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If you haven’t read “Three Body Problem” - warning spoiler alert - the premise was mind blowing to me - that the reason aliens aren’t broadcasting signals is th

If you haven’t read “Three Body Problem” - warning spoiler alert - the premise was mind blowing to me - that the reason aliens aren’t broadcasting signals is that more mature spacefaring societies use those signals as targeting vectors! Eg aliens aren’t interested in making contact, and our efforts to broadcast our location could be inviting our ruin.

mig39 8y ago
That's exactly where my mind went when I read the link... whatever we do, don't answer the signal :-)
- gnulinux 8y ago
  We'd be safe for 3 billion years, probably. Also I don't think we have the technology to answer that call (can radio waves sent by humans be visible after traveling 3 billion lightyears?)
- nickthemagicman 8y ago
  Haha sounds like a movie preview.
bluGill 8y ago
Possible, but not something I'm worried about. Those "mature" societies are still limited to the speed of light, they would have to be willing to wait out an average trip of thousands of years just to wipe out new civilizations in our galaxy - assuming the new civilization survives that long.
- lolc 8y ago
  Yes! The bursts from FRB 121102 took 3 billion years to reach earth.
- lolsal 8y ago
  > Those "mature" societies are still limited to the speed of light, Isn't that just an assumption though? As short as 1000 years ago traveling to the moon seemed impossible.
  - hyperbovine 8y ago
    FTL would break a lot of other evidence-based findings in a way that lunar travel did not.
    - HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
      Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that newer theories of physics do not exactly overthrow older ones. The conservation of energy for example still holds true for everything that Newton observed it at but for in other situations it falls apart. So E=mc^2 is an extension of the original law. Same thing with the theories of relativity, they explain Newtons observations as a subsection of a bigger system. Afaik nothing in current physics prevents FTL from being logically possible. Nothing predicts it either but that doesn't mean it's impossible.
      - yoklov 8y ago
        Special relativity says it's not possible. General relativity says that maybe you can get something equivalent by taking non-linear paths through space-time but those sorts of things require very radical types of matter to avoid collapsing into a black hole. And realistically, it's IMO very unlikely that these sorts of things would remain in a more complete (e.g. quantum) theory of gravity.
    - lolsal 8y ago
      This is a well articulated point. You're right. My only counter might be something less articulate like "1000 years ago our understanding of physics/space/etc was incomplete." Possibly our understanding now is still incomplete.
  - incompatible 8y ago
    With the technology in the "The Three-Body Problem", the aliens can monitor all the solar systems they like with sophons and then whack the dangerous ones with projectiles fired by the nearest space ship.
- cgriswald 8y ago
  A mature civilization could probably perform a kinetic bombardment with masses accelerated to a significant value of c. There would be waiting, but there would be no need to travel here personally. That said, I'm not particularly worried about it either. I suspect we will either have scientific value (independently evolve intelligence, which appears rare) or never pose a real threat to them, assuming learning curves remain exponential for civilizations.
- colordrops 8y ago
  To assume they are limited to the speed of light is like ants assuming that pheromones are the only method of navigation.
  - EForEndeavour 8y ago
    But ants can't build sensors to indirectly or more accurately observe other forms of communication, much less surmise about their existence in the first place. The complexity scale of intelligent life can't increase forever, and there's no reason to expect the ants:humans ratio to extend to humans:aliens. Whoever's out there is bound by the rules of this universe, just as we are.
    - colordrops 8y ago
      > The complexity scale of intelligent life can't increase forever What is the reasoning behind this statement? > and there's no reason to expect the ants:humans ratio to extend to humans:aliens the same is true of the inverse, being that there's no reason to expect that humans are at the limit of complexity, so for the purpose of speculation as to the likelihood of far more intelligent life, there's no good reason to exclude the possibility.
