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What's the point of interstellar colonization? It's possible that will never be interesting to us given the expense, time, and hardships involved. We have mor

by eloff 5y ago

What's the point of interstellar colonization? It's possible that will never be interesting to us given the expense, time, and hardships involved. We have more than enough space and resources in this solar system to support north of a trillion humans if we start building space habitats. So even if we start procreating again after our population is predicted to stabilize, we won't run out of room here very easily. My feeling is our digital worlds will get so engrossing we will turn our attention inwards rather than outwards. I don't think that lends itself to either population growth or interstellar colonization. If intelligent civilization is sufficiently rare, that could easily explain the Fermi paradox. They're out there, just too far away and too uninterested in expansion for us to meet.

shkkmo 5y ago
I see two major dynamics that could drive interstellar colonization: 1) Eccentricity and Boredom: I think that with a solar system population in the trillions, you will inevitably have a sufficient population of eccentrics to eventually launch generational ships. This is especially likely if humanity survivea long enough for the lifetime our own sun to present a realistic limit on the survival of the species. 2) Eccentricity and Freedom: The major advantage of interstellar colonization is distance from dominant power structures in the solar sytem. I find it quite possible that there could be societies that view fleeing the solar system as their only path to survival as a cultural unit.
- Sanzig 5y ago
  One of the interesting consequences of interstellar colonization in a universe without FTL travel or communication (which, by all indications, appears to be our universe) is the sheer amount of cultural diversity it would create. Even adjacent systems would have communications round-trip times on the order of single-digit years, and depending how far apart desirable systems for colonization are it could even conceivably be decades of round-trip comms lag to the nearest inhabited system. Centralization becomes impossible, and star systems would have only very weak cultural impact on their neighbors.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    Interstellar trade of physical goods is quite impractical without FTL. If there is interstellar travel for non-colonization purposes it seems like the primary goal would be to enable low-latency communication to compensate for semantic/cultural drift that could interfere with the efficacy of the high latency communcations.
    - mikro2nd 5y ago
      It seems to me that interstellar trade -- with or without FTL -- is quite unlikely. I wrote some thoughts on this about a year ago, (https://one.mikro2nd.net/2021/07/interstellar/ https://one.mikro2nd.net/2021/07/interstellar/) but tl;dr: If your society is capable of marshalling the resources/energy necessary for interstellar travel in the first place, you have most likely, of necessity, solved the problem of getting more resources. War seems slightly more likely because "ideology". Ultimately I think my notion is quite similar to yours: that the primary exchanges would be culture (art, music, fashions, language, rites,...) so the things for which we want "communication".
  - m4rtink 5y ago
    Not just cultural but also possibly biological/corporeal diversity as the different cultrues start to adapt to their specific local environments. The Orions Arm collaborarive hard SF universe has very many first contacts due to this as as often two civilisations of human origin that meet each other look to each other totally alien (one can survive in liquid methane, the other near stars in hard vacuum). They did meet a few actual (and very unique) aliens but it took a lot of verification it's not just another hyper adapted modification happy ofshoot of humanity. :)
dave_sullivan 5y ago
You would find "the transcension hypothesis" very interesting, it's along similar lines to what you are discussing.
thechao 5y ago
We'll run out of sun at some point, even though (most) of the time left for the energetic universe is still available.
cletus 5y ago
> What's the point of interstellar colonization? Ultimately it's to claim matter, which is the ultimate limiting factor in how long a civilization lives. For example, you talk about engrossing digital worlds. Well, those worlds require energy and energy means matter. To be clear we're talking on truly staggering time frames here where a trillion years is a mere blink of an eye [1][2]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qam5BkXIEhQ&t=107s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qam5BkXIEhQ&t=107s [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pld8wTa16Jk&t=1108s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pld8wTa16Jk&t=1108s
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > To be clear we're talking on truly staggering time frames here where a trillion years is a mere blink of an eye [1][2]. Well, then these hypothetical alien civilizations have barely even begun to start their blink.
- wruza 5y ago
  Humans may change to (or get replaced by) a form of life that doesn’t grow and/or demand resources uncontrollably and inter-competitively. It is just a relic of our natural origins: eat and breed or get eaten and outbred. When biological reproduction (or life) is over, there is no need for trillions of energy. And when we are speaking billions of years, all humane/natural conceptions become pretty naive. I bet that no one could correctly fantasize about even thousands (not to mention millions) of years from now on. Almost all of our science fiction and futurism is Ford’s “faster horses” of evolution. Edit: I learned before that this view seems controversial to many people, but I fail to see how on these timescales “humanity” could not be just a transient spark of its own short time.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Selection pressure operates across all timescales and distance scales. There is ample reason to believe that any prominent form of life in the galaxy would be expansionary, because otherwise it would be replaced by one that is. There is no reason to believe that selection stops operating when we are talking about galaxy level scale.
benlivengood 5y ago
> What's the point of interstellar colonization? Gamma ray bursts can probably take out a whole solar system. So could rogue stars or black holes. I think humanity is neat and want it and its descendents to survive until the heat death, so interstellar colonization it is.
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  We have the potential for greatness. If only we could somehow tame the darker aspects of humans we would actually deserve a fate like this and probably be able to do it (or at least that's my wishful thinking). But yeah diversification at least 100 light years around in neighboring systems would greatly increase our chances of survival any kind of random brutal event (unless one of our neighbors goes supernova). It will be more of a question of survival rather than 'do we want to colonize that other system'
BurningFrog 5y ago
You or I won't go on this trip, but I'm sure some people are crazy/bold enough to do it. And that's all it takes.
pfdietz 5y ago
> What's the point of interstellar colonization? The cheapest way to fully explore another stellar system is probably colonizing it, so explorers can be manufactured in situ.
m4rtink 5y ago
Even digital worlds need power to run and mass for hardware to run on. Eventually there will not be enough of that in Solar System and you will have to expand. Also more source material from real world events could be useful for bootstrapping.

