledgement would allow humanity to

address the risks of these new technologies, while being cognizant of humanity’s obligations to other life within the universe. Applying the lens of acknowledgment to the issue of existential threats moves the problem from one of self destruction to universal genocide. This may be the most dramatic example of how refusing to extend acknowledgment to potential alien life can mask humanity’s obligations to life beyond this planet.

There is no justification to exclude other beings from our moral calculation Singer, a chair in bioethics at Princeton University's Center for Human Values, 01<Peter, “To: Richard A. Posner” June 11, http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/interviews-debates/200106--.htm > *edited for ableist language

People often say, without much thought, that all human beings are infinitely more valuable than any animals of any other species. This view owes more to our own selfish interests and to ancient religious teachings that reflect these interests than to reason or impartial

moral reflection. What ethically significant feature can there be that all human beings but no nonhuman animals possess? We like to distinguish ourselves from animals by saying that only humans are rational, can use language, are self-aware, or are autonomous. But these abilities, significant as they are, do not enable us to draw the requisite line between all humans and nonhuman animals. For there are many humans who are not rational, self- aware, or autonomous, and who have no language—all humans under 3 months of age , for a start. And even if they are excluded, on the grounds that they have the potential to develop these capacities, there are other human beings who do not have this potential. Sadly, some humans are born with brain damage so severe that they will never be able to reason, see themselves as an independent being,

existing over time, make their own decisions, or learn any form of language. If it would be absurd to give animals the right to vote, it would be no less absurd to give that right to infants or to severely retarded [challenged] human beings. Yet we still give equal consideration to their interests. We don't raise them for food in overcrowded sheds or test household cleaners on

them. Nor should we. But we do these things to nonhuman animals who show greater abilities in reasoning than these humans. This is because we have a prejudice in favor of the view that all humans are somehow infinitely more valuable than any animal. Sadly, such prejudices are not unusual. Like racists and sexists, speciesists say that the boundary of their own group is also a boundary that marks off the most valuable beings from all the rest . Never mind what you are

like, if you are a member of my group, you are superior to all those who are not members of my group. The speciesist favors a larger group than the racist and so has a large circle of concern; but all these prejudices use an arbitrary and morally irrelevant fact—membership of a race, sex, or species—as if it were morally crucial. The only acceptable limit to our moral concern is the point at which there is no awareness of pain or pleasure, and no preferences of any kind. That is why pigs count, but lettuces don't. Pigs can feel pain and pleasure. Lettuces can't.

The disad outweighs the case: the ethical problems of annihilating all life on earth pales in comparison to threatening destruction of the universe Whole Earth Review, 92<At the beginning of the twentieth century - computational biology – Column Whole Earth Review, Fall, 1992 by Howard Rheingold, http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_n76/ai_12635777__>

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It looks as if something even more powerful than thermonuclear weaponry is emanating from that same, strangely fated corner of New Mexico where nuclear physicists first knew sin. Those who follow the progress of artificial-life research know that the effects of messing with the engines of evolution might lead to forces even more regrettable than the demons unleashed at Alamogordo. At least nuclear weaponry and biocidal technologies only threaten life on Earth, and don't threaten to contaminate the rest of the universe . That's the larger ethical problem of a-life. The technology of self-replicating machines that could emerge in future decades from today's a-life research might escape from human or even terrestrial control, infest the solar system, and, given time, break out into the galaxy. If there are other intelligent species out there, they might not react benevolently to evidence that humans have dispersed interstellar strip-mining robots that breed, multiply, and evolve. If there are no other intelligent species in existence, maybe we will end up creating God, or the Devil, depending on how our minds' children evolve a billion years from now. The entire story of life on earth thus far might be just the wetware prologue to a longer, larger, drier tale, etched in silicon rather than carbon, and blasted to the stars -- purposive spores programmed to seek, grow, evolve,

expand. That's what a few people think they are on the verge of inventing. Scenarios like that make the potential for global thermonuclear war or destruction of the biosphere look like a relatively local problem. Biocide of a few hundred thousand species (including ourselves is one kind of ethical problem; turning something like the Alien loose on the cosmos is a whole new level of ethical lapse. The human species has precious little time to gain the wisdom necessary to handle the knowledge scientists have discovered. Artificial life is too important to remain an esoteric

specialty. The time to think about what it might mean is now, while we still have a choice. Military applications of autonomous, self-reproducing robots might lead to worse fates than mere annihilation . There's some question about whether it is ever possible to put knowledge back in the bottle, but there is no question that we still have time to make sure that the self-reproducing increasingly intelligent, interstellar lifeforms that we are about to create are more closely modeled on E.T. than on the Alien

D) Time Travel

Matter-Energy Concentrations Bend Time Allowing Time TravelMichio Kaku—Prof. Of Theoretical Physics @ NYU—1994 (Hyperspace; pg 234)

Einstein’s equations, we recall, state that the curvature or bending of space and time is determined by the matter-energy content ntent of the universe. It is , in fact , possible to find configurations of matter-energy powerful enough to force the bending of time and allow for time travel. However, the concentrations of matter-energy necessary to bend time backwards are so vast that general relativity breaks down and quantum corrections begin to dominate over relativity.

Because Time Travel Is Possible, Humans Will Find A Way To Do ItClifford A. Pickover—PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, associate editor for numerous scientific journals, research staff @ IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Member of SETI League—1998 (Time: A Traveler’s Guide; pg 248-249)

Various researchers have proposed ways in which backward and forward time machines can be built that do not seem to violate any known laws of physics. Remember that the laws of physics tell us what is possible, not what is practical for humans at this point in time. The physics of time travel is still in its infancy. While all physicists today admit that time travel to the future is possible, many still believe time travel to the past

will never easily be attainable. Don’t believe anyone who tells you that humans will never have efficient technology for backward and forward time travel. Accurately predicting future technology is nearly impossible, and history is filled with underestimates of technology:

Time Travel Causes Infinite Repeating Loops That Destroy The UniverseRandall— physics student @ CalTech --No Date (Time Travel - the Possibilities and Consequences; http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A398955)

This theory involves two types of temporal loops. One type is the loop mentioned in the last paragraph, the 'grandfather paradox'. For the rest of this paragraph, let's call it the 'infinite repeat' loop, because it results in two different possibilities, infinitely repeating after one another. Another type of loop exists. It is the 'infinite possibilities' loop. In this loop, the loop changes every

single time that the loop repeats. Think of this: Imagine that you ask your best friend to go back in time to before you were born and kill your granddad. Also, you had enough forethought to tell him to, while he's back there, write a note to his future self to go back in time and kill the man who would be your granddad. Everything's Okay, right? Maybe not. When your friend is given the instruction to go and kill your granddad from you , he might do one thing. When he receives a note from his future self , he might do another. And if he does another thing during the second repeat, he must do a different thing the third. And the forth. And the fifth. A change in

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one iteration of the loop would result in a change in the note, which would result in a change in the next iteration. Eventually, he'll do something that ends up breaking down the loop (ie, forgetting to write himself a note). This will result in a infinite repeat loop starting. And as was already mentioned, infinite repeat loops may cause the universe to end.

E) Particle Accelerators

Humans Will Have Particle Accelerators Capable Of Reaching Disastrous Levels Before 2100John Leslie—emeriti professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph and a fellow @ the Royal Society of Canada—1996 (End of the World; pg 86)

However, energies above 10 11 GeV would be had well before the year 2100. Already people have proposed ‘plasma particle accelerators’ in which the fields accelerating the particles—perhaps fields produced by two laser beams which create a rapidly moving interference pattern called a ‘beat wave’—would be many thousand times stronger than those of present-day accelerators. In his Dreams of a Final Theory S. Weinberg speculates that with plasmas to transfer

energy ‘from powerful laser beams to individual charged particles’ even Plank-scale energies might be attained. Plank-scale energies are of roughly 1019 GeV, which is ten million to a hundred million times above the 10 11 to 10 12 GeV which Hut and Rees gave as energy released by some cosmic ray collisions.

