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Comment by fullstackchris | Hacker News Reader

Daily reminder that supercivilizations likely wouldn't need or even consider the concept of a dyson sphere, but have ways of generating power (from our eyes) out of seemingly thin air

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Should still be visible if a super civilization gets to a point where it needs to harness the power equivalent of an entire star (or even far sooner) then even if they don’t do it via a dyson sphere the waste heat alone should still be detectable.

If they could do this, wouldn't they go to as much effort to cloak themselves?

If they can summon enough power to not need or want a galaxy worth of Dyson swarms, then either (1) they are powerful enough to not need or care to hide, or (2) they're hiding because there is something out there that makes a galaxy's worth of Nicoll-Dyson beams seem trivial and insignificant as a weapon.

For reference, a K3 civilisation worth of Nicoll-Dyson beams can gravitationally unbind[0] 10^9 Earthlike planets in just under 26 days.

[0] https://youtu.be/7g77WN6obk4

Unless we’re talking about breaking the laws of physics as we know it completely it think it would be pretty hard to mask the waste heat from a civilization with an energy consumption of a star yet alone multiple stars.

A large black hole would be far superior power source than a dyson sphere.

Tell me more about this power source that is immune to thermodynamics.

Just splitting matter into energy? Why would you ever use a Dyson Sphere, when you can just force decay your trash into pure energy.

I am confused. If nuclear fission/fusion was perfectly efficient, which it isn't, the energy produced still ends up as heat. The second law. A hundred watts of power, after being used, eventually ends up as heat. It doesn't disappear. This survey was looking for that waste heat.

E=mc^2, all matter is just energy. We only don't know how to release it. Sure you can claim that does not violate laws of thermodynamics, but eradicates concept of Dyson spheres as useless.

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