[ExI] Lethal future was Watson on NOVA

[spike]

... Behalf Of Kelly Anderson


Subject: Re: [ExI] Lethal future was Watson on NOVA

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>> My theory is that almost no evolved intelligent species meets the 
>> challenge of overcoming its evolved limitations fast enough to cope 
>> successfully with accelerating technological change...


>Another possibility is that advanced civilizations naturally trend towards
virtual reality, and thus end up leaving a very small externally detectable
footprint. Exploring the endless possibilities of virtual reality seems
potentially a lot more interesting than crossing tens of thousands of light
years of space to try and visit some lower life form...-Kelly



This is my favorite theory.  Technological civilizations figure out AGI,
then nanotech, then they put all the metal in their solar system into
computronium, at which time *they don't care* what happens at other stars,
because the information takes too long to get there; the latency is
insurmountably high.  It is analogous to why we don't go searching Outer
Elbonia to try to understand whatever technology they have developed to
twang arrows at caribou; we don't care how they do that.  Anything they
have, we can do better.

spike