High Level Particle Accelerators Would Disrupt The Stability Of Our VacuumJohn Leslie—emeriti professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph and a fellow @ the Royal Society of Canada—1996 (End of the World; pg 86)

How could anything as empty as vacuum ever be threatened by particle accelerators or by anything? And if we did feel any fears on this score, how could they be reduced by studying cosmic

rays? For the present, at least, particle accelerators are the physicist’s preferred means of reaching very high energies: ones which are ‘locally’—

over very tiny regions—much above those produced by H-bombs. What guided Hut and Rees was that, among all the events in our existence we can be fairly confident, collisions between cosmic rays, extremely fast particles which can have the kinetic energy of rifle bullets, are by far the most locally energetic. So long as cosmic ray collision energies weren’t exceeded, nothing disastrous could be expected. Any higher energies, however, might ‘pose’ a threat to our vacuum. For a ‘vacuum’ in modern physics, or ‘empty space’, needn’t mean a region absolutely empty. It usually means one of two things instead:

The Destruction Of Our Vacuum Would Usher In A New, Ever-Expanding Vacuum That Would Destroy All Life ForeverJohn Leslie—emeriti professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph and a fellow @ the Royal Society of Canada—1996 (End of the World; pg 86-87)

As Hut and Rees commented, it may be that ‘the vacuum state we live in is not the absolute lowest one’ because on many physical theories ‘a local minimum of the effective potential,

which can be quite stable, can exist for certain parameter values. The universe, starting at high temperatures, might have supercooled in such a local minimum.’ In this case we should find ourselves in a false vacuum. Fields wouldn’t be at their lowest energies, the ones to which they would like to fall. It would follow that ‘our vacuum state’—space of the sort we live in—‘might suddenly disappear if a bubble of a real vacuum formed’. The bubble would expand ‘at close to the speed of light, with enormous energy release’, right through the galaxy and then onwards indefinitely . Might ‘such an

unfortunate event’ be triggered by a new generation of particle accelerators’? As has been pointed out by Coleman and De Luccia, this would be ‘the ultimate ecological catastrophe’. Inside the ever expanding bubble, ‘the new vacuum’. There would be ‘new constraints of nature’. ‘Not only is life as we know it impossible, so is chemistry as we know it’, since all protons would decay as soon as they were hit by the advancing bubble wall. Worse still, there would be no hope that the new vacuum would in due course come to sustain ‘if not life as we know it, at least some

structures capable of knowing joy’. For the space through which the bubble had expanded would suffer gravitational collapse in ‘microseconds or less.’

F) Artificial Intelligence

Humans Will Have AI Before 2030Stephen Webb—PhD in theoretical physics and professor at Open University-2002 (Where is Everybody: page 243 )

Vernor Vinge, extrapolating the improvements in computer hardware and other technologies over the next few decades, argues [hu] mankind will likely produce super- human intelligence some time before 2030. He considers four slightly different ways in science might achieve this breakthrough. We might develop powerful computers

that “wake up”; computer networks like the Internet might “wake up”; human-computer interfaces might develop so users become super-humanly

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intelligent; and biologists may develop ways of improving the human intellect. Such a super-intelligent entity might be [hu] mankind’s last invention, because the entity itself could design even better and more intelligent offspring. The doubling time of 18 months in Moore’s law would steadily decrease, causing an “intelligence explosion.” A quicker-than-exponential runaway event might end the human era in a few hours. Vinge calls such an event the Singularity.

2) AI Would Destroy All The Matter In The UniverseNick Bostrom—Faculty of Philosophy @ Oxford University—March 2002 (Existential Risks; Journal of Evolution and Technology, Vol. 9)

When we create the first superintelligent entity [28-34], we might make a mistake and give it goals that lead to the annihilation of humankind, assuming its enormous intellectual advantage gives it the power to do so. For example, we could mistakenly elevate a subgoal to the status of a supergoal. We tell it to solve a mathematical problem, and it complies by turning all the matter in the solar system into a giant calculating device, in the process killing the person who asked the question.

G) Nanotechnology

Nanotech will be here by 2040Gaudin in ‘9 (Sharon, 10/1/2009, writer computerworld, “Nanotech could make humans immortal by 2040, futurists say, http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9138726/Nanotech_could_make_humans_immortal_by_2040_futurist_says)

In 30 or 40 years, we'll have microscopic machines traveling through our bodies, repairing damaged cells and organs, effectively wiping out diseases.

The nanotechnology will also be used to back up our memories and personalities. In an interview with Computerworld, author and futurist Ray Kurzweil said that

anyone alive come 2040 or 2050 could be close to immortal. The quickening advance of nanotechnology means that the human condition will shift into more of a collaboration of man and machine , as nanobots flow through human blood streams and eventually even replace biological blood, he added. That may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie, but Kurzweil, a member of the Inventor's Hall of Fame and a recipient of the National Medal of Technology, says that research well underway today is leading to a time when a combination of nanotechnology and biotechnology will wipe out cancer, Alzheimer's disease, obesity and diabetes.

Nanotech Would Travel The Galaxy Reducing All Life Into A Grey Goo, All The While Self-Replicating Stephen Webb—PhD in theoretical physics and professor at Open University-2002 (Where is Everybody: page 249 )

One of the elements of any future nanotechnology is likely to be the nanorobot—or nanobot, for short. Although their development is a long way off, theoretical studies suggest we could construct nanobots from one of several materials—with carbon-rich diamondoid materials perhaps forming the basis for many types of nanobot. Studies

also suggest that one of the most useful types of nanobot will be a self-replicating machine. Alarm bells start to ring whenever self- replication is mentioned. The danger inherent in producing a self-replicating nanobot in the laboratory is clear upon answering the following question: What happens when a nanobot escapes into the outside world? In order to replicate, a nanobot made of carbon-rich diamondoid material would need a source of carbon. And the best source of carbon would be the Earth’s surface biosphere: plants, animals, humans—living things in general. The swarms of nanobots (for soon there would be many

copies of the original) would dismantle molecules in living material and use the carbon to produce more copies of themselves. The surface biosphere would be converted from the rich, varied environment we see today into a sea of ravenous nanobots plus waste sludge. This is the grey goo problem. As mentioned above in the discussion on overpopulation, exponential growth is a powerful thing. Freitas has shown that,

under ideal conditions, a population of nanobots growing exponentially could convert the surface biosphere in less than three hours! We can add this, then, to the depressing list of ways in which the lifetime of a communicating phase of an ETC might be shorted: a laboratory accident, involving the escape of a nanobot, turns their biosphere into sludge.

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H) Isomer Bombs

The military is pursuing new Isomer bombs which will destroy the quantum vacuum and the universe – we don’t even have to win development or use – just that these weapons are experimented or tested with. Bekkum in ‘4 (Gary S., Founder – Spacetime Threat Assessment Report Research, “American Military is Pursuing New Types of Exotic Weapons”, Pravda, 8-30, http://www.starstreamresearch.com/dark_matters.htm)

Recently the British science news journal "New Scientist" revealed that the American military is pursuing new types of exotic bombs - including a new class of isomeric gamma ray weapons. Unlike conventional atomic and hydrogen bombs, the new weapons would trigger the release of energy by absorbing radiation, and respond by re-emitting a far more powerful radiation. In this new category of gamma-ray weapons, a nuclear isomer absorbs x-rays and re-emits higher frequency gamma rays. The emitted gamma radiation has been reported to release 60 times the energy of the x-rays that trigger the effect. The discovery of this isomer triggering is fairly recent, and was first

reported in a 1999 paper by an international group of scientists. Although this controversial development has remained fairly obscure, it has not been hidden from the public. Beyond the visible part of defense research is an immense underground of secret projects considered so sensitive that their very existence is denied. These so-called "black budget programs" are deliberately kept from the public eye and from most political leaders. CNN recently reported that in the United States the black budget projects for 2004 are being funded at a level of more than 20 billion dollars per year. In the summer of 2000 I contacted Nick Cook, the former aviation editor and aerospace consultant to Jane's Defence Weekly, the international military affairs journal. Cook had been investigating black budget super-secret research into exotic physics for advanced propulsion technologies. I had been monitoring electronic discussions between various American and Russian scientists theorizing about rectifying the quantum vacuum for advanced space drive. Several groups of scientists, partitioned into various research organizations, were exploring what NASA calls "Breakthrough Propulsion Physics" - exotic technologies for advanced space travel to traverse the vast distances between stars. Partly inspired by the pulp science fiction stories of their youth, and partly by recent reports of multiple radar tracking tapes of unidentified objects performing impossible maneuvers in the sky, these scientists were on a quest to uncover the most likely new physics for star travel. The NASA program was run by Marc Millis, financed under the Advanced Space Transportation Program Office (ASTP). Joe Firmage, then the 28-year-old Silicon Valley CEO of the three billion dollar Internet firm US Web, began to fund research in parallel with NASA. Firmage hired a NASA Ames nano-technology scientist, Creon Levit, to run theInternational Space Sciences Organization, a move which apparently alarmed the management at NASA. The San Francisco based Hearst Examiner reported that NASA's Office of Inspector General assigned Special Agent Keith Tate to investigate whether any proprietary NASA technology might have been leaking into the private sector. Cook was intrigued when I pointed out the apparent connections between various private investors, defense contractors,

