4 ms·

This is tangentially related: I've had a pet theory for a while (which may not be original, idk) that a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox Great Filter

by 013a 7y ago

This is tangentially related: I've had a pet theory for a while (which may not be original, idk) that a possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox Great Filter is literally the existence of huge amounts of Fossil Fuels. It took millions of years of dead biological life on our planet to build up the supplies we have, and the big ol' meteor that hit us some 60 million years ago helped not only kill off a bunch of that life to create oil but set the stage for actual intelligent life. Without lots of oil, we wouldn't have hit the industrial age, we couldn't manufacture renewable energy sources, we couldn't make plastic, we couldn't make rocket fuel, electricity wouldn't be as widespread, basically everything would be different. If oil were substantially less common, its feasible that we'd still live in a 1800s-esque society with some form of civilization development, but would be have radio? Certainly not space travel. Point being: M-class planets might be pretty common in the universe, maybe cellular and even multicellular life is less common, maybe intelligent/sentient live is even less common, maybe civilization is even less common. And we've only really "existed" for a few tens of thousand years in the grand scheme of billions of years, those years littered with possible extinction-like events both man-made and natural. Combine all of those probabilities together, with the reality that we may have just "missed" another species on the timeline of the universe, and it seems more likely than not that we're alone in this galaxy. Which is actually pretty awesome if you think about it. The whole playground is our's; let's go take it.

poopchute 7y ago
I think a civilization could make a pretty good go at things without fossil fuels. The 2 big use cases for fossil fuel are the temperature of the heat itself (for things like smelting), but also how simple it is to make a steam engine with energy dense fuels (cars/trains/planes/electricity). Temperature wise, a lot of metals can be smelted with clever oven design using wood/charcoal (though another planet wont have exactly wood, obviously). Energy wise, wind mills and water wheels have been in use for thousands of years, and after the discovery of electricity, its reasonably simple to turn that mechanical energy into electricity (using wood-smelted metals).
Chris_Chambers 7y ago
Petroleum is constantly regenerated by the mantle splashing against the crust. That’s why depleted reservoirs are always full again ten years later. Please stop spreading this “fossil fuel” conspiracy theory.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
merpnderp 7y ago
Don’t forget carbon in the biosphere was at historic lows before humans started freeing it. Carbon is permanently sequestered forever in the ocean by crustaceans, and without humans freeing up coal and oil, life would have slowly strangled. There will likely be no second chance for intelligent life after us.
thaumasiotes 7y ago
> If oil were substantially less common, its feasible that we'd still live in a 1800s-esque society with some form of civilization development, but would we have radio? Certainly not space travel. We don't have space travel now...
- elliotec 7y ago
  We... most certainly DO have space travel now.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    Only for values of "travel" that consist entirely of beginning in a particular location, and then staying there.
    - xvector 7y ago
      Still counts as space travel.
      - MaupitiBlue 7y ago
        In much the same way jumping counts as air travel.
        infectoid 7y ago
        I thought being in a plane in the air counted as air travel and being in a spacecraft in space counted as a space travel?
        munchbunny 7y ago
        While we are capable of (human) space travel, it's currently only really for science. On the other hand, people travel by air all the time for practical reasons.
        7y ago
Hendrikto 7y ago
> the big ol' meteor that hit us some 60 million years ago helped not only kill off a bunch of that life to create oil Most fossil fuels come from plankton and algae sediments deposited over millions of years, not from one big meteor impact.
Jedd 7y ago
