the fermi paradox

[diamenz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbNPBcUgDTs&pp=ygURdGhlIGZlcmdpIHBhcmFkb3g%3D

[Patrick Chewing]

They're all in the United States.

[highwhey]

the poster above me ate all of them.

[Meticode]

They read ISH and said, "They dumb as ****. Onto the next solar system."

[Doomsday Dallas]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkYzTDYKRPY

[StickyWice]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkYzTDYKRPY



Do you ever have own thoughts or are you too stupid to share with us?

[diamenz]

i don't think any of you guys actually watched the video but you should if you're not familiar with the fermi paradox - i found it very interesting.


The Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between the high probability of extraterrestrial life existing in the vast universe and the lack of any conclusive evidence or contact with such civilizations.

The Premise:
The universe is incredibly large, with billions of stars and potentially billions of planets, many of which could be habitable.

The Paradox:
Given this vastness, it seems statistically likely that life, and even intelligent life, would have arisen elsewhere. Yet, despite extensive searches and technological advancements, we haven't found any definitive evidence of extraterrestrial life or civilizations.

The Question:
This discrepancy, the "Fermi Paradox," prompts the question: "Where is everybody?"


Possible Explanations:

There are many proposed solutions to the Fermi paradox, some more speculative than others, including:

The Great Filter: A barrier or event that prevents life from evolving to a certain stage, such as interstellar travel or advanced technology.

The Rare Earth Hypothesis: The conditions necessary for intelligent life are extremely rare in the universe.

The Zoo Hypothesis: Extraterrestrial civilizations exist but avoid contact to allow for natural evolution and sociocultural development.

Self-Destructive Tendencies: Intelligent civilizations may destroy themselves before reaching a point of interstellar contact.

Technological Limitations: Our current technology might not be advanced enough to detect or communicate with extraterrestrial signals.

Interstellar Travel is Difficult: The vast distances between stars could make interstellar travel too difficult or dangerous.

They are not interested in contact: Some civilizations might not be interested in interstellar travel or communication.

We are being observed: Some suggest that we are being observed without our knowledge, like a zoo.

[Off the Court]

Self distruction seems like it would be an issue for most, if not all intelligent life.

Eventually technology will reach a point where the common man can just 3D print up a nuclear device at home. Once splitting an atom becomes that accessible, it's only a matter of time.

The only way I can see prevention is if society were to effectively weed out all crazy people through DNA replacement or cloning. Like the movie Gattaca.

[BurningHammer]

Self distruction seems like it would be an issue for most, if not all intelligent life.

Eventually technology will reach a point where the common man can just 3D print up a nuclear device at home. Once splitting an atom becomes that accessible, it's only a matter of time.

The only way I can see prevention is if society were to effectively weed out all crazy people through DNA replacement or cloning. Like the movie Gattaca.

Or proper education.

[TheMan]

i don't think any of you guys actually watched the video but you should if you're not familiar with the fermi paradox - i found it very interesting.

The distances are the main problem IMO. We're basically looking for life in planets millions of light years from us. We're seeing them as they were millions of years ago, an alien civilization 70 million light years from us wouldn't be seeing us as we are now but looking at earth during the age of dinosaurs. I'm sure there are advanced alien civilizations all around us but we don't yet have the technology to detect them due to the immense distances or we may not be able to discern them at all, we imagine alien civilizations to be similar to ours, city lights and structures but how are we certain an advanced alien civilization would be similar to ours? What if they were so advanced that they don't need to change their planet's environment like we do? They would have evolved in an entirely different manner and environment, we may not even be able to tell what we are looking at.

[diamenz]

Self distruction seems like it would be an issue for most, if not all intelligent life.

Eventually technology will reach a point where the common man can just 3D print up a nuclear device at home. Once splitting an atom becomes that accessible, it's only a matter of time.

