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What I found most interesting about this model was the implication that humans are possibly one of the earliest sentient spacefaring species to have appeared so

• delichon 3y ago
  Expecting ourselves to be special has a poor track record. The same evidence is compatible with lots of loud aliens yelling on channels we can't hear yet.
  • distortionfield 3y ago
    That’s the exact opposite of the grabby alien’s hypothesis tho. The grabby aliens hypothesis says that we’re very much average but that life as a whole is still quite young in the universe.
    • deleted 3y ago
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    • delichon 3y ago
      The galaxy is around 100k light years across and 13 billion years old. For us to be among the first generation born within 10^5 years of each other after a gestation of 10^10 years, would make us special. Being among the first civilizations in the galaxy is less special than being the first civilization, but more special than being just another in an ongoing ecosystem.
      • tshaddox 3y ago
        Why is being first, or being among the first, “special”? To me “special” is different than just “specific.” If some civilization knew it was the 50th advanced civilization in the universe, 50 might seem like a very special number, but is it really more special than 1?
        • deleted 3y ago
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      • Veserv 3y ago
        The hypothesis goes: I want humans to be casually interstellar and expand across the galaxy. I want this to occur in less than N years, N << 10^10. If humans are casually interstellar and expansionist, then we would colonize the galaxy in M years, M << 10^10. Humans are not special, therefore if another alien species existed in the past at current human tech levels, then they would do the same as humans would and colonize the galaxy within N + M << 10^10 years after achieving current human tech level. We believe we can detect such a civilization. Therefore, if we are more than N + M years after a another civilization with current human tech level, then we would see them. We do not detect any such civilizations. Therefore one of the assumptions must be wrong. 1. We can not detect a galactic civilization. 2. No alien civilization has reached current human tech level within N + M years of now. 3. Humans are special. Only humans would colonize the galaxy if they had casual interstellar travel. 4. Humans are not special, but we will never invent casual interstellar travel/spread to the stars. So, if you think humans are not special (3 is false) and you hope humans will spread to the stars in the future (hope 4 is false), then you hope the answer is 1 (humans are bad at detection) or 2 (humans are early). If you rule out 1 and 2, then 4 can only be true if 3 is true. If you rule out 3 as well, then you must conclude humanity will never spread to the stars for unknown reasons.
        • sevensevennine 3y ago
          I don't follow the last point in your argument. Isn't 4 equivalent to, 'no civilization will invent casual interstellar travel/spread to the stars'? And isn't that hypothesis extremely likely, given what we now know about the costs of _interplanetary_ travel and its relative ease compared to interstellar travel? That's another assumption, that it's _possible_ to colonize a galaxy from a planetary base. We don't even know that it's possible to colonize a nearby planet. If we were confident that we could, we'd be filling up Siberia, Ellesmere Island, and Greenland first. There's also another assumption missing from your list- that technological civilizations can last long enough to colonize the galaxy. I'm also surprised that there isn't any discussion on the site or here of Great Filters. If the average technological civilization wipes itself out within a few hundred years of developing technologies that enable space travel or even radio, then all discussion of "filling the galaxy" is castles in the air.
  • 7thaccount 3y ago
    Just gotta turn on that subspace receiver and get cosmically rick-rolled :) It is one idea anyway. It would be bizarre for us to end up some precursor species...at least in our galaxy.
• actionfromafar 3y ago
  Barely spacefaring. We are like fish on the shore who can survive in the mud long enough for the tide to come back to rescue us, if that.
  • morkalork 3y ago
    That's a pretty good comparison. We go to space but it's a fleeting excursion so far and we haven't yet evolved the necessary abilities to make it permanent
    • Charon77 3y ago
      If a planet in the nearest star harbors life form that launched a rocket, would we know?
      • cryptoz 3y ago
        No, we wouldn't know today. But this is knowable in about 50 years or so, if we send probes to ~550AU and use the Sun as a gravitational lens; we will then be able to get high-res (1km resolution?) photos/videos of nearby extrasolar planets themselves. This may be enough to find a spacefaring civilization. (sure, rockets aren't 1km big, but they do leave big traces. maybe we could see that)
        • Qem 3y ago
          > if we send probes to ~550AU and use the Sun as a gravitational lens; we will then be able to get high-res (1km resolution?) photos/videos of nearby extrasolar planets themselves. It doesn't scale well. The probe would be able to observe a carefully chosen extrasolar planetary system in the opposite direction in relation to the sun. If you want to observe a second system, it's necessary to launch a second probe 550 AU in another direction. You can't change targets just by rotating the probe, given its lens is the sun.
