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See, you don't know how, and I don't know how. But they are, remember, incomprehensibly more advanced than you or me. And they know a bunch of other incomprehe

See, you don't know how, and I don't know how. But they are, remember, incomprehensibly more advanced than you or me. And they know a bunch of other incomprehensibly more advanced civilizations all the way on the other side of the expansionist noobs. And, just because they don't usually see much point in going out there doesn't mean they can't, or won't, when the time seems right for it.

nullc 4y ago
Not much point in reasoning about magic though, might as well say "God will provide" as it gives similar insight. I think assuming that the laws of physics, as we understand them, and reasoning whats possible and likely within them is a lot more interesting. I can come up with one respons within the believed laws of physics at how a hypothetical stable civilization could suppress exponential ones even though exponential ones would quickly be expanding their radius at close to C: the stable civilization would need to pre-seed the visible universe with idle hidden outposts of a sufficient density to detect and suppress exponential expanders.
- pencilguin 4y ago
  The non-expansionists don't need to fight all possible expansionists. They only need to fight the ones that come around. If B can't beat A, A will soon encounter C, and then D and E, with a fresh roll of the dice each time. The bigger they get, the more adversaries they cross. We are not predicting the future, but trying to account for an observation. For the scenario to remain on the list of reasons why we haven't been visited, it suffices that it is possible. There are of course lots of other possible reasons, among them that there is nobody to visit.
  - nullc 4y ago
    > The non-expansionists don't need to fight all possible expansionists. They only need to fight the ones that come around. That come around us since we're trying to explain why we haven't seen an expansionists. So this line of thinking predicts that we're in the shadow of a non-expansionists, I guess?
    - pencilguin 4y ago
      Exactly.

nullc 4y ago

Not much point in reasoning about magic though, might as well say "God will provide" as it gives similar insight. I think assuming that the laws of physics, as we understand them, and reasoning whats possible and likely within them is a lot more interesting. I can come up with one respons within the believed laws of physics at how a hypothetical stable civilization could suppress exponential ones even though exponential ones would quickly be expanding their radius at close to C: the stable civilization would need to pre-seed the visible universe with idle hidden outposts of a sufficient density to detect and suppress exponential expanders.

pencilguin 4y ago
The non-expansionists don't need to fight all possible expansionists. They only need to fight the ones that come around. If B can't beat A, A will soon encounter C, and then D and E, with a fresh roll of the dice each time. The bigger they get, the more adversaries they cross. We are not predicting the future, but trying to account for an observation. For the scenario to remain on the list of reasons why we haven't been visited, it suffices that it is possible. There are of course lots of other possible reasons, among them that there is nobody to visit.
- nullc 4y ago
  > The non-expansionists don't need to fight all possible expansionists. They only need to fight the ones that come around. That come around us since we're trying to explain why we haven't seen an expansionists. So this line of thinking predicts that we're in the shadow of a non-expansionists, I guess?
  - pencilguin 4y ago
    Exactly.