6 ms·

The thing is, it would be very surprising if we are first. Certainly wouldn't fit the Drake equation.

by iofj 11y ago

dogma1138 11y ago
https://xkcd.com/384/ https://xkcd.com/384/ The biggest problem with the Drake equation is that we are using a sample of one, it also doesn't take into account great filters that will prevent the development of intelligent life, technological civilizations and interstellar ones. Our technology jumped from sticks and stones to interplanetary rockets in 10,000 or so years after sticking to those sticks and stones for about 200,000 - 250,000 years. We still have had people living in the Stone Age during ww2 and some still do today. We probably know less about how a civilization might develop into a technological one than we know about how life can evolve.
- marshray 11y ago
  Just out of curiosity, why do you mention WWII specifically as a time when some people were living in the stone age?
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    Because the war in the pacific had quite an impact some of them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult Do while we were building rockets and going into space some of us were making airplanes out of straw to get more gifts from thier ancestors.
    - iofj 11y ago
      Man that page is crap. Have you read the explanations section ? WTF. Cargo cults existed because that's how humans work, that's how humans learn. That's how the machinery that is our brain operates. We copy behavior. We do not discover, learn, think rationally, or any of that (though some of those are tricks we've learned at some point and now make sure to teach our children, but they're learned behaviors, very different from human brains, similar to how you can run logic circuits or multiplications on neural networks). Here's a stupid assumption that page makes as well. It assumes that cargo cultism had no chance of success. That's just stupid. They built these planes. It would only take someone pushing them off a cliff and paying attention to their fall to discover lift. I don't mean explaining and calculating lift (we can't even do that (the problem "here's a wing shape, now calculate the lift equations" is still unsolved except for special cases, doubly so in supersonic situations, so their chances seem limited). Once they see lift they would only need to get propellers rotating, already a much, much simpler problem. It would certainly not be impossible to make a 10-15 minute human powered flight, or they could simply learn to ride the winds. Difficult, but given enough tries that would certainly work. Therefore I'd like to offer a very much different explanation for cargo cultism : it's how humans learn. Had these tribes had 100 years or so to figure it out, we would have seen one land in a homemade bamboo airplane on Haiti.
      - marshray 11y ago
        Sustained human powered flight wasn't achieved by top engineering teams until the late 20th century. It can't be done without at least aluminum and lightweight plastics. Engine powered flight is much easier and done a century earlier. Yet it still required steel working and internal combustion engine technologies. Small Pacific islands are just not likely to provide access to the necessary iron ore and oil deposits. But I don't fault them for trying.
        iofj 11y ago
        You don't need sustained human powered flight, you could simply launch a glider. And yes, there are wooden gliders. Suppose this guy had cargo culted freight planes: [1]. The wings he used were rubbish and how he controlled them was even more rubbish. Don't you think he would have done much better had he seen a flying cargo plane ? (Especially given that this guy's huge mistake, that sadly killed him, was lack of a tail on his glider. Or if you think that back part is a tail, the distance between the wing and the tail is too small for it to work as a tail) Aviation is like Greek science : for a millenium it was stuck in a local optimum. They had seen a working wing design (bird wings) and imitated them, and kept imitating them, failure after failure after failure after failure after failure after failure, for close to a thousand years, or ore if you believe that Daedalus and/or Archytas actually tried it. And while Daedalus sounds a bit incredible, Archytas is just barely on the side of what is achievable. It took someone touring Europe demonstrating a circus trick (lifting a man) with a kite imported from China to make them realize their mistake, or at least make them try something even slightly different. Then, having seen the kites lift people, people tried other wing designs it suddenly took off : less than 50 years until we had stable gliders (God help whoever tries to use a kite for flying, something I learned as a 7 year old. Umbrellas work better, at least stability wise, until they break), another 70 years until we had stable powered flight. Another 15 years and we had commercial airlines and weaponized airplanes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Lilienthal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Lilienthal

