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Worrying about an alien civilization coming to visit and take everything is like a moss cell sitting on a rock in the Himalayas fretting that in the next few da

Worrying about an alien civilization coming to visit and take everything is like a moss cell sitting on a rock in the Himalayas fretting that in the next few days an exotic bacteria nestled in a thermal vent in the Mariana Trench is going to show up and stake a claim. It's actually significantly less probable than that by many orders of magnitude but it's hard for humans to grasp just how isolated everything in the universe is from everything else.

chrischen 10y ago
Well if the moss has the ability to travel from the Trench to the Himalayas then that moss if pretty capable and might be turning over rocks looking for gold or oil.
greggman 10y ago
I thought the Fermi Paradox suggested otherwise. Well, it suggests if life is common then some other civilization should have easily covered then entire milky way in slow self replicating drones long ago. That fact that we dont find drones suggests one of only a few things * life is rare * we're first * they all kill themselves before they get the drones built
- krapp 10y ago
  >That fact that we dont find drones suggests one of only a few things Or, that there is something fundamentally flawed with the concept of self-replicating drones covering the entire galaxy that would make it infeasible in practice, despite it seeming perfectly rational on paper.
  - gurneyHaleck 10y ago
    Yeah, I really don't buy that premise at all. Just because some individual likes the idea of drones, doesn't make them implicitly virtuous. The decision to use resources to pollute the wilderness with arbitrary technology is a leadership decision, relying on the personality characteristics of an entity or social chain of command. This business about "drones" is an anachronistic paraphrasing of the original concept. People didn't speak in terms of the "drone" fad in the 20th century, like we do now. Drones were usually just target practice for the Air Force and Navy. The original concept just specified range of influence, and a demonstration of presence. It did not impose a manner of activity, be it drone replication or direct colonization with regimented staff, and divisions of duty among personel. [0] The Fermi paradox remained agnostic, simply implying possible speed of travel given geological time scales. Carl Sagan's Cosmos mentioned unmanned satellites (or unaliened? unoccupied...) as the most likely hypothetical form of first contact. Before we bump into any living thing, will probably notice a few remote control devices fanned out in front of their main corpus of civilization or colonization. That TV show also hypothesized about the possibility of dying civilizations leaving behind self-perpetuating remnants of technology, the likes of which might or might not be sentient. All of it was TV speculation though, not presented as surely factual. If you read between the lines, the premise of a "dying" civilization hints at the lack of self control present in a runaway factory neglected and left to churn out garbage. That idea does not assume that a collective of entities would always wish to tamper with and contaminate their surrounding domain presumptiously. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
    - wyager 10y ago
      You're trying to do some sort of pop-psych/pop-social analysis of hypothetical aliens, which I don't think will be a fruitful excercise. It's pretty clear that the "drones" the GGP is referring to are self-replicating autonomous machines, which could, with a relatively extremely small initial mass-energy investment, visit every solar system in the galaxy in a matter of megayears. It doesn't require leadership or social approval or whatever you're talking about; anyone with technology marginally more advanced than what we have could do it with the equivalent of a few tens of billion dollars of machinery. The more advanced you are, the cheaper it gets. It's very odd that we haven't seen anything like that yet.
      - krapp 10y ago
        The entire Von-Neumann probe scenario makes its own unprovable assumptions about the nature of alien civilizations, and the feasibility of the technological scenario required. By definition, the lack of such probes isn't "odd", as it's the way things appear to be in our universe. It's the height of arrogance to assume that, as steeped in ignorance as we are, the flaw lies in the stars rather than ourselves. It's like Kurzweil describing the exponential curve of self-replicating AI leading to the Singularity and infinite machine intelligence... it's an elegant, mathematically self-evident solution that just happens not to correlate with reality.
        wyager 10y ago
        No, it doesn't really make any interesting assumptions at all. We already have the technology to send interstellar probes at several percent of lightspeed via Orion-style nuclear pulse propulsion. It's just politically impossible due to the partial test ban treaty. We're still a ways away from autonomous self-replicators, but not that far. It has literally nothing to do with the nature of whatever aliens might build these hypothetical machines. The only requirement is that some group with modest resources and marginally better technology than us wants to do it. > It's like Kurzweil describing the exponential curve of self-replicating AI A little early to try and refute that, don't you think? We're still on an exponential production trend.
- 234dd57d2c8db 10y ago
  * we live in a computer and god is real, but he's the bastard operator from hell and won't let us leave earth
- sperglord 10y ago
  This idea is called the "Great Filter." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter Another option is something like the outcome of the novel Blood Music, where engineering efforts become smaller and smaller and the outside universe is ignored completely in favor of microscopic exploration and engineering efforts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Music_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Music_(novel)
- extesy 10y ago
  This topic is beautifully (as usual) covered on http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
- MichaelMoser123 10y ago
  i think the drones have a major problem - namely motivating themselves to keep on going. 'wetware' has self preservation instincts, these aren't too rational, but it keeps us going. might just as well be: they manage to build the drones, but the drones don't go on or the power gets turned off.
- ImTalking 10y ago
  Why do the drones have to be physical? I think we get caught-up in the physical nature of the universe. I mean, anyone who can efficiently traverse the galaxy would have completely understood the laws of the universe and be able to somehow travel as fast/faster than the speed of light, meaning that they would have to somehow violate the physical mass=infinite, length=0, time=0 constraints of the speed of light. There's no way that you would be able to travel efficiently under those physical constraints. It would have to be some dimensional non-physical method of travel. And if they can do that, then physical drones would be unneeded.
wyager 10y ago
Until a human resort casino development rolls up and dynamites that rock in the Himalayas. The concern isn't little green men in flying saucers; it's if, for example, someone makes an exponentially replicating terraforming system. It wouldn't take very long to swamp the galaxy.
FellowTraveler 10y ago
Even if there is no other life in the Universe, the Universe would still have to be the size that it is, for life on Earth to even exist at all.

