How about deliberately launching probes that you could catch up with by expending more resources, but are still adequate to reach our local group of galaxies? That sounds like a pretty interesting idea. Like “I’m pretty sure moral progress has more or less converged, but in case I really want to change my mind about the future of far-off galaxies, I’ll leave myself the option to spend lots of resources to send a faster probe.”
If we imagine that the ancient Greeks had the capability to launch a Von Neumann probe to a receding galaxy, I’d rather they do it (and end up with a galaxy full of ancient Greek morality) than they let it pass over the cosmic horizon.
Or maybe accepting messages from home (in rocket form or not) of “whoops, we were wrong about X, here’s the convincing moral argument” and acting accordingly. Then the only thing to be worried about would be irreversible acts done in the process of colonizing a galaxy, instead of having a bad “living off resources” endstate.
There is one more thing in the moral equation: the value of aliens’ life. If we send vNP, they could destroy young alien civilisations, or it least prevent their future appearance, if stars will be collapsed into blackholes.
I think this is an interesting idea, but doesn’t really intersect with the main post. The marginal benefits of reaching a galaxy earlier are very very huge. This means that if we are ever in the situation where we have some probes flying away, and we have the option right now to build faster ones that can catch up, then this makes the old probes completely obsolete even if we give the new ones identical instructions. The (sunk) cost of the old probes/extra new probes is insignificant compared to the gain from earlier arrival. So I think your strategy is dominated by not sending probes that you feel you can catch up with later.
How about deliberately launching probes that you could catch up with by expending more resources, but are still adequate to reach our local group of galaxies? That sounds like a pretty interesting idea. Like “I’m pretty sure moral progress has more or less converged, but in case I really want to change my mind about the future of far-off galaxies, I’ll leave myself the option to spend lots of resources to send a faster probe.”
If we imagine that the ancient Greeks had the capability to launch a Von Neumann probe to a receding galaxy, I’d rather they do it (and end up with a galaxy full of ancient Greek morality) than they let it pass over the cosmic horizon.
Or maybe accepting messages from home (in rocket form or not) of “whoops, we were wrong about X, here’s the convincing moral argument” and acting accordingly. Then the only thing to be worried about would be irreversible acts done in the process of colonizing a galaxy, instead of having a bad “living off resources” endstate.
There is one more thing in the moral equation: the value of aliens’ life. If we send vNP, they could destroy young alien civilisations, or it least prevent their future appearance, if stars will be collapsed into blackholes.
I think this is an interesting idea, but doesn’t really intersect with the main post. The marginal benefits of reaching a galaxy earlier are very very huge. This means that if we are ever in the situation where we have some probes flying away, and we have the option right now to build faster ones that can catch up, then this makes the old probes completely obsolete even if we give the new ones identical instructions. The (sunk) cost of the old probes/extra new probes is insignificant compared to the gain from earlier arrival. So I think your strategy is dominated by not sending probes that you feel you can catch up with later.