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There’s a big debate over whether exporting democracy is a sound idea. On the one hand, you’ve got all the good things that come with it, like egalitarianism, the rule of law and kids holding hands and skipping everywhere. On the other hand, you’ve got free markets, corporate exploitation and homogenization.

The democratic peace theory is predicated on the observation that democracies rarely go to war with each other, so if all nations were democracies, war would go the way of disco. Mixed with increasingly globalized trade and the bald eagle as a shared national symbol, democracies would have far too much at stake economically to risk waging war with one another. The theory is pretty much sound in its basis; World Wars I and II (the Sequel!) were fought between democracies including the U.S. and authoritarian regimes. The Cold War (and its proxy wars) was fought between a democracy(the U.S.) and a communist state (the U.S.S.R.). The U.S. democracy fought the dictatorships in Panama and Grenada. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, which were commanded by authoritarian regimes. (Noticed a pattern?)

Though it sounds as good as a fresh piece of lemon-lime Bubble Yum, democratic peace theory is roundly criticized for fallacious reasoning, as it potentially overlooks the possibility that we humans are a warlike species and democracies would, in fact, go to war with one another in the absence of states with divergent political philosophies. Even if it is correct, that it could bring an end to overt war, the theory leaves a big fat doughnut hole called covert war, which democracies like the U.S. have shown repeatedly are more than happy to carry out. Even worse than overlooking it, the economic interests that partly inform democratic peace theory have provoked covert action in the past.

It’s possible to look at the current tension between religious and non-religious political identities in struggle right now for the soul of the globalized world. Democracy has been elected coolest kid in school by other secular nations, but it still has fundamentalism to contend with. While the political basis of the upcoming globalized world is being duked out around the map, io9′s pointed out that there’s some guy who’s trying to export all of our troubles here on Earth everywhere else in the galaxy. Like someone put him in charge of globalizing the solar system.

Dr. Michael Mautner, a research chemist at Virginia Commonwealth University, who will heretofore be referred to cryptically as “The Professor,” has been saying that we should launch packets containing the ingredients necessary for life here on Earth into outer space. These packets are man-made tools for a theory of life in the universe called panspermia, the idea that planets exchange the ingredients necessary for life among one another using comets and the like. In the case of The Professor’s idea, it would be, essentially, spreading Earth’s sperm all over the place. The packets would be filled with oxygen-producing microbes that could generate the conditions necessary for humans to breathe and go to war like we do here on Earth, says The Professor. The idea is that if we launch enough of these packets some will eventually enter orbit around potentially life-sustaining planets and serve as a catalyst to form atmospheres. When we use this planet up, we can hop off to the next one.

The Professor insists that this is not some flip space fantasy like Solaris, but what he calls a “moral obligation.” We must ensure that there are other places for humans to go once we’ve used this world up. Which kind of makes The Professor’s ideas the Bic lighter theory of terraforming. Now this is a guy who sees the writing on the wall.

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