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We've only been doing this science thing in a serious organized way for between 100 and 200 years depending on how you count it. It's only since WWII that we've
by api 10y ago
We've only been doing this science thing in a serious organized way for between 100 and 200 years depending on how you count it. It's only since WWII that we've done it in a really big heavily funded way (cold war and all that). You're probably right, but I can't bring myself to be quite as dogmatic about it.
I do very much doubt FTL, not only for the physics reasons but for other circumstantial ones. If FTL is possible then the Fermi paradox goes from being an intellectual curiosity to a near metaphysical emergency. If there is FTL then either we are absolutely alone or there are aliens everywhere and they are hiding from us or for some reason we can't see them. That's because the first expansionary intelligence to discover FTL will fill at least the galaxy if not the entire universe in a geological eye-blink. Since ubiquitous aliens hiding seems less likely, if a pathway to FTL were discovered I would immediately conclude that we are alone in the galaxy at least and possibly beyond.
- ceejay 10y agoPossible doesn't necessarily mean easy.
- macspoofing 10y ago>If FTL is possible then the Fermi paradox goes from being an intellectual curiosity to a near metaphysical emergency. Maybe. Maybe not. This is how UFO conspiracy theorists reason - "Here are some phenomena I don't understand, I can't think of any plausible explanation for them, therefore, must be aliens". There may be some hidden reasons why we can't detect FTL civilizations.
- api 10y agoWay off in tangent land now but: while much of "ufology" is indeed silly, "the aliens are here but they are not communicating" is a valid hypothesis for the Fermi paradox (with or without FTL). There are numerous rational reasons that an intelligence exploring the universe might choose to be very very careful about initiating communication to the point of taking steps to avoid even accidentally revealing itself. Some of these are altruistic (e.g. prime directive and contamination concerns) and some are self-interested (see game theory, and consider the apocalyptic destructiveness of conflict between really advanced intelligences).
- xj9 10y agoIt seems implausible that all of the aliens would agree to ignore us, even less so for them to consistently arrive at that conclusion in an independent manner. Then again, Earth might be exceptionally boring and consistently uninteresting to spacefaring aliens. Who knows? Maybe life is really rare.
- kirykl 10y agoif a method to violate causality is discovered on Earth it probably wouldn't lead to intelligent expansion, but mass destruction
- sevenless 10y agoI wouldn't worry; we can't agree what causality actually is, or whether it even exists, let alone what would constitute a violation of it.
- andrewla 10y agoOur galaxy is estimated to be at most around 180,000 light years in diameter. Even at a fraction of the speed of light, the amount of time to expand and fill the galaxy is still an eye-blink in geologic time. Even in evolutionary timescales it's still an eye-blink -- the Cretaceous era ended about 66 million years ago. I think the depressing truth is that we are alone in this galaxy. See [1] for Michael H. Hart's extremely compelling discussion of this idea. [1] http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1975QJRAS..16..128H http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1975QJRAS..16..128H