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I don't think there's any reason for that fact to be frightening. Interstellar shipping rates are astronomical (pun shamelessly intended). Even sending a teeny

I don't think there's any reason for that fact to be frightening. Interstellar shipping rates are astronomical (pun shamelessly intended). Even sending a teeny tiny package to the next solar system over costs a lot and takes a long time. The fastest it's ever going to go is the speed of light. That fact we haven't been obliterated by an alien invasion fleet tells us that there's probably not a hyper advanced alien species that is big mad about us within 100ly. Thats the threshold where a hyper advanced alien civilization could have seen the Industrial Revolution starting, deduced there's a technological civilization here, developed a big mad about the fact, and launched a destruct-o fleet or super weapon at us with hyper advanced speed of light propulsion that is so advanced the trip is practical in terms of expense (practicality factor). There's a "probability of mean hyper advanced aliens" value that's like the Lindy Effect. The longer we go without being obliterated by an alien space fleet the further away we can assume mean hyper advanced aliens might live. For mean aliens that are less advanced the less we need to worry about them because the practicality factor of their propulsion system is lower. An alien invasion fleet sent here at at Parker Solar Probe velocities (0.064c at closest approach to the Sun) are less worrying because the likelihood of them arriving at a point where we personally need to worry about them is pretty low. For instance our practicality factor for building an interstellar invasion fleet is basically zero. Even building a von Neumann probe has a so close to zero it might as well be zero practicality factor. I'd posit that there's a minimum practicality factor a civilization needs to go around destroying other ones. If your best propulsion is below that threshold you're just not going to ever build an invasion fleet. You might build interstellar probes but an invasion fleet is impractical. So I'm not worried about the hyper advanced aliens watching me shower. And I'm also not worried about the less advanced ones either. Space is really big and traveling between stars is really hard. If my existence made the hyper advanced ones so upset they'd come blow me up there's not a lot I could do about it anyways.

echelon 4y ago
> Even building a von Neumann probe has a so close to zero Why do you say this? Could you expand on it? It seems to me like the cost of these sentient, self-replicating factories would be marginal. I'm worried about them sending a von Neumann probe that constructs a series of asteroid deflection ships that would put impactors on a direct collision course with us. Or some smart, self-replicating nanobot that can out compete our biological systems for energy while being metabolically undigestable. Or some kind of energy weapon.
- giantrobot 4y ago
  > Why do you say this? Could you expand on it? It seems to me like the cost of these sentient, self-replicating factories would be marginal. I was saying our ability, as in Earth today, has a practicality factor of zero for building even a von Neumann probe. That's not to say we won't be able to in the future but today the practicality factor is zero. Take for instance the Parker Solar Probe at its fastest will hit about 193km/s thanks to slingshots around the Sun. It could reach Alpha Centauri in about 8000 years. If we could build killer nanobots we could put a bucket of them in such a probe and launch it at alien planets we didn't like. Unfortunately for our killer nanobots there's no way to slow them down. If they impacted anything in the system they'd be vaporized. Whatever method we want to use to slow the probe down to some practical speed for a killer nanobot attack, we'd need to be far more advanced than we are today. We'd need extremely accurate maps of the target system, some sort of long-lived power system to run some kind of as-yet undeveloped ion drive to steer/slow the probe, and of course a way to build killer nanobots and a probe that could run for thousands of years flying through space. So the practicality factor for us building killer nanobot probes is effectively zero. As for your other points, I'm not worried about those things since they would be undetectable until it was too late. There's a lot more immediate concerns that are far more pressing and likely than any of those.

echelon 4y ago

> Even building a von Neumann probe has a so close to zero Why do you say this? Could you expand on it? It seems to me like the cost of these sentient, self-replicating factories would be marginal. I'm worried about them sending a von Neumann probe that constructs a series of asteroid deflection ships that would put impactors on a direct collision course with us. Or some smart, self-replicating nanobot that can out compete our biological systems for energy while being metabolically undigestable. Or some kind of energy weapon.

giantrobot 4y ago
> Why do you say this? Could you expand on it? It seems to me like the cost of these sentient, self-replicating factories would be marginal. I was saying our ability, as in Earth today, has a practicality factor of zero for building even a von Neumann probe. That's not to say we won't be able to in the future but today the practicality factor is zero. Take for instance the Parker Solar Probe at its fastest will hit about 193km/s thanks to slingshots around the Sun. It could reach Alpha Centauri in about 8000 years. If we could build killer nanobots we could put a bucket of them in such a probe and launch it at alien planets we didn't like. Unfortunately for our killer nanobots there's no way to slow them down. If they impacted anything in the system they'd be vaporized. Whatever method we want to use to slow the probe down to some practical speed for a killer nanobot attack, we'd need to be far more advanced than we are today. We'd need extremely accurate maps of the target system, some sort of long-lived power system to run some kind of as-yet undeveloped ion drive to steer/slow the probe, and of course a way to build killer nanobots and a probe that could run for thousands of years flying through space. So the practicality factor for us building killer nanobot probes is effectively zero. As for your other points, I'm not worried about those things since they would be undetectable until it was too late. There's a lot more immediate concerns that are far more pressing and likely than any of those.