From: Robin Hanson (hanson@dosh.hum.caltech.edu)
Date: Wed Aug 07 1996 - 13:40:06 MDT
Eric Watt Forste wrote:
>There's been talk of cosmic wormholes and "empires", but if a wormhole can
>be created, it can be destroyed. Emigrants can close the doors behind them.
>Hence, in the *long* term, we'll see clading and differentiation again,
Robin Hanson responded:
>Ordinary roads, ports, and train tracks can be destroyed as well, but
>they nevertheless did speed communication and so contribute to
>monoculture pressures.
Eric wrote back:
>You quoted me talking about the destruction of cosmic wormholes. The
>difference between crossing a bridged river and crossing an unbridged river
>is hardly any difference at all compared to the difference between crossing
>a few megaparsecs instantaneously or crossing a few megaparsecs at light
>speed.
>In any case, I'm not sure what your point is. Are you trying to encourage
>me to think of ways in which cultural diversity could be promoted
>post-diaspora, or what?
I admit that wormholes are iffy, but given wormholes, I don't think
most places could stay very isolated. They'd have to destroy *all*
holes to their region, and then these holes could be rebuilt again
very quickly from the "upwind" direction (from where each civilization
began). Hopes for cultural diversity would have to be based on
something other than isolation.
Robin Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:35:42 MST