5 ms·

Even if interstellar travel is impractical, an advanced expansionist civ would be interested in building megastructures. And since there is no stealth in space

by yreg 3y ago

Even if interstellar travel is impractical, an advanced expansionist civ would be interested in building megastructures. And since there is no stealth in space (unless you can somehow mask heat), they should be observable. Ofc there are explanations for that part of the paradox as well, but the impractical travel theory doesn't cover it.

simne 3y ago
> no stealth in space (unless you can somehow mask heat) I know two things. 1. We are now already using heat mask measures, even when we are very young civ in terms of Kardashev scale. We already use simple slit heat emitters in military tech (many Stealth planes have slit nozzles and for example, Leopard tanks also use slit exhaust for same reason). 2. Even we now know about possibility of laser heat, which could emit heat directly with very high focus. In conclusion, idea is, to surround whole civ with heat mask blanket, and make all heat exhausts directly focused on directions, where now observer expected. Second, looks like our development now is very slow, because it should be on early stages (Kardashev scale), and old civ's should know this. And I now support theory, that we are fortunate to be far enough, so stronger civ's are not interested in spending resources to limit our development. I even consider might be exists some preservation pact between Big civ's, to avoid touch young civ's, for some purposes like scientific, or arts. So yes, basically, I support Zoo theory.
- ben_w 3y ago
  > In conclusion, idea is, to surround whole civ with heat mask blanket, and make all heat exhausts directly focused on directions, where now observer expected. Although focussing emissions (not really a blanket) is possible, not only would some specific civilisation have to actually do that, it would have to be a common enough choice that every example we would otherwise have been able to see actually does choose to do that that — this gets increasingly difficult the more such examples there are: if a civilisation can build a Dyson swarm, what are they afraid of that they would want to hide? Even if one civilisation has a reason, everyone has to make this decision, regardless of how many (or few) "everyone" is. "Dark forest" is a bad reason, as everyone with a Dyson swarm will have been able to know your planet existed and had life on it even when it was all single-cell species; a star winking out of existence is noteworthy, and easily noticed[0]. One Dyson swarm is enough to directly colonise a high percentage of all galaxies that aren't beyond the "reachable horizon"[1] of the universe. As soon as we can make artificial self-replicating machines (we know such machines can be made because all life is self-replicating nano-machines, we just don't know enough to do it completely from scratch yet), this would take us about 31 years[2] to make such a swarm. [0] So easily noticed that we have, in fact, noticed it: https://vascoproject.org/vanishing-stars/ https://vascoproject.org/vanishing-stars/ [1] the "reachable horizon" is how far stuff can get from here starting now given the universe is expanding and no FTL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Home_in_Relation_to_Everything-Reachable_Universe.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Home_in_... [2] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DvQ7cYxhnrZtWngvW/how-to-take-over-the-universe-in-three-easy-steps https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DvQ7cYxhnrZtWngvW/how-to-tak...
  - simne 3y ago
    > this would take us about 31 years[2] to make such a swarm They assume, when have already working general AI technology and it have some limited size (volume-mass-energy consumption). Unfortunately, we still not have GAI and even cannot predict, how large will be first practical unit. Must admit, looks like we very close to do it, but from history of previous great technical inventions, some things takes decades to achieve production status and was repeatedly reinvented in some years after another inventor fail.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      General AI is unnecessary. Bacteria do not possess this trait, and yet reproduce themselves, some in as little as 30 minutes. It is also possible to have a large system where humans are just a component, if this were necessary. The human-machine ratio is a function of how close the automation you have is to what you need.
