10 ms·
Nothing good will come of this. Stay dark in the forest.
by mceoin 9y ago
Nothing good will come of this. Stay dark in the forest.
- humanfromearth 9y agoLet's hope they don't use the Sun as an amplifier.
- shaunlgs 9y agoI get that reference.
- NeoBasilisk 9y agoIsn't it primarily for receiving signals rather than sending them? Of course if we ever do receive a convincing signal that appears to come from extraterrestrials, it is nearly unthinkable that no one would send anything back in that direction, so I see your point.
- delecti 9y agoI suspect that any theoretical aliens which would have hostile intentions towards us and could get here to inflict them is going to be able to find us even if we don't go out of our way to make our presence known.
- okonomiyaki3000 9y agoWhy would any aliens have any intentions toward us? Why should they care at all? The only resources we have on earth that aren't more easily acquired in space are sitcoms and reality shows.
- celticninja 9y agoPopulations expand exponentially. To keep growing the population will eventually need resources in space. This leads to more exponential growth and then we are competing for the same space resources as the aliens in a few centuries time. If the aliens sent a medium sized asteroid to impact earth now they would hinder our progress significantly, allowing them the opportunity to get the resources first.
- dheera 9y agoWe aren't anywhere near anything resembling competition for space resources. If we could harness all the resources available around the solar system and beyond, we wouldn't have an energy crisis at all. The problem is actually getting those resources transported. If an alien had means to mine and transport resources, they'd probably have found plenty of other richer resources besides Earth.
- danbruc 9y agoPopulations can not grow exponentially for a long time, the volume of space you can colonize only grows with the third power of time given that you are limited to the speed of light. And within galaxies it's more like the second power due to the flat shape of galaxies. With our current rate of population growth, I think about one or two percent per year if I remember correctly, we would only make it a few percent across the Milkyway before running out of resources even if we could travel at the speed of light. You can search my comment history, there is somewhere a more detailed comment with all the numbers and assumptions. Bottom line is, if you want to colonialize the universe, you either need a population growth rate very close to zero and a lot of patience or you have to beat Einstein. EDIT: Here [1] is the mentioned comment. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13638012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13638012
- njarboe 9y agoOr growth and then collapses all over the place. If humans colonize the galaxy (universe is really hard), it will likely look like a growing amoeba than an expanding sphere.
- Tepix 9y agoEven the solar system is hard. The galaxy will be extremely challenging.
- xelxebar 9y agoThis is an amazing observation. It's not terribly difficult to work out the numbers once it's been pointed out, but I'm not sure if I'd have come up with it on my own. For others who like this sort of thing, I highly recommend Isaac Arthur's YouTube channel: http://m.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g http://m.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g
- ghrifter 9y agoTo exterminate us so that we dont have a chance to challenge them could be a motivation.
- maxander 9y agoExcept that the same logic works the other way- what do they have that we would want to mess with them over? The universe is a big place. Looking around, it seems that the endless-exponential-expansion route hasn’t proven popular with anyone yet. There may just be enough to go around.
- vidarh 9y agoWhy do we step on ants and spiders? It doesn't need to be rational. All it takes is one sufficiently powerful species to decide "better safe than sorry" and lobbing suitable planet killers at any new upstarts they notice.
- okonomiyaki3000 9y agoCheck out this cool spider they have in Myanmar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_blue_tarantula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_blue_tarantula Now that you know it's there, don't you feel like expending the time, energy, and resources necessary to travel there so you can step on it?
- fma 9y agoSounds like famous last words of the Mayans.
- zamalek 9y agoAnthropomorphising ET is a guess at best. Becoming interstellar likely requires putting your differences aside as a species. You can hardly pour the majority of your resources into survival (space-faring) when you are instead pouring them into extinction (war and pollution).
- roryisok 9y agoJust playing devils advocate, but another scenario might be if one side of a warring species annihilates the other, and then takes off into space. What if the Nazis won WW2, and started a space program in the 60s? There could be an alien equivalent of the Third Reich out there colonizing worlds.
- BjoernKW 9y agoWar and annihilation is not a sustainable endeavour. Without an enemy and without constant war the Third Reich would likely have fallen apart pretty quickly. It wasn't exactly a utopia and their economy mostly was a large Ponzi scheme predicated on constant war. Even arguably less aggressive and more successful (in terms of longevity) entities such as the British or the Spanish Empire weren't particularly long-lived on a large timescale.
- mazerackham 9y agoOne could've argued that making seafaring voyages in the 1600s requires putting your differences aside. But instead we had a bunch of barbarians going around extinguishing and enslaving the world =P
- retailbuyout 9y agoWell we’re weirdly obsessed with aliens; why wouldn’t aliens be weirdly obsessed with us?
- delecti 9y agoColonization has ruined quite a few people's days, as have poaching, and there have been literal zoos with humans as attractions. An alien species could also have motives that are entirely unrelatable, or even simply cause us harm due to carelessness or mistake. Besides, we don't need to conclusively enumerate each and every reason that someone might have for ruining our party to recognize that it's possible.
- tialaramex 9y agoMore seriously, although those stories are a lot of fun, (and also check out his short stories which I felt are better): It is very unlikely that there is anything out there that is capable of actually coming here, for the same reason it's very unlikely we can ever leave the solar system. A radio "conversation" over many generations - if that's even possible - would be the high point of our civilisation.
