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And the groups further away would be able to see the problem happening to others and have a good chance to do things differently. Well, the initial premise tha

And the groups further away would be able to see the problem happening to others and have a good chance to do things differently. Well, the initial premise that all civilizations have this happen suggests that later groups wouldn't see it as a problem, but as a goal or path to the goal. There are groups here on Earth that seem to be resistant to the pull of the virtual, but all by resisting technologies of other kinds as well, so it could still be that any group capable of building advanced computing succumbs. There's a depressing thought: Dune as an accurate picture of the attitude towards computing in long-lived technological civilizations.

berntb 17y ago
To be a bit cynical, most controlling ideologies are against any new way of living. Your argument needs that all the groups of leaders/high priests fails to control their subcultures, even far away from the central system/culture. Note that the argument needs that most every subculture fails at controlling its faithful in most every technological civilization... Doesn't really sound likely -- consider a North Korea or Salafism in the Oort cloud. Edit: A bit clearer and more grammatical, etc.
- berntb 17y ago
  Still wondering about this. There really should be some analysis somewhere (just for Fermi's Paradox, if nothing else) to answer this question: How fast could humanity have reached viable colonies in space -- if we had used Orions or "normal" nuclear rockets? (NERVA, or better). NASA would hardly fund research into their total failure to reach a fraction of what could have been. Is that the reason why this isn't well published? Since we're still here, I think physics experiments to explain Fermi's paradox has to be wrong (unless they destroy a whole solar system). I think I'll email the guy which has centauri-dreams.org and ask. Edit: A meme like virtual worlds which everyone got dependent on, disregarding species and culture, sounds just impossible. It seems more likely that older civilizations kill off the new ones, to be like Greta Garbo (alone). Edit 2: My point is that the "Great Filter" (see http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1848 http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1848) should be behind humanity, unless it is that other civilizations kill new ones, since a large fraction of all civilizations that are where we are in development, would have viable space colonies.

berntb 17y ago

To be a bit cynical, most controlling ideologies are against any new way of living. Your argument needs that all the groups of leaders/high priests fails to control their subcultures, even far away from the central system/culture. Note that the argument needs that most every subculture fails at controlling its faithful in most every technological civilization... Doesn't really sound likely -- consider a North Korea or Salafism in the Oort cloud. Edit: A bit clearer and more grammatical, etc.

berntb 17y ago
Still wondering about this. There really should be some analysis somewhere (just for Fermi's Paradox, if nothing else) to answer this question: How fast could humanity have reached viable colonies in space -- if we had used Orions or "normal" nuclear rockets? (NERVA, or better). NASA would hardly fund research into their total failure to reach a fraction of what could have been. Is that the reason why this isn't well published? Since we're still here, I think physics experiments to explain Fermi's paradox has to be wrong (unless they destroy a whole solar system). I think I'll email the guy which has centauri-dreams.org and ask. Edit: A meme like virtual worlds which everyone got dependent on, disregarding species and culture, sounds just impossible. It seems more likely that older civilizations kill off the new ones, to be like Greta Garbo (alone). Edit 2: My point is that the "Great Filter" (see http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1848 http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1848) should be behind humanity, unless it is that other civilizations kill new ones, since a large fraction of all civilizations that are where we are in development, would have viable space colonies.