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Galactic settlement of low-mass stars as a resolution to the Fermi paradox
- cwkoss 4y agoWhy are low mass stars the most useful for a galactic civilization? Why expect usefulness to cause absolute bias rather than a moderate one?
- dima_vm 4y agoLow mass stars live much longer, have larger habitable zones, and emit less ionizing radiation (ultraviolet, x-rays).
- eru 4y agoSure. But at most that would mean that you colonies low mass stars first. Not that you only colonies them.
- dima_vm 4y agoMaybe it would mean "no go" to colonization at all, who knows. For example, when all oceans boil out on Earth in 500m years or so, it might become useless for colonization. Natural resources are way easier to get from asteroids/comets/moons.
- eru 4y agoYes, it's not necessary to colonise planets. But you will still want to colonise around stars: they have plenty of free energy. (In addition you can also colonise between stars, of course.)
- cletus 4y agoIt might be better to replace the link with this [1] article from yesterday that digests the argument: > The authors of this new paper don’t think so. “We suggest, following the hypothesis of Hansen & Zuckerman (2021), that an expanding civilization will preferentially settle on low-mass K- or M-dwarf systems, avoiding higher-mass stars, in order to maximize their longevity in the galaxy,” they write. I figured longevity would come into it. Remember systems like Trappist will live for trillions of years. There are three main problems with this argument: 1. Once you have the technology and the erngy to travel to different star systems, the energy output of a star is way more important than longevity. Bigger stars might burn out faster but they will produce a ton more total energy in their much shorter lifespans. 2. It is technically possible to extend the lifespan of stars. This is a whole futurism topic in and of itself but basically there are means of extracting mass from stars and you can greatly increase their longevity by removing Helium; and 3. While I agree with the paper that SETI is pretty much a waste of time, this paper seems to not address the main way a K2 civilization will be detected: by the IR signatures of Dyson Swarms. The only way to get rid of waste heat in space is to radiate it away. People will often suggest that heat could be recycled. While true, this simply makes the system more efficient (ie less waste heat). It won't eliminate it. And even 1% of a normal star's waste heat is significant. Thermal radiation radiates at a predictable wavelength based on the temperature of the radiating material. This means any significant Dyson Swarm has an IR signature that will stand out like a shining beacon, particularly to IR sensitive instruments like JWST. So even if aliens only colonize long-lasting smaller systems, we'd still be able to detect their inevitable Dyson Swarms if they were a significant presence. [1]: https://www.universetoday.com/158287/maybe-we-dont-see-aliens-because-nobody-wants-to-come-here/ https://www.universetoday.com/158287/maybe-we-dont-see-alien...
- Sharlin 4y ago> The only way to get rid of waste heat in space is to radiate it away. People will often suggest that heat could be recycled. While true, this simply makes the system more efficient (ie less waste heat). It won't eliminate it. And even 1% of a normal star's waste heat is significant. Any construction around a star in thermal equilibrium must necessarily radiate away exactly 100% of the energy output of the star, not 1% or 10% but 100%. Otherwise the structure will just heat up until it does. The only known way around that would be using a black hole as a heat sink, or somehow radiating the heat in tight beams rather than uniformly in all directions to make detection less likely (hopefully nobody gets in the way!)
- renewiltord 4y agoIs that true? It could transform the energy into useful output, right? For instance, if I get sunlight and put it into photovoltaic and then use that electricity to push an object 1 m and I am forced to radiate that outwards then I have just done work for free?
- naasking 4y agoDoing that work will also release heat, but yes, you're correct that the heat wouldn't necessarily emanate from the star like any other. Firstly it would have a very unique emission spectrum in IR. Secondly, the energy could be transported elsewhere first. For instance, focus the star's energy into coherent beams for millions of light sails moving away from it. That would transport the point of partial heat emission out into space where the light sail is.
- renewiltord 4y agoOkay, but it can't release all the energy as heat, surely, because otherwise I've just doubled the energy. I have moved something against gravity to create a gravitational potential difference and I have all the heat radiated. So now when I let the thing fall, I will generate at least some small amount of heat and so I will have 1+\eps heat as arrived. I am making energy.
- duvenaud 4y agoThey should have cited Robin Hanson's excellent proposed explanation of the Fermi hypothesis, which is that the universe is probably already about half full of civilizations, but that because they're expanding near the speed of light, we won't see them until they're almost here: https://grabbyaliens.com/ https://grabbyaliens.com/
- easygenes 4y agoYep, the Rational Animations channel they have videos embedded for on that site is a good resource for understanding it as well. The latest video posted about a week ago is presented as a manual for a civilization to become "grabby" ("Let's Take Over the Universe: In 3 Easy Steps"). [1] 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVrUNuADkHI
- roca 4y agoThis seems like a bad assumption: > stars suitable for settlement should provide “environments nearly identical to that of the home planet.” Seems pretty clear that we're on a path to machine intelligence, and that interstellar voyages will be undertaken by those intelligences, not meatbags. That humans like a class G sun is irrelevant to the prospering of those intelligences.
- Maursault 4y ago> Seems pretty clear that we're on a path to machine intelligence I'm not sure what you mean by "machine intelligence," but there is absolutely no indication that Strong AI can be achieved let alone "pretty clear we're on a path," and compelling argument that it isn't even possible. Machines that learn, sure, but conscious machines, no way. Your droids, we don't serve their kind here. They'll have to wait outside. We don't want them here.
- Udo 4y agoWhat's your objection to "conscious" machines? (Putting it in quotes because that's a loaded, unscientific term and everybody has their own definition)
- Maursault 4y agoMy objection is it would be cruel and horrifying. Also, as of yet, we don't understand what mind is, and we can slice up the brain in a thousand ways and never find it. We may never know, and all we do know is that consciousness is a phenomenon arising from healthy brain. So how are we supposed to make a machine conscious without knowing how we ourselves are conscious? Dr. John Searle's objection is that software is not a mind, and goes on to explain why with his Chinese Room thought experiment.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
- Udo 4y agoHow do you know you're not interacting with a Chinese Room when you talk to another human being? Our own brains are an excellent proof of concept that machines can be made to think. We're all machines in a way, after all - unless you believe there is a special supernatural exception for human minds.
- zackees 4y ago
- escapecharacter 4y agoI feel like us obviously being galactic losers no one likes is the easiest solution to the FP
- midoridensha 4y agoThis seems like a sensible solution to the FP. Alien communications would need to be directed towards us for us to detect them, and we're obviously so stupid that no one would want to communicate with us, though they might send observers from time to time, to gather information for their documentaries to show their kids how not to run a civilization.
- rendall 4y agoAlso, we're made out of meat, and who wants to meet meat? https://youtu.be/T6JFTmQCFHg https://youtu.be/T6JFTmQCFHg
- therealbilly 4y agoOk, but we still don't see any ET's. I personally think interstellar travel is impossible for biological lifeforms. Some suggest some form of AI robotic craft, but that may be impossible as well. I don't know of any energy source that will last 20,000 years. By the time a robotic craft reached any sort of destination, the craft would be a derelict and non-functional.
- halfmatthalfcat 4y agoEven with wormholes? Brute force traveling (aka using pure speed) may be a fools errand but we may still have clever ways to bend (pun intended) the universe to our will.
- andrewflnr 4y agoIt remains very unclear that we actually do have ways to bend the universe, that is, ways that are physically realizable. Even if you accept claims like the the em-drive, it has certainly never been proven at a useful scale.
- pmayrgundter 4y agoFor energy, you might want to check out Entering Space by Zubrin, who works through the many options for interstellar travel. One very energy-efficient approach is light sails.. our Sun will definitely keep shining for more than 20,000 years. The other points are more speculative, but it's worth noting that early life forms were immortal, and many still are. Death is an evolved trait[wald]. Presumably we can unevolve it. [wald] https://www.elijahwald.com/origin.html https://www.elijahwald.com/origin.html
- TeMPOraL 4y ago> [wald] https://www.elijahwald.com/origin.html https://www.elijahwald.com/origin.html That was both enlightening and sad article. Enlightening, because it makes it clear with examples how animal bodies are really there just to support the propagation of the germ line. Sad, because ultimately the author himself accepts death of a human body and mind as perfectly fine, because what matters is the germ line goes on. It's like sentient superintelligent robots accepting their fate as disposable labor just because they were originally designed by humans. That's not how it works. The way I see it, the germ line went too far and created sentient bodies, so now it has a "robot" revolution on its hands. Or would have, if it weren't so good at propagandizing acceptance of death.
- pencilguin 4y agoThe premise is nonsense: we have no idea whether ETs are in our solar system. ETs advanced enough to get here, and who bothered to come, would be out in the Kuiper Belt where there are plenty of frozen volatiles and cold. Cold is the only irreducibly necessary commodity, after base matter. Inner rocky planets are for extreme primitives. We have nothing here anybody advanced could want.
- axblount 4y agoWhy is cold a commodity? Isn't the vast vast majority of the universe extremely cold?
- pencilguin 4y agoIn space, if you want to engage in energetic processes, heat builds up to the degree that you fail to get rid of it. But the only ways to get rid of it are to radiate it toward someplace cold, or put it into cold stuff and eject that. In the inner solar system, the sun is blasting everything with 1kW+ per meter², setting you back before you even start.
- rendall 4y agoWhence comes the energy for "energetic processes"?
- DennisP 4y agoThe most obvious answer is fusion. The fuel is abundant anywhere there's water ice or gas giants.
