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Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?

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Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?

#281

Post by myrmidon »

not_jd_salinger wrote: post #220
myrmidon wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your source for the 1 billion estimate? Because that seems completely, non-credibly *low* to me. I also strongly believe that we could cover all our energy needs with renewable sources within a few decades if we really wanted to (even assuming no significant advances in tech), and this seems mostly non-disputed to me (because that is literally what nation-states are currently planning/doing). > Is there even…

1 billion is a rough estimate based populations prior to the massive boom in the industrial revolution that saw massive changes in the way agriculture is done. It could easily be 2 billion or so, but definitely not 7.8 billion. You can see the population history here[0.] To see the powerful impact of fossil fuels on carrying capacity you'll notice there's an important inflection point around 1920-1930. This is becaus…

Thanks for explaining how you arrived at your numbers.

> I have feeling I'll still get down votes and "hand wavy" explanations

Let me turn this around: you are getting downvotes (not from me) because your 1 billion population carrying estimate in a post-fossil age is implausible and borderline disingenuous:

1) It assumes that pre-industrial agricultural output is the maximum that our planet can sustain. Which is completely off for a multitude of reasons:

- Genetic improvements to cultivars still fully apply

- Pesticides won't cease to exist

- Automation in harvesting/monitoring also won't go away

2) There is no reason to assume that we're anywhere close to peak sustainable agricultural output, neither in pre-industrial times NOR now.

3) Furthermore, it implies that land utilization, cultivar choice and consumer behavior in general would stay similar/comparable regardless of cataclysmic change in supply/demand (pricing). Which is obviously wrong: If avocado price went up to 50$/kg then people would just put potatoes on their toast instead, and total agricultural output (in calories) would "inexplicably" increase.

Regarding power:

Renewables (solar/wind) are a perfectly fine source of primary energy. Storage/grid stability does not depend on "technology we do not currently have"--Batteries and inverters are perfectly usable, mature technologies--but right now slapping down natural gas plants is simply cheaper. This is exclusively a matter of price/ROI, and installation could be jumpstarted immediately if there was the political will to pay for it (and thats not blaming politicians exclusively to be clear--average citizen is simply unwilling to pay 1$/kWh right now for residential electricity).

> Renewable energy in transportation

Friedman selfdescribes as "energy sceptic" which is already...unfavorable... to me and after stumbling over "running out of fossils is gonna solve climate change better than anything else" (transcribed), I gave up on the author completely;

Viable pathways are:

- Batteries

- Biofuel

- Fuel cells

- Hydrogen in combustion engines

We literally built all of those already, but same story here: It's less cost efficient than burning diesel right now, so why would anyone do it.

Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?

#282

Post by riffraff »

tshaddox wrote: post #218
riffraff wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it _probable_? AFA we know we've been insanely lucky up to this point (as earthling life we went past multiple mass extinctions, we got multi-cellular life, multiple brains iterations, a society which still didn't wipe itself out etc) What makes it more likely for the filter to be ahead of us rather than behind us?

Is it more likely that I’m immortal or that I simply have thus far avoided things that would have killed me?

You know that most people are not immortal, but if you had no prior about the mortality of mankind it would be reasonable to expect you're immortal.

Few people expect to die at any specific day, they just know they will die at some point because mortality is a given.

Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?

#284

Post by iseanstevens »

lmohseni wrote: post #275
hutrdvnj wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, but Pharaohs couldn't shoot a car into space.

I don’t think Elon could build a pyramid. He might be capable of tweeting about one though.

He could certainly get a pyramid built. And that is the best you can do.

Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?

#285

Post by zokula »

lmohseni wrote: post #275
hutrdvnj wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, but Pharaohs couldn't shoot a car into space.

I don’t think Elon could build a pyramid. He might be capable of tweeting about one though.

Elon Musk will use child slave labor to build a Pyramid.

Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?

#286

Post by tuatoru »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #225
tsimionescu wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk has the same chance of making humanity multi-planetary as the Pharaohs did. We are still far away from any semblance of a chance to do so. Besides, anything at all that we can imagine hitting the earth (except a gamma ray burst or collision with another planet) would still leave the earth in a better shape than Mars is. It's entirely doubtful that humanity could be self-sustaining on Mars even in principle,…

>It's entirely doubtful that humanity could be self-sustaining on Mars even in principle, it is certainly not possible with known technologies. Citation needed. What's the blocker here? Energy production on Mars? Why not Solar or Simple Stirling Engines. Food/Closed ecological systems? Hard, for sure yeah, but even not particularly well funded small ecosystems like Biosphere2 worked for several years. The biggest iss…

> What's the blocker here?

