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I find this trivially answerable with my own, limited imagination: 1. We couldn't have gotten to where we are without fossil fuels and a bounty of oxygen in th

I find this trivially answerable with my own, limited imagination: 1. We couldn't have gotten to where we are without fossil fuels and a bounty of oxygen in the air (but not so much to be dangerous). So the conditions and time scales may not be so simple or average. 2. You're pesuming hyper-intelligent races even have the desire to spread themselves like a plague into the universe. Resources are distinctly finite, why waste unfathomable amounts of energy and labor "exploring" pointlessly when, instead, most of the population can just digitize themselves and live in an eternal, simulated heaven as they sip on resources slowly and only expand when absolutely necessary. This also minimizes the risk of encountering aggressive neighbors.

brucethemoose2 3y ago
> instead, most of the population can just digitize themselves and live in an eternal, simulated heaven as they sip on resources slowly and only expand when absolutely necessary. This also minimizes the risk of encountering aggressive neighbors. Sending out von Neumann probes would be very cheap, and logical to offset that risk of aggressive neighbors. >why waste unfathomable amounts of energy and labor "exploring" pointlessly when, instead, most of the population can just digitize themselves and live in an eternal, simulated heaven as they sip on resources slowly and only expand when absolutely necessary If future civilization is "unified" into a single intelligence, perhaps it would only want to probe instead of expand. But if its non-homogenous groups, which seems possible, its inevitable that some would wish to move/expand for the same reasons they have throughout history. You might be right about initial conditions.