I’ve been wondering this for years now. Sci fi and even actual scientific speculation tends to assume aliens would be way ahead of us in terms of technology because their planets may have been formed earlier. I don’t think time alone matters. If they don’t have resources, if fhey don’t evolve the same way, if they have more difficulties in doing shit due to any number of reasons… They could be far less advanced than us. Maybe nobody in the entire universe has figured out how to realistically travel between stars yet. Maybe we are the only ones who have even managed to get off our rock.
Imagine humanity in 1000 years. We would be among the stars.
Now imagine humanity in 10000 years, 100000 years or even 1000000 years.
A million years is still a fraction in the cosmic timescale.
It would be nearly impossible to have other civilizations be on exactly the same technological level as us. They would indeed be either much less advanced, or much more advanced.
With all the crazy ass things that can kill us off, I don’t think we’re alone in the universe, but we may very well be alone in time.
The Fermi Paradox might just the the likelyhood to get wiped out from motions to everything and we’re too far away to get contact in this gnat’s ass of a conscious timeline we’re in.
When you look at us, the Earth, life has formed almost immediately after the conditions where given. On top of that the universe itself isn’t even that old. There is a good chance, that Fermi was right but we are just the first ones.
… which makes me think that whatever or whoever designed us had some work left to do. You left in some bugs buddy.
There’s also a theory that we’re too late, and that our existence is like the remaining microbes in a puddle of water in a desert.
The universe used to be lukewarm with conditions for life to exist everywhere, until it expanded and started cooling.
On a positive note, this could also mean that life lies dormant everywhere just waiting for the right conditions, so that anywhere that has the right conditions also has life.
They’d want our coconuts, I bet. They’re pretty cool, I bet aliens don’t have coconuts. They might have some cool alien fruit to trade for coconuts. Or weed.
There’s also the Dark Forest hypothesis - the idea that maybe many alien civilizations exist out there but stay silent because revealing themselves would make them targets/prey to a more high-tech hostile civilization.
I’d imagine any intelligent alien life form would be intelligent enough to realize that they’ve reached a point at which they can simply life in a sustained utopia. Heal the planet, work less, fill time with hobbies and pursuits. Humans have this flaw, and it’s that the mentally ill squander the world’s wealth and use it for dick-measuring contests. A small minority of us will kill their own mother for a job promotion, and the people at the very top want to squander it all so they see another 0 in their bank account, or outrace the other 7 megabillionaires to the dick-measuring contest on Mars. I could only hope aliens aren’t as as stupid. We could just litter the earth with trees, solar panels, 2 br condos, and hammocks, and have AI work for us, but nope. Every single die shrink leads to more transistor density and never any power efficiency because big numbers are better for shareholders. They sold us downstream. If any alien contacts us or leaves a trace they’re most likely just as dangerous to our survival as we are. Space conquistadors
Regarding the first point, I think it just assumes the possibility for hostility, not the universality of it. If there’s a room with a thousand people and I know one person in the room has a gun and wants to kill me, I’m still going to hesitate to enter regardless of the 999.
Also, any intelligence that arises out of evolution is going to have at least the rough concept of violence.
That assumes the 999 are in a position to stop the 1. Assuming FTL travel/communication/detection is never possible, reaction ability is always going to be limited. A relativistic projectile aimed at a planet can be a silent civilization killer.
This is more about cautiously reacting to the possibility of hostility in the very high stakes scenario of first contact, not the confirmation of hostility. In the room analogy, we don’t know who has the gun, whether it’s truly 1 person or 0 or 100 or 500, if most or all of the 999 are blindfolded or willing to defend newcomers, whether overpowering the violent one(s) is actually possible due to everyone being spread out and any guns having functionally unlimited ammo, whether other people have already been taken out for just showing up or resisting, and whether all of the above even matters if the aggressor gets a kill shot off before any of the above takes effect.
Evolution is inherently a competition for limited resources with winners and losers, so violence innately comes with the territory. Even grass and trees are in a war for sunlight. The concept of peaceful cooperation may be common due to the individual specialization likely needed for a species to become space-fairing, but it’ll be a higher level, more abstract idea, and the universality of other species applying it more broadly cannot be assumed.
It’s not convincing because it’s impossible to hide. You always produce waste heat which would be visible (if you use 100W of solar power, you dissipate 100W in deep infra red into space)
We would expect to see stars putting out an amount of energy for a bright star, but in deep IR as they’re wrapped in Dyson spheres or swarms
I don’t think you could exhaust the waste heat of a civilisation in a black hole. Perhaps a civilisation living in computers could, but not a biological one
I’ve been wondering this for years now. Sci fi and even actual scientific speculation tends to assume aliens would be way ahead of us in terms of technology because their planets may have been formed earlier. I don’t think time alone matters. If they don’t have resources, if fhey don’t evolve the same way, if they have more difficulties in doing shit due to any number of reasons… They could be far less advanced than us. Maybe nobody in the entire universe has figured out how to realistically travel between stars yet. Maybe we are the only ones who have even managed to get off our rock.
Imagine humanity in 1000 years. We would be among the stars.
