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Additionally, the thought that we're not alone and we're not the most advanced species. If that's the case, then why haven't a more advanced species made contac

Additionally, the thought that we're not alone and we're not the most advanced species. If that's the case, then why haven't a more advanced species made contact yet?

thereau 8y ago
Even if there are more advanced species, maybe they can't travel far enough to contact us. Or maybe they contacted other civilisations and we are just too far to bother.
econochoice 8y ago
Why assume an alien species would value contact?
- VvR-Ox 8y ago
  exactly, if they'd see what we do and were inteligent they would just leave us here to die :D
mirimir 8y ago
Because they've seen enough TV to know that we're dangerous.
keithnz 8y ago
well, our RF penetration of the galaxy is tiny... just over 100 years or so. and the galaxy is about 100k light years across.... so.....
Herodotus38 8y ago
Read the book "The Three Body Problem" and the rest of the trilogy, it provides a very interesting and scary theory that I don't want to ruin.
okonomiyaki3000 8y ago
a) There are only around 500 stars within the 100-or-so-light-year radius that our transmissions have reached. Does intelligent life arise on 1/500 planets? I'd say not even close. b) Maybe they have no way to reach us. Despite sci-fi speculation, we still have no reason to believe the speed of light is not the ultimate speed limit of the universe. c) Maybe they don't care. Aliens in movies often come here to invade us, eat us, steal our resources, etc. But, if any species had the level of technology to come all the way here with a force large enough to subjugate us, they wouldn't need to. Far more resources than they could take from this planet are already freely available floating around in space much easier to take. d) Maybe they're so different from us that they don't even notice we are anything. Maybe we wouldn't notice them either.
- squirrelicus 8y ago
  a) the kind of ship required to travel interstellar at a reasonable pace, such as a nuclear termal rocket or antimatter rocket or the like, is pretty well understood in theory. It will glow like a galactic beacon and would be visible from vastly further away than 100 light years. Unless we're somehow technologically ahead of all other existing civs in our light window, should see somewhere, anywhere, anywhen, a single ship. But we don't. There just ain't ships out there. (b) I agree. We have all reasons to believe it is not possible to accelerate something with mass to 'c'. We know this with astronomical levels of certainty. Anything that changes location without acceleration is either pure energy or pure fantasy. (c) I agree. Even Dyson spheres don't have the raw energy capture to move an Earth of resources out of the sun's gravity well. Perhaps an Earth has rare and valuable resources that are quickly expended, with high value per kilogram. But there's no reason to believe an Earth would be special. The only real reason aliens have to contact us are the same reasons they'd try to immediately genocide us to get us out of their way anyway. (d) this is an entire field of xenospeculation, but high energy rockets are really bright and very probably the only way to get to a different place in space. You pretty much have to talk microbe scale to go unnoticed in space. [Edit, misread point b]
  - leeeeech 8y ago
    > It will glow like a galactic beacon There's no reason to believe it would have to accelerate for all its curse. > You pretty much have to talk microbe scale to go unnoticed in space. There are myriads of stars we know nothing about, planets being discovered; and dust clouds only detectable because they are unbelievably huge.
  - okonomiyaki3000 8y ago
    The brighter a craft is, the less efficient it is. Every photon it emits in a random direction is energy that could have been better used to push it toward its destination. So, if any civilization out there really is super advanced, their ships may be extremely hard to detect. Also, a situation like Star Wars or Star Trek where beings in space vessels just cruise around the galaxy for personal reasons is highly unlikely at any technological level. We shouldn't expect to see a lot of ships out there.
jbigelow76 8y ago
One theory I've come across (can't recall where though) is that we aren't worth contacting given how un-advanced/different we are relative to whoever else is out there. The analogy goes, when the Spanish Conquistadors arrived in the Caribbean and Americas in the 16th century they walked ashore and didn't even notice the little ants under foot as they claimed the land and killed the indigenous peoples; we're the ants in this scenario, we haven't been contacted because we aren't worth it.
- pdonis 8y ago
  The ants weren't "contacted" in the sense of being asked anything, but that doesn't mean they were undisturbed. The question is not why intelligent aliens way beyond our tech level haven't tried to talk to us; the question is why they haven't just happened to crush us underfoot in the course of going about their normal business.
  - jbigelow76 8y ago
    Part of the explanation of the whole conquistador/ant analogy addressing that point is that maybe other beings travel inter-dimensionally or in some other manner that isn't what we take for granted to be the only logical way to get around the universe, big ass spaceships, those would definitely disturb our ant pile.
fzeroracer 8y ago
Imagine the various uncontacted tribes that still exist. Considering how many humans there are, why hasn't there been more malicious actors striving to make contact with these people? Granted this isn't a 100% proper analogy because a lot of these tribes have been contacted prior and have knowledge of the outside world. Yet it could be as something as simple as that; if there are far more advanced species we could be simply left to our own devices on purpose.
aswanson 8y ago
A bacteria in a Petri dish somewhere is saying you don't exist because you'd have sent it messages through sugar chemical signalling by now.
adrianmacneil 8y ago
The answer to this is very obvious: For the same reason that humans have not "made contact" with ants. Why do you assume a higher intelligence would even be capable of making contact with us on a level we understand? The discussion would be meaningless, in the same way that an ant would not comprehend our desire to build a freeway right next to their ant hill.
- pdonis 8y ago
  That just rephrases the question to: Why hasn't a higher intelligence built their equivalent of a freeway right through our ant hill?
  - adrianmacneil 8y ago
    An ant cannot "see" not comprehend the purpose of a freeway, no matter how hard we might try to explain it. It would walk right over it and not think it were any different than your average rock.
    - pdonis 8y ago
      Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that the ant's ant hill gets destroyed if the freeway is built over it. Or that the ant itself gets crushed if it gets run over while walking across the freeway. The ant will notice those things even if it doesn't understand what caused them.
      - adrianmacneil 8y ago
        Exactly. Thus far, all we can say for sure is that we have not yet been carelessly crushed to make room for some intergalactic freeway we do not understand. That doesn't mean there isn't one right in front of our eyes though.
        pdonis 8y ago
        > That doesn't mean there isn't one right in front of our eyes though. If there were, I would expect us to be carelessly crushed in a short period of time.
vl 8y ago
Because of the prime directive, of course.
booleandilemma 8y ago
Maybe we’re being kept isolated like in C.S. Lewis’ “Out of the Silent Planet”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Silent_Planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Silent_Planet
xenadu02 8y ago
1. Space is very, very large. 2. Traveling between stars takes a very long time. 3. Other than a desire for exploration there is no need. Resources and planets are plentiful. 4. It now appears there is only an extremely brief window during which a technological species broadcasts in a detectable way. #4 is probably the biggest problem. Digital compressed broadcasts would be difficult to detect, and by the time you have that technology you can build much more sensitive receivers and don't waste energy dumping millions of watts into space. There could be 1000 intelligent species in the Milky Way right now and it is still unlikely any would visit our solar system within the past 10,000 years, nor in the next 10,000 and we would not be able to detect their faint compressed, encrypted broadcasts.

