When you (and Robin) say “because [UFAI] should be visible,” that seems to imply that there are a significant number of potential observer moments that occur where we can see evidence for a UFAI but the UFAI is not yet able to break us down into spare parts. I’ve always assumed that if a UFAI was created in our lightcone, we would be extinct in very short amount of time. Thus, the assertion “UFAI is not the great filter because we don’t see any” is similar to saying “giant asteroids aren’t the great filter because we don’t see any smashing into earth and extinctifying us.” That is, of course we don’t observe these things because if they occurred, we wouldn’t be around to observe them. Is the assumption that once a UFAI has advanced enough to be observable by us, it would be traveling to devour the rest of its observable universe at near-light-speed obviously silly for some reason I’m missing?
When you (and Robin) say “because [UFAI] should be visible,” that seems to imply that there are a significant number of potential observer moments that occur where we can see evidence for a UFAI but the UFAI is not yet able to break us down into spare parts. I’ve always assumed that if a UFAI was created in our lightcone, we would be extinct in very short amount of time. Thus, the assertion “UFAI is not the great filter because we don’t see any” is similar to saying “giant asteroids aren’t the great filter because we don’t see any smashing into earth and extinctifying us.” That is, of course we don’t observe these things because if they occurred, we wouldn’t be around to observe them. Is the assumption that once a UFAI has advanced enough to be observable by us, it would be traveling to devour the rest of its observable universe at near-light-speed obviously silly for some reason I’m missing?