      - simne 3y ago
        > Bacteria do not possess this trait, and yet reproduce themselves If you programmer, you should know from experience or from learn, that in complex system possible just two ways to achieve reliable execution. 1. Brute force, just test as many possible scenarios as could, 99.999% is better than 99.99%, and make script for each scenario. 2. Smart, run system when tested somewhere between 70..90% and make some sort of insurance, so when happen non-tested scenario and all failing, you will pay (compensate) for harm, and make additions. That is. Bacteria lives in comfortable environment (mostly in liquid water drop), and spent billions of slightly modified reproductions, to make solutions for all possible scenarios. You may hear, DNA of simplest bacteria are more than Million pairs, that's because of number of scenarios it successfully survive. Space is much less comfortable environment than liquid water, it have wide range of possible parameters, I even not sure if exists some structure, which could survive in all possible space environments, so need some adaptation mechanisms, to change structure, and best is consciousness AI, which could make smart predictions of causes and reasons, and control all these machinery. And also it will have memory, to repeat moves which helps to survive when something similar happens earlier.
zare_st 3y ago
A hypothetical megastructure Dyson's sphere would not radiate heat. And I'm not so sure that you can apply the stealth principle here. Stealth inhibits active measurement and astronomical measurements are passive. We have sensor resolution and we have a mass of data to sift through - each time sensor generation or data processing advances, we see stuff we haven't seen before. The data is analyzed as a dynamic system. Radar just looks at a bounce. If you setup radar incorrectly you might get false hits and no returns on valid targets. If you use a wrong model in analysis of astronomical data you're never getting anywhere close to a correct result.
- wolfram74 3y ago
  Rough calculation get's me a dyson sphere big enough to bring the black body radiation of the sun down to ~4k being hundreds of times the orbit of pluto. At that point it's actually an interesting question of where you get all the mass for the nesting shells. R_sol^2T_sun^4 = R_shell^2T_cmb^4 (R_sol^2*(T_sun/T_cmb)^4)^(1/2) ~= 2 light months.
- mattashii 3y ago
  > A hypothetical megastructure Dyson's sphere would not radiate heat Could you elaborate why not? All current technology I know of has an efficiency of <100%, with waste energy being lost as heat (which in space would be radiated away in the infrared spectrum). Why would this not be the case for a hypothetical dyson sphere or swarm?
  - zare_st 3y ago
    Because the topic isn't about heat per se but heat signatures and detecting artificial heat signatures across the universe. Of course everything radiates heat I did not think I have to get down to that level in commenting here.
    - yreg 3y ago
      Sorry, I don't understand you either. Without new physics Dyson spheres radiate heat. Therefore they are detectable.
shrimp_emoji 3y ago
You're implying we'd easily see megastructures. Believe it or not, there's many more stars we haven't inspected than have. And our telescopes suck too much to see all but the largest megastructures, which you're assuming it would make rational sense to build in the first place. There can be better things for an economy to spend its (always finite) resources on.
- yreg 3y ago
  > which you're assuming it would make rational sense to build Yes I mean why not. If you are an expansionist advanced civ, travel is impractical and you have enought time and resources then what else is there to do? Obviously there are explanations "why not" (as I said), but insterstellar travel unavailability is not one of them.

