Even if nature could "select" us for extinction
That doesn't mean we have to stand there and take it
Yeah, this is a more succinct way to say something I was thinking. As a species, we've evolved past what's effectively lying down and seeing who dies from what nature hits us with. We have medicine and technology to extend our lives, and frankly, being smart enough to colonise another planet is another aspect of that.
As good a reason as you'll likely find for us to keep going as long as we can.
This is great, but:
This is why Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom says that “no news is good news.” The discovery of even simple life on Mars would be devastating, because it would cut out a number of potential Great Filters behind us. And if we were to find fossilized complex life on Mars, Bostrom says “it would be by far the worst news ever printed on a newspaper cover,” because it would mean The Great Filter is almost definitely ahead of us—ultimately dooming the species. Bostrom believes that when it comes to The Fermi Paradox, “the silence of the night sky is golden.”
Oh lord did this thought give me the heebie jeebies
Like the big day comes, a rover finds like, ruins or underground structures or whatever the fuck on Mars, and we send it in there, and all that ever comes back are pictures of skeletons
As far as the eye can see
Nothing but the alien dead
That's my local university, causing dread and terror.
Respect.
Yeah, this is a more succinct way to say something I was thinking. As a species, we've evolved past what's effectively lying down and seeing who dies from what nature hits us with. We have medicine and technology to extend our lives, and frankly, being smart enough to colonise another planet is another aspect of that.
As good a reason as you'll likely find for us to keep going as long as we can.
WBW is fun in general; I enjoyed the giant essays on AI and Musk's projects there. (Also just happy to see longform writing on topics like those, as opposed to the usual trend of bolting one or two sound bites onto a four paragraph AP piece.)
Man if you think Aliens building the Pyramids is weird, but One-Electron Universe theory isn't then I don't think you know the meaning of the word
Annnnd my thought-train ran from the OEU Theory through some intermediate stuff to reminding myself that electric-universe people exist and are out there and still really evangelical about it. Thaaaanks...
I think my favorite possible answer to Fermi is either the one where everyone else is keeping radio silence to hide from hostile predator civilizations, OR that there is one apex culture that's destroying other species before they get too advanced
It is so weirdly specific and depend on so many other factors and was CLEARLY cooked up by some people who read a lot of sci-fi the day before
Well yeah that, but I'm also super into the paranormal and stuff and in certain circles people believe that ET contact (even the benevolent kind) is actually contact with demons, hence the theories about the Anunaki and such.
Also, this is totally ridiculous, but I do believe that some cases of alien abduction and UFO sightings are legitimate. But this is the science thread and totally doesn't belong here because that's not science.
Edit: THIS ISN'T THE SCIENCE THREAD HOLD ON LEMME GET MY SLIDE PROJECTOR WARMED UP
Edit the second: I... I don't believe in ALL KINDS of weird stuff do I? Oh god, am I a tinfoil?
You are a reverse tinfoil. You want to believe in nothing.
Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
I think my favorite possible answer to Fermi is either the one where everyone else is keeping radio silence to hide from hostile predator civilizations, OR that there is one apex culture that's destroying other species before they get too advanced
It is so weirdly specific and depend on so many other factors and was CLEARLY cooked up by some people who read a lot of sci-fi the day before
Have you ever read Greg Bear's Forge of God? You might want to check it out of if not, you might like it.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
I think my favorite possible answer to Fermi is either the one where everyone else is keeping radio silence to hide from hostile predator civilizations, OR that there is one apex culture that's destroying other species before they get too advanced
It is so weirdly specific and depend on so many other factors and was CLEARLY cooked up by some people who read a lot of sci-fi the day before
Have you ever read Greg Bear's Forge of God? You might want to check it out of if not, you might like it.
That book is so crazy if only because you know how it will end and you just get to enjoy the journey.
This lucky penny is bullshit.
Hearthstone - Webber #1330
3DS: 0920-3235-4071
Bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish!
we can't, there's too many midichlorians in the flux-capacitor
Then reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!
WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT YOU MONSTER!
What if you use a Jefferies tube to directly access the warp core power conduits and reroute them to the shield array. That should remodulate the warp field enough to buy you some time.