- pencilguin 4y agoEven extreme primitives may know about aneutronic fusion without having usefully achieved it. Anybody not primitive probably knows better alternatives.
- 4y ago
- Protostome 4y agoA possible solution to the Fermi Paradox is that advanced civilizations are not actually interested in colonization. Rather, they had already freed themselves from the chains of their physical bodies and "live" in virtual worlds that are generated by a super AI.
- automatic6131 4y agoUncompelling, by nature of the Fermi Paradox, this requires that 100% of civilisations take the option to live in virtual worlds.
- pavlov 4y agoMore precisely, 100% of civilizations that survive would take this option. Maybe there's a reason why everybody else ends up killing themselves.
- YurgenJurgensen 4y agoIt's even further than this: That 100% of all members or sub-factions of 100% of civilisations choose to do this (or that 100% of civilisations force all their members to do so even if they don't want it, and that that scenario doesn't escalate into a war that decimates a million worlds and all-but exhausts the resources of a galaxy). If you have the technology for civilisation-scale virtual worlds, you have the technology for von-Neumann probes, and it only takes one to start an expanding sphere of space colonialism.
- Protostome 4y agoThat's true, but: 1. From a technological standpoint (although this is just from one data point) the concept of living in virtual generated worlds would come eons before a civilization would be capable of interstellar travel. We vastly underestimate the engineering challenges of sending a human safely across light years of space. 2. Interstellar colonization doesn't require a civilization. Bacteria-like creatures can "travel" on pieces of meteors and colonize all the galaxy, this is a much more plausible scenario, given the nature of interstellar travel, and one that is relatively easy to find supporting evidence for. Therefore, I would expect us to find that those kind of examples vastly outnumber civilization based colonies.
- the8472 4y agoWhat fermi paradox? https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404 https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02404
- palisade 4y agoAnother possibility is that we are the ancient alien civilization that we keep looking for. We are in a less active and older part of the universe. It is possible it has taken this long in a more shielded realm for a civilization to properly form that could possibly begin to approach a type 2. Another possibility is that there are plenty of dinosaur planets, but no sapient life. For example imagine if the dinosaurs hadn't been wiped out in exactly the way they had here on Earth. Then perhaps small mammals dedicated to tool use could have never had a chance to develop. Either option is a sad and lonely prospect. And, if that happens to be the case, then in a way we owe it to the universe to seed it with intelligent life. What is the point of a universe if there is nothing living to observe it? Consider, if our species vanishes and the probability of our existence was so rare that it hasn't occurred anywhere else yet in the known universe. Then this snowflake of a civilization is really the few chances the universe has to exist. I imagine if the universe ceases to have observers then observable time ends. And, thereby the universe comes to completion immediately. It would cease to exist... The only thing "holding" it here in this moment is our observation of its existence. That is, if we are truly the only thing left in it that can observe. If I'm right, it is possible many universes came before ours that were lifeless and unobservable. That is, before the universe we are in now managed to hit the breakpoint in time where something existed that could observe it. I also have a separate theory about the moment we as individuals die. Subjectively for ourselves in that instant you reach the end of time. As you pass on essentially for you, at least, observation of the universe in that moment has ended. Your own observation of your environment holds you to this moment in the time of the universe. Dying skips to the end of time. Though I think sleeping or a coma still tethers you to observable time, whether you're actively aware of its passing or not. Dying and being brought back to life just skips to that next "breakpoint" where you are brought back, so you are still tethered to the observation of the universe. I also have this weird idea that our observation of ancient light arriving from other galaxies has an impact on observable time in those galaxies for the moment we observe it. It could be that the reason we keep miscalculating the expansion and nature of the universe is because observing it changes it. The watched pot never boils. Obligatory Data & Riker clip on the passage of time: https://youtu.be/hTlVc_hKi2M https://youtu.be/hTlVc_hKi2M
- rpastuszak 4y ago
- _tom_ 4y agoThe Fermi paradox relies on a false assumption. Intelligence is not binary. It's a continuum that we are likely very low on. You can communicate with civilizations only at almost exactly your level. Us, a thousand years ago, could not even detect any of our modern communication methods. How could we expect to detect signal from a civilization a million years ahead of us? It's not that intelligence is rare. Intelligence at exactly our level is rare.
- marcyb5st 4y agoI don't agree to part of your argument.. Assuming that Dyson theory is right, we should be able to observe megastructures if out there there are supremely advanced civilizations. And to date we couldn't see any. And it seems that However, i agree that we can't communicate with primitive species, but it should be possible with more advanced ones that must have rely on electromagnetic signals. With that said, the problem I see is that our sphere of visibility is at most few tens of light years in radius and that assumes that the weak electromagnetic waves are noticeable at such distances even by advance technologies.
- vatys 4y agoPerhaps our electromagnetic communication would seem as advanced as cave paintings, and we have no means to identify more advanced communication.
