[Mr. Retro]

That, my friends, is Earth. A tiny little speck, utterly insignificant even the eyes of a machine not so far from us, of our own creation. What does this say about human existance? Obviously we are not as significant as our ancestors would have speculated. No, not even the Gaians, those who place us as a part of nature, are right, as nothingness seems to crush any sort of significance to life at all. So what's our purpose? Do we even have one?

My theory is that we are here to conquer. To advance as far into the stars as we are able, and leave our mark. It may not be much, and even taking over a whole galaxy is pretty much worthless in an infinite universe. However, I think that's the one thing we can really hold onto, huh? The Earth isn't going to last forever, even if it doesn't go tomorrow, and eventually there are going to be too many people to be sustained by this pale blue dot. So I say go out into infinity and conquer. If not for ourselves then for the universe. We humans have been blessed with obvious superiority over all other species*, and we must enforce that. We must advance and advance until we can not advance any more, at which point we may very well rival gods.

Also I made this topic at three in the morning so I have no fucking clue where I'm going with this.

To those of you who say "we're not better than anything", go give a jellyfish blueprints to a skyscraper and see what happens. Oh, right, no eyes.

[Master of AFTER]

We're all just insignificant little creatures scurrying about on a ball of dirt floating in an endless void, fueled by a fear of death to build something bigger than ourselves in a fruitless effort to gain immortality. So we exist to conquer... What, exactly, are we expected to conquer? You think that since we can't be satisfied with control of our own planet because it's just a spec in the eye of a camera, we should strive to conquer a much larger area beyond the borders of our own galaxy; an area which will itself become a spec in the eye of a camera with a wider field of vision.

What we control will always be a dot of light against a field of blackness as long as there's no wall to prohibit the camera from moving further back before it takes each subsequent picture.

I don't follow the idea that humans have any sort of grand purpose as a race of beings. I believe that it's up to each of us to find purpose within our own lives, as individuals. My sphere of concern is limited to my life and the lives of those who are important to me. Of course, I have the capacity to care for strangers and people who I have no direct physical contact with, but the accomplishments of my species as a whole don't particularly matter to me. I don't agree with everything humans have done up to this point in our history, and honestly, I believe we'll destroy ourselves LONG before we ever reach a point of becoming what anyone with reasonable sensibilities would think to refer to as gods.

Science and religion have both done a terrible job of predicting what the future holds in any sort of useful detail. I figure I won't live long enough to see humankind reach its zenith or its annihilation, and what happens after I'm gone is utterly irrelevant in my mind. I only care about what I can accomplish and experience as single sentient being, because that's all I can truly understand anyway. The ultimate fate of my race is not something I have anywhere near enough control of to feel the least bit responsible for.

[Mr. Retro]

We could just say by conquering everything that humanity is giving a collective middle-finger to James Cameron and stuff. But what I really believe is that if humanity is to thrive, we should explore as much of the universe as possible. If we are lucky, our own findings after we're gone may actually serve some use to another race, as long as we leave decoding instructions behind. Not to mention, with more of us on different planets that are self-sufficient, there is less and less chance we will all peter out. As long as we maintain that urge to colonize and conquer, there's an infinitesmally small chance we may actually be able to see the actual, final end.

[???????]

I'm going to have to agree with AFTER about not giving a damn what the fate of the human race will be, especially since I won't live long enough to. I seriously doubt our main purpose is to expand and conquer beyond our planet and to automatically assume that we're the superior to all other species is both arrogant and ignorant simply because of the possibility that there may be another species beyond Earth that makes us look like a bunch of wild monkeys. Yes, I know you were referring to the other species on Earth, but, by not specifying, you make it seem like you didn't take that possibility into account.

I do have to admit, though, that eventually settling down on other planets and meeting other intelligent life, assuming it exists, we're closer than we think, and neither group attacks eachother, does sound pretty cool.