10 unsettling answers to the fermi paradox

[Steve 2.0]

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-biolog...KCNMG2dkUSXzKM

This must be relevant to the discussion, somehow.

[Kevin Seitzer]

Or maybe a private security consulting company in space?

[Kevin Seitzer]

And don't forget the book version:

[onejayhawk]

The video is by hopeful dreamers that cannot handle the depressing math.

None of the scenarios represent a reasonable situation. If there has been one visitor there must have been many thousand. I might believe dozens or hundreds in recorded history, which brings us back to archeology. Further, there is the background noise we are not hearing. If there were spacefaring life elsewhere in the galaxy it would be here, now. There is a reason SF writers make up wild excuses for lack of prior alien contact. It's because only the wildly improbable lets them write a story.

J

[Steve 2.0]

The video is by hopeful dreamers that cannot handle the depressing math.

None of the scenarios represent a reasonable situation. If there has been one visitor there must have been many thousand. I might believe dozens or hundreds in recorded history, which brings us back to archeology. Further, there is the background noise we are not hearing. If there were spacefaring life elsewhere in the galaxy it would be here, now. There is a reason SF writers make up wild excuses for lack of prior alien contact. It's because only the wildly improbable lets them write a story.

J

Geez Louise, J. How many other planets have WE been to? I go back to my original statement, that there is a HELL of a lot of distance between galaxies. I'm not going to say there has to be life on other planets - (I think there probably is), but your hypothesis that if there were spacefaring life elsewhere in the galaxy, they'd have been here by now, makes no sense!!!! The galaxy is huge!!! (and space travel is freaking dangerous, to boot.)

[Kevin Seitzer]

Geez Louise, J. How many other planets have WE been to? I go back to my original statement, that there is a HELL of a lot of distance between galaxies. I'm not going to say there has to be life on other planets - (I think there probably is), but your hypothesis that if there were spacefaring life elsewhere in the galaxy, they'd have been here by now, makes no sense!!!! The galaxy is huge!!! (and space travel is freaking dangerous, to boot.)

I've been reading through a series on the American and Soviet space programs (Outward Odyssey series from University of Nebraska Press), and one thing that I didn't realize is how many astronauts have died. I was, of course, aware of the three Americans who died in Apollo 1, the seven who died on Challenger, and the seven who died on Columbia. But I wasn't aware of all the Soviet fatalities. And when you think about it on a percentage basis, and what very limited things we have tried (mostly orbiting within a couple hundred miles of the surface of our own planet), and how close we have come to a lot of other fatalities, it is quite sobering.

There haven't been that many of us in space out of the ~100 billion people who have ever lived on earth. At last count, 561, and they have their own Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_travelers_by_name

And only 24 people have ventured out of earth orbit, in the fifty years we've been doing that sort of thing.

At the moment, there are three people in space, out of 8 billion of us.

[Fresno Bob]

The video is by hopeful dreamers that cannot handle the depressing math.

None of the scenarios represent a reasonable situation. If there has been one visitor there must have been many thousand. I might believe dozens or hundreds in recorded history, which brings us back to archeology. Further, there is the background noise we are not hearing. If there were spacefaring life elsewhere in the galaxy it would be here, now. There is a reason SF writers make up wild excuses for lack of prior alien contact. It's because only the wildly improbable lets them write a story.

J

Please explain why "if there were spacefaring life elsewhere in the galaxy, it would be here, now"

[The Feral Slasher]

The video is by hopeful dreamers that cannot handle the depressing math.

None of the scenarios represent a reasonable situation. If there has been one visitor there must have been many thousand. I might believe dozens or hundreds in recorded history, which brings us back to archeology. Further, there is the background noise we are not hearing. If there were spacefaring life elsewhere in the galaxy it would be here, now. There is a reason SF writers make up wild excuses for lack of prior alien contact. It's because only the wildly improbable lets them write a story.

J

Lol. There are probably stupid self appointed genius aliens on their own version of the internet spouting the same stupid shit because we haven't visited them yet.

[The Feral Slasher]

Please explain why "if there were spacefaring life elsewhere in the galaxy, it would be here, now"

Well we humans are spacefaring life and we have explored the entire galaxy so it must be true of other potential life , right ?

[Sour Masher]

A few things:

1 - From the video that Nully referred to in the original post: "... the universe might be so vast that, while it might have hundreds of civilizations in it, the numbers are still in favor of that, but they are so far from each other that they may never be able to communicate, or, if they do, it wont happen for billions of years." That is a quote from Arthur C. Clarke, which starts at about 8:42 of the video.
2 - Maybe there have been many intelligent civilizations, even in our own galaxy, but these may have existed only for a short period of time, destroyed either by a natural event (gamma ray burst, nearby supernova, asteroid/planet impact, etc.) or by themselves (nuclear bombs, super-intelligent hostile robots, "grey goo", etc.). This also was mentioned in the video. They may tend to get wiped out before they have a chance to communicate with or travel to other intelligent civilizations.
3 - Species much more intelligent than us could evolve but w/o the ability to make sophisticated tools (like super intelligent sea creatures, like dolphins and whales). These creatures would effectively be stuck on their home planet and also prevented from being able to create the technology to explore the cosmos or find other civilizations.
4 - Another item that noone's mentioned yet: Among all the seemingly rare characteristics of the Earth, another may be our relatively small size. Scientists think now that habitable "super-earths", at least 2-3 times bigger than Earth, may be much more common than Earth-sized planets. This could impact a species' ability to travel away from their planet. It's hard enough for spacecraft to escape the Earth's gravity (must exceed 25,000 mph). It would be much harder to escape a much bigger planet w much more gravity. So, even if an intelligent species had the ability to make sophisticated tools, they could still be trapped on their home planet.

