[ExI] Are Dyson swarms a good idea?

[John Clark]

On Mon, Jan 26, 2026 at 10:10 AM BillK via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*> By the time such a world-scale project could be contemplated and funded,
> every nation will have miniature stars in fusion reactors producing more
> energy than they can use.*


*I disagree, computational capacity takes energy and I don't think you can
ever have too much of that. And I do not believe I am the only mind in the
observable universe that holds that opinion. If intelligent life is common
then somebody somewhere is going to decide to make a certain machine that
has a mass of only 10^-12 grams. And it would only take one guy. So why
don't we see any evidence of that? The answer is obvious. *

*John K Clark*






On Mon, 26 Jan 2026 at 12:17, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Jan 25, 2026 at 5:32 PM BillK via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>> *> I asked Claude Opus 4,5 - Will all advanced civilizations build a
>>> Dyson swarm around their star? Claude suggested that this idea could be a
>>> mistaken projection of 20th-century ideas onto the cosmos.*
>>
>>
>> *I don't find any of Claude's excuses to explain the embarrassing fact
>> that astronomers have never seen anything like a Dyson sphere to be
>> persuasive. If intelligent life is common in the observable universe I
>> simply don't believe that not one of the trillion quadrillion minds in that
>> universe thought it would be a good idea to make a 10^-12 gram self
>> duplicating machine that is capable of making a Dyson Sphere, lots of them.
>> Hell, I am a mind in the observable universe and if I had the ability to
>> make such a machine I certainly would, and I don't think I'm unique.  *
>> *<snip>*
>>
>
>> * John K Clark*
>>
> -
>
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