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Re:Alone in a Crowded Milky Way by dwaltrip on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @01:43PM (#21929665)
It's always going to be a small percentage that desires to venture further out to new areas. On a newly settled planet, most will not want to leave. But some will.
Re:Alone in a Crowded Milky Way by brlewis on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @01:51PM (#21929732)
But you have to wait for that society to forget that living on a starship means spending your whole life never venturing out, while a planet lets you spend your life exploring.
Re:Alone in a Crowded Milky Way by Faark on Wednesday January 01, 2020 @04:20PM (#21930735)
Or, you know, some just want to get away from the other individuals.

That is, if we are talking about something comparable to current humans. Immortal super AIs might don't care about idling in the void for a few million years, just for the opportunity to re-sync those gained experiences to their decentralized knowledge a few million years down the line. I really like the single omnipotent AI scenario, since being immortal and not depending on others changes quite drastically what strategies can be successful - it won't be anything like human kings who need to keep their subjects at bay and working for them to support their power and limited life. But we shouldn't restrict our imagination, if we are talking about possibilities and galactic time-spans.

The important part is, as mentioned by GP, the desire to expand, since this is a dominant strategy. In comparison, not every living being on earth has the drive to participate in evolution by e.g. creating offspring. Those usually just drop out of the "game" and likely won't matter in the long term, at worst making it a bit harder for the others initially till their disappearance. What matters are those who have persistent impact... e.g. by colonizing/making offspring.