Do you think any aliens exist in the universe?

[excreationist]

Economic growth is constrained only by the continued availability of larger numbers, and doesn’t necessarily imply increasing use of space or resources; You can achieve economic growth with fixed population and resources, by turning your resources into things that are more valuable than they were previously.

Are you saying that you can have endless economic growth without using more space and resources? BTW that's another reason to use other planets and stars....

 

[skepticalbip]

Economic growth is constrained only by the continued availability of larger numbers, and doesn’t necessarily imply increasing use of space or resources; You can achieve economic growth with fixed population and resources, by turning your resources into things that are more valuable than they were previously.

Are you saying that you can have endless economic growth without using more space and resources? BTW that's another reason to use other planets and stars....

Certainly GDP can grow without using more space or resources. The service industry is a big part of GDP. And then poets, novelists, actors, house painters, tax preparers, programmers, etc. etc. will grow the economy if their work produces more income for them. Buy more Ebooks and art and grow the economy.

 

[excreationist]

Economic growth is constrained only by the continued availability of larger numbers, and doesn’t necessarily imply increasing use of space or resources; You can achieve economic growth with fixed population and resources, by turning your resources into things that are more valuable than they were previously.

Are you saying that you can have endless economic growth without using more space and resources? BTW that's another reason to use other planets and stars....

Certainly GDP can grow without using more space or resources. The service industry is a big part of GDP. And then poets, novelists, actors, house painters, tax preparers, programmers, etc. etc. will grow the economy if their work produces more income for them. Buy more Ebooks and art and grow the economy.

Note I said endless economic growth....

Though exploiting the resources of the entire accessible universe could hit a wall too but it would involve trillions of times more resources than being limited to our solar system....

 

[bilby]

Those that favor reproduction eventually outbreed those that don't.

Only if favouring reproduction is an inherited trait, and not a decision made on the basis of literally anything other than inheritance.

Those today who eschew reproduction are the children and grandchildren of the people from the middle of the C20th who were growing population exponentially.

Reality doesn’t agree with your claim here.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I hope not. The problem is the Fermi Paradox--why don't we see them? The time it takes to colonize the galaxy is very short compared to the time life has been around, why didn't somebody beat us? And even if they leave habitable worlds alone why do we not at least see their works?

This basically says there must be something phenomenally unlikely about a race reaching starfaring status. Have we been phenomenally lucky and passed that barrier, or does it lie in the future--and note there's very little future between now and starfaring.

You're equivocating between starfaring and colonising the galaxy. It may very well be that we're only a few hundred years away from being hypothetically able to send a manned ship to a distant star and have it arrive with living humans on board - and yet that we won't ever colonise the galaxy, simply because it isn't worth it.

Those that favor reproduction eventually outbreed those that don't. Expansion will happen. If we can colonize one star we can colonize the galaxy.

And it's not like "someone is going to do it on their own account" cuts through this argument. A rich trader of the 16th century may have been able to equip a few ships and send a few colonists across an ocean, but no Elon Musk of the 26th century is going to pay a colonising troop across the vastness of interstellar space - of we are going to be able to do it, it's always going to be a civilization wide effort.

Or dissent groups that want to set up their own society. It will eventually drop to the point that it need not be a government effort.

Will it? Can you elucidate the science that shows this? Or is this just wishful thinking?

As time goes on the resources required to accomplish something in most cases go down. As time goes on the resources available to people go up. Manufacturing becomes easier. Just look at going to space--that used to be something for nations. Now most birds going up are private even if they carry government payloads.

 

[bilby]

If we can colonize one star we can colonize the galaxy.

We can’t even colonise the Moon, and it’s less than half a million kilometres away.

So I am going with ‘we can neither colonise one star, nor the galaxy’.

At least until we have technology that can get living humans a significant fraction of a light year from home.

 

[bilby]

I don't believe growth is essential. I believe growth will happen if it's practical.

I agree. But there’s nothing practical about interstellar travel. Shit, we are only just beginning to be able to spot Earth sized exoplanets. We don’t yet even know where we might be able to attempt to survive if we could get there, much less have the ability to go there and make the attempt.