- dmix 9y agoIs there any literature that digs deeply into this subject? Ideally by someone far smarter than the average smart person? I've been meaning to read up on this subject...
- sfifs 9y agoWell the original post refers to the Three Body Problem series which is a rather interesting take on the topic. The English translations have now been available for a couple of years.
- blacksmith_tb 9y agoAgreed, unless we haven't gotten a hold of all the physics necessary for trips on that scale. That said, I do think it's overly pessimistic to think that aliens would mistreat us as a matter of course - obviously we've done a lot of that to each other in the past, but I'd like to think that most modern societies (say, Norway, to pick a random example) wouldn't just casually enslave and kill a new tribe. We're at a point in our history where even the idea of colonizing is anathema (not that there isn't plenty of fallout from before that was true...). So I don't have a hard time imagining a species that's thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years ahead of us would have a very different take on interacting with other sentient beings (assuming we make that cut for them).
- Gustomaximus 9y agoTo add to that point, most colonisation has been about resource capture.If you have technology for inter galactic travel I imagine resource access of the universe becomes abundant. But who knows, maybe we make good pets.
- okonomiyaki3000 9y agoNothing at all will come of this. There is practically zero chance of ever detecting a signal from the one or two other intelligent species that might be in our galaxy. But your comment sounds like you are concerned about broadcasting. The chinese (like SETI) are just listening. Of course, we're all broadcasting all the time but, so what? What do we have to fear from being heard?
- QAPereo 9y agoHis comment is referencing an excellent trilogy by Cixin Liu, although it’s true that also related to broadcasting. Massive spoilers of the second and first books: https://books.google.com/books?id=ThKrDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT163&lpg=PT163&dq=dark+forest+stealthy+hunters+chains+of+suspicion&source=bl&ots=f6FBoljCfM&sig=SBjv7oc-J7Uigvwr6eHkqdnwDBE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjYqd2PmbDXAhXJqFQKHb6jCbgQ6AEIJjAA https://books.google.com/books?id=ThKrDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT163&lpg=... https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/18127/dark-forest-postulate-used-to-explain-the-fermi-paradox https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/18127/dark-fo...
- amasad 9y ago> There is practically zero chance of ever detecting a signal from the one or two other intelligent species that might be in our galaxy. What are you basing this on? I'd like to see your Drake equation variables.
- afsina 9y agoHow about chances that there is another intelligent being in another planet is 10^-1000 ?
- narrator 9y agoWhat if we're the North Sentinel Island ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island ) of the universe? The universe is a really really big place and there are probably plenty of habitable planets, especially with terraforming. We're probably just a little remote violent oddity. The most interesting thing about the earth is probably our DNA. They can get that easily without destroying us.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y agoNorth Senetinel Island is a anachronism. Much more likely to happen is Hispaniola. From De Casas: Destruction of the Indies The Spaniards first assaulted the innocent Sheep, so qualified by the Almighty, as is premention'd, like most cruel Tygers, Wolves and Lions hunger-starv'd, studying nothing, for the space of Forty Years, after their first landing, but the Massacre of these Wretches, whom they have so inhumanely and barbarously butcher'd and harass'd with several kinds of Torments, never before known, or heard (of which you shall have some account in the following Discourse) that of Three Millions of Persons, which lived in Hispaniola itself, there is at present but the inconsiderable remnant of scarce Three Hundred. Nay the Isle of Cuba, which extends as far, as Valledolid in Spain is distant from Rome, lies now uncultivated, like a Desert, and intomb'd in its own Ruins. You may also find the Isles of St. John, and Jamaica, both large and fruitful places, unpeopled and desolate. The Lucayan Islands on the North Side, adjacent to Hispaniola and Cuba, which are Sixty in number, or thereabout, together with with those, vulgarly known by the name of the Gigantic Isles, and others, the most infertile whereof, exceeds the Royal Garden of Sevil in fruitfulness, a most Healthful and pleasant Climat, is now laid waste and uninhabited; and whereas, when the Spaniards first arriv'd here, about Five Hundred Thousand Men dwelt in it, they are now cut off, some by slaughter, and others ravished away by Force and Violence, to work in the Mines of Hispanioloa, which was destitute of Native Inhabitants Whenever "explorers" from distant parts have "discovered" new areas, throughout history the indigenous peoples get badly screwed over. See the history of post-Columbus native Americans. Look at India and China to see what even very advanced civilizations with large populations still get screwed by the invaders.
- rgbrenner 9y ago
- kranner 9y agoPresumably they haven't found a way to use the Sun as an amplifier yet.
- Firebrand 9y agoToo late for that. Humanity has been broadcasting radio waves into deep space for more than a hundred years now, since the days of Marconi.
- mratzloff 9y agoNo, we haven't been. Of the signals that escape the ionosphere, all are indistinguishable from background noise by the time they reach Alpha Centauri. We're only really broadcasting within the solar system and a little beyond. Even if we had been broadcasting a very strong signal from the first radio experiment in all directions into space, that would still be less than 0.1% of the galaxy. We're fine. Aliens aren't watching The Honeymooners.
- sidcool 9y agoI think if the earth were to get destroyed (which is becoming more and more likely), an alien invasion would be the best way to get there.