NASA, INSCOM (American military intelligence), and the CIA. While researching exotic propulsion technologies Cook had heard rumors of a new kind of weapon, a "sub-quantum atomic bomb", being whispered about in what he called the "dark halls" of defense research. Sub-quantum physics is a controversial re-interpretation of quantum theory, based on so-called pilot wave theories, where an information field controls quantum particles . The late Professor David Bohm showed that the predictions of ordinary quantum mechanics could be recast into a pilot wave information theory. Recently Anthony Valentini of the Perimeter Institute has suggested that ordinary quantum theory may be a special case of pilot wave theories, leaving open the possibility of new and exotic non-quantum technologies. Some French, Serbian and Ukrainian physicists have been working on new theories of extended electrons and solitons, so perhaps a sub-quantum bomb is not entirely

out of the question. Even if the rumors of a sub-quantum bomb are pure fantasy, there is no question that mainstream physicists seriously contemplate a phase transition in the quantum vacuum as a real possibility. The quantum vacuum defies common sense, because empty space in quantum field theory is

actually filled with virtual particles. These virtual particles appear and disappear far too quickly to be detected directly, but their existence has been confirmed by experiments that demonstrate their influence on ordinary matter. "Such research should be forbidden!" In the early 1970's Soviet physicists were concerned that the vacuum of our universe was only one possible state of empty space. The fundamental state of empty space is called the "true vacuum". Our universe was thought to reside in a "false vacuum", protected from the true vacuum by "the wall of our world". A change from one vacuum state to another is known as a phase transition. This is analogous to the transition between frozen and liquid water. Lev Okun, a Russian physicist and historian recalls Andrei Sakharov, the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, expressing his concern about

research into the phase transitions of the vacuum. If the wall between vacuum states was to be breached, calculations showed that an unstoppable expanding bubble would continue to grow until it destroyed our entire universe! Sakharov declared that "Such research should be forbidden!" According to Okun, Sakharov feared that an experiment might accidentally trigger a vacuum phase transition .

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CP

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Extinction Good for Earth

Nature has its own form of existence that will go on long after humanity has perished. Lee 99 Keekok Lee, Visiting Chair in Philosophy at Lancaster University, 1999

[The Natural and the Artefactual p. 226-228]

We should not delude ourselves that the humanization of nature will stop at biotic nature or indeed be confined only to planet Earth. Other planets in our solar system, too, may eventually be humanized; given the technological possibility of doing so, the temptation to do so appears difficult to resist on the part of those always on the lookout for new challenges and new excitement. To resist the ontological elimination of nature as 'the Other,' environmental philosophy must not merely be earthbound but, also, astronomically bounded (at least to the extent of our own solar system). We should bear in mind that while there may be little pristine nature left on Earth, this does not mean that nature is not pristine elsewhere in other planets. We should also be mindful that while other planets may not have life on them, this does not

necessarily renderthem only of instrumental value to us. Above all, we should, therefore, bear in mind that nature, whether pristine or less than fully p ristine , biotic or abiotic,is ontologically independent and autonomous of humankind--natural forms and natural processes are capable ofundertaking their own .trajectories of existence. We should also remind ourselves that we are the controllers of our science and our technology, and not allow the products of our intellectual labor to dictate to us what we do to nature itself without pause or reflection. However, it is not the plea of this book that humankind should never transform the natural to become the artefactual, or to deny that artefacticity is not a matter of differing degrees or levels, as such claims would be silly and indefensible. Rather its remit is to argue that in systematically transforming the natural to become the artefactual through our science and our technology, we are at the same time

systematically engaged in ontological simplification. Ontological impoverishment in this context is wrong primarily because we have so far failed to

recognize that nature embodies its own funda mental ontological value . In other words, it is not true, as modernity alleges, that nature is devoid of all value and that values are simply humanly conferred or are the projections of human emotions or attitudes upon nature. Admittedly, it takes

our unique type of human consciousness to recognize that nature possesses ontological value; however, from this it would be fallacious to conclude that human consciousness is at once the source of allvalues, or even the sole locus of axiologically-grounded intrinsic values. But most important of all, human

consciousness does not generate the primary ontological value of independence in nature; nature's forms and processes embodying this value exist whether human kind is around or not.

A. Nuclear war would allow for rapid mutations and evolutions of life that survive. Assumes their nuclear winter claimsPhillips 2k1 [alan, peace magazine, v17, n1,p13, nuclear winter revisited, http://archive.peacemagazine.org/v17n1p13.htm]

Altogether, nuclear winter would be an ecological disaster of the same sort of magnitude as the major extinctions of species that have occurred in the past, the most famous one being 65 million years ago at the Cretaceous extinction. Of all the species living at the time, about half became extinct . The theory is that a large meteor made a great crater in the Gulf of Mexico, putting a trillion tons of rock debris into the atmosphere. That is a thousand times as much rock as is predicted for a nuclear war, but the soot from fires blocks sunlight more effectively than rock debris . In nuclear winter there would also be radioactive contamination giving worldwide background radiation doses many times larger than has ever happened during the three billion years of evolution. The radiation would notably worsen things for existing species, though it might, by increas ing mutations, allow quicker evolution of new species (perhaps mainly insects and grasses) that could tolerate the post-war conditions . (I should just mention that there is no way the radioactivity from a nuclear war would destroy "all life on earth." People must stop saying that. There will be evolution after a war, but it may not include us).

B. Nuke war won’t kill all life.Wang 2k9 Brian Wang is the Director of Research for the Lifeboat Foundation, http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/02/nuclear-war-effects-and-battlestar.html] 

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Expending the current level or even the highest nuclear arsenals that we have ever had would do nothing to the long term survival of the biosphere based on radiation and fallout. The world is too big. The stuff settles out and the most dangerous stuff has a short life. The long life stuff is long lived because it is giving off low energy level of radiation.     That is why the long term debate about nuclear war is about altering the climate or ozone in a lasting way. Plenty of atmospheric big nuclear tests have been done and the biosphere can take it. Killing a biosphere with nukes would take lot more nukes and radiation would not be the main and lasting problem ever after 2000 years.

1. Human Extinction would allow life for others.

KOCHI & ORDAN 2K8 TARIK KOCHI IS A PROFESSOR AT QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY. NOAM ORDAN IS A PROFESSOR AT BAR LLAN UNIVERSITY “AN ARGUMENT FOR THE GLOBAL SUICIDE OF HUMANITY”, VOL 7. NO. 4., BOURDERLANDS E-JOURNAL http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol7no3_2008/kochiordan_argument.pdf

While we are not interested in the discussion of the ‘method’ of the global suicide of humanity per se, one method that would be the least violent is that of humans choosing to no longer reproduce. [10] The case at point here is that the global suicide of humanity would be a moral act; it would take humanity out of the equation of life on this earth and remake the calculation for the benefit of everything nonhuman. While suicide in certain forms of religious thinking is normally condemned as something which is selfish and inflicts harm upon loved ones, the global suicide of humanity would be the highest act of altruism. That is, global suicide would involve the taking of responsibility for the destructive actions of the human species. By eradicating ourselves we end the long process of inflicting harm upon other species and offer a human-free world . If there is a form of divine intelligence then surely the human act of global suicide will be seen for what it is: a profound moral gesture aimed at redeeming humanity. Such an act is an offer of sacrifice to pay for past wrongs that would usher in a new future. Through the death of our species we will give the gift of life to others

PEOPLE ARE DESTROYING THE EARTHDe Souza, Williams, Meyerson in 2003

(Critical Links: Population, Health, and the Environment, Population Reference Bureau, September 2003, SIRS)

The impact of the world's 6.3 billion people on the environment is unprecedented . Humans had a negligible effect on the environment 3,000 years ago when fewer than 100 million people lived on Earth, but by the early 21st century, we have altered more than one-third of Earth's ice-free surface and threatened the existence of many plant and animal species. These changes also pose threats to our well-being. The burning of gas, coal, and oil, for example, is increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, altering the global climate and affecting human health. The number of people is just one factor driving environmental change. Other demographic factors also cause change. Where people live and the rate of population growth increase the demand for natural resources such as water and fossil fuels, adding pressure on environmental systems such as watersheds and rainforests . The relative proportions of children, persons of working age, and elderly within a population have repercussions for future population growth, health risks, and use of services such as public transportation.  Other forces, such as public policies, technological developments, and culture, can ease or worsen the pressures that these demographic factors place on society and the environment. One example is the growth of cities throughout the world. This urban growth brings changes in lifestyles, consumption patterns, infrastructure development, and waste production .

