Ćirković presents a handful of reasons why it’s wrong to think of the development of ETCs in imperial terms. First, as we shall see on page 194, there are grounds for supposing that a sophisticated technological civilization is highly likely to make a transition to a postbiological stage. There are various forms this transition could take—perhaps minds are “uploaded” to silicon; carbon-based bodies might merge with metal-based robots; there are many possibilities, as several SF writers have investigated—but, however the transition occurred, various biological imperatives would be called into
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