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An existential problem in the search for alien life

theatlantic.com

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Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#61

Post by filoleg »

Jevon23 wrote: post #27
swalsh wrote: post #21

It's weird that stuff like this can make it to the front page, but nobody is talking about the Schumer amendment[0], or maybe even more interesting, the push by a few Republicans mostly funded by defense contractors to gut the amendment of any teeth it had. Our own government might have more answers then they say publically, and now that we're demanding the evidence we're being denied. If there's nothing there... why…

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. This really is a story that should have more visibility. If aliens don’t exist, why are defense contractors trying so hard to shut down a bill that simply says “show us what you know about aliens”?

> If aliens don’t exist, why are defense contractors trying so hard to shut down a bill that simply says “show us what you know about aliens”?

By the same logic, then “why would OpenAI and a bunch of big tech companies lobby so hard for AI ‘safety’ legislation, if AGI wasn’t close to existing [or already existed]? It means that we are close to AGI!”

As you can see, that type of reasoning doesn’t tend to lead to reasonable answers. And with the AI “safety” legislation, there have been plenty discussions on HN already, with the consensus being “they are doing it to secure their position at the top through regulatory capture, inflate their perception of importance [aka drive more money their way], and choke out new entrants.”

I don’t see it being that much different of a scenario with “alien bills”.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#62

Post by sjkoelle »

koheripbal wrote: post #15

It seems likely that, like us, intelligent life invents AGI prior to leaving their primary planet. Organic life is then merged/exterminated/controlled in favor of AGI. AGI would not have the biological instinct to grow/spread/reproduce, and thus the cosmos should be populated with a handful of individual billion year old super advanced AGIs, perhaps only one or two per galaxy, sitting quietly in orbit around some sta…

When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#63

Post by thegrim33 »

"It was also, it turned out, a false alarm. The phosphine not only wasn’t a signal of life, but probably wasn’t even there at all, a swing-and-a-miss of data interpretation."

Why not at least link to the source of such a claim? Is there a paper that says this? I love how a pop-sci journalist can just throw out some definitive claim like that with no evidence whatsoever. As if there's overwhelming evidence for their claim to the point where it's not even worthy of debate.

I have no horse in the race either way, but last I heard there were multiple theories about the phosphine readings and just not enough data to come to any conclusion yet. I thought we were waiting for future missions to collect more data. There's multiple upcoming Venus missions, at least one of which is going to swoop up material from the atmosphere for analysis.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#64

Post by StanislavPetrov »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #52
peebeebee wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant for all intelligent species that could be living in our universe, I can see interplanetary life as something rather easier to achieve. You don't have to think far out of the box for this. I can imagine some solar systems having multiple liveable planets for a single lifeform, which would make it something we could even do right now. Our some transpermia on planets that now host different but communicating lif…

We can easily imagine faster than light travel but it simply isn't possible regardless. There are constraints on us other than our capacity for imagination. We have never seen another living planet so we don't know what to expect from one. I touched on this originally but I'll be explicit now: the fact that we can't create a closed ecosystem even given a working example and diverse raw materials is a powerful indicat…

Out of the trillions of galaxies out there and the trillions more solar systems, it is very likely that at least some of them have multiple planets with habitats suitable to whatever intelligent life evolves there. In that case, an interplanetary civilization would merely require reaching the other habitable planet, not trying to change its environment.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#65

Post by bsder »

Jevon23 wrote: post #27
swalsh wrote: post #21

It's weird that stuff like this can make it to the front page, but nobody is talking about the Schumer amendment[0], or maybe even more interesting, the push by a few Republicans mostly funded by defense contractors to gut the amendment of any teeth it had. Our own government might have more answers then they say publically, and now that we're demanding the evidence we're being denied. If there's nothing there... why…

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. This really is a story that should have more visibility. If aliens don’t exist, why are defense contractors trying so hard to shut down a bill that simply says “show us what you know about aliens”?

> If aliens don’t exist, why are defense contractors trying so hard to shut down a bill that simply says “show us what you know about aliens”?

Because if they say "Nothing" will you shut up and believe them?

Of course not.

You can't prove a negative like this.

And there are lots of things that would be "alien adjacent" and would give away what military abilities we have to detect things.

At this point, the military has less ability than the people on this axis. We have billions of people with phones in multiple countries that can record with video everywhere. If aliens existed in anything that was more than a super-ultra-rare one-off, supressing the evidence in this day and age would be beyond impossible.

