3 ms·

To what purpose though? If you can steer a mass as big as a Earth sized planet then you might as well build a custom rig with all the trappings of First Class t

To what purpose though? If you can steer a mass as big as a Earth sized planet then you might as well build a custom rig with all the trappings of First Class travel. Otherwise you are just a Hobo jumping on a passing train and hoping it ends up somewhere hospitable so that your great great great great great ... great... great... great... great grandchild, an lineage born and lived entirely on the train, has a place to call home.

kadoban 6y ago
Depending on the tech, some mix of refueling station, colony or yeah passing train. Without FTL, to spread over the galaxy we'll need to adjust our thinking on long time-scales for any of it to make sense or be possible anyway. We'll be a different species really (or _several_ different species). If I were to bet, I'd say our more lasting contribution to the galaxy will more likely be mechanical (AI) descendants rather than ourselves, and next most likely would be barely recognizable biological dscendants (not necessarily that different from us physically, but in terms of society and mentality). That's all assuming we make it off of Earth and then away from Sol at all in any lasting way.
- carapace 6y ago
  I think it's more likely that we "cure" aging and senescence than invent FTL. If you can live for 10,000 or 100,000 years then being limited to lightspeed isn't such a bummer. You can visit interesting places.
  - kadoban 6y ago
    That does seem like a good bet. Humans that can live tens of thousands of years would probably have to have a completely different view of time and the universe, and may have a better shot of seeing the stars too.
  - c22 6y ago
    We're going to have to cure boredom too. Just a few months in my apartment because of COVID and I'm already about to crack. How long does it take to update Netflix at 1000 light years?
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      If you can get close to light speed you can go 1000 light years in ~6 months of ship time. https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/flythru.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/flythru.html You'd have hundreds of years of media to catch up on when you got back.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    Being organic is the biggest drawback. Being individuals is the second biggest. If the AI doesn't absorb us somehow, I suspect it'll limit our ability to contaminate the rest of the galaxy.
    - carapace 6y ago
      That's my theory too: to an AI information is food, and the densest source of information in the Universe is us. (In the infosphere the Earth shines alone in darkness, the sole star.) The machine will keep us in a bottle to feed off of our data. ... Come to think of it, why wouldn't it "farm" us over a larger volume?
      - koheripbal 6y ago
        I don't see how humanity is a source for information beyond the initial growth phase (assuming it's created here on Earth). If an AI comes from space, it's likely billions of years old and we are as interesting as fungus.
        carapace 6y ago
        Well, Information is defined as the unpredictability of a message, eh? > I don't see how humanity is a source for information beyond the initial growth phase (assuming it's created here on Earth). Setting aside the possibility that Earth life is already an ancient alien nanotech AI ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia ), and assuming that humans are unique in the Universe, the rest of the entire Universe is pretty much predictable. There may be some poetic physics going on out there (I mean, of course there is, the Universe is beautiful!) but unless there's another planet of insane ape-men out there somewhere ours is the only show in town.
- ngold 6y ago
  We could leave chunks behind as railway stations.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  An artificial intelligence would have no issue with a galactic colonization project taking 100 million years. I imagine that the limitations of organic lifespan limitations will disappear with our species. The most we can hope for is that AI somehow takes us with it.
jrootabega 6y ago
IF we can and should spread from our solar system, we're going to have to do that, and many many expeditions will have to fail and die. Just like the trillions of our ancestors' competitors that were not fit to survive. Everything we do is survivorship bias. On Earth we may be the gardeners, but in space we're just the seeds.

kadoban 6y ago

Depending on the tech, some mix of refueling station, colony or yeah passing train. Without FTL, to spread over the galaxy we'll need to adjust our thinking on long time-scales for any of it to make sense or be possible anyway. We'll be a different species really (or _several_ different species). If I were to bet, I'd say our more lasting contribution to the galaxy will more likely be mechanical (AI) descendants rather than ourselves, and next most likely would be barely recognizable biological dscendants (not necessarily that different from us physically, but in terms of society and mentality). That's all assuming we make it off of Earth and then away from Sol at all in any lasting way.

carapace 6y ago
I think it's more likely that we "cure" aging and senescence than invent FTL. If you can live for 10,000 or 100,000 years then being limited to lightspeed isn't such a bummer. You can visit interesting places.
- kadoban 6y ago
  That does seem like a good bet. Humans that can live tens of thousands of years would probably have to have a completely different view of time and the universe, and may have a better shot of seeing the stars too.
- c22 6y ago
  We're going to have to cure boredom too. Just a few months in my apartment because of COVID and I'm already about to crack. How long does it take to update Netflix at 1000 light years?
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    If you can get close to light speed you can go 1000 light years in ~6 months of ship time. https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/flythru.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/flythru.html You'd have hundreds of years of media to catch up on when you got back.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Being organic is the biggest drawback. Being individuals is the second biggest. If the AI doesn't absorb us somehow, I suspect it'll limit our ability to contaminate the rest of the galaxy.
  - carapace 6y ago
    That's my theory too: to an AI information is food, and the densest source of information in the Universe is us. (In the infosphere the Earth shines alone in darkness, the sole star.) The machine will keep us in a bottle to feed off of our data. ... Come to think of it, why wouldn't it "farm" us over a larger volume?
    - koheripbal 6y ago
      I don't see how humanity is a source for information beyond the initial growth phase (assuming it's created here on Earth). If an AI comes from space, it's likely billions of years old and we are as interesting as fungus.
      - carapace 6y ago
        Well, Information is defined as the unpredictability of a message, eh? > I don't see how humanity is a source for information beyond the initial growth phase (assuming it's created here on Earth). Setting aside the possibility that Earth life is already an ancient alien nanotech AI ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia ), and assuming that humans are unique in the Universe, the rest of the entire Universe is pretty much predictable. There may be some poetic physics going on out there (I mean, of course there is, the Universe is beautiful!) but unless there's another planet of insane ape-men out there somewhere ours is the only show in town.
ngold 6y ago
We could leave chunks behind as railway stations.
koheripbal 6y ago
An artificial intelligence would have no issue with a galactic colonization project taking 100 million years. I imagine that the limitations of organic lifespan limitations will disappear with our species. The most we can hope for is that AI somehow takes us with it.

jrootabega 6y ago

IF we can and should spread from our solar system, we're going to have to do that, and many many expeditions will have to fail and die. Just like the trillions of our ancestors' competitors that were not fit to survive. Everything we do is survivorship bias. On Earth we may be the gardeners, but in space we're just the seeds.