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komponisto comments on Any existential risk angles to the US presidential election? - Less Wrong
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Why do you think space exploration matters? Self-sustaining space colonization is decades away, and wouldn't help against UFAI. OTOH, it might help in the case of global war, if there are some colonies that all sides are nice enough not to attack.
I can't think of any risks that space colonization helps against that deep underground colonies wouldn't, though space colonization has the huge advantage of being much more popular.
(Also, asteroid mining is a WMD and might increase x-risk for that reason. On the other hand, cheaper more abundant minerals might be geopolitically stabilizing — or destabilizing, for all I know.)
Probably mostly indirectly, as a catalyst for science, engineering, and industry in general, with concomitant beneficial effects on education and living standards, thus potentially allowing more attention and resources to be allocated to x-risk mitigation in the long term.
On the other hand, technological advances bring risks of their own, so it's not obvious what the net benefit is. My intuition tends to favor advancement, but I'm open to persuasion if there are good (particularly inside-view) arguments against it.