[ExI] Fermi Paradox and Volvo star systems

[Adrian Tymes]

On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 6:32 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Someone (Rafal or Stathis, I don't remember which) wrote:
>
> "It would be a problem if uploads could just maximise positive
> reinforcement without going to any effort. It has even been postulated that
> this is an explanation of the Fermi paradox: once civilisations become
> advanced enough, they transfer their minds to a virtual Heaven, and stop
> being interested in exploring the universe"
>
>
> That's an idea that crops up quite a bit, but to be honest, I don't fully
> buy it. Why would anyone with any sense at all deliberately put themselves
> in such a state, knowing that it could well doom them to extinction?
> Especially when it would be so easy to avoid. Being in a virtual paradise
> would not per se doom anyone to extinction, but losing interest in the
> wider universe easily could.
>

Because some people really can't let go of the notion that their lives are
extremely finite, and being genuinely happy for the rest of what time they
have truly is their primary goal.

Such individuals will likely not be around in ten thousand years, if even
one thousand.  Once they are uploaded and happy to the point that they have
let all their social connections lapse - once there is no one left who
cares about them, and once they cease to care about anyone else, in other
words once they have gone fully sociopathic (using their generated
environment, including generated AIs, to sub in for any need for
socialization) in pursuit of happiness - they are likely to be switched off
when some crisis or another comes along, perhaps simply the hardware
they're running on needing maintenance and nobody outside the hardware
caring about anyone running on it.
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