          • cryptoz 3y ago
• echelon 3y ago
  > implication that humans are possibly one of the earliest sentient spacefaring species to have appeared so far. Or that perhaps we're a simulation. We exist in a very interesting time in history when the pieces are coming together. Our hypothetical future robot descendents may be very interested in learning about their past.
  • ionwake 3y ago
    i dunno bros, but this is the explanation of the fermi paradox for me. Sorry to go all HGTTG but... >Wake up >No idea where I am >Hey we have no idea where everyone is >According to history nothing much has happened in the universe >Oh look at that, just now that you are alive you are hitting the singularity Feels a little like a rehashed sitcom episode...like a director is just brute forcing shit to figure out a solution, with our lives. And its all probably just on how to make a good cup of coffee for his interdimensional space ship.
  • kiba 3y ago
    We wouldn't know if we're in a simulation unless the diety/programmer wanted us to know that.
    • ionwake 3y ago
      Not really I disagree. With software that encourages emergent behaviour we are unaware of the abilities the entities take on. So in theory I think we could.
      • kiba 3y ago
        They can just simply pause, delete, reverse, or make us outright ignore anything. They are literal god and hold ultimate power over us, unless they are willing to deliberately let things happen. The better question is if it even matter.
        • ionwake 3y ago
          Im sure it matters, or else we wouldnt exist. How "much" we matter is the question.
• Kostic 3y ago
  Spacefaring is very generious. We still have to make a trip between two planets, not to mention two stars.
• distracted_boy 3y ago
  We have seen signs, they were called UFOs but are called UAPs now, at least by the US government. People have tried coming forward over the years and talk about the subject, but was met with ridicule. I suggest googling David Grusch to read about the whistleblower from inside US intelligence services. Also search for “Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet ufo” and you’ll find additional comments. This is the greatest coverup in human history.
  • ben_w 3y ago
    Such conspiracy theories amuse and confuse me in equal measure. Do you also think North Korea, Cuba, and Iran either don't exist or want to be part of this coverup? Do you live in a world where there's really only one government and any indication to the contrary is mere kayfabe?
    • chad_stephens 3y ago
      I’m sure they do, and for all we know may Iran is part of the conspiracy. Cuba and NK are small fry and are probably excluded. In the lore, multiple governments are involved in the conspiracy. They keep it secret because it is a race to see who can crack the alien tech the fastest. There have been cases in the lore of other countries (Brazil and Zimbabwe i believe) having encounters or alleged down aircraft and the US has came in to investigate/recover the down object. I don’t think there is a world government, but i do think we cooperate with each other. Also President Clinton says he tried to get information on UFOs but they refused and gave him the runaround.
      • ben_w 3y ago
        My previous (brief) line manager was Iranian. I asked him if the Iranian rhetoric about the USA being "the great Satan" was a translation issue or sincere, he said it was sincere.
        • simne 3y ago
          Greetings from Ukraine! Must say, from practice of living on fast changing territory, it is very typical for people to hate all new, because sometimes new things appear too fast, that just their appear are pain. This is not something supernatural. Even more - for people is natural when things are NOT change fast, even when all these new things are good. I'm sure, you will admit, from steam railroad there was many things very scary. And Iranians have right to say, that English and Americans opened this Pandora box.
• shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  Our ability to detect signs of ETI is very limited. It could be all over, and we could have even detected it already, but we don't realize it. Studying up on astrophysics (how we detect and transmit signals, how signals attenuate and fade over cosmic distances, and some of the signals SETI has already received) reveals that. The Fermi paradox is only a paradox due to the assumption that in a few million years a civilization will colonize the entire Milky Way just because it's theoretically possible, so we should be up to our eyeballs with aliens' von Neumann probes. But many things are theoretically possible. We could build the world's largest house -- the size of Nebraska. Every nation could reorient and sink their economy into that megaproject and do it. But it's irrational to; there's better things we want to do with our resources (which will always be finite, all the way up the Kardashev scale). That's why I think it's silly to expect any intelligent life to be that ambitious (or competent).