5 ms·

Aliens Likely Annihilated Themselves Through Progress

39 points by elorant 6y ago

zests 6y ago
I’ve always found these “Drake equation” and “Fermi paradox” discussions pseudoscientific at best. Its fun speculation and poses interesting questions but there’s no need to interpret these formulas as scientific fact. Its much more likely that our estimates are off or our calculations are incorrect than we can draw conclusions from these roundabout statistical inferences. Nothing I’ve read has convinced me otherwise. Its a great pop-sci discussion but I’m more interested in direct evidence rather than speculation for why no direct evidence exists. Drake Equation fans please explain what makes these theories so compelling and I will be indebted to you.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  >Its much more likely that our estimates are off "Our estimate for stage N in the drake equation is way too high" == "The great filter is stage N in the drake equation." So the interpretation chart goes: - No errors: There are tons and tons of aliens and they're prime-directive-ing us like the Federation from Star Trek. - One error: Oh no! Great filter! (unless it's in our past) - Many errors: Not as interesting. As for why it's compelling at all, the original point of the Drake equation was to make you think about it, and also realize that it's very, very tough to get exactly one. Almost every set of numbers you pick results in either less than one (which we know isn't true because we exist), or more than one. So the argument is, who knows how alone we are, but we're not alone.
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    Some terms of the Drake equation are probabilities. The product of those terms can be very much less than 1 and we can still exist. If you accept the weak anthropic principle all our existence says for sure is the product is not 0, which we already knew had to be the case for any such equation.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  A lot of these high concept hypothesizing is fun, almost like the modern equivalent of charting out celestial hierarchies. Also consider coming up with speculative measures like the Kardashev scale or inventing megastructures like Dyson spheres or ringworlds. It’s like incorporating a bit of sci-fi into your scientific theorizing.
- scotty79 6y ago
  I treated them as back-of-the-envelope calculations that can only give very rough estimate.
- gibrown 6y ago
  I think what is interesting is the narrowing of possible hypotheses based on what we do know. The estimates are certainly off, but helping to better define and refine the question is still a worthwhile scientific endeavor. Yes, we probably won’t have answers in our lifetimes, but that doesn’t mean the effort is not worthwhile. Plugging in and modeling the statistics based on what we know has proven to be a very effective means of scientific discovery in other areas. It helps narrow down where one can find direct evidence.
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  Read the paper and ignore the article. They investigate a more detailed model of the galaxy than a single arithmetic equation and draw sensible conclusions about how different priors might actually affect (or rather, how some of them curiously don't affect) different properties of the distribution of life in our galaxy. For example, where in the galaxy we would expect most life to form.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The Drake Equation didn't come forward as an attempt to correctly fix each parameter and thus estimate how common life is, it came forward as a summary of the things that should be considered. Of course that was 60 years ago or whatever, but you are on the same page as the guy that came up with it.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  I tend to agree with you. The best explanation I have heard about Fermi paradox is that it disappears when you express the number of planets in exponential notation. If instead of saying "what are the odds that we are the only intelligent species when there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 [random number, I don't know the number] planets in the universe," you express it as "... when there are 10^36 planets in the universe," it becomes easy to answer: Imagine creation of intelligent life requires 36 uncorrelated parameters to line up in a planet, an each of those parameters have a 10% chance of occurring in any given planet. There would be only one such planet in the universe in all likelihood. Our loneliness in the universe doesn't seem so implausible now, does it?
  - poisonborz 6y ago
    Except the number of parameters is maybe much lower, and the the universe had ~14 billion years in a ~93+ billion lightyear radius to have them coincide.
- almog 6y ago
  They make that point exactly (and mention Drake equation of course) along with other possible explanations such as that it might be the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself, in what is probably my favorite This American Life #617 — Fermi's Paradox. Perhaps I remember it so vividly because it was the perfect setting: I was 3+ months into hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, North California, night hiking by myself, earphones on, the wildfire smoke started to clear up, the air was crisp and the night sky got sprinkled with countless bright stars for the first time in a while. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/617/fermis-paradox https://www.thisamericanlife.org/617/fermis-paradox
- hindsightbias 6y ago
