@isaackuo, a tiny K2 to K3 question.
If one assumes that any smart kids on the block will pave their stars with Dyson swarms to use all of that "free" energy, then what keeps them from yeeting some of their space habs to other stars with a tiny fraction of their full power? I.e. what's the limit to their growth here?

@Hcobb @isaackuo

Comms density. Heading off to another star means being isolated by years of light-lag from within delta of everything interesting in the universe, and subject to permanent unfashionability.

(h/t to @cstross for this notion, or at least where I ran across it)

@cerebrate @Hcobb @cstross Fear of permanent unfashionability is one of those Fermi Paradox solutions that fails because of the "all it takes is one exception" principle.

All it takes is one civilization that doesn't care about unfashionability and it really doesn't matter how others refuse to go interstellar. The one exception expands unimpeded.

This could be a civilization of VN machines ... simply not in their programming to care about fashion.

@isaackuo @cerebrate @Hcobb @cstross
How can anyone tell something is 'in fashion', if no one talks about the 'fashion' anyway?

@MeiLin @isaackuo @Hcobb @cstross

I should probably clarify at this point that fashionability is just my snarkriff.

The real problem is that if you're a critter, be it meat or machine, that is accustomed to life in the busy infosphere of a developed solar system, voluntarily signing yourself up for long-distance STL bandwidth and data rates is like, as a human today, signing yourself up for a few centuries in a sensory deprivation tank.

@cerebrate @isaackuo @Hcobb @cstross
To be fair, there are some individuals that are likely to think of that being 'not a problem', as they would vastly prefer everyone else to 'shut up'.

It is very likely that under populations of a K2 or a K3, you will find millions if not billions who think that way and are willing to take that lag if it means they are left alone with their own thoughts/group.