> 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 ab

> 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.