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That’s an accurate statement the reality is that any civilization that develops sufficient level of technology to allow it to spread across a single galaxy or e

That’s an accurate statement the reality is that any civilization that develops sufficient level of technology to allow it to spread across a single galaxy or even to adjacent star systems would be able to use that technology to find better alternatives in their own star system. That’s if civilizations even live that long in the first place.

Ekaros 5y ago
Minimal fraction of suns energy output would allow insane number of humans to survive. And it will be around a while so there is really no hurry to move out. Kinda comes to calculation that when earliest potentially space faring civilisation runs out of their sun? And can't adapt to live in system. For us that would still be at least few billions of years if not more with proper preparation.
- Nbox9 5y ago
  I could imagine humans fighting over the limited energy harvested by Sol’s Dyson sphere in 10million years. It would give any group of human’s controlling it a massive advantage, similarly to the advantage having the only A-bomb gave US briefly.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    On the other end, looking at the population growth projections there might not be too many humans to fight over it in 10 million years. Who am I kidding, they would still fight over it...
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    That's assuming that people have an inexhaustible appetite for energy, geometric population expansion, or both. Those are both actually quite big assumptions and aren't supported by current trends.
  - SubiculumCode 5y ago
    Maybe. Just maybe. We will have artificial fusion energy in 10M years. ;)
    - Nbox9 5y ago
      Even if we had fusion most of the mass in the solar system exists in the sun, so that’s where most of the energy is. E=mc^2.
  - giantrobot 5y ago
    There is an absolutely stupid amount of energy given off by the Sun. We're finally waking up to the fact we can capture a portion of the small portion that hits Earth every second to power our civilization. Higher technology levels have only increased the efficiency of our power use and use per capita. I'm not saying we're at the height of technology or development or anything but the idea we'd need a whole star's worth of power output for something I think is ludicrous. If you've got the technology to build a Dyson sphere (or swarm) it's unlikely you'd actually need to. To even get to that point as a tool-using civilization you couldn't have had unchecked geometric growth. Unless you had some Motie-like biological imperative to reproduce uncontrollably your civilization would reach a point long before Dyson sphere level where it worked fine without having to move the mass of several solar systems around a star to capture some high fraction of its power output.

Ekaros 5y ago

Minimal fraction of suns energy output would allow insane number of humans to survive. And it will be around a while so there is really no hurry to move out. Kinda comes to calculation that when earliest potentially space faring civilisation runs out of their sun? And can't adapt to live in system. For us that would still be at least few billions of years if not more with proper preparation.

Nbox9 5y ago
I could imagine humans fighting over the limited energy harvested by Sol’s Dyson sphere in 10million years. It would give any group of human’s controlling it a massive advantage, similarly to the advantage having the only A-bomb gave US briefly.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  On the other end, looking at the population growth projections there might not be too many humans to fight over it in 10 million years. Who am I kidding, they would still fight over it...
- rsynnott 5y ago
  That's assuming that people have an inexhaustible appetite for energy, geometric population expansion, or both. Those are both actually quite big assumptions and aren't supported by current trends.
- SubiculumCode 5y ago
  Maybe. Just maybe. We will have artificial fusion energy in 10M years. ;)
  - Nbox9 5y ago
    Even if we had fusion most of the mass in the solar system exists in the sun, so that’s where most of the energy is. E=mc^2.
- giantrobot 5y ago
  There is an absolutely stupid amount of energy given off by the Sun. We're finally waking up to the fact we can capture a portion of the small portion that hits Earth every second to power our civilization. Higher technology levels have only increased the efficiency of our power use and use per capita. I'm not saying we're at the height of technology or development or anything but the idea we'd need a whole star's worth of power output for something I think is ludicrous. If you've got the technology to build a Dyson sphere (or swarm) it's unlikely you'd actually need to. To even get to that point as a tool-using civilization you couldn't have had unchecked geometric growth. Unless you had some Motie-like biological imperative to reproduce uncontrollably your civilization would reach a point long before Dyson sphere level where it worked fine without having to move the mass of several solar systems around a star to capture some high fraction of its power output.