31–40 of 156 posts
If the presence of dimethyl sulphide is confirmed, what would the next steps be? Presumably sending a probe would not be feasible in any foreseeable timeframe?
The best time to send a probe to an exoplanet is 200 years ago. The second-best time to do it is now.
We can expect these posibilities: 1. no life 2. simple life 3. advanced intelligent civilization In the first two cases, we need to send a physical probe there. In the third case it might be enough, and much faster, to send communication signals there and get answers back. The third case is also arguably the most interesting.
What if the advanced civilization treats us like the way we treat animals? In my view it's better to stay away from the advanced civilizations
We can expect these posibilities: 1. no life 2. simple life 3. advanced intelligent civilization In the first two cases, we need to send a physical probe there. In the third case it might be enough, and much faster, to send communication signals there and get answers back. The third case is also arguably the most interesting.
What if the advanced civilization treats us like the way we treat animals? In my view it's better to stay away from the advanced civilizations
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> The good news: if there is intelligent life it will not easily get here either. Unless 'it' left a long time ago and is already here. I always feel the 'space is big haha no one can cross it' argument is weird due to always framing it in our own frame of reference. What if the hypothetical 'thing' is like a jellyfish and time isn't as big an issue, or an AI that definitely doesn't care about time. Or a bundle of fu…
Even simpler: you send out self-replicating AI drones in advance—to every star in the entire galaxy. That guarantees permanent security. The drones assess if alien intelligences have any potential to become a threat, and if so annihilates their planet, by autonomous decision. Takes a few million years to set up... but that's just a blink of an eye on cosmic time scales; a brief era in the galactic-scale lifespan of a…
Annihilating planets takes a lot of energy. For example if our Sun goes supernova it will maybe kill all life on Earth, but the planet will still exist.
If you gather enough energy to potentially annihilate a planet in each star system in a galaxy - you won't need to worry about any civillization becoming a threat in the first place, because they won't have any energy left to become that threat :)
Then there're the problems with relying on autonomus system with such energy at its disposal, and the problems with dealing with genetic/cultural drift. What if your species diverges into several ones that start fighting each other - which one is the one that's supposed to be protected from the other? What if different parts of this system disagree?
Who gets to push updates to the code of this system? How do you supervise this? Imagine a military coup or constutitional crisis and you're the guy that keeps the ssh key :)
Are distant colonies that get independence and develop on their own a threat? Would the regions that want autonomy agree to this? Or if this technology exist - wouldn't it be used for wars inside that species long before they can start to worry about the so-far-uninhabited rest of the Galaxy?
Would they even survive long enough to create this?
Imagine Sumerians created such system on Earth and it wakes up after 5000 years and asks us for password in some dead language or else :) Now change that to 1 000 000 years.
In my opinion it's very unlikely something like this ever gets created simply because of all the coordination and trust issues, the energy and technology dependencies, the probability and severity of problems it can cause vs the problems it can solve.
Wasting significant percentage of energy of the galaxy and risking destroying it accidentally just to save yourself some diplomacy sounds like the ultimate tech solution to people problem :) And you're not really avoiding the diplomacy, you're just doing it upfront - internally. I'd be very surprised if there were no wars caused by someone trying to implement such idea.
Imagine writing a proposal to Congress or EU to start doing this :) And how Chinese and Russian would react.
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Even simpler: you send out self-replicating AI drones in advance—to every star in the entire galaxy. That guarantees permanent security. The drones assess if alien intelligences have any potential to become a threat, and if so annihilates their planet, by autonomous decision. Takes a few million years to set up... but that's just a blink of an eye on cosmic time scales; a brief era in the galactic-scale lifespan of a…
But those evolve later and come back to you, biting you in the ass.
We can expect these posibilities: 1. no life 2. simple life 3. advanced intelligent civilization In the first two cases, we need to send a physical probe there. In the third case it might be enough, and much faster, to send communication signals there and get answers back. The third case is also arguably the most interesting.
Why not aim an antenna at it, and download the answers to the questions of the universe?
We can expect these posibilities: 1. no life 2. simple life 3. advanced intelligent civilization In the first two cases, we need to send a physical probe there. In the third case it might be enough, and much faster, to send communication signals there and get answers back. The third case is also arguably the most interesting.
I am more optimistic about the gas giant in the same system and its satellites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Europa#:~:text....
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What if the advanced civilization treats us like the way we treat animals? In my view it's better to stay away from the advanced civilizations
We do have animal rights, don't we?
We'd be lucky to be treated like bugs.
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If you have enough acceleration , you can travel 1000 light years in a human lifetime. It’s just that when you return, at least 2000 years will have passed on earth.
so you're implying speed atleast 10x the speed of light? i think you'll have better luck increasing the human lifespan instead.