Most things we’d see now as advances won’t be needed when it becomes easier to transport reality around.

There are two paths to shaping the universe. One is to go out and seize it, and bend it to the will of intelligence.

The other is to create a universe and then live there. We’ll do the latter, as I suspect most intelligent species do if they don’t destroy themselves — which is the other possibility of our species.

That wraps up the Drake Equation nicely.

There is after all no meaningful distinction between simulation and reality if the simulation is robust enough.