 

[bilby]

Economic growth is constrained only by the continued availability of larger numbers, and doesn’t necessarily imply increasing use of space or resources; You can achieve economic growth with fixed population and resources, by turning your resources into things that are more valuable than they were previously.

Are you saying that you can have endless economic growth without using more space and resources?

Yes. Dollars are just numbers; There’s no theoretical upper limit to them.

 

[excreationist]

Economic growth is constrained only by the continued availability of larger numbers, and doesn’t necessarily imply increasing use of space or resources; You can achieve economic growth with fixed population and resources, by turning your resources into things that are more valuable than they were previously.

Are you saying that you can have endless economic growth without using more space and resources?

Yes. Dollars are just numbers; There’s no theoretical upper limit to them.

So you can have more dollars than the number of atoms in the universe? Or a googol or a googolplex? I agree that there is no clear threshold value for the limit though.

 

[bilby]

Economic growth is constrained only by the continued availability of larger numbers, and doesn’t necessarily imply increasing use of space or resources; You can achieve economic growth with fixed population and resources, by turning your resources into things that are more valuable than they were previously.

Are you saying that you can have endless economic growth without using more space and resources?

Yes. Dollars are just numbers; There’s no theoretical upper limit to them.

So you can have more dollars than the number of atoms in the universe? Or a googol or a googolplex? I agree that there is no clear threshold value for the limit though.

Sure you can.

Money is just numbers. If you can represent the amount, you can have it as your bank balance.

 

[Bomb#20]

You can talk about seeding the galaxy with automated probes, but as that’s both expensive and utterly futile,...

And self-replicating probes ain’t free, because if they were, I would have a dozen of them.

Those sentences really don't go together...

Are you sure? I see no contradictions.

I'm not sure, just curious -- I was presuming "as that’s both expensive and utterly futile" was two independent objections; if what you had in mind was that it's futile because it's expensive, then the sentences go together fine. If that's not what you had in mind, then what makes seeding the galaxy with free self-replicating probes utterly futile, and whatever that is, why doesn't it also make your alternate use for a dozen of them utterly futile?

 

[Bomb#20]

Those that favor reproduction eventually outbreed those that don't. Expansion will happen. If we can colonize one star we can colonize the galaxy.
...
Or dissent groups that want to set up their own society. It will eventually drop to the point that it need not be a government effort.

I don't believe growth is essential. I believe growth will happen if it's practical.

All this assumes that starfaring species don't take active measures to limit their own expansion. But it seems to me it would be rational for them to do so.

I'm inclined to agree with Jokodo that the rational motive for transplanting your species to other stars is extinction avoidance -- the galaxy is a dangerous place and if you spread out to dozens of planets across hundreds of light years then the chance of your descendants being wiped out by a local disaster goes to near zero. So why spread further than that? Well, there are two answers. Either it's because you're concerned about your descendants being wiped out by some much larger, say, galactic-arm-scale disaster, or else it's because you want to for some irrational motive. So the questions become: what galactic-arm-scale threat is there to be rationally worried about, and what irrational motive could plausibly induce irrational expansion? When you look at it that way, you've already given the same answer to both questions: those that favor reproduction eventually outbreed those that don't. The disaster that could take out all the civilizations across thousands of light years is alien invasion -- invasion by some species that evolved a natural urge to just keep growing and growing despite the lack of any benefit to its members.

So let's say you're a species of starship builders and you occupy a stretch of space a couple hundred light years across, and your policymakers are debating whether to colonize any more worlds. The con side makes Jokodo's mathematical argument: you're already safe, your exponential growth rate has already gone to zero, and having more stars won't raise it above zero, so what's the point? The pro side holds up the specter of alien invasion -- if you don't grow, some other species eventually will, they'll outbreed your descendants, their realm will grow until it borders yours, and then they'll seize your planets for themselves and kill all your descendants. The only way to ensure survival of your descendants is to grow first and occupy the whole galaxy.

So what would the con side have to say against that? It seems to me they'd say the proposed preemptive defensive growth policy will itself create the very threat it's meant to defend against. In a galaxy where starship-building species are evidently rare, who is more likely to eventually evolve into a species of dangerous irrational overbreeding starfarers? Some currently paleozoic mollusks in some alien ocean half the galaxy away? Or the descendants of their own colonists who they send out right now on a mission to occupy the galaxy? By far the most likely aliens to start an interstellar war over their living space are some future species of their own genus who value growth for the sake of growth and who decide they're entitled to go back to the ancestral worlds and replace the less evolved locals.