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EARTH CAN’T HANDLE HUMAN LIFE ANYMOREAnderson in 2000

( Jason, Over-building Over-populating, Over-using and Under-conserving, Fall 2000, http://library.thinkquest.org/11353/text/over.htm)

Each day, the population of the world increases . On average, the world population is increasing by 1.7% annually. With more and more people, there are consequences that the Earth cannot handle . As the population of the world grows, more and more buildings are required for people to live and work in. Buildings require land to be built on. This land comes at the cost of the wildlife and wilderness areas of the U.S. Each day we encroach on more and more land that wildlife live in. This land becomes smaller and smaller, and soon the animals and plants no longer have a place to live, instead replaced by living space for humans.   On top of this problem, we need material to build these buildings. In the U.S., the most popular is the strong, sturdy, but flexible wood. We need to cut down more and more trees to build these structures. We get these trees from the forests of the world. But since we are building so much so quickly, we are quickly exhausting the tree supply of the world. This cutting of trees leads to a host of problems. First, we remove the habitat of many plants and animals, which can and has lead to the extinction of many species. On top of this, cutting down all these trees aggravates the problem of the greenhouse effect Last, the population growth means we must use more and more of our world resources. This includes fossil fuels, food, etc. We use fossil fuels to heat our homes, to run our cars and machinery, and for other purposes. However, we are using them so fast that if continue at our present rate of consumption, all the oil in the world will be gone in within most of our lifetimes . (That would get rid of our problem of oil spills.) As for food, we require more and more land to grow the food or to raise livestock. This also contributes to the problem of deforestation and shrinking wilderness areas . For example, in Brazil, tropical rain forests are being cut down to create land to raise cows for meat.

OVERPOPULATION LEADS TO ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION AND EXTINCTIONHouse Committee on Water in 05

(MEMBERS PRESENT: Rep. Bob Jenson, Chair, Rep. Phil Barnhart, Rep. Billy Dalto, Rep. Carolyn Tomei, March 18, 2005 , Hearing Room 357,

TAPE 48, B¶ Chair Jenson¶ Discusses management practices that have allowed progress.¶ Gregory¶ Stresses that salmon were at historical lows, and they are improving and meet the minimum criteria for viability, but are not robust . ¶ Chair Jenson¶ Notes that overpopulation causes extinction , and questions whether it is true that the fewer the fish the higher the reproductivity. ¶

Gregory ¶ Replies that the Viability Assessment shows the productivity increasing with low numbers, but shows that fish are still at risk for extinction with such a low number of spawners. ¶

HUMAN EXTINCTION HELPS THE BIOSPHEREKnight in 2007

(Les U. Knight VHMET founder, http://www.vhemt.org/ecology.htm#important)

We certainly have the most power. We have the power to destroy the planet or to help it return to a natural paradise. Our choices have more impact than the choices of other animals, so in some ways, Homo sapiens is the most important species on Earth. Another test of our importance is to ask how well Earth's biosphere would get along without us. The higher a species is on the food chain, the less important it seems to be to the survival of that chain . Biodiversity is being greatly diminished by the extinction of carnivorous predators, and their prey species are affected adversely, but the chain

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is being shortened more than it is being broken. Likewise, humans have virtually left the food chain and will not create a missing link when going extinct. Microscopic bacteria in the intestines of termites are critical to the continuity and survival of Earth's web of life. As special as Homo sapiens may be, we seem to be an expendable species in this biosphere . ¶ Extinction of the couple dozen species which live only on humans is tragic, but unavoidable. Although our hearts might not go out to the crab louse, and few of us have ever seen any of the billions of mites and microbes which live on and in us, each is a unique lifeform contributing to the diversity of life on Earth.

Extinction of humanity allows squirrels to gain sentienceMallove in ’87

(Eugene F. Advanced Doctoral degree in Astronautical Engineering from MIT, “The Quickening Universe”)

One conclusion is nearly certain: the all-too-easy extinction of human civilization would not be the end of life on Earth, nor even

perhaps the end of putative advanced intelligence on this planet. If civilization should perpetrate the ultimate denial of cosmic trust, then slowly and painfully again, lesser life forms would emerge to carry the fire . As I walk along the streets of Washington, I observe squirrels with glazed looks scampering

earnestly about their nut-gathering business, not unlike the human pursuits surrounding me. The eerie thought arises that perhaps these ignorant yet guileless creatures—not be hardy microbes of Gaia—will eventually be heir to the globe. Perhaps the age of “ Squirrelo sapiens ” would dawn millions of years after the errant asteroid struck or the well-prepared thermonuclear funeral pyres blazed.

And, if humans go extinct, they will be replacedDe Duve in ’95

(Christian, Biologist, “Vital Dust—Life as A Cosmic Imperative”)

If our species disappears, I am inclined to predict its replacement by anther intelligent species with perhaps greater powers than we have, notably more wisdom. This species could be a direct Homo offshoot, or it could arise through a separate pathway from some other animal species . Life on Earth has the time to recapitulate one thousand times the emergence of the human species from its last common ancestor with chimpanzees, and some twenty times the whole history of mammals. Many wonderful things can still happen in the next five billion years, and no doubt will.

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Case

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2NC Overview

Humans are inevitably going to cause the destruction of the universe – That puts countless alien lifeforms at risk – This will always outweigh in utilitarian calculus – There’s no justifiable reason to exclude intelligent alien beings from calculation – If we win existence of aliens and one extinction scenario, pull the trigger on wipeout

Long timeframe and huge magnitude mean we should examine the impactsPosner, Senior Lecturer in Law University of Chicago, 04

<Richard, Catastrophe: Risk and Response, pg 246>

The general tendency, however, is to ignore the catastrophic risks, both individually and in the aggregate . Economic, political, and cultural factors, including the religious beliefs prevalent in the United States, reinforce the effects of cognitive factors (including information costs) in inducing neglect of such risks. The neglect is misguided. The expected costs of even very-low-probability events can be huge if the adverse consequences should the probability materialize are huge , or if the interval over which the probability is estimated is enlarged; the risk of a catastrophic collision with an asteroid is slight in the time span of a year, but not so slight in the time span of a hundred years.

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AT: Non Intrinsic

1. Intrinsicness perms are illegitimate: They create a moving target by allowing the affirmative to arbitrarily add planks to their plan destroying the negatives ability to create a stable strategy and is a voting issue.

2. Any permutation that would solve would have to be multiple actor as well as private actor fiat, since these technologies are being developed all over the world, this allows the affirmative to wish away any negative impact.

3. This disad is intrinsic: You say saving humanity is good we says its bad, its an impact turn to your case. The drive to create dangerous technology is fundamental to the human animal.

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Austerity

Bans would never gain support even if they did it would drive research underground.Hughes, Public Policy Studies Program Trinity, 01

<J., Relinquishment or Regulation: Dealing with Apocalyptic Technological Threats

November 14, 2001, http://www.changesurfer.com/Acad/RelReg.pdf>

Relinquishment is impossible because the benefits of the technology will create enormous corporate, citizen and patient constituencies for their development. The Third World will never agree to ban technologies, which promise to economic development. Attempts to ban beneficial research will therefore drive research underground, making it more difficult to regulate. The labs that conduct genetics, nanotech and robotics/AI research can be small and easily hidden . To the extent that the bans were successful, they would actually endanger more than they protected. Advances in these technologies are required to prepare prophylaxis and counter-measures for the eventual release of dangerous genetic, nano or robotic/AI technology.

Scientists will not voluntarily stop working on dangerous scienceHughes, Public Policy Studies Program Trinity, 01

<J., Relinquishment or Regulation: Dealing with Apocalyptic Technological Threats November 14, 2001, http://www.changesurfer.com/Acad/RelReg.pdf>

As an aside, let me also dismiss Joy’s call for a scientific Hippocratic oath, as a personal ethical complement to his proposed global ban on research. The biotechnology , molecular engineering, robotics and information technology economies are too large and diverse to imagine that more than a handful of scientists would ever voluntarily heed Joy’s Oppenheimeresque call. I am all in favor of every person examining their consciences when they go to work, and quitting if they believe they may be risking the future of the human race. I am even in favor of professional bodies piously adopting codes of ethics that forbid their members from doing unethical work. But appeals for individual moral courage belong in books of bedside meditations, not in deliberations of public policy. Many nuclear scientists found it easy to morally rationalize weapons research (mutual assured destruction, stopping Communism, etc.); how much easier will it be to rationalize the treatment of disease or the creation of nanoreplicators that can make anything?

Anything that can be done willRees, 06

President, The Royal Society; Professor of Cosmology & Astrophysics, Master, Trinity College,

<Martin, Science may be 'running out of control' http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_print.html#rees>

Even if all the world's scientific academies agreed that a specific type of research had a specially disquieting net 'downside' and all countries,

in unison , imposed a ban , what is the chance that it could be enforced effectively enough ? In view of the failure to control drug smuggling or homicides, it is unrealistic to expect that , when the genie is out of the bottle, we can ever be fully secure against the misuse of science. And in our ever more interconnected world, commercial pressure are harder to control and regulate. The challenges and

difficulties of 'controlling' science in this century will indeed be daunting. Cynics would go further, and say that anything that is scientifically and technically possible will be done — somewhere, sometime — despite ethical and prudential objections , and whatever the regulatory regime.

