Proxima Centauri has a Earth-like planet • Hacker News Board

Re: Proxima Centauri has a Earth-like planet

#41

Post by breuleux » Sat, Aug 13, 2016, 10:34 PM UTC

SerLava wrote: post #23

breuleux wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it makes sense for an intelligent civilization not to expand, if you consider the problem of synchronizing over vast interstellar distances. If it takes years to exchange messages and resources back and forth between two colonies, it will be slow and costly to keep them on the same page. That means they will likely evolve independently and may become competitors. In other words, colonies lacking resources ins…

>In other words, colonies lacking resources inside the expansion wave would start attacking their own neighbours, This could be possible if interstellar travel was very, very, very easy. But in all likelihood the last place you're going to want to find resources is on a tiny speck of rock 20 lightyears away.

Well, the basic idea is that some inhabitants of colony A may figure that if they remain on A, they can only expect to get 100 resource units, but if they move to B, which is weaker, they may be able to acquire 1,000 resources units instead. They wouldn't bring back resources from B to A, they would just do a hostile takeover so that they can live like kings.

Re: Proxima Centauri has a Earth-like planet

#42

Post by mbfg » Sun, Aug 14, 2016, 2:00 AM UTC

Practically the entire universe could be teaming with intelligent life, and we would never know it, given the speed of causality, even without the expansion of the universe.

Re: Proxima Centauri has a Earth-like planet

#43

Post by nsxwolf » Tue, Aug 23, 2016, 8:42 PM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #28

mirkules wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have fire underwater, take for example Magnesium torches. Knowing what we know now about technology, it is difficult to imagine getting to this point underwater. But imagine a life form that lived in these conditions from the beginning, and perhaps having tools and doing chemistry may not be so far fetched after all.

Again you are extrapolating the wrong things. Can't have incremental development underwater. Magnesium torches have thier own oxidizer. Find a way to refine magnesium underwater. I can imagine a lot of things but it doesn't mean it's possible. Technological life forms are going to be pretty similar to us. Sight, fine motor skills and various other aspects are going to be pretty close.

If they could find a way to blow glass underwater, from active volcanoes, they could create dry environments within glassware to do non-aquatic research within.