by eloff 5y ago

shkkmo 5y ago

I see two major dynamics that could drive interstellar colonization: 1) Eccentricity and Boredom: I think that with a solar system population in the trillions, you will inevitably have a sufficient population of eccentrics to eventually launch generational ships. This is especially likely if humanity survivea long enough for the lifetime our own sun to present a realistic limit on the survival of the species. 2) Eccentricity and Freedom: The major advantage of interstellar colonization is distance from dominant power structures in the solar sytem. I find it quite possible that there could be societies that view fleeing the solar system as their only path to survival as a cultural unit.

Sanzig 5y ago
One of the interesting consequences of interstellar colonization in a universe without FTL travel or communication (which, by all indications, appears to be our universe) is the sheer amount of cultural diversity it would create. Even adjacent systems would have communications round-trip times on the order of single-digit years, and depending how far apart desirable systems for colonization are it could even conceivably be decades of round-trip comms lag to the nearest inhabited system. Centralization becomes impossible, and star systems would have only very weak cultural impact on their neighbors.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Interstellar trade of physical goods is quite impractical without FTL. If there is interstellar travel for non-colonization purposes it seems like the primary goal would be to enable low-latency communication to compensate for semantic/cultural drift that could interfere with the efficacy of the high latency communcations.
  - mikro2nd 5y ago
    It seems to me that interstellar trade -- with or without FTL -- is quite unlikely. I wrote some thoughts on this about a year ago, (https://one.mikro2nd.net/2021/07/interstellar/ https://one.mikro2nd.net/2021/07/interstellar/) but tl;dr: If your society is capable of marshalling the resources/energy necessary for interstellar travel in the first place, you have most likely, of necessity, solved the problem of getting more resources. War seems slightly more likely because "ideology". Ultimately I think my notion is quite similar to yours: that the primary exchanges would be culture (art, music, fashions, language, rites,...) so the things for which we want "communication".
- m4rtink 5y ago
  Not just cultural but also possibly biological/corporeal diversity as the different cultrues start to adapt to their specific local environments. The Orions Arm collaborarive hard SF universe has very many first contacts due to this as as often two civilisations of human origin that meet each other look to each other totally alien (one can survive in liquid methane, the other near stars in hard vacuum). They did meet a few actual (and very unique) aliens but it took a lot of verification it's not just another hyper adapted modification happy ofshoot of humanity. :)

dave_sullivan 5y ago

You would find "the transcension hypothesis" very interesting, it's along similar lines to what you are discussing.

thechao 5y ago

We'll run out of sun at some point, even though (most) of the time left for the energetic universe is still available.

cletus 5y ago

> What's the point of interstellar colonization? Ultimately it's to claim matter, which is the ultimate limiting factor in how long a civilization lives. For example, you talk about engrossing digital worlds. Well, those worlds require energy and energy means matter. To be clear we're talking on truly staggering time frames here where a trillion years is a mere blink of an eye [1][2]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qam5BkXIEhQ&t=107s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qam5BkXIEhQ&t=107s [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pld8wTa16Jk&t=1108s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pld8wTa16Jk&t=1108s

whimsicalism 5y ago
> To be clear we're talking on truly staggering time frames here where a trillion years is a mere blink of an eye [1][2]. Well, then these hypothetical alien civilizations have barely even begun to start their blink.
wruza 5y ago
Humans may change to (or get replaced by) a form of life that doesn’t grow and/or demand resources uncontrollably and inter-competitively. It is just a relic of our natural origins: eat and breed or get eaten and outbred. When biological reproduction (or life) is over, there is no need for trillions of energy. And when we are speaking billions of years, all humane/natural conceptions become pretty naive. I bet that no one could correctly fantasize about even thousands (not to mention millions) of years from now on. Almost all of our science fiction and futurism is Ford’s “faster horses” of evolution. Edit: I learned before that this view seems controversial to many people, but I fail to see how on these timescales “humanity” could not be just a transient spark of its own short time.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Selection pressure operates across all timescales and distance scales. There is ample reason to believe that any prominent form of life in the galaxy would be expansionary, because otherwise it would be replaced by one that is. There is no reason to believe that selection stops operating when we are talking about galaxy level scale.

benlivengood 5y ago

> What's the point of interstellar colonization? Gamma ray bursts can probably take out a whole solar system. So could rogue stars or black holes. I think humanity is neat and want it and its descendents to survive until the heat death, so interstellar colonization it is.

saiya-jin 5y ago
We have the potential for greatness. If only we could somehow tame the darker aspects of humans we would actually deserve a fate like this and probably be able to do it (or at least that's my wishful thinking). But yeah diversification at least 100 light years around in neighboring systems would greatly increase our chances of survival any kind of random brutal event (unless one of our neighbors goes supernova). It will be more of a question of survival rather than 'do we want to colonize that other system'

BurningFrog 5y ago

You or I won't go on this trip, but I'm sure some people are crazy/bold enough to do it. And that's all it takes.

pfdietz 5y ago

> What's the point of interstellar colonization? The cheapest way to fully explore another stellar system is probably colonizing it, so explorers can be manufactured in situ.

m4rtink 5y ago

Even digital worlds need power to run and mass for hardware to run on. Eventually there will not be enough of that in Solar System and you will have to expand. Also more source material from real world events could be useful for bootstrapping.