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> 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 e

by 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.

by cletus 5y ago

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.