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Grabby Aliens (2021)

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Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#121

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

XorNot wrote: post #73
cwillu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, there's a fifth possibility: 5. Controlled transportation between the stars, sufficient for colonization, is sufficiently impractical that there are no grabby aliens within our light-cone.

That itself would be quite interesting though, because based on what we know now it's merely difficult, not impossible with reasonably foreseeable technological improvements. The dynamics which would make it impossible on any known timespan don't seem currently observable.

We barely knew about flight in air, or germs on hands, sent even small objects in to space in extremely recent history.

Hand waving away “we can’t travel through stars” because we currently don’t get it, seems like the weakest way to discuss the topic.

You/we can’t imagine it; so it must be impossible or in practically difficult? What if it turns out to be extremely easy, we’re just extremely small or extremely uninteresting? Those are far more likely topics than we already have the answers and have decided it’s not possible.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#122

Post by scotty79 »

cwillu wrote: post #67
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…

Alas, there's a fifth possibility: 5. Controlled transportation between the stars, sufficient for colonization, is sufficiently impractical that there are no grabby aliens within our light-cone.

Lightsail seems sufficiently practical if you don't care about being fast. You basically directly exploit energy of the stars you are traveling between.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#123

Post by Towaway69 »

yreg wrote: post #118
Towaway69 wrote: post #108

My thinking is that the universe is full with life and communicating life. However communication is only possible with the right technology. What is that technology? Technology that can only be created by a harmonious society working together to share ideas and combine ideas from everyone in a non competitive manner. In that way the universe ensures peace and harmony ensures knowing that warring civilisation aren't a…

How can a particular technology have a non-competitive harmonious society as a hard requirement for it's discovery?

Think of technology that we can't imagine.

Just as we can't imagine a harmonious society, so we can't imagine the technology that would arise from such a society.

It's a recursive argument, I know, but that's the core of the problem.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#124

Post by Towaway69 »

8jef wrote: post #111
Towaway69 wrote: post #108

My thinking is that the universe is full with life and communicating life. However communication is only possible with the right technology. What is that technology? Technology that can only be created by a harmonious society working together to share ideas and combine ideas from everyone in a non competitive manner. In that way the universe ensures peace and harmony ensures knowing that warring civilisation aren't a…

The idea of global harmonious cooperation represent the main evolutionary threshold appearing before us all. This should be our future, if We all individually find enough trust in ourselves, and let us collectively evolve in such direction. And as We, I do not foresee only human beings, but more broadly the Living, as We, interspecies from Earth. Finding a way to unite individualities should include ways to establish…

Well said and thank you for saying it.

And yes, we should start at home and begin communicating with our surroundings. Be it the planet or the species with whom we share this spaceship earth.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#125

Post by matthewdgreen »

ccheney wrote: post #64
throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you mine asteroids in orbit on a large scale around your star, the released dust/debris would form an IR halo around the star that would be very easy to detect and reveal your presence but we dont see any of it. So, early humans it propably is.

Your point on missing IR halos is valid, but don't overlook anomalies like Tabby's Star (KIC 8462852) [0]. Its odd dimming led to theories about alien megastructures like Dyson Spheres, though dust or comets are possible explanations. Still, Tabby's Star highlights the difficulty in excluding advanced alien activities with our current tech. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabby%27s_Star [1] https://youtu.be/mZv…

This person [1] ran a data search for stars with a similar light profile (“slow dippers”) to Tabby/Boyajian’s Star, and claims to have found a cluster of similar stars in the region. But the results are not particularly high confidence and are probably just data artifacts.

[1] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ac3416

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#126

Post by api »

yreg wrote: post #118
Towaway69 wrote: post #108

My thinking is that the universe is full with life and communicating life. However communication is only possible with the right technology. What is that technology? Technology that can only be created by a harmonious society working together to share ideas and combine ideas from everyone in a non competitive manner. In that way the universe ensures peace and harmony ensures knowing that warring civilisation aren't a…

How can a particular technology have a non-competitive harmonious society as a hard requirement for it's discovery?