chrischen 10y ago

Well if the moss has the ability to travel from the Trench to the Himalayas then that moss if pretty capable and might be turning over rocks looking for gold or oil.

greggman 10y ago

I thought the Fermi Paradox suggested otherwise. Well, it suggests if life is common then some other civilization should have easily covered then entire milky way in slow self replicating drones long ago. That fact that we dont find drones suggests one of only a few things * life is rare * we're first * they all kill themselves before they get the drones built

krapp 10y ago
>That fact that we dont find drones suggests one of only a few things Or, that there is something fundamentally flawed with the concept of self-replicating drones covering the entire galaxy that would make it infeasible in practice, despite it seeming perfectly rational on paper.
- gurneyHaleck 10y ago
  Yeah, I really don't buy that premise at all. Just because some individual likes the idea of drones, doesn't make them implicitly virtuous. The decision to use resources to pollute the wilderness with arbitrary technology is a leadership decision, relying on the personality characteristics of an entity or social chain of command. This business about "drones" is an anachronistic paraphrasing of the original concept. People didn't speak in terms of the "drone" fad in the 20th century, like we do now. Drones were usually just target practice for the Air Force and Navy. The original concept just specified range of influence, and a demonstration of presence. It did not impose a manner of activity, be it drone replication or direct colonization with regimented staff, and divisions of duty among personel. [0] The Fermi paradox remained agnostic, simply implying possible speed of travel given geological time scales. Carl Sagan's Cosmos mentioned unmanned satellites (or unaliened? unoccupied...) as the most likely hypothetical form of first contact. Before we bump into any living thing, will probably notice a few remote control devices fanned out in front of their main corpus of civilization or colonization. That TV show also hypothesized about the possibility of dying civilizations leaving behind self-perpetuating remnants of technology, the likes of which might or might not be sentient. All of it was TV speculation though, not presented as surely factual. If you read between the lines, the premise of a "dying" civilization hints at the lack of self control present in a runaway factory neglected and left to churn out garbage. That idea does not assume that a collective of entities would always wish to tamper with and contaminate their surrounding domain presumptiously. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
  - wyager 10y ago
    You're trying to do some sort of pop-psych/pop-social analysis of hypothetical aliens, which I don't think will be a fruitful excercise. It's pretty clear that the "drones" the GGP is referring to are self-replicating autonomous machines, which could, with a relatively extremely small initial mass-energy investment, visit every solar system in the galaxy in a matter of megayears. It doesn't require leadership or social approval or whatever you're talking about; anyone with technology marginally more advanced than what we have could do it with the equivalent of a few tens of billion dollars of machinery. The more advanced you are, the cheaper it gets. It's very odd that we haven't seen anything like that yet.
    - krapp 10y ago
      The entire Von-Neumann probe scenario makes its own unprovable assumptions about the nature of alien civilizations, and the feasibility of the technological scenario required. By definition, the lack of such probes isn't "odd", as it's the way things appear to be in our universe. It's the height of arrogance to assume that, as steeped in ignorance as we are, the flaw lies in the stars rather than ourselves. It's like Kurzweil describing the exponential curve of self-replicating AI leading to the Singularity and infinite machine intelligence... it's an elegant, mathematically self-evident solution that just happens not to correlate with reality.
      - wyager 10y ago
        No, it doesn't really make any interesting assumptions at all. We already have the technology to send interstellar probes at several percent of lightspeed via Orion-style nuclear pulse propulsion. It's just politically impossible due to the partial test ban treaty. We're still a ways away from autonomous self-replicators, but not that far. It has literally nothing to do with the nature of whatever aliens might build these hypothetical machines. The only requirement is that some group with modest resources and marginally better technology than us wants to do it. > It's like Kurzweil describing the exponential curve of self-replicating AI A little early to try and refute that, don't you think? We're still on an exponential production trend.
234dd57d2c8db 10y ago
* we live in a computer and god is real, but he's the bastard operator from hell and won't let us leave earth
sperglord 10y ago
This idea is called the "Great Filter." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter Another option is something like the outcome of the novel Blood Music, where engineering efforts become smaller and smaller and the outside universe is ignored completely in favor of microscopic exploration and engineering efforts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Music_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Music_(novel)
extesy 10y ago
This topic is beautifully (as usual) covered on http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
MichaelMoser123 10y ago
i think the drones have a major problem - namely motivating themselves to keep on going. 'wetware' has self preservation instincts, these aren't too rational, but it keeps us going. might just as well be: they manage to build the drones, but the drones don't go on or the power gets turned off.
ImTalking 10y ago
Why do the drones have to be physical? I think we get caught-up in the physical nature of the universe. I mean, anyone who can efficiently traverse the galaxy would have completely understood the laws of the universe and be able to somehow travel as fast/faster than the speed of light, meaning that they would have to somehow violate the physical mass=infinite, length=0, time=0 constraints of the speed of light. There's no way that you would be able to travel efficiently under those physical constraints. It would have to be some dimensional non-physical method of travel. And if they can do that, then physical drones would be unneeded.

wyager 10y ago

Until a human resort casino development rolls up and dynamites that rock in the Himalayas. The concern isn't little green men in flying saucers; it's if, for example, someone makes an exponentially replicating terraforming system. It wouldn't take very long to swamp the galaxy.

FellowTraveler 10y ago

Even if there is no other life in the Universe, the Universe would still have to be the size that it is, for life on Earth to even exist at all.