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Grabby Aliens (2021)

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Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#11

Post by LoganDark »

Arch485 wrote: post #8

I might be missing something here, but why would alien (or any) civilizations continually expand at a constant rate? While I'm not an expert, it appears that by observing life on Earth (not just humans), groups of living things do not expand linearly, and eventually hit an upper limit (this happens at all scales, from colonies of bacteria to entire civilizations). Who's to say that other "loud" aliens haven't already…

Based on human history, wouldn't the rate of technological growth eventually start to skyrocket during/after some revolution? And with better technology comes better/more expansion.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#12

Post by [deleted] »

distortionfield wrote: post #4
delichon wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting ourselves to be special has a poor track record. The same evidence is compatible with lots of loud aliens yelling on channels we can't hear yet.

That’s the exact opposite of the grabby alien’s hypothesis tho. The grabby aliens hypothesis says that we’re very much average but that life as a whole is still quite young in the universe.

[deleted]

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#13

Post by behringer »

pfdietz wrote: post #9

> Advanced aliens really are out there Stopped reading right there.

You're missing out then. That's the assumption being made in the paper and they take it as far as they can while sticking to some semblance of reality. Very interesting ideas in here.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#14

Post by geor9e »

Arch485 wrote: post #8

I might be missing something here, but why would alien (or any) civilizations continually expand at a constant rate? While I'm not an expert, it appears that by observing life on Earth (not just humans), groups of living things do not expand linearly, and eventually hit an upper limit (this happens at all scales, from colonies of bacteria to entire civilizations). Who's to say that other "loud" aliens haven't already…

Constants are the simplest assumption. It's a "first round" of modeling that lets you start having philosophical thoughts on the implications. You can always increase the complexity of the model after. If you don't hold some parameters constant, the model quickly becomes too complex to be of much use for philosophical questions. In reality, a civilization can expand with exponential acceleration, deceleration, or shrink. I didn't even think this the worst of the assumptions. The fact that expansion stops as soon as a civilization meets another seems silly too. As we know, civilizations love nothing more than respecting borders and not conquering each other. But again, it can go either way, so they chose the middle assumption.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#15

Post by taneq »

GavinB wrote: post #10

This is a compelling theory, especially the implication that humans are early. I do wonder whether we should see the evidence of spheres of growing alien influence out in the stars, but instead we see a highly uniform universe in all directions. This would indicate a few possibilities: 1. Expanding alien civilizations are relatively low impact and don't collect all of the energy of stars in ways that are visible to o…

> how would they decelerate enough to not be destroyed on arrival?

Solar sail being pushed on by the destination star? Or to begin with, even just a “drouge” creating friction against interstellar gas?

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#16

Post by ben_w »

Arch485 wrote: post #8

I might be missing something here, but why would alien (or any) civilizations continually expand at a constant rate? While I'm not an expert, it appears that by observing life on Earth (not just humans), groups of living things do not expand linearly, and eventually hit an upper limit (this happens at all scales, from colonies of bacteria to entire civilizations). Who's to say that other "loud" aliens haven't already…

Fastest growing subpopulation rapidly dominates the whole group.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#17

Post by Ancapistani »

LoganDark wrote: post #11
Arch485 wrote: post #8

I might be missing something here, but why would alien (or any) civilizations continually expand at a constant rate? While I'm not an expert, it appears that by observing life on Earth (not just humans), groups of living things do not expand linearly, and eventually hit an upper limit (this happens at all scales, from colonies of bacteria to entire civilizations). Who's to say that other "loud" aliens haven't already…

Based on human history, wouldn't the rate of technological growth eventually start to skyrocket during/after some revolution? And with better technology comes better/more expansion.

So far, it seems like the Industrial Revolution was the key accelerating factor for our civilization. Conditions for it were right (or very close) at the height of the Roman Empire. They were probably pretty close at the height of Chinese power, and the Islamic world before the Khans.

…but we’re still a young civilization, and are extrapolating from very little data. It could be that we’ve yet to encounter most of those inflection points. Maybe the next one is “the Singularity” - but beyond that we really have no idea.

All of this is consistent with humanity being very early on the timeline of the universe.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#18

Post by delichon »

distortionfield wrote: post #4
delichon wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting ourselves to be special has a poor track record. The same evidence is compatible with lots of loud aliens yelling on channels we can't hear yet.

That’s the exact opposite of the grabby alien’s hypothesis tho. The grabby aliens hypothesis says that we’re very much average but that life as a whole is still quite young in the universe.

The galaxy is around 100k light years across and 13 billion years old. For us to be among the first generation born within 10^5 years of each other after a gestation of 10^10 years, would make us special.

Being among the first civilizations in the galaxy is less special than being the first civilization, but more special than being just another in an ongoing ecosystem.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#19

Post by gmuslera »

It feels like talking about religion. In a lot of them at the very least, there is an almighty, omniscient god, the alpha, the everyday, and the omega god, the one that maximizes knowledge, intelligence, power, whatever. And people following that religion know exactly how that entity thinks and behave. Because that entity should think like humans of the current culture does, no?

With aliens, with a different culture, civilization if that concept applies, language or not, and enough technology to make interstellar travel, and all of that for thousands to millions of years, those aliens that are far beyond our imagination, well, somewhat we know how they think and should behave, now knowing the technology they should have, the knowledge about the universe they should have, philosophy or whatever.

We don't even know if it will be ever practical interstellar travel, because we didn't reach that stage yet. In theory it should work... in theory I could climb stairs till reaching the moon too. People is too busy trying to figure out how advanced aliens should think, and didn't stopped to analyze how they are thinking.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#20

Post by morkalork »

actionfromafar wrote: post #6
fouc wrote: post #2

What I found most interesting about this model was the implication that humans are possibly one of the earliest sentient spacefaring species to have appeared so far. Which explains why we haven't seen any other signs of extraterrestrial intelligence yet.

Barely spacefaring. We are like fish on the shore who can survive in the mud long enough for the tide to come back to rescue us, if that.

That's a pretty good comparison. We go to space but it's a fleeting excursion so far and we haven't yet evolved the necessary abilities to make it permanent
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