So they'd argue the best way to make sure their own descendants live on indefinitely is to prevent those who favor reproduction from outbreeding those who don't -- to maintain control of their species' genome. All their planets need to remain the same species indefinitely. They need to com-laser their genetic innovations to one another and introduce each planet's beneficial mutations into the gene pools of all the others. And it will be an awful lot easier to maintain genome-unity over two hundred light years than over twenty thousand.

So if private starships become affordable, and there are any dissent groups that want to go against government policy and start new colony planets beyond the current realm of their species, it seems to me it would be rational for the rulers of the existing planets to stop them by force. Seize any half-built starships and if necessary arrest the dissent groups' leaders. The best way for Vulcans to stay safe from Romulans is to stop the Romulans from separating from the Vulcans in the first place.

 

[excreationist]

So you can have more dollars than the number of atoms in the universe? Or a googol or a googolplex? I agree that there is no clear threshold value for the limit though.

Sure you can.

Money is just numbers. If you can represent the amount, you can have it as your bank balance.

What if you say that a dollar is worth a certain number of human hours of labor? I think there is a limit to how much productivity can be increased if you are restricted to being on Earth....

 

[excreationist]

@Bomb#20

Kardashev scale - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Type III
A civilization in possession of energy at the scale of its own galaxy,

That would involve expanding across much of the galaxy. As far as why they'd want to do this goes maybe they want to brag about it or having that much energy is useful as far as their goals go....

The most straightforward extension of the scale to even more hypothetical Type IV beings who can control or use the entire universe or Type V who control collections of universes

So civilizations could even be unsatisfied with just filling a galaxy....

 

[Jokodo]

Economic growth is constrained only by the continued availability of larger numbers, and doesn’t necessarily imply increasing use of space or resources; You can achieve economic growth with fixed population and resources, by turning your resources into things that are more valuable than they were previously.

Are you saying that you can have endless economic growth without using more space and resources? BTW that's another reason to use other planets and stars....

No, that's no reason at all to use other planets and stars. If you can have endless economic growth without using more space and resources and/or a thriving, healthy civilisation that's not built on an imperative of economic growth, then there is hope for us. If a stagnant supply of space and resources implies a stagnant civilisation, in every bad way you can interpret this, then that's exactly what we're doomed to.

Using other stars and planets doesn't change the equation in either case. At best it delays the inevitable no more than a few centuries.

 

[Jokodo]

Economic growth is constrained only by the continued availability of larger numbers, and doesn’t necessarily imply increasing use of space or resources; You can achieve economic growth with fixed population and resources, by turning your resources into things that are more valuable than they were previously.

Are you saying that you can have endless economic growth without using more space and resources? BTW that's another reason to use other planets and stars....

Certainly GDP can grow without using more space or resources. The service industry is a big part of GDP. And then poets, novelists, actors, house painters, tax preparers, programmers, etc. etc. will grow the economy if their work produces more income for them. Buy more Ebooks and art and grow the economy.

Note I said endless economic growth....

Though exploiting the resources of the entire accessible universe could hit a wall too but it would involve trillions of times more resources than being limited to our solar system....

And trillions of years before hitting that wall, we'd hit another wall: the one where our demands grow faster than our supply of space and stars, and we start to experience scarcity on the scale as if we'd stayed on earth in the very finite bubble of space accessible by then. There's this pesky little thing called c, and the funny fact that exponential growth is, well, exponential, while cubic growth isn't.

If we move into space at a constant speed in all directions at once, we'll be adding 700% to our available space in year 2. In year 11, we'll only be adding 33%, and in year 302, it'll be less than 1%. Whatever growth rate of space and resource use you deem necessary, we'll soon drop below it.

 

[excreationist]

Economic growth is constrained only by the continued availability of larger numbers, and doesn’t necessarily imply increasing use of space or resources; You can achieve economic growth with fixed population and resources, by turning your resources into things that are more valuable than they were previously.

Are you saying that you can have endless economic growth without using more space and resources? BTW that's another reason to use other planets and stars....

