Nick B. writes:
>It follows from the assumption that it's mainly the colonized volume
>that determines the military strength of an advanced nanopower,
>together with the assumption that everybody would expand at very
>close to c.
I question this first assumption. When two c-expanding waves meet,
it seems to me that local dynamics dominate. If one side is able to
beat the locals and penetrate the other at near speed c, then the
rest of the losing side will have little warning before the wave
reaches them.
Even given subsantial warning it's not clear that resources are
transportable enough to help. If you can keep 100 units of resource
locally to use in a defense, or transport them far away to deliver
one unit of resource to a front line, you may just want to wait and
defend.
Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar, Sch. of Public Health 510-643-1884
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 FAX: 510-643-8614
Received on Mon May 4 17:19:34 1998
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