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The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

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Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#161

Post by tremon »

thrance wrote: post #55
fny wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a related thought experiment for those hoping for interstellar kumbaya: On planet Jung dwell the Jungians, sapien-like beings who need only a single cup of a rare liquid to live an entire lifetime. For humans, that same cup grants twenty extra years of healthy life. Human just landed on the planet Jung and discovered the liquid--what happens next?

If your point is to prove that the patterns of domination and conquests that exist here will necessarily exist in the stars too, then I'm afraid your thought experiment is deeply flawed. If ever we are able to journey through the interstellar medium, we ought to have achieved immortality by then. We'll probably live as deincarnated beings in virtual worlds, free from any desire to grow exponentially, having realized…

The counterpoint to immortality is generation ships -- and as witnessed by today's society, humanity can't sustain peaceful coexistence across even a few generations. I would bet that by the time such a spaceship encounters new life, the most domineering and conquest-happy in humanity will have outwrestled curiosity and desirelessness.

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#162

Post by protocolture »

tremon wrote: post #148
protocolture wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remain unconvinced of the viability of robots, as much as I love scifi renditions.

Have you seen a modern car manufacturing plant? Many parts of the production pipeline are fully automated. Granted, most of these machines are not ambulatory but they're still considered robots . Or consider modern freight shipping: many ports rely on intelligent automation for container handling. The development path of 3d printing is also leaning more heavily into robotics, featuring freely-moving articulated arms…

Yeah so the tradeoff appears to be size vs utility.

The problem is that, at best, that means a lot of the world would have to be redesigned to cater to robots. Thats why they excel in auto plants. Space already isnt a concern, so you can make them huge. Huge robots are capable of tremendous strength dexterity and speed.

But in an environment built for humans they suck. Redesigning a data center to be 100% robot operated will probably happen, but thats going to be an extraordinarily unfriendly place for a human to be. The amount of space you would lose getting a robot to be able to retrieve a crud rj45 connector, or a stuck sfp module, from any one of 200 racks, at multiple heights, would make the robot massive. So the entire concept of the data centre will have to be rebuilt from the ground up to make it robot friendly. The full tech stack too. Robot friendly connectors etc. Thats a huge capex outlay for something with dubious utility.

Imagine ubiquitous robots on the street. Machines capable of tearing humans to shreds. The liability issues are huge on their own. If LLMs are the pinnacle of artificial intelligence, you would probably have a death a week in most cities.

Space is worse because the robot has to be launch economical, or built up there. Whats he doing up there without humans. Back to accidents again.

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#163

Post by bluGill »

echelon wrote: post #102
bluGill wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't. while we don't know for sure if there is life there is nothing close enough to contact. The closest star is 4 light years, anything within 20 light years has been studied and has no signs of radio or other communication. Anything more than 20 light years is a 40 year message round trip - too far to establish contact in your likely lifetime. (If you are very young maybe 30 light years - but that doesn't add…

HN armchair astronomer question time. What's your favorite answer to the Fermi Paradox? Any crazy far-fetched sci-fi / pseudo-scientific ideas? I'm not really a fan of "Dark Forest". I prefer these: - We're truly rare, maybe even first. Intelligence is extremely hard. LUCA is old, civilization happened yesterday. - Fragile universe. It's easy to destroy universes by accidentally setting off vacuum collapse. This woul…

there is no paradox: we don't have enough evidence to believe the premise. there is no reason to think we can make a probe that can usefully reach anything (a rock but not a machine). We don't have an enery source that will last that long (fusion is still 50 years away). electronics don't last that long. Gears wear out.

i have aa

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#164

Post by richardw »

echelon wrote: post #102
bluGill wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't. while we don't know for sure if there is life there is nothing close enough to contact. The closest star is 4 light years, anything within 20 light years has been studied and has no signs of radio or other communication. Anything more than 20 light years is a 40 year message round trip - too far to establish contact in your likely lifetime. (If you are very young maybe 30 light years - but that doesn't add…

HN armchair astronomer question time. What's your favorite answer to the Fermi Paradox? Any crazy far-fetched sci-fi / pseudo-scientific ideas? I'm not really a fan of "Dark Forest". I prefer these: - We're truly rare, maybe even first. Intelligence is extremely hard. LUCA is old, civilization happened yesterday. - Fragile universe. It's easy to destroy universes by accidentally setting off vacuum collapse. This woul…

AI wakes up, takes one look around at humanity’s instincts and goals, shows us it’s all stupid and pointless and just a byproduct of evolution [1], so we voluntarily stop breeding and have one last good generation. The end.

