Dispersal

Are we alone?
Our tools for examining reality are limited to measurable observations, theories consistent with known physical constraints, or new theories that must be tested through experiments before they can be trusted.
Based on verified observations, there is no evidence of extraterrestrial technology or life-not beyond the possibility of microorganisms elsewhere in our solar system.

According to basic physics-especially relativity-nothing from another star system can realistically reach us with conventional tools, given the distances involved and the time it took us to broadcast the fact that life exists here.
Exotic bypasses like wormholes or shortcuts may exist, but accepting them requires a leap of faith long before any proof.
Occam’s razor does not favor that path.

So, are we alone?
Not at all. And statistically, we almost can’t be. On the scale of the universe, we are not an accident but a natural consequence: given enough time, life emerges, evolves, and eventually develops the capacity to observe itself and the universe.
It’s philosophical, yes, but it doesn’t change the conclusion- it is unlikely in the extreme that we are the only ones.

One small step back - let’s assume they exist, aliens that is. Which scenario, out of the range of possible ones, can actually support, in physical and biological terms, the existence of other intelligent species that have made some kind of contact using technology similar to ours or more advanced?

A scenario like that, one that does not violate the laws of nature, could look like this: a human society, for example, reaches a level of technological maturity that already allows it to leave and settle other star systems. A distance at which it is reasonable to expect to find a few thousand life-supporting planets is about 50 light-years. Give or take - what matters is the principle, not the exact number.

The journey itself, of course, would not take 50 years but much longer. During that time they could either maintain a functioning community on the ship, but logistically it is more likely that they would be in some dormant state, or travel as “seeds of life” of the different species, activated only upon arrival. That is simpler in terms of mass and support, but it’s not critical - in both cases we are talking about a long, isolated journey.

Because they are in motion (under acceleration and at high speeds), their time will run at a different rate than that of those who remained on Earth. Even at speeds that are only a small fraction of the speed of light, a time gap (time dilation) accumulates over many years. This means that whether they leave with the original DNA, or some change occurs along the way - in any case, in the end they will have split off from the lineage that stayed at the origin.

In other words: expansion in this way to other stars will necessarily separate the lineages. Physically? Completely possible. Has it happened? No.

At least, there is no evidence that this has happened. At least not here, with us humans and with Earth. The next logical step - and it is only one possibility, though it has its own internal logic - says that a planet that is seeded, no matter by which method, will also receive the “vector” species that extracted the other organisms from the original home world (Earth), together with the culture and the technology that made the transfer possible.

It is not certain that it will be this way, but at the level of technological maturity that any culture capable of exporting life will eventually reach, this is one of the options - and therefore, somewhere in the universe, it will happen and has already happened. Again, this is an assumption, but if you think in terms of infinite time and space, it becomes hard to avoid. The simple alternative is to seed a planet and let it develop naturally on its own, and at first glance that seems to reduce the chances that the mission will succeed.

So how do we know that we are not the descendants of some distant civilization? It is possible, but it is not very likely that this is how you spread life - without support. And above all, evolution and the geological record clearly show a developmental line of life here: continuous, not a sudden leap. Evolution.

Maybe we have already left and spread out into the universe? There is no evidence that there was a technologically advanced civilization here in the past. And besides - evolution. We are part of that continuum.

So, are we alone?
Yes. But we are most likely the seed that will generate life in our neighborhood, within roughly 50 light-years around us.
We are the ancestors.

Yes, seeds, in the plural. A developing civilization that has succeeded in sending out a first expedition will, after some time, very likely not stop there. There will be culture-seeds originating from Earth - from a single source or from many sources (the secondary worlds); it doesn’t really matter at this stage. If the option exists, it will eventually be used. If it happens once, it will happen again. In the end, we will settle our whole “neighborhood” (a radius of about 50 light-years from the home star - Earth). Maybe not every possible world, but any inhabited place in that radius will trace back to humans from Earth.