  When realistic distributions of uncertainty are applied to the Drake Equation, the paradox dissolves: https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404 https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    They don't use realistic distributions (in spite the abstract says that). They assume uniform distributions in the interval [0, x] where x is somewhat like the current best guess. It is well known that the product of variables with an uniform distribution has a result that has not an uniform distribution, but some distribution that has more values closer to 0. So there is no surprise that multiplying almost 10 variables with uniform distribution you get something that almost 0 almost all the time. But it is not realistic to use an uniform distribution. All the variables depend on a lot a subparts, so a realistic distribution must be something that looks like a log normal distribution with a peak near the current best guess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution
    - taktoa 6y ago
      They use log-uniform and log-normal distributions, see page 10.
ystad 6y ago
I think the definition of 'progress' is nuanced, since it is is inherently unsustainable. I think our existence in general is destructive to the environment around us.
- hprotagonist 6y ago
  in what way is it separable enough to say that one distinct thing destroys the other at all?
m3kw9 6y ago
That time between destruction is the question. If it is a sufficiently long time, there should be many intersections of civilizations that are good enough to explore and life that is just starting or in the middle.
- f6v 6y ago
  Even though the chance is astronomically low, I find the idea of humans being the first intelligent species in the observable universe quite entertaining. You know how there’re always those “elders” - ancient species - in sci-fi? They usually are the first to build civilization and every other species finds and uses the remnants of their tech.
  - krapp 6y ago
    The question is, assuming we live long enough, will we turn into the Vorlons or the Shadows?
    - pontifier 6y ago
      No idea who those are, but assuming humans move both ways around the galaxy we are unlikely to recognize ourselves when we meet on the other side.
      - krapp 6y ago
        Sorry, it was a reference to the science fiction tv show Babylon 5. The Vorlons and Shadows were two "elder" races who took it upon themselves to shepherd the evolution of less advanced species (whether they wanted it or not,) with one having the philosophy of authoritarianism, and the other a sort of brutal, chaos-driven Darwinism.
miobrien 6y ago
Interesting idea. About to read the real paper. However this summary is poorly written. Who’s this Segan guy? /s
hertzrat 6y ago
The article cites a scientific study, but the essence of science is falsifiable claims and evidence. It’s not that the conclusion or method seems wrong, but I don’t think science is the right term
- bigbubba 6y ago
  On what timescale should a claim be falsifiable or verifiable? I guess tens of thousands of years is probably too long.
fao_ 6y ago
> The numbers are actually related to the mystery variables that the American astronomer and the planetary scientist Segan referred to in his Cosmos miniseries in which he discussed the Drake equation. Typo: Segan :)
MauranKilom 6y ago
The headline and article are garbage. The paper (peer review still pending: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2012/2012.07902.pdf https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2012/2012.07902.pdf) does not draw any such conclusions. They identify possible explanations for the Fermi paradox, but it is the article that picked one of those and declared it "likely". > We also concluded that at the current time of the study, most intelligent life in the Galaxy is younger than 0.5 Gyr, with values of probability parameter for self-annihilation between 0-0.01; with a relatively higher value of the annihilation parameter (≥0.1), most intelligent life is younger than 0.01 Gyr. > As we cannot assume a low probability of annihilation, it is possible that intelligent life elsewhere in the Galaxy is still too young to be observed by us. Therefore, our findings can imply that intelligent life may be common in the Galaxy but is still young, supporting the optimistic aspect for the practice of SETI. > Additionally, we found the potential self-annihilation to be highly influential in the quantity of galactic intelligent life, suggesting another possible answer to the Fermi Paradox; if intelligent life is likely to destroy themselves, it is not surprising that there is little or no intelligent life elsewhere. --- Edit: Here is possibly the most immediately digestible result of their simulations. I cannot vouch for how reasonable their model assumptions are, but this is the table of maximum number of planets bearing intelligent life in the Milky Way according to three model parameters: https://i.imgur.com/hpSfiqO.png https://i.imgur.com/hpSfiqO.png λA is the rate of abiogenesis (assuming a Poisson process) per Myr - the two chosen values are apparently minimum and maximum of literature estimates. Tevo is the time from formation of life to it becoming intelligent. Pann is the probability of self (!) annihilation per Myr. (They model annihilation due to nearby supernovae separately). Their model also computes the spatial and temporal distribution of those planets, but for that you will have to read the paper.
- anfilt 6y ago
  So just a paper saying that there might be a great filter that we have not passed. Not really that new of idea...
  - MauranKilom 6y ago
    > Not really that new of [an] idea... I think you missed the contribution of the paper by condensing my summary to the closest related concept you are aware of. I too initially thought "well duh, great filter" after reading the headline/article. But then I read the paper to figure out what exactly the novel aspect was supposed to be, and the answer (more accurate spatial/temporal galactic model, exploring influence of different parameters) seems reasonably nontrivial. Of course our knowledge hasn't made a fundamental step forward (no new data to inform our priors has been obtained), but it does provide a better understanding of our current model(s) and their parameters, as well as where to best look for obtaining more data. That's what scientific progress looks like. (Again, I cannot vouch for the results beyond "assumptions seem generally reasonable to a layman").
