Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliants minds ever, thinks we need to give it up, build an intersolar spaceship, and move. Since seating is limited, smart people with good genes and people who can finance the expedition need only apply. Can anyone say out of touch with reality? We haven't had anyone make in a planetry biodome for extended periods of time and now he thinks we can just load up and leave in the next century? Assuming he's correct that technology will catch up and we will have the ability to colonize an extrasolar planet with the necessary conditions for human living, can we still say out of touch with reality?

Physicists like Hawking and others consider sociology a "soft science," which it is. Some physicists (and others of the "hard sciences") consider sociology a load of crap and a waste of good talent. See, in hard sciences, if it's wrong once (and not due to experimental error), then it's always wrong. In soft sciences, the level of wrongness in any hypothesis is based on how statistically significant anything is.

The issue is simply this. When it comes to culture, humans from industrialized nations (make no mistake, these will be the only ones on Hawking's ship), Environmental concerns are a lot like obesity issues. Sure, we find a new planet, colonize, use "green" methods and pass on enviro-friendly wisdom to the next generation. But the underlying problem still exists. We all want to have stuff. Our industrial, capitalist culture has trained us to expect to get anything we want right now (financing is available!) whether we can afford it or not. We've been trained to expect new styles and new fashions regularly. Who has trained us? We've done a large part of it ourselves. We're spoiled. The media, peer pressure (real or imagined), and parents have done most of it. Fifty years ago, it was embarrassing (like getting caught masturbating by your parents) to discuss loans. Now people talk about the great financing deals they get on their cars. Heck, you can't even get a price out of half the dealers anymore, just payment amounts.

Oh, but there won't have manufacturing facilities on Hawkingworld! True. But what's the first step? Clear cutting some land to make room. Have to start a base camp, right? Then there's exploration and finding the best place for a permanent settlement. Put up a small center of operations, surround it with housing, and then comes the hard work. Clear some fields and plant some food. We can't really take the chance that the planet will come pre-packed with human viable food, right? Just have to be careful to make sure our food source doesn't become an invasive species. Anyway, Hawkington is now a thriving little community. Babies are getting born and new construction starts happening. Someone gets a brilliant idea for something people need and starts manufacturing it. And wow. Fast forward a few hundred years. Population growth is still in the exponential stages and Hawkington is a major urban area. People are spreading more. Fast forward a thousand years. Wow, Hawkington is filthy and you can't drink the water without a filter. I say this is true prediction of this endeavor because, at this moment, Hawking's plans addresses all the environmental issues in moving to a new planet and starting over, but skips, entirely, the required changes in culture.

Hawking is wrong and thousands upon thousands of years of social testing can prove it. Ask any parent who's muttered the words, "Oh my god, I've turned into my mother! (or father)". Ask anyone who has successfully broken out of the yo-yo dieting trap. Ask the AA people. Sure, we can move. We can apply environmentally friendly technology. Eventually, though, it's going to be about money again. Where money is the hoarded commodity, and therefore profit is the only true ethic, corners will get cut. The culture of capitalism is still there and its still going to reproduce itself until there are sufficient resources available for the people to really get into the very things that are turning the 21st century into a lovely re-enactment of the Permian Extinction.

I'd suggest that rather than change planets, we change humanity. Yeah, it's easier to move to another planet and set up shop, even if we have to terraform it. It's our culture to believe that humans are distinct from nature and that humans not only own the entire planet, but we can do what we want with it. It's our culture to believe that a human life is more valuable than anything else's life. It's our culture to believe that our property is more valuable than anything else's life. It's our culture to assume that development = progress, and nothing, certainly non-human life, should stand in the way of progress. Our culture is based on capitalism which is based on the constant selling of new stuff. By our, I mean the industrial and emerging nations--anyone that's a presence in globalization. China claims communism, but they're capitalists, too. I think they're better at it than we are, actually.

Maybe Hawking is right. We should move. We can become the aliens in Independence Day, hopping from planet to planet, taking what we want and destroying the rest before we move on. We've already got the idea that it's our right to do with any planet what we choose; we just lack interstellar travel.