No, that's no reason at all to use other planets and stars. If you can have endless economic growth without using more space and resources and/or a thriving, healthy civilisation that's not built on an imperative of economic growth, then there is hope for us. If a stagnant supply of space and resources implies a stagnant civilisation, in every bad way you can interpret this, then that's exactly what we're doomed to.

What do you think of the Kardashev scale I mentioned in post #54? Is the increased energy use it involves a good thing? (like how our large scale of technological civilization allowed a man on the Moon, etc)

Using other stars and planets doesn't change the equation in either case. At best it delays the inevitable no more than a few centuries.

The galaxy is about 100,000 light years across.... wouldn't timescales of more than a few centuries be involved?

 

[excreationist]

And trillions of years before hitting that wall, we'd hit another wall: the one where our demands grow faster than our supply of space and stars, and we start to experience scarcity on the scale as if we'd stayed on earth in the very finite bubble of space accessible by then. There's this pesky little thing called c, and the funny fact that exponential growth is, well, exponential, while cubic growth isn't.

If we move into space at a constant speed in all directions at once, we'll be adding 700% to our available space in year 2. In year 11, we'll only be adding 33%, and in year 302, it'll be less than 1%. Whatever growth rate of space and resource use you deem necessary, we'll soon drop below it.

If you are travelling at the speed of light it would take at least 50,000 years to reach the limits of our galaxy - I'm not sure what you mean by year 302. Then there are a huge number of galaxies and I think some would take billions of years to reach. Are you saying that since it would eventually run out we shouldn't even bother?

 

[Jokodo]

And trillions of years before hitting that wall, we'd hit another wall: the one where our demands grow faster than our supply of space and stars, and we start to experience scarcity on the scale as if we'd stayed on earth in the very finite bubble of space accessible by then. There's this pesky little thing called c, and the funny fact that exponential growth is, well, exponential, while cubic growth isn't.

If we move into space at a constant speed in all directions at once, we'll be adding 700% to our available space in year 2. In year 11, we'll only be adding 33%, and in year 302, it'll be less than 1%. Whatever growth rate of space and resource use you deem necessary, we'll soon drop below it.

If you are travelling at the speed of light it would take at least 50,000 years to reach the limits of our galaxy - I'm not sure what you mean by year 302. Then there are a huge number of galaxies and I think some would take billions of years to reach. Are you saying that since it would eventually run out we shouldn't even bother?

If your idea of space utopia is a universe with a large and growing core of filled up worlds are living in stagnation, with nowhere to go since all nearby worlds are filled up, and all those further away will be by the time you get there, and a small and in relative terms shrinking rim of recently settled worlds that are racing each other to the virgin worlds beyond, sure you might be able to get that. What good is it though?

The year 302 is when the growth rate of the space that we can reach by then drops below 1%. There's a finite speed in this universe and a finite number of dimensions to space. That forbids adding space exponentially to keep up with the demands of an exponentially growing population, so in your "we must grow" logic we'll be running into a too many people, not enough space problem long before we've settled most of this part of our arm of the galaxy. Colonising the entire galaxy and beyond might sound like a way to run away from scarcity while maintaining constant growth, but the math begs to differ.

 

[bilby]

You can talk about seeding the galaxy with automated probes, but as that’s both expensive and utterly futile,...

And self-replicating probes ain’t free, because if they were, I would have a dozen of them.

Those sentences really don't go together...

Are you sure? I see no contradictions.

I'm not sure, just curious -- I was presuming "as that’s both expensive and utterly futile" was two independent objections; if what you had in mind was that it's futile because it's expensive, then the sentences go together fine. If that's not what you had in mind, then what makes seeding the galaxy with free self-replicating probes utterly futile, and whatever that is, why doesn't it also make your alternate use for a dozen of them utterly futile?

That’s pretty much it. ‘If it’s free, I’ll take a dozen’ is something of an idiom where I grew up. It implies that something is so useless that nobody wants one under any circumstances, but also notes that Yorkshiremen will grab for anything, no matter how useless, if it doesn’t cost them money.

I have no use for a self-replicating interstellar space probe. I have nowhere to store it, and no plan to ever use one, nor any idea who would be daft enough to buy one from me, if I was ever daft enough to buy one from you. But if it’s free…