From: hal@finney.org
Date: Sat Sep 11 1999 - 19:38:49 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury, <bradbury@www.aeiveos.com>, writes:
> Look at my comments on Robin's paper at:
> http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/GreatFilter/
> Somewhat out of date because of the more recent work I've done.
Robin had written, regarding possible reasons why we don't see an
engineered universe:
> First, large-scale engineering such as orbiting solar collectors made from
> asteroids, Dyson spheres, and stellar disassembling might be effectively
> impossible, explaining why nearby stars look so natural. Second,
> structures that best use such resources might happen to almost always
> preserve natural spectra and other appearances. Third, our understanding
> of astrophysics might just be very wrong, so that the apparently dead
> stars and galaxies around us really are very alive.
Robert commented:
> Even without nanotechnology, Von Neumann type factory operations
> would allow asteroid and planetary engineering. If current growth
> rates in silicon wafer production continue, we could construct a
> Dyson Shell with microprocessors within 300 years.
My response:
If we extrapolated the use of horses in the 19th century we could build a
Dyson Shell out of horseshit in a few hundred years.
Hal
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