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Slim chance for intelligent life; sorry guys
Topic Started: Sep 20 2010, 11:11 PM (551 Views)
TheBioBassist
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Naked Man (who fears no pick pockets)
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Looks like bad news I found this on the internet

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2004#comic
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "eureka" ( I found it) but "that's funny......""
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Vultur-10


Probably pretty accurate, sadly.

There may be thousands of civilizations out there who invented good VR before they invented much space travel, and therefore never got anywhere. (I don't expect nuclear war and the like to be a major factor -- it'd *probably* not be permanently fatal to a global civilization, and the technology you need for a nuclear war is the same technology you need to build Project Orion spaceships and colonize your solar system -- the reasons we didn't do this are political and largely irrational accidents of history, and aren't likely to be common.

It isn't necessary to explain Fermi's Paradox though; that's likely simply because there is more risk than potential benefit in transmitting, so rational civilizations don't transmit. There's no material benefit to transmitting (even if you could understand other species, which is far from guaranteed, light-lag makes conversations far too long to be useful: you will have solved any critical problem on your own or already been killed off from it before you get an answer from another species), and plenty of risk if you make your presence known to a species that doesn't want potential competitors around. (Radio and TV alone attenuate too fast to make us visible; it's mostly only intentionally beamed signals that would be detectable at interstellar distances.) And maybe there really *is* a hostile civilization out there, in which case all the potential transmitters are dead.
Edited by Vultur-10, Sep 21 2010, 04:04 AM.
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colddigger
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Perhaps a hostile civ who enjoyed one too many angry alien movies?
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Practically Uninformed
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Actually, there's still hope. We can still stumble across an alien race that hasn't gotten to this point.
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Holben
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heh.

Anyway, we aren't going to all fall into virtual reality any time soon, for that kind of level we'll have to wait about a hundred years.

But not everyone will want to do that, and plus leaving robots behind to protect their physical bodies and learn more about the universe is a must.

And they need places to store their universes. And they need to solve every science problem.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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TheBioBassist
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I dont know, picture your favourite video game and imagine you could live it. Then imagine a world like ours but every little thing you want to do (flying, eat whatever you wish, invulnerability) is instantly gratified. Such a reality would be worse than most drugs in terms of addictions and if you had automated systems to run reality, why would you not enter virtual reality? Scott adams make a great case for this in "The Dilbert Future".
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "eureka" ( I found it) but "that's funny......""
-Isaac Asimov
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Holben
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Rumbo a la Victoria

I'm not the right person to ask, seeing as i've been creating Virtual Realities since i was twelve. However, not all people will want to withdraw into their heads/computers.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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truteal
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I don't mind, that means that there's less of a chance of a superior intergalactic species to come and destroy the earth or enslave us or something like that
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T.Neo
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I find it both hilarious and annoying when people try to make such definate predictions of an intelligent species, and then try to extrapolate them to all intelligent species as well. :rolleyes:

Seriously... intelligent species becoming reclusive because they invent VR? :ermm:

Even the nuclear apocalypse idea is funny. You have MAD, and you also have the tenacity of sophonts. There's a good chance that a good deal will survive a nuclear apocalypse, and then rebuild civilisation over the next hundreds or thousands of years. And heck, they might be able to do this repeatedly over thousands or millions of years.

Assured destruction is the answer to the killing star as well; your target might not be able to fight back, but to anyone else who sees you launching such an attack, you will not be a potential threat, you will become a definate threat. And thusly you will be blown up.

And seriously... why the hell do aliens need to enslave us? If they can cross interstellar space they undoubtedly have advanced robotic manufacturing and mining systems, that cause less trouble than starving humans...
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
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colddigger
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Perhaps for political reasons, robotic technology was kept underdeveloped and propaganda was produced to keep it from being developed, and as a result the rich slavers were able to continue their trade. Who cares about the slaves if they're not even your own species eh?

I think that rebuilding civ would at the very most be a few hundred years, I'd be amazed if it actually took a thousand. Then again I suppose people would be stupid enough not to stow away some books on how to build stuff...
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T.Neo
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Sounds farfetched, but possible. Then again slavery might not lead to political conditions suitable for interstellar flight...

I agree about the civilisation-building thing, but it really depends on the severity of the situation. Not all infrastructure gets destroyed (technology such as cars or guns would survive) so it could definitely take on the order of a few hundred years for things to get back up and running again.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
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Holben
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Although the members of the first generation could get it back up and running even quicker if the fallout or whatever lasts less than a lifetime, given how easy our technology is for non-experts to use (relatively speaking, i mean we could get the power stations back online etc.).
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Ànraich
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Now see, I just do not agree with that. Look at humans, look at our mentality; we must explore. It's in our nature. Our origins were in space and our destiny is in space. If we had any interest in ourselves then we wouldn't constantly kill our own kind, we would be too busy exploring our potential to make better what we already have (by that I mean civilization, not literally the stuff we have). The only thing in our entire history that every single human being on Earth was interested in was the exploration of space. Think about just how many people watched the lunar landing; Americans, Soviets, Chinese, Indians, Briton, Frenchmen. Everyone.

If we were going to destroy ourselves, we would have done it 60 years ago. If we were going to become so self-interested that we no longer explore, we would have done it 50 years ago. Exploration and colonization of outer space is all that remains for humanity; we have explored and colonized our entire home planet.

We are humans. We expand or die.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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T.Neo
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Quote:
 
Although the members of the first generation could get it back up and running even quicker if the fallout or whatever lasts less than a lifetime, given how easy our technology is for non-experts to use (relatively speaking, i mean we could get the power stations back online etc.).


There's a difference between "easy to use" and "easy to construct and maintain". I mean, sure, thousands, millions of people can use computers, cellphones, digital cameras. But most of those people don't even have clue of how they work, let alone have a clue of how to make them. A firearm is also good example; almost anyone can use the thing, but manufacturing one is a totally different matter.

And it also depends on the amount of damage... if civil services, like power stations, are too damaged, then you won't be able to restart them, period.

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If we had any interest in ourselves then we wouldn't constantly kill our own kind


Oh great, another "humans-should-be-palm-trees" speech. :rolleyes:

If you gave human conflict even the slightest thought or research, you'd learn that we only kill eachother for very good reasons.

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The only thing in our entire history that every single human being on Earth was interested in was the exploration of space. Think about just how many people watched the lunar landing; Americans, Soviets, Chinese, Indians, Briton, Frenchmen. Everyone.


Uh... no. Maybe the world was capitvated by space exploration in the 1960s, but not today.

To the average person, it is so ineffectual to their own lives (whereas space technologies practically make modern civilisation go round, but that's a different story) that they're entirely disinterested. It's all that "useless stuff that the government wastes money on". In the eyes of governments, it's stuff that money is wasted on, except for military applications and perhaps sat launching ones as well.

There are spaceflight enthusiasts, around the world. People that are very passionate about space, that are passionate about colonising and researching space- indeed, the disinterest of the population at large is a source of much annoyance to many space enthusiasts. But these people are unfortunately in the minority.
Edited by T.Neo, Oct 5 2010, 09:38 AM.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
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Holben
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Well sure T. Neo, but if there are just a few ready power stations, we can get things going.

By the time they break down, we'll have accumulated the expertise through reverse engineering or getting people from other places to do things.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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