[ExI] Lethal future was Watson on NOVA

[Eugen Leitl]

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 07:52:46AM -0800, spike wrote:

> >Another possibility is that advanced civilizations naturally trend towards
> virtual reality, and thus end up leaving a very small externally detectable
> footprint. Exploring the endless possibilities of virtual reality seems
> potentially a lot more interesting than crossing tens of thousands of light
> years of space to try and visit some lower life form...-Kelly
> 
> 
> 
> This is my favorite theory.  Technological civilizations figure out AGI,
> then nanotech, then they put all the metal in their solar system into
> computronium, at which time *they don't care* what happens at other stars,

Just as we never cared what was on the other continents. America
was never colonized. Spike is as mythical as an unicorn. 

Wait, the first pre-life form never made it out of the first
puddle, or hot smoker, or wherever it was.

> because the information takes too long to get there; the latency is
> insurmountably high.  It is analogous to why we don't go searching Outer
> Elbonia to try to understand whatever technology they have developed to

So why was the land of mud and misogyny ever settled?

> twang arrows at caribou; we don't care how they do that.  Anything they
> have, we can do better.

Why do people have children? Do children forever remain in
their home?

Why was America colonized? Why do we have 500 volunteers for
a one-way mission to Mars?

What are pioneer species and what is ecological succession?

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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