4 ms·

Civilizations don't last long in historical time, so chances to find something are probably low. But maybe something emerges after technology, a kind of new mat

Civilizations don't last long in historical time, so chances to find something are probably low. But maybe something emerges after technology, a kind of new matter with unusual property?

echelon 4y ago
AI gray goo. Maybe it already surrounds us. In the air, rocks, and fabric of spacetime itself. It's too advanced to detect, and we're much too primitive to be a concern. Or maybe we're just its memory. We gave birth to it long ago, and our conscious lives are reminiscence.
Mistletoe 4y ago
How do you know civilizations don’t last long in historical time? Roman, Byzantine etc. yes all fall, but the earth has been continually inhabited by civilizations since they were invented. Our single data point suggests that, so far, once they are created they last forever.
- WJW 4y ago
  I think it'd be more accurate to say that once created they can last at least 6k years or so. We simply have no data on the survival rate beyond that, because we've observed zero civilizations older than that so far.
VLM 4y ago
> a kind of new matter with unusual property There should be more planets with photosynthesis than intelligent life. Better first step would be to accumulate a long list of planets with anomalous oxygen levels and then focus on those targets for radio analysis or similar. Oxygen is very active chemically and without photosynthesis you don't get much of it in an atmosphere. Theoretically some civilizations could be strongly exhibitionistic or perhaps try to spread a religion or just otherwise be very attention seeking. Just like some human individuals are. If you wanted to gain the attention of every astronomer for thousands of light years, right now we have the tech to dump a couple hundred tons of some weird elements into the sun and for "awhile" until solar wind blows it away the sun would suddenly glow ridiculous anomalously brightly in argon or whatever nonsense element. There was a scientific paper on this general idea and I can't find it. There's a little bit of everything everywhere so if you have sensitive enough instruments you could in theory detect stuff in the sun. I mean, this is literally how we discovered helium... and the astronomers would completely flip their lids if suddenly out of nowhere a hundred tons of iridium instantly appeared in the solar spectra for no apparent reason. Also they'd be able to tell it was relatively pure refined substance, if it was a mere huge asteroid it would have normal asteroid composition, but WTF here's 99% pure ball of I don't know, krypton ice. An extremely exhibitionistic civilization could also dump some kind of organic dye into the sun. It won't last long and there won't be much signal, but it'll look weird as heck in spectrograms for a little while.

Civilizations don't last long in historical time, so chances to find something are probably low. But maybe something emerges after technology, a kind of new matter with unusual property?

echelon 4y ago

AI gray goo. Maybe it already surrounds us. In the air, rocks, and fabric of spacetime itself. It's too advanced to detect, and we're much too primitive to be a concern. Or maybe we're just its memory. We gave birth to it long ago, and our conscious lives are reminiscence.

Mistletoe 4y ago

How do you know civilizations don’t last long in historical time? Roman, Byzantine etc. yes all fall, but the earth has been continually inhabited by civilizations since they were invented. Our single data point suggests that, so far, once they are created they last forever.

WJW 4y ago
I think it'd be more accurate to say that once created they can last at least 6k years or so. We simply have no data on the survival rate beyond that, because we've observed zero civilizations older than that so far.

VLM 4y ago

> a kind of new matter with unusual property There should be more planets with photosynthesis than intelligent life. Better first step would be to accumulate a long list of planets with anomalous oxygen levels and then focus on those targets for radio analysis or similar. Oxygen is very active chemically and without photosynthesis you don't get much of it in an atmosphere. Theoretically some civilizations could be strongly exhibitionistic or perhaps try to spread a religion or just otherwise be very attention seeking. Just like some human individuals are. If you wanted to gain the attention of every astronomer for thousands of light years, right now we have the tech to dump a couple hundred tons of some weird elements into the sun and for "awhile" until solar wind blows it away the sun would suddenly glow ridiculous anomalously brightly in argon or whatever nonsense element. There was a scientific paper on this general idea and I can't find it. There's a little bit of everything everywhere so if you have sensitive enough instruments you could in theory detect stuff in the sun. I mean, this is literally how we discovered helium... and the astronomers would completely flip their lids if suddenly out of nowhere a hundred tons of iridium instantly appeared in the solar spectra for no apparent reason. Also they'd be able to tell it was relatively pure refined substance, if it was a mere huge asteroid it would have normal asteroid composition, but WTF here's 99% pure ball of I don't know, krypton ice. An extremely exhibitionistic civilization could also dump some kind of organic dye into the sun. It won't last long and there won't be much signal, but it'll look weird as heck in spectrograms for a little while.