6 ms·

Reaching a conclusion with so many unknowns (specially unknown unknowns) is risky. That life must evolve in enough number of planets doesn't mean that the next

Reaching a conclusion with so many unknowns (specially unknown unknowns) is risky. That life must evolve in enough number of planets doesn't mean that the next one is close. And that interplanetary travel is practical doesn't mean that interstellar or intergalactic travel must be. And considering the speed of our current technological development, vs the time needed to get to the next stage in colonization, something big may emerge in the middle. Or something different and unexpected. In some way, we are like churches deciding what and how a god may think. We are not at the right stage to judge based on our lack of knowledge or perspective. It may not be just one road forward, and going galactic may be the wrong one. I prefer to take one step at a time, and solve our current roadblocks, if we can. Maybe we have the great filter in front of us in plain view and we can't recognize it.

beamatronic 6y ago
I agree and I’ve come to the conclusion that the highest moral purpose any intelligent beings can aspire to is to broadcast the information “You Are Not Alone!” by any means available.
- pixl97 6y ago
  Unless of course Dark Forest theory is correct.
  - shrimp_emoji 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLC1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLC1 "DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS MESSAGE!" xD
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    The noun you're looking for is "hypothesis," and that's if we're being charitable.
- gmuslera 6y ago
  At our current stage and philosophy, it may seem that way. That is the point. It may not be valid for most or all of civilizations (if they could be called that way) that are far from us in those and more points. The same goes for some assumptions behind the great filter concept, like exponential growth and biological needs. Maybe the ideal goal is just a silent self-suficient culture in an small outpost far away from any galaxy.
pashsdk27 6y ago
Yes, maybe civilizations of social biological species that have a relativity low replication rate like us may find contentment with colonizing only a few close star systems. Create a few dense population clusters like our current cities on select planets and space platforms and leave the rest to 'nature'. We already have a declining population growth rate of 1.1 as more people are opting out of starting a family and children due to technological advances and better global socioeconomic conditions. And maybe our current power fantasies of galactic colonization may seem trivial and 'ignorant' to our future generations. One could also call this a great filter. The possibilities are endless and allows one to enjoy it as a bunch of inconsequential thought experiments. Actual problems that require solutions are usually not fun to think about.......
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  Low fertility among women is not due to desire but to demands of modern society [1]. Women typically desire 2-3 children each. In modern society they can't have them because of low marriage rates and increased employment among women. 1 - https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-many-kids-do-women-want https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-many-kids-do-women-want
  - sdenton4 6y ago
    Interesting collection of stats, though I don't think the author's conclusions are the only possible interpretation. It's clear that the family size intentions really have been falling since the 60s, and that actual fertility is a fraction of that, which is unsurprising. The bigger sorry here, I think, is that the intended family size drops from 3.4 kids to 2.0. Possibly what's happening is that 'high producers' now make four kids instead of ten, bringing down the overall averages. Basically, it would be nice to see how the distributions of kids per woman change over the decades... I expect something at least bimodal, with a shrinking tail. (Ed: fixed a couple stats, removed a bad statement about quotients. :P )
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      One problem with the data is that it's hard to know to what extent modern life changes how many kids you want. Meaning: if a woman knows she has to have a full time job, she may only want, or believe she can afford, two or three children. Conversely, I suppose a woman in agricultural setting might want 7-10 children knowing they could help on the farm. It's probably impossible to know what people would want "unconstrained" by reality, and maybe not even meaningful. Two things I think are true though. First, women have fewer children than they want, even if what they want is declining over time. Second, women who don't want children, or who want children below replacement, won't ever become the majority of the population - at least not for any significant amount of time. Such women will be replaced by women who, genetically or memetically, want more children.
walleeee 6y ago
> Maybe we have the great filter in front of us in plain view and we can't recognize it. One candidate, if we take ourselves as the primary example, is biogeochemical crisis following rapid discovery and exploitation of environmental resources or energy reserves without sufficient consideration of the consequences
- ethbr0 6y ago
  It seems a bit convenient that every species capable of interplanetary colonization manages to (a) possess world-climate-altering- industrial scale, (b) rest their industrial needs on a resource that threatens their ecosystem, & (c) remain ignorant of the threat until it's too late to do anything about it. Comparatively speaking, asteroids and/or ice ages being more frequent than expected seems more plausible.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    It doesn't have to be climate and it doesn't have to be industrial. Any process which requires scaling intelligence from competitively local and tribal (or any equivalents) to integrated and planetary will do. You either pass that test or you fail it. If you fail it, stagnation and eventually devolution beckon.
    - ethbr0 6y ago
      > stagnation and eventually devolution beckon What was critical in parent's comment was the irrecoverability of the civilization, after such an action. Scaling intelligence is more of a repeatable "trial and error" step (as the article puts it, in a biology context).
  - est31 6y ago
    (d) their previous activities have rendered it way harder to rebuild a technological society There used to be iron deposits etc. on the surface. They were recovered by pre-industrial societies. Now we are digging deeper and deeper for resources, but once we lose that ability, it's possible we won't be able to regain it. What do you do once the nuclear power plant's core has melted, the mine is full of water, and there is nobody around who knows what these things are even there for because all the people who did died years ago of old age. You can't read it up either once we've moved our stored knowledge from paper to machines in what the ancient texts refer to as the mythical "US-EAST-2 region".

