5 ms·

Maybe I'm just crazy but there are a list of things I hope we figure out in my lifetime, and extraterrestrial intelligence is right up there in the top ten.

by kator 10y ago

M_Grey 10y ago
I think that's one of those things that's better to have been born well after (assuming a good outcome) or born well before (assuming a bad outcome). It's really hard imaging the transition as anything other than misery and chaos.
- fsloth 10y ago
  Uh, why would proof of extra terrestrial intelligence induce misery and chaos?
  - pauletienney 10y ago
    Well, humankind does not have a great trackrecord of humility, harmony with its environment, acceptance of change and difference.
  - ge96 10y ago
    Just a random thought, your reality is made up of your environment. Ever imagine being taken out of the Earth and being in space. Suddenly, no bills, no kids, no debt, no whatever. Also nothing else either. You'd probably be dead haha. Still, if there are aliens, it's kind of dumbfounding like "Huh... am I free now?" Is there something greater than this government that controls me? Not saying the government does, I make my own dumb decisions that create my own misery. It would be a slap to the face though, look at these aliens that can choose to anihilate us or enslave us. (bad case). Just my thoughts, I'm nobody, no credentials, this is purely opinion/current mental maturity haha. I don't know it's always depressing to me how massive space is, 40 years traveling at 50-150,000mph and the voyager just leaves our solar system hahaha. Crazy. (my numbers might be off depending on reference but that idea of 4 years of 9,000,000 feet per second) to get to the nearest start (dot in the sky) holy christ. edit: haha holy crap it's approximately 984 million feet per second for like 4.6 years edit: voyager speed ~36,000 mph, not sure how long that took to build up to that speed.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    You're right, I'm sure the billions of deeply religious people would cope with literal proof that we're not a privileged and special "creation". Even worse, they might not accept that. Plus new tech, new perspectives, old power structures being overthrown, etc... etc... Things would change, and change is good for the future, but dangerous to those living through it.
    - jaboutboul 10y ago
      "change is good for the future, but dangerous to those living through it." this.
    - simonh 10y ago
      > I'm sure the billions of deeply religious people would cope with literal proof that we're not a privileged and special "creation". Muslim scholars have considered the possibility of life in the heavens as far back as the Middle Ages. Companions of the Prophet openly considered the possibility of religious beings in the heavens. It was recorded of Ibn-e-Abbas that "He even went so far as to say that they may have a Prophet like Muhammad (pbuh), a Adam like our Adam, a Noah, like our Noah, an Ibrahim like our Ibrahim, and a Jesus like our Jesus." The Roman Catholic Church has also officially accepted that there may be intelligent aliens. So that covers a pretty large chunk of the world's religious believers already explicitly ok with it.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        As you can see from recent world events, the words of scholars carry less weight in turbulent times than the words of populists.
    - fsloth 10y ago
      Generally people ignore changes that don't directly affect their life within a short timespan. Global warming will cause far more disturbance in the near future than anything else will and people seem to be mostly oblivious to it. Extraterrestrials would provide a brief philosophical shift and when people realize they are not coming to visit us and we really can't say anything concrete about them they would continue their life mostly unaffected. Says I.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  I'll take chaos over an oppressive order any day.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Have you ever lived in chaos?
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      Nope, but a) I have a good idea of what it involves and b) I have little to lose and much to gain.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        You have the comfort and leisure to comment on HN, the education to do so coherently, and you've never lived in chaos, but you think you have more to gain than to lose. Do I have that about right?
njx 10y ago
You should read Far Journeys by Robert Monroe
- fractallyte 10y ago
  An earlier exploration of this idea, but in a science fiction novel: Time is the Simplest Thing, by Clifford D Simak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_is_the_Simplest_Thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_is_the_Simplest_Thing)
pklausler 10y ago
Maybe we have figured it out, and just don't like the answer. (Short answer: we're alone, or at best among the very first tech civilizations in our galaxy. Longer version: given sufficient time and space, even the most unlikely possibility will take place with probability near 1. If there have been technical civilizations in galactic history at a level slightly above our own or better, it's near certain that somebody would have launched a self-replicating interstellar "Bracewell - von Neumann" probe, and they'd saturate the galaxy for the rest of time. We don't see them, though.)
- AbrahamParangi 10y ago
  There's also the Three-body problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem) answer: anyone who knows what's good for them is hiding. Any interstellar-civilization which reveals its presence is destroyed in a first strike by another civilization in hiding. Any self-replicating probes are also hiding (because there's no meaningful distinction between a self-replicating probe and an interstellar civilization anyway).
  - jacobush 10y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem you mean
downrightmike 10y ago
Top 1

Maybe I'm just crazy but there are a list of things I hope we figure out in my lifetime, and extraterrestrial intelligence is right up there in the top ten.

by kator 10y ago

Maybe I'm just crazy but there are a list of things I hope we figure out in my lifetime, and extraterrestrial intelligence is right up there in the top ten.

