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Presumably any space-faring civilization would be interested in knowing if others exist; at a minimum, first contact (should they have any expectation of extern
by setr 8y ago
Presumably any space-faring civilization would be interested in knowing if others exist; at a minimum, first contact (should they have any expectation of external life) would likely offer an extreme advantage in whatever competition they have locally (eg technological gifts, information exchange, prinary point of contact, etc). Furthermore, if they are spacefaring, they will require long-range transmissions regardless: it would be odd to think they’d send ships into multi-year journeys without being able to phone home, or having the tech and not utilizing it (a lost ship is likely costlier than transmission).
A civilization not capable of spaceflight might be in your position, incapable of producing transmission cheap enough, and not being curious enough to cast it into the void, but otherwise, any being capable (and willing) of long-distance travel should find sufficient use for long-distance communication to utilize it, independent of a search for alternate life.
That is, advanced civilization should be noisy for their own sake. (Though perhaps in a manner we can’t detect, or don’t expect).
- mcv 8y agoCommunication within a civilisation is quite a bit different from highly speculative permanent signals to billions of starts in the hope that someone is listening. And even if someone is listening, they might not be able to answer. So this sounds rather unlikely to me. A bigger issue is: would they actually send spaceships on multi-year journeys to other solar systems? If they would, then why aren't they already here? Some of those civilisations must have a million or billion year head start on us. Plenty to colonise the galaxy, yet we see no trace of them here. So the odds of there being interstellar civilisations out there is extremely slim. I think our best bet to find alien civilisations is by detecting the signature of alien megastructures; Dyson Spheres and the like. Tabby's Star sounds to me like the most likely way we might find alien life.
- ForHackernews 8y ago> If they would, then why aren't they already here? Space is really really big and there are a lot of star systems. Maybe it's just statistics. > Plenty to colonise the galaxy, I think you're seriously underestimating how big a galaxy is: https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/2i6le7/request_how_many_individual_pieces_of_saltsand_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/2i6le7/requ...
- mcv 8y agoI know how big the galaxy is, but I also know how much a billion years is, and how fast exponential growth grows. Of course a civilisation won't be able to keep growing exponentially for ever; pretty soon only the outer rim will have anything nearby to colonise. But still, a billion years is a lot. But if colonies don't grow up to colonise other planets, you're stuck with linear growth, which is never going to be enough.