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Yeah but IMO expansion via "interstellar capability" is just not compatible with a civilization. As our species has developed, the time scales that matter to u

Yeah but IMO expansion via "interstellar capability" is just not compatible with a civilization. As our species has developed, the time scales that matter to us have shrunk, not grown. I just don't think you can have a single coherent civilization work when relativity places such stringent limitations on communication speed. A super advanced civilization likely evolves and changes on much smaller time scales than ours does currently. It doesn't seem possible for such a civilization to not totally fracture at interstellar scales. Unless there's physics we don't know about, interstellar distances are probably just not really compatible with a civilization. So, if one exists, its probably a serious rarity within a rarity. i.e. the lack of observable existence of such a noticeable civilization does not make a good argument against aliens in my opinion.

MattPalmer1086 2y ago
It's a good point, but there is no reason to suppose they have to be a unified civilization. Just that they can spread in the first place and their descendants can do the same.
rowanG077 2y ago
I'm not so sure I agree. There is nothing stopping a species that experiences years as we do minutes. Such a species would have no problem with the time scales needed for interstellar travel.
- sdenton4 2y ago
  A fun problem with this is that there are 500k minutes in a year, so the critical free minutes needed to get into orbit quickly would be like working at nanosecond scale... Our slow friends would presumably need 100% automation to survive just about any kind of launch. (Nevermind landing.) (This also raises for me a fun way to continue Moore's law by making lived experience slower...)
jacobolus 2y ago
> time scales that matter to us have shrunk, not grown I don’t think this seems right. More realistically, the further back into the past we look, the more we notice people, institutions, and changes operating on longer time scales, partly because our knowledge becomes much less granular the further back we look and partly because slower changes are less noticeable or impressive when examined from partway through without the benefit of hindsight. Unless you just mean that with improved technology we can now do a better job inspecting and sequencing things that happen very quickly. That’s clearly true, but is substantially unrelated to human-scale goals or the behaviors of larger organizations.

MattPalmer1086 2y ago

It's a good point, but there is no reason to suppose they have to be a unified civilization. Just that they can spread in the first place and their descendants can do the same.

rowanG077 2y ago

I'm not so sure I agree. There is nothing stopping a species that experiences years as we do minutes. Such a species would have no problem with the time scales needed for interstellar travel.

sdenton4 2y ago
A fun problem with this is that there are 500k minutes in a year, so the critical free minutes needed to get into orbit quickly would be like working at nanosecond scale... Our slow friends would presumably need 100% automation to survive just about any kind of launch. (Nevermind landing.) (This also raises for me a fun way to continue Moore's law by making lived experience slower...)

jacobolus 2y ago

> time scales that matter to us have shrunk, not grown I don’t think this seems right. More realistically, the further back into the past we look, the more we notice people, institutions, and changes operating on longer time scales, partly because our knowledge becomes much less granular the further back we look and partly because slower changes are less noticeable or impressive when examined from partway through without the benefit of hindsight. Unless you just mean that with improved technology we can now do a better job inspecting and sequencing things that happen very quickly. That’s clearly true, but is substantially unrelated to human-scale goals or the behaviors of larger organizations.