We are now at roughly equilibrium. We live in harmony with nature, with time, with space, with our futures. We still have much to learn but it is all in increasingly minute problems. We could travel away from the solar system but so far we have not seen the need. Robots continue our outward missions. Some are quite far.
We still have more energy than we need in our solar system. This has meant we have more time, and can automate even the largest jobs on a long enough timescale.
We found long-term solutions to climate change, simply by changing our lifestyles, and implementing long-term solutions to historical problems. It took a long time to have enough equality, technological advances, and knowledge to implement long-term solutions, but we have had much success in reversing the damage.
On that, thank you for the trash. We have learned to extract a lot of energy from it in natural ways. Just one problem we have ongoing solutions for.
Our population did not grow to a trillion, it stabled off at 10 billion a long time ago. People generally continue to live on Earth, most people do not stay within the solar system for things beyond education, scientific, engineering, and recreation. It is a popular destination though.
It's possible to live renewably on Mercury, Venus, and Mars. We haven't terraformed them, even now it's not economical. We simply live in permanent enclosures that have their own biospheres. Mars has several destinations. Mercury and Venus each have 3 but many stations providing data. We have many stations further out however energy is transported so they are not free to maintain and less frequently travelled. We have terraformed earth quite a bit. It is easier to implement on life-bearing planets.
For terraforming we started small in artificial biospheres that accurately represent Earth's own. Over time we were able to analyse results and make accurate predictions about how changes would affect our planet long-term. We began implementing long-term changes that will provide a better environment across the board. For example we now capture most geothermal energy Earth produces. This came with large shifts in the climate but the overall outcome is an improvement. Eventually this energy source will peter out, just like oil and gas.
We exclusively eat what is called artificial life. This life has been designed by us from the ground up to sustain us. It gets its energy from the sun. It sustains itself on CO2, and we choose how much CO2 it consumes. We have other specialised versions of this for different chemicals although these are not used for food. It lives in the oceans and sustains an incredibly rich biosphere the globe over. We are satisfied in our knowledge that artificial life is a good life.
On top of this we capture most geothermal energy Earth produces. This was not possible without some careful planning and implementation. It has improved the stability of the planet and brought about less velocity in nature. This is a non-renewable source but we enjoy the benefits it provides in the meantime.
We have made a lot of progress in our understanding of ourselves, life, the universe, and time. We still don't know why we're here, but we are grateful we are. It's now very rare for a person to not be satisfied with their life. All crime is a thing of the past. Murder of any creature never happens. What's mine is yours, my house is your house, we are all in this together. This is aided through deeply improved quality of life across all fronts. We treat each other with full equality, and whilst we know our purpose in life is a new step for life on our planet, we live in equality with all life this planet bears.
Diversity in life is beneficial for many reasons regardless of our new sustainence. It helps us in the evolutionary process. It provides great pleasure in our surroundings. It keeps things diverse and interesting. This is why we spend most of our time on Earth.
In terms of our marrying to technology it is what you would expect. Our quality of life and shared understanding each have improved manyfold. We have far improved memory, learning and development, articulation, health, happiness, energy, lifespans, lifestyles, food, understanding, equalibrium, all thanks to technological progress. To a certain extent less is more and our natural evolution got many things right.
You can travel anywhere at near-zero cost and how quickly depends on your tolerance for g-forces. Although public transportation is abundant there are personal transportation devices that each of us have that continue to work for many generations, continuing to extend in longevity, powered completely by the sun. We have fast, renewable transport across the solar system.
We have many satellites out in space with lifespans of hundreds of millions of years thanks to efficiency, resilience, and energy capture. There is energy in all interesting places, and how much energy provided is about as much as we would want to utilise for capturing data and sending it back. Full recharges are abundant enough to allow for indefinite travel at varying speeds that can theoretically hit double digit speeds of light however a balance has to be made with the overall resilience of the satellites. We have many out in many directions at different speeds with different long-term and short-term goals. It's a complicated balance but we believe we've made some strong bets.
There is evidence of life in deeper space. Lots of it. We have some strong bets on locations within the universe that have ongoing life, and satellites on their way to look. We have not found signs of intelligent life although some of our long-term bets are looking for possibilities. No attempts of contact by other intelligent life have been made, and no intelligent life exists within distances observed. We are very excited by the possibility of contact and it's one of our long-term objectives. We anticipate very friendly neighbours.
Life has existed from very early in the universe, although we know for certain life could not evolve to reach intelligence until relatively recently. I guess from your position in history you could say we are "advanced enough" for our time. There really isn't that much to be discovered from here for some time, no matter how optimised an environment was for evolution. That doesn't mean we aren't evolving and learning, we are, a lot. But we are doing so for long timescale problems. We know any life we encounter won't be at any new stage. We know the most intelligent life we encounter will be very similar to ourselves, even if they evolved earlier, in better conditions, and have already met other intelligent life.
We can control much of physics. We can even artificially create the conditions for life. We know that black holes and worm holes are a mathematical novelty that provide no deeper meaning.
It will be nearly a billion years before we must permanently leave our solar system. By then we expect to have discovered other intelligent life, and found ourselves a new home. It's likely we will simply roll back on new births, downsize our population, and make the multi-generational trip. Depending on the make up of the planet we find ourselves on there may be an adjustment period. We would expect to, given enough time, fully adapt to our new environment.
So, people from 2021, why did I send you this letter? Well, it's because you are half way towards us, in many regards. 2021 was 11,000 years from the birth of agriculture, and it took another eleven thousand years for civilisation to gain equal post-scarcity. It has been identified as the year that was exactly in the middle of the growth from wild animal until our post-scarcity reach. It's also half way between the birth of humans and the time in which I am writing this. I thought I would write from a very round number to celebrate.
