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I've been mulling this over: given the constraints of information travelling at lightspeed and physical objects travelling at a lot less, what if it simply doesn't make financial sense for any actor in a market economy to colonize the galaxy?

What if the ROI of space colonization even at multi-decade or multi-century timescales is negative? Then why would anyone do it?

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Market economy is far from a law of nature. Even most human activity is cannot be understood as market driven.

There doesn't have to be an economic motive

What if they just feel like exploring, and gaining knowledge, and seeing things no one else has ever seen?

Well, they'd still have to be able to pay for everything they need to go off on that voyage.

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