There is a school of thought that it is only a matter of time until an asteroid or or supervolcano causes another extinction event and unless humanity develops mass spacefaring and colonization capabilities, it won't matter how well we cared for our planet.
I think both efforts are absolutely necessary for the survival of our species.
1) humans aren't going extinct, given how much we can change our environment to our comfort, human species will survive meteorites and volcanoes. And even if we do, a self sufficient colony in a nuclear bunker or in Antarctica or on the surface of the ocean is likely to survive these events too. Being spacefaring makes no sense for survival, it does for science, but not for survival.
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2) I would argue that putting too much money in vanity space projects is actually more harmful. We would same more lives if we spent that money here to help educate people out of poverty so that they'd survive a calamity.
A Mars settlement is basically rich idiots (read Musk) trying to have a legacy while fear mongering common people.
This sounds like a short-lived view to me and the exact kind of sentiment I hear in the climate-change skeptic circles. It is one thing to have a handful of humans survive in an underground bunker somewhere, and a whole different thing to have the species colonize the Galaxy. One is barely surviving and the other is thriving.
You cannot deny that our best bet for long-term survival is to get off this planet. Musk is perhaps a rich idiot, as you put it, but at least he has the right vision.
I am saying that building a self sustaining pod on earth should be the first step. Not going to mars and establishing a settlement utterly dependent on earth for resources.
And when such pods are built, and self sustaining technology mastered, what use is mars really? Why not make big self sustaining spaceships? What do you really need a planet for?
How do you suggest human species to survive a big impact of meteor or comet? Something like the one in Younger Dryas which ended the ice age (11-12k ago). Tsunamis tall several hundreds of feet wiping out all coastal areas (where most people live as those are most comfortable areas), huge earthquakes and fires that burn down majority of fauna overnight.
Then followed by a plunge in temperature that will be the last nail in the coffin of whatever agricultural capability we have left after most of the civilisation was washed away. It seems difficult for me to imagine how we could survive that. I agree that it probably wouldn't kill of entire species but it would definitely end the modern civilisation and set the survivors back hundreds/thousands of years.
Yes it will collapse the civilization, without doubt. It will not kill off the entire species as you said, which is what I am arguing.
Does having a settlement on mars change any of that? Should we not first create self sustaining pods on the earth? After that, what do we need mars for? Just for access to water, sunlight, protection from radiation, and gravity? Surely, a settlement on a big spaceship would be viable too?
It might though. When ice age ended, whole species went extinct (saber-toothed tigers, mammoths etc). Our species somehow clinged on but the population was decimated to couple of hundred individuals at the worst point. Back then we were hunter gatherers so we were much better at surviving out in the wild.
If something like what happened 10,000 years ago happened today, I'm less optimistic about our ability to survive very long. If we were reduced to couple of hundred people back then when we were used to living in the wild, we might go to 0 this time. There are some small tribes of indigenous people in Amazon rain forrest and couple other places who might be better equipped to survive but that is not guaranteed.
I think you are overestimating resilience of our species, we have not yet been tested by any serious cataclysm since modern civilisation, compared to our ancestors, who were much tougher than us though, and they only barely survived.
I think both efforts are absolutely necessary for the survival of our species.