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my gut tells me the dyson sphere is easier.

we can sorta-kinda imagine how to make a dyson sphere now, the engineering is just tremendous and our product would kind of suck.

as far as i'm aware we're still pretty clueless about interstellar travel in a human time span.

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This is a good point and good perspective I think we need to apply more often - where we separate how difficult a thing is based on the physical scale and the technology feasibility. A Dyson sphere isn’t a technologically impossible thing - the scale is just not feasible, where as you pointed out we have no idea how to do FTL.

I remember seeing some calculations about how we already almost have the tech to build a Dyson swarm with thin sails. The material needed is already within our industrial capacity to produce and the only thing in our way is international cooperation.

Meanwhile interstellar travel still require several tech and engineering leaps.

It’s not ftl but there are ideas and projects to do interstellar travel in a lifetime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot

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