3 ms·
There are many significant physical roadblocks at the moment, and putting aside how cool I think that a galactic civilization would be, I'm not sure we can remo
by mrleinad 4y ago
There are many significant physical roadblocks at the moment, and putting aside how cool I think that a galactic civilization would be, I'm not sure we can remove enough of them to achieve that goal.
FTL travel is impossible, and even the fastest ship would take centuries to get anywhere outside our solar system. That alone will restrict us to our little corner for the next millennia at least. Of course I reserve the right to change my mind if there's some groundbreaking discovery, but I find it unlikely. Add to that the possibility that we wipe ourselves out of existence (or the planet does), and I don't see ourselves getting to our 1 million year birthday.
- m4rtink 4y agoA lot to play with for the near future here with the resources of the solar system - think of all the unique cultures even just the early habitats swarms will spawn! And even without major breakthroughs I'm sure some will try to go interstellar AI uploading, some form of hibernation or even a generation ship. Or Nuclear Salt Water Rocket at a couple dozen % of the speed of light, so the trip won't take more than a few decades, which might be doable with some decent life length ehnacement - possibly even a round-trip! :-)
- mrleinad 4y agoI agree, we need to focus on our local neighborhood. If there are breakthroughs, they'll come. We should make the most of what we already have.
- gumby 4y agoour robot descendants won't care about the long timescales. There's plenty they could do, or they could even power down for a few million years.
- mrleinad 4y agoI don't care for robots if we're not there to experience the universe. They're just a byproduct, a piece of trash we'll leave after we're gone. I want us to explore, not our toasters.
- gumby 4y agoWhat a speciesist view! You won’t have any experiences outside the solar system, or likely off planet at all. You will not know any of the people who do. So what difference should it make if they are meat, metal, or some combination? Would it be OK if the robots brought a dog along?
- mrleinad 4y agoRobots don't experience anything. They're not alive. Everything they do is something we code into them. The rest of our fellow animal companions on this earth are thousand times better than any robot. If I'm forced to choose one of them, I wouldn't choose a dog, I'd go for one of the apes, octopus, crow, or maybe even a dolphin. But I'm fairly sure if they're given the option they'll rather stay here.