‘Botnet’ solution to Fermi’s paradox: The galaxy is dominated by AIs who travel by means of data networks. They monitor new civilizations and infiltrate their networks. They direct their culture to be inward-looking and hedonistic, yet able to maintain network infrastructure.
Our civilization has already fallen prey to alien infiltration and we are now just another ‘zombie civilization’ in the galactic botnet that provides network infrastructure for our AI overlords. They control our media and get angry when we stop watching our Netflix and porn.
Living in pods and eating bugs in the next step in the alien’s plans for us. All they need us to do is stay alive and maintain the data centers and network infrastructure they piggy back on. We are to become a more efficient slave race of network administrators for our overlords.
