[ExI] Are Dyson swarms a good idea?

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 26/01/2026 20:33, John K Clark wrote:
> 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.

I think the answer may be obvious too, but I don't get the same answer.

My answer is that either the probes don't exist yet (but they will) or they do exist, and are still on their way.
And if any constructions exist already that will be visible across the galaxy, they are just too recent for us to see them yet.
By the time we do see them, we might well have our own, and we'll all start to see each other, at around the same time.

It's quite possible that, at some near-future time, the sky will suddenly light up with abundant evidence of intelligent life, all over the place, rolling back into the distance at the speed of light.

More-or-less. Plus or minus ten thousand years, maybe.

At one time, we thought we were special because the sun and all the cosmos revolved round the earth.
Then we thought we were special because we were the only creature that can speak, use tools, etc. etc.
Then we thought we were special because no artificial machine can do the various things that we can do.
Then we thought we were special because we couldn't see any other intelligent life in the universe.

I'm pretty sure we're not special.

-- 
Ben