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Being the only intelligent life means that it's far more likely that we have a long and promising future. If there is other intelligent life out there... we ha

Being the only intelligent life means that it's far more likely that we have a long and promising future. If there is other intelligent life out there... we have to ask why they aren't _everywhere_. Because unless we're missing something big, it would be clear that intelligence is either perpetually stuck in their own tiny tiny corner of the universe, or kill themselves off before they can reach the rest of the visible universe.

nazgulnarsil 6y ago
dark matter is like 96% of the universe by mass...
- garmaine 6y ago
  This is incorrect.
  - wing-_-nuts 6y ago
    Expand please? I read a book that also proposed this. If science has moved on I'd like rto know.
    - garmaine 6y ago
      It is conflating dark matter with dark energy, and counting them both together.
    - lgl 6y ago
      It's pretty close. Only 5% of all matter is "regular" matter, and ~27% is dark matter which makes it be 85% of all mass but not of mass-energy since there is ~68% of dark energy. It's the combination of dark matter + dark energy that makes for ~95% of the universe's total mass-energy. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#:~:text=In%20the%20standard%20Lambda%2DCDM,of%20total%20mass%E2%80%93energy%20content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#:~:text=In%20the%2....
- baja_blast 6y ago
  Dark matter may not exist, in fact many observations conflict with our dark matter models. IMO I just think our understanding of physics is incomplete.
sib301 6y ago
Or we’re early... How is that not an obvious possibility?
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  Sure, but given that humans are only about 500k years old, that makes us the only intelligent life so far. The lack of any other intelligent life so far means that we have no evidence one way or another that we will succeed or fail. Better than if 100 million civilizations already tried and died.
jandrese 6y ago
Or they are everywhere, but our technology is too primitive to see them. Or we just have not collected enough data yet to make out the patterns.
d_silin 6y ago
One of the explanations for Fermi paradox is that we just got lucky to be one of the first civilizations to the party. A few billions years from now Universe will be filled to the brim with life and sentience.
hazeii 6y ago
...or because they're out there, and when they notice us they'll splat us like we'd splat an ant nest with no more thought than that.
- wiz21c 6y ago
  Let's just count the number of movies where we kill the aliens versus where we get to live with them.
- taberiand 6y ago
  I vaguely recall a story to that effect? Scientists finally receive a brief interstellar message of intelligent origin. After painstaking study, a breakthrough and finally they decipher it: Be quiet! They'll hear you.
  - lgl 6y ago
    I was about to comment that it's somewhat similar to The Three Body Problem that's often discussed on hn's comments sections from time to time but decided to search for that last phrase and apparently it's from a /r/nosleep story: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/2j3nxz/radio_silence/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/2j3nxz/radio_silen...
- bluGill 6y ago
  The speed of light is too slow for them to pull that off. They are limited by the same physics as us. There are some possible loopholes like wormholes, but even they are limited.
- nly 6y ago
  ...or the intelligent life in the universe is so beyond us that, even though they have the capability to communicate, or even visit, they don't see us as worth contacting. Perhaps them talking to us would be like us talking to a tree stump or a bucket of plankton. Perhaps it's not even a conscious decision on their part. Perhaps all our achievements, everything we are, isn't recognized amongst alien-kind beyond a short 1 line entry in an alien log file,. Perhaps their monitoring system detects and discards a thousand worthless blips like us every day. What if we're just not that special
causality0 6y ago
Yes, that is the least scary. If species like us are stuck in our own solar system, we're eventually doomed. If we're not, it would only take a few million years to colonize the galaxy. If two non-stuck colonizing species exist at the same time they have to arise within a few million years of each other, in a galaxy thirteen billion years old. Frankly, us being the only/first sapient species is by far the most optimistic possibility.
- wing-_-nuts 6y ago
  Basically, for us to colonize another star system I think we have to be a space native species that no longer needs to. I think by the time we colonize anything beyond alpha centuri, there are more of humanity living on o'neil cylinders than on any planet, and the people living on planet are the ones that desire to live somewhere 'wild'
argvargc 6y ago
Given a premise that perfect evolution is possible: The following is dependent on the unknown likely duration to perfect evolution, and how it overlaps with unknown (but widely-assumed to be light-speed) travelling limits. Given appropriate overlap distance of the two, there will inevitably arise the first civilisation to perform the following steps in order: 1) Attain self-mastery of internal planetary conflict and resource management. (Permanently sustainable peace and sustenance.) 2) Use their now abundance of time to perfect mastery of physics as is physically possible (something we know to have barely-conceivable limits in terms of size/scale etc). 3) Traverse the universe looking for any others, who - by not being the first - will therefore likely be behind them in terms of any conceivable aspect. 4) Immediately upon finding them, imprison them virtually in a seemingly "empty" but otherwise identical universe. This forces the same conditions upon them that were known to cause success, and also eliminates all risk of contamination of the existing peaceful equilibrium. 6) Wait. 7) The found species either: a) achieves mastery of peace and sustainability, at which point contact is initiated as peaceful equals. b) the species fails and dies. 8) Permanent universal peace is the only possible outcome, no matter how many times the above process is repeated. Given the age of the universe, and how far we have come in such a short time, to me the above seems a likely resolution to the paradox. With slight modification, it also explain various unexplained "contacts". Perhaps the "virtual imprisonment period" does not ideally have a definitive binary on/off, instead is progressive in a reversible way (hence the lack of believability and proof for many "encounters"). Such non-invasive contact events may serve as research/assessment, and non-polluting "helping hands" for those who may be watching and waiting. It would certainly appear we are very near (relatively speaking), to the point mastery of the physical world, making us likely virtual imprisonment and observation targets. Whether we can do the peace and sustainability bit remains to be seen.

