@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?
@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
Additional counterpoint.
The Terran Age of Discovery and Colonialism. People from information dense urban societies/settlements have gone out for years, sometimes decades, without any news from home, without any ability to write home.
And if news from home came, it was months or years out of date. They still managed.
@cerebrate @isaackuo @Hcobb @cstross
Additional additional counterpoint.
There will always be groups of different ideological bents that are more then happy to get away from the information traffic that tells them they are wrong and would rather be in their own little information bubble that tells them they are right.
And as such would be more then happy to take long lag times into account when they are moving to settle a new system.
@MeiLin @isaackuo @Hcobb @cstross
But without the internet, how would they be able to tell people they were wrong on the internet?
(Ha ha only serious: I have observed that one of the apparently exquisite pleasures available to the minority doing it right is the joy of arguing with the majority doing it wrong, and that it's really, really hard to give that addiction up.)
@cerebrate @MeiLin @Hcobb @cstross I understood your essential meaning, behind the snark.
I already mentioned the possibility of critters that don't care about that (VN machine critters as an example).
But another counterpoint angle - That sensory deprivation tank sure sounds like an awesome Torment Nexus the critter tech-bros need to implement! Have fun in Interstellar Australia, suckers!
@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.