I think my favorite possible answer to Fermi is either the one where everyone else is keeping radio silence to hide from hostile predator civilizations, OR that there is one apex culture that's destroying other species before they get too advanced
It is so weirdly specific and depend on so many other factors and was CLEARLY cooked up by some people who read a lot of sci-fi the day before
That's basically what you do in philosophy, though. When you have a question like this, you put forth every possible answer, no matter how absurd. Then you and/or people in appropriate disciplines start working at rejecting impossible answers and gauging the chance of the others being possible.
My favorite answer is the one I see as most likely: we don't see signs of other life because we're looking for signs of life that works like us / uses the tools we've used. While it's understandable that we do this (how exactly do we look for signs of life that use technology we can't imagine or whose existence we can't possibly understand before meeting), it's also very typical for how people have always dealt with "other" things, even including other cultures of actual people.
Life is incredibly diverse and weird, and that's just on our planet. Provide a completely different starting point for life and the resulting biosphere can go well beyond what our most clever and imaginative minds have ever been able to come up with in sci-fi (and I've read some really bizarre things). This is why lots of sci-fi goes with the "common seeder" approach to filling the galaxy with life; anything else would be beyond the author's ability to conceive and beyond the audience's ability to grasp.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
I can't remember the name of the book, and I'm not even sure I ever finished it, but Asimov had a story about two parallel universes in which the laws of physics were fundamentally different, with one side being populated by humans and the other by these amoeba-like creatures that lived in trinities to reproduce. It was one of the best examples I've seen of a writer coming up with truly alien life that the reader could still sympathize with.
EDIT: seriously borked the formatting on this one.
Photosaurus on
"If complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards'."
I like the one where we're the demons and they're hiding from us and praying to their god that we destroy ourselves with our own evil nature before we discover them and destroy them instead.
...I just made that up but now that's my favorite answer.
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying
Look at this guy, quoting Donald Duck like it ain't no thang.
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
edited September 2015
If you ever want to read a very depressing book about a potential future of humanity, check out Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future by Dougal Dixon. It's not necessarily very accurate depiction of the future, but it sure is interesting, and is also very depressing.
He also has another, less depressing, also interesting, and also likely not necessarily accurate book called After Man: A Zoology of the Future, which I own and very much enjoy. He also has one about what the dinosaurs might have evolved into if they hadn't mostly died out, haven't read it, but I assume it's not necessarily accurate but also quite interesting.
Lord_Asmodeus on
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
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RobonunIt's all fun and games until someone pisses off ChinaRegistered Userregular
If you ever want to read a very depressing book about a potential future of humanity, check out Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future by Dougal Dixon. It's not necessarily very accurate depiction of the future, but it sure is interesting, and is also very depressing.
He also has another, less depressing, also interesting, and also likely not necessarily accurate book called After Man: A Zoology of the Future, which I own and very much enjoy. He also has one about what the dinosaurs might have evolved into if they hadn't mostly died out, haven't read it, but I assume it's not necessarily accurate but also quite interesting.
After Man and The New Dinosaurs (postulating how dinosaurs would have developed if the extinction event hadn't occurred) are my son's two favorite picture books right now. He is totally bummed that we can't go out in the backyard and see rabbucks.
If you ever want to read a very depressing book about a potential future of humanity, check out Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future by Dougal Dixon. It's not necessarily very accurate depiction of the future, but it sure is interesting, and is also very depressing.
He also has another, less depressing, also interesting, and also likely not necessarily accurate book called After Man: A Zoology of the Future, which I own and very much enjoy. He also has one about what the dinosaurs might have evolved into if they hadn't mostly died out, haven't read it, but I assume it's not necessarily accurate but also quite interesting.
After Man and The New Dinosaurs (postulating how dinosaurs would have developed if the extinction event hadn't occurred) are my son's two favorite picture books right now. He is totally bummed that we can't go out in the backyard and see rabbucks.
Yeah I loved After Man when I was a kid. I think speculative evolution stuff is always really cool, even if I don't necessarily buy whatever argument the speculator is selling :P
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying
Yeah I think this is one of my favourite quotes not just on this subject, but favourites in general. It's so neat and succinct, and yet it makes me stop and think every time I read it.
I always like to think about things like the Fermi paradox and the great filter because they are very interesting topics
But so many of the schools of thought around them are horrifying, to me
Ironically, I think my biggest fear is that maybe, we are somehow special
That one day, if we make it that far, we will be able to reach out and touch the stars. That the galaxy will be made available to us.
