"Except that it's not, like 'would you like this free value with which to space,' going into space has opportunity costs, and I think that the relative value of space compared to, like, curing malaria, is lowered by our complete lack of data on how space will effect eclipses."

"Yeah, that's also part of what I mean, we don't have a priori any evidence that it's particularly good or useful, and the risk that it's not is fairly high given our knowledge."

"Well, we're going to have to do it eventually, once we scale de-aging overpopulation's going to become a much more pressing issue."

"True, but by then we'll have gotten to all the other lower-hanging fruit in terms of expected returns."

"Maybe."

"You don't expect so?"

"There are a lot of problems we could have solved already, but haven't."

"I guess, but we're on our way to, and most low-hanging fruit nowadays is about equally low-hanging, I don't think there's anything obviously correct and easy to do compared to everything else."

"Right, but I'm saying that solving problems isn't as simple as finding a technical solution, scientists have clean energy ready to roll out whenever and we don't have clean energy because oil lobbyists."

"Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that the problem is strictly technical, when I want to see how high the fruit is hanging I include every necessary step to get it, not just 'is it technically feasible.' Same for space exploration, I don't think at this point the challenge is very technical anymore."

"Well, exploration no, colonization yes."

"Hmmm, yeah, fair enough."

"She does that."

"Does what?"

"Being right."

"Very good habit, that."

"It is!"

"What do you think our priorities should be with respect to space exploration and colonization?" she asks Emily.

"I think I don't currently know enough about the tradeoffs to answer that question."

"Not even a guess?"

"I think if there are any technologies that can be used both to colonize other planets and make the Earth support more people, that's a really good place to start."

"Isn't the Earth supporting people problem fundamentally a distribution problem, at least at present?"

"It is, but it won't necessarily be once de-aging's solved."

"I think I read somewhere that even if we all turned immortal right now it'd still take decades for that to be a problem bigger than distribution, but that memory's vague enough I'm not sure I should trust it."

"This isn't a problem I researched extensively before having this conversation either."