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Aliens on 1k nearby stars could see us, new study suggests

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Re: Aliens on 1k nearby stars could see us, new study suggests

#41
post #20
post #2

What's staggering to me is that with the new Voyager discoveries lately it feels like we're a bunch of stellar savages who just managed to release a buoy far enough into the ocean to feel the currents. Let alone recognize another savage on a different continent who might be doing the same experiment.

It may be even worse, that different continent is on a different planet. Space(time) is absolutely, mind-boggling massive. Everyone knows it's big but it hard to comprehend how big and why there could be many alien civilizations out there capable of broadcasting or detecting but never intersect in any way because the detection windows of any 2 civilizations don't line up. The Milky Way alone is ~150000-200000 light y…

That’s why the best thing any species can do for the other species is to leave signs that we were once here.

Re: Aliens on 1k nearby stars could see us, new study suggests

#42
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, yes. The first thing we’re going to do as soon as we fine intelligent alien life is figure out how to kill it. And sadly we’ll have to assume they’re doing the same. An no, settling Mars won’t help. If someone / something can launch an interstellar attack it can certainly attack more than one planet and moon.

Are we though? Universe is huge. Wars on earth are waged over scares resources. If we are capable of reaching aliens would we really be incentivized to fight them while there are so many resources available elsewhere?

I think it's a cold war situation.

In the early years, sure, no problem. But conceivably the pace of resource utilization will increase as well. Eventually they will conflict. Worse, greedy civilizations would probably be selected for.

And how long before random differences and exponential growth mean the other side gets an overwhelming power advantage? Historically in human societies, that is essentially never a good thing.

Re: Aliens on 1k nearby stars could see us, new study suggests

#44
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we though? Universe is huge. Wars on earth are waged over scares resources. If we are capable of reaching aliens would we really be incentivized to fight them while there are so many resources available elsewhere?

Habitable planets are the ultimate scarce resource. Once the earth is full we’ll have to find a way to move and there’s less than 5 good options in this solar system. In time they’ll be full too.

The only logical path is to download our brains onto computers, which will happen before that point. Once that technology exists, that's the only form of life that will dominate. Robots, nano-machines and hyper-intelligences will blow easily damaged flesh with finite lifespans. Habitable regions would be massively expanded.

Re: Aliens on 1k nearby stars could see us, new study suggests

#45
post #20
post #2

What's staggering to me is that with the new Voyager discoveries lately it feels like we're a bunch of stellar savages who just managed to release a buoy far enough into the ocean to feel the currents. Let alone recognize another savage on a different continent who might be doing the same experiment.

It may be even worse, that different continent is on a different planet. Space(time) is absolutely, mind-boggling massive. Everyone knows it's big but it hard to comprehend how big and why there could be many alien civilizations out there capable of broadcasting or detecting but never intersect in any way because the detection windows of any 2 civilizations don't line up. The Milky Way alone is ~150000-200000 light y…

I remember reading somewhere that due to the differing pace of evolution and technology advancements, any intelligent living aliens we meet are almost certainly going to be gods or cavemen. I can't find the reference.

Re: Aliens on 1k nearby stars could see us, new study suggests

#46

The dark forest theory lives!

my sci-fi perspective is practically on the side of charitable, but in essence more like disinterest.

in less than a century we went from heavier than air flight, to satellites, moon landings, mars probes, et al. and now we're talking seriously about terraforming mars and becoming interplanetary? it could turn out to be ~150 years from the invention of the lightbulb to people on mars.. insane.

another century or two of progress and that spacefaring civilisation, and their tech, will look nothing like 99.9% of the speculation. and may even look nothing like us lol.

so given the amount of time it takes for a ball of dirt to churn out meat computers, and how long it takes them to start making neil armstrong figurines. it would be reasonable to assume that all the other aliens are a few years ahead or behind us.

it is not easy to picture the kind of mind bending spaceships they might have because, for example, for us they are still being thought of as spaceships.

ex. you have to really think about what the internet is to not take the logical route and say that it's just copper, fancy glass and radio-waves.. it's actually extremely weird and magical. we have loads of stuff that is incomprehensible to our ancestors, and it's just going to keep going.

of course in this hypothetical universe, i assume that time creates consciousness and benevolence. which may not be the reality. but if it's true, and that advanced civilisations exist all around us and are enormous, magical realms of impossibility, then we will never see them because they are incomprehensible to us, and to them we are a curious entity which share some similarities to their own history – if that's even something that they still posses.

Re: Aliens on 1k nearby stars could see us, new study suggests

#47
post #2

What's staggering to me is that with the new Voyager discoveries lately it feels like we're a bunch of stellar savages who just managed to release a buoy far enough into the ocean to feel the currents. Let alone recognize another savage on a different continent who might be doing the same experiment.

Given the relative age of planets and stars, other alien "civilizations" would be hundreds of millions or Billions of years older than us.

The notion that we'd all be roughly at the same level of advancement is statistically impossible pop-sci-fi fantasy.

In my opinion, it's unlikely that they are even organic individuals anymore. Even the separate alien "entities" might have a process of merging once they achieve a certain advancement.

We are like fungus to them.

Re: Aliens on 1k nearby stars could see us, new study suggests

#48
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be even worse, that different continent is on a different planet. Space(time) is absolutely, mind-boggling massive. Everyone knows it's big but it hard to comprehend how big and why there could be many alien civilizations out there capable of broadcasting or detecting but never intersect in any way because the detection windows of any 2 civilizations don't line up. The Milky Way alone is ~150000-200000 light y…

The fermi paradox does convey this.

Not well. It makes the assumptions that all of the problems with space travel are logistically possible.

Re: Aliens on 1k nearby stars could see us, new study suggests

#49

I always wondered if they could see us, would they recognize us as something to care about? I see ants on my porch, but they don't really matter much to me.

If you didn't know what ants were already they probably would be interesting

Sure, but if you were a billion years old and had seen ants before, it's unlikely that you'd take interest in any specific ant hill you walk by.

Re: Aliens on 1k nearby stars could see us, new study suggests

#50
post #6

> the zone where Earth's transit is visible gets smaller as you get closer to our solar system I’m trying to imagine why that is but cannot.

The article is just poorly written.

Even the first line is messed up...

> Those 1,004 star systems are in a direct line of sight to our planet...

It's SPACE. Every star within 1000 light years is in a direct line of sight to every other star.

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