Yes to all of this. Thanks for typing it out.

[onejayhawk]

Please explain why "if there were spacefaring life elsewhere in the galaxy, it would be here, now"

It's extremely straight forward and well understood. Organisms of all size move into unexploited resources. On a microscopic level, bacteria will saturate of growth medium. The question is not if but how long it will take. With suitable adjustments this is true for multicelled orgaisms and animals. The only restricing factor is mobility until a competitor enters the picture.

Everything we know about the local universe says that it is a virgin field. If we never encounter a competing species, homo sapiens will cover the Milky Way in a few hundred to a couple thousand generations. 100,000 years is roughly 4000 generations , ie more than enough time. Yet 10 times that is a relative heartbeat for the galaxy itself. Other reagions of the Milky Way are more mature than this one, so all factors being equal, intelligent life should have developed millions of years ago and many times before. Given that mobility is given as a factor for inclusion, they should have spread here. Indeed, there should be competing factions, just as we see in all terrestrial biological systems.

Well we humans are spacefaring life and we have explored the entire galaxy so it must be true of other potential life , right ?

That is a valid extrapolation, yes.

J

[The Feral Slasher]

It's extremely straight forward and well understood. Organisms of all size move into unexploited resources. On a microscopic level, bacteria will saturate of growth medium. The question is not if but how long it will take. With suitable adjustments this is true for multicelled orgaisms and animals. The only restricing factor is mobility until a competitor enters the picture.

Everything we know about the local universe says that it is a virgin field. If we never encounter a competing species, homo sapiens will cover the Milky Way in a few hundred to a couple thousand generations. 100,000 years is roughly 4000 generations , ie more than enough time. Yet 10 times that is a relative heartbeat for the galaxy itself. Other reagions of the Milky Way are more mature than this one, so all factors being equal, intelligent life should have developed millions of years ago and many times before. Given that mobility is given as a factor for inclusion, they should have spread here. Indeed, there should be competing factions, just as we see in all terrestrial biological systems.



That is a valid extrapolation, yes.

J

trollin, trollin, trollin....

[Fresno Bob]

It's extremely straight forward and well understood. Organisms of all size move into unexploited resources. On a microscopic level, bacteria will saturate of growth medium. The question is not if but how long it will take. With suitable adjustments this is true for multicelled orgaisms and animals. The only restricing factor is mobility until a competitor enters the picture.

Everything we know about the local universe says that it is a virgin field. If we never encounter a competing species, homo sapiens will cover the Milky Way in a few hundred to a couple thousand generations. 100,000 years is roughly 4000 generations , ie more than enough time. Yet 10 times that is a relative heartbeat for the galaxy itself. Other reagions of the Milky Way are more mature than this one, so all factors being equal, intelligent life should have developed millions of years ago and many times before. Given that mobility is given as a factor for inclusion, they should have spread here. Indeed, there should be competing factions, just as we see in all terrestrial biological systems.



That is a valid extrapolation, yes.

J

laughable

[nullnor]

the guy that made the original video in this thread has an interesting you tube channel. a long time ago i came across the star he talks about here but the wiki page doesn't really say that much. i don't think it said we had detected plutonium at the time. but it's definitely interesting. i didn't think of aliens dumping heavy materials in the star. although i did suggest one a way we could get rid of nuclear waste was to dump it in our sun. although i didn't know Sagan once suggested that could be done as a means of communication. i just thought it would be a good way to get rid of the waste. and i think members here said that would be irresponsible. but the reason i thought it was a bad idea was if the spaceship accidentally blew up and dropped it back on earth.

[onejayhawk]

laughable

trollin, trollin, trollin....

You are, so stop.

Geez Louise, J. How many other planets have WE been to? I go back to my original statement, that there is a HELL of a lot of distance between galaxies. I'm not going to say there has to be life on other planets - (I think there probably is), but your hypothesis that if there were spacefaring life elsewhere in the galaxy, they'd have been here by now, makes no sense!!!! The galaxy is huge!!! (and space travel is freaking dangerous, to boot.)

Try it this way. The galaxy is not vast on the timescale we are using. It's small, cramped even.

Also, the idea that there would be hundreds and not millions is off, because of the timescale. One freakishly unlikely event is possible. A recurring event has time to recur many, many times. There are other things to consider, such as seeding.

J