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Are you arguing that the expanding menace culture must be young because such cultures wouldn't last long because of conflict? I think a lot depends on how dense

Are you arguing that the expanding menace culture must be young because such cultures wouldn't last long because of conflict? I think a lot depends on how densely populated the universe is. At a limit imagine one long lived intelligence per galaxy. You could have a poisonous disease the size of a galaxy 10 million years old sending out spores to poison adjacent galaxies. Maybe we are even the present genesis of this. As you adjust down you could trivially and likely have tens of light years between cultures or even hundreds on average if intelligent cultures are short lived or particularly rare. Expanding menaces could be automated and self replicating and designed to create an expanding zone of safety for an old stable society in a way that isn't easily traceable to the old stable society.

ncmncm 6y ago
> "Are you arguing that the expanding menace culture must be young because such cultures wouldn't last long because of conflict?" It's young because it's expanding. To first order, divide the radius by the rate of expansion and you get when it started. The society that bides its time for millions of years and then turns menace does not pass the smell test. Every year they go without menacing, the less likely they ever will. Anyway, whoever's (1) inside the perimeter, (2) is a bad trading partner, and (3) not burnt is a pretty good bet for who's responsible. If there are two plausible candidates, they are better both dealt with. It's also true that they don't last long because of conflict, but that's secondary. A sorcerer's apprentice scenario is conceivable only in the short term. To maintain expansion demands adaptation to an increasing variety of new challenges, whose variety and strength increase as the fourth power of expansion radius. (Three dimensions for space, one for age of opponent.) One can invent myriad obscure scenarios, of decreasing likelihood. It's a big universe, rashes happen, but it's a big universe, so they mostly happen somewhere else.

ncmncm 6y ago

> "Are you arguing that the expanding menace culture must be young because such cultures wouldn't last long because of conflict?" It's young because it's expanding. To first order, divide the radius by the rate of expansion and you get when it started. The society that bides its time for millions of years and then turns menace does not pass the smell test. Every year they go without menacing, the less likely they ever will. Anyway, whoever's (1) inside the perimeter, (2) is a bad trading partner, and (3) not burnt is a pretty good bet for who's responsible. If there are two plausible candidates, they are better both dealt with. It's also true that they don't last long because of conflict, but that's secondary. A sorcerer's apprentice scenario is conceivable only in the short term. To maintain expansion demands adaptation to an increasing variety of new challenges, whose variety and strength increase as the fourth power of expansion radius. (Three dimensions for space, one for age of opponent.) One can invent myriad obscure scenarios, of decreasing likelihood. It's a big universe, rashes happen, but it's a big universe, so they mostly happen somewhere else.