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It would seem to me that the dark forest theory [1] and building megastructures large enough to dim your star like this are largely incompatible. It would be r

It would seem to me that the dark forest theory [1] and building megastructures large enough to dim your star like this are largely incompatible. It would be really neat if not only this demonstrates existence of life outside of earth, but relieves one of the theories that suggests we shouldn't contact said life. [1]: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Dark-Forest-Theory-of-the-cosmos-which-is-a-response-to-the-Fermi-Paradox https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Dark-Forest-Theory-of-the-...

ryanx435 9y ago
that sort of depends on what the mega structures actually do. if it is some kind of energy source for FTL travel or super weapon or something, it may be worth it to dim your star to get the benefit. also, the mega structures may be built around a star that is not their home system: it could be a trap to get other aliens to send ships to investigate the dimming, at which point the builders of the mega structures capture the investigating ships for whatever reason. dark forest theory and mega structures are compatible under the right circumstances.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
briga 9y ago
There are fish in the deep ocean that produce light as a lure for prey. I don't see why this couldn't be the case with extra-terrestrial life. Whether or not the cause of this dimming is biological or not, I don't think this is a sign that we shouldn't be cautious when trying to make contact with aliens.
- krapp 9y ago
  I think evidence of stellar-scale engineering would be a very good sign that we should approach the possibility of first contact with caution.
pavement 9y ago
The Dark Forest Theory has some substantial flaws that render it little more than a simple conceptual gambit, rather than an actual strategy for crafting interstellar civilization. Destruction of all peers, to achieve the safety of solitude, is something to expect from the simplistic gropings of a jellyfish. As intelligent life, we can take up better angles of a approach to meet this sort of dilemma. The speed of light will probably stump any emerging civilization, but declaring it's barrier to be an impenetrable prison that transforms all intelligent life into deadly adversaries feels like an idea ripe with fallacies. If such a thing were truly inevitable, ancient human cities and colonies would have behaved the same way, due to centuries of primitive technology incapable of breaking the sound barrier. Imagine the idea that we should always plan to kill each other because we can't run faster than the sound of our own voices. The Law of The Jungle might have some truth to it, but one expects technology wielding social organisms to transcend such anarchy.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  I think fears about both alien and AI intelligence amongst particularly white male engineers are a side effect of a general belief in supremacism. Imagine someone, and I'm not saying this is you or anyone on HN, but imagine in the extreme someone who believes that they are generally smarter than women, dogs, religious believers, children, insects, proto-humans, slaughtered indigenous people, office managers, schoolteachers, people with bachelors degrees in the social "sciences", etc... their sense is that they are at the top of the social hierarchy because they're just smarter than most people, and they are in a flawed but generally meritocratic system. Let's also say that person's primary skill is building software and exploiting capitalist power structures to undermine established cultural practices. When that person imagines what we know is coming, which is intelligent autonomous software with access to capital... that would seem pretty scary. If I'm the smartest kind of person around, and this software could be better than me at what I do, what hope is there for us? Elon Musk's greatest fear is an Ur-Elon Musk, because he really believes in his own Ur-awesomeness. But I'm not sure that's actually a solid understanding of reality. Is Elon Musk really smarter than an ant? Is he really smarter than the people of a slaughtered indigenous culture? Is he really smarter than a black ex-felon with a 2nd grade education? Maybe. maybe. But I take the opposite position. Which is that the biological world is actually extremely intelligent, and the humans at the top of hierarchies are not-particularly-noteworthy pawns of powerful memes. But that the entirity of the biological world, from insects to primates has found solutions to complex problems that Elon Musk could only dream of solving. That there is breathtaking intelligence there that white male engineers tend to forget about. And that all human beings are actually extremely intelligent, it's just that civilization puts up barriers that corral that intelligence in different ways, making race-, gender-, nation- species-, etc-based intelligence differentials look bigger than they actually are. Which means to me: AI intelligence will actually be quite retarded, and not particularly better at genocide or extincting species than we are. Which means our worst enemy will still be ourselves. And any alien intelligence that has advanced beyond us will still have all of the intelligence of the natural world, plus human intelligence and then some. Which means they'll be better at not genociding and not extincting other species than we are. The alternative to supremacism is diversitism, which is a pretty beleaguered idea in tech circles. Is there one best kind of thing, or are all things good at being themselves and the togetherness of things is stronger than any one thing could ever be? Still an open question in 2017 human discussions.

