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ALIENS_AT_PLAY

                                             March 12, 2016


There's a common presumption that our encounters
with aliens will involve dog-eat-dog struggles...

Let me put on my optimist
hat for a moment.               (Though the damn thing
                                has never fit well.)

Here's a prediction for the near future of the human
race (i.e. < 1000 years): the entire population reaches
"the first world" level, where per capita energy usage
soars (at least at first), but birth rate drops to the
point where population growth goes negative,
world-wide.  Places like the US can no longer use
immigration to maintain it's workforce, but the rising
curve of robotics usage saves the day, and we have a
situation where consumers rejoice that they no longer
need to work so much (rather than workers rebelling
because they no longer can work so much).

Energy efficiency and generation
improves to the point where we no
longer miss burning hydrocarbons, and        (Back when Miami was finally
we can finally scale back some of the        underwater, there was a panic
nasty terraforming hacks we resorted to      where we used nuclear weapons to
to control global warming                    blow sulfides into the upper
                                             atmosphere, and over did it a
Once the climate disruptions and resource    bit. The resulting mini-ice age
shortage squabbling all subside, war is      was distressing, but survivable).
replaced in the human psyche with Olympic
Soccer (the American term finally wins--
sorry guys) and computer game tornaments.
When the upload fad hits, the people who
sit it out seem as weird as people today
(like myself) who won't carry a cellphone.

But the old science fictional scenarios
about such things look as exaggerated and
extreme as they always do in retrospect:
everyone instantiates in meatspace now and
then if only for the traditional annual
soccer games.  Then they start thinking          UPLOAD_AND_AWAY
seriously about interstellar exploration.
                                         
                                              
        
        So: what if first contact occurs between      
        cultures like this which are at or near       
        the "post-scarcity" level?                    
                                                      
                                                     


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