[HN Gopher] Have we already been visited by aliens? ___________________________________________________________________ Have we already been visited by aliens? Author : elorant Score : 140 points Date : 2021-01-20 14:43 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com) | yters wrote: | If not, where did our dna come from? | vmception wrote: | I'm willing to disagree with most things I read here. | | Entertaining, but way too many assumptions. | | He* started with Oumaumua, which I am willing to entertain, and | then went way off in other "thought leadership" directions that | should all be their own articles. | | *Avi Loeb, he. Not Elizabeth Kolbert the author. | unnouinceput wrote: | *She | itisit wrote: | *They | Horba wrote: | She' | vmception wrote: | Avi Loeb wrote the book and who I am talking about. There | isn't ambiguity about whether I was talking about the article | writer or the person the article was talking about. Read the | article again, there is a particular person talking about | Oumaumua and then assumptions about alien natural selection. | Xcelerate wrote: | Tangential to the article, but I'm not sure why more isn't | mentioned about what I consider to be the most likely reason we | haven't been visited by aliens: they probably exist somewhere due | to the sheer size of the universe, but the speed of light is | indeed the fundamental limit to classical information transfer as | our current understanding of physics predicts, and therefore we | are simply too far away from any sort of intelligence that exists | out there to contact or reach us. | | It's a simple and boring explanation but from my perspective also | the most likely. | cgriswald wrote: | The solution to distance isn't energy; it's time. Even at | speeds much lower than the speed of light, a civilization could | have spread across or explored the Milky Way in a few millions | of years. These needn't have been biological creatures. Von | Neumann probes, "Genesis" machines, or just flinging rocks with | sensors on them to tour the stars would do the trick. | blueblisters wrote: | What would motivate a civilization to undertake such an | experiment? A probe a 50,000 light years away would take | 50,000 years to send back any meaningful information. Unless | alien life-spans are significantly longer than humans, I | would think this would probably not be funded by their | science department. | GoblinSlayer wrote: | They spent 50000 years exploring space, we spent 50000 | years waging wars. Who spent their time better? | RobertoG wrote: | A probe of the sophistication of a Von Newman machine, that | can reproduce, would be the alien in itself. A network of | such probes would be a civilization. | sterlind wrote: | Von Neumann probes would be great at asteroid mining. If | you just let the probes keep going rather than limiting | their distance, they'd cover the 50k light years easily. | Not much overhead on the civilization. | avz wrote: | I don't find the argument that distances are too great for | intelligence to meet particularly convincing. At its core lies | unjustified extrapolation that the ratio of average lifespan to | typical interstellar distance - a pure accident of Earthly | biology - somehow extends to the whole universe. | | The key quantity on which the argument hinges is | T * c / D | | where T is the average lifespan of the intelligent being in | question, c is the speed of light and D is a typical separation | between stars in a region of interest. | | In our stellar neighborhood there are about 0.004 stars per | cubic light year [1], so if we choose to measure D as the | reciprocal of the cubic root of stellar density then D is about | 6.3 light years which is of the same order of magnitude as the | distance to Proxima Centauri (~4.2 ly). This quantity varies | somewhat, e.g. global clusters have about 0.4 stars per cubic | parsec [2] which is more than 0.01 stars per cubic light year | for D of 4.4 ly. | | In case of humans, T is about 79 years. We don't know anything | about any alien lifeforms, but even among lifeforms on Earth T | varies significantly. For example, Bowhead whales can live more | than 200 years [3]. Traveling 4 ly at 5% of the speed of light | is a possibility for such creatures. Moreover, entities with | artificial intelligence could live (function?) significantly | longer. Possibly forever. | | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_density | | [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globular_cluster | | [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowhead_whale | at_a_remove wrote: | This has been my basic take on it. | | However, if you want a point of concern, I'll throw out some | alternatives. I'm going to ignore generation ships, because | those seem a trifle unlikely (too complex, rather cruel to the | inhabitants), but let's imagine some embryo-laden carriers, | freeze-dried aliens, and von Neumann probes. | | Now, again, that's still a long way for very little gain. | There's nothing physical you could bring back to your | civilization that would be "worth" the trip, but what about | some _irrational_ civilizations? Religious zealots, or just a | large enough portion of a technologically advanced society that | says, "Screw it, let's hurl some madly self-replicating probes | out into the spiral arm." Ninety-nine percent of their | civilization