As for the contractors: it's almost certainly because the government isn't providing any funding in the amendment. The contractors would happily charge lots of money to compile a multi-thousand page report that effectively says "Nothing" if you paid them to. That's their whole bloody business model, for crying out loud.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#66

Post by monkeydreams »

Jevon23 wrote: post #27
swalsh wrote: post #21

It's weird that stuff like this can make it to the front page, but nobody is talking about the Schumer amendment[0], or maybe even more interesting, the push by a few Republicans mostly funded by defense contractors to gut the amendment of any teeth it had. Our own government might have more answers then they say publically, and now that we're demanding the evidence we're being denied. If there's nothing there... why…

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. This really is a story that should have more visibility. If aliens don’t exist, why are defense contractors trying so hard to shut down a bill that simply says “show us what you know about aliens”?

> If aliens don’t exist, why are defense contractors trying so hard to shut down a bill that simply says “show us what you know about aliens”?

Convince me that you have told me everything that you know about aliens. If not, i will force you to open up your IP for scrutiny and, possibly, any passing Russian ambassadors.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#67

Post by monkeydreams »

itsanaccount wrote: post #45
belugacat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the real mystery is why so many people are confused about “why, despite universe seeming so vast, there are no signs of other alien civilizations” in 2023. We have all the elements for answers if we focus on what we know, and forget the hand wavy sci-fi speculation. 1) Complex life is rare. 2) Reaching a space faring stage is even rarer. (we’re the most minimal definition of “space faring” you could come up…

I'll give you a fourth one. There _are_ signs consistently that something has an understanding of physics and inertia that violate our understanding of such things, which implies our assumptions about distance of things in the universe are wrong. Those vehicles appearance but lack of most interaction, lack of destruction implies something worse, that we are probably still such a primative civilization we're treated l…

> which implies our assumptions about distance of things in the universe are wrong.

There are two easy interpretations. One of these is imagining a new entity; aliens. The other is to imagine that humans are, essentially, human and falliable and are chasing lense flares and radar glitches.

One of these interpretations is much more likely than the other.

I don't doubt the existence of aliens. I just doubt that UFOs are aliens.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#68

Post by timschmidt »

peebeebee wrote: post #22
belugacat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the real mystery is why so many people are confused about “why, despite universe seeming so vast, there are no signs of other alien civilizations” in 2023. We have all the elements for answers if we focus on what we know, and forget the hand wavy sci-fi speculation. 1) Complex life is rare. 2) Reaching a space faring stage is even rarer. (we’re the most minimal definition of “space faring” you could come up…

Yeah. There's such a huge difference in interplanetary life vs interstellar or even intergalactic life. Interplanetary: easy. Interstellar: pushing the boundaries of what's possible imho. Intergalactic: no way. Our closest planet (Mars) is 3 light minutes away. Our closest star (Proxima Centauri) is 5 light years away. Our closest galactic neighbour (LMC) is 150000 lightyears away.

Another way to look at it:

Interplanetary: chemical.

Interstellar: nuclear.

Intergalactic: antimatter / black hole.

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#69

Post by timschmidt »

mcpackieh wrote: post #51
emilecantin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hand wavy sci-fi speculation "The Dark Forest" by Liu Cixin is sci-fi, but I don't think it's too hand-wavy. It presents a pretty logical answer to the Fermi Paradox, based on a couple obvious axioms. Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis

It's a reasonably logical answer but it's not the simplest answer. The Dark Forest hypothesis assumes that life is so common in the universe that encountering and being existentially threatened by other life is a serious threat. But what reason is there to believe that life is that common? For Liu Cixin's books this assumption makes sense because it makes the story possible, but in real life there's simply no evidenc…

> But what reason is there to believe that life is that common?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOiGEI9pQBs

Re: An existential problem in the search for alien life

#70

Post by giraffe_lady »

peddling-brink wrote: post #58
giraffe_lady wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are simply watching the birth of a new religion. Religious people aren't religious because they're dumb, intelligence is mostly not a factor. Same thing here I think.

Us: don’t build that, it will be the death of us. You: what a ridiculous statement, we haven’t even built that yet.

I actually don't think we should build it either. The best case scenario is it provides a way for powerful people to accelerate the already quite successful project of making feudalism 2.

But that doesn't mean I'm stressed about what you're stressed about. We killed god once before we can do it again if we need to. The real danger is in us using AI to do more of what it already does now, not that it will decide to do some new thing.

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