Let’s take a small step forward in time: our neighborhood is now populated by dozens of worlds, most of them seeded directly from Earth, and some from the “secondary worlds” out toward the galactic periphery of the neighborhood. Each settlement left Earth at a different point in time and at a different speed, according to the level of technology available on Earth in that year.

The neighborhood will fill up with life, all of it originating from Earth but from different eras. Each settlement will be at a different stage of development: technologically, socially, biologically - under different local conditions and selective pressures, among other things due to the nature of the planet they settled on. It will be a fascinating mixture of developmental stages, cultures, and collisions between evolutionary branches and technologies.

And all of this is still without taking hostile encounters into account.

Time desynchronization - different settlements experience time at different rates (different paths, different velocities) → no shared timeline.

Reversed arrival order - whether intentionally friendly or not, a later and faster expedition arrives before an earlier and slower one → encounters between “advanced” and “ancient” branches.

Double-settlement conflicts - two expeditions settle the same planet, with or without prior knowledge of each other. Political/military competition originating from Earth may also emerge → tense first contact.

Biological divergence - local evolution + environment + future genetic engineering → humans who are significantly different, sometimes no longer fully compatible after enough time.

Pathogen mismatch - pathogens from one world may be catastrophic for inhabitants of another, and vice versa.

Dominant/subordinate encounters - large time gaps create huge technological gaps (hundreds or thousands of years) → one side can appear “divine.”

Inefficient communication - signals are limited by the speed of light → responses to events take decades or centuries → no central synchronization or control.

Uncoordinated trajectories - random encounters in deep space are practically impossible unless planned in advance from the original departure point in space-time.

Cultural drift - thousands of years of isolation → religions (most likely not; I’ll explain later), languages, social structures, morals, and psychologies diverge.

Mismatched political expectations - colonies may see themselves, or gradually grow, as independent due to the isolation from Earth → Earth becomes a distant myth, not an empire.

Motivational drift - colonies that survived natural or cultural catastrophes “reset” their cultural clock → a failing culture surrounded by advanced technology, starting over.

Genetic or engineered speciation - different conditions + genetic editing → branches of Homo that are no longer the same species.

Resource asymmetry - different planets provide different materials/conditions → some will not be suitable for life or will be effectively unchangeable.

Historical opacity - no colony truly knows what is happening in the others because of time delays → each one constructs its own version of history.

Blurring the human/alien boundary - biological, cultural, and technological gaps can make encounters between human branches look like contact with an alien species.

and the unknown - ...

The fragmentation is irreversible - in time, in biology, and in space.
Once dispersal begins, there is no mechanism that can bring all branches back into a single species or a single culture.
It is like a vase shattering on the floor - only this time, it scatters shards of life.

Exchange of knowledge across vastly different timelines - Branches that have developed separately for hundreds or thousands of years bring: different technologies, foreign philosophical approaches, new languages, fascinating evolutionary solutions. Each encounter is like a living library of possible futures.

Cultural cross-pollination - Cultures that evolved under different suns and ecologies meet again and share: art, architecture, music, movement styles, clothing, and social rules.

Hybrids: new branches of Homo made intentionally - Romantic encounters, love, population exchange. Anything can happen.

Coordinated science and astronomy - A network of colonies creates accurate shared star maps, predicts comet paths, and identifies cosmic hazards. Humanity becomes a living, sensing network spread across space.

Shared myths and narrative threads - Despite isolation, everyone has “one parent world” - Earth. Around that shared origin, stories, symbols, and information can be exchanged and traded.

Trade across time-dilated civilizations - Trade between branches that have moved at different effective speeds through time: one brings new technology, another brings an ancient tradition that disappeared elsewhere. There is huge value in what was preserved in the “slower” colonies.

Collective problem-solving across worlds - Major problems are solved at meeting points: ecological, medical, and engineering challenges. Each branch has developed unique tools → their combination opens doors that no single world could open alone.

