From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Fri Oct 20 2000 - 07:01:55 MDT
Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > >What about parasitical launchers which can only survive where others
> > >have gone before, but which can take advantage of the already-processed
> > >resources to go faster (up to the frontier)? They would spread faster
> > >than that which expands the frontier...
> >
> > This just can't happen in my model. If the original owner of the launcher
> > could have benefited by staying a little longer they would have. The
> > reason they left is that they thought staying longer would make them
> > go slower in net.
>
>Err...I don't get it. Just because the original owner *thought* that X
>was the optimal time, doesn't mean the original owner was correct.
>Some unforseen advance or discovery, unknown and unknowable at time X,
>might in fact make X+Y the optimal time...or, at least, a better time
>(judged by speed of colonization) than X.
Well yes of course anyone might get lucky. But by definition you can't be
consistently lucky. On average what I said holds.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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