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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 07/09/2024 14:27, Keith Henson
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.27.1725715652.18860.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
<pre>Most of you have seen this
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://hplusmagazine.com/2012/04/12/transhumanism-and-the-human-expansion-into-space-a-conflict-with-physics/"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://hplusmagazine.com/2012/04/12/transhumanism-and-the-human-expansion-into-space-a-conflict-with-physics/</a>
I made a case for civilization "collapsing" to 300-meter spheres sunk
in the deep ocean for cooling.
But if what we see at Tabby's Star and the other 24 in that cluster
are data centers up to 400 times the area of the Earth, they seem to
tolerate a speed-of-light communication delay of around 1.5 seconds.
That indicates the aliens (if any) are running at close to our clock
rate and I am wrong about a million-to-one speedup at least in that
case.
Keith</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Surely such a data centre could contain many smaller clusters with
much faster internal communications, that only interact with each
other slowly, or rarely? Imagine 400 (or probably many more)
separate civilisations, with a common agreement concerning the
physical infrastructure but otherwise totally independent.<br>
<br>
This idea could be scaled up, with nested clusters of clusters of
(clusters of, etc...) civilisations, metropolises, communities,
right down to the individual level. Communication speeds would then
be scaled depending on the level of the units communicating with
each other.<br>
<br>
We already have a weak version of this. For example, we know that it
takes ages for bureaucracies to get things done, and in the meantime
we just get on with our lives. Not so long ago, people used to write
letters to each other, and wait a few days or more for a reply. This
didn't slow our everyday lives down. Usually!<br>
<br>
Perhaps for someone who is effectively immortal, waiting a couple of
thousand subjective years for a reply to your message to uncle
Bernard wouldn't be intolerable. The ability to vary your clock rate
would add another dimension, too.<br>
<br>
It would be interesting to explore, perhaps in an SF story, the
implications of being able to speed up and slow down your clock rate
in a society where everyone has indefinitely long lifespans.<br>
<br>
Ben<br>
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