by yreg 3y ago

simne 3y ago

> no stealth in space (unless you can somehow mask heat) I know two things. 1. We are now already using heat mask measures, even when we are very young civ in terms of Kardashev scale. We already use simple slit heat emitters in military tech (many Stealth planes have slit nozzles and for example, Leopard tanks also use slit exhaust for same reason). 2. Even we now know about possibility of laser heat, which could emit heat directly with very high focus. In conclusion, idea is, to surround whole civ with heat mask blanket, and make all heat exhausts directly focused on directions, where now observer expected. Second, looks like our development now is very slow, because it should be on early stages (Kardashev scale), and old civ's should know this. And I now support theory, that we are fortunate to be far enough, so stronger civ's are not interested in spending resources to limit our development. I even consider might be exists some preservation pact between Big civ's, to avoid touch young civ's, for some purposes like scientific, or arts. So yes, basically, I support Zoo theory.

ben_w 3y ago
> In conclusion, idea is, to surround whole civ with heat mask blanket, and make all heat exhausts directly focused on directions, where now observer expected. Although focussing emissions (not really a blanket) is possible, not only would some specific civilisation have to actually do that, it would have to be a common enough choice that every example we would otherwise have been able to see actually does choose to do that that — this gets increasingly difficult the more such examples there are: if a civilisation can build a Dyson swarm, what are they afraid of that they would want to hide? Even if one civilisation has a reason, everyone has to make this decision, regardless of how many (or few) "everyone" is. "Dark forest" is a bad reason, as everyone with a Dyson swarm will have been able to know your planet existed and had life on it even when it was all single-cell species; a star winking out of existence is noteworthy, and easily noticed[0]. One Dyson swarm is enough to directly colonise a high percentage of all galaxies that aren't beyond the "reachable horizon"[1] of the universe. As soon as we can make artificial self-replicating machines (we know such machines can be made because all life is self-replicating nano-machines, we just don't know enough to do it completely from scratch yet), this would take us about 31 years[2] to make such a swarm. [0] So easily noticed that we have, in fact, noticed it: https://vascoproject.org/vanishing-stars/ https://vascoproject.org/vanishing-stars/ [1] the "reachable horizon" is how far stuff can get from here starting now given the universe is expanding and no FTL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Home_in_Relation_to_Everything-Reachable_Universe.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Home_in_... [2] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DvQ7cYxhnrZtWngvW/how-to-take-over-the-universe-in-three-easy-steps https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DvQ7cYxhnrZtWngvW/how-to-tak...
- simne 3y ago
  > this would take us about 31 years[2] to make such a swarm They assume, when have already working general AI technology and it have some limited size (volume-mass-energy consumption). Unfortunately, we still not have GAI and even cannot predict, how large will be first practical unit. Must admit, looks like we very close to do it, but from history of previous great technical inventions, some things takes decades to achieve production status and was repeatedly reinvented in some years after another inventor fail.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    General AI is unnecessary. Bacteria do not possess this trait, and yet reproduce themselves, some in as little as 30 minutes. It is also possible to have a large system where humans are just a component, if this were necessary. The human-machine ratio is a function of how close the automation you have is to what you need.
    - simne 3y ago
      > Bacteria do not possess this trait, and yet reproduce themselves If you programmer, you should know from experience or from learn, that in complex system possible just two ways to achieve reliable execution. 1. Brute force, just test as many possible scenarios as could, 99.999% is better than 99.99%, and make script for each scenario. 2. Smart, run system when tested somewhere between 70..90% and make some sort of insurance, so when happen non-tested scenario and all failing, you will pay (compensate) for harm, and make additions. That is. Bacteria lives in comfortable environment (mostly in liquid water drop), and spent billions of slightly modified reproductions, to make solutions for all possible scenarios. You may hear, DNA of simplest bacteria are more than Million pairs, that's because of number of scenarios it successfully survive. Space is much less comfortable environment than liquid water, it have wide range of possible parameters, I even not sure if exists some structure, which could survive in all possible space environments, so need some adaptation mechanisms, to change structure, and best is consciousness AI, which could make smart predictions of causes and reasons, and control all these machinery. And also it will have memory, to repeat moves which helps to survive when something similar happens earlier.

zare_st 3y ago

A hypothetical megastructure Dyson's sphere would not radiate heat. And I'm not so sure that you can apply the stealth principle here. Stealth inhibits active measurement and astronomical measurements are passive. We have sensor resolution and we have a mass of data to sift through - each time sensor generation or data processing advances, we see stuff we haven't seen before. The data is analyzed as a dynamic system. Radar just looks at a bounce. If you setup radar incorrectly you might get false hits and no returns on valid targets. If you use a wrong model in analysis of astronomical data you're never getting anywhere close to a correct result.

wolfram74 3y ago
Rough calculation get's me a dyson sphere big enough to bring the black body radiation of the sun down to ~4k being hundreds of times the orbit of pluto. At that point it's actually an interesting question of where you get all the mass for the nesting shells. R_sol^2T_sun^4 = R_shell^2T_cmb^4 (R_sol^2*(T_sun/T_cmb)^4)^(1/2) ~= 2 light months.
mattashii 3y ago
> A hypothetical megastructure Dyson's sphere would not radiate heat Could you elaborate why not? All current technology I know of has an efficiency of <100%, with waste energy being lost as heat (which in space would be radiated away in the infrared spectrum). Why would this not be the case for a hypothetical dyson sphere or swarm?
- zare_st 3y ago
  Because the topic isn't about heat per se but heat signatures and detecting artificial heat signatures across the universe. Of course everything radiates heat I did not think I have to get down to that level in commenting here.
  - yreg 3y ago
    Sorry, I don't understand you either. Without new physics Dyson spheres radiate heat. Therefore they are detectable.

shrimp_emoji 3y ago

You're implying we'd easily see megastructures. Believe it or not, there's many more stars we haven't inspected than have. And our telescopes suck too much to see all but the largest megastructures, which you're assuming it would make rational sense to build in the first place. There can be better things for an economy to spend its (always finite) resources on.

yreg 3y ago
> which you're assuming it would make rational sense to build Yes I mean why not. If you are an expansionist advanced civ, travel is impractical and you have enought time and resources then what else is there to do? Obviously there are explanations "why not" (as I said), but insterstellar travel unavailability is not one of them.