Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens • Hacker News Board

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#171

Post by exratione » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 1:54 PM UTC

freshhawk wrote: post #72

exratione wrote: post #19

A terrible article. So let's say something more interesting. There are several important ideas intertwined together around the Fermi Paradox: 1) Fermi Paradox Why haven't we seen any evidence in the observable universe of megascale activities and exponential growth comparable to those that we know that our descendants will be capable of, and fairly soon? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox 2) The Outer Bounds…

I like reading about the rapture of the nerds as much as the next guy but you are calling this article terrible and then stacking a few layers of conjecture on top of each other and treating it as fact. It is simply way way too early for us to assume that there are hard to reach limits to computation. For all we know there could be problems that need to be solved that are not realistically solved using computation or…

Your post seems to boil down to "there are reasons why it is impossible to build a Dyson sphere out of computing substrate from the materials that surround the average star" - which is a fairly extraordinary claim at this point. Everything we know about matter and energy says that this is in fact possible, and a weight of rigorous work exists to show that this is the case.

Remember that we're talking about timescales of millions of years here.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#172

Post by arethuza » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 1:54 PM UTC

arctangent wrote: post #167

arethuza wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"At that point, why bother exploring the universe?" Greg Egan's novel Diaspora has significant number of people choosing to live in fully uploaded virtual environments - the problem being that you do have to start paying attention to the outside universe when it tries to kill you by destroying the hardware running your environment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_%28novel%29 Iain M Bank's Feersum Enjin covers s…

Iain M Banks also has the similar concept of "subliming" in several novels: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sublimed

Not to mention the construction of virtual Hells in Surface Detail:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Detail

(A truly ghastly concept).

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#173

Post by exratione » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 2:00 PM UTC

ekidd wrote: post #148

This essay is analogous to a mathematical proof that begins "Assume A and not A" and concludes: "and therefore P≠NP." It's not that I disagree with Miller's conclusion, it's just his premise is a contradiction, and thus capable of proving anything. First, the contradiction: Fermi's paradox says that intelligent species are common, and that some fraction of intelligent species will engage in interstellar colonization.…

The big problem with most people's responses to the Fermi paradox is that they invoke some form of universality of behavior for intelligent life. This can't work - if even one species of the expected very large number of species sends out self-replicating probes that do large-scale work, then we should see the evidence of that. It really doesn't matter what expected distribution of behaviors and psychologies is: the expected numbers we're dealing with (time, planets, species) are so very large - and it only takes one subgroup within an advanced species, never mind one species, to kick off a self-replicating wave of expansion.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#174

Post by DanielBMarkham » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 2:02 PM UTC

Everybody talks about bandwidth as if that's some terribly important metric, but the real metric is brainwidth. Vendors are fighting tooth and nail for time on your brain.

And they're doing very well. It's very rare to pick up a device that does just one thing -- the days of the wristwatch and one-function cell-phone are gone. Now everything you touch is competing to take up all your braindwidth. Information is not passive any more; it's sticky. As a consumer you are not a entity who receives services from a webapp. You are a target for absorption by way of total immersion. Potential vendors can either get on board with your addiction or lose out to others who will. This is why we buy Facebook, Google, and game ads. Your brainwidth is already being sucked up. As vendors we have to go where our potential markets already are.

If you want to talk about extrapolating history, our books are full of useful examples. Time and time again people could not make the changes necessary for society to evolve so they packed up their bags and moved. You can't move any more, and lots of immersive content providers want to take your frustration and turn it into your being plugged in all day.