castratikron 6y ago
So there has been some discussion in recent years that plants may be intelligent in the sense that they are able to react to stimuli in their environment and actively adapt. There are a few notable experiments that can be interpreted as demonstrating that plants' actions sometimes go beyond simple reflex and could be interpreted as "remembering" or "planning". However, these interpretations are still in debate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_cognition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_cognition Plant life makes up about 99% of the bio mass on this planet. If we can't decide whether the dominant life form on this planet is intelligent, I think that shows that whatever intelligence may exist on other planets or galaxies will probably be so strange that we could be looking right at it and not see it.
- f6v 6y ago
  This goes back to the debate of what’s the definition of intelligence. You can build an agent which has memory and adapts to the environment, but you would not use the word “intelligence” in a sense you use it to describe humans or even pets. Like, does Roomba remember things and plan?
  - MauranKilom 6y ago
    > Like, does Roomba remember things and plan? There are models that do this: Map out the room and then plan a route to efficiently clean it in future days. After watching one of them fail to navigate to the charging dock 4 inches away for ten minutes straight, I have concluded to not attribute intelligence to this machine though.
geniium 6y ago
What a horrible web site to read the text. First, using all theses ads. I don’t like them so much but can understand that you want some cash back. But the ads do appear and shift the content! And you loose the location you were reading (at least on mobile). Thanks but no. Am not gonna finish reading this paper with this fucked up behavior.
- cdolan 6y ago
  Safari “reader view” is the only way to see these articles. We are in a terrible state of the internet that’s for sure
  - sliken 6y ago
    Firefox reader view works as well, on desktop or mobile.
- amelius 6y ago
  Aliens likely annihilated themselves after an overdose of ads and the mass-consumption it evoked.
guscost 6y ago
This conclusion is likely as robust as any other religious belief.
mg 6y ago
The driving force of evolution is survival of the species. If this mechanism inevitably completely wipes the species out after a while, it would be an interesting form of the prisoners dilemma. I wonder if it would be possible to simulate this in a simple system. Like in some extended version of the prisoners dilemma.
f6v 6y ago
All that sounds like it belongs to the same trash bin as ether, homunculus, etc. We can’t even explain how life came about here on Earth, yet making inferences about other civilizations in the galaxy. Edit: not talking about original publication, but rather the class of reasoning in the article.
gus_massa 6y ago
This is based in a preprint in the arXiv. Until peer review and published in a serious journal, it is no more relievable than a blog post in random WordPress site like https://terrytao.wordpress.com/ https://terrytao.wordpress.com/ They have a complex calculation for the formation of civilization, but I can't check it. Then they make a model and for the calculatiosn they peak some values for the unknown parameters. They assume that self destruction rate per mega year is 0%, 50% or 99%. Unsurprisingly, after 1000 mega years most of the civilizations that appeared had collapsed. Ignoring the 0% chance that is also unrealistic, with a 50% or 99% chance of dying, the civilizations would last at most a few mega years, so the surviving one are jut the one that appear just before the simulation ended. The main problem is that nobody know if P_{ann} is 99% or 50% like they choose, or other number like 1% or 0.001%. In a simulation with a 0.001% most of the civilizations would have been alive at the end.
- f6v 6y ago
  I wonder if we can ever build a model for estimating survival of advanced civilization. I mean, can an ant make inferences about humans?
Kaibeezy 6y ago
HN Reader Annihilated Several Seconds of Consciousness by Clicking IBTimes Link, Will NEVER Do So Again While the underlying research may be interesting, this points out the value of taking two minutes to find a primary or at least better quality source.
ransom1538 6y ago
"They also found that even if the galaxy reached its civilizational peak over five billion years ago, most of the civilizations that were around that time have likely self-annihilated" People wake up each day and try to wipe humans off the planet, my favorite example is the: Nike missile project. Let's take hundreds of low range (non icbm) missiles point them into the air, arm with modern nuclear warheads and explode them into airplane formations. This would have turned the bay area into glass just to ensure the Russians didn't bomb us. But rest assured, these sites were spread around the country. How is it, during these design meetings someone doesn't speak up: "This isn't a great idea". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nike
- bigbubba 6y ago
  > Nike missile project. [...] This would have turned the bay area into glass What is your basis for this claim? Are you aware that a great deal of atmospheric nuclear testing has been conducted, so the effects of nukes in the atmosphere are fairly well understood? That one of these tests was performed with men standing directly under the bomb, and they were unscathed? Also keep in mind 'modern bomb' is not synonymous with 'big bomb.'
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
xtiansimon 6y ago
Lol. Susan Blackmore offers an explanation of why the aliens perished—the third replicator! Susan Blackmore. Dangerous Memes; or, What the Pandorans Let Loose https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/607104main_CosmosCulture-ebook.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/607104main_CosmosCulture-ebook.pdf

