A colonized civilization that still had contact between its various planets could still be wiped out by a plague or a sufficiently widespread war. Or they could commit mass suicide. Or they could be attacked and killed each and every one by another alien species. Why are you making such confident, general statements about a huge potential class of forms of life you have not met?
various planets could still be wiped out by a plague or a sufficiently widespread war.
The wave of expansion would travel faster than war, or at least at roughly the same speed. The dynamics of war in an infinite space seem to look like Hanson’s hardscrapple frontier—everyone trying to move into new territory as quickly as possible. I’m not sure what you mean by plague, but it would have to travel outwards and might struggle to catch the expansion.
Or they could commit mass suicide.
Possible, but that seems like a rather contrived possibility, especially if one is then going to invoke it to explain the Fermi paradox; for one galactic civ to commit suicide seems unlikely, but for billions of them to do it without a single exception is … well, there would need to be a convergent dynamic.
Or they could be attacked and killed each and every one by another alien species
As I said, the dynamics of war in space seem to be dynamics of expansion. You can just keep running away at .99c into fresh space, always expanding your empire and the amount of energy and matter you control. Of course, your enemy will do exactly the same in the opposite directions.
Why are you making such confident, general statements about a huge potential class of forms of life you have not met?
Well, if you make a statement of the form “at least one alien race will … ” you have a lot of chances to be right. Also, physics and game theory constrain them. Have you read Omohundro’s Basic AI drives?
A colonized civilization that still had contact between its various planets could still be wiped out by a plague or a sufficiently widespread war. Or they could commit mass suicide. Or they could be attacked and killed each and every one by another alien species. Why are you making such confident, general statements about a huge potential class of forms of life you have not met?
Well, let’s take each objection in turn:
The wave of expansion would travel faster than war, or at least at roughly the same speed. The dynamics of war in an infinite space seem to look like Hanson’s hardscrapple frontier—everyone trying to move into new territory as quickly as possible. I’m not sure what you mean by plague, but it would have to travel outwards and might struggle to catch the expansion.
Possible, but that seems like a rather contrived possibility, especially if one is then going to invoke it to explain the Fermi paradox; for one galactic civ to commit suicide seems unlikely, but for billions of them to do it without a single exception is … well, there would need to be a convergent dynamic.
As I said, the dynamics of war in space seem to be dynamics of expansion. You can just keep running away at .99c into fresh space, always expanding your empire and the amount of energy and matter you control. Of course, your enemy will do exactly the same in the opposite directions.
Well, if you make a statement of the form “at least one alien race will … ” you have a lot of chances to be right. Also, physics and game theory constrain them. Have you read Omohundro’s Basic AI drives?