The only way I can see prevention is if society were to effectively weed out all crazy people through DNA replacement or cloning. Like the movie Gattaca.

from wiki:

It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself

In 1966, Sagan and Shklovskii speculated that technological civilizations will either tend to destroy themselves within a century of developing interstellar communicative capability or master their self-destructive tendencies and survive for billion-year timescales.[95] Self-annihilation may also be viewed in terms of thermodynamics: insofar as life is an ordered system that can sustain itself against the tendency to disorder, Stephen Hawking's "external transmission" or interstellar communicative phase, where knowledge production and knowledge management is more important than transmission of information via evolution, may be the point at which the system becomes unstable and self-destructs.[96][97] Here, Hawking emphasizes self-design of the human genome (transhumanism) or enhancement via machines (e.g., brain–computer interface) to enhance human intelligence and reduce aggression, without which he implies human civilization may be too stupid collectively to survive an increasingly unstable system. For instance, the development of technologies during the "external transmission" phase, such as weaponization of artificial general intelligence or antimatter, may not be met by concomitant increases in human ability to manage its own inventions. Consequently, disorder increases in the system: global governance may become increasingly destabilized, worsening humanity's ability to manage the possible means of annihilation listed above, resulting in global societal collapse.

----------------------------------------------------

Climate change and resource management

Die-off: A scenario where the population grows quickly, surpassing the planet's carrying capacity, which leads to a peak followed by a rapid decline. The population eventually stabilizes at a much lower equilibrium level, allowing the planet to partially recover.

Sustainability: A scenario where civilizations successfully transition from high-impact resources (like fossil fuels) to sustainable ones (like solar energy) before significant environmental degradation occurs. This allows the civilization and planet to reach a stable equilibrium, avoiding catastrophic effects.

Collapse Without Resource Change: In this trajectory, the population and environmental degradation increase rapidly. The civilization does not switch to sustainable resources in time, leading to a total collapse where a tipping point is crossed and the population drops.

Collapse With Resource Change: Similar to the previous scenario, but in this case, the civilization attempts to transition to sustainable resources. However, the change comes too late, and the environmental damage is irreversible, still leading to the civilization's collapse.[100][101]

----------------------------------------------------

Willingness to communicate

In 1981, cosmologist Edward Harrison argued that such behavior would be an act of prudence: an intelligent species that has overcome its own self-destructive tendencies might view any other species bent on galactic expansion as a threat.

[diamenz]

The distances are the main problem IMO. We're basically looking for life in planets millions of light years from us. We're seeing them as they were millions of years ago, an alien civilization 70 million light years from us wouldn't be seeing us as we are now but looking at earth during the age of dinosaurs. I'm sure there are advanced alien civilizations all around us but we don't yet have the technology to detect them due to the immense distances or we may not be able to discern them at all, we imagine alien civilizations to be similar to ours, city lights and structures but how are we certain an advanced alien civilization would be similar to ours? What if they were so advanced that they don't need to change their planet's environment like we do? They would have evolved in an entirely different manner and environment, we may not even be able to tell what we are looking at.

Another possibility is that human theoreticians have underestimated how much alien life might differ from that on Earth. Aliens may be psychologically unwilling to attempt to communicate with human beings. Perhaps human mathematics is parochial to Earth and not shared by other life,[115] though others argue this can only apply to abstract math since the math associated with physics must be similar (in results, if not in methods).[116]

Physiology might also be a communication barrier. Carl Sagan speculated that an alien species might have a thought process orders of magnitude slower (or faster) than that of humans.[118] A message broadcast by that species might seem like random background noise to humans, and therefore go undetected.