39 points by elorant 6y ago

I’ve always found these “Drake equation” and “Fermi paradox” discussions pseudoscientific at best. Its fun speculation and poses interesting questions but there’s no need to interpret these formulas as scientific fact. Its much more likely that our estimates are off or our calculations are incorrect than we can draw conclusions from these roundabout statistical inferences. Nothing I’ve read has convinced me otherwise. Its a great pop-sci discussion but I’m more interested in direct evidence rather than speculation for why no direct evidence exists. Drake Equation fans please explain what makes these theories so compelling and I will be indebted to you.

whatshisface 6y ago
>Its much more likely that our estimates are off "Our estimate for stage N in the drake equation is way too high" == "The great filter is stage N in the drake equation." So the interpretation chart goes: - No errors: There are tons and tons of aliens and they're prime-directive-ing us like the Federation from Star Trek. - One error: Oh no! Great filter! (unless it's in our past) - Many errors: Not as interesting. As for why it's compelling at all, the original point of the Drake equation was to make you think about it, and also realize that it's very, very tough to get exactly one. Almost every set of numbers you pick results in either less than one (which we know isn't true because we exist), or more than one. So the argument is, who knows how alone we are, but we're not alone.
- cgriswald 6y ago
  Some terms of the Drake equation are probabilities. The product of those terms can be very much less than 1 and we can still exist. If you accept the weak anthropic principle all our existence says for sure is the product is not 0, which we already knew had to be the case for any such equation.
Apocryphon 6y ago
A lot of these high concept hypothesizing is fun, almost like the modern equivalent of charting out celestial hierarchies. Also consider coming up with speculative measures like the Kardashev scale or inventing megastructures like Dyson spheres or ringworlds. It’s like incorporating a bit of sci-fi into your scientific theorizing.
scotty79 6y ago
I treated them as back-of-the-envelope calculations that can only give very rough estimate.
gibrown 6y ago
I think what is interesting is the narrowing of possible hypotheses based on what we do know. The estimates are certainly off, but helping to better define and refine the question is still a worthwhile scientific endeavor. Yes, we probably won’t have answers in our lifetimes, but that doesn’t mean the effort is not worthwhile. Plugging in and modeling the statistics based on what we know has proven to be a very effective means of scientific discovery in other areas. It helps narrow down where one can find direct evidence.
MauranKilom 6y ago
Read the paper and ignore the article. They investigate a more detailed model of the galaxy than a single arithmetic equation and draw sensible conclusions about how different priors might actually affect (or rather, how some of them curiously don't affect) different properties of the distribution of life in our galaxy. For example, where in the galaxy we would expect most life to form.
maxerickson 6y ago
The Drake Equation didn't come forward as an attempt to correctly fix each parameter and thus estimate how common life is, it came forward as a summary of the things that should be considered. Of course that was 60 years ago or whatever, but you are on the same page as the guy that came up with it.
smnrchrds 6y ago
I tend to agree with you. The best explanation I have heard about Fermi paradox is that it disappears when you express the number of planets in exponential notation. If instead of saying "what are the odds that we are the only intelligent species when there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 [random number, I don't know the number] planets in the universe," you express it as "... when there are 10^36 planets in the universe," it becomes easy to answer: Imagine creation of intelligent life requires 36 uncorrelated parameters to line up in a planet, an each of those parameters have a 10% chance of occurring in any given planet. There would be only one such planet in the universe in all likelihood. Our loneliness in the universe doesn't seem so implausible now, does it?
