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Old 10-25-2021, 08:31 AM   #11
ericthered
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Default Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization

Transhuman space is Radical Hard Science Fiction, and those types of settings generally don't go seriously interstellar until they've got a fairly substantial presence in space: All you realistically expect to find in the new star system is airless rocks and hostile gravity wells, and transhuman space has plenty of those back home that are almost undeveloped.

That's the main objection I'd see to THS going to the stars. In 200 years, sure, I could see it sending ships off. With how fast its tech moves, maybe even 50 years. But right now the only reason to send people off is prestige exploration.
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Old 10-25-2021, 10:44 AM   #12
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Default Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization

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No AIs are old enough to answer this question. Indeed, no software of any sort it. Even the simplest forms of data storage over the necesary time period is a non-simple question.
The durability of anything over that long is a non-trivial problem. Indeed there are better grounds to doubt the durability of much of the rest of the vital machinery (where there are lots ways we expect things to wear out) than the software (which doesn't have many).

In a lot of ways its just an issue of how good your recycling process is. The usually cited "advantage" of people is they produce replacements easily, but it's not like you couldn't build new AIs in flight. I'm not even sure it's genuinely harder, given all the resources you have to invest in growing people.

And of course whether or not the project is likely to actually succeed isn't all that relevant to who would care to try to oppose it. If it's worth putting forth some effort to stop a certain success, there is some level of effort worth expending to stop a possibility, as long as the chance isn't obviously zero. Indeed you can probably scare up more protest against a project that has a fairly low odds of success, certainly it makes the case of anybody who would like to spend those resources on something more useful look better, and at some point you can motive do-gooders who are acting to "save you (or your theoretical descendents) from yourself". That might even be the most plausible obstacle - the THS setting already seems to have a fair amount of that floating around already.
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Old 10-25-2021, 10:58 AM   #13
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Default Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization

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The durability of anything over that long is a non-trivial problem. Indeed there are better grounds to doubt the durability of much of the rest of the vital machinery (where there are lots ways we expect things to wear out) than the software (which doesn't have many).

.
Nonetheless, software is not on the list of things we expect to have great durability. Whether or not it suffers from planned obsolescene the usual expectation and practice is that it will be completely replaced in some short time period. Frequently less than a decade.

Software also usually doesn't have component "parts" that are replaced while the software is still running.You shut it down and reboot it from protected storage instead.

Possibly AIs won't care if they "live" or "die" (actually this seems a common assumption in the genre) and won't mind being reincarnated as infants again periodically.
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Old 11-01-2021, 04:31 PM   #14
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Default Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization

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No AIs are old enough to answer this question. Indeed, no software of any sort it. Even the simplest forms of data storage over the necesary time period is a non-simple question.

At any rate, Astromaner specified a generation ship. This would exclude nanostasis too.
It would not exclude large numbers of livestock being carried in nanostasis. Also there could easily be passengers in nanostasis. Some people wouldn't accept /tolerate living in a generation starship. In fact nanostasis would be a profoundly valuable technology for a generation starship.
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Old 11-01-2021, 04:34 PM   #15
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Default Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
But right now the only reason to send people off is prestige exploration.
People have done mind-blowing things for prestige.
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Old 11-01-2021, 09:08 PM   #16
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Default Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization

I'm not sure why you would use a generation ship when you could instead use nanostasis to store people for the long journey.

In any case, with the kind of rocketry that the people of Transhuman Space use, you're looking at a trip of hundreds if not thousands of years. There is no reason for anyone to care about this prestige project, as if you settle (say) 100,000 people on a habitable planet 14ly away, and those people are 100% loyal to the mother country... big whoop. It'll be 2400 CE by the time they get there, we'll probably be able to beat them there by then, and even if we don't, they will have 2100 tech and whatever they can manage to fabricate on their space vessel getting 14 year old beam transmissions from Earth, and it'll take them decades or centuries to get back if they decide to. Their odds of independently developing significant technology are minimal due to the relative population sizes. There is no realistic security concern with respect to this scenario.

That leaves prestige, but the point of a prestige project is to prove you are better than the other guy. Shooting down his generation ship doesn't really do so, since generation ships are, by their nature, vastly more vulnerable to attack, since they're optimized for speed over all else. I don't think you would see violence in this scenario. If the Chinese are willing to kill the Europeans to keep them from colonizing Wolf 1061c, then it is functionally impossible for them to colonize Wolf 1061c.

If people did decide they wanted to colonize there, it would be an interesting public spectacle, talking heads would argue about whether the Chinese or European space programs would get to Wolf 1061c first. Presumably both countries would agree not to start shooting each other once they got there, no matter who arrived first. But realistically, that's about it. By the time that they arrive, Earth will be unbelievably wacky anyway.
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Old 11-04-2021, 07:59 PM   #17
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Default Re: Starting a Foundation of Interstellar Colonization

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Nonetheless, software is not on the list of things we expect to have great durability. Whether or not it suffers from planned obsolescene the usual expectation and practice is that it will be completely replaced in some short time period. Frequently less than a decade.
In the mainframe world which admittedly is getting scarce I've maintained and upgraded software that is 50 years old and still in use. Replacing it would involve figuring out what it actually does in some cases because the replacement would have to match the output and the details happened over the decades and there is no detailed spec.
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