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Grabby Aliens (2021)

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Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#21

Post by ionwake »

echelon wrote: post #7
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.

> implication that humans are possibly one of the earliest sentient spacefaring species to have appeared so far. Or that perhaps we're a simulation. We exist in a very interesting time in history when the pieces are coming together. Our hypothetical future robot descendents may be very interested in learning about their past.

i dunno bros, but this is the explanation of the fermi paradox for me. Sorry to go all HGTTG but...

>Wake up

>No idea where I am

>Hey we have no idea where everyone is

>According to history nothing much has happened in the universe

>Oh look at that, just now that you are alive you are hitting the singularity

Feels a little like a rehashed sitcom episode...like a director is just brute forcing shit to figure out a solution, with our lives. And its all probably just on how to make a good cup of coffee for his interdimensional space ship.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#22

Post by LoganDark »

Ancapistani wrote: post #17
LoganDark wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

What I know is that technological progress was very slow, until suddenly there was a breakthrough and it rapidly accelerated. Now, we have enough of the fundamentals down that new technological breakthroughs are happening extremely rapidly. What a time to be alive, of course, but what suggests alien civilizations wouldn't follow the same trend of rapid acceleration rather than constant growth?

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#24

Post by kiba »

gmuslera wrote: post #19

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,…

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

By using our knowledge of physics, we can make reasonable speculation on what is possible and not possible, and what engineering we need to do to make these effort successful. Some people's work are so successful that they became foundational to our knowledge base today.

Same as with aliens. We can make reasonable extrapolation on what we might see from the type of aliens that expand versus and aliens that don't. They are of course, guesses, and those guesses continued to be argued and refined. Note that the site doesn't assumed that all aliens are grabby, only that some are grabby aliens, and try to extrapolate on what it might look like if they are grabby.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#25

Post by tshaddox »

delichon wrote: post #18
distortionfield wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why is being first, or being among the first, “special”? To me “special” is different than just “specific.” If some civilization knew it was the 50th advanced civilization in the universe, 50 might seem like a very special number, but is it really more special than 1?

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#26

Post by kiba »

echelon wrote: post #7
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.

> implication that humans are possibly one of the earliest sentient spacefaring species to have appeared so far. Or that perhaps we're a simulation. We exist in a very interesting time in history when the pieces are coming together. Our hypothetical future robot descendents may be very interested in learning about their past.

We wouldn't know if we're in a simulation unless the diety/programmer wanted us to know that.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#27

Post by o11c »

gmuslera wrote: post #19

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,…

> 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?

Those are really interesting claims you make. Very often I see the exact opposite claims out there: humans have almost no idea what the god(s) are really thinking, and religion seeks to contrast itself from the surrounding culture.

(that's not the biggest philosophical conflict I see in religious discussion, but the other is Christian-specific)

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#28

Post by tshaddox »

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…

Aren’t you essentially just describing a Great Filter, which is one of the classic proposed solutions to the Fermi paradox?

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#29

Post by hotpotamus »

echelon wrote: post #7
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.

> implication that humans are possibly one of the earliest sentient spacefaring species to have appeared so far. Or that perhaps we're a simulation. We exist in a very interesting time in history when the pieces are coming together. Our hypothetical future robot descendents may be very interested in learning about their past.

If we're in a simulation, there's no reason that other beings couldn't have also arisen within the simulation with us.

Re: Grabby Aliens (2021)

#30

Post by pavel_lishin »

> that early deadline explains human earliness.

I don't buy these statistical arguments.

If only one sentient species is born before 20 billion years have passed since the big bang, and ten million sentient species are born after that time, yes - statistically, you're more likely to be one of the later species.

But that early worm species still exists, and experiences its existence.

If they thought to themselves, "obviously there's others out there, it's statistically certain!", then they are wrong.

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