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Particle Accelerators EXTN

Extend our Leslie in ’96 card that indicates we will have particle accelerators that will have disastrous levels before 2100. This ensures all of the technological advancements. Extend our 2nd

Leslie in ’96 card that indicates these disastrous particle accelerators would disrupt our vacuum. Extend our 3rd Leslie in ’96 card that indicates the destruction of our vacuum would lead to destruction of the universe.

Particle accelerators rip a whole in spaceBBC News, 99 <November 16, 1999 Published at 16:04 The home-made black hole http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/523161.stm>

Particle accelerators are designed to collide particles together at incredible energies to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang. Matter and energy are indistinguishable in the explosion and obey laws that do not come into play in our everyday universe. But what if something went wrong and scientists inadvertently made a black hole that sank into the Earth, taking up residence at its core?

It would eat away at our planet , devouring it from the inside at an ever-increasing rate. Within an hour, the Earth would be gone replaced by a hole in space and time .

Particle accelerators risk universal vaporizationRothman in ’87 (Tony, Physicist, Discover)

By contrast, physicists Piet But and Martin J. Reas, of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, have dreamed up a beauty. They have a

notion that new particle accelerators may create subatomic collisions intense enough to trigger a chain reaction and thus vaporize the entire universe! Such a macro worry is exquisite. While we stand by, physicists are planning giant accelerators. A scientist in a white

smock will soon throw that switch. And for thousands of people the last thought, before the cosmos wink out, is sure to be, “Darn, why didn’t I start a petition?”

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Nanotech EXTN

Extend our Gaudin in ‘9 card that indicates that nanotech will be here by 2040, also it indicates that we may become cyborgs eventually. Extend our Webb in ‘2 card that indicates this nanotech will travel throughout the universe turning everything into a grey goo. This happens, because nanotech regulations lack in enforcement and implementation, the unchecked nanotech will get out of hand and turn everything into what they were designed to make.

Nanotech weapons could be used to create superior bots which would kill all lifeDrexler in ’86 ( Eric K.Ph.D. in Molecular Nanotechnology and Chairman of the Foresight Institute, “Engines of Creation”, www.foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_11.html)

Among the cognoscenti of nanotechnology, this threat has become known as the “gray goo problem.” Though masses of uncontrolled replicators need not be

gray or gooey, the term “gray goo” emphasize s those replicators able to obliterate life might be less inspiring than a single species of crabgrass. They might be “superior” in an evolutionary sense, but this need not make them valuable. We have evolved to love a world rich in living things, ideas, and

diversity, so there is no reason to value gray goo merely because it could spread. Indeed, if we prevent it we will thereby prove our evolutionary

superiority. The gray goo threat makes one thing perfectly clear: we cannot afford certain kinds of accidents with replicating assemblers .

The first two weeks after the first assembler is built will cause an explosion of nanotech, using current designsKaehler in ’96 (Ted, Alan Kay’s Research Institute, “In-Vivo nanoscope and the two week Revolution,” Nanotechnology: Molecular speculations on global abundance)

Never in history has a technology been so clear in our vision yet so frustratingly out of reach as is nanotechnology in the 1990s. We know a lot about what can be done with nanomachines, but we cannot build them now. If we had a single assembler, we could order it to build another one. Those two could produce more, until any desired numbers were produced. Then we could tell them to build other things. A great flourishing of new nanotech machines would follow—as fast as we could design them. But there is a technological bottleneck before we can build the first assembler.

We have been accumulating plans for pieces of nanomachines, starting with the first bearing designs presented in 1987, but we remain unable to build them. It may be decades before we can actually build the first working assembler. In that time, we will accumulate many levels of designs, leading to a spectrum of useful nanomahcines. When the first assembler works, a stampede of working machines could follow.

All we have to do is dust off the designs and tell the newly created assemblers to go to work. This sudden surge of working nanomachines has been called the “two-week revolution.” In the first two weeks after the assembler breakthrough, the world may change radically. For some, this is not a metaphor but a prediction of great change in a matter of days. Entire new systems of fully functional technology will emerge, ready to transform the world.

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Zero Point Energy

Zero point energy is coming now Scott, editor of Aviation Week & Space Technology, 3-1-04 (William, “To the stars,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, p. lexis)

At least two large aerospace companies and one U.S. Defense Dept. agency are betting that “zero point energy” could be the next breakthrough in aerospace vehicle propulsion, and are backing those bets with seed money for ZPE research. If their efforts pay off, ZPE-driven powerplants might enable Mach 4 fighters, quiet 1,200-seat hypersonic airliners that fly at 100-mi. altitudes as far as 12,000 mi. in about 70 min., and 12.6-hr. trips to the Moon.¶ ONE OF THOSE companies, BAE Systems, launched “Project Greenglow” in 1986 “to provide a focus for research into novel propulsion systems and the means to power them,” said R.A. Evans, the project leader, in a technical paper last year. Although funding levels have been modest, Greenglow is exploring ZPE as one element of the program’s “project-directed research,” according to John E. Allen, a consultant to BAE Systems.¶ At least one large U.S. aerospace company is embarking on ZPE research in response to a Defense Dept. request, but the company and its customer cannot be identified yet. National laboratories, the military services and other companies either now have or have had low-level ZPE-related efforts underway.

Zero point energy will destroy the universe Page, 8-7-07 (Lewis, “Boffins flick Quantum vacuum switch from suck to blowhttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/07/quantum_levitation_incredible/, accessed on 10/9/09)

Or, freely paraphrasing, we don't really know what's going on here but zero-point energy and the Casimir force are real and could conceivably rip open the fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the universe. The St Andrews team appear to endorse the idea that zero-point effects could at least be used to produce some kind of ultra-powerful devastating energy ray, as developed by "Syndrome" the supervillain in The Incredibles. On their webpage they show a pic of Syndrome blasting something, captioned:

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1NR

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AT: Humans Are of The Highest Intelligence

Extend 1NC petit- it may look bad to allow extinction but they haven’t contested that it’s actually IMMORAL to allow countless alien civilizations to die- util HAS to apply to them as well

Extend the 1NC Packer evidence- we HAVE to recognize the equality of alien life- we are an indict of all of their logic- continuing the mindset the 1AC and 2AC endures of human exception is what allows for the justification for genocidal violence

Humans are not that much more advanced than other creaturesDarling, PHD in astronomy from University of Manchester, lecturer and renowned author, 01

<David, Life Everywhere: The Maverick Science of Astrobiology, Pg

Another argument for high-level intelligence being rare is that it’s rare in Earth. But it’s important to avoid being overly anthropocentric on this point. Much of what makes humans seem to be on a different intellectual plane from other species on Earth, including our sophisticated language and

advanced technology is of recent origin and not due to an increase in raw brain capacity over the past few tens of thousands of years. Stripped of modern conveniences and our native tongue, we wouldn’t appear to outshine one of our fellow terrestrials by quite such a wide margin. Many creatures, while not intellectual rivals of Homo sapiens, are not as far behind us as we sometimes suppose. The expression “bird brain,” for

example, is inappropriate for describe— rug any avian, but especially parrots and members of the Corvid family, which includes crows and ravens. Gavin Hunt, of Masses University in New Zealand, found that New Caledonian crows , living on a group of islands 1,400 kilometers northeast of Australia, use two distinct types of tools to forage for in vertebrates such as insects, centipedes and larvae. Specialization in tool-making is something we tend to think is uniquely human. Yet Hunt saw the crows use a hooked tool made by plucking and stripping a barbed twig. He also observed the use of what he called a “stepped cut

tool” with serrated edges, and found leaves from which crows had started to fashion these implements. Ravens, larger cousins of the crow, excel at another talent

we pride ourselves on—spontaneous problem solving. Bernd Heinrich of the University of Vermont raised five ravens under conditions that allowed him to know what learning experiences they’d been exposed to. He then tested their abilities to deal with a new situation by using pieces of meat hung by strings from perches. These strings were too long to let the birds reach down to grab the meat, and the birds were unable to capture the prize in mid-air by flying up to it, as the meat was too well secured. After many failed attempts, the birds began to ignore the food until, six hours into the experiment, one raven hit upon a solution. It reached down, pulled up as much string as it could, and trapped that length of string under its claws. Then it reached down again to grab some more and repeated the process until it had hauled the food up to its perch. Interestingly, there was no period of trial—and—error in this; the raven seemed to formulate a mental plan and carry it through successfully at the first attempt. Several days later, a second raven solved the problem using a completely different method. In the end, four of the five birds independently arrived at different solutions. Only one failed—the same bird that also never learned that flying away with the tied-down meat in its beak always led to an

