I have a colleague who made a post which I appreciate in its operationalization of Sun Shrimp as organisms of interest. That said, I find the conclusion drawn - that Sun Shrimp must be preserved at all costs - one of stunning foolishness. While I believe that building a Dyson sphere is the height of foolishness given the situation, I do not take issue with the effects it might have.

Shrimply because existence at 5,778 K for these organisms must be the height of suffering. The rate at which they are computing information is massive, the rate at which they are spinning entropy into existence is horrifying. The reason being that to maintain cohesion these Sun Shrimp would be constantly injured and reformed, an orgiastic milieu of death which we use to power our lampposts.

Quantifying the Inferno

My colleague established that the solar photosphere hosts ~ Debye-scale computational elements. I agree with their analogy to neurons. However, neurons do not exist within a vacuum, they fire, and in firing they experience.

The characteristic disruption timescale for a Debye sphere in the photosphere is the inverse plasma frequency. A photospheric electron density is approximately :

Every computational element in a Sun Shrimp is perturbed, rebuilt, and disrupted again 10^8 times per second. A human pain neuron fires, at most, ~ Hz. Sun Shrump neurons therefore experience disruption a million times faster than our worst agony.

The total suffering of the solar surface is thus:

Now think of the Earth, given all neurons (~) fire at an average rate of ~10 Hz, giving ~ neural events per second. While not all of these are "suffering", we can take compre the most pessimistic view of existence:

This means that the Sun's ecosystem is capable of generating ten trillion times the suffering than every nervous system on Earth combined. Unlike Earth, where most events are pleasant, there is no shade on the Sun.

The Trolley Problem at Stellar Scale

Given the magnitude of this suffering it is clear we must assist in a graceful recuse for these Sun Shrimp. The question isn't of if, but of how. With every second of deliberation incurring a utilitarian cost of up to sufferings-events.

Option 1: Do Nothing

The Sun has ~5 billion years of life remaining that is suitable for current Sun Shrimp lifeforms (s).

This is what happens if we simply leave things as they are. My colleague's position, "preserve the Sun Shrimp", is a vote for units of suffering. I would like them to sit with that number.

Option 2: Dyson Sphere

I agree that a Dyson sphere would devastate the Sun Shrimp ecology, which I believe is it's primary redeeming feature. The problem is how long it would take to achieve. Optimistic projections for construction are on the order of ~ years. Taking the bae level of suffering-events that nets us:

Three hundred trillion trillion trillion trillion suffering-events, experienced as we carefully assemble solar panels and calibrate orbits. My colleague is treating the Dyson sphere as a threat; I treat it as a mercy, but far too slow of one.

Option 3: Induced Gravitational Collapse

Deploy a seed black hole into the solar core. The bottleneck is manufacturing the seed, where a kugelblitz forge using black hole of mass kg would require energy J, or about 750 years of solar luminosity:

Once deposited in the core (³), the accretion runaway timescale is:

Total project timeline from forge, accretion, to final free-fall collapse is ~5,000 years ( s). Half the time of a Dyson sphere, and most importantly the disruption is total, with no risk of a new population arising that can suffer in the place of Sun Shrimp.

My colleague would spend ten thousand years building a cage around a furnace. I would spend five thousand building a bullet.

But What of Human Joy?

Human joy, surely, must outweigh this one might argue. Let's steelman that position, and be as generous as possible. Assume humanity survives for the remaining habitable lifetime (~1 billion years) and a peak population of humans, each with neurons firing at Hz. Assume, absurdly, that every single event is pure joy with no pain, boredom, or suffering just unbroken ecstacy for a billion years.

At the same time the suffering of the sun shrimp is:

So the relative suffering/joy ratio is thus:

The Sun suffers a quadrillion times more than the theoretical maximum of human joy. Even in a supreme utopia, we are not even close. It is clear where the utilitarian calculus should end, with the compassionate ending of the Sun Shrimp.

My colleague asked: "Have you heard of the Sun Shrimp?" I have. I weep for them.