3 ms·

It's absurd anyway. Advanced tech will(and already has, to an extent) put extremely destructive power in the hands of normal people. If we haven't learned to

by soup10 14y ago

It's absurd anyway. Advanced tech will(and already has, to an extent) put extremely destructive power in the hands of normal people. If we haven't learned to get along by then, we will certainly kill ourselves off.

pyre 14y ago
It takes two to tango, so to speak. No matter how peaceable we are as a race, if the other guy has bigger weapons and is itching to use them, it might not make any difference.
- chii 14y ago
  Theoretically, it isn't possible to stop an advanced alien race that has mastered ftl travel from being able to destroy earth. There is this concept called relativistic bombardment - your "artillary" is set to travel so fast, that the light that comes off it only arrives moments before the actual shell, and thus, there is little to no warning. The only way to stop this sort of attack is a shield that is impenatrable. However, such a thing cannot exist, since the attacker has all the time they need to devise a shell that can penetrate the specific shield you intend to use. Hence, the only safety you can guarentee is if you know your enemy don't know where you are, and thus can't aim the weapon. Otherwise, its impossible to stop an attack. Now, conversely, humans knows this too, so it makes rational sense to attack first. Its MAD on a galactic scale!
  - stickfigure 14y ago
    If my (admittedly rough) understanding of relativity is correct, there's a problem with this weapon: From the recipient's perspective, the shell would never arrive. Basically, as the shell accelerates to C relative to the target, time in the target's reference frame expands relative to time in the shell's reference frame. A shell traveling at C would instantaneously travel from origin to destination (from the shell's perspective) but would take infinite time (from the target's perspective). Of course, an impact at 1% C would still make one hell of a bang.
    - chii 14y ago
      > would take infinite time (from the target's perspective). this doesn't sound right - the shell does arrive, and arrives exactly X light years after being launched, as measured by the alien. Its just that from the perspective of the people in the shell, heaps of time has passed on the outside. But my knowledge of relativity is cursory at best, so im not sure if i m right.
      - stickfigure 14y ago
        heaps of time has passed on the outside As I understand it, as relative speed goes to C, "heaps" goes asymptotically to infinity. Thus my point.
csense 14y ago
> [With] Advanced tech...we will certainly kill ourselves off. If the normal developmental pattern of technologically advanced races is T ~ a few thousands of years of continuous population increases due to technology [1], followed by a technology-caused extinction, it would neatly explain why we haven't met any aliens: Since T is a drop in a bucket compared to the time required for evolving intelligence, with high probability all the aliens close enough to us to send signals or spaceships gained intelligence more than T years ago, and have already killed themselves. [1] The exact timing of the beginning of our technological development depends much on how you define "technological development." But it's fairly safe to say that T < 1 million years.

by soup10 14y ago

pyre 14y ago

It takes two to tango, so to speak. No matter how peaceable we are as a race, if the other guy has bigger weapons and is itching to use them, it might not make any difference.

chii 14y ago
Theoretically, it isn't possible to stop an advanced alien race that has mastered ftl travel from being able to destroy earth. There is this concept called relativistic bombardment - your "artillary" is set to travel so fast, that the light that comes off it only arrives moments before the actual shell, and thus, there is little to no warning. The only way to stop this sort of attack is a shield that is impenatrable. However, such a thing cannot exist, since the attacker has all the time they need to devise a shell that can penetrate the specific shield you intend to use. Hence, the only safety you can guarentee is if you know your enemy don't know where you are, and thus can't aim the weapon. Otherwise, its impossible to stop an attack. Now, conversely, humans knows this too, so it makes rational sense to attack first. Its MAD on a galactic scale!
- stickfigure 14y ago
  If my (admittedly rough) understanding of relativity is correct, there's a problem with this weapon: From the recipient's perspective, the shell would never arrive. Basically, as the shell accelerates to C relative to the target, time in the target's reference frame expands relative to time in the shell's reference frame. A shell traveling at C would instantaneously travel from origin to destination (from the shell's perspective) but would take infinite time (from the target's perspective). Of course, an impact at 1% C would still make one hell of a bang.
  - chii 14y ago
    > would take infinite time (from the target's perspective). this doesn't sound right - the shell does arrive, and arrives exactly X light years after being launched, as measured by the alien. Its just that from the perspective of the people in the shell, heaps of time has passed on the outside. But my knowledge of relativity is cursory at best, so im not sure if i m right.
    - stickfigure 14y ago
      heaps of time has passed on the outside As I understand it, as relative speed goes to C, "heaps" goes asymptotically to infinity. Thus my point.

csense 14y ago

> [With] Advanced tech...we will certainly kill ourselves off. If the normal developmental pattern of technologically advanced races is T ~ a few thousands of years of continuous population increases due to technology [1], followed by a technology-caused extinction, it would neatly explain why we haven't met any aliens: Since T is a drop in a bucket compared to the time required for evolving intelligence, with high probability all the aliens close enough to us to send signals or spaceships gained intelligence more than T years ago, and have already killed themselves. [1] The exact timing of the beginning of our technological development depends much on how you define "technological development." But it's fairly safe to say that T < 1 million years.