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0 pointstuatoru2y ago0 comments

> there are probably interesting enough things to spend a lifetime studying.

This is something that drives me nuts about wannabe photographers. They all immediately travel off to "exotic" locations to take pictures of "exotic" people and things.

Your house and neighborhood is plenty exotic enough for a lifetime's work, if you have the eye.

Your first three paragraphs are the answer to the so-called Fermi Paradox.

If your species has adapted to spending tens of thousands of years in tiny craft isolated by vast distances from anything else, leaving that environment would be extremely risky and difficult.

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6 comments · 2 top-level

sebzim45002y ago· 4 in thread

Even if humanity decides to live in the metaverse or something instead of spreading out further (which I doubt), someone somewhere is going to decide to make a Von Neumann probe eventually.

IMO the only solutions to the paradox are either that intelligent life is really, really rare or civilizations wipe themselves out in some kind of filtering event.

m4rtink2y ago

Not to mention proper virtual worlds with all the best effects, depth and fidelity and realism still need to run on something. In essence you are running an utopia in emulation, possibly requiring more real world resources to essentially simulate another world on top of yours.

So the people might live in a disconnected digital paradise, but their automated servants might cross the void at relativistic speeds to harvest any and all matter and energy not bolted down, to upgrade the paradise of their masters.

Vox_Leone2y ago

It is a little sad to think that we may have only one shot to the stars. The way we have squandered our resources makes it very difficult to bootstrap again in the future, case we choose the wrong way now. The next few years are going to be interesting indeed [remember that 'may you live interesting times' is a curse].

taneq2y ago

Maybe space is just so big that, even if there’s plenty of intelligent life inside our light cone, it’s still all far enough away that we can’t detect it (yet).

m4rtink2y ago

I think it is just a matter of time till we detect some large enough megascale engineering projects, even with current detection technology.

Or even find out that some weird natural phenomenons might be actually results of such engineering endeavors.

dredmorbius2y ago

  To see a World in a Grain of Sand
  And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
  Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
  And Eternity in an hour

-- William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence"

<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-inn...>

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0 comments

6 comments · 2 top-level

sebzim45002y ago· 4 in thread

Even if humanity decides to live in the metaverse or something instead of spreading out further (which I doubt), someone somewhere is going to decide to make a Von Neumann probe eventually.

IMO the only solutions to the paradox are either that intelligent life is really, really rare or civilizations wipe themselves out in some kind of filtering event.

m4rtink2y ago

Vox_Leone2y ago

taneq2y ago

Maybe space is just so big that, even if there’s plenty of intelligent life inside our light cone, it’s still all far enough away that we can’t detect it (yet).

m4rtink2y ago

I think it is just a matter of time till we detect some large enough megascale engineering projects, even with current detection technology.

Or even find out that some weird natural phenomenons might be actually results of such engineering endeavors.

dredmorbius2y ago

  To see a World in a Grain of Sand
  And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
  Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
  And Eternity in an hour

-- William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence"

<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-inn...>

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse