[ExI] Fermi question, was is a FTL drive a dream

[Stefano Vaj]

On 22 December 2011 19:34, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:

> It's a really good question, one I have thought about for a number of
> years.  There are many ways for a civilization to fail where everybody
> dies.  I have tried to imagine ways that allow for a thriving
> continuation that doesn't make a visible mark on the universe.  That
> leaves out interstellar expansion.  What would keep us around our one
> star forever and likewise make all the other technophilic races stay
> home?
>

On the line of my previous pun about lasers pointing to space vs bonuses to
bankers, I think that on this we transhumanists suffer from an implicit
technophilic bias ourselves, taking the first priority for granted, and
considering growth, expansion, quest for greatness, discovery and knowledge
as part of the very definition of "thriving".

Now, what about the much more trivial scenarios of a Brave New World where
simply all that is simply going (gradually?) to disappear in favour of
stability and stagnation and keeping clear of anthropic x-risks and making
our planet resources last as long as possible?

In hindsight, it easy to extrapolate "progress" as if it largely were a
kind of Kurzweilian curve, especially from the POV of people having grown
at the end of a dramatically revolutionary age who are taking enhancements,
improvements and breakthrougs in every field for granted; but examining
things more closely I suspect that such extrapolation is based in reality
on "punctuated equilibria" where in-no-way-necessitated, exceptional,
radical paradigm shifts could succeed on rather few occasions against an
otherwise dominant inertia *against all bets*.

So, where indeed are the aliens?

Perhaps most alien civilisations do not have a strong enough transhumanist
movement to make themselves visibile to the other. :-)

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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