Additionally, the thought that we're not alone and we're not the most advanced species. If that's the case, then why haven't a more advanced species made contact yet?

thereau 8y ago

Even if there are more advanced species, maybe they can't travel far enough to contact us. Or maybe they contacted other civilisations and we are just too far to bother.

econochoice 8y ago

Why assume an alien species would value contact?

VvR-Ox 8y ago
exactly, if they'd see what we do and were inteligent they would just leave us here to die :D

mirimir 8y ago

Because they've seen enough TV to know that we're dangerous.

keithnz 8y ago

well, our RF penetration of the galaxy is tiny... just over 100 years or so. and the galaxy is about 100k light years across.... so.....

Herodotus38 8y ago

Read the book "The Three Body Problem" and the rest of the trilogy, it provides a very interesting and scary theory that I don't want to ruin.

okonomiyaki3000 8y ago

a) There are only around 500 stars within the 100-or-so-light-year radius that our transmissions have reached. Does intelligent life arise on 1/500 planets? I'd say not even close. b) Maybe they have no way to reach us. Despite sci-fi speculation, we still have no reason to believe the speed of light is not the ultimate speed limit of the universe. c) Maybe they don't care. Aliens in movies often come here to invade us, eat us, steal our resources, etc. But, if any species had the level of technology to come all the way here with a force large enough to subjugate us, they wouldn't need to. Far more resources than they could take from this planet are already freely available floating around in space much easier to take. d) Maybe they're so different from us that they don't even notice we are anything. Maybe we wouldn't notice them either.

