In this marginal land accurate information was at a premium; to know the land was to prosper, not to know it meant starvation, and experts were a lot… - Stephen Baxter

For the genes it made sense, of course. Otherwise it would not have happened.

But even the steady state, our best-hope future, may not be achievable without space.
Without power and materials from space we are doomed to shuffle a known—in fact diminishing—stockpile of resources around the planet. Some players get rich; others get poor. But it’s not even a zero-sum game; in the long term we are all losers.

We underestimated the vindictiveness of mankind. Their retrospective tribunals. Their visiting of punishments on the children of the perpetrators. They never forgave us.