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> you must explain why all civilizations collapse before colonizing the galaxy. You're taking for granted that's it's possible and that we'll eventually make i
by hobarrera 10y ago
> you must explain why all civilizations collapse before colonizing the galaxy.
You're taking for granted that's it's possible and that we'll eventually make it (as does the Fermi paradox).
What if FTL travel is actually not possible? Or requires billions of years of technological advances? That would also explain why nobody has visited. There's no proof that it IS possible (we'll know for sure once we actually build an FTL-capable ship).
I hope I'm wrong, but my main point is: nobody's questioning the initial statements of the paradox, and they might not be accurate.
- jerf 10y ago"You're taking for granted that's it's possible and that we'll eventually make it (as does the Fermi paradox)." No, I do not. Just the Fermi paradox. I know that I am not because I lean Rare Earth myself, and generally believe FTL travel (and while we're at it, time travel) are simply impossible. But if you want to disprove the Fermi paradox with the specific claim that all civilizations kill themselves off, then you must be able to produce a reason why all civilizations kill themselves off. Not "a lot" of them. Not "most" of them. All of them. It only takes one to colonize the galaxy. Plenty of people question the "initial statements" of the paradox, which is why I have a snappy two word "rare Earth" phrase to explain my position.
- dTal 10y agoRemind me how we know the galaxy hasn't been colonized? For all we know the aliens just take one look at Earth and go "ew, not that one - it's all moldy".
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- flukus 10y agoColonizing the galaxy does not require FTL travel.
- hobarrera 10y agoProbably not, but colonizing other galaxies without it is extremely complex. The closest one is 2.5M ly away, so it'd be over 2.5M years just to get there.
- flukus 10y agoIf you could get to .99c then the onboard travel time would "only" be ~200k years. Something like cryogenics and it could effectively be 0 years. The jump to intergalactic seems much smaller than the jump to interstellar.
- hobarrera 10y agoDude, not sure what sort of math you dud: 2.5M * 0.99 = 2.47M. It's 2.47 millon years, not "~200k". How would you do 2.5M light years in ten times LESS than 2.5M years without FTL? cryogenics does not alter the time it takes to colonize galaxies -- it just seems less to the person travelling, but that's irrelevant in this context, since we care about people NOT travelling (eg: us).
- flukus 10y agoRelativistic time dilation. It will take 2.5 million years to an outside observer, but ~200k to those on board.