Space

pointed out that it doesn’t actually address any of the problems with space settlements.

It does address some of the problems. We already have a lot of the capability. Like I've said, moving an asteroid has already been demonstrated. Capping the dig sites makes it reasonable to maintain an atmosphere inside the hollow body of the asteroid and the body of the asteroid protects inhabitants from radiation. We can build soil using basic principles we've used for millennia here on Earth and raise crops so the hab could possibly be self sustaining. This addresses most of the scientific issues the article presents.

You keep ignoring a lot of what I'm saying so it feels like you're not actually arguing with me and this is a personal bugaboo for you. I never said "space will be the wild west". There are already laws in place that work and prevent a lot of bad things. What I was trying to get across is that laws don't actually stop people from doing bad things. Putin invaded Ukraine, Israel is bombing civilians, etc, even though those are against international laws. The laws are a deterrent but can't actually stop someone. And the international community has shown they will not forcibly stop countries from breaking these laws. What would stop people from doing something like this is the same as what currently stops countries from using nukes.

There’s a huge difference between dart and redirecting an asteroid to a specific near earth orbit. These are not comparable existential threats.

They redirected an asteroid into an orbit farther from Earth. That's not a huge difference from bringing its orbit closer to Earth.

My push back is because we are just randos on the internet having a fun conversation about hypothetical far futures, not an organization with space launch capabilities, and you started yelling at us for being irresponsible with existential threats. No matter how this argument here end, nothing will change in the status of space law and the ability to ram asteroids into Earth. So we wanted to spend our time theorizing about the fun questions and there's no international law requiring us to submit a thesis on how we would prevent a global apocalypse before we play armchair scientist/explorer.