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Why 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 a

Why 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 ago
Populations 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 ago
  We 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 ago
  Populations 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 ago
    Or 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 ago
      Even the solar system is hard. The galaxy will be extremely challenging.
  - xelxebar 9y ago
    This 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
  - vidarh 9y ago
    Our current rate of population growth is declining, and projected to become negative (for a while) towards the end of this century, before resuming growth at a much slower pace. Not disagreeing with your conclusion, but assuming the current rate of population growth is relatively meaningless seeing as no reasonable model assumes current growth rates will continue (as it's been steadily changing).
    - danbruc 9y ago
      I only used our current population growth rate not because I expect it to remain unchanged but because it is on the order of one percent which is towards the lower end of growth rates one will encounter when looking at all kinds of different things and systems. The important point is that this relatively small growth rate is already way too large. I don't know what you were exactly thinking of when you wrote »[...] before resuming growth at a much slower pace [...]« but maybe one-tenth of a percent? Unfortunately that is still way too large, to colonialize the Milky Way before hitting resource limits you need it down at one one-thousandth of a percent or so, for the entire universe you need to decrease it several orders of magnitude more. At least on average, if you could use something like cryostasis while travelling through the vast emptiness between stars you could afford times with higher growth rates.
- rgbrenner 9y ago
  Populations expand exponentially. Our population isn't expanding exponentially. World population grew at 2%/yr in 1960, 1.55% in 1995, 1.25% in 2005, 1.18% in 2015, 1.14% in 2016, and 1.12% this year. Soon every person we send off the planet will just reduce earth population by 1. We'll be lucky if people reproduce enough to keep the population steady.
  - vidarh 9y ago
    It's very interesting actually to see how perceptions lag reality in this respect. People are still largely holding on to the idea that we're headed towards massive overpopulation thanks to exponential growth. But current projections is a population in the region of 10bn first by the end of the century, with some projections suggesting population decline from as early as 2040 (though that's an outlier). More scenarios predict a peak in the 2070-2100 timeframe; some predict continued, but much reduced growth beyond 2100. As far as I'm aware, though, all reasonable scenarios suggest that the rate of growth will at the very least continue to slow for a long time.
  - Tepix 9y ago
    Look at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bev%C3%B6lkerungsentwicklung#/media/File:World-pop-hist-de-2.png https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bev%C3%B6lkerungsentwicklung#/... That looks pretty exponential to me. If it no longer looks exponential when looking at the last few years perhaps it's because we're running into resource limits.
    - rgbrenner 9y ago
      s-curves look exponential when you're in the middle of the curve. It's true that animal populations peak (s-curve) when they hit resource limits (ie: carrying capacity of the environment). But our population has slowed because of education (in particular, education of women)... it's an effect thats been repeated all over the world. If it were resource limits, we would see things like famine (killing the excess members of the population), rampant disease (which becomes easier to spread when people are closer to each other), etc. We're definitely not there in the developed world; and the 3rd world isnt there either, since they have some of the highest reproductive rates.
ghrifter 9y ago
To exterminate us so that we dont have a chance to challenge them could be a motivation.
- maxander 9y ago
  Except 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 ago
    Why 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 ago
      Check 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 ago
Sounds like famous last words of the Mayans.
- zamalek 9y ago
  Anthropomorphising 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 ago
    Just 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 ago
      War 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 ago
    One 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 ago
Well we’re weirdly obsessed with aliens; why wouldn’t aliens be weirdly obsessed with us?
delecti 9y ago
Colonization 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.

Why 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 ago

Populations 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 ago
We 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 ago
Populations 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 ago
  Or 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 ago
    Even the solar system is hard. The galaxy will be extremely challenging.
- xelxebar 9y ago
  This 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
- vidarh 9y ago
  Our current rate of population growth is declining, and projected to become negative (for a while) towards the end of this century, before resuming growth at a much slower pace. Not disagreeing with your conclusion, but assuming the current rate of population growth is relatively meaningless seeing as no reasonable model assumes current growth rates will continue (as it's been steadily changing).
  - danbruc 9y ago
    I only used our current population growth rate not because I expect it to remain unchanged but because it is on the order of one percent which is towards the lower end of growth rates one will encounter when looking at all kinds of different things and systems. The important point is that this relatively small growth rate is already way too large. I don't know what you were exactly thinking of when you wrote »[...] before resuming growth at a much slower pace [...]« but maybe one-tenth of a percent? Unfortunately that is still way too large, to colonialize the Milky Way before hitting resource limits you need it down at one one-thousandth of a percent or so, for the entire universe you need to decrease it several orders of magnitude more. At least on average, if you could use something like cryostasis while travelling through the vast emptiness between stars you could afford times with higher growth rates.
rgbrenner 9y ago
Populations expand exponentially. Our population isn't expanding exponentially. World population grew at 2%/yr in 1960, 1.55% in 1995, 1.25% in 2005, 1.18% in 2015, 1.14% in 2016, and 1.12% this year. Soon every person we send off the planet will just reduce earth population by 1. We'll be lucky if people reproduce enough to keep the population steady.
- vidarh 9y ago
  It's very interesting actually to see how perceptions lag reality in this respect. People are still largely holding on to the idea that we're headed towards massive overpopulation thanks to exponential growth. But current projections is a population in the region of 10bn first by the end of the century, with some projections suggesting population decline from as early as 2040 (though that's an outlier). More scenarios predict a peak in the 2070-2100 timeframe; some predict continued, but much reduced growth beyond 2100. As far as I'm aware, though, all reasonable scenarios suggest that the rate of growth will at the very least continue to slow for a long time.
- Tepix 9y ago
  Look at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bev%C3%B6lkerungsentwicklung#/media/File:World-pop-hist-de-2.png https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bev%C3%B6lkerungsentwicklung#/... That looks pretty exponential to me. If it no longer looks exponential when looking at the last few years perhaps it's because we're running into resource limits.
  - rgbrenner 9y ago
    s-curves look exponential when you're in the middle of the curve. It's true that animal populations peak (s-curve) when they hit resource limits (ie: carrying capacity of the environment). But our population has slowed because of education (in particular, education of women)... it's an effect thats been repeated all over the world. If it were resource limits, we would see things like famine (killing the excess members of the population), rampant disease (which becomes easier to spread when people are closer to each other), etc. We're definitely not there in the developed world; and the 3rd world isnt there either, since they have some of the highest reproductive rates.

ghrifter 9y ago

To exterminate us so that we dont have a chance to challenge them could be a motivation.

maxander 9y ago
Except 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 ago
  Why 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 ago
    Check 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 ago

Sounds like famous last words of the Mayans.

zamalek 9y ago
Anthropomorphising 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 ago
  Just 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 ago
    War 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 ago
  One 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 ago

Well we’re weirdly obsessed with aliens; why wouldn’t aliens be weirdly obsessed with us?

delecti 9y ago

Colonization 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.