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Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

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Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#51

Post by joshvm »

kordless wrote: post #2

Yesterday, I watched Bruno Vassel fly his glider in the Rocky Mountains for nearly 2 hours on Youtube. I hypothesize someday we will be able to extract energy from the Ether to power our own spaceships in a similar way to gliding. That's not to say we won't need to add our own energy to get somewhere specific!

Either this a really bizarre coincidence, or YouTube is promoting his videos. I too discovered his channel this week, it's surprisingly relaxing watching him mess around for hours. Especially if you've had any experience soaring, it's interesting to watch his technique and hear him talk through his thought process as he's flying.

Helps that the thermals where he is are so good you can blast up to 13k feet from a 2k aerotow.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#52

Post by devoply »

firefoxd wrote: post #31

Has anyone looked at the CIA declassified documents that appeared a few days ago? https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/search/site/ufo%20ph... It does have pictures of UFO for reference Edit: added details

CIA does not want the CIA or former CIA talking about UFOs to the public.

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP68-00046...

The CIA wants to keep UFOs out of public discussions, to not cause people to panic. Or alternatively, there is a conspiracy or collusion with the aliens to keep the government from panicking the public about UFOs ;)

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005517565....

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#54

Post by motoboi »

rayalez wrote: post #50
wernercd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if you could simulate anything, why would you simulate this?" I want to agree... but then... I look at Youtube and wonder why a large portion of that gets made. With the computing power we have NOW... look at all the stupid stuff that gets made. Imagine 50 years from now.

Well, making a silly youtube video for no reason is not the same as making a world where millions of sentient beings suffer/die for no reason.

Have you saw those YouTube videos about genetic algorithms teaching a thing to walk of fly? You may think: this thing do not suffer or feel any pain in repeating millions of times the same moviments just to fall on the floor less and less, no problem at all.

Advance a thousand years in the future and someone may happily simulate the world where you live among trillions of another things trying to evolve.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#55

Post by jbpetersen »

jeff_petersen wrote: post #35
ansible wrote: post #15

The problem with interstellar travel in general is that it is so expensive, in terms of energy usage. I speculate that even for Kardashev type 3 civilizations, shipping matter around will be impractical. The future is software. For entities that live purely as software, and aren't so picky as us meatbags are about continuity of consciousness, "traveling" from place to place by sending data is the most practical metho…

> The future is software. For entities that live purely as software, and aren't so picky as us meatbags are about continuity of consciousness, "traveling" from place to place by sending data is the most practical method. Sure, but for entities that live purely as software the concept of "being" in a "place" is probably completely unimportant. There's no reason to assume that software entities would have any reason to…

Once you've maxed out your abilities with the resources available in one place, then you'd probably start specializing for different abilities in different places to the extent you can gain additional value through comparative advantage. With that in mind sharing the unique results of the different specializations means location is still important in the absence of instantaneous communication over arbitrary distance.

P.S. Your name seems strangely familiar. /s

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#56

Post by gozur88 »

ansible wrote: post #15

The problem with interstellar travel in general is that it is so expensive, in terms of energy usage. I speculate that even for Kardashev type 3 civilizations, shipping matter around will be impractical. The future is software. For entities that live purely as software, and aren't so picky as us meatbags are about continuity of consciousness, "traveling" from place to place by sending data is the most practical metho…

To a sufficiently advanced civilization matter and energy are just flip sides of the same coin. Why make the distinction?

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#57

Post by kobeya »

r00fus wrote: post #37
mustacheemperor wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read this, and about ideas like the Von Neumann probe[0] all the time, and it really fills my head with concrete to try and reconcile those ideas with the fact that we haven't found any signs of extraterrestrial life yet. If it's so feasible in a "short" time relative to the age of the universe, where are all the probes? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Vo...

A great book that explores this topic (and is pretty funny) is "We are Legion, We are Bob" [1]. Well that and Spin [2], which probably addresses your point - maybe they're out there and they're already messing with us? Ultimately, whenever I think about Fermi's Paradox, I am reminded of xkcd [3]. Maybe we just can't tell they're right in front of us. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse-Book-ebook/d...…

Also Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds for a more sinister solution to the Fermi problem.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#58

Post by wernercd »

rayalez wrote: post #50
wernercd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if you could simulate anything, why would you simulate this?" I want to agree... but then... I look at Youtube and wonder why a large portion of that gets made. With the computing power we have NOW... look at all the stupid stuff that gets made. Imagine 50 years from now.

Well, making a silly youtube video for no reason is not the same as making a world where millions of sentient beings suffer/die for no reason.

Yes and no. I'll agree that simulating a universe isn't the same as making a stupid video...

But I stand by my assertion that people waste a LOT of time doing stupid stuff.

There are projects that do AMAZING things and are spectacular. Then there is the other 95% of Youtube.

I'm sure there will be some AMAZING simulations... and then there will be the majority of them...

The real question in my mind... is which of those simulations are we in... an Amazing one... or a subpar one used for comparisons.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#59

Post by AgentME »

jeff_petersen wrote: post #35
ansible wrote: post #15

The problem with interstellar travel in general is that it is so expensive, in terms of energy usage. I speculate that even for Kardashev type 3 civilizations, shipping matter around will be impractical. The future is software. For entities that live purely as software, and aren't so picky as us meatbags are about continuity of consciousness, "traveling" from place to place by sending data is the most practical metho…

> The future is software. For entities that live purely as software, and aren't so picky as us meatbags are about continuity of consciousness, "traveling" from place to place by sending data is the most practical method. Sure, but for entities that live purely as software the concept of "being" in a "place" is probably completely unimportant. There's no reason to assume that software entities would have any reason to…

Where you are affects the latency of your communications, and less crowded areas may have more computing power available.

Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?

#60

Post by solipsism »

mynegation wrote: post #18

Asking someone with better understanding of physics. Wolfram talks about space as a network. But would not that mean that there is an absolute reference frame? Relativity theory does not need it (not sure if it disproves that there is no such thing), and from what I know no such frame was found. How does that reconcile?

Until some people for whom theoretical physics is more than just a hobby start to take seriously Wolfram's crazy theories, you and I would be well served to ignore them.
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