There is another well known corollary -- if we consume the bulk of fossil fuels this time around, it's unlikely that recovery after a major civilisation collapse would be possible. Naturally the kind of leadership that declines to consider what will happen over the next 20-30 years is even less likely to be concerned about the subsequent 200-300.
- 013a 7y ago
  This is a pretty scary thought. We have one shot. If we waste it our species won't escape the planet for another million years, if ever. If we manage it, the stars are our's. If that isn't another low probability Great Filter, I don't know what is. Gravity is the ultimate cage.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  If the knowledge survives, maybe clear-cutting forests will be enough of a boost to jump forward straight to renewables.
- outworlder 7y ago
  > There is another well known corollary -- if we consume the bulk of fossil fuels this time around, it's unlikely that recovery after a major civilisation collapse would be possible. There will still be coal. Coal reserves are unbelievable. Even if we consume that too, we should be fine so as long as there is wood. You can power cars and tanks with wood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas If we have no trees left... there are probably other, more pressing, concerns. For humans, that is. The good thing about Earth is that there is life, not just humans. Other species may take our place if we fail, in time. Emphasis on may, since evolution doesn't guarantee this. But it seems that at least on this planet intelligence has been consistently rewarded (primates, birds, dolphins, octopuses). If there is life, there will be an energy source. No matter what it is, that energy source can be harvested by machines too. It may take longer for a civilization to do so, depending on the difficulty of the power source. But in the end, it doesn't really matter. We are dealing with cosmological time scales after all. Even dolphins would be able to develop an industrialized civilization. No coal needed, they can just exploit temperature gradients. Metalworking would be more difficult, but that's their problem to solve. Right after they solve fine object manipulation.
modzu 7y ago
havent u heard of steampunk? ;)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
yumraj 7y ago
You're ignoring that a very very small probability multiplied by a very very very large number (of galaxies, hence stars and hence planets) can be a very large number.
ganeshkrishnan 7y ago
My pet theory to Fermi Paradox is much more bleak: This is a very very young universe and we are probably the first and the oldest advanced civilization. We might have 'aliens' and ET beyond our visible universe but they are further down the timeline. Maybe, like you said, cellular life exists else where but they need billions more years to reach our stage.
- ErotemeObelus 7y ago
  I kind of am extremely weary of any kind of alien talk. Heaven's Gate and Scientology all revolve around some form of alien-worship, and they were and are extremely destructive and evil religions.
datashaman 7y ago
Check out this sobering talk by Dr Sid Smith where he says the same thing wrt oils and fossil fuels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WPB2u8EzL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WPB2u8EzL8
gnode 7y ago
> Without lots of oil, we wouldn't have hit the industrial age I don't think this is true. The industrial age was, to begin with, powered by solid fuel; charcoal and coke. The abundance of coal accelerated the industrial revolution, but is essentially fungible with charcoal derived from wood. Oil came somewhat later, and rather than enabling new applications, mostly just replaced the use of solid fuels. Rocketry was pioneered with non-fossil fuels such as alcohol, as oil refinement wasn't initially good enough to enable their use. Particularly, the sulphur content made it too corrosive. More than anything industrialization seems to be predicated by innovation; particularly the revolutionary invention of machine tools, which allowed accurate machinery to be made. Early mills were powered by water and wind, later moving to solid fuelled steam engines. > the big ol' meteor [...] set the stage for actual intelligent life I'm not convinced by this. Although this freed up evolutionary niches and enabled the dominance of mammals over reptiles, and the mammalian neocortex is regarded as providing higher intelligent functioning, we have observed conventionally neocortical activities in reptiles and birds. The meteor may have actually delayed the development of high intelligence, as it wiped out the animals large enough to support the brain metabolism we expect to be necessary.

