Some people have the take on things that humans should be careful not to "mess" with the universe so as not to "ruin" it for everything else. What is the universe with out us? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to ever be able to know that a tree existed then who cares? If we accidentally make a mistake and over harvest some trees in our learning process then who cares? The potential for mistakes is no reason to slow down the pushing of progress for humanity, let alone to see humanity as some sort of nuisance.
If we didnt push for progress we wouldnt be anything except for another animal walking around eating and dying and remaining trapped in habit and trapped on this one tiny planet in this vast ocean of mystery like fleas content to live out their destinies on a particle of dust. Progress is our destiny. We must tread with determination [i]and [/i]care. As we experiment with reality we cannot be afraid to make mistakes, we must be bold in our quest. We cannot treat our births as "mistakes" that we spend our whole lives trying to make up for. We dont owe anything to anything except for the human race because we are the only things that can conceive of the value in being owed something to begin with.
"There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go." -Richard Bach
We are born ignorant, of course we are going to make "mistakes". Even mistakes are glorious. We face challenges and evolve. Most of the ignorance comes because people are born completely ignorant, and have to learn from all their mistakes as they grow, then just when they start getting a handle on knowledge and reality they are killed off and replaced by a new ignorant generation.
The world is like a wild stallion. We are like horse trainers with week long life spans.
In one week we have to try to learn how to train horses. Then we get on the wild horse, try to train it and reign it under control, but we die after a week and another trainer jumps on, tries to put the reigns on it, but they die after a week and so on.
If we had longer life spans we would have time to get on the problems of this world, put the reigns on it and get it under control.
What if we could come back after a potential end of the universe and listen to a narrator go over a summary of it. If there were no intelligent beings like humans then what would they talk about?
"And the amimals of the earth, the ducks, the bears, the giraffes and so on walked around for a couple million years. They died off. The rest of the planets spun on, mixing their various gases together and colliding from time to time." If thats all that happens and then the universe ends then who cares?
But if it goes something like,
"and then the humans all but erased the plague of ignorance that fell upon their species by reaching indefinite life spans. This also brought a sense of unity to the world as they all but ended their ritual of war and accelerated their drive to pioneer all of existence. They managed to colonize 8 billion 732 million planets in their time, mastering the use of worm holes, pioneering the effects of submersable virtual reality and discovering the nature of infinity. The humans catalogued 2 million planets full of libraries of knowledge, they learned to live in peace with their amazingly intelligent and versatile robot creations, and they did many other amazing things in the reign of the many epochs of the great human race."
Fight death, stop aging, join the cause. If you want your life, if you want to try to learn more about the wonders of the universe and existence then join the cause.