Some people complain about feeling insignificant when pondering the vast indifference of the heavens with its multitude of stars. I find it reassuring when I feel bad about how humanity is screwing things up.
We are in the Milky Way, which has at least 100 billion stars. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group, which contains more than 54 galaxies. The Local Group is part of the Virgo Cluster, which has about 2000 galaxies. And the Virgo Cluster is part of the Laniakea Supercluster, which contains at least 100,000 galaxies.
My mind got blown last night when I read there are about 10 million superclusters in the observable universe.
We can completely mess up and it probably won't matter much on a grand scale. The pressure is off.
Well, that's just a feeling - someone could argue the opposite. But I feel better.
@johncarlosbaez This only goes to show how vast our potential impact is. If we can only survive a little longer, we can populate myriad galaxies with valuable minds.
@ciphergoth - True. More about that in my next post! I just get depressed thinking about how much energy we waste on bickering and wars.