by 013a 7y ago

poopchute 7y ago

I think a civilization could make a pretty good go at things without fossil fuels. The 2 big use cases for fossil fuel are the temperature of the heat itself (for things like smelting), but also how simple it is to make a steam engine with energy dense fuels (cars/trains/planes/electricity). Temperature wise, a lot of metals can be smelted with clever oven design using wood/charcoal (though another planet wont have exactly wood, obviously). Energy wise, wind mills and water wheels have been in use for thousands of years, and after the discovery of electricity, its reasonably simple to turn that mechanical energy into electricity (using wood-smelted metals).

Chris_Chambers 7y ago

Petroleum is constantly regenerated by the mantle splashing against the crust. That’s why depleted reservoirs are always full again ten years later. Please stop spreading this “fossil fuel” conspiracy theory.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

merpnderp 7y ago

Don’t forget carbon in the biosphere was at historic lows before humans started freeing it. Carbon is permanently sequestered forever in the ocean by crustaceans, and without humans freeing up coal and oil, life would have slowly strangled. There will likely be no second chance for intelligent life after us.

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> If oil were substantially less common, its feasible that we'd still live in a 1800s-esque society with some form of civilization development, but would we have radio? Certainly not space travel. We don't have space travel now...

elliotec 7y ago
We... most certainly DO have space travel now.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  Only for values of "travel" that consist entirely of beginning in a particular location, and then staying there.
  - xvector 7y ago
    Still counts as space travel.
    - MaupitiBlue 7y ago
      In much the same way jumping counts as air travel.
      - infectoid 7y ago
        I thought being in a plane in the air counted as air travel and being in a spacecraft in space counted as a space travel?
        munchbunny 7y ago
        While we are capable of (human) space travel, it's currently only really for science. On the other hand, people travel by air all the time for practical reasons.
        7y ago

Hendrikto 7y ago

> the big ol' meteor that hit us some 60 million years ago helped not only kill off a bunch of that life to create oil Most fossil fuels come from plankton and algae sediments deposited over millions of years, not from one big meteor impact.

Jedd 7y ago

There is another well known corollary -- if we consume the bulk of fossil fuels this time around, it's unlikely that recovery after a major civilisation collapse would be possible. Naturally the kind of leadership that declines to consider what will happen over the next 20-30 years is even less likely to be concerned about the subsequent 200-300.

013a 7y ago
This is a pretty scary thought. We have one shot. If we waste it our species won't escape the planet for another million years, if ever. If we manage it, the stars are our's. If that isn't another low probability Great Filter, I don't know what is. Gravity is the ultimate cage.
whatshisface 7y ago
If the knowledge survives, maybe clear-cutting forests will be enough of a boost to jump forward straight to renewables.
outworlder 7y ago
> There is another well known corollary -- if we consume the bulk of fossil fuels this time around, it's unlikely that recovery after a major civilisation collapse would be possible. There will still be coal. Coal reserves are unbelievable. Even if we consume that too, we should be fine so as long as there is wood. You can power cars and tanks with wood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas If we have no trees left... there are probably other, more pressing, concerns. For humans, that is. The good thing about Earth is that there is life, not just humans. Other species may take our place if we fail, in time. Emphasis on may, since evolution doesn't guarantee this. But it seems that at least on this planet intelligence has been consistently rewarded (primates, birds, dolphins, octopuses). If there is life, there will be an energy source. No matter what it is, that energy source can be harvested by machines too. It may take longer for a civilization to do so, depending on the difficulty of the power source. But in the end, it doesn't really matter. We are dealing with cosmological time scales after all. Even dolphins would be able to develop an industrialized civilization. No coal needed, they can just exploit temperature gradients. Metalworking would be more difficult, but that's their problem to solve. Right after they solve fine object manipulation.

modzu 7y ago

havent u heard of steampunk? ;)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

yumraj 7y ago

You're ignoring that a very very small probability multiplied by a very very very large number (of galaxies, hence stars and hence planets) can be a very large number.

ganeshkrishnan 7y ago

My pet theory to Fermi Paradox is much more bleak: This is a very very young universe and we are probably the first and the oldest advanced civilization. We might have 'aliens' and ET beyond our visible universe but they are further down the timeline. Maybe, like you said, cellular life exists else where but they need billions more years to reach our stage.

ErotemeObelus 7y ago
I kind of am extremely weary of any kind of alien talk. Heaven's Gate and Scientology all revolve around some form of alien-worship, and they were and are extremely destructive and evil religions.

datashaman 7y ago

Check out this sobering talk by Dr Sid Smith where he says the same thing wrt oils and fossil fuels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WPB2u8EzL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WPB2u8EzL8

gnode 7y ago

> Without lots of oil, we wouldn't have hit the industrial age I don't think this is true. The industrial age was, to begin with, powered by solid fuel; charcoal and coke. The abundance of coal accelerated the industrial revolution, but is essentially fungible with charcoal derived from wood. Oil came somewhat later, and rather than enabling new applications, mostly just replaced the use of solid fuels. Rocketry was pioneered with non-fossil fuels such as alcohol, as oil refinement wasn't initially good enough to enable their use. Particularly, the sulphur content made it too corrosive. More than anything industrialization seems to be predicated by innovation; particularly the revolutionary invention of machine tools, which allowed accurate machinery to be made. Early mills were powered by water and wind, later moving to solid fuelled steam engines. > the big ol' meteor [...] set the stage for actual intelligent life I'm not convinced by this. Although this freed up evolutionary niches and enabled the dominance of mammals over reptiles, and the mammalian neocortex is regarded as providing higher intelligent functioning, we have observed conventionally neocortical activities in reptiles and birds. The meteor may have actually delayed the development of high intelligence, as it wiped out the animals large enough to support the brain metabolism we expect to be necessary.