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Not that I think speculation is bad, but the concept of intelligences expanding by building space structures so immense needs some push-back: Is there enough t

by Zigurd 2y ago

Not that I think speculation is bad, but the concept of intelligences expanding by building space structures so immense needs some push-back: Is there enough time in the lifetime of a star to build and use those structures? Are there plausible social arrangements stable enough to last the duration of such a project? Are there intelligent beings with a drive to limitlessly expand their population? A lot of the ideas behind hypothesizing swarms of space structures, each orders of magnitude more massive than Earth, feels very 1970s population/energy-crisis inspired.

sockaddr 2y ago
> Is there enough time in the lifetime of a star to build and use those structures? If a brown dwarf, most certainly > Are there plausible social arrangements stable enough to last the duration of such a project? Could just be an unterminated machine process initiated by living beings at some point > Are there intelligent beings with a drive to limitlessly expand their population? This one, I agree. I think once we start expending enough we'll realize there's only so much that extra matter and energy will get you and it doesn't bring you closer to "solving" the universe or escaping it and you just stop going for more.
cletus 2y ago
> Is there enough time in the lifetime of a star to build and use those structures? Easily. Sci-fi has misconstrued what a Dyson Sphere is to the point where the preferred nomenclature is "Dyson Swarm". A Dyson Sphere was never a rigid shell around a star. Such a thing isn't possible with any known or theorized material. And it makes no sense even if you could. So a Dyson Swarm around our Sun would be approximately a billion O'Neil Cylinders (orbitals 2-4 miles in diameter and 10-20 miles long). You don't have to build them all at once. Build them as you need them. The more you build the more industrial capacity you have. They can all be built independently too. I imagine it would take less than 10 years to build one once you have the capability. > Are there intelligent beings with a drive to limitlessly expand their population? Population is only one concern. A more driving force may well be the desire for energy and raw materials. Raw materials, and in fact most problems, can be reduced to being an energy problem. Some things will require a truly mind-boggling amount of energy eg interstellar travel. Our Sun won't live forever. It's estimated to go into a red giant phase in 4-5 billion years, that will end up swallowing the Earth most likely. Long before then, life won't be able to exist on Earth as the Sun's solar output is increasing by about 10% every billion years. Earth as it stands now to us as we are now will be uninhabitable in ~1.6 billion years. So to be truly long-lived we're going to have to do something about that. There are lots of options. Those include reducing the energy that hits the Earth, moving the Earth or moving our species to a different system. The last one is particularly attractive because white or red dwarves will likely exist for trillions of years. Every one of these options requires a vast amount of energy. > ... swarms of space structures, each orders of magnitude more massive than Earth That's not what a Dyswon Swarm is.
- api 2y ago
  > Are there intelligent beings with a drive to limitlessly expand their population? Since the development of contraceptives we are now selecting hard for any and all traits associated with intentional reproduction or the desire for children. A few thousand years of this and the only thing left will be people who really want kids, or who are prone to adopt beliefs or attitudes that lead them to want kids. Maybe this is how you get a Dyson swarm. I’m not even including potential AI “life” in this picture.
  - Zigurd 2y ago
    When you give women literacy, opportunity, and bodily autonomy, population problems go away.
    - api 2y ago
      … for now. What happens after ten generations of selection for the ones who reproduced? (This is also a major reason I think the current right wing fertility panic is mostly bullshit with the exception of maybe a few places with unusually low rates of reproduction.)
      - robbiep 2y ago
        You’re talking as though the only decision behind reproducing is an active rejection of contraception. Whilst this be practically happening during the fecund period, it is hardly the only influence and is certainly not responsible for the decrease in average fecundity women have seen across the world. The idea that this is a trait that is going to be selected for when every breeding pair are part of it is patently ridiculous to my perception, there is no population bottleneck or significant progeny advantage that you are gaining against every other reproducing couple that drives an evolutionary advantage; and we’re certainly not going to be able to select for a shorter gestation or increased/earlier independence of the young
        barfbagginus 2y ago
marcosdumay 2y ago
> Is there enough time in the lifetime of a star to build and use those structures? It's built in centuries, a star lived for billions of years (a few live for only hundreds of millions, but that's still enough). Your other questions assume literal aliens would behave on the exact way you expect them to. That's not a sane assumption.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
> Are there intelligent beings with a drive to limitlessly expand their population? Let's assume a few things. They're biological (for what passes as biology on their planet, anyway), and evolved from what were originally single-celled organisms. They didn't blink into existence as Boltzman Brains or something like that. Also, they are a group of individual beings, and it wasn't some sort of global hivemind with a singular being surrounding the entire planet like some coral or whatever. If these assumptions are valid, then yes, they'll have a drive to limitlessly expand their population, because those species that didn't have this drive became extinct in their prehistory. They'll be puzzled by it, might go through a phase where it causes them the equivalent of shame, then they'll grow past that and not care once again. And they'll expand. Because not expanding risks extinction, just like it does with us. We either expand to multiple locations outside of our planet, or we risk extinction. > Are there plausible social arrangements stable enough to last the duration of such a project? Maybe not. Who cares. If in the 20th century we became aware of a human Dyson spehere half-built in our solar system, a million years old and unfinished, you think we wouldn't turn around and start finishing it? Social arrangements may be unstable and cause minor disruptions, but so too are minor disruptions unstable and humanity might return to the norm on timescales relevant to the construction of a Dyson sphere. > Is there enough time in the lifetime of a star to build and use those structures? This is a good question. I don't know the answer to it. We've got, what, another billion years or two in ours? If the construction only takes a couple million years, seems like it might be worth it. Though the thought of the cost overruns and so forth should make even the mightiest bureaucrat shrink in terror. > A lot of the ideas behind hypothesizing swarms of space structures, each orders of magnitude more massive than Earth, feels very 1970s population/energy-crisis inspired. I find this hilarious in ways that I can't put into the words to share with you just how funny it is.
- GoblinSlayer 2y ago
  Demographics isn't attention economy, not expanding doesn't risk extinction, shrinking does.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    Between expansion and shrinking, their is this razor-thin third option, where you are perfectly breaking even. Which is impossible to achieve in practice, even if theoretically it looks like an option... any unanticipated event threatens to cause unplanned shrinkage. That needs to be repaired immediately, but there is no generalizable plan to expand back to the prior level and then stop immediately, far too easy to overshoot. These instabilities last for decades or centuries, and if another event happens before stabilization, they just continue forever. Not expanding does risk extinction.

