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[Creaca]

Okay, I keep getting told I have no idea of the number involved, so I'll use some numbers to help clear things up. The milky way is theorized to have anywhere from 200-400 billion planets.

That is an incredibly conservative estimate. We're looking at at least 200 billion stars in the Milky Way, possibly up to 400 billion. Trying to work out exactly how many is pretty much impossible at the moment, but to reach 200 - 400 billion planets, all we would need is every Red Dwarf to have 1 planet orbiting it. That's it. Every single other star in the galaxy could be completely barren of planets.


The Red Dwarf planets btw, are probably mostly sterilized, plenty could support life, but the early years of turbluence in the Red Dwarf and the close proximity required to give sufficient heat would probably have wiped out any organic life, although some hardy bacterium might survive on the cold side of the planet.

Did I type planets? I meant stars. The rest of the post is working under that being stars, not planets.

[Neruz]

Okay, I keep getting told I have no idea of the number involved, so I'll use some numbers to help clear things up. The milky way is theorized to have anywhere from 200-400 billion planets.

That is an incredibly conservative estimate. We're looking at at least 200 billion stars in the Milky Way, possibly up to 400 billion. Trying to work out exactly how many is pretty much impossible at the moment, but to reach 200 - 400 billion planets, all we would need is every Red Dwarf to have 1 planet orbiting it. That's it. Every single other star in the galaxy could be completely barren of planets.


The Red Dwarf planets btw, are probably mostly sterilized, plenty could support life, but the early years of turbluence in the Red Dwarf and the close proximity required to give sufficient heat would probably have wiped out any organic life, although some hardy bacterium might survive on the cold side of the planet.

Did I type planets? I meant stars. The rest of the post is working under that being stars, not planets.

Keep in mind that your estimate is also for purely earthlike worlds capable of sustaining life on their own. Add in some simple terraforming of marslike planets and that number jumps dramatically. Add in spaceborne habitations orbiting stars and the number begins approaching something rediculous.


Hell, i don't remember the exact numbers, but a single Dyson Swarm around a Sun-type star would provide enough energy and habitation to support the earth something like a million times over, or something similarly ludicrous. I can't say i really care enough to go find the exact numbers, although they're probably on Wikipedia.

[Tarran]

Add in habitable moons too. There's likely quite a few of them.

[Neruz]

True, once you've got cheap spaceflight, you've also got cheap energy. Once you have cheap energy you can do all kinds of crazy shit.

[Tarran]

Hm...

Lets all go to Mercury!

[Creaca]

Keep in mind that your estimate is also for purely earthlike worlds capable of sustaining life on their own. Add in some simple terraforming of marslike planets and that number jumps dramatically. Add in spaceborne habitations orbiting stars and the number begins approaching something rediculous.


Hell, i don't remember the exact numbers, but a single Dyson Swarm around a Sun-type star would provide enough energy and habitation to support the earth something like a million times over, or something similarly ludicrous. I can't say i really care enough to go find the exact numbers, although they're probably on Wikipedia.

Eh, give it another 50,000 years and the number would cover every star in the milkyway nearly 3 times over.

I'm not saying that we'll suddenly run out of room, then curl up in a ball and die. But as I said, a planet like earth would be very valuable, and not for it's minerals.

*words*

The main flaw with your argument is this: Growth would not be exponential, or at least not in such a simple way. The limits of lightspeed would slow our possible rate of expansion greatly. we could, at most, colonize a sphere of space growing at the speed of light. We would still run out eventually, but in a much greater span of time than you predict. Not to mention, there is no reason to colonize so quickly. Just because we could reproduce so quickly doesn't mean we will. Migrating due to using up resources makes sense, but once a planet cannot support more population... stop making more. It's a simple solution, that might even come up on earth.(we are estimated to still only be using a fraction of the maximum population earth can support)

If we're working under the theory that FTL travel is impossible than any worries about meeting hostile aliens or then meeting us is virtually non-existent anyway.

There is plenty of reason to colonize quickly. If an area offers opportunity that the current area doesn't some people will always take that. I'm sure 200 years ago the east coast of america could have support lots of people. But tens of thousands of people still moved west.

As for people just choosing to stop breeding one they hit a large population. Sex is a big biological imperative. However, birthcontrol that far in the future is going to be pretty spot on, so no worries. Motherhood another big biological imperative, also the idea of creating something that lives, thinks, and breathes and will carry on your DNA an in a way help immortalize you is another big one. Frankly, I don't see everyone on the planet up and leaving when they can't have kids, but oh yeah, a good number will move onto greener pastures. Figuratively Speaking.

