[ExI] taxonomy for fermi paradox fans:

[Keith Henson]

On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 4:00 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:



snip

> 2) Some catastrophe hits a civilization when it gets a little past our
> level; my best guess would be the electronic equivalent of drug abuse.

Possible.  But it seems an unlikely filter to get all possible
variations on a nervous system if ET's with the capacity to affect the
visible state of the universe are common.  I suspect you need
something fundamental that keeps every single one of them from
spreading out.

I have proposed that speeding up is universally desirable and
obtainable on a scale that puts even the nearest stars millions of
subjective years distant.  This would leave the universe full of
isolated civilizations that stay small for speed of light limitations.
Sped up, how long would a civilization last?  If the ratio was a
million to one, a century of clock time would be 100 million years
subjective.

I have no idea of how long a civilization might last, but 100 million
years seems like a long time.

Keith

PS  Busy lately, but have a reply to Anders re brain size limits on my
list to do.