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[PATV] Wednesday, February 20, 2013 - Extra Credits Season 5, Ep. 24: Funding XCOM (Part 2)

245

Posts

  • SmokeyBearSmokeyBear Registered User new member
    There's a problem with the assumption f(ℓ) = 1 in the Drake equation. There is a greater understanding of any given theory for the creation of the universe than there is about the origin of life on earth. Specifically, there are theoretical constructs that envision how the universe came to exist, and mathematics to support (or disprove) each theory.

    Yet in the case of the origin of life, the scientific proposal is
    1. inorganic material -> organic material
    2. organic material -> single cells
    3. single cells -> evolution

    Part 1 has been accomplished repeatably, and while part 3 has yet to be proven, ample evidence has been unearthed to give it credence.

    The problem is that part 2, where simple organics become organics capable of self replication, has yet to be demonstrated. The only theory to this is that in certain conditions, once upon a time, simple amino acids combined into cells. In other words, the second law of thermodynamics got turned on its head. While there are undoubtedly many earthlike planets which even have an abundance of organic material, I think it is very unlikely that there are many which actually generate life. This has also been unable to be achieved in a controlled environment despite testing under the most favorable circumstances.

  • RabidKittenRabidKitten Registered User regular
    I think the answer is 2 fold.

    A) While we are not unique amongst the universe, intelligent life form on our level is probably very rare.

    B) Intergalactic travel is really really hard. I don't think even with Fusion advancements there are resources on planet earth for our species to develop technologies to travel to the nearest life harnessing rock. You stated it would take 16 million years to conquer the galaxy. And yet with Fusion we have only the power to fuel a civilization of our magnitude for about 3000 years. So unless we develop some serious energy efficiency systems we don't have that long before we are plummeted into an internal dark age with only solar wind thermodynamic and hydro power to keep us sustained. I figure the length of time a civilization has to get their stuff in order is quite small.
    And even if they do, intergalactic travel is still almost impossible. The 2 largest issues with intergalactic travel are distance, and temperature. Temperature is a big problem. Unless we develop some form of cryo that allows for humans to survive being trapped at near absolute zero temperatures for a good few years, we'd have to bring along what is essentially a portable Sun.

    And yet the biggest question is why? Its kind of like going to the moon or mars. Its pretty pointless, they are just rocks. Even they were teaming with life, they would essentially just be more real-estate. Do we actually need more real-estate? Is solving over population the pen ultimate need of our civilization? So you discover another life harnessing planet, and then you go their and then you go, well this is neat, and useless. Because we might slow down our perception of time and make a second in time be a mental experience of that lasts an eternity, and in that moment live with in artificially constructed digital realities. Most of the answers are right here on earth, there is little need to travel to another similar rock in an attempt to find them.

  • SmokeyBearSmokeyBear Registered User new member
    There's a problem with the assumption f(ℓ) = 1 in the Drake equation. There is a greater understanding of any given theory for the creation of the universe than there is about the origin of life on earth. Specifically, there are theoretical constructs that envision how the universe came to exist, and mathematics to support (or disprove) each theory.

    Yet in the case of the origin of life, the scientific proposal is
    1. inorganic material -> organic material
    2. organic material -> single cells
    3. single cells -> evolution

    Part 1 has been accomplished repeatably, and while part 3 has yet to be proven, ample evidence has been unearthed to give it credence.

    The problem is that part 2, where simple organics become organics capable of self replication, has yet to be demonstrated. The only theory to this is that in certain conditions, once upon a time, simple amino acids combined into cells. In other words, the second law of thermodynamics got turned on its head. While there are undoubtedly many earthlike planets which even have an abundance of organic material, I think it is very unlikely that there are many which actually generate life. This has also been unable to be achieved in a controlled environment despite testing under the most favorable circumstances.

  • RabidKittenRabidKitten Registered User regular
    I think the answer is 2 fold.

    A) While we are not unique amongst the universe, intelligent life form on our level is probably very rare.