[Neruz]

Keep in mind that your estimate is also for purely earthlike worlds capable of sustaining life on their own. Add in some simple terraforming of marslike planets and that number jumps dramatically. Add in spaceborne habitations orbiting stars and the number begins approaching something rediculous.


Hell, i don't remember the exact numbers, but a single Dyson Swarm around a Sun-type star would provide enough energy and habitation to support the earth something like a million times over, or something similarly ludicrous. I can't say i really care enough to go find the exact numbers, although they're probably on Wikipedia.

Eh, give it another 50,000 years and the number would cover every star in the milkyway nearly 3 times over.

I'm not saying that we'll suddenly run out of room, then curl up in a ball and die. But as I said, a planet like earth would be very valuable, and not for it's minerals.

What you're mostly saying is that you can predict what a civilisation that has been spacefaring for two-hundred thousand years would be doing with it's time.

Considering we couldn't predict what our own civilisation would be doing in 50 years, 50 years ago, trying to make any predictions whatsoever as to what we'll be doing with ourselves in a few hundred thousand years is utterly meaningless.


I mean, you're looking at a civilisation that is probably frighteningly close to being a Type III Kardeschev civilisation there, they're probably looking at harnessing energy sources that make stars look like childs toys. Even if they're not, they're still probably looking at harnessing the energy of a metric butt-ton of stars. What in gods name would they do with all that energy and all those planets? I havn't got a bloody clue, but that is a batshit insane amount of energy, and you can bet your ass they'll be doing something mindbendingly crazy with it.



And of course if Wormholes turn out to work, well then you just enter the realm of 'blatantly cheating'.

[kuro_suna]

Sex is a big biological imperative. However, birthcontrol that far in the future is going to be pretty spot on

That and what do you think is going to happen to the world birth rate once we prefect sex bots less horrifyingly deep in the uncanny valley than the ones currently available?

http://www.cracked.com/funny-37-technology/

[Creaca]

Sex is a big biological imperative. However, birthcontrol that far in the future is going to be pretty spot on

That and what do you think is going to happen to the world birth rate once we prefect sex bots less horrifyingly deep in the uncanny valley than the ones currently available?

http://www.cracked.com/funny-37-technology/

Motherhood another big biological imperative, also the idea of creating something that lives, thinks, and breathes and will carry on your DNA and in a way help immortalize you is another big one. Frankly, I don't see everyone on the planet up and leaving when they can't have kids, but oh yeah, a good number will move onto greener pastures. Figuratively Speaking.

[dragnar]

Motherhood another big biological imperative, also the idea of creating something that lives, thinks, and breathes and will carry on your DNA and in a way help immortalize you is another big one. Frankly, I don't see everyone on the planet up and leaving when they can't have kids, but oh yeah, a good number will move onto greener pastures. Figuratively Speaking.

Having children != population growth. Having more than two children does.

[DJ]

And that's the thing DJ; if they can cover the gulf of space in any reasonable fashion, they do have enough resources. Once you have a means of crossing interstellar space without expending ludicrous amounts of resources to do so you suddenly have access to an absolutely insane amount of raw materials and energy.

There is no such thing as enough resources. That's like saying you can have enough money. Having more just makes your appetite bigger.

As for having more planets that we can colonize - population growth is an exponential function. They grow really really fast. Given good conditions, human population could probably double every 30 years or so. That's over 4 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 00 people in just two thousand years, starting with 6 billion.

[Neruz]

And that's the thing DJ; if they can cover the gulf of space in any reasonable fashion, they do have enough resources. Once you have a means of crossing interstellar space without expending ludicrous amounts of resources to do so you suddenly have access to an absolutely insane amount of raw materials and energy.

There is no such thing as enough resources. That's like saying you can have enough money. Having more just makes your appetite bigger.

As for having more planets that we can colonize - population growth is an exponential function. They grow really really fast. Given good conditions, human population could probably double every 30 years or so. That's over 4 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 00 people in just two thousand years, starting with 6 billion.

We've already gone over this.

[DJ]

Enough resources is an oxymoron. Yeah, I'm just reiterating my point over and over, but so are you.

[Neruz]

Well when you run out of stars, yeah you'll be out of luck.

That's going to take awhile though.

[DJ]

I reckon most systems have way less resources than Sol. And other galaxies may as well not exist, if you don't have some kind of instantaneous method of travel (if you do, you're likely on the level of development where you can transcend physical existence and become irrelevant to real universe). In fact, if you're relying on STL travel, you have to plan long-term, and anything worse than Sol just doesn't cut it in that case. And there are only so many such stars in reachable neighbourhood.