      - pcnix 8y ago
        There's something called the Beckenstein bound[0] which is the higher bound on information density in a volume of space. That's probably the limit on complexity in life. That said, we're several orders of magnitude away from that, and even we have a theoretical way of FTL travel[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
- oarla 8y ago
  It is theorized that the laws of Physics can be different in different parts of the universe. Maybe elsewhere speed of light isn't an issue
- phil248 8y ago
  If they are functionally immortal - and what sufficiently advanced species wouldn't make themselves immortal at first opportunity - thousands of years may not be a deterrent at all.
- pcnix 8y ago
  There's always things like the Alcubierre drive that circumvent the speed of light. Thousands of years isn't necessarily what is needed. It's just that they have to find out that there's someone here, which will need light from us to get there, and that might take thousands of years. Billions, probably.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
That always seemed to me to be some particularly flawed reasoning. Any civilization advanced enough to be able to destroy another at cosmic scales is advanced enough to know that the universe will end some day, so there's no real virtue to killing off everyone who isn't you just so you can hoard all the resources until heat-death takes you.
- hyperbovine 8y ago
  Any civilization advanced enough to travel the distances in question has better things to do than pick on puny Terrans. It's like driving from California to Florida to shoot a squirrel.
- pcnix 8y ago
  Spoilers The premise of the series is that the Universe is like a dark forest. A civilization is like a hunter wandering through a dark forest. Any sound is likely to first be met with a bullet and then curiosity. At galactic scales, by the time you first communicate with a civilisation, they might have advanced immensely from when you first detected them, and the slightest miscommunication could cause war at massive scales with high probabilities of losses on both sides, so you shoot at the first noise you hear with extremely low effort weaponry that will definitely kill an underdeveloped civilization. The universe will end some day, but there's no point in letting your civilization end before that just because someone else decided to kill you when you were being generous. To be clear though, I would rather be optimistic and say that civilizations can learn to work and live together, but the game theory explanation of this situation does make a lot of sense, and is backed up by a fair amount of historic data.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    > The universe will end some day, but there's no point in letting your civilization end before that just because someone else decided to kill you when you were being generous. But that's a philosophy of life that, taken to its logical conclusion, means that you should be doing your best to kill everyone that isn't you just in case, for instance, their progeny could hurt yours. It is, frankly, very silly.
AceJohnny2 8y ago
It's a common answer to the Fermi Paradox ("if life is likely, why don't we see it?") in the sci-fi world. Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space [1] series of books (highly recommended) have the same premise, as does Greg Bears "Forge of God" [2] and from 1987 and its followup "Anvil of Stars". Also, I hear (haven't read it yet), Peter Watts' "Blindsight" [3] Also the late Stephen Hawking's fears. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space_universe [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)
- komali2 8y ago
  Spoilers. In Blindsight, humans are the only intelligent lifeform in the Galaxy that are conscious. Thus, they're the only ones that produce art, entertainment, or just talk to each other for "no reason." Other intelligent life in the Galaxy does communicate, but only to exchange resources in a mutually beneficial way. So when a bunch of Earth transmissions of War of the World's or talk news finally make it out there, one set of aliens begins receiving and decoding this information. As it becomes clear the information is meaningless and worthless, it becomes obvious to the non-conscious aliens that humans are waging an information attack on the entire galaxy. They are essentially ddosing the Galaxy with worthless em radiation. So, the aliens come to kill them. Luckily the space vampires beat them to it.
settler4 8y ago
Are we broadcasting signals?
- krapp 8y ago
  Yes, for about a century.

