Finally, Some Practical Advice

By | March 27, 2008
1 Comment

George Dvorsky gives us:

Seven ways to control the Galaxy with self-replicating probes

When you think about it, that’s a pretty modest title. “Controlling the galaxy” just sounds a lot folksier than “ruling the universe,” doesn’t it?”

Anyway, seeing as I expect that most of the galaxy will be explored by self-replicating probes while I’m off on my retirement cruise, this topic is of personal interest to me. Of course, if technology advances the way it ought to, and no retirement cruise is necessary, I hope to participate in the exploration and settlement of the galaxy in uploaded form. That would fall under item 4 on George’s list:

1. Exploration
2. Communication
3. Working
4. Colonization
5. Uplifting
6. Berserking
7. Policing

This is good reading, especially the analysis of that nagging question “Where are all the probes?”

  • Karl Hallowell

    There’s a lot of things to consider here. First, we might not see probes because we haven’t started to look for them. We’re pretty confident that nobody has left a large amount of obvious alien technology on Earth’s surface. But no such claim can be made for anywhere else. There’s no obvious megascale billboards, but it’d be easy for a teeming horde of small von Neumann machines to exist away from Earth without our knowledge.

    Second, item #6 is unsettling. It may be that there’s an alien fleet of von Neumann’s drifting towards Earth at this moment to terminate all life (or maybe just sell us stuff). Those radio signals haven’t gone that far yet.