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What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

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Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#61

Post by xelxebar »

gmueckl wrote: post #57
Animats wrote: post #50

A fundamental question, of course, is whether FTL is possible. Special relativity says it isn't, and worse, that it would violate causality. We're probably fundamentally limited to having very slow conversations with any civilization that's within tens of light years. If any. We might find out about some that are further away, but there's not going to be interaction.

Well, this is our world view now. But we cannot predict future progress. Just as we laugh at the horribly wrong cosmological models of our ancestors from the middle ages now, our ancestors might do that with ours in a few centuries. The interesting thing about both theories of relativity is that they only add one or two rather small ideas to existing theories each (electrodynamics and Newtonian mwchanics) and derive…

Entangle the spins of two electrons; put one on Pluto and keep the other on Earth. How do you propose to send your FTL single bit?

The usual idea is that since "wave function collapse is instantaneous" we can measure the spin on Earth, collapse the superposition and then Pluto can "notice the collapse".

However, there's no way to notice that entagled particles have decohered without looking at both of them side by side. Or said another way, the entire planet Earth could be entagled with some giant blob of matter in an alien lab in Andromeda, but we have no way of discovering this without comparing Earth matter with the alien lab matter.

I've got my unreasonable hopes pinned on some incarnation of the Alcubierre Drive. Just gotta find that negative energy density first :)

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#62

Post by larrykwg »

cryoshon wrote: post #5

why is china so frightening to the west as a representative of humankind? they are imperfect, sure-- their abysmal human rights record will soon be matched by a collapsing xenophobic West. but they are evidence that humanity can produce contiguous government without overt destruction of rivals even when capable of doing so. they are evidence that humanity can persist in peaceful trade with other civilizations, even i…

Most Americans seem to take it for granted, that they are the ones making first contact, that's pretty deeply ingrained in pop-culture. But who builds the biggest super colliders and telescopes the world has ever seen? Anyone but the USA. I think any alien life capable of traveling to us, would stay far away from trump land.

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#63

Post by 7952 »

Udik wrote: post #51
remarkEon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These thought experiments are always a little strange to me. If an alien race has the technology for interstellar travel I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to assume they’d also be able to do whatever they want to observe us (i.e. stay hidden if they like). I think a much more interesting thought experiment is this: if an alien race chooses to make First Contact with us, what’s the likelihood we’re actually the…

> Being a student of history, it’s a stretch for me to think they wouldn’t know these sorts of events trigger drastic changes in the native populations I think we should really stop thinking that space travel is the natural continuation of the geographic explorations and colonizations of our past. It has nothing to do with it- new planets cannot be colonized because they're uninhabitable (Earth included for an alien)…

Human life already relies hugely on an artificially created habitat to satisfy basic needs. The trend is to become less coupled to the natural environment that we evolved within. Perhaps that could one day include self supporting habitats beyond the surface of earth. But I do wonder if the focus on planetary surfaces is desirable. If we can survive on the surface of Mars then perhaps space stations/ships could also be self sustaining? If there is enough material outside of big gravity wells then why not?

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#64

Post by krapp »

Joeri wrote: post #40
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we assume the aliens would even recognize humans as a species worth talking to? They could be so far beyond us, that (a) they would have no idea how to talk to us (like we have no idea how to talk to ants) and (b) they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between us and other species in terms of intelligence (like we can’t tell the difference between a fish and a crab). We humanize aliens because otherwise…

They may just consider us very young. You only tell a child things it is ready to handle. Arguably we’re not ready to make first contact. It has a high risk of leading us to war, the equivalent of a child throwing a tantrum.

On the other hand, the aliens might not care, any more than Europeans cared about African or Mesoamerican cultures. The aliens may simply show up and consider the world to be theirs by their version of divine right.

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#65

Post by dannyw »

yorwba wrote: post #42
0xBA5ED wrote: post #34

Do we really think they'll be using radio communication? We're already dabbling with quantum comm ourselves. And if they can travel the stars, they'd have been incentivized to develop something better long ago. One would think... Hell, maybe the whole galaxy has quantum wifi.

"Quantum communication" still uses a conventional communication channel to exchange data, it's only the encryption key that is determined by exchanging single quanta. That's because single quanta are very susceptible to noise, which is very useful to detect eavesdropping but undesirable when you want to exchange large amounts of data. To reliably send a signal across large distances, it's much better to use a bright…

Your message is accurate, but I think you're missing the forest for the trees.

It's like looking for telegraphy systems when everyone else are using radio waves.

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#66

Post by Svenstaro »

neotek wrote: post #33

Given the vast distances involved, I've always thought first contact would be much closer to this short story by @qntm: https://qntm.org/retrospective It's a fantastic read, set aside a few minutes to go through it, you won't regret it.

Well, that was a depressingly realistic read.

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#67

Post by fit2rule »

bnegreve wrote: post #41
0xFFFE wrote: post #36

What if we are the first/only intelligent beings in the universe and it is upon us to spread to other galaxies and stars? Probabilistically unlikely for us to be the only ones, but just a thought.

> Probabilistically unlikely for us to be the only ones, but just a thought. How do you even measure that? If the number of coincidences required for life to emerge is large enough, the probability of observing life on a planet could very well be far bellow 1 over the number of planets in the universe. That would make us probably alone :(

So far we know its true of the solar system, at least.

Which means there's no really good reason we can't move our factories to space and turn Earth into a Life Haven.

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#68

Post by Jyaif »

Animats wrote: post #50

A fundamental question, of course, is whether FTL is possible. Special relativity says it isn't, and worse, that it would violate causality. We're probably fundamentally limited to having very slow conversations with any civilization that's within tens of light years. If any. We might find out about some that are further away, but there's not going to be interaction.

If humans start to be able to live millennia, speed of light becomes less of an issue.

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#69

Post by emodendroket »

remarkEon wrote: post #32
c_shu wrote: post #15

If the aliens are strong enough to land their spaceship on earth, investigating all countries is probably a piece of cake for them. There is no reason for them to tie themselves to a certain country or area. In another case, if they establish communication with a certain country/organization, but they cannot arrive, and somehow can only communicate with that certain country/organization, then it could be a different…

These thought experiments are always a little strange to me. If an alien race has the technology for interstellar travel I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to assume they’d also be able to do whatever they want to observe us (i.e. stay hidden if they like). I think a much more interesting thought experiment is this: if an alien race chooses to make First Contact with us, what’s the likelihood we’re actually the…

Being accomplished space travelers doesn't necessarily imply a nuanced understanding of psychology

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#70

Post by yorwba »

dannyw wrote: post #65
yorwba wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Quantum communication" still uses a conventional communication channel to exchange data, it's only the encryption key that is determined by exchanging single quanta. That's because single quanta are very susceptible to noise, which is very useful to detect eavesdropping but undesirable when you want to exchange large amounts of data. To reliably send a signal across large distances, it's much better to use a bright…

Your message is accurate, but I think you're missing the forest for the trees. It's like looking for telegraphy systems when everyone else are using radio waves.

If you have no idea that radio waves exist and no way to build a receiver, looking for telegraph lines is the best you can do. Given our (or rather my) knowledge of physics and engineering, electromagnetic waves are the best medium for long-distance communication and quantum magic isn't going to change that anytime soon. If there really is something that's even better, we can start worrying about it once we can detect it.
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