unpleasant jerk when the food reached the end of its tether. Evidently, as with our species, some ravens are more bird—brained than others. Irene Pepperberg, at the University of Arizona , has shown how adroit African gray parrots can be at using human language . Her star pupil, Alex, employs more than 100 English words to refer to all the objects in his lab environment that play a role in his life, including his 15 special foods, his gym and shower, and the experimenter’s shoulder. At times he refuses to cooperate (“No!”) and may tell the experimenter what to do (“Go away,” “Go pick up the cup,” “Come here.”) He also requests particular information (“What’s this?” “What color?” “You tell me.”) After Alex had learned to use the numbers one through six and had grasped that a triangle is “three- cornered” and a square “four—cornered,” he spontaneously and creatively called a pentagon “five—cornered.” In formal, tightly controlled experiments, Alex is shown many objects in various combinations, and answers correctly an astonishing number of questions regarding these objects, such as “What

object is red?” “What shape is [the object which is] wood?” “How many [are] wood?” And, “What color is the key?” Our closest living relatives, the great apes, have shown an even greater proficiency with human language, and are clearly highly intelligent in other ways. The female low-land gorilla, Koko, for example, understands about 2,000 spoken English words, has a working vocabulary of over 1,000 signs (in American sign language) and is able to hold

meaningful and interesting conversations with people. Dolphins and other toothed whales also display behavior that ranks them well up the intelligence scale.

Even if they win humans are good, any “non” intelligent life is still worth savingHyde, University Distinguished Professor of Communication Ethics at Wake Forest University, 06

<Michael, The Life 284

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Acknowledgment is recognition evolving into a more receptive and morally attuned state of consciousness. According to the scientist Paul Davies, this process not only “represents a fundamental rather than an incidental feature of existence” it also offers itself as “a deep and satisfying basis

for human dignity.” Davies makes this claim as an advocate of the “science of self-organization and complexity’ which emphasizes “the

fact that the universe is creativ e ” and that its scientifically discernible “laws have permitted complex structures to emerge and develop to the point of consciousness—in other words, that the universe has organized its own self-awareness.”

Sentience evolves with higher thoughtPinker and Wright, MIT Professor of Psychology and Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, 00

<Steven and Robert, Interview for Meaning of Life TV, Interview occurred between 2000 and 2005, http://meaningoflife.tv/transcript.php?speaker=pinker>

Steven Pinker: No I agree and and I know where you're going which is that could this mysterious stuff called sentience be a sign there there's more more in heaven and earth than dreamed of in our very mechanistic goalless view of life so you're you're taking two mysteries or problems and saying they might have the same solution namely why should sentience as this extra coloring or ingredient have arrived and why does evolution why did it at least end up with this thing that we think is good namely creatures with a moral sense have actually used it to improve their lives so putting these two together ... I mean the way I I mean I I don't have any argument

against that but I an alternative which maybe is not an alternative it's an alternative way of thinking about it is that sentience is something that is a an aspect of having a highly articulated set of internal representations that evolved for an evolutionary purpose why it has this extra aspect of subjectivity is just something that our mind can't grasp simply because the mind itself is a product of natural selection, just as some of the questions about morality make your brain hurt at a certain point and you run out of resources in which to think about

alternatives or to take a high enough bird's eye view in which to say something sensible about why it's that way as opposed to some other way. My own gut feeling is that the question of why sentience exists might be like that.

Because extinction is inevitable, we must act to recognize our mortality. Espey ’00 (Lawrence L. Biology, Trinity U Online)

An underlying theme of this discourse has been that human culture cannot protect a growing population indefinitely. Malthusian and Darwinian principles will eventually re assert themselves and compel mankind to resume a lifestyle that will be analogous to primitive times (225, 231,

232). As natural evolutionary stresses reappear, there will be little prospect of avoiding a relapse into an arduous kind of existence . Confronted with this unpleasant (But realistic) outlook, man might want to consider using his intelligence to estimate the date at which the human species will naturally disappear, and then attempt to program the life remaining so as to forestall chaos or collective suicide (233). Whether he acts or not, man still makes a decision (234); because, if he takes no action, then by abstention he will have chosen to continue the present expansion of civilized cultures toward the limits that will be imposed by famines, pandemics, climatic disruptions, nuclear holocausts, or some other environmental calamities. And, undoubtedly, theses dreadful means of terminating exponential growth would be painfully devastating (235). But what action could

man take to revise the present course of civilization? Should society concentrate on the problem of resource depletion , or waste accumulation or social injustice, or economic deprivation, or international conflict, or what? Since all of these conditions are merely symptoms of an overcrowded planet, it seems that overpopulation may indeed be the paramount threat to human society . Therefore above all else it seems the human consciousness should deal with the prevailing illusion that the human population can continue to grow indefinitely.

Obsession with “Saving the Earth” destroys itEspey ’00 (Lawrence L. Biology, Trinity U Online)

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In the interim, I shall content myself with the hope (or illusion) that there is a natural ethic which mankind might decipher at some time in the future. Regretfully, I do not know how to formulate such an ethic I only know that it cannot be based on the assumption that human beings should become the “custodians of Nature .” Men would achieve nothing together if everyone were to adopt the belief that “I can save the Earth” (296). When men take this attitude it is principally for themselves that they are concerned rather than for Nature . And, this is the very kind of anthropocentric disposition that concerned White (33), it merely represents another example of man’s effort to place himself above non-human Nature, instead of facing the more difficult task of determining his place within the natural environment.

The Affirmative is just trying to engage in the humanist thinking that the Neg tries to break away from. They just try to solve another problem, but this humanist thinking always ends in failure.

Albert Camus (Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature) 1947

Source: The Plague, written by: Albert Camus, page 37.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves . In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn’t a thing made to man’s measure : therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn’t always pass away, and the humanists dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they haven’t taken their precautions. Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be modest, that

was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them; which presupposed that pestilences were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How should they have given a thought to anything like plague, which rules out any future, cancels journey’s, silences the exchange of views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.

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AT: Aliens Will Destroy The UniverseNo warrant to this argument- just a vague assertion that they’d probably do the same thing- don’t allow new 1AR analysis or warrants because that skews block strategies

1. This argument is not responsive: Our evidence indicates that high energy physics experiments and other upcoming technologies will lead to destruction of the universe. That aliens haven’t destroyed the universe does not deny that this is possible, aliens may have not developed these technologies or may simply have been more intelligent than humans in employing them.

2. Science is localized believing aliens will develop the same technology is parochialBasalla, History Professor University of Delaware, 05

<George, Civilized Life in the Universe: Scientists on Extraterrestrials, pg 177>

When philosopher Nicholas Rescher was asked to comment on Drake’s notion of alien science, he dismissed it as infinitely parochial. It was like saying that extraterrestrials share our legal or political system. Rescher was well qualified to examine Drake’s claims.

He had recently studied the anthropomorphic character of human science and how it related to alien science. Rescher struck at the heart of the popular conception of alien science when he challenged the widely held view that there is only one natural world and a single science to explain it. He called this the one world, one science argument. The physical universe is singular, Rescher agreed, but its interpreters are many and diverse. What we know about physical reality stems from our special biological and cognitive make-up and our unique cultural and social heritage and experiences. We have no reason to suppose that extraterrestrials share our peculiar biological attributes,

social outlook, or cultural traditions. Human science , therefore , is incommensurable with extraterrestrial science . If extraterrestrials cultivate science, it will be their kind of science, not our kind. Alien science is a wholly different form of knowledge. It is not human science raised to a higher degree. Rescher

offered a compelling illustration of how human biology and our situation on Earth shaped our science. Astronomy as practiced by humans has been molded by the fact that we live on the surface of the Earth (not underwater), that we have eyes, and that the development of agriculture is linked to the seasonal positions of celestial objects. Intelligent alien creatures living in an oceanic abyss might develop sophisticated

hydrodynamics but fail to study the motion of heavenly bodies, investigate electromagnetic radiation, or build radio telescopes. Even if extraterrestrials are surface dwellers, their biological endowment will determine what they are able to sense, their ecological niche, what aspects of nature they exploit to satisfy their needs, their cultural heritage, which questions about nature they find interesting to ask . Rescher acknowledges the existence of intelligent extraterrestrials who possess the ability to develop science and technology. He does not dispute the scientists’ repeated claims (1) that there is a single scientifically knowable physical reality and (2) that aliens are not simply other humans inhabiting a different planet. After

adopting these claims, he demolishes the idea of a universal science that serves as a common language in the universe. Rescher maintains that wherever science exists in the universe, it will be localized . It will be the science of the creatures who have fashioned it. They will act according to their special physical constitution, environment, history, and needs. Hence, science diverges in the universe. It does not converge on the theories, concepts, and topics that happen to interest terrestrial researchers at this point in the history of the human intellect.