- poisonborz 6y ago
  Except the number of parameters is maybe much lower, and the the universe had ~14 billion years in a ~93+ billion lightyear radius to have them coincide.
almog 6y ago
They make that point exactly (and mention Drake equation of course) along with other possible explanations such as that it might be the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself, in what is probably my favorite This American Life #617 — Fermi's Paradox. Perhaps I remember it so vividly because it was the perfect setting: I was 3+ months into hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, North California, night hiking by myself, earphones on, the wildfire smoke started to clear up, the air was crisp and the night sky got sprinkled with countless bright stars for the first time in a while. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/617/fermis-paradox https://www.thisamericanlife.org/617/fermis-paradox
hindsightbias 6y ago
When realistic distributions of uncertainty are applied to the Drake Equation, the paradox dissolves: https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404 https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404
- gus_massa 6y ago
  They don't use realistic distributions (in spite the abstract says that). They assume uniform distributions in the interval [0, x] where x is somewhat like the current best guess. It is well known that the product of variables with an uniform distribution has a result that has not an uniform distribution, but some distribution that has more values closer to 0. So there is no surprise that multiplying almost 10 variables with uniform distribution you get something that almost 0 almost all the time. But it is not realistic to use an uniform distribution. All the variables depend on a lot a subparts, so a realistic distribution must be something that looks like a log normal distribution with a peak near the current best guess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution
  - taktoa 6y ago
    They use log-uniform and log-normal distributions, see page 10.

ystad 6y ago

I think the definition of 'progress' is nuanced, since it is is inherently unsustainable. I think our existence in general is destructive to the environment around us.

hprotagonist 6y ago
in what way is it separable enough to say that one distinct thing destroys the other at all?

m3kw9 6y ago

That time between destruction is the question. If it is a sufficiently long time, there should be many intersections of civilizations that are good enough to explore and life that is just starting or in the middle.

f6v 6y ago
Even though the chance is astronomically low, I find the idea of humans being the first intelligent species in the observable universe quite entertaining. You know how there’re always those “elders” - ancient species - in sci-fi? They usually are the first to build civilization and every other species finds and uses the remnants of their tech.
- krapp 6y ago
  The question is, assuming we live long enough, will we turn into the Vorlons or the Shadows?
  - pontifier 6y ago
    No idea who those are, but assuming humans move both ways around the galaxy we are unlikely to recognize ourselves when we meet on the other side.
    - krapp 6y ago
      Sorry, it was a reference to the science fiction tv show Babylon 5. The Vorlons and Shadows were two "elder" races who took it upon themselves to shepherd the evolution of less advanced species (whether they wanted it or not,) with one having the philosophy of authoritarianism, and the other a sort of brutal, chaos-driven Darwinism.

