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Yeah, the time scales involved are my go-to counterargument to the people who say other intelligent creatures should have conquered the galaxy by now. I suspec

Yeah, the time scales involved are my go-to counterargument to the people who say other intelligent creatures should have conquered the galaxy by now. I suspect that for all realistic lifeforms, given travel at a few percent of lightspeed max, the ROI on interstellar travel (both on the financial and the individual-sacrifice-vs-benefit level) is so bad that you'll essentially only do it when your solar system is doomed. And that takes you from exponential growth down to essentially zero growth.

ceejayoz 5y ago
250 years hardly sounds outrageous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia has been under construction for nearly 150 years; "construction passed the midpoint in 2010".
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Some of the European cathedrals took centuries to build. The people who started them knew they'd never see the result.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    St. Vitus cathedral in Prague: constructed between 1344-1929. That's not "centuries" -- that's a better part of a millennium.
TooKool4This 5y ago
I think the time-scale argument lacks a little bit of imagination. Time scales are very relative. There could easily be organisms that have lifespans in the thousands of years due to a variety of unique selective pressures (or no concept of a lifespan at all). Or species that have technology that can augment their lifespans to be thousands of years long. I can certainly see humans getting to that point in the next 10-thousand years. Given a thousand year lifespan, what is a few hundred years in terms of commitment to a project? It would be something akin to working a job for 10 years or so, which is not entirely unheard of. The ROI argument is more interesting! Although there are way too many factors to consider to have a definitive answer one way or another.
iso1631 5y ago
Once the technology exists to allow cults and misfits to build self sustatining asteroids and stick an engine on them, then it will. However as there would be no meaningful communication outside of a solar system, a single civilisation wouldn't spread to the stars

ceejayoz 5y ago

250 years hardly sounds outrageous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia has been under construction for nearly 150 years; "construction passed the midpoint in 2010".

WalterBright 5y ago
Some of the European cathedrals took centuries to build. The people who started them knew they'd never see the result.
- jhgb 5y ago
  St. Vitus cathedral in Prague: constructed between 1344-1929. That's not "centuries" -- that's a better part of a millennium.

TooKool4This 5y ago

I think the time-scale argument lacks a little bit of imagination. Time scales are very relative. There could easily be organisms that have lifespans in the thousands of years due to a variety of unique selective pressures (or no concept of a lifespan at all). Or species that have technology that can augment their lifespans to be thousands of years long. I can certainly see humans getting to that point in the next 10-thousand years. Given a thousand year lifespan, what is a few hundred years in terms of commitment to a project? It would be something akin to working a job for 10 years or so, which is not entirely unheard of. The ROI argument is more interesting! Although there are way too many factors to consider to have a definitive answer one way or another.

iso1631 5y ago

Once the technology exists to allow cults and misfits to build self sustatining asteroids and stick an engine on them, then it will. However as there would be no meaningful communication outside of a solar system, a single civilisation wouldn't spread to the stars