    B) Intergalactic travel is really really hard. I don't think even with Fusion advancements there are resources on planet earth for our species to develop technologies to travel to the nearest life harnessing rock. You stated it would take 16 million years to conquer the galaxy. And yet with Fusion we have only the power to fuel a civilization of our magnitude for about 3000 years. So unless we develop some serious energy efficiency systems we don't have that long before we are plummeted into an internal dark age with only solar wind thermodynamic and hydro power to keep us sustained. I figure the length of time a civilization has to get their stuff in order is quite small.
    And even if they do, intergalactic travel is still almost impossible. The 2 largest issues with intergalactic travel are distance, and temperature. Temperature is a big problem. Unless we develop some form of cryo that allows for humans to survive being trapped at near absolute zero temperatures for a good few years, we'd have to bring along what is essentially a portable Sun.

    And yet the biggest question is why? Its kind of like going to the moon or mars. Its pretty pointless, they are just rocks. Even they were teaming with life, they would essentially just be more real-estate. Do we actually need more real-estate? Is solving over population the pen ultimate need of our civilization? So you discover another life harnessing planet, and then you go their and then you go, well this is neat, and useless. Because we might slow down our perception of time and make a second in time be a mental experience of that lasts an eternity, and in that moment live with in artificially constructed digital realities. Most of the answers are right here on earth, there is little need to travel to another similar rock in an attempt to find them.

  • Dunning KrugerDunning Kruger Registered User new member
    About the "looking at it wrong" ipothesys: in the "Heavy Liquid" graphic novel by Paul Pope the ending twist is that the titular liquid is a form of alien intelligence that hasn't "our" 5 senses, so the only way it has to communicate is merging with a person and learn how to use them. While absolutely not scientific is a poetic way to suggest to "Search for more".

  • LittleBlackRainCloudLittleBlackRainCloud Registered User regular
    edited February 2013
    I think the entire line of thinking about physical space travel to another solar syatem is postulating the implausible ~ at this time. I don't doubt given another millenia in fact however that we will nonetheless try to colonize all the physical planets in our solar system. That's of course if we aren't wiped out by then by our own doing.

    I think another key point to that is obviously overlooked as pointed out that if there are literally infinitely postulatable sentience on other planets/stars ect like ours ~ where are they.

    Consider simply the examples given and it makes no sense if travel is possible in "starship" means why we haven't been invaded yet. this seems to recognizably argue the futility of the argument of the possibility in how we recognize and consider other "aliens". Our entire mythology of space aliens is almost entirely encapsulated in how we view ourselves. (btw)

    Far easier to consider is transcendence or other "types" of conscious. Which makes much more sense.

    LittleBlackRainCloud on
  • DanHibikiDanHibiki Registered User regular
    It could be that each civilization had approached MAD in much the same way that humans have and just went ahead with it instead of resolving the stalemate. Which means that each civilization that has discovered radio communication had about 100-200 years of time before they wiped themselves out with nuclear weapons and the corresponding window of radio transmissions just doesn't overlap with ours.

    And if the prime directive is true then it could be that 200 years after the resolution of MAD the civilization gets uplifted by an intergalactic federation and stop using sub light speed communication in favor of something more advanced like quantum duality.

  • SportszillaSportszilla Registered User new member
    I think the most compelling argument against advanced intelligences exploring space is put forth by Charles Stross in Accelerando. Essentially, as civilizations become increasingly technically proficient, they develop something approximating the Internet. As technology improves, more and more cognition takes place in that realm, not in the physical one. Eventually, consciousness is uploaded. Once that happens, though, bandwidth becomes paramount, as anyone who has a laggy connection or is lightseconds/minutes/years away is no longer relevant. Thus, highly advanced civilizations tend to stick close to home. In Accelerando this eventually leads to a Matrioshka Brain, and while we (obviously) haven't found any of those, we'd also stand almost no chance, since they're in essence a closed system (which would explain why we're not detecting any radio waves.

    In short, once a civilization reaches a certain technological level, expansion becomes inherently unappealing.