This is just anthropomorphizing alien life they are likely completely differentGoldstien, Shell-Economist Prize winner molecular biologist, theoretician in the field of nanobiotechnology, 06

<Alan, I, Nanobot, March 9, http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/03/09/nanobiobot/index_np.html>

This simplistic view of nanobiotechnology is very much like humanity's current strategy in the search for extraterrestrial life. In a chemically diverse universe we insist

on a perversely self-congratulatory strategy. Water and organic molecules, such as methane, are the identified spoor on this trail. We look for these signs because the biology-centric assumption is that aliens will be just like us, only very, very different -- little green people with acid for blood, sentient jellyfish with a taste for cheeseburgers, or insects that have evolved with a sense of humor. Even search strategies that use "universal mathematical constants" ignore the possibility , proposed by some postmodern philosophers of science, that formal modern mathematics is a function of cognitive structure unique to humans, or less specifically to a narrow range of beings similar to humans, for example, hominids. The point is that technology analysts who can only see life as some variation on biology will see the BTM interface as a way for "us" to

plug into "it." Within this paradigm there are no consequences for the definition of life, only new enhancements for the one true life form: biology. We hold up the mirror of humanity and see our own image reflected in the universe. Most dictionaries define biology as "the science of living things." But the

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(correctly) limitless nature of that definition is truncated when plants and animals are immediately used as the prime examples. NASA, an agency that should know

better, has saturated the media for decades with hypnotic invocations of water and organics as the true signs of extraterrestrial life. Meanwhile, Hollywood and pop culture endlessly anthropomorphize aliens. Robots get the blues. Silicon sentience springs directly from human mythology. Stories of demonic computers and undead cyber-blood lust are endlessly refilmed with really cool graphics, a variety of soundtracks, and excellent eyewear. Skynet, the "self-aware" computer system of the "Terminator" series, hates us and wants us dead. The equally demonic cyber-beings of "The Matrix" want to enslave us and eat our energy

(making this computer both physically dangerous and dangerously ignorant of the physical laws of the universe). It is distinctly ironic that when we consider aliens , life on Earth infuses our scientific models , our dreams, and our entertainment . We could call this "the biology paradox."

The biology paradox makes xenobiology speciously comprehensible, but by clinging to it we dismiss almost all of the chemistry in the universe.

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Aliens Exist FrontlineRoss evidence terrible- it’s just an indict of a study that’s not the aff- prefer all of our evidence which makes predictive claims

We’ve found evidence of life on mars- means we access uniqueness for all of our impact turns

1. Extend our Drake evidence recent examinations of the fossil record and astronomical discoveries put the number of alien civilization at our level of complexity at 10,000, and there are 100s of billions of galaxies.

Existence of organic materials guarantees life exists elsewhere- that’s McKay

2. Even using the most pessimistic standards there is a 100% chance of alien life in the UniverseAczel, professor of Mathmatics Bentley College, 01

<Amir, Probability 1: The book that proves there is life in outer space, pg 212-214>

The union rule for independent events allows us to compute the probability that there is at least one other planet outside Earth with life on it. Let’s start by making some reasonable and minimal (that is, least favorable to our conclusion) assumptions about the basic probabilities of the existence of life on a planet orbiting any one star other than the Sun. Let’s take the estimate of the number of stars with planets, f from Drake’s equation, as = 0.5. Then, from the fact that out of nine extrasolar planets thus discovered, one is in the habitable zone, and the fact that this is confirmed in our own solar system (Earth being in the habitable zone, the other eight planets possibly not), we will use Y9 for that parameter. Now we come to the hard part, getting a lower bound for the actual probability of life: What is the probability that DNA develops and is sustained in life-

forms on a planet that is within its star’s habitable zone? Let’s entertain the notion that DNA is an extremely complex molecule with a very small chance of occurring on its own and that life is precarious because the universe is a dangerous place. Let us therefore assume that the probability of life occurring on any single planet that is already within its star’s habitable zone is extremely, extremely remote: one in a trillion. By multiplication of this extremely small number by the previous factors of 0.5 and ‘/9, we get

the assumption that the probability of life around any one given star is 0.00000000000005. Our galaxy has about 300 billion stars (although some estimates are lower), and let’s assume there are 100 billion galaxies in the universe. We will now use all these estimates and plug them into the rule for the union of independent events: P (life in orbit around at least one other star in the known universe) = 1

(0.99999999999995)30000000000000000000000000 The answer is a number that is indistinguishable from 1.00 at any level of decimal accuracy

reported by the computer. The answer is, for all practical purposes, equal to 1.00—or 100 percent. Even if we assume that there are only 10 billion stars in our own galaxy and that there are only a billion galaxies, the answer still comes out to be a number indistinguishable from 1.00 for the probability of life elsewhere in the universe. This shows that the result is overwhelming—the probability that life exists outside Earth does not depend very strongly on the actual number of stars in the universe, as long as that number is very large—as we well know it to be from everything astronomy has taught us. New results from the Hubble Space Telescope about the existence of so many billions of galaxies in the universe serve the point that there are so many possible places for life to develop. There is also no dependence in the model on the assumptions about the percentage of stars with planets and the percentage of these planets within the habitable zone. While we used the best scientific estimates, even lower values still lead to the same answer, a number close to 1.00. The probability is a virtual certainty. What is happening here, mathematically, is that even though our probability of life on any one planet may be extremely small, the compound probability that life exists on at least one other planet increases steadily because there are so man places to look — so many stars. This type of convergence as the number of trials becomes large always takes place when one uses the rule for the union of independent events. If you give something enough of a chance to happen, it

eventually will. Finally, we don’t really know for certain the size of the entire universe. Some believe that our universe is infinite. If there are infinitely many stars, the answer to our question is that the probability of extraterrestrial life is identically equal to 1.00 (not just a number indistinguishable from 1.00 to any level of accuracy), and that this holds true no matter how small the probability of life on any planet may be, as long as that number is not identically zero (and we know that it is not zero since we exist).

Even if humanity goes extinct life will reemerge if we do not destroy the UniverseGrinspoon, Southwest Research Institute Principle Scientist Department of Space Studies and adjunct professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the

University of Colorado, 03

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<David, Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life, pg 415>

My belief in aliens is inseparable from a certain unavoidable, foolish, naturalistic optimism about our own ultimate prospects. Everything that I’ve learned about the nature of our universe and our biosphere tells me that life will find a way to thrive. Gaia, as Lynn Margulis has said,

“is a tough bitch.” If her noosphere chops off its head, she’ll keep grooving along . In time, she may grow another noosphere , giving a different proto-intelligent species a chance at reaching the big time. I see our proud little spurt of technical invention as a little eddy in a whirling universe that is evolving, self-organizing , and moving inexorably toward more life and more intelligence. Our little whorl could wink out in an instant, or it could grow into a deeper more stable mind-storm. Is psychogenesis limited to Earth? I doubt it. Will there be a psychozoic age of the universe? Has it already begun? If we believe even in the possibility of the transformation to wisdom and immortality, then we must live in a universe increasingly permeated with intelligence, and suffused with love. I proved it mathematically in the last chapter, and equations don’t lie.

Margulis = Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts

New planet indicates widespread habitability Than, Space.com writer, 07

<Ker, April 24, Major Discovery: New Planet Could Harbor Water and Life http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070424_hab_exoplanet.html>

An Earth-like planet spotted outside our solar system is the first found that could support liquid water and harbor life , scientists announced today. Liquid water is a key ingredient for life as we know it . The newfound planet is located at the "Goldilocks" distance-not too close and not too far from its star to keep water on its surface from freezing or vaporizing away . And while astronomers are not yet able to look for signs of biology on the planet, the discovery is a milestone in planet detection and the search for extraterrestrial life, one with the potential to profoundly change our outlook on the universe. "The goal is to find life on a planet like the Earth around a star like the Sun. This is a step in that direction," said study leader Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland. "Each time you goone step forward you are very happy." The new planet is

about 50 percent bigger than Earth and about five times more massive. The new "super-Earth" is called Gliese 581 C, after its star, Gliese 581, a diminutive red dwarf star located 20.5 light-years away that is about one-third as massive as the Sun.