Not a tech per se but I think they’d be more efficient. They’d go for standardization as the default, which would mean far less duplication of effort. They’d only break with that if a gain was to be realized.

In many cases higher rank humans block innovation because it threatens them. There’d probably be less if that too. Personally I suspect this is one reason it took 300000 years for humans to start building significant technology.

The thing that’s hard to imagine is what the driving force would be without much conflict. Conflict and competitions are easy motivators, at least for us. But a being with a different psychology might have different drives. It doesn’t have to be conflict that motivated growth, just some drive that ties into motivation.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#127

Post by not_the_fda »

I think there is a great filter. The trait that makes a species grabby is also the trait that leads to its downfall. They end up destroying their home ecosystem before they can achieve inter-solarsystem travel, wiping themselves out.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#128

Post by zare_st »

yreg wrote: post #115
cwillu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, there's a fifth possibility: 5. Controlled transportation between the stars, sufficient for colonization, is sufficiently impractical that there are no grabby aliens within our light-cone.

Even if interstellar travel is impractical, an advanced expansionist civ would be interested in building megastructures. And since there is no stealth in space (unless you can somehow mask heat), they should be observable. Ofc there are explanations for that part of the paradox as well, but the impractical travel theory doesn't cover it.

A hypothetical megastructure Dyson's sphere would not radiate heat. And I'm not so sure that you can apply the stealth principle here. Stealth inhibits active measurement and astronomical measurements are passive. We have sensor resolution and we have a mass of data to sift through - each time sensor generation or data processing advances, we see stuff we haven't seen before.

The data is analyzed as a dynamic system. Radar just looks at a bounce. If you setup radar incorrectly you might get false hits and no returns on valid targets. If you use a wrong model in analysis of astronomical data you're never getting anywhere close to a correct result.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#129

Post by bonzaidrinkingb »

This theory is itself grabby, and grabs itself at that.

> Furthermore, we should believe that loud aliens exist, as that’s our most robust explanation for why humans have appeared so early in the history of the universe. But if loud aliens will soon fill the universe, and prevent new advanced life from appearing, that early deadline explains human earliness.

Even furthermore, we should believe that Big Foot Medusas exist, as that's our most robust explanation for why humans have not seen these yet and are still alive. Since Big Foot Medusas turn everything alive into stone upon observation, and we are still here, it suggests we are early in our explorations and observations of Big Foot Medusas.

Anyway, a loud grabby alien civilization expanding is "first come, first serve". Perhaps we have not seen grabby aliens, because the first grabby aliens became quiet, and make new grabby aliens impossible, or they finally became superrational and realized they need more than one civilizations to have an economy, cooperation, cosmodiversity, or competition: If aim is to win at tennis, you can't play tennis alone.

As for earth specifically, it was probably already grabbed, and humans are the terraforming organisms put in service of the grabbies to make our planet habitable. Or the grabbies are in such a zeal to expand and get the most of our galaxy that they focus on planets that are close to the horizon, after which they will be moving away at faster than light speeds due to accelerating expansion of the universe. Only after that will they get around to Earth (first building a Dyson Sphere around the universe to harness its energy).

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#130

Post by scotty79 »

whizzter wrote: post #95
XorNot wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That itself would be quite interesting though, because based on what we know now it's merely difficult, not impossible with reasonably foreseeable technological improvements. The dynamics which would make it impossible on any known timespan don't seem currently observable.

I think a huge factor you don't account for here is that some of these technological improvements might imply a great-filter that we really haven't passed yet as humans, and the negative effects would affect most similarly expansionist and competitive races alike us since it might be questionable if there would be enough pressure on a non-competitive race to expand rather than just conserve local resources. Just with…

Maybe all roads to space travel lead through global dystopian panopticon and police state?
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