Arthur C. Clarke hypothesized that "our technology must still be laughably primitive; we may well be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms, while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime".[120] Another thought is that technological civilizations invariably experience a technological singularity and attain a post-biological character.[121]

---------------------------------

Humanity's ability to detect intelligent extraterrestrial life has existed for only a very brief period—from 1937 onwards, if the invention of the radio telescope is taken as the dividing line—and Homo sapiens is a geologically recent species. The whole period of modern human existence to date is a very brief period on a cosmological scale, and radio transmissions have only been propagated since 1895. Thus, it remains possible that human beings have neither existed long enough nor made themselves sufficiently detectable to be found by extraterrestrial intelligence.[138]

It may be that non-colonizing technologically capable alien civilizations exist, but that they are simply too far apart for meaningful two-way communication.[106]: 62–71  Sebastian von Hoerner estimated the average duration of civilization at 6,500 years and the average distance between civilizations in the Milky Way at 1,000 light years.[88] If two civilizations are separated by several thousand light-years, it is possible that one or both cultures may become extinct before meaningful dialogue can be established. Human searches may be able to detect their existence, but communication will remain impossible because of distance.

Some SETI skeptics may also believe that humanity is at a very special point of time—specifically, a transitional period from no space-faring societies to one space-faring society, namely that of human beings.[142]

[highwhey]

they probably exist in other dimensions. we had to invent the idea of dark matter because general relativity doesn't make sense in astrophysics otherwise. so we already know for a fact that there's another force in nature that we cannot observe directly, but know of it's existence because of how it makes other forces react. that's pretty much astrophysics in a nutshell, observing something we can see/observe, react to another force, body. for example, a lot of our extra solar observations of planets are not direct. we can't even see the surfaces of many planets, but we learn a lot about them by observing the closest star to that planet. we know of particles without a rest mass as well (photons, gluons, etc), but while masless at rest, they can have momentum/energy. what's to say another form of life is not bound to physical forms of life? energy certainly isn't. and we know thoroughly that just because we cannot observe something with our eyes and/or instruments, does not mean it does not exist.

[Patrick Chewing]

they probably exist in other dimensions. we had to invent the idea of dark matter because general relativity doesn't make sense in astrophysics otherwise. so we already know for a fact that there's another force in nature that we cannot observe directly, but know of it's existence because of how it makes other forces react. that's pretty much astrophysics in a nutshell, observing something we can see/observe, react to another force, body. for example, a lot of our extra solar observations of planets are not direct. we can't even see the surfaces of many planets, but we learn a lot about them by observing the closest star to that planet. we know of particles without a rest mass as well (photons, gluons, etc), but while masless at rest, they can have momentum/energy. what's to say another form of life is not bound to physical forms of life? energy certainly isn't. and we know thoroughly that just because we cannot observe something with our eyes and/or instruments, does not mean it does not exist.

What we do know for sure is that you weigh 400 POUNDS

[diamenz]

they probably exist in other dimensions. we had to invent the idea of dark matter because general relativity doesn't make sense in astrophysics otherwise. so we already know for a fact that there's another force in nature that we cannot observe directly, but know of it's existence because of how it makes other forces react. that's pretty much astrophysics in a nutshell, observing something we can see/observe, react to another force, body. for example, a lot of our extra solar observations of planets are not direct. we can't even see the surfaces of many planets, but we learn a lot about them by observing the closest star to that planet. we know of particles without a rest mass as well (photons, gluons, etc), but while masless at rest, they can have momentum/energy. what's to say another form of life is not bound to physical forms of life? energy certainly isn't. and we know thoroughly that just because we cannot observe something with our eyes and/or instruments, does not mean it does not exist.

it indeed may be incomprehensible to us. or alien civilizations may have advanced technologically to the point of being, for the lack if a better word, 'invisible' or inconceivable to our current state of being or ability to observe.

one of the tragedies of life is our mortality and in effect being cut off from realizing or witnessing future human advancements and interstellar discovery and travel. i can't imagine what might be in a thousand, five hundred or just a hundred years from now... if we don't destroy ourselves first... or be destroyed by natural or otherwise unnatural forces.

[diamenz]

@TheMan continued:

Everyone is listening but no one is transmitting

Alien civilizations might be technically capable of contacting Earth, but could be only listening instead of transmitting.[146] If all or most civilizations act in the same way, the galaxy could be full of civilizations eager for contact, but everyone is listening and no one is transmitting. This is the so-called SETI Paradox.[147]

The only civilization known, humanity, does not explicitly transmit, except for a few small efforts.[146] Even these efforts, and certainly any attempt to expand them, are controversial.[148] It is not even clear humanity would respond to a detected signal—the official policy within the SETI community[149] is that "[no] response to a signal or other evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence should be sent until appropriate international consultations have taken place". However, given the possible impact of any reply,[150] it may be very difficult to obtain any consensus on who would speak and what they would say.

