4 ms·

Analogous to the Fermi Paradox, if warp drive / time travel are possible, why have I not been visited by someone trying to sell me one?

api 4y ago
If either is possible it nearly proves that we must be very early for intelligence in the universe. A universe with intelligent life and FTL turns into a party pretty quick as soon as someone invents it. If we even proved it was possible at table top scale I’d be about 99% convinced we are first in at a bare minimum our galaxy. I would also argue that we should scale it up and get a presence out there fast in case someone less nice than us is also inventing one right now. (And we aren’t all that nice.)
- kloch 4y ago
  > we must be very early for intelligence in the universe. Not under the Zoo hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo_hypothesis
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    So basically Earth is the Milky Way's version of the Sentinel Islands. Makes me wonder if UFO sightings are from misguided extraterrestrial missionaries trying to teach us about their Lord and Savior Behemecoatyl.
- analog31 4y ago
  My thinking is that if time travel / warp drive is possible, then words like "early" and "first" have no meaning. After all, if humans invented it, I would 100% expect someone to be abusing me with it right now. People would steal from the past to pay for the future.
- captainmuon 4y ago
  You can always play with the factors. Maybe FTL is possible, but requires a sizable fraction of the planet's resources. Or you can eventually reach another planet, but terraforming it and building the technology for creating more FTL ships will take millions of years. Basically: FTL is fast but pointless, because getting to FTL takes longer than getting to your destination. Maybe space is a bit more emptier than you think, and FTL is a bit slower. Or maybe it is busy, but we haven't waited long enough. I mean think of a native American in the 1400s. If transoceanic travel is possible, why haven't we seen visitors from other continents yet? Finally, it is still entirely possible that "they" are already there, and there is a cover up. I don't believe it (Occam's razor), but if FTL turns out to be theoretically possible, than I think I will have to update my beliefs :-)
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > I mean think of a native American in the 1400s. If transoceanic travel is possible, why haven't we seen visitors from other continents yet? laughs in some 700CE-vintage Polynesian language while munching on a sweet potato
- vbezhenar 4y ago
  It's highly unlikely that we're first or even early. So any reasoning that leads to this conclusion is highly likely to be wrong somewhere.
  - api 4y ago
    How do we know? We have no samples from which to calculate a distribution.
vbezhenar 4y ago
Did you try to sell something to ants?
- analog31 4y ago
  No, but we're destroying the planet that they live on, in the process of harvesting and consuming its resources. We've learned through our own experiences that a being whose intelligence and power transcends our own tends to be bad news for us, even if they don't exist.
colechristensen 4y ago
* someone is keeping you and your galaxy as a pet * you don’t have anything to pay for it with * your consciousness is the equivalent of an amoeba and it doesn’t occur to anyone to bother * you are the first, someone has to be * theres a whole other way to exist, creatures who live in quantum electrodynamics bound reality are boring * somebody has been and is negotiating, just not you * everybody eventually lives a billion years, the thousands of years human civilization has existed barely registers, they’ll get around to it after breakfast * your species isn’t cool enough and nobody wants to be your friend * your species keeps turning the salesman into a god * nobody has noticed you yet, it’s a big universe and there’s plenty of other fun things to do
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  This is very fun and yet to the point. :)
- analog31 4y ago
  All good points. A short story by Franz Kafka, "Investigations of a Dog" kind of touches on the concept that the higher beings are invisible to us, and that we fabricate them in our own minds to explain our experience. In it, a dog notices that his fellow dogs engage in strange rituals, after which their food appears. And he wonders where the food is actually coming from. He experiences fleeting glimpses of soaring dog-like beings. If I'm recalling the story correctly, his friends don't want to hear about it, and ostracize him. I have wondered if some of Kafka's writings belong in the science fiction genre.

api 4y ago

If either is possible it nearly proves that we must be very early for intelligence in the universe. A universe with intelligent life and FTL turns into a party pretty quick as soon as someone invents it. If we even proved it was possible at table top scale I’d be about 99% convinced we are first in at a bare minimum our galaxy. I would also argue that we should scale it up and get a presence out there fast in case someone less nice than us is also inventing one right now. (And we aren’t all that nice.)

kloch 4y ago
> we must be very early for intelligence in the universe. Not under the Zoo hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo_hypothesis
- yellowapple 4y ago
  So basically Earth is the Milky Way's version of the Sentinel Islands. Makes me wonder if UFO sightings are from misguided extraterrestrial missionaries trying to teach us about their Lord and Savior Behemecoatyl.
analog31 4y ago
My thinking is that if time travel / warp drive is possible, then words like "early" and "first" have no meaning. After all, if humans invented it, I would 100% expect someone to be abusing me with it right now. People would steal from the past to pay for the future.
captainmuon 4y ago
You can always play with the factors. Maybe FTL is possible, but requires a sizable fraction of the planet's resources. Or you can eventually reach another planet, but terraforming it and building the technology for creating more FTL ships will take millions of years. Basically: FTL is fast but pointless, because getting to FTL takes longer than getting to your destination. Maybe space is a bit more emptier than you think, and FTL is a bit slower. Or maybe it is busy, but we haven't waited long enough. I mean think of a native American in the 1400s. If transoceanic travel is possible, why haven't we seen visitors from other continents yet? Finally, it is still entirely possible that "they" are already there, and there is a cover up. I don't believe it (Occam's razor), but if FTL turns out to be theoretically possible, than I think I will have to update my beliefs :-)
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > I mean think of a native American in the 1400s. If transoceanic travel is possible, why haven't we seen visitors from other continents yet? laughs in some 700CE-vintage Polynesian language while munching on a sweet potato
vbezhenar 4y ago
It's highly unlikely that we're first or even early. So any reasoning that leads to this conclusion is highly likely to be wrong somewhere.
- api 4y ago
  How do we know? We have no samples from which to calculate a distribution.

vbezhenar 4y ago

Did you try to sell something to ants?

analog31 4y ago
No, but we're destroying the planet that they live on, in the process of harvesting and consuming its resources. We've learned through our own experiences that a being whose intelligence and power transcends our own tends to be bad news for us, even if they don't exist.

colechristensen 4y ago

* someone is keeping you and your galaxy as a pet * you don’t have anything to pay for it with * your consciousness is the equivalent of an amoeba and it doesn’t occur to anyone to bother * you are the first, someone has to be * theres a whole other way to exist, creatures who live in quantum electrodynamics bound reality are boring * somebody has been and is negotiating, just not you * everybody eventually lives a billion years, the thousands of years human civilization has existed barely registers, they’ll get around to it after breakfast * your species isn’t cool enough and nobody wants to be your friend * your species keeps turning the salesman into a god * nobody has noticed you yet, it’s a big universe and there’s plenty of other fun things to do

actionfromafar 4y ago
This is very fun and yet to the point. :)
analog31 4y ago
All good points. A short story by Franz Kafka, "Investigations of a Dog" kind of touches on the concept that the higher beings are invisible to us, and that we fabricate them in our own minds to explain our experience. In it, a dog notices that his fellow dogs engage in strange rituals, after which their food appears. And he wonders where the food is actually coming from. He experiences fleeting glimpses of soaring dog-like beings. If I'm recalling the story correctly, his friends don't want to hear about it, and ostracize him. I have wondered if some of Kafka's writings belong in the science fiction genre.