  • 12802951280295 Registered User new member
    @CosmicMuffet
    Assuming noone travels faster than 0.02% of c, there's really no need to be concerned with the entire universe, since most of the civilizations wouldn't have reached us. I don't think we're in any position to make statements about all galaxies. There may be infinitely many of them, in which case I could argue there are likely infinitely many uncolonized galaxies.

  • InviatoInviato Registered User new member
    Kudos to Scaldaferri for her interpretation of non-EM communication media. I.E. Bananas. Made me bust out laughing.

    One possibility to reconciling Fermi's Paradox (forgive me if this have been mentioned already)
    Life-forms go digital. Or even more fundamental (as implied in the first episode), reduce the cost of living to significantly that colonial expansion and/or signal emission becomes unnecessary or undetectable.

    Separate thought: The decision whether to fund an X-COM also requires the question of how benign our alien neighbors might be. If mutual, or even indifferent, coexistence is possible, then X-COM is unnecessary. Knock wood that if we meet sentient extraterrestrial neither we nor they won't start something.

  • TsshaTssha Registered User regular
    At 4:01 in the video, where did you find that picture? Is it from a game? If so, which one? It looks intriguing.

  • XZoahXZoah Registered User new member
    There are two assumptions in this that seem... unfounded to me.
    The first is that "intelligent" life will inevitably grow on any planet with life. This seems a bit off to me considering, after 4 billion years, humans are unparalleled in the history of the earth. In fact, if anything evolution tends to favor brute force over anything else.
    The other is that any species that was advanced enough to colonize is advanced enough to not go extinct. Looking at human history, we're more capable of wiping ourselves out then we've ever been before. With advancement comes weaponry.

  • DragongodZenosDragongodZenos Registered User new member
    well here are two ideas i had watching this 2 part episode.

    1. different galaxies: you may think our milky way is huge but there are billions more out there some hundred times more massive. what if were stuck in Hawaii persay while all the find stuff happens in Europe.

    2. different dimentions: ya it seems like an over-used explanation but it is valid, our understanding of the universe as we see it is locked into a 3 dimentional view, at least for the time being. im sure when someone figures out how to see thru the veil we will see tons of new variables for the drake equation.

    I am by no means a smart person when It come to this type of thinking (im a classically trained chef, so high levels of physics and mathematics are far out of my current skill set.) but I think these are 2 valid points.

    and like they said, maybe we just aren't looking for the right signs, what if they used DNA as a form of communication. maybe bacterial life we have been killing with Windex and Mr. clean are messages from other worlds. what is e. coli is a greeting from our intergalactic neighbors.

  • PhilKllPhilKll Registered User regular
    @ANTIcarrot
    "<cough> Possibly you mean your society? In some parts of the world, life is pretty shitty for many humans. What's the point of 'protecting' a naitive that isn't going to live long enough to learn to speak? It really is rather egotistical to imagine that aliens are willing to protect (basically) rich white folk at the expense of the other 90% of humanity."

    huh? So how is an alien presence going to help anyone? And why would "rich white folk" have anything to gain/loose from it? Possibly destabilizing society would effect everyone. Rich poor, middle class, its a human thing, not a class thing.

  • BarnesmBarnesm Registered User regular
    at least a half dozen other theories......aww now my curiosity is peaked. Great thought provoking stuff.

  • DrakkonDrakkon Registered User regular
    @DragongodZenos I think that both of your options are a given, but neither of them addresses anything discussed here. 1 describes differing galaxies, and we are able to move easily between them right now, but it takes a mind-bogglingly long time to do so. Capable, but not practical. 2 describes something we have no way of interacting with at this time, so its likely, but since we can't do anything about it, there's no sense in discussing it.

    Fermi was a genius, but I personally believe that any civilization that is advanced enough to colonize interstellar locations would probably bypass occupied planets with intelligent, but less advanced technological lifeforms, seeking only to contact them after they are advanced enough to make First Contact without destroying themselves. Yes, that's the Prime Directive theory, and it is a likely one, because unlike the idiots in our own world who seek to protect primitive cultures from the modern world and fail, a more advanced culture would know the downfalls and be looking for them.