by Zigurd 2y ago

sockaddr 2y ago

> Is there enough time in the lifetime of a star to build and use those structures? If a brown dwarf, most certainly > Are there plausible social arrangements stable enough to last the duration of such a project? Could just be an unterminated machine process initiated by living beings at some point > Are there intelligent beings with a drive to limitlessly expand their population? This one, I agree. I think once we start expending enough we'll realize there's only so much that extra matter and energy will get you and it doesn't bring you closer to "solving" the universe or escaping it and you just stop going for more.

cletus 2y ago

> Is there enough time in the lifetime of a star to build and use those structures? Easily. Sci-fi has misconstrued what a Dyson Sphere is to the point where the preferred nomenclature is "Dyson Swarm". A Dyson Sphere was never a rigid shell around a star. Such a thing isn't possible with any known or theorized material. And it makes no sense even if you could. So a Dyson Swarm around our Sun would be approximately a billion O'Neil Cylinders (orbitals 2-4 miles in diameter and 10-20 miles long). You don't have to build them all at once. Build them as you need them. The more you build the more industrial capacity you have. They can all be built independently too. I imagine it would take less than 10 years to build one once you have the capability. > Are there intelligent beings with a drive to limitlessly expand their population? Population is only one concern. A more driving force may well be the desire for energy and raw materials. Raw materials, and in fact most problems, can be reduced to being an energy problem. Some things will require a truly mind-boggling amount of energy eg interstellar travel. Our Sun won't live forever. It's estimated to go into a red giant phase in 4-5 billion years, that will end up swallowing the Earth most likely. Long before then, life won't be able to exist on Earth as the Sun's solar output is increasing by about 10% every billion years. Earth as it stands now to us as we are now will be uninhabitable in ~1.6 billion years. So to be truly long-lived we're going to have to do something about that. There are lots of options. Those include reducing the energy that hits the Earth, moving the Earth or moving our species to a different system. The last one is particularly attractive because white or red dwarves will likely exist for trillions of years. Every one of these options requires a vast amount of energy. > ... swarms of space structures, each orders of magnitude more massive than Earth That's not what a Dyswon Swarm is.

