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Grabby Aliens (2021)

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201–210 of 227 posts

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#201
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we are not "so early" in the history of the universe. Something like 95% of all the stars that will ever be formed have already been formed. It's actually rather late in the day.

> Something like 95% of all the stars that will ever be formed have already been formed. Sure, but clearly civilizations don't exclusively develop around newly formed stars: we didn't. Most stars are red dwarves and will continue shining for trillions of years.

That's true, but the star formation rate peaked around Z = 1.5, which was long before the solar system formed. By the time our solar system formed the rate was maybe 1/4 of the peak, and has fallen since.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.11126.pdf

I don't think it's a reasonable assumption that the rate of life (or civilization) formation would remain constant on a planet around a red dwarf over extended periods of time. I don't think Earth could survive for trillions of years as a life bearing planet, even with a more long lived star. Without radioactivity and primordial heat, plate tectonics would cease and the magnetic field would go away. The lack of magnetic field would mean the atmosphere would be lost as well.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#202
post #115
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.

> no stealth in space (unless you can somehow mask heat)

I know two things.

1. We are now already using heat mask measures, even when we are very young civ in terms of Kardashev scale. We already use simple slit heat emitters in military tech (many Stealth planes have slit nozzles and for example, Leopard tanks also use slit exhaust for same reason).

2. Even we now know about possibility of laser heat, which could emit heat directly with very high focus.

In conclusion, idea is, to surround whole civ with heat mask blanket, and make all heat exhausts directly focused on directions, where now observer expected.

Second, looks like our development now is very slow, because it should be on early stages (Kardashev scale), and old civ's should know this.

And I now support theory, that we are fortunate to be far enough, so stronger civ's are not interested in spending resources to limit our development.

I even consider might be exists some preservation pact between Big civ's, to avoid touch young civ's, for some purposes like scientific, or arts. So yes, basically, I support Zoo theory.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#203
I know two things.

1. We are now already using heat mask measures, even when we are very young civ in terms of Kardashev scale. We already use simple slit heat emitters in military tech (many Stealth planes have slit nozzles and for example, Leopard tanks also use slit exhaust for same reason).

2. Even we now know about possibility of laser heat, which could emit heat directly with very high focus.

In conclusion, idea is, to surround whole civ with heat mask blanket, and make all heat exhausts directly focused on directions, where no observer expected. BTW this could be evidence of mature Civilization, when see strange space objects, which looks like Black Hole in most directions and extremely bright in some "featured" directions.

Second, looks like our development now is very slow, because it should be on early stages (Kardashev scale), and old civ's should know this.

And I now support theory, that we are fortunate to be far enough, so stronger civ's are not interested in spending resources to limit our development.

I even consider might be exists some preservation pact between old Big civ's, to avoid touch young civ's, for some purposes like scientific, or arts. So yes, basically, I support Zoo theory.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is physically impossible unless there is new physics in that hypothetical design. All physical objects radiate heat and a Dyson sphere in particular would be trivial to detect. You look take a picture of the sky in infrared and in the visible spectrum. If you find an infrared source but no associated visible star you’ve got a strong candidate for being a Dyson sphere. Such searches have actually been conducted.…

> If you find an infrared source but no associated visible star you’ve got a strong candidate for being a Dyson sphere You mean like brown dwarfs?

Yes, but a Dyson sphere, even around a red dwarf, would be far more luminous in the infrared than a brown dwarf. It would also have a different spectrographic signature, and importantly its heat distribution would appear artificial.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You should really look into the limits of radio astronomy, it’s not as easy as you seem to think.