    However, like own 'idiots', accidents will and have happened. Roswell for example. This leads me to hybridize my theory to include that it is also our own government that is covering up their existence, in cahoots with the aliens, for our own protection because we're not culturally advanced enough to accept alien life.

    One of the best ways to downplay aliens, while simultaneously prepping us for First Contact would be to popularize them in the culture, as we have with movies like MiB, Star Wars, etc., showing them as being like us with similar problems, cooperating in similar ways that we do, and yet still having that 'yeah, this is all just fiction' feel to it. So when we really see an alien we won't run for our guns first.

    Well, most of us won't. No one can predict how radicals in any culture will react.

  • blueshoalsblueshoals Registered User regular
    This could be way off base, but I remember in a sci-fi book, Speaker for the Dead, an alien race communicated through sending information about, and creating synthesized molecules, or something to that effect.

  • studentofbstudentofb Registered User new member
    The idea of an intelligent alien species not leaving it's home system or even planet makes complete sense if you don't assume that intelligent species necessarily move towards technology. A majority of humanity on our own planet choose not to move in a direction of increasing technology (although a majority of humans on our planet do). If an alien species doesn't share the same cultural ideology that we do about the role of expansion and ownership of an environment, then there wouldn't be any reason that that species would move outside of a tribal culture into a technology centered civilization. Look to the works of Daniel Quinn to get a better grasp on the distinction. It makes sense to me that an alien culture wouldn't travel into space if that alien culture didn't value the dominance over their biosphere that technological expansion would require.

  • studentofbstudentofb Registered User new member
    The idea of an intelligent alien species not leaving it's home system or even planet makes complete sense if you don't assume that intelligent species necessarily move towards technology. A majority of humanity on our own planet choose not to move in a direction of increasing technology (although a majority of humans on our planet do). If an alien species doesn't share the same cultural ideology that we do about the role of expansion and ownership of an environment, then there wouldn't be any reason that that species would move outside of a tribal culture into a technology centered civilization. Look to the works of Daniel Quinn to get a better grasp on the distinction. It makes sense to me that an alien culture wouldn't travel into space if that alien culture didn't value the dominance over their biosphere that technological expansion would require.

  • PhilKllPhilKll Registered User regular
    @Drakkon
    A slow buildup would be my guess too. If they just showed up one day, vastly superior in every way, all powerful perhaps. It would cause a lot of issues. For one, you got religious implications, it would certainly probably conflict with more than a few. And on the other hand, it would probably take 2.3 seconds before something like one was created around the aliens. How to please them, how not to tick them off, how to hope on them turning our lives into a uptopia, etc.
    Then of course they'd be the 800 pound gorilla in the room, that constant fear if we tick them off, we're done for. Like a wild animal attacking a human, they might get one or two, but we'll always get more of them. Suddenly the tables would be reversed.
    A food chain ranking change I find it hard to believe the collective ego of the human species would gracefully deal with, with a sudden change.

  • dejavu,againdejavu,again Registered User regular
    "If an alien species doesn't share the same cultural ideology that we do about the role of expansion..."

    Evolution. Multiply, expand, spread. These are inbuilt in to every species, it's just that usually species can't overcome outside environmental pressures and resource depletion the way intelligent species can. Which is why intelligence became a favored evolutionary trait.

  • sloporionsloporion Registered User regular
    If you think about it, space travel of the magnitude to colonize other worlds would require multiple ships, filled with hundreds (if not thousands) of people and food/supplies for that number of people (I'm using people in this example because I have no idea how an alien race might perform under these conditions, but I do know how human beings tend to perform).

    All of those people would have to be like-minded and REALLY focused on the cause. Assuming it would take 3-5 lifetimes to find a planet fit for colonization (that's assuming you find one on the first or second system you go to), you would then hope that your great great great grandchildren are willing to do this work. After all, how many of our parents are up with the times as far as technology goes, let alone our grandparents, and then you start adding greats and you're looking at a MUCH different generation. My point is, 3-4 generations through the journey and you might be stuck with a bunch of pissed off people who don't really want to do it, but have to because their ancestors thought it was a good idea.

