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One argument I like is that alien civilizations are going to be either extremely more advanced than us, or extremely less advanced. Human intelligence is only

One argument I like is that alien civilizations are going to be either extremely more advanced than us, or extremely less advanced. Human intelligence is only 5k years old, on a 4.5BB year old planet in a 14BB year old universe. Yet, our level of technological advancement means if FTL travel or communication is possible, we'll probably discover it in the next couple of hundred years, and we would probably get rid of the inferior EM waves as a medium. How long would the average civilization be detectable by our current means under these conditions? Makes a needle in the haystack seem simple.

dctoedt 14y ago
> ...alien civilizations are going to be either extremely more advanced than us, or extremely less advanced. Succinctly illustrated in http://xkcd.com/638/ http://xkcd.com/638/
evincarofautumn 14y ago
Did you really mean to say that human intelligence began a millennium after the start of recorded history?
- kamaal 14y ago
  I think by 'intelligence' he means intelligence required to make macro level impacts. Like traveling across oceans/seas, Living in mass organized colonies and cities, Math and things like that. That sort of intelligence only developed recently(When compared on a time scale). The earlier man had a pretty neat life, tending to food and rest and physiological activities all the time without having nothing much to worry about. Its only when the Philosophers and thinkers started originating, did mankind get some direction to work towards.
- batista 14y ago
  More like it he meant to give an order of magnitude correct answer, and could not care less about give or take 2-3 millennia.
  - evincarofautumn 14y ago
    Behavioural modernity is generally accepted as 50–40kya, and anatomical modernity 200kya. That’s more than a few millennia of difference. I was mainly curious as to whether there were a religious reason for such a comment.
    - batista 14y ago
      Oh, I think he meant technological modernity (well, not modernity but relative maturity).

dctoedt 14y ago

> ...alien civilizations are going to be either extremely more advanced than us, or extremely less advanced. Succinctly illustrated in http://xkcd.com/638/ http://xkcd.com/638/

evincarofautumn 14y ago

Did you really mean to say that human intelligence began a millennium after the start of recorded history?

kamaal 14y ago
I think by 'intelligence' he means intelligence required to make macro level impacts. Like traveling across oceans/seas, Living in mass organized colonies and cities, Math and things like that. That sort of intelligence only developed recently(When compared on a time scale). The earlier man had a pretty neat life, tending to food and rest and physiological activities all the time without having nothing much to worry about. Its only when the Philosophers and thinkers started originating, did mankind get some direction to work towards.
batista 14y ago
More like it he meant to give an order of magnitude correct answer, and could not care less about give or take 2-3 millennia.
- evincarofautumn 14y ago
  Behavioural modernity is generally accepted as 50–40kya, and anatomical modernity 200kya. That’s more than a few millennia of difference. I was mainly curious as to whether there were a religious reason for such a comment.
  - batista 14y ago
    Oh, I think he meant technological modernity (well, not modernity but relative maturity).