4 ms·

Study: If aliens exist, they probably want to destroy us

13 points by cwan 16y ago

bartonfink 16y ago
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/aliens.php#The_Fermi_Paradox~The_Killing_Star http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/aliens.php#The_Fermi_Parado... I think those three laws state that case pretty well. And I think it's pretty bleak if that case is, in fact, correct.
- iwwr 16y ago
  Charlie Stross presents an alternate explanation in the novel 'Accelerando'. Advanced civilizations may evolve at an accelerating pace, so anyone moving away from the central star (and source of energy) won't be able to catch up.
  - bartonfink 16y ago
    Interesting. I'll have to add that to my reading list.
    - iwwr 16y ago
      There's also the possibility that signals just merge into the background after a few light years. So they are saying that our radio signals have already travelled a few decades, but they also diffuse under the 1/r^2 law. If there were an identical to Earth, how close would it have to be for SETI to pick up the radio chatter? It's also possible that aliens use higher-bandwidth optical or above signals in order to communicate. Already as the Earth's networks swell with bandwidth, most of it is coming from optical installations rather than radio links. Even radio is relatively low-powered, so it's unlikely a lot of it is visibly leaking into space.
      - 6ren 16y ago
        theory: background radiation is actually alien messages. The sky is completely filled with it. The reason we can't read it as a signal is not because it has diffused, but because it's compressed so effectively that, for us, it is indistinguishable from noise.
iwwr 16y ago
All told, an alien civilization that saw us would probably be millions of years ahead of us and likely not need our planet for expansion. Habitable space becomes very large if you can colonize bare bits of rock or construct your own habitats.
martythemaniak 16y ago
I'm sure that after they kill and enslave the vast majority of us, the few remaining survivors will be given crummy reservations where we can live our lives in griding poverty while our alien overlords blame us for not accepting the space zombie god Zork as our lord and saviour.
yesimahuman 16y ago
Isn't there another possibility that is inline with #1, that Aliens could exist but that the path from them to us can not be traveled by them due to distance and life support constraints, and not knowing where we are located.
- ryandvm 16y ago
  That's the boring (and most likely) possibility.
- tejaswiy 16y ago
  Agree, there are also an incredibly huge number of bodies out there to colonize for resources, and the possibility of Aliens coming over to colonize us while we're still stuck on this planet are incredibly remote. Honestly, I think if you do have the tech to get to earth, it's vastly easier to extract your <insert energy source> from the N number of planets out there. If he's talking about space opera however, that _might_ be possible, but honestly I'm not even sure if we can get off the rock before we destroy ourselves, but yes, that is a possibility.
deleted 16y ago
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deleted 16y ago
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civilian 16y ago
I'm going to quote from the novel blindsight because I think it sums up the scenarios much better. http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm ================ >>Once there were three tribes. The Optimists, whose patron saints were Drake and Sagan, believed in a universe crawling with gentle intelligence—spiritual brethren vaster and more enlightened than we, a great galactic siblinghood into whose ranks we would someday ascend. Surely, said the Optimists, space travel implies enlightenment, for it requires the control of great destructive energies. Any race which can't rise above its own brutal instincts will wipe itself out long before it learns to bridge the interstellar gulf. >>Across from the Optimists sat the Pessimists, who genuflected before graven images of Saint Fermi and a host of lesser lightweights. The Pessimists envisioned a lonely universe full of dead rocks and prokaryotic slime. The odds are just too low, they insisted. Too many rogues, too much radiation, too much eccentricity in too many orbits. It is a surpassing miracle that even one Earth exists; to hope for many is to abandon reason and embrace religious mania. After all, the universe is fourteen billion years old: if the galaxy were alive with intelligence, wouldn't it be here by now? >>Equidistant to the other two tribes sat the Historians. They didn't have too many thoughts on the probable prevalence of intelligent, spacefaring extraterrestrials— but if there are any, they said, they're not just going to be smart. They're going to be mean. ============== I really hope Sagan is right, and I'm a little annoyed that these researchers didn't mention the idea.
civilian 16y ago
The full text of Simon Conway Morris' article in "Philosophical Transactions in The Royal Society A" is free: http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1936/555.abstract http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1936/555....
dasht 16y ago
Slow news day :-) But, here: Think about technological humans coming upon and conquering, say, rain forests. We see resources like land, some top soil, lots of sunlight. So, sometmes we denude the land, chase away all native life, and install cattle (or whatever). Then later (or simultaneously, elsewhere) we realize what a tragically, stupidly wasteful thing we've just done. The native complexity of the life ... left relatively unmolested ... was of vastly greater value than what we put up instead. A more advanced civilization would have kept a cooler head and pretty much just explored the garden unless it was absolutely necessary destroy it and change the use of the land. Why would Earth be different to intelligent, space-faring life? Might they not be frugal and greedy and experienced enough to, if they were "here", keep out of site and interfere as little as possible?
- run4yourlives 16y ago
  Except that even with thousands of years of development, this same basic pattern remains unchanged in the human species. We never employ walking to the garden until after we've destroyed something. This isn't going to change anytime soon, or ever. Why would a alien culture be any different?
- schwabacher 16y ago
  Another point is that once a civilization becomes advanced enough to be capable of intergalactic travel, maybe its resource needs change. The earth is great for us, but who says aliens have any need to visit here.
- Udo 16y ago
  There is nothing, nothing here on Earth that couldn't be much more easily mined in the outer solar system, or any other solar system for that matter. The idea of Earth having resources that would make it necessary (or even feasible) to go through all the trouble and mine this planet is simply not viable. In fact, it's horribly dangerous for any alien civilization to come here for this purpose. Pretty much every ounce of material on this planet is contaminated with self-replicating organisms that would wreak havoc on any foreign ecosystem. There are still some nefarious reasons why an outside civilization may attack us, for example to bolster a slavery-based economy or for religious purposes. There are certainly other reasons we can't even think of yet. But resources? No. Territorial reasons are also void, since we can't project any meaningful power beyond close earth orbit and we couldn't even mount a serious planetary defense come to think of it. Pretty much anyone could just strip mine the entire solar system - including the Moon - without us being able to do anything about it.
ajscherer 16y ago
I feel like you can come up with any type of wild speculation, and if you base your reasoning on the theory of evolution (even in the most hand-wavy way) people will treat it almost like its a scientifically verified truth. "Evolution operates predictably" do we know this because scientists have a track record of reliably predicting evolutionary outcomes, or do we think this because evolution seems like it should've been predictable standing in 2011 looking back? Don't a lot of unpredictable things look predictable in hindsight? Furthermore, I can't think of any practical benefit of having done this study. If aliens don't exist, the study was a waste of time. If aliens exist and intend to kill us, we are probably fucked anyway and hence the study was a waste of time. If aliens exist and are nice, the study was wrong and thus a waste of time.
inboulder 16y ago
I think this article makes a fantastically gross error, the conclusion is fine, however the authors gloss over the fact that any space-faring life has a high probability of being machine-intelligence, not squishy biological life which 'evolved in the same manner as on earth'. (note, this is already the trend with our space exploration)
indrax 16y ago
Essential Reading: http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/