Communication is dangerous

An alien civilization might feel it is too dangerous to communicate, either for humanity or for them. It is argued that when very different civilizations have met on Earth, the results have often been disastrous for one side or the other, and the same may well apply to interstellar contact.[151] Even contact at a safe distance could lead to infection by computer code[152] or even ideas themselves.[153] Perhaps prudent civilizations actively hide not only from Earth but from everyone, out of fear of other civilizations.[154]

Perhaps the Fermi paradox itself—or the alien equivalent of it—is the reason for any civilization to avoid contact with other civilizations, even if no other obstacles existed. From any one civilization's point of view, it would be unlikely for them to be the first ones to make first contact. According to this reasoning, it is likely that previous civilizations faced fatal problems upon first contact and doing so should be avoided. So perhaps every civilization keeps quiet because of the possibility that there is a real reason for others to do so.[19]

In 1987, science fiction author Greg Bear explored this concept in his novel The Forge of God.[155] In The Forge of God, humanity is likened to a baby crying in a hostile forest: "There once was an infant lost in the woods, crying its heart out, wondering why no one answered, drawing down the wolves." One of the characters explains, "We've been sitting in our tree chirping like foolish birds for over a century now, wondering why no other birds answered. The galactic skies are full of hawks, that's why. Planetisms that don't know enough to keep quiet, get eaten."[156]

Earth is deliberately being avoided

The zoo hypothesis states that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists and does not contact life on Earth to allow for its natural evolution and development.[164] A variation on the zoo hypothesis is the laboratory hypothesis, where humanity has been or is being subject to experiments,[164][5] with Earth or the Solar System effectively serving as a laboratory. The zoo hypothesis may break down under the uniformity of motive flaw: all it takes is a single culture or civilization to decide to act contrary to the imperative within humanity's range of detection for it to be abrogated, and the probability of such a violation of hegemony increases with the number of civilizations,[27][165] tending not towards a "Galactic Club" with a unified foreign policy with regard to life on Earth but multiple "Galactic Cliques".[166] However, if artificial superintelligences dominate galactic life, and if it is true that such intelligences tend towards merged hegemonic behavior, then this would address the uniformity of motive flaw by dissuading rogue behavior.[167]

Analysis of the inter-arrival times between civilizations in the galaxy based on common astrobiological assumptions suggests that the initial civilization would have a commanding lead over the later arrivals. As such, it may have established what has been termed the zoo hypothesis through force or as a galactic or universal norm and the resultant "paradox" by a cultural founder effect with or without the continued activity of the founder.[168] Some colonization scenarios predict spherical expansion across star systems, with continued expansion coming from the systems just previously settled. It has been suggested that this would cause a strong selection process among the colonization front favoring cultural or biological adaptations to living in starships or space habitats. As a result, they may forgo living on planets.[169] This may result in the destruction of terrestrial planets in these systems for use as building materials, thus preventing the development of life on those worlds. Or, they may have an ethic of protection for "nursery worlds", and protect them.[169]

It is possible that a civilization advanced enough to travel between solar systems could be actively visiting or observing Earth while remaining undetected or unrecognized.[170] Following this logic, and building on arguments that other proposed solutions to the Fermi paradox may be implausible, Ian Crawford and Dirk Schulze-Makuch[171] have argued that technological civilisations are either very rare in the Galaxy or are deliberately hiding from us.

[diamenz]

also, Jews:

A related idea to the zoo hypothesis is that, beyond a certain distance, the perceived universe is a simulated reality. The planetarium hypothesis[172] speculates that beings may have created this simulation so that the universe appears to be empty of other life.