Thanks for these galactic scale thoughts, inspiring stuff.
You mentioned something in this discussion that indicates you understand something of the power of solar winds.
I would be interested to know your thoughts on what part solar wind plays in the orbital equilibrium of Earth.
For example if we changed the reflectivity of Earth, by implementing something like Geo-Engineering, which I understand is something that excites investors, would a change in reflectivity not result in a change of solar pressure, and would that change not result in the orbital equilibrium of Earth being broken, thus throwing us out of orbit into space?
I believe this is so, because we would have changed one force, with no changes to any others, even if only by a small amount, it follows that centrifugal force combined with increased solar pressure would overcome gravitational force, and gravitational force can only decrease with added distance, so even a tiny change in forces would rapidly multiply the disparity of forces, if the path of Earth moved outwards even slightly.
I think this question is incredibly important, as it has implications on the origins and destiny of not only humanity, but also those of any other beings of any other planet.
If it could happen to us, it could happen to any planet borne species, and we can see the damage that the pursuit of profit, driven by investors has done already to progress in spacecraft technology, it has gone backwards since the seventies, when we walked on the moon, had space shuttles, and flew supersonic commercial flights. Now even commercial flights of any kind are declining, we can't keep calling that progress.
We can see also that institutional investors do not favor solar power, because it is distributed by nature, and donated, so is not compatible with the economy of money as debt, nor with the power requirements of big business, ie empire, though they love the idea of fusion, I believe fusion might happen sometime, but if it happens before we are largely solar powered, as needs to happen asap to maximise lives saved, we would see all solar stamped out by whatever means possible, driven by fusion investors, including geo-engineering, to ensure the hegemony of fusion.
This would explain why there might well already be civilisations on dark planets, and they would absolutely be predatory, colonial, and probably fusion powered.
On the other hand if we succeeded in breaking the fixation with profit, as we could with solar, this would result in a reduction of the power of capital, since solar is donated, and adds joules to existing capital therefore dilutes all capital, right now money is deflating in value because it does not represent donated solar power until money is issued for free, instantly destroying capital, as we saw, when 4tn stimulus per month was issued.
This would give all humans maximum opportunity and freedom to let their creativity shine, I believe by this we would quickly see all kinds of humanity enhancing technology including spacecraft and something close to immortality in a very short time.
So there are two ways we can go, a path of light, and spacecraft, or a path of darkness, and no spacecraft, only a fusion powered planet, which might have become something of a spacecraft itself, by directing some of the fusion power to propulsion.
One is pretty good, the other awful bad, I think you can work out which is which.
Further, all civilisations based on a mix of wild emotions vs logic within each individual will have had to battle with this conundrum of profit vs life, sooner or later, they would have to have made the choice as a species whether they were going to follow the path of light, or the path of dark, according to their religions, which I think give better guidance than science so far, unfortunately.
What do you think?