13 points by cwan 16y ago

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/aliens.php#The_Fermi_Paradox~The_Killing_Star http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/aliens.php#The_Fermi_Parado... I think those three laws state that case pretty well. And I think it's pretty bleak if that case is, in fact, correct.

iwwr 16y ago
Charlie Stross presents an alternate explanation in the novel 'Accelerando'. Advanced civilizations may evolve at an accelerating pace, so anyone moving away from the central star (and source of energy) won't be able to catch up.
- bartonfink 16y ago
  Interesting. I'll have to add that to my reading list.
  - iwwr 16y ago
    There's also the possibility that signals just merge into the background after a few light years. So they are saying that our radio signals have already travelled a few decades, but they also diffuse under the 1/r^2 law. If there were an identical to Earth, how close would it have to be for SETI to pick up the radio chatter? It's also possible that aliens use higher-bandwidth optical or above signals in order to communicate. Already as the Earth's networks swell with bandwidth, most of it is coming from optical installations rather than radio links. Even radio is relatively low-powered, so it's unlikely a lot of it is visibly leaking into space.
    - 6ren 16y ago
      theory: background radiation is actually alien messages. The sky is completely filled with it. The reason we can't read it as a signal is not because it has diffused, but because it's compressed so effectively that, for us, it is indistinguishable from noise.

iwwr 16y ago

All told, an alien civilization that saw us would probably be millions of years ahead of us and likely not need our planet for expansion. Habitable space becomes very large if you can colonize bare bits of rock or construct your own habitats.

martythemaniak 16y ago

I'm sure that after they kill and enslave the vast majority of us, the few remaining survivors will be given crummy reservations where we can live our lives in griding poverty while our alien overlords blame us for not accepting the space zombie god Zork as our lord and saviour.

yesimahuman 16y ago

Isn't there another possibility that is inline with #1, that Aliens could exist but that the path from them to us can not be traveled by them due to distance and life support constraints, and not knowing where we are located.