And we will discover that we are all alone.
By the time we're able to discover that, there will enough of us for that to not feel too lonely to me.
This is why I'm really interesting the the global population trends, because to expand out into the stars, and create a "human empire", you've really got to encourage people to have waaaay more kids than they do now, or you are generally capped at around 11 billion people.
Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
Maybe we haven't been contacted by alien civilizations because faster-than-light travel and communication really are impossible. Now that would be depressing.
Even if those things are impossible, it does not preclude suspended animation transport or even just AI computerized based exploration. However as we dive deeper into quantum mechanics, its becoming apparent that there are already lots of things that travel faster then light, we just dont know how yet.
Posts
The Great Filter is just one of the hypotheses put forward as a possible answer
That's my local university, causing dread and terror.
Respect.
WBW is fun in general; I enjoyed the giant essays on AI and Musk's projects there. (Also just happy to see longform writing on topics like those, as opposed to the usual trend of bolting one or two sound bites onto a four paragraph AP piece.)
Annnnd my thought-train ran from the OEU Theory through some intermediate stuff to reminding myself that electric-universe people exist and are out there and still really evangelical about it. Thaaaanks...
It is so weirdly specific and depend on so many other factors and was CLEARLY cooked up by some people who read a lot of sci-fi the day before
You are a reverse tinfoil. You want to believe in nothing.
Have you ever read Greg Bear's Forge of God? You might want to check it out of if not, you might like it.
That book is so crazy if only because you know how it will end and you just get to enjoy the journey.
Hearthstone - Webber #1330
3DS: 0920-3235-4071
Fermi Foil sounds like some Star Trek futurematerial.
The Fermi Foils regulate the Heisenberg Compensator.
we can't, there's too many midichlorians in the flux-capacitor
Then reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!
WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT YOU MONSTER!
What if you use a Jefferies tube to directly access the warp core power conduits and reroute them to the shield array. That should remodulate the warp field enough to buy you some time.
Picard would capitalize the name of his ship.
ARE
FOUR
LIGHTS
My favorite answer is the one I see as most likely: we don't see signs of other life because we're looking for signs of life that works like us / uses the tools we've used. While it's understandable that we do this (how exactly do we look for signs of life that use technology we can't imagine or whose existence we can't possibly understand before meeting), it's also very typical for how people have always dealt with "other" things, even including other cultures of actual people.
Life is incredibly diverse and weird, and that's just on our planet. Provide a completely different starting point for life and the resulting biosphere can go well beyond what our most clever and imaginative minds have ever been able to come up with in sci-fi (and I've read some really bizarre things). This is why lots of sci-fi goes with the "common seeder" approach to filling the galaxy with life; anything else would be beyond the author's ability to conceive and beyond the audience's ability to grasp.
EDIT: seriously borked the formatting on this one.
...I just made that up but now that's my favorite answer.
But so many of the schools of thought around them are horrifying, to me
Ironically, I think my biggest fear is that maybe, we are somehow special
That one day, if we make it that far, we will be able to reach out and touch the stars. That the galaxy will be made available to us.
And we will discover that we are all alone.
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
By the time we're able to discover that, there will enough of us for that to not feel too lonely to me.
Look at this guy, quoting Donald Duck like it ain't no thang.
He also has another, less depressing, also interesting, and also likely not necessarily accurate book called After Man: A Zoology of the Future, which I own and very much enjoy. He also has one about what the dinosaurs might have evolved into if they hadn't mostly died out, haven't read it, but I assume it's not necessarily accurate but also quite interesting.
After Man and The New Dinosaurs (postulating how dinosaurs would have developed if the extinction event hadn't occurred) are my son's two favorite picture books right now. He is totally bummed that we can't go out in the backyard and see rabbucks.
Yeah I loved After Man when I was a kid. I think speculative evolution stuff is always really cool, even if I don't necessarily buy whatever argument the speculator is selling :P
Yeah I think this is one of my favourite quotes not just on this subject, but favourites in general. It's so neat and succinct, and yet it makes me stop and think every time I read it.
This is why I'm really interesting the the global population trends, because to expand out into the stars, and create a "human empire", you've really got to encourage people to have waaaay more kids than they do now, or you are generally capped at around 11 billion people.
Steam // Secret Satan
Jokes on you I am always alone
Wait
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
that isn't that scary