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It's also incredibly slow. It also needs a way to send back the data, unless you expect it to slowly return to somewhere "civilized". So there is either tech on

by Faark 4y ago

It's also incredibly slow. It also needs a way to send back the data, unless you expect it to slowly return to somewhere "civilized". So there is either tech on board or they have tech capable enough to pretty much just observe us directly. Maybe as some first contact protocol, by dropping the rock outside a candidates solar system. But again, i'd expect them to have so much better ways to observe. We humans really have a tendency to see pattern in things. Even after having having seen the decompiled game code being basic RNG, a part of me was still looking for ways to improve my drop chance by me doing things slightly different :D

unrealp 4y ago
"having tech on board" - yea but it reveals that the probe came from intelligent civilization. "expect it to slowly return to somewhere "civilized"." - this one looks good.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
An advanced civilization that can send out a probe like that also likely has tools to cloak its existence to us. You could very well have a situation where the mothership docks outside of a solar system, cloaks itself, and sends out a probe, and the probe eventually makes it back to the mothership. I really think we are limited by our imagination and anthropomorphism. A civilization a million years ahead of us in development is likely capable of things we can’t even imagine. I always like to remind myself that our own civilization is at most only 10k years old. If we survive, I can’t imagine what we would be like in 10x more time.
- euroderf 4y ago
  This is an important point - that the chance of an alien civ being roughly at our level of technological sophistication is very low. They be either primordial critters (no space travel there) or too cool for the likes of us monkeys.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    It's a very narrow window, isn't it? A civilization even 500 years ahead of us might be mind bogglingly advanced. If you were to travel to the 1600s and tell people that we have generative AI, spaceships, and smartphones, their brains wouldn't be able to comprehend it.

by Faark 4y ago

unrealp 4y ago

"having tech on board" - yea but it reveals that the probe came from intelligent civilization. "expect it to slowly return to somewhere "civilized"." - this one looks good.

spaceman_2020 4y ago

An advanced civilization that can send out a probe like that also likely has tools to cloak its existence to us. You could very well have a situation where the mothership docks outside of a solar system, cloaks itself, and sends out a probe, and the probe eventually makes it back to the mothership. I really think we are limited by our imagination and anthropomorphism. A civilization a million years ahead of us in development is likely capable of things we can’t even imagine. I always like to remind myself that our own civilization is at most only 10k years old. If we survive, I can’t imagine what we would be like in 10x more time.

euroderf 4y ago
This is an important point - that the chance of an alien civ being roughly at our level of technological sophistication is very low. They be either primordial critters (no space travel there) or too cool for the likes of us monkeys.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  It's a very narrow window, isn't it? A civilization even 500 years ahead of us might be mind bogglingly advanced. If you were to travel to the 1600s and tell people that we have generative AI, spaceships, and smartphones, their brains wouldn't be able to comprehend it.