Yes, Steven Pinker is excellent on this. The other example I remember him pointing is the German word Schadenfreude (the malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortune of others). There is no Engligh word for that, but that doesn't mean English speakers don't know what that is or have no feelings like that. If you find and English speaker who doesn't know what Schadenfreude means, and you tell them, a likely response might be - "Cool, there's actually a word for that?!"
On a long enough time scale, the survival rate for everyone goes to zero. The universe will almost surely end one day in a big crunch or as a thin cold dead space. Ultimately, there will be no survivors. The best reason to explore space is simply because it's there, and that's what humans like to do, explore.
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It was actually Pinker's point; I'll pass it on champ.
Yes, Steven Pinker is excellent on this. The other example I remember him pointing is the German word Schadenfreude (the malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortune of others). There is no Engligh word for that, but that doesn't mean English speakers don't know what that is or have no feelings like that. If you find and English speaker who doesn't know what Schadenfreude means, and you tell them, a likely response might be - "Cool, there's actually a word for that?!"
Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate".
On a long enough time scale, the survival rate for everyone goes to zero. The universe will almost surely end one day in a big crunch or as a thin cold dead space. Ultimately, there will be no survivors. The best reason to explore space is simply because it's there, and that's what humans like to do, explore.