3 ms·
Maybe not bidirectional communication per se, but it’d still be pretty valuable to receive a live feed of what the other civilization was up to hundreds of year
by comex 8y ago
Maybe not bidirectional communication per se, but it’d still be pretty valuable to receive a live feed of what the other civilization was up to hundreds of years ago. Especially for things like scientific advances and important works of literature – but I suspect people would also be interested in the day-to-day trivia. I mean, as an individual I’m already largely powerless to influence any of the events I read about in the newspaper, but I still read the newspaper.
Besides, if you’re an AI or an uploaded brain, you can send yourself over a communications link. That’s pretty valuable, regardless of whether you ever intend to return!
- kamaal 8y agoThis reminds of the time I first visited US. As an Indian, the first world infrastructure and living standards had me in awe. After going back to India, merely showing things to people on Google Maps was an experience of its own. People went like: Do people in other countries, live that well? I'd fathom when we see some advanced civilization we would probably react the same way.
- bluGill 8y agoHow much do you pay attention to the live feed of news from Mauritius? (If you live anywhere close to that country, or have ties there pick a different country on a different continent). Somewhere in my family history is the towns where my family immigrated to the US from, but I don't care at all about news from those towns. The news in my town is of interest to me, nobody else would care about the latest live music at the local stage. Science might be of interest, but the problem is both cultures will work in parallel, so we can assume that majority of advances one planet discovers are discovered by the other planet in the mean time. The nearest star (which might not even have a habitable planet) to earth is too far away for science collaboration other than the "here is new type of signal we are sending your way, see if you get it", and even then you take the risk that the other planet chooses to not listen for whatever reason (it wouldn't surprise me if some theory require this level of cooperation). It is close enough that some "we are studying this lead, so you probably want to look at something different to avoid duplicate work". As we get farther and farther from the other planet collaboration is less and less useful. You quickly reach a point where the planets can advance faster by duplicating effort than talking to each other (other than as a much latter verification of current theories) Of course if we colonize a planet 100 light years away you can assume a few hundred years of the colonists working hard to establish the colony and so getting science and technology feeds from Earth will be useful since then they can make a copy of widgets without having to design it from scratch. Eventually they will get established and start producing their own science locally, and soon the feed will be useless and not of interest.
- codebje 8y agoIf I were an AI or uploaded brain, I'd copy myself over the communications link, fully expecting to diverge into two distinct individuals.