    Also, you'd have to have a global government to make this possible, because you'd have to have the best of the best of the best working on this. And, if hundreds of years down the road, you actually do manage to get a stable colony on a nearby system, you're going to be really pissed off to find that Canada is the new global superpower (hahaha, just kidding Canada, we both know that's not going to happen). But, all kidding aside, if this was a United States project and the government collapses (as so many global superpowers have been known to do), it would be slightly disconcerting to call back and hear Chinese or Portuguese. So, obviously, a planetary government would be far more likely to stay stable and would probably not have to worry about pesky things like money, for funding this project.

    As for the XCom Project: Yeah, that's a good idea, give a bunch of tinfoil wearing people our most advanced military hardware... Or, give a bunch of militaristic people better technology than the rest of the governments in the world have... Neither of these situations seem to be a sound judgement.

  • FnorosFnoros Registered User regular
    I apologize if it is mentioned elsewhere in these comments, but what if there are aliens who know about us, and they are scared? They would see a bunch of hairless apes who constantly murder, backstab, and rape each other, while destroying their environment and entire populations of their own kind primarily for the sake of little pieces of green paper. They would see a species who is capable of feeding all of it's members, yet does not either out of choice or sheer laziness. Compared to many fictional advanced alien races, Earth is a madhouse. As to why we don't detect more radio signals, any sufficiently advanced civilization likely uses quantum entanglement communication, especially if they are spacefarers. Communication via electromagnetism is really to slow to be feasible for communicating between solar systems or even planets.

  • ThannyThanny Registered User regular
    Enrico Fermi's last name is not pronounced "fur-ME". It's "FAIR-me". That horrible butchering of his name drove me nuts through both videos.

    Regarding the Drake equation, the probabilities presented were far too optimistic. Before you can have intelligence, you need multi-cellularity. On this planet, that required a symbiosis event (the merging of a bacterium with a proto-eukaryote of some sort - probably a methanogenic archaeon) which may have been extremely improbable. Even granting that merger, and resulting multi-cellularity, there are two prominent multi-cellular kingdoms (plants and fungi) which never developed a nervous system, much less intelligence. I'm entirely comfortable saying that the probability of life elsewhere in the galaxy is 100%. I'm more sanguine about the probability of intelligent technological life.

    The real biggest problem with interstellar travel, however, boils down to mass and energy. If you want the crew that leaves to be the crew that arrives, you need to reach near-light speeds to let time dilation reduce the trip length. Accelerating to that speed, and decelerating from it near the destination, will take an enormous quantity of energy. If you accept a slower speed with a multi-generational crew, you need a much larger ship due to the required supplies, so the required energy is still ridiculously high. Even with a perfect conversion of mass to energy (i.e. E=mc^2), you can't carry the energy with you.

    Arguments concerning technological progress are specious, since what would be required is a fundamentally new method of moving or extracting energy from empty space. Given what we know about the universe now, that may as well be magic.

    So Fermi's Paradox is pretty well answered. Even if there is other technological life out there, it's probably impossible to travel between the stars given how the universe works. Being wrong about this would delight me, but there's no evidence yet that I am.

  • ThannyThanny Registered User regular
    Enrico Fermi's last name is not pronounced "fur-ME". It's "FAIR-me". That horrible butchering of his name drove me nuts through both videos.

    Regarding the Drake equation, the probabilities presented were far too optimistic. Before you can have intelligence, you need multi-cellularity. On this planet, that required a symbiosis event (the merging of a bacterium with a proto-eukaryote of some sort - probably a methanogenic archaeon) which may have been extremely improbable. Even granting that merger, and resulting multi-cellularity, there are two prominent multi-cellular kingdoms (plants and fungi) which never developed a nervous system, much less intelligence. I'm entirely comfortable saying that the probability of life elsewhere in the galaxy is 100%. I'm more sanguine about the probability of intelligent technological life.