ryandvm 16y ago
That's the boring (and most likely) possibility.
tejaswiy 16y ago
Agree, there are also an incredibly huge number of bodies out there to colonize for resources, and the possibility of Aliens coming over to colonize us while we're still stuck on this planet are incredibly remote. Honestly, I think if you do have the tech to get to earth, it's vastly easier to extract your <insert energy source> from the N number of planets out there. If he's talking about space opera however, that _might_ be possible, but honestly I'm not even sure if we can get off the rock before we destroy ourselves, but yes, that is a possibility.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

civilian 16y ago

I'm going to quote from the novel blindsight because I think it sums up the scenarios much better. http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm ================ >>Once there were three tribes. The Optimists, whose patron saints were Drake and Sagan, believed in a universe crawling with gentle intelligence—spiritual brethren vaster and more enlightened than we, a great galactic siblinghood into whose ranks we would someday ascend. Surely, said the Optimists, space travel implies enlightenment, for it requires the control of great destructive energies. Any race which can't rise above its own brutal instincts will wipe itself out long before it learns to bridge the interstellar gulf. >>Across from the Optimists sat the Pessimists, who genuflected before graven images of Saint Fermi and a host of lesser lightweights. The Pessimists envisioned a lonely universe full of dead rocks and prokaryotic slime. The odds are just too low, they insisted. Too many rogues, too much radiation, too much eccentricity in too many orbits. It is a surpassing miracle that even one Earth exists; to hope for many is to abandon reason and embrace religious mania. After all, the universe is fourteen billion years old: if the galaxy were alive with intelligence, wouldn't it be here by now? >>Equidistant to the other two tribes sat the Historians. They didn't have too many thoughts on the probable prevalence of intelligent, spacefaring extraterrestrials— but if there are any, they said, they're not just going to be smart. They're going to be mean. ============== I really hope Sagan is right, and I'm a little annoyed that these researchers didn't mention the idea.

civilian 16y ago

The full text of Simon Conway Morris' article in "Philosophical Transactions in The Royal Society A" is free: http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1936/555.abstract http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1936/555....

dasht 16y ago

Slow news day :-) But, here: Think about technological humans coming upon and conquering, say, rain forests. We see resources like land, some top soil, lots of sunlight. So, sometmes we denude the land, chase away all native life, and install cattle (or whatever). Then later (or simultaneously, elsewhere) we realize what a tragically, stupidly wasteful thing we've just done. The native complexity of the life ... left relatively unmolested ... was of vastly greater value than what we put up instead. A more advanced civilization would have kept a cooler head and pretty much just explored the garden unless it was absolutely necessary destroy it and change the use of the land. Why would Earth be different to intelligent, space-faring life? Might they not be frugal and greedy and experienced enough to, if they were "here", keep out of site and interfere as little as possible?

run4yourlives 16y ago
Except that even with thousands of years of development, this same basic pattern remains unchanged in the human species. We never employ walking to the garden until after we've destroyed something. This isn't going to change anytime soon, or ever. Why would a alien culture be any different?
schwabacher 16y ago
Another point is that once a civilization becomes advanced enough to be capable of intergalactic travel, maybe its resource needs change. The earth is great for us, but who says aliens have any need to visit here.
Udo 16y ago
There is nothing, nothing here on Earth that couldn't be much more easily mined in the outer solar system, or any other solar system for that matter. The idea of Earth having resources that would make it necessary (or even feasible) to go through all the trouble and mine this planet is simply not viable. In fact, it's horribly dangerous for any alien civilization to come here for this purpose. Pretty much every ounce of material on this planet is contaminated with self-replicating organisms that would wreak havoc on any foreign ecosystem. There are still some nefarious reasons why an outside civilization may attack us, for example to bolster a slavery-based economy or for religious purposes. There are certainly other reasons we can't even think of yet. But resources? No. Territorial reasons are also void, since we can't project any meaningful power beyond close earth orbit and we couldn't even mount a serious planetary defense come to think of it. Pretty much anyone could just strip mine the entire solar system - including the Moon - without us being able to do anything about it.

ajscherer 16y ago

I feel like you can come up with any type of wild speculation, and if you base your reasoning on the theory of evolution (even in the most hand-wavy way) people will treat it almost like its a scientifically verified truth. "Evolution operates predictably" do we know this because scientists have a track record of reliably predicting evolutionary outcomes, or do we think this because evolution seems like it should've been predictable standing in 2011 looking back? Don't a lot of unpredictable things look predictable in hindsight? Furthermore, I can't think of any practical benefit of having done this study. If aliens don't exist, the study was a waste of time. If aliens exist and intend to kill us, we are probably fucked anyway and hence the study was a waste of time. If aliens exist and are nice, the study was wrong and thus a waste of time.

inboulder 16y ago

I think this article makes a fantastically gross error, the conclusion is fine, however the authors gloss over the fact that any space-faring life has a high probability of being machine-intelligence, not squishy biological life which 'evolved in the same manner as on earth'. (note, this is already the trend with our space exploration)

indrax 16y ago

Essential Reading: http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/