beamatronic 6y ago

I agree and I’ve come to the conclusion that the highest moral purpose any intelligent beings can aspire to is to broadcast the information “You Are Not Alone!” by any means available.

pixl97 6y ago
Unless of course Dark Forest theory is correct.
- shrimp_emoji 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLC1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLC1 "DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS MESSAGE!" xD
- ethbr0 6y ago
  The noun you're looking for is "hypothesis," and that's if we're being charitable.
gmuslera 6y ago
At our current stage and philosophy, it may seem that way. That is the point. It may not be valid for most or all of civilizations (if they could be called that way) that are far from us in those and more points. The same goes for some assumptions behind the great filter concept, like exponential growth and biological needs. Maybe the ideal goal is just a silent self-suficient culture in an small outpost far away from any galaxy.

pashsdk27 6y ago

Yes, maybe civilizations of social biological species that have a relativity low replication rate like us may find contentment with colonizing only a few close star systems. Create a few dense population clusters like our current cities on select planets and space platforms and leave the rest to 'nature'. We already have a declining population growth rate of 1.1 as more people are opting out of starting a family and children due to technological advances and better global socioeconomic conditions. And maybe our current power fantasies of galactic colonization may seem trivial and 'ignorant' to our future generations. One could also call this a great filter. The possibilities are endless and allows one to enjoy it as a bunch of inconsequential thought experiments. Actual problems that require solutions are usually not fun to think about.......

ALittleLight 6y ago
Low fertility among women is not due to desire but to demands of modern society [1]. Women typically desire 2-3 children each. In modern society they can't have them because of low marriage rates and increased employment among women. 1 - https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-many-kids-do-women-want https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-many-kids-do-women-want
- sdenton4 6y ago
  Interesting collection of stats, though I don't think the author's conclusions are the only possible interpretation. It's clear that the family size intentions really have been falling since the 60s, and that actual fertility is a fraction of that, which is unsurprising. The bigger sorry here, I think, is that the intended family size drops from 3.4 kids to 2.0. Possibly what's happening is that 'high producers' now make four kids instead of ten, bringing down the overall averages. Basically, it would be nice to see how the distributions of kids per woman change over the decades... I expect something at least bimodal, with a shrinking tail. (Ed: fixed a couple stats, removed a bad statement about quotients. :P )
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    One problem with the data is that it's hard to know to what extent modern life changes how many kids you want. Meaning: if a woman knows she has to have a full time job, she may only want, or believe she can afford, two or three children. Conversely, I suppose a woman in agricultural setting might want 7-10 children knowing they could help on the farm. It's probably impossible to know what people would want "unconstrained" by reality, and maybe not even meaningful. Two things I think are true though. First, women have fewer children than they want, even if what they want is declining over time. Second, women who don't want children, or who want children below replacement, won't ever become the majority of the population - at least not for any significant amount of time. Such women will be replaced by women who, genetically or memetically, want more children.

walleeee 6y ago

> Maybe we have the great filter in front of us in plain view and we can't recognize it. One candidate, if we take ourselves as the primary example, is biogeochemical crisis following rapid discovery and exploitation of environmental resources or energy reserves without sufficient consideration of the consequences

ethbr0 6y ago
It seems a bit convenient that every species capable of interplanetary colonization manages to (a) possess world-climate-altering- industrial scale, (b) rest their industrial needs on a resource that threatens their ecosystem, & (c) remain ignorant of the threat until it's too late to do anything about it. Comparatively speaking, asteroids and/or ice ages being more frequent than expected seems more plausible.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  It doesn't have to be climate and it doesn't have to be industrial. Any process which requires scaling intelligence from competitively local and tribal (or any equivalents) to integrated and planetary will do. You either pass that test or you fail it. If you fail it, stagnation and eventually devolution beckon.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    > stagnation and eventually devolution beckon What was critical in parent's comment was the irrecoverability of the civilization, after such an action. Scaling intelligence is more of a repeatable "trial and error" step (as the article puts it, in a biology context).
- est31 6y ago
  (d) their previous activities have rendered it way harder to rebuild a technological society There used to be iron deposits etc. on the surface. They were recovered by pre-industrial societies. Now we are digging deeper and deeper for resources, but once we lose that ability, it's possible we won't be able to regain it. What do you do once the nuclear power plant's core has melted, the mine is full of water, and there is nobody around who knows what these things are even there for because all the people who did died years ago of old age. You can't read it up either once we've moved our stored knowledge from paper to machines in what the ancient texts refer to as the mythical "US-EAST-2 region".