The thing is, it would be very surprising if we are first. Certainly wouldn't fit the Drake equation.

by iofj 11y ago

The thing is, it would be very surprising if we are first. Certainly wouldn't fit the Drake equation.

https://xkcd.com/384/ https://xkcd.com/384/ The biggest problem with the Drake equation is that we are using a sample of one, it also doesn't take into account great filters that will prevent the development of intelligent life, technological civilizations and interstellar ones. Our technology jumped from sticks and stones to interplanetary rockets in 10,000 or so years after sticking to those sticks and stones for about 200,000 - 250,000 years. We still have had people living in the Stone Age during ww2 and some still do today. We probably know less about how a civilization might develop into a technological one than we know about how life can evolve.

marshray 11y ago
Just out of curiosity, why do you mention WWII specifically as a time when some people were living in the stone age?
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Because the war in the pacific had quite an impact some of them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult Do while we were building rockets and going into space some of us were making airplanes out of straw to get more gifts from thier ancestors.
  - iofj 11y ago
    Man that page is crap. Have you read the explanations section ? WTF. Cargo cults existed because that's how humans work, that's how humans learn. That's how the machinery that is our brain operates. We copy behavior. We do not discover, learn, think rationally, or any of that (though some of those are tricks we've learned at some point and now make sure to teach our children, but they're learned behaviors, very different from human brains, similar to how you can run logic circuits or multiplications on neural networks). Here's a stupid assumption that page makes as well. It assumes that cargo cultism had no chance of success. That's just stupid. They built these planes. It would only take someone pushing them off a cliff and paying attention to their fall to discover lift. I don't mean explaining and calculating lift (we can't even do that (the problem "here's a wing shape, now calculate the lift equations" is still unsolved except for special cases, doubly so in supersonic situations, so their chances seem limited). Once they see lift they would only need to get propellers rotating, already a much, much simpler problem. It would certainly not be impossible to make a 10-15 minute human powered flight, or they could simply learn to ride the winds. Difficult, but given enough tries that would certainly work. Therefore I'd like to offer a very much different explanation for cargo cultism : it's how humans learn. Had these tribes had 100 years or so to figure it out, we would have seen one land in a homemade bamboo airplane on Haiti.
    - marshray 11y ago
      Sustained human powered flight wasn't achieved by top engineering teams until the late 20th century. It can't be done without at least aluminum and lightweight plastics. Engine powered flight is much easier and done a century earlier. Yet it still required steel working and internal combustion engine technologies. Small Pacific islands are just not likely to provide access to the necessary iron ore and oil deposits. But I don't fault them for trying.
      - iofj 11y ago
        You don't need sustained human powered flight, you could simply launch a glider. And yes, there are wooden gliders. Suppose this guy had cargo culted freight planes: [1]. The wings he used were rubbish and how he controlled them was even more rubbish. Don't you think he would have done much better had he seen a flying cargo plane ? (Especially given that this guy's huge mistake, that sadly killed him, was lack of a tail on his glider. Or if you think that back part is a tail, the distance between the wing and the tail is too small for it to work as a tail) Aviation is like Greek science : for a millenium it was stuck in a local optimum. They had seen a working wing design (bird wings) and imitated them, and kept imitating them, failure after failure after failure after failure after failure after failure, for close to a thousand years, or ore if you believe that Daedalus and/or Archytas actually tried it. And while Daedalus sounds a bit incredible, Archytas is just barely on the side of what is achievable. It took someone touring Europe demonstrating a circus trick (lifting a man) with a kite imported from China to make them realize their mistake, or at least make them try something even slightly different. Then, having seen the kites lift people, people tried other wing designs it suddenly took off : less than 50 years until we had stable gliders (God help whoever tries to use a kite for flying, something I learned as a 7 year old. Umbrellas work better, at least stability wise, until they break), another 70 years until we had stable powered flight. Another 15 years and we had commercial airlines and weaponized airplanes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Lilienthal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Lilienthal