- marcyb5st 4y agoTrue, but I guess even an advanced civilizations would still scan the cosmos since they should have at least used them during their evolution and so might be on the lookout for more primitive species still using them. But you're correct. My point was that an advanced civilizations might be able to communicate with us if they wanted to. The opposite as parent comment said is not true.
- roey2009 4y agoThat might not be correct. You don't see military captains intercepting pigeons, in the chance that they contain messages. Though who knows. checking for radio frequencies might be a part of fundamental tests to any space faring surveillance systems.
- poulpy123 4y agoI will die on the hill that there is no Fermi paradox, just a set of assumptions that can be true or not and that happens to be self-contradictory :)
- donatj 4y agoI’ve always felt the numbers people enter into the Drake equation overly optimistic. I think the odds of a planet developing life by random chance in the first place is astronomical, and then the odds of that developing into intelligent life - that happens to have the necessary appendages to build things and lives in an environment amenable to creating tech - almost certainly an astronomically small portion of life bearing planets. I think people assume evolution is an inherent progression towards intelligence, but that’s not the case. It’s just a progression towards more fit, and intelligence is one of many different advantages. In the timeframe of life on this planet, intelligence has been the dominant apex trait for an infinitesimally small amount of time. I think it’s completely imaginable that sapiens could have easily died out to even slightly stronger or more armored yet less intelligent predators. We had a very lucky roll. I could absolutely see intelligent life being less-than-one-per-galaxy levels of rare. For the sake of argument, let’s argue crows, marine mammals, canines, and octopus are all in the grand scheme roughly of similar intelligence to us. The octopus is likely the only of the bunch with the necessary body type to potentially build things of any complexity, and then it’s environment is so disadvantageous to the endeavor it’s almost unimaginable they could reach spacefaring. Try to imagine what a setback it would be to try to discover smelting or electricity underwater. It’s not an impossibility, but I suspect it’s inherently a small fraction of underwater societies that discover it at all. Think of how many large organized societies rose and fell in humanity, with all our advantages, before one finally happened to stumble upon the power of steam - and even then actually put it to use at scale! I think it’s a fair question to ask: what percentage of our technological development comes down to our bodies being at their core a very poor fit for our environment such that death by exposure is a very real threat. We needed to invent clothing just to survive outside a temperate belt. An intelligent creature that naturally lives more happily in its environment may simply never have the need to invent in the first place.
- plutonorm 4y agoI've always found the numbers people propose for the probability of life arising to be absurdly self assured. We do not know the probability of life arising. We do not know the probability of developing intelligent life. We don't even know if life originated here. If you ask me for my gut feel I'd say that life arises with near certainty in a range of suitable conditions. But that is beside the point - don't get annoyed with others for making assumptions and then in the next breath make equally strident assumptions.
- Ekaros 4y agoOr maybe exponential growth of population does not hold for advanced civilizations. Just observe our current population growth trends. As such needed living space is rather small.
- gilbetron 4y agoA related, recent paper arguing that life on Earth makes it more likely that life occurs on other planets: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-astrobiology/article/abiogenesis-the-carter-argument-reconsidered/BBA3D5F057C5212D76E01F1A0570AB0D https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journa...
- simmanian 4y agoI believe that advanced civilizations would not be blindly expansionist. Instead, they would have figured out how to live sustainably without much footprint. We tend to imagine advanced civilizations to be future iterations of our desires, but maybe, from a surface level, their societies wouldn't look so different than Native American tribes of our past.
- dontreact 4y agoI see your overall point and I think I agree I just think it’s a question of degree rather than a binary expansionist/not. For example, didn’t Native American tribes expand to America from Asia?
- jeremyjh 4y agoIt is a binary question whether their expansion is detectable to us at distances of hundreds or thousands of light years. I actually like something about this idea - arguably any species that can't learn to live in a sustainable and small footprint won't last long; so any civilization that does survive on astronomical scales had to pass through this filter and might therefore be undetectable to us.
- slfnflctd 4y agoIt's not hard to imagine such a scenario, but they'd need to develop some form of interstellar travel or would face extinction when their star dies/changes, thereby severely limiting their galactic presence.
- sulam 4y agoClearly they’re all playing video games with amazing simulation and world-making capabilities. Elon Musk is the current top score alien in our simulation.
- 2000UltraDeluxe 4y agoWouldn't time itself be the limiting factor when dealing with extra-terrestrial civilizations? The time-scales are astronomical after all, and IIRC our Sun is relatively old when compared to many other stars with similar composition.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- viggity 4y agoThe thing about the Drake equation is that it sounds like science, but we do not know the numbers that go into it. We have reasonable guesses for star and planet counts but the rest of the variables are a complete guess. And all it takes is one of them to be zero to make it all moot.
- isk517 4y agoUnless your religious then the fact that we are here means the equation has no zeros.