    The real biggest problem with interstellar travel, however, boils down to mass and energy. If you want the crew that leaves to be the crew that arrives, you need to reach near-light speeds to let time dilation reduce the trip length. Accelerating to that speed, and decelerating from it near the destination, will take an enormous quantity of energy. If you accept a slower speed with a multi-generational crew, you need a much larger ship due to the required supplies, so the required energy is still ridiculously high. Even with a perfect conversion of mass to energy (i.e. E=mc^2), you can't carry the energy with you.

    Arguments concerning technological progress are specious, since what would be required is a fundamentally new method of moving or extracting energy from empty space. Given what we know about the universe now, that may as well be magic.

    So Fermi's Paradox is pretty well answered. Even if there is other technological life out there, it's probably impossible to travel between the stars given how the universe works. Being wrong about this would delight me, but there's no evidence yet that I am.

  • TheSchaefTheSchaef Registered User regular
    "DragongodZenos - what if they used DNA as a form of communication"

    For this I would refer you to the Speaker for the Dead series of books in the Ender's Game universe, where (spoiler) it is believed an unknown alien race is manipulating the DNA structure of creatures, either as a means of communication or as a complex terraforming program.

    There's also the classic science fiction novel Solaris, detailing the efforts of scientists on a remote world to communicate with an utterly alien form of life.

  • TalshereTalshere Registered User regular
    I cant remember where I read it but I remember an idea stating there there were 4 levels of civilization.

    1: The civilization developed and harnessed the power of Fusion

    2: A civilization has developed the technology to directly draw energy from a star or black hole and has harnessed anti matter.

    3: A civilization to whom power has become little issue do to the scale and efficiency of harvesting. Possible similar to #2 but on a grander scale or using thus unknown techniques.

    I thought on this when I heard it an basically came to the conclusion that first the obvious, Earth is at stage 0 and second that no civilisation that is not united can progress to stage 1 due to the devastating power and wide spread availability of the weapons upon entering it and the inability to leave their planet of origin until well into stage 1 at least.

    Simple put, any civilisation that is not united as a planet shortly after entering stage 1 is doomed to wipe itself out.

    I would thus suggest that the probability is that any alien species visiting us would likely not resort to violence unless we forced them to it. Because if they turned to it on a dime they simply wouldn't exist.

  • DanHibikiDanHibiki Registered User regular
    @Thanny Well, theoretically, you'd want to do all your travel via worm hole. Much less messy then the brute force approach of accelerating till you're FTL.

  • 12802951280295 Registered User new member
    @Talshere
    That sounds similar to the Kardashev scale.

  • Agent S7Agent S7 Registered User regular
    Not going to comment on the episode specifically (save to say that it was awesome), but rather the creepy-funny gag with the alien and the podium right before the credits. I laughed out loud. Good job, guys.

  • Blue ThingBlue Thing Registered User new member
    @Thanny I refer you to the 'warp drive' that NASA is currently working on that should allow effective speeds at least close to speed of light if not surpassing it with relatively small energy input. http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2012/11/27/nasa-is-building-a-real-warp-drive/ (not a link to NASA just one i had to hand, NASA do have their own page on it)

  • ANTIcarrotANTIcarrot Registered User regular
    PhilKll wrote: »
    huh? So how is an alien presence going to help anyone? And why would "rich white folk" have anything to gain/loose from it? Possibly destabilizing society would effect everyone. Rich poor, middle class, its a human thing, not a class thing.
    The Prime Directive theory goes that aliens are not contacting us for our benefit. Which sounds good, until you realize that such actions disproportionately benefit rich nations, and disadvantage poor ones. If aliens brought their technology, Microsoft et all would go out of business. Rich white folk lose out. AIDS orphans in Africa on the other hand, might quickly find they have access to clean water, security, and a cure for AIDS. There are arguably more people who would benefit from hands-on alien charity than would benefit from hands-off alien charity.

    Imagine if you had been in a nasty car accident, and you were dying, and there was no one around to help you. Except for someone hiding in the bushes. Is a lack of interference really the best way they can help you? How would you feel if the reason they weren't saving your life was out of fear they might be bruising the ego of someone you've never meet?

