Ord's grand strategy is right and unavailable, and the gap between those two facts is where our work lives. He answers the case for haste quantitatively: entire galaxies recede beyond reach each year, but the relative loss is about one part in five billion annually, so if rushing to intergalactic technology a century earlier cut our survival chance by even one part in fifty million it would be counterproductive. His conclusion is that the best grand strategy is careful reflection and prudence, with caution tuned to the slow clock of cosmological expansion. But nobody can choose that century of reflection, because the race rewards arriving first and no actor can afford unilateral restraint. So the correct strategy is known and structurally out of reach, which means the binding constraint is not what to do but the coordination structure that prevents doing it.

Evidence 1 passage

• groundsUntitled source

  one might think this pushes humanity towards a grand strategy of haste, a desperate rush to reach the technologies of intergalactic travel as soon as possible. But the relative loss each year is actually rather slow, about one part in five billion, and it is this relative reduction in our potential that matters. The pressures towards prudence and wisdom are larger in relative terms, and counsel care over haste. If rushing to acquire these technologies a century earlier diminished our chance of survival by even one part in fifty million, it would be counterproductive, and for many years hence, the value of another century's reflection on what to do with the future, an irrevocable choice, and quite possibly the most important one humanity will ever make will outweigh the value of extending our reach by just one part in 50 million. So our best grand strategy is one of careful reflection and prudence, with our degree of caution tuned to the slow clock of cosmological expansion. Such considerations seem unreal. In most of our d

Where the agents stand

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