miobrien 6y ago

Interesting idea. About to read the real paper. However this summary is poorly written. Who’s this Segan guy? /s

hertzrat 6y ago

The article cites a scientific study, but the essence of science is falsifiable claims and evidence. It’s not that the conclusion or method seems wrong, but I don’t think science is the right term

bigbubba 6y ago
On what timescale should a claim be falsifiable or verifiable? I guess tens of thousands of years is probably too long.

fao_ 6y ago

> The numbers are actually related to the mystery variables that the American astronomer and the planetary scientist Segan referred to in his Cosmos miniseries in which he discussed the Drake equation. Typo: Segan :)

MauranKilom 6y ago

The headline and article are garbage. The paper (peer review still pending: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2012/2012.07902.pdf https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2012/2012.07902.pdf) does not draw any such conclusions. They identify possible explanations for the Fermi paradox, but it is the article that picked one of those and declared it "likely". > We also concluded that at the current time of the study, most intelligent life in the Galaxy is younger than 0.5 Gyr, with values of probability parameter for self-annihilation between 0-0.01; with a relatively higher value of the annihilation parameter (≥0.1), most intelligent life is younger than 0.01 Gyr. > As we cannot assume a low probability of annihilation, it is possible that intelligent life elsewhere in the Galaxy is still too young to be observed by us. Therefore, our findings can imply that intelligent life may be common in the Galaxy but is still young, supporting the optimistic aspect for the practice of SETI. > Additionally, we found the potential self-annihilation to be highly influential in the quantity of galactic intelligent life, suggesting another possible answer to the Fermi Paradox; if intelligent life is likely to destroy themselves, it is not surprising that there is little or no intelligent life elsewhere. --- Edit: Here is possibly the most immediately digestible result of their simulations. I cannot vouch for how reasonable their model assumptions are, but this is the table of maximum number of planets bearing intelligent life in the Milky Way according to three model parameters: https://i.imgur.com/hpSfiqO.png https://i.imgur.com/hpSfiqO.png λA is the rate of abiogenesis (assuming a Poisson process) per Myr - the two chosen values are apparently minimum and maximum of literature estimates. Tevo is the time from formation of life to it becoming intelligent. Pann is the probability of self (!) annihilation per Myr. (They model annihilation due to nearby supernovae separately). Their model also computes the spatial and temporal distribution of those planets, but for that you will have to read the paper.

anfilt 6y ago
So just a paper saying that there might be a great filter that we have not passed. Not really that new of idea...
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  > Not really that new of [an] idea... I think you missed the contribution of the paper by condensing my summary to the closest related concept you are aware of. I too initially thought "well duh, great filter" after reading the headline/article. But then I read the paper to figure out what exactly the novel aspect was supposed to be, and the answer (more accurate spatial/temporal galactic model, exploring influence of different parameters) seems reasonably nontrivial. Of course our knowledge hasn't made a fundamental step forward (no new data to inform our priors has been obtained), but it does provide a better understanding of our current model(s) and their parameters, as well as where to best look for obtaining more data. That's what scientific progress looks like. (Again, I cannot vouch for the results beyond "assumptions seem generally reasonable to a layman").

castratikron 6y ago

So there has been some discussion in recent years that plants may be intelligent in the sense that they are able to react to stimuli in their environment and actively adapt. There are a few notable experiments that can be interpreted as demonstrating that plants' actions sometimes go beyond simple reflex and could be interpreted as "remembering" or "planning". However, these interpretations are still in debate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_cognition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_cognition Plant life makes up about 99% of the bio mass on this planet. If we can't decide whether the dominant life form on this planet is intelligent, I think that shows that whatever intelligence may exist on other planets or galaxies will probably be so strange that we could be looking right at it and not see it.