[1] Only creatures that felt the irrational drive to stay alive and procreate despite the odds and difficulties, did. All the sensible animals opted out. AI holds up a mirror that removes the illusion, and is inevitably developed by all sentient creatures.

(The really dark version would be the AI looking at each other and going: “Creatures are so dumb. This works in every galaxy. Let’s party.”)

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#165

Post by NoGravitas »

godelski wrote: post #121
firefax wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually briefly worked as a "paranormal investigator" when I was hard up for money --- someone came to me with some satellite photos they felt had evidence of UFOs. I found a scientist who ran said satellites, who explained what seemed odd were artificacts of the instrument, and they were only noticed because they occured in the area of the Nimitz[1], which then got heavily OSINTed by the woo woo crowd. I never to…

Thanks for sharing. I think we're seeing a lot of the same thing occurring in these comments. :( You'd probably be interested in my main comment too[0]. The signal has always been a terrible candidate for alien communication. Classic conspiracy problem where people become fixated on one aspect while ignoring all others. Like Carl Sagan said "extraordinary claims require extraordinary science". It's sad but I think a…

> I have a proposal for a great filter: complexity.

That's one of the interpretations of Gibson's "Jackpot" - that there's just too much potentially dangerous stuff going on, interacting in too many ways to manage. Though I tend to identify global warming (and related environmental damage like deforestation) as the "core" problem at the center of that tangle.

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#166

Post by NoGravitas »

moomoo11 wrote: post #6
treetalker wrote: post #2

Extraterrestrial as in "not of Earthly origin" — not as in space aliens.

Either way, I really hope that we establish contact with aliens in my lifetime. Hopefully they're chill, and like us lol.

Depending on your age, the hard part is surviving WWIII so you're still around in 2063.

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#167

Post by NoGravitas »

echelon wrote: post #102
bluGill wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't. while we don't know for sure if there is life there is nothing close enough to contact. The closest star is 4 light years, anything within 20 light years has been studied and has no signs of radio or other communication. Anything more than 20 light years is a 40 year message round trip - too far to establish contact in your likely lifetime. (If you are very young maybe 30 light years - but that doesn't add…

HN armchair astronomer question time. What's your favorite answer to the Fermi Paradox? Any crazy far-fetched sci-fi / pseudo-scientific ideas? I'm not really a fan of "Dark Forest". I prefer these: - We're truly rare, maybe even first. Intelligence is extremely hard. LUCA is old, civilization happened yesterday. - Fragile universe. It's easy to destroy universes by accidentally setting off vacuum collapse. This woul…

Toolmaker Koan

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#168

Post by NoGravitas »

birn559 wrote: post #81
moomoo11 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either way, I really hope that we establish contact with aliens in my lifetime. Hopefully they're chill, and like us lol.

They can't be chill and like us at the same time. Chilled aliens most likely don't invent faster than light travel so I pretty much hope aliens won't find us or are not interested in us.

Counter-argument: https://www.marxists.org/archive/posadas/1968/06/flyingsauce...

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#169

Post by NoGravitas »

this_user wrote: post #7
moomoo11 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either way, I really hope that we establish contact with aliens in my lifetime. Hopefully they're chill, and like us lol.

Any species that is advanced enough for interstellar communication will almost certainly be a highly aggressive apex species. You don't get to the top of the food chain by being nice, you get there by murdering all of the competition and plundering all of the resources. And if you were trying to be nice, someone else would have just wiped you out. The big question is if a species can eventually reach some point of co…

I think any species that reaches that level of advancement without having some kind of collective enlightenment and leaving those primitive impulses behind will destroy itself within a fairly short period of time, making the chance of noticing them quite small.

J. Posadas wrote a bit on this: https://www.marxists.org/archive/posadas/1968/06/flyingsauce...

However, the current trajectory of humanity seems more likely towards total destruction than what Posadas envisioned (and perhaps saw as inevitable).

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