You should really look into basic probability calculation LOL. If you have to come up with like nine different copes like "alien population in Milky Way is low" AND "aliens are relatively low technology with no Dyson spheres and limited terraforming" AND "aliens by mere chance don't exist within this arm of the Milky Way (except for us)" AND "zero aliens which do exist have tried deliberately signalling to the rest of the galaxy despite humans having done this nearly continuously since they developed the means" AND AND AND

Like just throw in the towel bro. You're adding epicycles on top of epicycles when the answer is right in front of you. You're just too stubborn to admit you were wrong.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#206
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if there is a hope that humanity will become grabby aliens (Star Trek). You talk as if being a loud grabby alien to other space civilizations is a hopeful thing for humanity to aspire to. Did not Star Trek had a Prime Directive for some reason? Though I do like solving the Fermi Paradox by humanity taking a good hard look in the mirror. May disprove us being Big Foot Medusas with one stone too. Humanity just got ri…

You are arguing a meaningless point. The argument form takes what you hope humanity will become as a parameter. You extrapolate from there to determine under what circumstances humanity can become that desired future given the facts we have available. If we assume that every intelligent species will turn the universe into goo within 10,000 years of achieving human-level technology, then that is only compatible with t…

> You are arguing a meaningless point.

> If we assume that every intelligent species will turn the universe into goo

The analysis made in the article is of similar bad form. If I am arguing a meaningless point, I suspect that is due to the all-round meaningless points I am responding to.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should really look into the limits of radio astronomy, it’s not as easy as you seem to think.

You should really look into basic probability calculation LOL. If you have to come up with like nine different copes like "alien population in Milky Way is low" AND "aliens are relatively low technology with no Dyson spheres and limited terraforming" AND "aliens by mere chance don't exist within this arm of the Milky Way (except for us)" AND "zero aliens which do exist have tried deliberately signalling to the rest o…

Who are you responding to? I gave one reason and it’s called the inverse square law. The distances we’re talking about are unimaginably huge so the chances of any signal reaching us is practically zero unless it’s close by (within a few hundred light years) and intentionally directed at us with sufficient power.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should really look into basic probability calculation LOL. If you have to come up with like nine different copes like "alien population in Milky Way is low" AND "aliens are relatively low technology with no Dyson spheres and limited terraforming" AND "aliens by mere chance don't exist within this arm of the Milky Way (except for us)" AND "zero aliens which do exist have tried deliberately signalling to the rest o…

Who are you responding to? I gave one reason and it’s called the inverse square law. The distances we’re talking about are unimaginably huge so the chances of any signal reaching us is practically zero unless it’s close by (within a few hundred light years) and intentionally directed at us with sufficient power.

[flagged]

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#209
post #203

I know two things. 1. We are now already using heat mask measures, even when we are very young civ in terms of Kardashev scale. We already use simple slit heat emitters in military tech (many Stealth planes have slit nozzles and for example, Leopard tanks also use slit exhaust for same reason). 2. Even we now know about possibility of laser heat, which could emit heat directly with very high focus. In conclusion, ide…

And I also must add, interesting fact - I have not seen any idea, to explore void in works of our, terrestrial scientists.

But for SETI it could be golden earth - if really waste heat emitting there, should be very different view (vs view from near some star).

What if this is part of Drake equation which we missed?

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#210
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure they do, and for all we know may Iran is part of the conspiracy. Cuba and NK are small fry and are probably excluded. In the lore, multiple governments are involved in the conspiracy. They keep it secret because it is a race to see who can crack the alien tech the fastest. There have been cases in the lore of other countries (Brazil and Zimbabwe i believe) having encounters or alleged down aircraft and the U…

My previous (brief) line manager was Iranian. I asked him if the Iranian rhetoric about the USA being "the great Satan" was a translation issue or sincere, he said it was sincere.

Greetings from Ukraine!

Must say, from practice of living on fast changing territory, it is very typical for people to hate all new, because sometimes new things appear too fast, that just their appear are pain.

This is not something supernatural. Even more - for people is natural when things are NOT change fast, even when all these new things are good. I'm sure, you will admit, from steam railroad there was many things very scary. And Iranians have right to say, that English and Americans opened this Pandora box.

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