This is one of the theories that explain why we don’t hear anyone else in our galactic neighborhood.
Civilizations just develop highly sophisticated digital worlds that they can just live in in complete bliss forever or until their system degrades and falls apart in millions of years.
We could be surrounded light years in every direction by perverts having infinite fun with tentacle hentai porn in their perfect digital world and they will never know or want to know that we even exist.
The other one is that if we were to disasemble all our planets (we can leave earth alone for sentimental reasons) and rebuild them in shells around our sun we could create as much habitable living area as the surface of every natural planet (habitable or not) in our entire galaxy. Plus the whole thing would fit inside the orbit of mercury which means very low light lag. Why build a galaxy spanning empire when you can just build a galaxy at home and have much better ping?
Civilizations just develop highly sophisticated digital worlds that they can just live in in complete bliss forever or until their system degrades
If I want to be blissed out until my body falls apart, I can do that now by turning my retirement account into a stockpile of fentanyl. I don’t think its presumed that intelligent civilizations all just do this, for the same reason I don’t believe modern human civilization will collapse on itself simply because we’ve discovered opium.
We could be surrounded light years in every direction by perverts having infinite fun with tentacle hentai porn in their perfect digital world and they will never know or want to know that we even exist.
We struggle to confirm the existence of a ninth planet while. We’re living in a solar system at the rural edge of the galaxy and we just found out black holes exist. Would we know what an advanced civilization would even look like?
We haven’t even fully ruled out life on Mars, ffs. There could be a layer under the cloud system of Jupiter, Uranus, or Neptune that’s absolutely teaming with life. The Great Space Whale Migration of Proxima Centauri could be happening right now and we’d never have a clue.
Do not sell the galaxy spanning race of sentient porn-loving starfish short just yet.
Reminds me of the short story “Nano Comes to Clifford Falls.” Basically a replicator arrives in a small town, and is freely available to use. At first it’s great, but then it’s not. I won’t spell it all out, but I remember it being framed as a kind of few facto civilisation/personal “test,” and that some people just can’t handle life without the struggle.
Kind of a problematic take, if I’m remembering it correctly, but story still had a big impact on me.
CW: attempted sexual assault, in case anyone decides to check it out.
Basically a replicator arrives in a small town, and is freely available to use. At first it’s great, but then it’s not.
I’m familiar with the story. It was popular in conservative circles in the same way “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” was popular.
I’m not stranger to tech pessimism, but - setting aside the fantastic nature of the premise - there’s little to support the theory that economic surplus has been bad for social cohesion. Given enough free time, people tend to be remarkably creative and productive. And a great deal of modern social cohesion is predicated on a certain ambient abundance of energy, housing, etc.
To quote Alfred Henry Lewis
There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy
Tbf, turning your retirement account into pure bliss with Fentanyl greeeaaaatly reduces the amount of time you get to be blissed out. This hypothetical future likely had found a way to reach permanent bliss with as few downsides as possible
If I want to be blissed out until my body falls apart, I can do that now by turning my retirement account into a stockpile of fentanyl. I don’t think its presumed that intelligent civilizations all just do this, for the same reason I don’t believe modern human civilization will collapse on itself simply because we’ve discovered opium.
The key difference is that we still live in a society where, at least most people, have to work to live. If you spend your retirement on fentanyl the fentanyl isn’t going to be the thing to make your body fall apart, assuming you get pure shit and are able to dose properly and not od your body can handle that for decades. What’s going to tear your body apart is the poverty and deprivation of living on the streets after you lose your job. If you’re in a fully automated post scarcity society and you’re able to hook yourself up to one of these machines and live a long life I could see a majority of people doing that. Sure some people would object to it being meaningless, but in a post scarcity reality where God is dead, a robot can do anything better than you, and there’s no conflict or competition for resources there isn’t much meaning to be had anyway.
This is one of the theories that explain why we don’t hear anyone else in our galactic neighborhood.
Civilizations just develop highly sophisticated digital worlds that they can just live in in complete bliss forever or until their system degrades and falls apart in millions of years.
We could be surrounded light years in every direction by perverts having infinite fun with tentacle hentai porn in their perfect digital world and they will never know or want to know that we even exist.
The other one is that if we were to disasemble all our planets (we can leave earth alone for sentimental reasons) and rebuild them in shells around our sun we could create as much habitable living area as the surface of every natural planet (habitable or not) in our entire galaxy. Plus the whole thing would fit inside the orbit of mercury which means very low light lag. Why build a galaxy spanning empire when you can just build a galaxy at home and have much better ping?
Induced demand. Once you build a galaxy at home with good ping, its going to fill up and then you’re going to need another.
If I want to be blissed out until my body falls apart, I can do that now by turning my retirement account into a stockpile of fentanyl. I don’t think its presumed that intelligent civilizations all just do this, for the same reason I don’t believe modern human civilization will collapse on itself simply because we’ve discovered opium.
We struggle to confirm the existence of a ninth planet while. We’re living in a solar system at the rural edge of the galaxy and we just found out black holes exist. Would we know what an advanced civilization would even look like?
We haven’t even fully ruled out life on Mars, ffs. There could be a layer under the cloud system of Jupiter, Uranus, or Neptune that’s absolutely teaming with life. The Great Space Whale Migration of Proxima Centauri could be happening right now and we’d never have a clue.
Do not sell the galaxy spanning race of sentient porn-loving starfish short just yet.
Reminds me of the short story “Nano Comes to Clifford Falls.” Basically a replicator arrives in a small town, and is freely available to use. At first it’s great, but then it’s not. I won’t spell it all out, but I remember it being framed as a kind of few facto civilisation/personal “test,” and that some people just can’t handle life without the struggle.
Kind of a problematic take, if I’m remembering it correctly, but story still had a big impact on me.
CW: attempted sexual assault, in case anyone decides to check it out.
I’m familiar with the story. It was popular in conservative circles in the same way “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” was popular.
I’m not stranger to tech pessimism, but - setting aside the fantastic nature of the premise - there’s little to support the theory that economic surplus has been bad for social cohesion. Given enough free time, people tend to be remarkably creative and productive. And a great deal of modern social cohesion is predicated on a certain ambient abundance of energy, housing, etc.
To quote Alfred Henry Lewis
Tbf, turning your retirement account into pure bliss with Fentanyl greeeaaaatly reduces the amount of time you get to be blissed out. This hypothetical future likely had found a way to reach permanent bliss with as few downsides as possible
Might want to look up The Problem With Paradise
I hear they paved it and put up a parking lot
Funny, because the artist was describing a vacation he took in Hawaii.
I don’t know how else he thought he was going to get there. A stairway?
The key difference is that we still live in a society where, at least most people, have to work to live. If you spend your retirement on fentanyl the fentanyl isn’t going to be the thing to make your body fall apart, assuming you get pure shit and are able to dose properly and not od your body can handle that for decades. What’s going to tear your body apart is the poverty and deprivation of living on the streets after you lose your job. If you’re in a fully automated post scarcity society and you’re able to hook yourself up to one of these machines and live a long life I could see a majority of people doing that. Sure some people would object to it being meaningless, but in a post scarcity reality where God is dead, a robot can do anything better than you, and there’s no conflict or competition for resources there isn’t much meaning to be had anyway.
Take enough fentanyl and you will no longer feel the need to do either.