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I find the argument that advanced growing alien civilizations would construct "Dyson Swarms" pretty convincing. These structures have the huge advantage that n

I find the argument that advanced growing alien civilizations would construct "Dyson Swarms" pretty convincing. These structures have the huge advantage that no new physics is required- we could start building ours now with today's technology. They would look like infrared point sources. Sadly none detected yet: https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/dyson-spheres-the-ultimate-alien-megastructures-are-missing-from-the-galaxy-447f5f87c2dc https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/dyson-spheres-the-ulti...

canhascodez 8y ago
The SNR to Mars is not great at the best of times. We no longer radiate a great deal of high-power analog signals, because those are not efficient. Space is noisy, digital signals look very much like noise, and radiating to space is not usually the most efficient thing to do if you can avoid it. Our chances of detecting our own planet even from the nearest star would be pretty minimal. Perhaps someone might be able to explain to me why we postulate being able to detect extrasolar aliens.
- Chris_Chambers 8y ago
  A Dyson swarm essentially attempts to completely surround a star with solar panels. Infrared wavelengths would then be uncontrollably radiated out into space by the overheating solar panels.
  - canhascodez 8y ago
    Yes, I'm aware. How many of those do you think you could hide in a ten-light-year circle around Earth, and how long do you think it would be before we were able to find them? To a first approximation, the only things that we can see at stellar scales are stars, and all of the discussions on this topic seem to revolve around detecting radio transmissions. This page[0] gives pretty pessimistic numbers for the maximum SNR to Mars. There seems to be some massive disconnect between what people are looking for and what we are currently emitting, or what we might expect an advanced species to be emitting. And my assumption in these cases is that it's substantially more likely that I am a fool and missing something important rather than that everyone else is. [0] http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/qsl-mars-communication3.htm http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/qsl-mars-communication3.ht...
bena 8y ago
Why do you find that convincing? He pretty much handwaves away one of the biggest problems: material. Saying "we'll harvest Mercury" is such a "world hunger solution"* that I can't take anything further seriously. *World hunger solution: A solution presented in such a way to seem simple but instead hides many more problems just under the surface. e.g. The best solution to world hunger is to simply give everyone enough food. True, that would solve the problem, but we don't know how to do that. And saying that "advanced civilizations" will be able to do it is pretty much going into the Giorgio Tsoukalos camp. "Aliens" is not an answer. It still ignores the how. What are the costs of harvesting an entire planet? What are the energy requirements to send mining equipment there, mine the planet, and ship the materials back here to be processed into something useful? Why do you assume that that level of technology will be cheap and readily available in the future?
- jhallenworld 8y ago
  It's convincing in that it seems physically possible. Even better, it's falsifiable: look for infrared point sources. Also, what options do you have if you're out of real estate? There is no faster than light travel. Slower than light interstellar travel is certainly not going to be cheap or easy. Of course the other option is for your civilization to stop growing, but who knows if all aliens would go for that.
  - bena 8y ago
    No infrared point sources just means it's not likely there are any Dyson spheres. It doesn't tell us why there are no Dyson spheres. > Of course the other option is for your civilization to stop growing, but who knows if all aliens would go for that. You act like this is a choice. What if it's not a choice? What if the initial cost to build a Dyson sphere is too great to overcome? Whether in time, material, energy, or another thing. What if it's just not feasible? Where does that leave you? You've basically reframed your statement. You find it convincing because you think it seems physically possible. But how? We're just getting to Mars and you think a significant mining operation on an alien planet to be something we're technologically capable of. We've skipped straight to 3) Profit and forgot to flesh out step 2).
Analemma_ 8y ago
> I find the argument that advanced growing alien civilizations would construct "Dyson Swarms" pretty convincing. Why? I know it's a staple of SF that, on a long enough timespan, we will surely eventually build stuff like Dyson swarms and interstellar ships, but the more I observe actual humans, the less convincing I find this argument. Even assuming great advances in technology, Dyson swarms will be ridiculously expensive to build, especially relative to the benefits they provide, and human grumbling about costs and taxes will probably kill the project instead. More generally, given the conflict between "fund and build this highly exotic and expensive thing now" vs. "don't bother, thus keeping taxes low", humans will always choose the latter in the absence of some kind of external motivation beyond "for science!", or even our own survival. Americans only agreed to spend the zillion dollars to go to the moon because we were in a dick-waving contest with the Soviets, and a lot of the necessary technology was already in existence thanks to money spent on ICBMs. I think it's more likely than not that we will keep kicking the can down the road vis-a-vis the current problems of our population growth, and then just go extinct when they finally catch up to us. Or, even if you're not that pessimistic, that we just stay on Earth because no one wants to bother with the difficulties of going elsewhere. It's totally possible that the same thing happens to most other intelligent species and so there are no Dyson swarms.
- crpearce 8y ago
  I think a potential motivation for investing in megascale engineering projects is right there in your comment — military advantage. If humans do manage to colonize other planets it seems inevitable that there will eventually be wars (cold or otherwise) that involve many billions or trillions of people spread over multiple planets or star systems. An ongoing conflict on that scale seems like a great reason to develop a Dyson swarm — we don’t know what kinds of weapons would be involved in a war like that but it’s a safe bet that they require enormous amounts of energy. The first Dyson swarm may well be the result of a dick-waving contest with mass drivers instead of ICBMs. Just think, a military entity with the population and resources of NATO or the Warsaw Pact would have been totally inconceivable just a few hundred years ago.
  - pasabagi 8y ago

canhascodez 8y ago

The SNR to Mars is not great at the best of times. We no longer radiate a great deal of high-power analog signals, because those are not efficient. Space is noisy, digital signals look very much like noise, and radiating to space is not usually the most efficient thing to do if you can avoid it. Our chances of detecting our own planet even from the nearest star would be pretty minimal. Perhaps someone might be able to explain to me why we postulate being able to detect extrasolar aliens.

