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I don't think you can compare two completely unknown probabilities and make those conclusions. We also know that life has evolved on ~20% of well-known planets

I don't think you can compare two completely unknown probabilities and make those conclusions. We also know that life has evolved on ~20% of well-known planets in the "habitable zone," are there are believed to be about 4e10 such planets in our galaxy. Even with a proper equation improving on the Drake equation and taking into account more factors about the composition of such planets and stars, can we really believe there is no life? Furthermore, as a relatively young planet and an extremely young civilization on a cosmic timeframe, could we really be the most advanced in our galaxy? Even with near-current technology, a civilization could traverse galactic distances on a reasonable cosmic timeframe. Given these points and the strange evidence we are trying to make sense of, it seems like the most logical conclusion to me.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
I did not say no life, but rather no advanced intelligent life. Life itself may not be detectable at this distance, but the kind of civilization that can manage to cross interstellar space? Given the timescales involved, any civilization more advanced than our own is likely to have been so for millions of years. It seems very unlikely that such a civilization could exist throughout that period and not leave evidence of it. Where are the Dyson swarms? Resource mining probes? Grey-goo planets from failed nano-tech experiments? Such incredible engineers over so much time would have attempted some kind of extreme-scale projects that we'd see. Sure, there are a lot of reasons one can imagine that make that untrue, but the point isn't that it is impossible, but rather that there are other explanations that are significantly more likely even though they themselves are unlikely. We have 0 examples and 0 evidence of advanced alien intelligence. We have rock solid proof of human intelligence on earth, and several examples of magical-seeming technology in the hands of some of its people and not others. And again, this argument is predicated on the rather debatable assumption that the phenomena in question is indeed a craft of some kind. We have a ludicrous number of examples of human beings ascribing natural phenomena to magic and/or aliens.
- lend000 7y ago
  Technically that 20% applies to both life and intelligent life. Of course I'm just playing devil's advocate -- there would certainly be fewer instances of intelligent life than life. We believe it took >4 billion years for intelligent life to evolve whereas life took hold pretty much immediately upon planet cooling. But it did happen, and we have a number of species of different Orders that are somewhat intelligent and able to use tools (crows, octopi, primates, dolphins), and it only took us ~5 million years, the ability to free our hands to manipulate things, and some natural disasters to get from where they are to where we are. As you suggested, it is unlikely that a futurist from a newborn civilization would accurately predict what a million (or billion) years old advanced civilization would actually do, and I am also legitimately unaware of whether we have any reason to believe that such projects would be visible when we can barely make out the closest planets outside our solar system (and only indirectly via math). Or if someone blotted out an entire star, how would we know? We use a term called dark matter to fill in the 75% of the universe that we can't describe in conventional terms. As some people posit on this subject, do animals in a nature preserve know they are in a nature preserve? Doesn't look much different than their world did thousands of years ago aside from occasional ufo's flying overhead (planes) unless they stray toward the edges/out of the solar system. Btw, I would have been one of the skeptics writing these comments three years ago pre-Nimitz release (in fact, if you go back far enough in my HN history I found some comments saying that if there was a greater intelligence it would just ignore us LOL https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=lend000&next=14186346 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=lend000&next=1418634...). If you study this incident and a whole plethora of other phenomena with an open mind, you'll find some pretty damn fascinating things from various places with different agendas and levels of credibility (it is certainly not 0 evidence) with significant implications.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    > it is certainly not 0 evidence It is evidence of something going on that we do not understand. That does not immediately mean aliens any more than it immediately means magic or god.
    - lend000 7y ago

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

I did not say no life, but rather no advanced intelligent life. Life itself may not be detectable at this distance, but the kind of civilization that can manage to cross interstellar space? Given the timescales involved, any civilization more advanced than our own is likely to have been so for millions of years. It seems very unlikely that such a civilization could exist throughout that period and not leave evidence of it. Where are the Dyson swarms? Resource mining probes? Grey-goo planets from failed nano-tech experiments? Such incredible engineers over so much time would have attempted some kind of extreme-scale projects that we'd see. Sure, there are a lot of reasons one can imagine that make that untrue, but the point isn't that it is impossible, but rather that there are other explanations that are significantly more likely even though they themselves are unlikely. We have 0 examples and 0 evidence of advanced alien intelligence. We have rock solid proof of human intelligence on earth, and several examples of magical-seeming technology in the hands of some of its people and not others. And again, this argument is predicated on the rather debatable assumption that the phenomena in question is indeed a craft of some kind. We have a ludicrous number of examples of human beings ascribing natural phenomena to magic and/or aliens.

lend000 7y ago
Technically that 20% applies to both life and intelligent life. Of course I'm just playing devil's advocate -- there would certainly be fewer instances of intelligent life than life. We believe it took >4 billion years for intelligent life to evolve whereas life took hold pretty much immediately upon planet cooling. But it did happen, and we have a number of species of different Orders that are somewhat intelligent and able to use tools (crows, octopi, primates, dolphins), and it only took us ~5 million years, the ability to free our hands to manipulate things, and some natural disasters to get from where they are to where we are. As you suggested, it is unlikely that a futurist from a newborn civilization would accurately predict what a million (or billion) years old advanced civilization would actually do, and I am also legitimately unaware of whether we have any reason to believe that such projects would be visible when we can barely make out the closest planets outside our solar system (and only indirectly via math). Or if someone blotted out an entire star, how would we know? We use a term called dark matter to fill in the 75% of the universe that we can't describe in conventional terms. As some people posit on this subject, do animals in a nature preserve know they are in a nature preserve? Doesn't look much different than their world did thousands of years ago aside from occasional ufo's flying overhead (planes) unless they stray toward the edges/out of the solar system. Btw, I would have been one of the skeptics writing these comments three years ago pre-Nimitz release (in fact, if you go back far enough in my HN history I found some comments saying that if there was a greater intelligence it would just ignore us LOL https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=lend000&next=14186346 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=lend000&next=1418634...). If you study this incident and a whole plethora of other phenomena with an open mind, you'll find some pretty damn fascinating things from various places with different agendas and levels of credibility (it is certainly not 0 evidence) with significant implications.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  > it is certainly not 0 evidence It is evidence of something going on that we do not understand. That does not immediately mean aliens any more than it immediately means magic or god.
  - lend000 7y ago