might think that is a terrible idea (or pick your | proportion), but there only needs to be a few to pull it off. | | Why are we not seeing the von Neumann probes? I will admit that | the other scenarios are less likely. But where are they? Even | at a ten thousandth the speed of light they would have swarmed | the galaxy, replicating down one spiral arm, into the core, and | back out along the remaining arms. | GoblinSlayer wrote: | The solar system is between arms. | cronix wrote: | > but the speed of light is indeed the fundamental limit to | classical information transfer as our current understanding of | physics predicts | | I used to think that as well, but with all of the recent proof | of quantum entanglement, I'm not so sure anymore. | | https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/295013-scientists-captur... | scythmic_waves wrote: | My (relatively uninformed) understanding was that you | couldn't transfer information via quantum entanglement. Is | that not correct? | cronix wrote: | This is not my field, but it seem if you can spin 1 | particle in a known direction and the entangled "partner" | particle spins the exact opposite direction, then why not? | Basically everything would just be reversed with a 1 being | a 0 and a 0 being a 1 on the receiving end. I know both the | Chinese and American governments are working on quantum | entanglement as a communication mechanism and the Chinese | have had some success between satellites. Basically a real | time wireless internet. | | Edit: better link for Chinese experiments from Science Mag. | | https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/quantum-internet- | clo... | | https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-experiment-quantum- | com... | | https://newatlas.com/telecommunications/us-government- | bluepr... | matmatmatmat wrote: | As others have said, the fundamental problem is that all | you can deduce is that whatever the spin of your particle | is, the other particle has the opposite spin. You cannot | determine the spin of your particle in order to affect | the spin of the other particle. | IgorPartola wrote: | Because you don't get to choose which way the particle | spins when creating an entangled pair. | IgorPartola wrote: | Moreover you can't transfer information faster than the | speed of light. | | As for QE: I first I need to send you a particle at | sunlight speeds. Then I measure my particle and get the | value N, which means I immediately know that your particle | must be -N. Great for key exchange: I can send you let's | say 2048 of these particles and then we instantly know each | other's keys/have a shared key, while also knowing if the | transmission has been tempered with in transit. But I can't | send you a message I choose. | standardUser wrote: | On this of all days, I say let's double down on facts instead of | crafting our own imaginary worlds. | cronix wrote: | Lex Fridman had a really good interview with Avi Loeb about | Oumuamua, among other things, about a week ago. Highly recommend! | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plcc6E-E1uU | TacoToni wrote: | Fantastic episode. | libertine wrote: | Very interesting, and it gives a really good highlight of the | whole Oumuamua event, which got a bit distorted in the media. | | The things that stood out were: | | - Our range of vision to spot such objects is narrow; | | - We don't have much "resolution" of the object, and we have to | work with limited data; | | - that fact that we managed to get that data was already really | good and it's enough to theorize about a lot of stuff, but not | enough to tell precisely what it was. | | - the object behavior as it approached the sun doesn't match | the type of object that we perceived at the beginning; | | - the object could have been stationary; | [deleted] | dfsegoat wrote: | Having watched the vid, he goes into specifics of why he thinks | Oumuamua is 'not a rock' based on geometry and reflectivity. It | was quite fascinating. | tiborsaas wrote: | Prof David Kipping did a point-by-point analysis of Loeb's | claims: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX_Bj7064Ms | | TLDW: most likely a natural object. | floatrock wrote: | Thanks for the link. Always good to hear the other side, | especially after listening to the Lex interview a while back. | Here's the summary: | | Loeb's argument for Ouamuamua being aliens rests on 6 observed | anomalies. All but 1 or 2 have pretty reasonable rebuttals. | | [1]: _Anomaly: There are too few interstellar asteroids to | expect something like this, so it must have been aimed at us._ | The brand new telescope that discovered this was designed to | look for interstellar rocks like this, but the fact that it | discovered one so quickly is absurdly lucky. | | _Rebuttal:_ Most models for interstellar rocks could be wrong. | There are some models for interstellar rock ejection however | that would put this observation right in the zone of reasonable | probability. | | [2]: _Anomaly: Ouamuamua is flying in a vector called the Local | Standard of Rest (LSR)_ -- it 's not "flying" through space, | but rather looks like a stationary beacon or 'buoy' (aliens | speculation: comms or navigation station). The LSR is basically | average orbit around the galactic core -- all local stars are | bouncing in all directions, but if you zoom out, on