Who wants to go live on the moon? We can do a lot more exciting things in our own custom-designed universe. A couple hundred more years of this and we won't be going anywhere besides LEO or doing much of anything except patting ourselves on the back and telling ourselves how many important things we have right here.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#175

Post by bsaunder » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 2:12 PM UTC

HilbertSpace wrote: post #47

exratione wrote: post #19

A terrible article. So let's say something more interesting. There are several important ideas intertwined together around the Fermi Paradox: 1) Fermi Paradox Why haven't we seen any evidence in the observable universe of megascale activities and exponential growth comparable to those that we know that our descendants will be capable of, and fairly soon? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox 2) The Outer Bounds…

Possible answer: First nearly every civilization that mastered, say, radio, did it millions of years ago. Second, nearly every such civilization long ago found much better means of communications than we know about. Third, they realize that trying to communicate via radio is silly and use much better means we don't know about. Net, they are out there and communicating, but we don't hear them and they don't hear us or…

I wish this had been a root level comment (so it would be more visible). I think this is by far the most plausible explanation especially if you think about human history and technology differences.

Imagine our current spy agencies with bleeding edge technology spying on the Romans. Its only a two thousand year difference, but there's absolutely no way they could detect our signals and/or equipment (unless we made a serious mistake).

It seems entirely reasonable that another civilization may be tens of thousands of years ahead of us in technological advancement. If you consider the increasing growth rate of technological advancement, its easy to see your explanation.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#176

Post by DanielBMarkham » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 2:23 PM UTC

ekidd wrote: post #148

This essay is analogous to a mathematical proof that begins "Assume A and not A" and concludes: "and therefore P≠NP." It's not that I disagree with Miller's conclusion, it's just his premise is a contradiction, and thus capable of proving anything. First, the contradiction: Fermi's paradox says that intelligent species are common, and that some fraction of intelligent species will engage in interstellar colonization.…

I think this can be made into a very empirical line of reasoning.

Measure what people spend their time thinking about. Track this over time.

The author of this feels that people feel less and less about external realities and more and more about virtual ones. I don't think you need to be an old fogey or a puritan to draw some conclusions in this area. Yes, the argument is anecdotal. Stereotyping those who might agree with it doesn't make it any more or less valid or interesting.

Another line of attack is to say this has been going on forever: people observing the way society is changing and saying that it's becoming terribly self-absorbed. That's true, but like the boy who cried wolf, eventually the wolf actually shows up, and it's not a good thing for anybody involved.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#177

Post by _THE_PLAGUE » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 2:31 PM UTC

What a horrible article. Whoever wrote that was some sort of Amish anti-technology fruitcake. Fuck him.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#178

Post by mseebach » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 2:35 PM UTC

tdrgabi wrote: post #138

mseebach wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The companies that buy Boeings products very much are selling stuff over the Internet.

Yes. We could argue that people would still buy tickets even if they weren't available online, since flying beats car / ship traveling even if you have to walk to a store to buy your ticket.

That's not the point.

Selling and advertising tickets online is at least as good as the offline alternative at the same cost (presumably cheaper). Otherwise, why bother?

Thus, better/cheaper online advertising -> more tickets sold -> higher demand for air planes.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#179

Post by aamar » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 2:36 PM UTC

lusr wrote: post #140

aamar wrote: post #16

The physicist David Deutsch makes the point that there is no real way to distinguish a consistent, convincing virtual reality from reality itself. Therefore, there is no real moral difference between richly populating such virtual worlds (once we can construct them--we can't quite, yet) and populating actual other planets. Nick Bostrom would say that even using the word "actual" is probably wrong, since we're likely…

I was of the impression that your conclusion was the same as that of the author of the article? (And it's pretty much where I'd place my bets.)

I agree with the article that we're likely to eventually find virtual worlds more interesting and fulfilling than outer space. I do not agree that we should look down on these VRs or be alarmed or disappointed by this possibility.

Re: Why We Haven’t Met Any Aliens

#180

Post by paulhauggis » Thu, Dec 22, 2011, 2:41 PM UTC

calydon wrote: post #63

I thought the argument was brilliant and scary. A lot of you are getting distracted by the headline. This article isn't really about aliens or the search for ET life. It's about social decay - entertaining ourselves to death AND virtual hedonistic narcissism resulting in extinction. HOWEVER, the author, in his own narcissist fog, forgets to mention that this is a fate that will befall only the wealthiest, the whitest…

"whitest"

As more and more people of different races procreate, "white" will eventually be nonexistent.