  • lordlundarlordlundar Registered User regular
    Tssha wrote: »
    At 4:01 in the video, where did you find that picture? Is it from a game? If so, which one? It looks intriguing.

    I'd like to say Sword of the Stars 1 but I'm not sure. I'm sure it's a turn based 4x game but not one I'm familiar with.

  • MrdeedsMrdeeds Registered User regular
    The assumptions taken in this video are so incredibly optimistic, they are too exaggerated to be considered seriously:

    - We know NOTHING of the origin of life. Assuming that 100% of planets in habitable range have life is not slightly optimistic. it's straight up wishful thinking. They use 100% in the drake equation because otherwise the equation has no point.
    - that there is 7.5 civilization in our galaxy following the drake equation is fundamentally wrong. The level of human intelligence is so incredibly NOT ordinary in the realm of earth (it is likely that all life from bacteria to vegetation to mammals given millions more years of evolution would not at all give a single new specie that had any aspiration to LEAVE earth) that it is ridiculous to estimate that 90% of life on other planets have intelligent life that consist of more than just: smash a deer's head with a stone.

    but please do more realistic numbers next time

  • PhilKllPhilKll Registered User regular
    edited February 2013
    sorry double post

    PhilKll on
  • PhilKllPhilKll Registered User regular
    @ANTIcarrot
    Okay, I'm not familiar with the Prime Directive, and not sure the car wreck makes sense, as this isn't an individual issue, its society as a whole. As for the alien's actions benefiting anyone, its more like their inaction allows us to live how we came to live. They're not causing it, only observing it. This also assumes that they are showing up here as a red cross mission to save us from ourselves. That they would take over our industry, to be the hand that feeds us. We would be in their zoo at that point would we not? I would wonder, on the side of technological exchanges, that it would benefit those established corporations, that had the resources to utilize the technology, say the transistor, its going to take a factory, and workers, and funding,to build them, and use them, unless the aliens just decided to hand over as many as we needed, in preassembled products. Same as cures for diseases, unless they brought a magic wand or endless supply, just for us. Seems to me they would bring information, and let us use our own resources to build it out. I'd find it hard to believe they have limitless resources.
    But who knows, they could be here to save us, could be here to watch us, like a zoo or experiment, maybe we're a nature preserve? Who knows, only the aliens do.

  • DesocupadoDesocupado BrazilRegistered User new member
    edited February 2013
    I'm glad this spin-off is over.
    While it's an amusing subject it's very little to do with gaming.

    Desocupado on
  • mechamanexemechamanexe Registered User new member
    Random thing I would like to say: If a alien civilization is so far advanced as to be able to cross dozens or hundreds or thousands of light years, why would they even want to come to earth as of today? Maybe in the past they came to colect samples and possibly leave traces of them, heck, maybe they are here now. But today? Our own civilization is on the brink of destroying itself due to the over usage of our wordly rescources, what benefit do they have coming here? If they want to study us, they could probably just watch from afar and research our daily behaviors. I think for the F. Paradox, the answer lies in points 4 and 6. 4 because they don't really have a reason to be seen, and if we are to look for them ourselves, we would need a new way of technology to sort of discover a way of being able to detect them.

  • WarpZoneWarpZone Registered User regular
    @Blue Thing: Yeah actually, NASA does have its own page about Warp Drive. Here's the link, right here: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/warpstat_prt.htm

    It says right on the page I linked that "the bulk of scientific knowledge that we have accumulated to date concludes that faster than light travel is impossible." I don't know why you chose to link to some third-party site saying "nasa is building a real warp drive" when NASA's page itself says "nasa is not building a real warp drive and in fact believes it to be theoretically impossible," especially since you already knew about NASA's page and had presumably already visited it, but I'll assume this was an honest mistake on your part.

  • WarpZoneWarpZone Registered User regular
    Also: pretty sure Fermi's Paradox assumes multi-generational, self-sustaining city-ships, powered by efficient use of nuclear power.

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