average, | everyone's orbiting the galactic core. This average is the LSR, | and it's weird that Ouamuamua is right in the LSR range. | | _Rebuttal: LSR is exactly what you would expect for an | interstellar asteroid._ Interstellar asteroids are formed early | in solar system development, when gas clouds are still | condensing into stars and planets. Those gas clouds are | traveling around the galaxy in the LSR range, so anything | ejected during that time should be in the LSR range. | | [3]: _Anomaly: Ouamuamua had an unusual orbit and flew close to | Earth, so it must have been aimed at us._ | | _Rebuttal: Observational bias._ Had it not passed so close to | us, we wouldn 't have seen it. Given that within only a few | weeks it all but disappeared from detection capabilities while | still well within the solar system, it could be there's lots of | other objects like this currently in the solar system that we | just haven't detected yet. | | [4]: _Anomaly: Ouamuamua is too reflective to be a comet or | asteroid._ | | _Rebuttal: Straight up disagreement._ Other scientists to | point to comets and asteroids that could have that level of | reflectivity. | | The last two arguments are the interesting ones where the | rebuttals are a bit weak. | | [5]: _Anomaly: Shape is too strange to be natural, but could be | a thin solar sail_ , tumbling perhaps due to being derelict. It | was too small to resolve with any telescopes, but by curve- | fitting brightness shifts, models suggest it's either cigar- | shaped (popular depiction) or pancake-shaped (the solar sail | hypothesis). | | _Rebuttal: It does have an anomalous 6:1 brightness shift | every 8 hours, but a tumbling solar sail should have an even | higher contrast ratio._ If it was a solar sail, it would have | to be gently wobbling, not completely tumbling. This is | actually what we 'd expect from a solar sail (keep it more or | less pointed at the sun), but if that was true, we would have | expected the brightness fluctuations to even out as it got | further from the sun (angles and geometry). This was not | observed, so it probably kept tumbling, therefore not solar | sail. | | [6]: _Anomaly: It exhibited acceleration that couldn 't be | explained by gravitational forces._ Comets have this | acceleration because a comet's tail is outgassing of the ices | that make up the comet, acting as a rudimentary thruster. But | Ouamuamua didn't have any observed tail, therefore, solar sail. | | _Rebuttal: Basically some kind of new comet chemistry that | would have prevented us from observing the comet tail._ Some | gasses would have been hard to observe, or the outgassing was | lagged so it started after we would have been able to observe | it. Basically, "we haven't seen this before, but there are | hypothetical ways to explain this." Science, and astronomy | specifically, is filled with those kinds of "we haven't seen | this before" discoveries. | | ----- | | This is my summary of the youtube video, which is a summary of | a few papers... to go deeper, should probably read the primary | sources. I'm also just a youtube watcher, not an astronomer. | | In the Lex podcast, Loeb kept quoting Sherlock Homes: "If you | exclude all other possibilities, whatever remains, however | improbable, must be the truth." My take is all of these | rebuttals do seem to include other more prosaic possibilities, | so Loeb hasn't really excluded all the other possibilities that | warrant the jump to the improbable. | networkimprov wrote: | After I watched that (love Dr. Kipping) I watched Event | Horizon's interview with Loeb, and it raises a cpl items that | Kipping didn't address (e.g. the shape is a pancake, not | cigar). | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D24E4F90HTo | princekolt wrote: | As soon as the article mentioned von Daniken in a serious light I | stopped reading. von Daniken is a fraud and embezzlement convict | and has admitted to fabricating lots of his fantastical stories | and has no place in serious scientific research. I should have | expected less from a lifestyle magazine, I guess. | johnisgood wrote: | Of course. Even PubMed is ridden with ridiculous stuff. PubMed! | To give you an example: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3068791/ | | Thankfully we can do our own research, see by whom it has been | cited, in what journal it has been published, and so forth. You | can easily tell that this is quite an unimportant and | incredible one. Of course you could tell it yourself after | having read it that it is nonsense. | jwally wrote: | Are there any guides / heuristics on how a layperson can | evaluate technical literature? | | For example my mother-in-law is starting to micro-dose | lithium and cited this article as evidence: | https://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2020/12/lithium- | and-a... | | Which cites 19 medical journals. The website itself reeks of | bullshit, but how can I tell if the journals it cites are | valid or just woo? | johnisgood wrote: | I am currently working on redesigning the entire academic | publishing system which is not an easy task and since | because I am alone, it may take an entire lifetime of mine, | and it is on hold sadly. I wish someone could take it up | with me. I was "squatting" on a domain which is about to | expire because I cannot even pay for it. :/ I have no time | to work on the design itself, let alone the implementation, | because I have to survive on shitty money. I did work on | the design quite a lot a year ago when I could afford it, | but it has been a while. It would be quite easy to filter | out nonsensical articles the way it would work in my case, | among other features. I cannot really talk about it on | here. | | That said, there are lots of "may" in the article. As to | why someone is telling you this, well, in this case it is | to sell you their products. She could consult a doctor | about it. What form is the lithium in? How much of the | product (which they sell) is actual lithium? Should look at | the studies mentioned where they say "may", so that you | would actually have something to base your beliefs on, | because "may" is not a claim of "will", and "may" is not | "evidence", it is just speculation; they are merchants of | hope. The article also does not go very in depth with the | comparisons of dose. How much lithium do people get daily | and from which sources? Might it turn out that micro-dosing | is actually a mere 1/10th of what people already get | normally in a day? Keep also in mind, that some regions | have lithium in their tap water already. Plus, people | believe the news too, because it _sounds_ believable, but | this is not about technical literature alone. People do | need to get educated about how to critically comb articles. | | By the way: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11838882/ | | > Lithium is commonly found in drinking water and various | foods, with dietary intake estimated at 0.6 to 3.1 | milligrams per day in the United States in 1985. Lithium | supplements are sold as pills, liquid capsules, solutions, | and syrups of lithium orotate or lithium aspartate. | deeeeplearning wrote: | Looking at the Impact Factor of a Journal can help but it's | not perfect. For example Nature and Science, generally | considered the most prestigious journals in the world, have | impact factors around 1000 and smaller but still quality | niche Physics journals might be in the low hundreds. | | The bottom line is that as a Layperson it would be | extremely difficult to vet the validity of any given paper | let alone whole journals. | | https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php | jwally wrote: | Bookmarking that. Thank you! | | I think I was starting to draw that conclusion. | | If a claim is in the Lancet, NEMJ, Nature, etc; its | probably pretty credible. | | If a claim is in another journal; it shouldn't have much | bearing on my decision (positive or negative) since I | don't have the expertise to evaluate it. | SuoDuanDao wrote: | I've long thought the starseeder hypothesis was a good bet from | purely statistical grounds. What are the odds of intelligent life | arising ex nihilo? We'd assume infinitesimal. | | Given that it happened once, what are the odds that life will | successfully expand to other planets? I at least would assume | better than it happening independently again, we've never seen | autogenesis but we have sent tardigrades to the moon. | cgriswald wrote: | I'm imagining two paths for life to spread between star | systems. | | The first is via intelligent life actively exploring those | systems--the purpose or mechanism of that exploration doesn't | really matter; life could get there either way. So now you're | comparing the statistical probability of abiogenesis against | the product of the probabilities of a half dozen unlikely | events (roughly, first abiogensis -> cells -> animals -> | intelligence -> civilization -> technological civilization -> | society stable enough to spread life amongst the stars). This | isn't clear cut, but my best guess is that abiogenesis | happening twice is rather more likely. | | The second is via some form of microbial life leaving the star | system and spreading to other stars by accident (whether | evolutionary accident or 'act of God'). I think it's possible | life could leave the star system by some mechanism and with a | ridiculous number of individuals and time could hit other star | systems rather than floating in between systems forever. Then | it has to land on a planet that not only doesn't kill it, but | allows it to thrive. (Tardigrades aren't going to populate the | moon.) I'm not sure how possible or likely this would be, but | I'm guessing it requires a ton of time (that the universe may | not have experienced yet) and, if it were likely, we'd have | already found evidence of life on Mars. | mrec wrote: | > _What are the odds of intelligent life arising ex nihilo? We | 'd assume infinitesimal._ | | Why would we assume that? We've been seeing biologically | interesting chemicals appear from much simpler ones for well | over a century. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Chemical_synthesis... | | Also, your "starseeder hypothesis" sounds a lot more deliberate | than panspermia theories, but correct me if I'm | misunderstanding you there. | [deleted] | acvny wrote: | How many times has this story been presented over different names | and titles? | hchz wrote: | Regardless of the truth in this specific case, Avi has some very | interesting ideas such as the habitable early universe. | | https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613 | excitom wrote: | Such an object would function as a sail--one powered by light, | rather than by wind. The natural world doesn't produce sails; | people do. | | What about jellyfish that move about the oceans pushed by wind? | TeMPOraL wrote: | It's a weird statement that confuses the purpose of an object | with what an object does. Purpose exists only in our heads; | natural objects don't have one. There is no <purpose="sail"> | tag attached to atoms. | | In other words, anything that behaves as a sail would, can be | called a sail. And there are plenty of objects around us that | behave as sails, not made such by humans, or made so | unintentionally. | sgt101 wrote: | Or even more fun the idea than some pterosaurs were in fact | sailers! | | https://phys.org/news/2009-10-ancient-pterosaur-seas-video.h... | hchz wrote: | I think finding space jellyfish would also be a monumental | discovery. | ceejayoz wrote: | (Specifically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velella) | leblancfg wrote: | s/natural world/inorganic matter/ | InitialLastName wrote: | There are also rocks that do this: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones | mig39 wrote: | Yeah, I can think of a lot of examples of sails in the natural | world. Dandelion seeds, winged tree seeds, etc. | scott_s wrote: | Ballooning spiders as well. | beamatronic wrote: | Even some spiders | biryani_chicken wrote: | Flying Squirrels? | flatiron wrote: | I think the comment was poorly worded with "people" and | should be "life" which is still an interesting thought. | BruceEel wrote: | In the linked chat with Lex Fridman, Loeb also mentioned how such | objects are likely to be zipping by essentially all the time. | It'd be great if by the time we spot the next one (of whatever | nature) we had a probe/robot/something able to catch up with it | (or better, catch it!) | sjcoles wrote: | If you can figure out how to generate that much delta V you've | solved solar system level space travel. | flatiron wrote: | You can at least put something in its way and if it nopes | around it to avoid a collision that's pretty freaking | interesting. | brians wrote: | And if it shoots back, that's briefly interesting too. | DennisAleynikov wrote: | closest thing I read was one of these flying right between | two fighter jets narrowly missing both, but also seemingly | not course correcting or changing behaviour apparently. | eloff wrote: | Again, if we had the technology to do that it would be | amazing. | | We can't generate even within a couple orders of magnitude | of the acceleration needed to do that. | mcbits wrote: | We probably do have the technology (money is the hard | part) to build a telescope array that spans the solar | system, and to keep some rockets in standby orbits beyond | Neptune. That would provide for earlier detection of an | approaching object and a better chance of having a rocket | close enough to intercept it. | eloff wrote: | The volume of space beyond Neptune is absolutely insane, | and the speeds of interstellar objects (theoretical | speeds that is, we don't have a large enough sample size | to draw conclusions about how well that matches actual | velocities) are also insane. We're very far from being | able do this. | GoblinSlayer wrote: | AFAIK, Japan conducted an experiment of asteroid | exploration by collision and it revealed chemical | composition. But if it's not an asteroid, it might be | seen as rude. | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: | > Loeb, though, explicitly rejects the Sagan standard--"It is not | obvious to me why extraordinary claims require extraordinary | evidence," he observes--and flips its logic on its head: | "Extraordinary conservatism keeps us extraordinarily ignorant." | So long as there's a chance that 1I/2017 U1 is an alien probe, | we'd be fools not to pursue the idea. "If we acknowledge that | 'Oumuamua is plausibly of extraterrestrial-technology origin," he | writes, "whole new vistas of exploration for evidence and | discovery open before us." | | Uh... this isn't at all clear to me. I don't think very many | people are saying it is impossible that Oumuamua was an alien | construct and actively discouraging science based on the idea it | could be, its just that it is a pretty big fallacy to say "we | don't understand it, therefore it was aliens". Recall that the | scientific community has gotten its hopes up about aliens several | times in the past with scientist proffering alien explanations | for "canals" on mars, pulsars, GRBs, and FRBs to name a few. | | If we assume that Oumuamua is an alien construct, what "new | vistas of exploration for evidence and discovery" open up that we | are not already pursuing? | AlexB138 wrote: | > ... proffering alien explanations for "canals" on mars, | pulsars, GRBs, and FRBs to name a few | | For those out there who, like me, don't know these acronyms: | | GRBs == Gamma-Ray Bursts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma- | ray_burst | | FRBs == Fast Radio Bursts: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_radio_burst | Retric wrote: | Yea, the actual fallacy is thinking you must identify what | something is before you have enough information. 