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To me there’s an obvious counter to “the speed of light is too slow” and that’s reframing it as “we don’t live long enough” and since we as a society are trying
by techdragon 4y ago
To me there’s an obvious counter to “the speed of light is too slow” and that’s reframing it as “we don’t live long enough” and since we as a society are trying to extend the length of our lives on a multitude of fronts from egocentric rich people to public health institutions, at the end of the day, people who can live longer tend to be healthier and socially productive longer than those who won’t live as long.
Effectively by working to conquer cancers and age related diseases/decline, and the general effort to “extend our lives”… we are making space slightly smaller for our future selves once our propulsion technology advances to the point we can achieve decent percentages of the speed of light… which there are no real technical barriers against. From solar sails to muon fusion to all sorts of other interesting technology we have yet to develop, we may not be able to break a warp barrier and go faster than light… but if we live longer, say 10 times longer, the. Suddenly 5 years shipboard time travelling to another star system doesn’t seem so bad. 5 years in a millennium of years is equivalent to a 6 month journey for someone who will live to 100.