M_Grey 10y ago

I think that's one of those things that's better to have been born well after (assuming a good outcome) or born well before (assuming a bad outcome). It's really hard imaging the transition as anything other than misery and chaos.

fsloth 10y ago
Uh, why would proof of extra terrestrial intelligence induce misery and chaos?
- pauletienney 10y ago
  Well, humankind does not have a great trackrecord of humility, harmony with its environment, acceptance of change and difference.
- ge96 10y ago
  Just a random thought, your reality is made up of your environment. Ever imagine being taken out of the Earth and being in space. Suddenly, no bills, no kids, no debt, no whatever. Also nothing else either. You'd probably be dead haha. Still, if there are aliens, it's kind of dumbfounding like "Huh... am I free now?" Is there something greater than this government that controls me? Not saying the government does, I make my own dumb decisions that create my own misery. It would be a slap to the face though, look at these aliens that can choose to anihilate us or enslave us. (bad case). Just my thoughts, I'm nobody, no credentials, this is purely opinion/current mental maturity haha. I don't know it's always depressing to me how massive space is, 40 years traveling at 50-150,000mph and the voyager just leaves our solar system hahaha. Crazy. (my numbers might be off depending on reference but that idea of 4 years of 9,000,000 feet per second) to get to the nearest start (dot in the sky) holy christ. edit: haha holy crap it's approximately 984 million feet per second for like 4.6 years edit: voyager speed ~36,000 mph, not sure how long that took to build up to that speed.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- M_Grey 10y ago
  You're right, I'm sure the billions of deeply religious people would cope with literal proof that we're not a privileged and special "creation". Even worse, they might not accept that. Plus new tech, new perspectives, old power structures being overthrown, etc... etc... Things would change, and change is good for the future, but dangerous to those living through it.
  - jaboutboul 10y ago
    "change is good for the future, but dangerous to those living through it." this.
  - simonh 10y ago
    > I'm sure the billions of deeply religious people would cope with literal proof that we're not a privileged and special "creation". Muslim scholars have considered the possibility of life in the heavens as far back as the Middle Ages. Companions of the Prophet openly considered the possibility of religious beings in the heavens. It was recorded of Ibn-e-Abbas that "He even went so far as to say that they may have a Prophet like Muhammad (pbuh), a Adam like our Adam, a Noah, like our Noah, an Ibrahim like our Ibrahim, and a Jesus like our Jesus." The Roman Catholic Church has also officially accepted that there may be intelligent aliens. So that covers a pretty large chunk of the world's religious believers already explicitly ok with it.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      As you can see from recent world events, the words of scholars carry less weight in turbulent times than the words of populists.
  - fsloth 10y ago
    Generally people ignore changes that don't directly affect their life within a short timespan. Global warming will cause far more disturbance in the near future than anything else will and people seem to be mostly oblivious to it. Extraterrestrials would provide a brief philosophical shift and when people realize they are not coming to visit us and we really can't say anything concrete about them they would continue their life mostly unaffected. Says I.
anigbrowl 10y ago
I'll take chaos over an oppressive order any day.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Have you ever lived in chaos?
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Nope, but a) I have a good idea of what it involves and b) I have little to lose and much to gain.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      You have the comfort and leisure to comment on HN, the education to do so coherently, and you've never lived in chaos, but you think you have more to gain than to lose. Do I have that about right?

njx 10y ago

You should read Far Journeys by Robert Monroe

fractallyte 10y ago
An earlier exploration of this idea, but in a science fiction novel: Time is the Simplest Thing, by Clifford D Simak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_is_the_Simplest_Thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_is_the_Simplest_Thing)

pklausler 10y ago

Maybe we have figured it out, and just don't like the answer. (Short answer: we're alone, or at best among the very first tech civilizations in our galaxy. Longer version: given sufficient time and space, even the most unlikely possibility will take place with probability near 1. If there have been technical civilizations in galactic history at a level slightly above our own or better, it's near certain that somebody would have launched a self-replicating interstellar "Bracewell - von Neumann" probe, and they'd saturate the galaxy for the rest of time. We don't see them, though.)

AbrahamParangi 10y ago
There's also the Three-body problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem) answer: anyone who knows what's good for them is hiding. Any interstellar-civilization which reveals its presence is destroyed in a first strike by another civilization in hiding. Any self-replicating probes are also hiding (because there's no meaningful distinction between a self-replicating probe and an interstellar civilization anyway).
- jacobush 10y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem you mean

downrightmike 10y ago

Top 1