Game Theory with Aliens on the Largest Scales

Resources needed to take over the universe:

  1. One largish asteroid or small planet
  2. One star
  3. Self-replicating robots
  4. 40 years of Dyson sphere building, one afternoon of launching, some billion years of waiting for the furthest reaches to get settled
  5. (Muhahaha…)
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Scanalyzer has posted a number of interesting videos like this from the Foresight Institute. For the sake of honesty, I will admit that my interest was pique’d by the opening narrator, Allison Duettmann. To this way past prime male afflicted with intact memory of a more testosterone-ified existence, I must say she is quite charming and attractive. She is also extremely well-spoken with a clearly articulated mission: to find optimism as to existential matters for humanity at large. The organization espouses a highly-idealistic approach to all the technical matters which presently challenge humanity, like AI, nano machines, biotech, “intelligent cooperation”, the end of scarcity, head toward a utopia while avoiding dystopia (acknowledging that dystopia can result from good intentions insulates them sufficiently, I hope, from progressives’ hubristic religious zeal, to lend them some credence) and more.

On the one hand, their idealism reminds me of my more innocent and wildly intellectually-undisciplined self as a young teenager; on the other, it is not a bad thing - in a cynical world unmoored from constructive organizing principles - for a band of idealists who can think critically and communicate clearly, to speak coherently of important things. Creating an optimistic vision of the future while considering several technologies - any one of which has potential to change the entire course of humanity - may be a valuable enterprise, indeed. For me, personally, any reminder of erstwhile procreative inclinations and optimism for future generations are most welcome. Likely good for the circulation as well.

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