Now imagine humanity in 10000 years, 100000 years or even 1000000 years.
A million years is still a fraction in the cosmic timescale.
It would be nearly impossible to have other civilizations be on exactly the same technological level as us. They would indeed be either much less advanced, or much more advanced.
With all the crazy ass things that can kill us off, I don’t think we’re alone in the universe, but we may very well be alone in time.
The Fermi Paradox might just the the likelyhood to get wiped out from motions to everything and we’re too far away to get contact in this gnat’s ass of a conscious timeline we’re in.
There still is the „Early Bird Theory“.
When you look at us, the Earth, life has formed almost immediately after the conditions where given. On top of that the universe itself isn’t even that old. There is a good chance, that Fermi was right but we are just the first ones.
… which makes me think that whatever or whoever designed us had some work left to do. You left in some bugs buddy.
There’s also a theory that we’re too late, and that our existence is like the remaining microbes in a puddle of water in a desert.
The universe used to be lukewarm with conditions for life to exist everywhere, until it expanded and started cooling.
On a positive note, this could also mean that life lies dormant everywhere just waiting for the right conditions, so that anywhere that has the right conditions also has life.
Maybe they just don’t want to leave their planet because it’s dope af
Some humans want to travel even when they’re perfectly happy.
I wonder what another being would need of us if it was already able to travel through the vacuum of space while self-sustaining.
They’d want our coconuts, I bet. They’re pretty cool, I bet aliens don’t have coconuts. They might have some cool alien fruit to trade for coconuts. Or weed.
alien pointing at a coconut tree
Look, m’lord! Horses!
This is just arrogance.
We have only been announcing our intelligence for 100 years. It takes 100,000 years just to cross our galaxy. No-one knows we are here yet.
There’s also the Dark Forest hypothesis - the idea that maybe many alien civilizations exist out there but stay silent because revealing themselves would make them targets/prey to a more high-tech hostile civilization.
I’d imagine any intelligent alien life form would be intelligent enough to realize that they’ve reached a point at which they can simply life in a sustained utopia. Heal the planet, work less, fill time with hobbies and pursuits. Humans have this flaw, and it’s that the mentally ill squander the world’s wealth and use it for dick-measuring contests. A small minority of us will kill their own mother for a job promotion, and the people at the very top want to squander it all so they see another 0 in their bank account, or outrace the other 7 megabillionaires to the dick-measuring contest on Mars. I could only hope aliens aren’t as as stupid. We could just litter the earth with trees, solar panels, 2 br condos, and hammocks, and have AI work for us, but nope. Every single die shrink leads to more transistor density and never any power efficiency because big numbers are better for shareholders. They sold us downstream. If any alien contacts us or leaves a trace they’re most likely just as dangerous to our survival as we are. Space conquistadors
3 body problem is a good book for thought experiments, but it didn’t really discuss the arguments against the dark forest hypothesis
assumes universal hostility.
Interstellar warfare is protracted and impractical.
Ignores potential cooperation and ethical diversity.
assumes aliens think like humans
Regarding the first point, I think it just assumes the possibility for hostility, not the universality of it. If there’s a room with a thousand people and I know one person in the room has a gun and wants to kill me, I’m still going to hesitate to enter regardless of the 999.
Also, any intelligence that arises out of evolution is going to have at least the rough concept of violence.
Counterarguments
The 999 are going too overpower the violent 1.
The concept of peace will be known and experience will have demonstrated that it is more valuable than war.
Counter-counterarguments.
That assumes the 999 are in a position to stop the 1. Assuming FTL travel/communication/detection is never possible, reaction ability is always going to be limited. A relativistic projectile aimed at a planet can be a silent civilization killer.
This is more about cautiously reacting to the possibility of hostility in the very high stakes scenario of first contact, not the confirmation of hostility. In the room analogy, we don’t know who has the gun, whether it’s truly 1 person or 0 or 100 or 500, if most or all of the 999 are blindfolded or willing to defend newcomers, whether overpowering the violent one(s) is actually possible due to everyone being spread out and any guns having functionally unlimited ammo, whether other people have already been taken out for just showing up or resisting, and whether all of the above even matters if the aggressor gets a kill shot off before any of the above takes effect.
Evolution is inherently a competition for limited resources with winners and losers, so violence innately comes with the territory. Even grass and trees are in a war for sunlight. The concept of peaceful cooperation may be common due to the individual specialization likely needed for a species to become space-fairing, but it’ll be a higher level, more abstract idea, and the universality of other species applying it more broadly cannot be assumed.
Yes. Those are the book’s arguments. A counter-counter argument is a repeat of the same argument.
Ah, never read the books. Just figured I needed to expand my reasoning.
It’s not convincing because it’s impossible to hide. You always produce waste heat which would be visible (if you use 100W of solar power, you dissipate 100W in deep infra red into space)
We would expect to see stars putting out an amount of energy for a bright star, but in deep IR as they’re wrapped in Dyson spheres or swarms
@psud @SLVRDRGN can’t one hide it into black holes?
I don’t think you could exhaust the waste heat of a civilisation in a black hole. Perhaps a civilisation living in computers could, but not a biological one