New Study (SETI related)

[_Themis]

I watched a neat breakdown of a show called The Expanse by Alt Shift X:

Fantastic series.

[_Themis]

To become an advanced technological civilization the aliens have to work together.

Humans are technologically advanced yet we still have wars and are on a geologically fast track to destroy the ecosystem we have to have to survive on. We do work well together, but we are also fairly dumb to a lot of things we have not evolved to handle. I suspect any species capable of developing technology like humans have will also be able to increase that capability faster then we can adjust/evolve to. It wouldn't surprise me to have high odds of any advanced species destroying itself.

While I would be very interested and maybe even excited if we did discover other life in the universe, I am also in the camp that if they can reach us they may not do things with our interests at heart. So it doesn't bother me that we have not found any advanced species yet.

[_DoubtingThomas]

Humans are technologically advanced yet we still have wars and are on a geologically fast track to destroy the ecosystem we have to have to survive on. We do work well together, but we are also fairly dumb to a lot of things we have not evolved to handle. I suspect any species capable of developing technology like humans have will also be able to increase that capability faster then we can adjust/evolve to. It wouldn't surprise me to have high odds of any advanced species destroying itself.

It is a good point and nobody really knows, but I doubt we humans are going to commit planetary suicide.

[_EAllusion]

DT -

It sounds like you are saying what you wish to be the case rather than what you have reason to believe is the case. Optimism about finding alien life is a common theme in secular rationalist crowds with Carl Sagan being a big champion. Unfortunately, we have no idea what the odds of life developing is. No clue. We only have a single instance of it that we know about and we don't know enough about the process of abiogensis to know how likely it is given earth-like conditions. From there, we also don't understand the odds of a human-like intelligence evolving. Like, we have no idea.

This means we have no idea how likely or unlikely it is for life to be where we are looking. We just don't know.

It won't make you feel good to look at, but read expert guesses of the odds of nuclear war in the next 10 years. The odds are low, but not that low. If you multiply the decade by decade odds out a couple hundred years, it starts to look inevitable if things don't change. That we'll wipe ourselves out doesn't seem implausible enough to dismiss.

[_DoubtingThomas]

While I would be very interested and maybe even excited if we did discover other life in the universe, I am also in the camp that if they can reach us they may not do things with our interests at heart..

Why?

So it doesn't bother me that we have not found any advanced species yet.

Imagine if we find evidence of a type II or III.

[_DoubtingThomas]

DT -

It sounds like you are saying what you wish to be the case rather than what you have reason to believe is the case. Optimism about finding alien life is a common theme in secular rationalist crowds with Carl Sagan being a big champion. Unfortunately, we have no idea what the odds of life developing is. No clue. We only have a single instance of it that we know about and we don't know enough about the process of abiogensis to know how likely it is given earth-like conditions. From there, we also don't understand the odds of a human-like intelligence evolving. Like, we have no idea.

Right, but we have to keep looking for alien life. I hope scientists find evidence of intelligent life in less than a decade.

It won't make you feel good to look at, but read expert guesses of the odds of nuclear war in the next 10 years. The odds are low, but not that low. If you multiply the decade by decade odds out a couple hundred years, it starts to look inevitable if things don't change. That we'll wipe ourselves out doesn't seem implausible enough to dismiss.

Right, it is scary. I think the solution is for us humans to spread out into space.

[_Themis]

It is a good point and nobody really knows, but I doubt we humans are going to commit planetary suicide.

Are we not already on the path to planetary suicide environmentally? We have had close calls when it come to nuclear war. World population is still rising, especially in southeast Asia which has three nuclear countries which really hate each other. Two of which have major borders issues and have to share water resources.

[_Themis]

While I would be very interested and maybe even excited if we did discover other life in the universe, I am also in the camp that if they can reach us they may not do things with our interests at heart..

Why?

Same reason when the vikings came to your village they didn't have your best interests at heart. Same reason those who were arriving in Africa to bring some Africans back to America didn't have their best interests at heart. Same reason most groups like Europeans settling the America's didn't concern themselves with what was best for the people already living there. How about other species. How well do we treat them. Sure we make some rules on how to treat them and some like dogs and cats can have a good life, but we use a lot of them as resources as we have used other humans as resources. It should be a major concern if we ever discovered some advanced species how they may see us or our planet/solar system.

Imagine if we find evidence of a type II or III.

What if we find evidence in our galaxy of a type II civilization transitioning to a type III? Will they want to share with us at all, or will all our dolphins leave the planet as they come in to build their hyperspace bypass?

[_huckelberry]

Right, but we have to keep looking for alien life. I hope scientists find evidence of intelligent life in less than a decade.

It won't make you feel good to look at, but read expert guesses of the odds of nuclear war in the next 10 years. The odds are low, but not that low. If you multiply the decade by decade odds out a couple hundred years, it starts to look inevitable if things don't change. That we'll wipe ourselves out doesn't seem implausible enough to dismiss.

Right, it is scary. I think the solution is for us humans to spread out into space.

Doubting Thomas, I do not know how to escape a couple of thoughts about this. I think that even after planet warming disaster and perhaps a nuclear war this planet would remain both easier to live on and far more inviting than any other place in the solar systems. All of the other planets except Mars are far uglier than any concept of hell people have imagined. Mars is about like Dantes lowest level of hell.

It would be interesting to discover advanced civilizations in the galaxy but unless they are in the local star group they are too far away to even communicate with.

[Guest]

Doubting Thomas, I do not know how to escape a couple of thoughts about this. I think that even after planet warming disaster and perhaps a nuclear war this planet would remain both easier to live on and far more inviting than any other place in the solar systems. All of the other planets except Mars are far uglier than any concept of hell people have imagined. Mars is about like Dantes lowest level of hell.

It would be interesting to discover advanced civilizations in the galaxy but unless they are in the local star group they are too far away to even communicate with.

Right, but if we find evidence of type II or type III it would mean that it is possible to become gods. We do not know the limits of science, but finding a galactic empire would tell us that we humans are nowhere near the limit.

Doubting Thomas, I do not know how to escape a couple of thoughts about this. I think that even after planet warming disaster and perhaps a nuclear war this planet would remain both easier to live on and far more inviting than any other place in the solar systems. All of the other planets except Mars are far uglier than any concept of hell people have imagined. Mars is about like Dantes lowest level of hell. .

Yes, you are right.