api 2y ago
> Are there intelligent beings with a drive to limitlessly expand their population? Since the development of contraceptives we are now selecting hard for any and all traits associated with intentional reproduction or the desire for children. A few thousand years of this and the only thing left will be people who really want kids, or who are prone to adopt beliefs or attitudes that lead them to want kids. Maybe this is how you get a Dyson swarm. I’m not even including potential AI “life” in this picture.
- Zigurd 2y ago
  When you give women literacy, opportunity, and bodily autonomy, population problems go away.
  - api 2y ago
    … for now. What happens after ten generations of selection for the ones who reproduced? (This is also a major reason I think the current right wing fertility panic is mostly bullshit with the exception of maybe a few places with unusually low rates of reproduction.)
    - robbiep 2y ago
      You’re talking as though the only decision behind reproducing is an active rejection of contraception. Whilst this be practically happening during the fecund period, it is hardly the only influence and is certainly not responsible for the decrease in average fecundity women have seen across the world. The idea that this is a trait that is going to be selected for when every breeding pair are part of it is patently ridiculous to my perception, there is no population bottleneck or significant progeny advantage that you are gaining against every other reproducing couple that drives an evolutionary advantage; and we’re certainly not going to be able to select for a shorter gestation or increased/earlier independence of the young
      - barfbagginus 2y ago

marcosdumay 2y ago

> Is there enough time in the lifetime of a star to build and use those structures? It's built in centuries, a star lived for billions of years (a few live for only hundreds of millions, but that's still enough). Your other questions assume literal aliens would behave on the exact way you expect them to. That's not a sane assumption.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

> Are there intelligent beings with a drive to limitlessly expand their population? Let's assume a few things. They're biological (for what passes as biology on their planet, anyway), and evolved from what were originally single-celled organisms. They didn't blink into existence as Boltzman Brains or something like that. Also, they are a group of individual beings, and it wasn't some sort of global hivemind with a singular being surrounding the entire planet like some coral or whatever. If these assumptions are valid, then yes, they'll have a drive to limitlessly expand their population, because those species that didn't have this drive became extinct in their prehistory. They'll be puzzled by it, might go through a phase where it causes them the equivalent of shame, then they'll grow past that and not care once again. And they'll expand. Because not expanding risks extinction, just like it does with us. We either expand to multiple locations outside of our planet, or we risk extinction. > Are there plausible social arrangements stable enough to last the duration of such a project? Maybe not. Who cares. If in the 20th century we became aware of a human Dyson spehere half-built in our solar system, a million years old and unfinished, you think we wouldn't turn around and start finishing it? Social arrangements may be unstable and cause minor disruptions, but so too are minor disruptions unstable and humanity might return to the norm on timescales relevant to the construction of a Dyson sphere. > Is there enough time in the lifetime of a star to build and use those structures? This is a good question. I don't know the answer to it. We've got, what, another billion years or two in ours? If the construction only takes a couple million years, seems like it might be worth it. Though the thought of the cost overruns and so forth should make even the mightiest bureaucrat shrink in terror. > A lot of the ideas behind hypothesizing swarms of space structures, each orders of magnitude more massive than Earth, feels very 1970s population/energy-crisis inspired. I find this hilarious in ways that I can't put into the words to share with you just how funny it is.

GoblinSlayer 2y ago
Demographics isn't attention economy, not expanding doesn't risk extinction, shrinking does.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  Between expansion and shrinking, their is this razor-thin third option, where you are perfectly breaking even. Which is impossible to achieve in practice, even if theoretically it looks like an option... any unanticipated event threatens to cause unplanned shrinkage. That needs to be repaired immediately, but there is no generalizable plan to expand back to the prior level and then stop immediately, far too easy to overshoot. These instabilities last for decades or centuries, and if another event happens before stabilization, they just continue forever. Not expanding does risk extinction.