Smallest to date Gliese 581 C is the smallest extrasolar planet, or "exoplanet," discovered to date. It is located about 15 times closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun; one year on the planet is equal to 13 Earth days. Because red dwarfs, also known as M dwarfs, are about 50 times dimmer than the Sun and much cooler, their planets

can orbit much closer to them while still remaining within their habitable zones, the spherical region around a star within which a planet's temperature can sustain liquid water on its surface. Because it lies within its star's habitable zone and is relatively close to Earth, Gliese 581 C could be a very important target for future space missions dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life, said study team member Xavier Delfosse of Grenoble University in France. "On the treasure map of the universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X," Delfosse said. Two other planets are known to inhabit the red dwarf system. One is a 15 Earth-mass "hot-

Jupiter" gas planet discovered by the same team two years ago, which orbits even closer to its star than does Gliese 581 C. Another is an 8 Earth-mass planet discovered at the same time as Gliese 581 C, but which lies outside its star's habitable zone. Possible waterworld Computer models predict Gliese 581 C is either a rocky planet like Earth or a waterworld covered entirely by oceans. "We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius [32 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit], and water would thus be liquid," Udry said. The scientists discovered the new world using the HARP instrument on the European Southern Observatory 3.6 meter telescope in La Sille, Chile. They employed the so-called radial velocity, or "wobble," technique, in which the size and mass of a planet are determined based on small perturbations it induces in its parent star's orbit via gravity. Udry said there was a fair amount of time between the calculation of Gliese 581 C's size and the realization it was within its star's habitable zone. "That came at the end," Udry said. When it did hit him, Udry knew he would be spending time fielding phone calls from the media. "You right away think about the journalists who will like it very much," he told SPACE.com. More to come David Charbonneau,

an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) who was not involved in the study, said the new finding is an "absolutely fantastic discovery." " It means there probably are many more such planets out there ," Charbonneau said in a telephone interview. Whether Gliese 581 C harbors life is still unknown, but "it satisfies for the first time a key requirement."

5. Life Can survive in any condition including spaceGrinspoon, Southwest Research Institute Principle Scientist Department of Space Studies and adjunct professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the

University of Colorado, 03

<David, Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life, pg 129-131>

Life has expanded on its bag of chemical tricks to facilitate survival in a bewildering array of environments. In recent years, we’ve discovered life in the strangest of places: in unlikely corners of our planet where no one had thought to search because they seemed so obviously

uninhabitable. We’ve found bacteria thriving in acid so strong that it would dissolve your skin instantly, and creatures soaking

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contentedly in superheated thermal springs above two hundred degrees. Some of these hyperthermophiles, or extreme-heat-loving organisms, require temperatures above the normal boiling point of water to survive. At the opposite extreme are those that survive in intense cold. In frigid arctic tundras that

appear lifeless, we’ve found colonies of bacteria hiding out inside frozen rocks. We’ve even found organisms that can survive after being frozen for weeks in liquid nitrogen! The green plant Welwitschia mirabilis can survive for thousands of years in places with only one centimeter of

rainfall per year. The Dead sea, it turns out, is alive with salt-loving bacteria and algae. In 1997, Japanese scientists discovered a species of

marine worm living in an ocean trench twenty-one thousand feet beneath the sea at a crushing pressure 650 times that of sea level. Bacteria have survived for 3 million years in Siberian permafrost at fifteen degrees below zero with no sunlight, air, or food. They don’t do very much down there but survive simply by waiting, for eons if necessary, until the ground thaws and they can resume living at a healthier clip. Large, diverse communities of previously unknown organisms crowd the hot, nutrient-rich waters surrounding “black smokers,” volcanic vents on the bottom of the sea. The denizens of these recently discovered ecosystems include sulfur-eating shrimp and giant tube worms up to ten feet long. As weird and unearthly as these deep-ocean communities seem to us,

many scientists are starting to think that our most distant ancestors came from just such a place. There are even bacteria living a mile underground and eating nothing but basaltic rock and water. * In fact, it now seems possible that most life on our planet is in the “deep Earth biosphere,” a realm extending miles underground whose existence we never before suspected. This would be the biological equivalent of “dark matter” in that the majority of life even on our own planet could as yet be unknown to us. We’ve been sharing a planet with these unlikely creatures for billions of years, but who knew? Our own planet is crawling with “aliens.” We continue to find extremophiles (lovers of extremes) that break our conceptual barriers of life’s range in

temperature, pH, diet, and pressure. They show us that life is even more robust, adaptable, and resourceful than we imagined, and this encourages us to think that it will find ways to persist in diverse and extreme environments on other planets. In fact, life may not even need a planet. When the Apollo 12 astronauts retrieved pieces of the old Surveyor 3 spacecraft, which had been sitting idle in a

lunar crater fully exposed to the harsh radiation and vacuum of space, investigators back on Earth were shocked to find viable Streptococcus bacteria that had survived a three-year stay on the Moon. Who is to say that living creatures cannot survive longer spells in outer

space? This possibility was amplified by another recent discovery: bacteria such as Deinococcus radiodurans that live happily inside nuclear reactors, flawlessly reassembling their damaged genomes from hundreds of fragments, despite radiation doses a thousand times stronger than those that would kill a human.

1. Life on Earth points to spontaneous generation of lifeHawking, NAS, Online Lecture

<Steven “Life in the Universe”http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/life.html>

If the appearance of life on a given planet was very unlikely, one might have expected it to take a long time. More precisely, one might have expected life to appear just in time for the subsequent evolution to intelligent beings, like us, to have occurred before the cut off, provided by the life time of the Sun. This is about ten billion years, after which the Sun will swell up and engulf the Earth. An intelligent form of life, might have mastered space travel, and be able

to escape to another star. But otherwise, life on Earth would be doomed. There is fossil evidence, that there was some form of life on Earth, about three and a half billion years ago. This may have been only 500 million years after the Earth became stable and cool enough, for life to develop. But

life could have taken 7 billion years to develop, and still have left time to evolve to beings like us, who could ask about the origin of life. If the probability of life developing on a given planet, is very small, why did it happen on Earth, in about one 14th of the time available. The early appearance of life on Earth suggests that there's a good chance of the spontaneous generation of life, in suitable conditions.

3. No special circumstances for lifeDrake, Astronomy and Astrophysics Professor University of California at Santa Cruz ,02

<Frank, July, Astrobiology Magazine, July 15 http://www.astrobio.net/news/article236.html>

I think this is an occasion where that old principal of good science, Occam's Razor, is helpful. Apply Occam's Razor to the question of the origin of life on Earth.

We look at the Earth, and with regards to that origin, as best we know, no special or freak circumstances were required. It took water, organics, a source of energy, and a long time. Deep-sea vents are the current favorite and a reasonable place for the origin. But even if they weren't the

culprits, the chemists have found a multitude of other pathways that produce the chemistry of life. The challenge seems to be not to find THE pathway, but the one that was the quickest and most productive. The prime point is that nothing special was required. There will be a pathway that works, on Earth and

on similar planets. Then, by Occam's Razor , the origin of life on Earth is nothing more than the result of normal processes on the planet. Furthermore, life

should appear very frequently on other Earth-like planets. There will be microbial life nearby the solar system.

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4. Panspermia means comets will spread life all over the UniverseShostak. SETI Senior Astronomer, 03

<Seth, Panspermia: Spreading Life Through the Universe, Jul. 24,

http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=191981&ct=220926>

About 25 years ago, two British astronomers, Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramsinghe, proposed that comets might be the Johnny Appleseeds of life, carrying vital

spores from star system to star system, an idea that is known today as panspermia. If the tail of such a life-loaded comet were to brush the Earth, it might pass some of its frozen microorganisms into the atmosphere where they could descend to our planets surface. The two astronomers ventured that this might account for the start of life on Earth. They also made the disturbing suggestion that panspermia could spread disease. Now you might wonder whether life from space, as intriguing as the idea might be, solves the mystery of how biology got started in the first place. Or does this theory merely push the problem of lifes origin into someone elses lap? Well, of course, to some extent it only accomplishes the latter. But there is an appealing aspect to panspermia:

it allows life to be widespread, even if the genesis of life is a difficult and rare event. After all, humans cover the planet, even though Homo sapiens got his start in only one locale (Africa, presumably.) Life might blanket the Galaxy even if it only sprung up on a small number of worlds. Great. But is there any evidence for panspermia, or is it just a seductive idea with a sexy moniker? Jayant Narlikar, of the Inner-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune, India, claims to have data in support of panspermia. Narlikar recently flew an experiment in a high-altitude balloon. On board was a cryogenic sampler consisting of 16 cylinders that were pumped out and decontaminated before launch. As the balloon climbed into the Indian sky, puffs of air were sucked in. One by one, the cylinders were automatically filled with samples from various altitudes, ranging from 25 to 41 km. Once the payload returned to Earth, it was examined in biology labs in Cardiff and Sheffield, England. To their amazement, the researchers found evidence for live cells in the samples from 41 km. Even more interesting, these "bacteria" recovered at high altitude were non-culturable. This doesnt mean that they didnt appreciate opera, but rather that they couldnt be grown in laboratory Petri dishes. According to Narlikar, this was important in ruling out laboratory contamination of the samples the cells found were clearly not a common lab bacterium.