Chris_Chambers 8y ago
A Dyson swarm essentially attempts to completely surround a star with solar panels. Infrared wavelengths would then be uncontrollably radiated out into space by the overheating solar panels.
- canhascodez 8y ago
  Yes, I'm aware. How many of those do you think you could hide in a ten-light-year circle around Earth, and how long do you think it would be before we were able to find them? To a first approximation, the only things that we can see at stellar scales are stars, and all of the discussions on this topic seem to revolve around detecting radio transmissions. This page[0] gives pretty pessimistic numbers for the maximum SNR to Mars. There seems to be some massive disconnect between what people are looking for and what we are currently emitting, or what we might expect an advanced species to be emitting. And my assumption in these cases is that it's substantially more likely that I am a fool and missing something important rather than that everyone else is. [0] http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/qsl-mars-communication3.htm http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/qsl-mars-communication3.ht...

bena 8y ago

Why do you find that convincing? He pretty much handwaves away one of the biggest problems: material. Saying "we'll harvest Mercury" is such a "world hunger solution"* that I can't take anything further seriously. *World hunger solution: A solution presented in such a way to seem simple but instead hides many more problems just under the surface. e.g. The best solution to world hunger is to simply give everyone enough food. True, that would solve the problem, but we don't know how to do that. And saying that "advanced civilizations" will be able to do it is pretty much going into the Giorgio Tsoukalos camp. "Aliens" is not an answer. It still ignores the how. What are the costs of harvesting an entire planet? What are the energy requirements to send mining equipment there, mine the planet, and ship the materials back here to be processed into something useful? Why do you assume that that level of technology will be cheap and readily available in the future?

jhallenworld 8y ago
It's convincing in that it seems physically possible. Even better, it's falsifiable: look for infrared point sources. Also, what options do you have if you're out of real estate? There is no faster than light travel. Slower than light interstellar travel is certainly not going to be cheap or easy. Of course the other option is for your civilization to stop growing, but who knows if all aliens would go for that.
- bena 8y ago
  No infrared point sources just means it's not likely there are any Dyson spheres. It doesn't tell us why there are no Dyson spheres. > Of course the other option is for your civilization to stop growing, but who knows if all aliens would go for that. You act like this is a choice. What if it's not a choice? What if the initial cost to build a Dyson sphere is too great to overcome? Whether in time, material, energy, or another thing. What if it's just not feasible? Where does that leave you? You've basically reframed your statement. You find it convincing because you think it seems physically possible. But how? We're just getting to Mars and you think a significant mining operation on an alien planet to be something we're technologically capable of. We've skipped straight to 3) Profit and forgot to flesh out step 2).

Analemma_ 8y ago

> I find the argument that advanced growing alien civilizations would construct "Dyson Swarms" pretty convincing. Why? I know it's a staple of SF that, on a long enough timespan, we will surely eventually build stuff like Dyson swarms and interstellar ships, but the more I observe actual humans, the less convincing I find this argument. Even assuming great advances in technology, Dyson swarms will be ridiculously expensive to build, especially relative to the benefits they provide, and human grumbling about costs and taxes will probably kill the project instead. More generally, given the conflict between "fund and build this highly exotic and expensive thing now" vs. "don't bother, thus keeping taxes low", humans will always choose the latter in the absence of some kind of external motivation beyond "for science!", or even our own survival. Americans only agreed to spend the zillion dollars to go to the moon because we were in a dick-waving contest with the Soviets, and a lot of the necessary technology was already in existence thanks to money spent on ICBMs. I think it's more likely than not that we will keep kicking the can down the road vis-a-vis the current problems of our population growth, and then just go extinct when they finally catch up to us. Or, even if you're not that pessimistic, that we just stay on Earth because no one wants to bother with the difficulties of going elsewhere. It's totally possible that the same thing happens to most other intelligent species and so there are no Dyson swarms.

crpearce 8y ago
I think a potential motivation for investing in megascale engineering projects is right there in your comment — military advantage. If humans do manage to colonize other planets it seems inevitable that there will eventually be wars (cold or otherwise) that involve many billions or trillions of people spread over multiple planets or star systems. An ongoing conflict on that scale seems like a great reason to develop a Dyson swarm — we don’t know what kinds of weapons would be involved in a war like that but it’s a safe bet that they require enormous amounts of energy. The first Dyson swarm may well be the result of a dick-waving contest with mass drivers instead of ICBMs. Just think, a military entity with the population and resources of NATO or the Warsaw Pact would have been totally inconceivable just a few hundred years ago.
- pasabagi 8y ago