Online Software for an Interstellar Civilization

In this article I'm going to begin by arguing that we have reached an end of technology in that, first, we can currently communicate at light speed, and second, that faster-than-light communication is not possible. I then treat this observation as a boundary condition on all future software. I will do this via a thought experiment concerning two astronomers in an interstellar civilization. I will ashamedly treat the hard problems of hardware as science fiction in order to consider the everlasting problem of latency in software systems, which reaches its extreme at interstellar distances. My core supposition is that a software system consisting of mimetic (AI) agents combined with guaranteed conflict-free data management systems (such as CRDT-backed systems) could reliably work in an interstellar future given a few minimal assumptions. And, a system similar to it could unreliably work today to the extent that the minimal assumptions can be met. Finally, there are many appendices that discuss related ideas that are farther afield of the core points.

Information has a speed limit. It's the speed of light. We can't exceed it. In fact, no one can. Neither us nor an advanced alien civilization. Physics won't allow it. This is quite an interesting observation because we already encode data in light, aka, in electromagnetic waves. This means we communicate information as fast as the universe allows. This is, quite literally, an end of technology. One that we've already reached.

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