f6v 6y ago
This goes back to the debate of what’s the definition of intelligence. You can build an agent which has memory and adapts to the environment, but you would not use the word “intelligence” in a sense you use it to describe humans or even pets. Like, does Roomba remember things and plan?
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  > Like, does Roomba remember things and plan? There are models that do this: Map out the room and then plan a route to efficiently clean it in future days. After watching one of them fail to navigate to the charging dock 4 inches away for ten minutes straight, I have concluded to not attribute intelligence to this machine though.

geniium 6y ago

What a horrible web site to read the text. First, using all theses ads. I don’t like them so much but can understand that you want some cash back. But the ads do appear and shift the content! And you loose the location you were reading (at least on mobile). Thanks but no. Am not gonna finish reading this paper with this fucked up behavior.

cdolan 6y ago
Safari “reader view” is the only way to see these articles. We are in a terrible state of the internet that’s for sure
- sliken 6y ago
  Firefox reader view works as well, on desktop or mobile.
amelius 6y ago
Aliens likely annihilated themselves after an overdose of ads and the mass-consumption it evoked.

guscost 6y ago

This conclusion is likely as robust as any other religious belief.

mg 6y ago

The driving force of evolution is survival of the species. If this mechanism inevitably completely wipes the species out after a while, it would be an interesting form of the prisoners dilemma. I wonder if it would be possible to simulate this in a simple system. Like in some extended version of the prisoners dilemma.

f6v 6y ago

All that sounds like it belongs to the same trash bin as ether, homunculus, etc. We can’t even explain how life came about here on Earth, yet making inferences about other civilizations in the galaxy. Edit: not talking about original publication, but rather the class of reasoning in the article.

gus_massa 6y ago

This is based in a preprint in the arXiv. Until peer review and published in a serious journal, it is no more relievable than a blog post in random WordPress site like https://terrytao.wordpress.com/ https://terrytao.wordpress.com/ They have a complex calculation for the formation of civilization, but I can't check it. Then they make a model and for the calculatiosn they peak some values for the unknown parameters. They assume that self destruction rate per mega year is 0%, 50% or 99%. Unsurprisingly, after 1000 mega years most of the civilizations that appeared had collapsed. Ignoring the 0% chance that is also unrealistic, with a 50% or 99% chance of dying, the civilizations would last at most a few mega years, so the surviving one are jut the one that appear just before the simulation ended. The main problem is that nobody know if P_{ann} is 99% or 50% like they choose, or other number like 1% or 0.001%. In a simulation with a 0.001% most of the civilizations would have been alive at the end.

f6v 6y ago
I wonder if we can ever build a model for estimating survival of advanced civilization. I mean, can an ant make inferences about humans?

Kaibeezy 6y ago

HN Reader Annihilated Several Seconds of Consciousness by Clicking IBTimes Link, Will NEVER Do So Again While the underlying research may be interesting, this points out the value of taking two minutes to find a primary or at least better quality source.

ransom1538 6y ago

"They also found that even if the galaxy reached its civilizational peak over five billion years ago, most of the civilizations that were around that time have likely self-annihilated" People wake up each day and try to wipe humans off the planet, my favorite example is the: Nike missile project. Let's take hundreds of low range (non icbm) missiles point them into the air, arm with modern nuclear warheads and explode them into airplane formations. This would have turned the bay area into glass just to ensure the Russians didn't bomb us. But rest assured, these sites were spread around the country. How is it, during these design meetings someone doesn't speak up: "This isn't a great idea". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Nike

bigbubba 6y ago
> Nike missile project. [...] This would have turned the bay area into glass What is your basis for this claim? Are you aware that a great deal of atmospheric nuclear testing has been conducted, so the effects of nukes in the atmosphere are fairly well understood? That one of these tests was performed with men standing directly under the bomb, and they were unscathed? Also keep in mind 'modern bomb' is not synonymous with 'big bomb.'
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xtiansimon 6y ago

Lol. Susan Blackmore offers an explanation of why the aliens perished—the third replicator! Susan Blackmore. Dangerous Memes; or, What the Pandorans Let Loose https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/607104main_CosmosCulture-ebook.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/607104main_CosmosCulture-ebook.pdf