squirrelicus 8y ago
a) the kind of ship required to travel interstellar at a reasonable pace, such as a nuclear termal rocket or antimatter rocket or the like, is pretty well understood in theory. It will glow like a galactic beacon and would be visible from vastly further away than 100 light years. Unless we're somehow technologically ahead of all other existing civs in our light window, should see somewhere, anywhere, anywhen, a single ship. But we don't. There just ain't ships out there. (b) I agree. We have all reasons to believe it is not possible to accelerate something with mass to 'c'. We know this with astronomical levels of certainty. Anything that changes location without acceleration is either pure energy or pure fantasy. (c) I agree. Even Dyson spheres don't have the raw energy capture to move an Earth of resources out of the sun's gravity well. Perhaps an Earth has rare and valuable resources that are quickly expended, with high value per kilogram. But there's no reason to believe an Earth would be special. The only real reason aliens have to contact us are the same reasons they'd try to immediately genocide us to get us out of their way anyway. (d) this is an entire field of xenospeculation, but high energy rockets are really bright and very probably the only way to get to a different place in space. You pretty much have to talk microbe scale to go unnoticed in space. [Edit, misread point b]
- leeeeech 8y ago
  > It will glow like a galactic beacon There's no reason to believe it would have to accelerate for all its curse. > You pretty much have to talk microbe scale to go unnoticed in space. There are myriads of stars we know nothing about, planets being discovered; and dust clouds only detectable because they are unbelievably huge.
- okonomiyaki3000 8y ago
  The brighter a craft is, the less efficient it is. Every photon it emits in a random direction is energy that could have been better used to push it toward its destination. So, if any civilization out there really is super advanced, their ships may be extremely hard to detect. Also, a situation like Star Wars or Star Trek where beings in space vessels just cruise around the galaxy for personal reasons is highly unlikely at any technological level. We shouldn't expect to see a lot of ships out there.

jbigelow76 8y ago

One theory I've come across (can't recall where though) is that we aren't worth contacting given how un-advanced/different we are relative to whoever else is out there. The analogy goes, when the Spanish Conquistadors arrived in the Caribbean and Americas in the 16th century they walked ashore and didn't even notice the little ants under foot as they claimed the land and killed the indigenous peoples; we're the ants in this scenario, we haven't been contacted because we aren't worth it.

pdonis 8y ago
The ants weren't "contacted" in the sense of being asked anything, but that doesn't mean they were undisturbed. The question is not why intelligent aliens way beyond our tech level haven't tried to talk to us; the question is why they haven't just happened to crush us underfoot in the course of going about their normal business.
- jbigelow76 8y ago
  Part of the explanation of the whole conquistador/ant analogy addressing that point is that maybe other beings travel inter-dimensionally or in some other manner that isn't what we take for granted to be the only logical way to get around the universe, big ass spaceships, those would definitely disturb our ant pile.

fzeroracer 8y ago

Imagine the various uncontacted tribes that still exist. Considering how many humans there are, why hasn't there been more malicious actors striving to make contact with these people? Granted this isn't a 100% proper analogy because a lot of these tribes have been contacted prior and have knowledge of the outside world. Yet it could be as something as simple as that; if there are far more advanced species we could be simply left to our own devices on purpose.

aswanson 8y ago

A bacteria in a Petri dish somewhere is saying you don't exist because you'd have sent it messages through sugar chemical signalling by now.

adrianmacneil 8y ago

The answer to this is very obvious: For the same reason that humans have not "made contact" with ants. Why do you assume a higher intelligence would even be capable of making contact with us on a level we understand? The discussion would be meaningless, in the same way that an ant would not comprehend our desire to build a freeway right next to their ant hill.

pdonis 8y ago
That just rephrases the question to: Why hasn't a higher intelligence built their equivalent of a freeway right through our ant hill?
- adrianmacneil 8y ago
  An ant cannot "see" not comprehend the purpose of a freeway, no matter how hard we might try to explain it. It would walk right over it and not think it were any different than your average rock.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that the ant's ant hill gets destroyed if the freeway is built over it. Or that the ant itself gets crushed if it gets run over while walking across the freeway. The ant will notice those things even if it doesn't understand what caused them.
    - adrianmacneil 8y ago
      Exactly. Thus far, all we can say for sure is that we have not yet been carelessly crushed to make room for some intergalactic freeway we do not understand. That doesn't mean there isn't one right in front of our eyes though.
      - pdonis 8y ago
        > That doesn't mean there isn't one right in front of our eyes though. If there were, I would expect us to be carelessly crushed in a short period of time.

vl 8y ago

Because of the prime directive, of course.

booleandilemma 8y ago

Maybe we’re being kept isolated like in C.S. Lewis’ “Out of the Silent Planet”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Silent_Planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Silent_Planet

xenadu02 8y ago

1. Space is very, very large. 2. Traveling between stars takes a very long time. 3. Other than a desire for exploration there is no need. Resources and planets are plentiful. 4. It now appears there is only an extremely brief window during which a technological species broadcasts in a detectable way. #4 is probably the biggest problem. Digital compressed broadcasts would be difficult to detect, and by the time you have that technology you can build much more sensitive receivers and don't waste energy dumping millions of watts into space. There could be 1000 intelligent species in the Milky Way right now and it is still unlikely any would visit our solar system within the past 10,000 years, nor in the next 10,000 and we would not be able to detect their faint compressed, encrypted broadcasts.