albino boo said:
Interesting article, I look forward to the next part. I'm not entirely convinced that mass is in short supply if you have access to entire universe. Converting a nearby brown dwarf or large gas giant would provide vast quantities of mass.
It sounds like an investment scheme to me. Rich people on Earth put funding and effort towards putting people on other stars, with the idea that those people then produce more stuff and help others go on. What happens if the guy in line decides not to put his funds back into the investment bit for other people, and instead uses his funds for himself?
Doesn't matter that there's an infinite amount of mass out there, what matters is how quickly all those resources can be utilized.
Also the possibility that all matter isn't created equally. Gas giants have a lot of mass, but that mass isn't nearly as easy to get to as mining a rocky planet would be.