nazgulnarsil 6y ago

dark matter is like 96% of the universe by mass...

garmaine 6y ago
This is incorrect.
- wing-_-nuts 6y ago
  Expand please? I read a book that also proposed this. If science has moved on I'd like rto know.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    It is conflating dark matter with dark energy, and counting them both together.
  - lgl 6y ago
    It's pretty close. Only 5% of all matter is "regular" matter, and ~27% is dark matter which makes it be 85% of all mass but not of mass-energy since there is ~68% of dark energy. It's the combination of dark matter + dark energy that makes for ~95% of the universe's total mass-energy. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#:~:text=In%20the%20standard%20Lambda%2DCDM,of%20total%20mass%E2%80%93energy%20content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#:~:text=In%20the%2....
baja_blast 6y ago
Dark matter may not exist, in fact many observations conflict with our dark matter models. IMO I just think our understanding of physics is incomplete.

sib301 6y ago

Or we’re early... How is that not an obvious possibility?

bpodgursky 6y ago
Sure, but given that humans are only about 500k years old, that makes us the only intelligent life so far. The lack of any other intelligent life so far means that we have no evidence one way or another that we will succeed or fail. Better than if 100 million civilizations already tried and died.

jandrese 6y ago

Or they are everywhere, but our technology is too primitive to see them. Or we just have not collected enough data yet to make out the patterns.

d_silin 6y ago

One of the explanations for Fermi paradox is that we just got lucky to be one of the first civilizations to the party. A few billions years from now Universe will be filled to the brim with life and sentience.

hazeii 6y ago

...or because they're out there, and when they notice us they'll splat us like we'd splat an ant nest with no more thought than that.

wiz21c 6y ago
Let's just count the number of movies where we kill the aliens versus where we get to live with them.
taberiand 6y ago
I vaguely recall a story to that effect? Scientists finally receive a brief interstellar message of intelligent origin. After painstaking study, a breakthrough and finally they decipher it: Be quiet! They'll hear you.
- lgl 6y ago
  I was about to comment that it's somewhat similar to The Three Body Problem that's often discussed on hn's comments sections from time to time but decided to search for that last phrase and apparently it's from a /r/nosleep story: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/2j3nxz/radio_silence/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/2j3nxz/radio_silen...
bluGill 6y ago
The speed of light is too slow for them to pull that off. They are limited by the same physics as us. There are some possible loopholes like wormholes, but even they are limited.
nly 6y ago
...or the intelligent life in the universe is so beyond us that, even though they have the capability to communicate, or even visit, they don't see us as worth contacting. Perhaps them talking to us would be like us talking to a tree stump or a bucket of plankton. Perhaps it's not even a conscious decision on their part. Perhaps all our achievements, everything we are, isn't recognized amongst alien-kind beyond a short 1 line entry in an alien log file,. Perhaps their monitoring system detects and discards a thousand worthless blips like us every day. What if we're just not that special

causality0 6y ago

Yes, that is the least scary. If species like us are stuck in our own solar system, we're eventually doomed. If we're not, it would only take a few million years to colonize the galaxy. If two non-stuck colonizing species exist at the same time they have to arise within a few million years of each other, in a galaxy thirteen billion years old. Frankly, us being the only/first sapient species is by far the most optimistic possibility.

wing-_-nuts 6y ago
Basically, for us to colonize another star system I think we have to be a space native species that no longer needs to. I think by the time we colonize anything beyond alpha centuri, there are more of humanity living on o'neil cylinders than on any planet, and the people living on planet are the ones that desire to live somewhere 'wild'

argvargc 6y ago

Given a premise that perfect evolution is possible: The following is dependent on the unknown likely duration to perfect evolution, and how it overlaps with unknown (but widely-assumed to be light-speed) travelling limits. Given appropriate overlap distance of the two, there will inevitably arise the first civilisation to perform the following steps in order: 1) Attain self-mastery of internal planetary conflict and resource management. (Permanently sustainable peace and sustenance.) 2) Use their now abundance of time to perfect mastery of physics as is physically possible (something we know to have barely-conceivable limits in terms of size/scale etc). 3) Traverse the universe looking for any others, who - by not being the first - will therefore likely be behind them in terms of any conceivable aspect. 4) Immediately upon finding them, imprison them virtually in a seemingly "empty" but otherwise identical universe. This forces the same conditions upon them that were known to cause success, and also eliminates all risk of contamination of the existing peaceful equilibrium. 6) Wait. 7) The found species either: a) achieves mastery of peace and sustainability, at which point contact is initiated as peaceful equals. b) the species fails and dies. 8) Permanent universal peace is the only possible outcome, no matter how many times the above process is repeated. Given the age of the universe, and how far we have come in such a short time, to me the above seems a likely resolution to the paradox. With slight modification, it also explain various unexplained "contacts". Perhaps the "virtual imprisonment period" does not ideally have a definitive binary on/off, instead is progressive in a reversible way (hence the lack of believability and proof for many "encounters"). Such non-invasive contact events may serve as research/assessment, and non-polluting "helping hands" for those who may be watching and waiting. It would certainly appear we are very near (relatively speaking), to the point mastery of the physical world, making us likely virtual imprisonment and observation targets. Whether we can do the peace and sustainability bit remains to be seen.