ryanx435 9y ago

that sort of depends on what the mega structures actually do. if it is some kind of energy source for FTL travel or super weapon or something, it may be worth it to dim your star to get the benefit. also, the mega structures may be built around a star that is not their home system: it could be a trap to get other aliens to send ships to investigate the dimming, at which point the builders of the mega structures capture the investigating ships for whatever reason. dark forest theory and mega structures are compatible under the right circumstances.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

briga 9y ago

There are fish in the deep ocean that produce light as a lure for prey. I don't see why this couldn't be the case with extra-terrestrial life. Whether or not the cause of this dimming is biological or not, I don't think this is a sign that we shouldn't be cautious when trying to make contact with aliens.

krapp 9y ago
I think evidence of stellar-scale engineering would be a very good sign that we should approach the possibility of first contact with caution.

pavement 9y ago

The Dark Forest Theory has some substantial flaws that render it little more than a simple conceptual gambit, rather than an actual strategy for crafting interstellar civilization. Destruction of all peers, to achieve the safety of solitude, is something to expect from the simplistic gropings of a jellyfish. As intelligent life, we can take up better angles of a approach to meet this sort of dilemma. The speed of light will probably stump any emerging civilization, but declaring it's barrier to be an impenetrable prison that transforms all intelligent life into deadly adversaries feels like an idea ripe with fallacies. If such a thing were truly inevitable, ancient human cities and colonies would have behaved the same way, due to centuries of primitive technology incapable of breaking the sound barrier. Imagine the idea that we should always plan to kill each other because we can't run faster than the sound of our own voices. The Law of The Jungle might have some truth to it, but one expects technology wielding social organisms to transcend such anarchy.

erikpukinskis 9y ago
I think fears about both alien and AI intelligence amongst particularly white male engineers are a side effect of a general belief in supremacism. Imagine someone, and I'm not saying this is you or anyone on HN, but imagine in the extreme someone who believes that they are generally smarter than women, dogs, religious believers, children, insects, proto-humans, slaughtered indigenous people, office managers, schoolteachers, people with bachelors degrees in the social "sciences", etc... their sense is that they are at the top of the social hierarchy because they're just smarter than most people, and they are in a flawed but generally meritocratic system. Let's also say that person's primary skill is building software and exploiting capitalist power structures to undermine established cultural practices. When that person imagines what we know is coming, which is intelligent autonomous software with access to capital... that would seem pretty scary. If I'm the smartest kind of person around, and this software could be better than me at what I do, what hope is there for us? Elon Musk's greatest fear is an Ur-Elon Musk, because he really believes in his own Ur-awesomeness. But I'm not sure that's actually a solid understanding of reality. Is Elon Musk really smarter than an ant? Is he really smarter than the people of a slaughtered indigenous culture? Is he really smarter than a black ex-felon with a 2nd grade education? Maybe. maybe. But I take the opposite position. Which is that the biological world is actually extremely intelligent, and the humans at the top of hierarchies are not-particularly-noteworthy pawns of powerful memes. But that the entirity of the biological world, from insects to primates has found solutions to complex problems that Elon Musk could only dream of solving. That there is breathtaking intelligence there that white male engineers tend to forget about. And that all human beings are actually extremely intelligent, it's just that civilization puts up barriers that corral that intelligence in different ways, making race-, gender-, nation- species-, etc-based intelligence differentials look bigger than they actually are. Which means to me: AI intelligence will actually be quite retarded, and not particularly better at genocide or extincting species than we are. Which means our worst enemy will still be ourselves. And any alien intelligence that has advanced beyond us will still have all of the intelligence of the natural world, plus human intelligence and then some. Which means they'll be better at not genociding and not extincting other species than we are. The alternative to supremacism is diversitism, which is a pretty beleaguered idea in tech circles. Is there one best kind of thing, or are all things good at being themselves and the togetherness of things is stronger than any one thing could ever be? Still an open question in 2017 human discussions.