mig39 8y ago

That's exactly where my mind went when I read the link... whatever we do, don't answer the signal :-)

gnulinux 8y ago
We'd be safe for 3 billion years, probably. Also I don't think we have the technology to answer that call (can radio waves sent by humans be visible after traveling 3 billion lightyears?)
nickthemagicman 8y ago
Haha sounds like a movie preview.

bluGill 8y ago

Possible, but not something I'm worried about. Those "mature" societies are still limited to the speed of light, they would have to be willing to wait out an average trip of thousands of years just to wipe out new civilizations in our galaxy - assuming the new civilization survives that long.

lolc 8y ago
Yes! The bursts from FRB 121102 took 3 billion years to reach earth.
lolsal 8y ago
> Those "mature" societies are still limited to the speed of light, Isn't that just an assumption though? As short as 1000 years ago traveling to the moon seemed impossible.
- hyperbovine 8y ago
  FTL would break a lot of other evidence-based findings in a way that lunar travel did not.
  - HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that newer theories of physics do not exactly overthrow older ones. The conservation of energy for example still holds true for everything that Newton observed it at but for in other situations it falls apart. So E=mc^2 is an extension of the original law. Same thing with the theories of relativity, they explain Newtons observations as a subsection of a bigger system. Afaik nothing in current physics prevents FTL from being logically possible. Nothing predicts it either but that doesn't mean it's impossible.
    - yoklov 8y ago
      Special relativity says it's not possible. General relativity says that maybe you can get something equivalent by taking non-linear paths through space-time but those sorts of things require very radical types of matter to avoid collapsing into a black hole. And realistically, it's IMO very unlikely that these sorts of things would remain in a more complete (e.g. quantum) theory of gravity.
  - lolsal 8y ago
    This is a well articulated point. You're right. My only counter might be something less articulate like "1000 years ago our understanding of physics/space/etc was incomplete." Possibly our understanding now is still incomplete.
- incompatible 8y ago
  With the technology in the "The Three-Body Problem", the aliens can monitor all the solar systems they like with sophons and then whack the dangerous ones with projectiles fired by the nearest space ship.
cgriswald 8y ago
A mature civilization could probably perform a kinetic bombardment with masses accelerated to a significant value of c. There would be waiting, but there would be no need to travel here personally. That said, I'm not particularly worried about it either. I suspect we will either have scientific value (independently evolve intelligence, which appears rare) or never pose a real threat to them, assuming learning curves remain exponential for civilizations.
colordrops 8y ago
To assume they are limited to the speed of light is like ants assuming that pheromones are the only method of navigation.
- EForEndeavour 8y ago
  But ants can't build sensors to indirectly or more accurately observe other forms of communication, much less surmise about their existence in the first place. The complexity scale of intelligent life can't increase forever, and there's no reason to expect the ants:humans ratio to extend to humans:aliens. Whoever's out there is bound by the rules of this universe, just as we are.
  - colordrops 8y ago
    > The complexity scale of intelligent life can't increase forever What is the reasoning behind this statement? > and there's no reason to expect the ants:humans ratio to extend to humans:aliens the same is true of the inverse, being that there's no reason to expect that humans are at the limit of complexity, so for the purpose of speculation as to the likelihood of far more intelligent life, there's no good reason to exclude the possibility.
    - pcnix 8y ago
      There's something called the Beckenstein bound[0] which is the higher bound on information density in a volume of space. That's probably the limit on complexity in life. That said, we're several orders of magnitude away from that, and even we have a theoretical way of FTL travel[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
oarla 8y ago
It is theorized that the laws of Physics can be different in different parts of the universe. Maybe elsewhere speed of light isn't an issue
phil248 8y ago
If they are functionally immortal - and what sufficiently advanced species wouldn't make themselves immortal at first opportunity - thousands of years may not be a deterrent at all.
pcnix 8y ago
There's always things like the Alcubierre drive that circumvent the speed of light. Thousands of years isn't necessarily what is needed. It's just that they have to find out that there's someone here, which will need light from us to get there, and that might take thousands of years. Billions, probably.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

That always seemed to me to be some particularly flawed reasoning. Any civilization advanced enough to be able to destroy another at cosmic scales is advanced enough to know that the universe will end some day, so there's no real virtue to killing off everyone who isn't you just so you can hoard all the resources until heat-death takes you.

hyperbovine 8y ago
Any civilization advanced enough to travel the distances in question has better things to do than pick on puny Terrans. It's like driving from California to Florida to shoot a squirrel.
pcnix 8y ago
Spoilers The premise of the series is that the Universe is like a dark forest. A civilization is like a hunter wandering through a dark forest. Any sound is likely to first be met with a bullet and then curiosity. At galactic scales, by the time you first communicate with a civilisation, they might have advanced immensely from when you first detected them, and the slightest miscommunication could cause war at massive scales with high probabilities of losses on both sides, so you shoot at the first noise you hear with extremely low effort weaponry that will definitely kill an underdeveloped civilization. The universe will end some day, but there's no point in letting your civilization end before that just because someone else decided to kill you when you were being generous. To be clear though, I would rather be optimistic and say that civilizations can learn to work and live together, but the game theory explanation of this situation does make a lot of sense, and is backed up by a fair amount of historic data.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  > The universe will end some day, but there's no point in letting your civilization end before that just because someone else decided to kill you when you were being generous. But that's a philosophy of life that, taken to its logical conclusion, means that you should be doing your best to kill everyone that isn't you just in case, for instance, their progeny could hurt yours. It is, frankly, very silly.

AceJohnny2 8y ago

It's a common answer to the Fermi Paradox ("if life is likely, why don't we see it?") in the sci-fi world. Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space [1] series of books (highly recommended) have the same premise, as does Greg Bears "Forge of God" [2] and from 1987 and its followup "Anvil of Stars". Also, I hear (haven't read it yet), Peter Watts' "Blindsight" [3] Also the late Stephen Hawking's fears. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space_universe [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)

komali2 8y ago
Spoilers. In Blindsight, humans are the only intelligent lifeform in the Galaxy that are conscious. Thus, they're the only ones that produce art, entertainment, or just talk to each other for "no reason." Other intelligent life in the Galaxy does communicate, but only to exchange resources in a mutually beneficial way. So when a bunch of Earth transmissions of War of the World's or talk news finally make it out there, one set of aliens begins receiving and decoding this information. As it becomes clear the information is meaningless and worthless, it becomes obvious to the non-conscious aliens that humans are waging an information attack on the entire galaxy. They are essentially ddosing the Galaxy with worthless em radiation. So, the aliens come to kill them. Luckily the space vampires beat them to it.

settler4 8y ago

Are we broadcasting signals?

krapp 8y ago
Yes, for about a century.