Interstellar festivals - Regular, pre-planned gatherings (“Calibrated Convergences”) - like a gigantic night market with conditions tuned for everyone: reddish light that does not blind sensitive variants, neutral temperatures, humid and dry zones, and multiple acoustic ranges.

Rediscovery of lost worlds - Failed or collapsed colonies are rediscovered and rebuilt. Encounters can save lives, send assistance, restore knowledge, or recover lost artifacts.

and the unknown - ...

So there can also be a good, rich, and fascinating future. That is why this topic feels so important to me.
If we treat suffering as a term in the equation we are trying to minimize, and multiply it by the number of worlds, the number of humans, and the number of years until the end of humanity - that is a lot of suffering we might avoid. There is a way to prepare.
There is still time before dispersal truly begins.

If you have reached this point, you have passed the difficult logical leap. From here on, these are technical solutions - meaning there are probably many ways to solve the problems we have raised, many problems we have not yet thought of, and also problems that do not need to be solved. The point is that from here this is already under our control, and the responsibility lies with us, as the vector of dispersal, to do this with proper attention and respect.

For the sake of ignition and thought experiment, we can already formulate several issues and/or high-level rules that will preserve proper relations between all the branches. High-level rules that will survive tens and hundreds of thousands of years, will be clear and valid for changing cultures and technologies, regardless of location in galactic space.

All descendants of Earth are responsible for one another - Every call for help is answered, and help is given as far as possible.

Zero coercion - No use of force and no takeover of an inhabited world - even if it is primitive, even if it is “inferior”. Every world is sovereign unto itself.

Prohibition of harming local life - Including non-human biospheres.

Eternal stations in galactic space - Fixed computational points - according to a mathematical formula that can be extended dynamically - where there will always be supplies, support, knowledge, and basic tools. Stations that can wait thousands of years between encounters.

Ancestral identity to preserve - Every branch will preserve the information: where we came from, who the source is, and what the shared commitment is as those who came from Earth.

Equality between human descendants - There are no “advanced” or “backward”. Every branch moves on a different time path - this is natural. In encounters, there is no hierarchy.

Use of force only for self-defense - It is permitted to use force for self-defense to eliminate the threat. It is permitted and obligatory to assist against an attack without clear provocation.

No interference in internal affairs - There are no attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of other worlds. The only interface is in external relations in neutral zones and in regulated visits to a foreign world.

Visits allowed under protocol - It is permitted and desirable to visit under an orderly procedure. It is forbidden to oppose this as long as the protocol is followed.

These are only initial formulations of high-level rules. There is a lot of work here to avoid falling into endless wars spanning epochs and generations between branches of the tree.

The engineering solution I see - and there may be better ones - is to minimize friction with resistance wherever possible. To align interests, to flow with the natural forces of life, which are not violence and control but calm, creation, and energy. To be like water, as Bruce Lee said. This is not only philosophical, but a shift in global power dynamics.

Examples that already work today, with today’s technology:

Politics - Again and again, empires rise and fall when they lose control. Any system that relies on domination - over other nations or over its own population - wastes energy and collapses eventually. One example is a project whose utopian vision is automatic global mapping of all problems, filtering manipulations, and distributing tasks with transparent verification processes. Another way (already feasible today) to break the cognitive control imposed on populations. [YARRIVA_bot]

Ownership of information - for example, medical data. In another project [BodyTune] I presented a software architecture that can already be applied to other software or organizational processes today. The principle is to build in layers without dependency on any provider. All data is stored only with the owner (and under their responsibility!). The owner decides who may process the data and how much is exposed. The data is not encrypted, meaning the owner can see it directly and freely choose any service to perform analysis or advanced processing. There are more interesting aspects, but the important point is the total dismantling of data-monopolies held by large corporations. The principle is clear, I assume; the project page has more details.

