robertejackson posted on Wed, Sep 26 2007 12:49 PM

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This was published in a non-Austrian journal 'Mercury' of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

I thought it might be of interest to a different audience as well.

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Yet Another Solution Of The Fermi Paradox

Background

Simple models of the expansion of a star-faring civilization predict that our entire galaxy could be colonized in a small fraction of the age of our galaxy. Based on such considerations, Enrico Fermi is said to have asked “Where is everyone?” One of the parameters of these models is the time delay between founding a new colony and the new colony sending out colony ships of its own. During the time delay, usually on the order of a thousand years, the new colony is building up the industrial base necessary to create more colony ships. There are consequences to this time delay which are significant but which are rarely articulated.

Less Is Not More

Setting aside issues of the costs of creating and fueling a colony ship, the hazards of interstellar flight, and the dangers of living in the midst of a completely new biology, what are some of the drawbacks of being an interstellar colonist? The day before the colonist boards the colony ship, the colonist is living on a planet having all the benefits of:

1. ~Thousand years of accumulated physical capital

2. ~Thousand years of accumulated knowledge about the available natural resources

3. The intellectual capital of an entire planet

4. Occupational specialization and division of labor of an entire planet

The day after the colonist steps off the colony ship on the new planet, the colonist is limited to:

1. The physical capital carried on the ship

2. Limited knowledge of the local natural resources

3. The intellectual capital of colonists and that 'captured' in 'books'

4. Occupational specialization and division of labor of the colonists

In a Star Trek universe, the Replicator solves the physical capital problem, albeit at the tremendous cost of creating matter from energy. Unfortunately, the technology of the Replicator and its associated energy sources are still the stuff of a sufficiently advanced technology which is indistinguishable from magic.

In an Engines of Creation or Nanotechnology universe, the atomic and molecular assembler solves the fabrication problem but not the feedstock problem. How much of our technology depends on elements which either are rare or are non-uniformly distributed in a planet's crust? It would be illuminating to send the contents of a Wal-Mart or a Home Depot through a mass spectrometer and see the range of elements which we depend on.

The impact of limited physical capital depends on the level of technology of the colonists. A band of paleolithic hunters and gatherers can live off of the land and relatively easily replace their physical capital. The crew of a sixteenth century sailing ship stranded on an uninhabited continent would find it almost impossible to replace the metal tools they need. Such a sailing ship crew would fall back to a 'stone-age' technology until suitable ore deposits were found and the necessary mining and foundry technologies were recreated.

An interstellar colonist has an immensely higher standard of living than a sixteenth century sailor. The colonist is used to clothing, shelter, food, medicine, labor saving tools which are unimaginable to a sixteenth century monarch, much less a sailor. This would not be a problem except for the fact that the goods which the interstellar colonist is so dependent on will in the long run be consumed, wear out, break, or be lost. An interstellar colony is in a race between the consumption of their tools and supplies and their ability to create replacement tools and supplies from local materials. Will the colony be able create a cell phone factory before they run out of cell phones? Will the colony be able to produce a new farm tractor before the last original tractor breaks down?

Book Learning And Lost Arts

The intellectual capital of the colonists will be augmented by the complete collection of “Civilization For Dummies” a.k.a. The 'books'. Any technologies not already known by the colonists and not in the 'books' will have to be rediscovered anew. The challenges of writing and illustrating these 'books' are daunting. Practitioners and experts will literally have to write down everything they know, including all their never articulated, implicit knowledge. Differences of opinions and the contexts for the various opinions will have to be described in detail. These books will be difficult to write and even more difficult to learn from.

In a large population, when you encounter a problem you can search for an expert who has years of experience with your problem and a well cultivated intuition about what should work. In a small population, you or someone else has to acquire the knowledge captured in “Civilization For Dummies” and do it in time to solve the problem. Even if you acquire the knowledge, there is still be big difference between having an idea of how to do something and having actually done it.

While there are benefits of having “Civilization For Dummies”, there can also be some negative consequences of having it. A large corpus of 'knowledge' and 'wisdom' could, in the worst case, retard the search for new knowledge and enthrone tradition. The original colonists may well find themselves in a situation where no one has time for experimentation with the attendant potential for failure.

As anyone who has repaired their own car knows, there is a big difference between having the manual and having the experience. An interstellar colony may well lose important knowledge, some of which may be rediscovered and some of which may not. The spirit of discovery which requires a modicum of leisure may well be lost in the struggle to simply survive.

Outward, Into The Past

The limited physical and intellectual capital of an interstellar colony means that, in all likelihood, the standard of living of the colonists will decrease. The big question is “How far and for how long?” If after a hundred years when all the spare parts, lubricants, etc. are gone, what will be standard of living or technology? After a hundred years, can an interstellar colony recreate the industrial infrastructure of 1900? Can the colony recreate the infrastructure needed to create antibiotics, x-rays, and MRI? Can the colony recreate the infrastructure needed for combine harvesters, interstate highways, and aircraft?

If someone in the year 2100 were recruiting for an interstellar colony, would they say:

Pioneer new worlds and give your grandchildren the chance to live as they did 150 years ago.

Would you want your grandchildren to live as they did in 1850?

Why The Oversight?

We often think that people in a more technologically advanced civilization know more than those in a less advanced one. At the aggregate level, this is true. An the individual level, a person in a less 'advanced' civilization has to know a lot about how to create food, clothing, and shelter. In a more 'advanced' civilization, a person can work solely in a very specialized area and purchase their food, clothing, and shelter from others.

This ability to buy so many of the goods and services we consume means that we no longer know how to create them ourselves. This also means that we have no idea how many people participated in the creation of the goods or services. With such a limited insight into how our technology works, it is easy for us to imagine that an interstellar colony would maintain its original standard of living while recreating the infrastructure needed to build another colony ship. All those invisible producers of the goods and services we take for granted will be there producing as if by magic. One root of the Fermi Paradox may well be that the more people who are needed create our goods and services the less these people are visible. I doubt that any of us could estimate within two orders of magnitude how many people were involved in creating all aspects of any one item we buy.

A possible explanation to the Fermi Paradox may lie in the vastly reduced standard of living and technology of the new interstellar colony. Attracting colonists who want their children and grandchildren to live at a lower standard of living may simply be too difficult. If it is easy, then these colonists may not possess the customs and values necessary to create the technology necessary for a new generation of starships.

History is not destiny.