To me the likely blocker is reliability/accident.

Most places where humans are on Earth, if one piece of equipment fails (say the engines fall off of your passenger plane while you're over the ocean), you survive and carry on for at least days. In space or on Mars, you're dead in minutes.

Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?

#287

Post by tuatoru »

aetherson wrote: post #85
kadoban wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If true, that ends up meaning that alien civilizations are short-lived, right? That doesn't bode well for us.

Short lived on those timescales, yes. But not necessarily short lived in terms of our perspective. If we imagine that in the last 5 billion years, there have been a good solid 10,000 post-industrial civilizations, and each of those civilizations has lasted 10,000 years (in the post-industrial stage where they're detectable), then that implies that of the last 5,000,000,000 years, 100,000,000 of them have been host to…

> if you've colonized say 20 stars

This is the sticking point for me.

The rocket equation, energy being quadratic with velocity, and the impossibility of perfect efficiency (and, possibly, limits on material properties) constrain speeds.

That means it takes a long time to get between stars. A long time.

Which means if you venture between stars successfully, you're adapted for life in interstellar space. If that's the case, why would you go down the gravity well? There are lots of asteroids and comets to use in Oort clouds and between stars, and those down-well enviroments are hostile.

Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?

#288

Post by myrmidon »

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #255
myrmidon wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I somehow find more frighting and delusional that way of thinking, as it leaves possibility to use mentioned as solution for fixing problem as people optimistically believe they are the one that will survive. I'll give you the other perspective on the doom-erism: People preaching about the inevitable extinction of humankind just provide ammunition/"strawmans" against progressive climate policies because these doom-…

> Just consider how easy it was to dismiss your "humankind is going extinct because of climate change" points- You have to understand that you have not dismissed anything, you do not have knowledge you have beliefs, judging by the angry typing. There is no point discussing with believes. Regarding full fledged nuclear exchange I would ask you to write a paper and make computer model, I do not know what is your field…

> You have to understand that you have not dismissed anything, you do not have knowledge you have beliefs, judging by the angry typing. There is no point discussing with believes.

I'm not a believer. Show me scientific papers that credibly warn about human extinction because of climate change, and I will change my view immediately (hint: the IPCC reports DONT, and those pretty much mirror the current scientific consensus).

But what would it take to change your belief that humankind is likely to go extinct because of climate change?

> Regarding Global Warming it is fairly uncharted territory, now we know that models from 10 years ago were overly optimistic and that things are happening at much faster rate than expected.

Maybe. But projected outcomes have not really changed. Hansen et al (in "Science", 1981) alluded to potential flooding of ~25% of Lousiana/Florida, given the total loss of the west-antarctic ice shield (= +5m sea level). This is WAAAAYYYYY worse than what any current model predicts for even the absolute worst case in 2100, but even this scenario would not lead to human extinction, not by a long shot.

> Regarding full fledged nuclear exchange I would ask you to write a paper and make computer model, I do not know what is your field of work do you have a sufficient knowledge to do it?

There is no point: We agree on the facts, basically that there are not enought nukes to blast even half of humankind and fallout/nuclear winter won't suffice to kill the rest.

But if you want an interactive computer model check this out: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?

#289

Post by unchocked »

chadwittman wrote: post #72
zhynn wrote: post #27

A group collaborating will have better chance of survival than an individual. The upside of working with your neighbors outweighs the benefit of destroying them.

Tell that to the species we've eradicated while pursuing our goals.

Exactly. Consider the prevalence of wolves vs. dogs.

Re: Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What Is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?

#290

Post by jiggawatts »

snowwrestler wrote: post #244
ryandvm wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and the fact that civilizations probably only broadcast EM radiation out into the void for a short period of time before they start getting into energy efficiency and switch over to more efficient communication technologies.

I have heard (can’t remember the source) that radar, especially military radar, continues to be a significant source of artificial-looking EM radiation leaving the Earth, even as radio and TV broadcasts have declined in power.

When we grow up and stop wasting so much money, time, energy, and resources on blowing each other up, then we will turn military radars off also.
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