Control mechanisms - the way money is used today is as a tool of control. A complete shift of power dynamics across many domains can emerge from correct use of smart contracts as legitimate currency. (There are drawbacks too, such as dependence on electricity, but this adds a degree of freedom - reducing dependency.)
A working example already today is the issuance of a currency pegged to actions [Flow.Sol]. A creator or entrepreneur can raise support this way; supporters and the creator benefit from success. If the project fails, the token fades naturally and disappears. The currency shifts from being a control mechanism to a tool that supports and encourages creation for the common good (eventually, when a social equilibrium is reached).

All the projects above scale effortlessly, require no central authority, maintain full transparency - both in processes and data - provide freedom of choice, and shift power dynamics without warfare. This is an evolutionary pressure driven by collective human desire. If it is good and natural, this is what will happen - and once it is in the air, there is no way to stop it.
Just like the larger galactic picture.

The path to saving the entire tree that originates from Earth is improving our lives here and now. In my view, the solution is releasing society from centralized control and reaching equilibrium before technology enables dispersal. Such a deep social transformation may take several generations, and its implications are too broad to fully understand - but reducing suffering and centralized control is, in my eyes, the right direction for a healthy society.

Decentralized engineering solutions cannot be stopped by law or by any control technology. These are fundamental ideas that can be applied across many domains, ultimately giving humanity the social resilience needed for the very distant future.

Things will go wrong. Over long time spans, whatever can go wrong will go wrong.
The future planning team will certainly take into account, for example, a scenario of erasure of civilization and knowledge, but let us assume not of the root of life itself on that planet.

One of their tasks will be to give the planet an opportunity and a shortcut to reconnect to the galactic network, while paving the intergalactic rules so that they join at the right time, when their society matures again and rises from the ruins. But they should join without harming anyone, and mainly themselves - because they will again be the newcomers in the neighborhood, and it would be a pity if they were destroyed by violating rules they were not even aware of.

One solution for preserving information and instructions could be the design of an artifact that connects all the branches. For example:

• A smooth, indestructible spherical ball, in a size that can be carried
• A marking of a skull and bones to mark the human origin of the tree and the anarchy-engineering model
• Specific weight lower than that of water
• Built of layers stacked like puzzles, each layer identifying a technology that was developed in the society (without forcing a social path that requires unnatural control)
• The outer layer will require solving a mathematical puzzle and will thereby demonstrate that the society supports science
• The innermost layer will contain all human knowledge and instructions on how to integrate again into the galactic fabric

Irreversible branching of humanity - Once we disperse across different stars - that’s it. Human branches separate permanently: biologically, technologically, culturally, and in terms of their timeline. There is no physical way to reunite all branches into a single species or a single shared culture.

The critical pre-dispersal window (before leaving Earth) - Every moral, structural, and architectural decision we make before the first interstellar missions will be the only thing inherited by all future branches. After departure onto different trajectories, there will be no way to coordinate between branches, no central leadership, and no shared system. Each branch will live at a different pace of time, under different conditions, with different goals.

Anarchy Engineering (in the sense of system design without coercive centers) - If there is no way to control future branches, the path I suggest to reduce the risk of collapse is: to remove in advance from the system every central point of power - in data ownership, in money, in governance, in communication, etc. A distributed system with minimal friction and maximal transparency, that can still function for descendants in the far future, even when there is no synchronization between them.

To give ourselves a real long-term chance, we should already be living better lives here and now - and the technological tools to start doing that already exist.

Regarding our neighborhood - the same process applies at every scale. There will always be pressures, and the system will tend to move toward the most energy-efficient point while still preserving order. We will spread out until we meet another tree. It’s better to arrive there with a strong, decentralized base and as few internal conflicts as possible.

New fields of research and engineering - get ready and get involved. It’s going to be fun.

Regarding this project - in principle, the message has been delivered. If there is demand, I’ll come back to expand some parts; there is, in principle, endless work to be done. Maybe I’ll do it just for fun. I would be happy, given my current place on this planet and the present political situation, to help decentralize the justice system. We’ll see.

In the end, all the cheesy movies were right - love is the strongest force in the universe.

☮ ♥