The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding • Hacker News Board

Re: The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding

#21

Post by c048 » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:35 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #18

jacobgold wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems unlikely. Just imagine humanity 100, 1000, and 1,000,000 years from now. Humans will have solved every physical problem that is solvable. Humans will have also evolved into new kinds of immortal/superintelligent beings that would be totally unrecognizable to us. It may be the case once a civilization reaches "max level" they universally decide to "reset the game" because there's nothing left to do. Maybe s…

Why do you think that? Life on Earth has been around for billions of years and and yet we have no immortal beings nor all problems in physics solved. There’s no reason beyond wishful thinking to believe any of that is true.

Everything we know and see has proven that progress is exponential.

Your statement that progress or intelligence is binary has no basis outside of intentional and ignorant pessimism.

Re: The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding

#22

Post by Nevermark » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:43 PM UTC

> Furthermore, light-speed lag and distance mean that child civilizations must be functionally independent of parent cultures.

Makes me wonder if a solar system wide civilization, with trillions of beings, wouldn't invest in ships to go to the next system, extract resources, and create a stream of resources ships going back to the original solar system.

That might sound uneconomical. Why not just go to the other system? But moving trillions of beings, and disrupting all their practical considerations and dependencies, would be a far more costly enterprise.

In the short run it would be resource acquisition. In the long run, the new system would accumulate entities, and then a civilization of its own. But there might still be strong value, or incentives, for the original system to continue acting as a kind of capital/dominant/higher value location.

Long distance/time dependencies could develop and be naturally maintained via complex decentralized indirect but intertwined economic arrangements. Just as shareholders who have done nothing but push a button on their phone to get an electronic record of having some stock in a company, have strong property rights over complex systems they may never see or understand, because it is in everyone's interest for the system to keep working.

Also, automated systems that defend themselves and their owners positions, even across a few light years. With the owners being able to trade their value in real time, even if the physical returns are long term.

Re: The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding

#23

Post by temp0826 » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

jacobgold wrote: post #20

nkrisc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that? Life on Earth has been around for billions of years and and yet we have no immortal beings nor all problems in physics solved. There’s no reason beyond wishful thinking to believe any of that is true.

The Earth only developed intelligent life a few million years ago, us (homo sapiens) a few hundred thousand years ago. We've only been in "technological takeoff" for ~250 years and are already using spaceships and computers to deliver and operate drones on Mars. Now imagine 250 years + 1,000,000 years.

Civilizations collapse, do you think we're immune to that now because technology is at some level?

Re: The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding

#24

Post by jcranmer » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 7:09 PM UTC

yogthos wrote: post #8

The assumption that biological life will be doing galactic colonization seems myopic in the extreme. Let's just consider the progression here. Life on Earth appears around 4.5 billion years ago. Humans start evolving around 2.8 million years ago. Use of language appears around 100,000 years ago. Writing is invented around 5500 years ago. Inventions of language and writing are the landmark moment here. Before language…

> Before language was invented the only way information could be passed down from ancestors to offspring was via mutations in our DNA.

Language (in the sense of "use of language appears around 100,000 years ago") is not the only way to communicate information, and many animal species are perfectly capable of communicating information despite not having evolved what is being called "language" in this sense.

Re: The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding

#25

Post by nkrisc » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 7:22 PM UTC

jacobgold wrote: post #20

nkrisc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that? Life on Earth has been around for billions of years and and yet we have no immortal beings nor all problems in physics solved. There’s no reason beyond wishful thinking to believe any of that is true.

The Earth only developed intelligent life a few million years ago, us (homo sapiens) a few hundred thousand years ago. We've only been in "technological takeoff" for ~250 years and are already using spaceships and computers to deliver and operate drones on Mars. Now imagine 250 years + 1,000,000 years.

It is impressive, but there’s no reason to think it will continue on the same trajectory.

Re: The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding

#26

Post by nkrisc » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 7:24 PM UTC

c048 wrote: post #21

nkrisc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that? Life on Earth has been around for billions of years and and yet we have no immortal beings nor all problems in physics solved. There’s no reason beyond wishful thinking to believe any of that is true.

Everything we know and see has proven that progress is exponential. Your statement that progress or intelligence is binary has no basis outside of intentional and ignorant pessimism.

And if you extrapolate the growth of infants they should weigh billions of pounds by the time they’re in grade school, and yet they don’t.

In what basis do you presume our progress will continue exponentially?

I’ll take pessimism over wishful thinking.

Re: The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding

#27

Post by lioeters » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 7:48 PM UTC

yogthos wrote: post #8

The assumption that biological life will be doing galactic colonization seems myopic in the extreme. Let's just consider the progression here. Life on Earth appears around 4.5 billion years ago. Humans start evolving around 2.8 million years ago. Use of language appears around 100,000 years ago. Writing is invented around 5500 years ago. Inventions of language and writing are the landmark moment here. Before language…

Against Mind-Blindness: Recognizing and Communicating with Diverse Intelligences - King's College London Neuropsychiatry Research & Education Group - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHkFmUwW0kM

Re: The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding

#28

Post by sfn42 » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 7:51 PM UTC

jacobgold wrote: post #17

nkrisc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe expanding beyond your home planet never gets as easy as we think it will be in the future.

That seems unlikely. Just imagine humanity 100, 1000, and 1,000,000 years from now. Humans will have solved every physical problem that is solvable. Humans will have also evolved into new kinds of immortal/superintelligent beings that would be totally unrecognizable to us. It may be the case once a civilization reaches "max level" they universally decide to "reset the game" because there's nothing left to do. Maybe s…

I imagine that 100 years from now(or significantly less than that) the ocean water level will be several meters higher, large parts of the world will be unliveable due to heat waves and wars will be fought over food and water. I doubt our species will last another 1000.

Re: The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding

#29

Post by yogthos » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 8:05 PM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #24

yogthos wrote: post #8

The assumption that biological life will be doing galactic colonization seems myopic in the extreme. Let's just consider the progression here. Life on Earth appears around 4.5 billion years ago. Humans start evolving around 2.8 million years ago. Use of language appears around 100,000 years ago. Writing is invented around 5500 years ago. Inventions of language and writing are the landmark moment here. Before language…

> Before language was invented the only way information could be passed down from ancestors to offspring was via mutations in our DNA. Language (in the sense of "use of language appears around 100,000 years ago") is not the only way to communicate information, and many animal species are perfectly capable of communicating information despite not having evolved what is being called "language" in this sense.

The difference is that we are able to accumulate information across generations to grow our collective knowledge. Other animals are not able to do that at scale. So, while you are correct that other animal communicate and even teach each other, it's a qualitatively different situation from human communication.

Re: The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding

#30

Post by jacobgold » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 8:26 PM UTC

temp0826 wrote: post #23

jacobgold wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Earth only developed intelligent life a few million years ago, us (homo sapiens) a few hundred thousand years ago. We've only been in "technological takeoff" for ~250 years and are already using spaceships and computers to deliver and operate drones on Mars. Now imagine 250 years + 1,000,000 years.

Civilizations collapse, do you think we're immune to that now because technology is at some level?

Of course humanity is not immune, but it is resilient.

Even if 99.99% of people died from an asteroid, it might only take a few hundred (or thousand) years to rebuild the population and the world.

And once humans live on multiple planets, which is likely within 100 years, the odds of permanent extinction become remote.