1I/2017 U1 is | an unknown object and that's perfectly ok. It didn't display | any radio signals, unusual thrust, or extreme velocity | requiring it to be an alien probe. But, that doesn't prevent it | from being a probe either. | eloff wrote: | Or even just a piece of debris of unnatural origin. I'm not | saying that's what it is, or even is likely to be, but it's | in the possibility space. | jonathankoren wrote: | While it's true that it didn't produce any detectable radio | signals, it have an unexplained force acting on it. It was | this acceleration away from the sun that spawned the theories | of undetected outgassing or light pressure. As for "extreme | velocity", that's a bit a canard. It's traveling at | interstellar speeds, and humanity has already has five | interstellar probes today. Now none of these indicate that | it's probe -- working or otherwise -- but these aren't the | reasons against it. (Well, no radio emissions is a reason | against a working probe.) | | The big unknown for me about the object is that we don't | actually have a good idea about its shape. Drawings show it | has a cigar shaped rock, which is only one possible | configuration compatible with the radio reflections. If only | we could have actually seen the object, a lot of this | uncertainty would have been eliminated. | Retric wrote: | I chose _unusual_ as it had thrust consistent with comets. | | _After ruling out solar-radiation pressure, drag- and | friction-like forces, interaction with solar wind for a | highly magnetized object, and geometric effects originating | from 'Oumuamua potentially being composed of several | spatially separated bodies or having a pronounced offset | between its photocentre and centre of mass, we find comet- | like outgassing to be a physically viable explanation, | provided that 'Oumuamua has thermal properties similar to | comets._ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29950718/ | | PDF: https://csnbiology.org/rw_common/plugins/stacks/armadi | llo/me... | | PS: At to extreme velocity, something large traveling 0.1+ | c or even 0.01c is very likely to be aliens. This was fast, | but a long way from those kind of speeds. | eloff wrote: | > I don't think very many people are saying it is impossible | that Oumuamua was an alien construct and actively discouraging | science based on the idea it could be. | | Actually yes. You'll be laughed out of the virtual room, not | get funding, and potentially damage your career. | | As he points out in his interview with Lex (linked elsewhere in | the comments here) is fine to propose a multi billion dollar | experiment to detect oxygen on exoplanets, which is not | conclusive evidence of life, but to search for industrial | pollution is a non starter for exactly this reason. But that | would yield much more interesting results (both for negative | and positive results.) | bostonsre wrote: | Ridiculing scientists for plausible hypothesis seems very | unscientific. | eloff wrote: | This is very common in science. New theories are usually | rejected and ridiculed until/if they develop enough | evidence behind them to sway people. | | Some careers are destroyed. Some scientists are only | vindicated posthumously. The process can take many decades. | | Scientists, like most humans, are not that open-minded and | are subject to the same group-think blind spots. I think if | we could get better at being open-minded as a species, we'd | make faster progress and better ideas would win out more | often. This is as much true in society at large, or | business, as it is in science. | itronitron wrote: | _Bretz defended his theories, and this kicked off an | acrimonious 40-year debate over the origin of the | Scablands. Both Pardee and Bretz continued their research | over the next 30 years, collecting and analyzing evidence | that led them to identify Lake Missoula as the source of | the Spokane flood and creator of the channeled | scablands._ | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_floods | | Also Plate Tectonics... | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_development | _of... | eevilspock wrote: | Time to break out Thomas Kuhn. | mensetmanusman wrote: | And they are careerist... | | My Post-doc colleague during my PhD@MIT was explaining | this trick he does to get his system working that he | never publishes (one very small step of 100 steps). He | was concerned that if he published the step, it would | hurt his chances at getting a professorship. | | It's exactly the same logic behind why code is not | published. | | Because ethically you can 'hand wave it away' as obvious | to other experts and not worth publishing. | benibela wrote: | How can you be a post-doc without publishing? | remexre wrote: | I read that as, one step of his experimental procedure | isn't published. | galkk wrote: | I think what was meant could be described by a joke: | "professor writes a theorem proof on 6 pages, removes | pages 3 and 4 and writes 'trivially leads to'" | ntsplnkv2 wrote: | This is a good thing. If we entertained every crackpot | theory we would waste tons of time. it's good for there | to be some gatekeeping. Of course sometimes they're wrong | - but so what? That will come out if there is actual | evidence. | openasocket wrote: | It's not just science, I can think of an example from | pure mathematics. Cantor's work showing the | uncountability of the real numbers was derided by | prominent members of the mathematical community for | decades. This despite the fact that he was able to boil | down his argument into a proof so simple it's taught in | introductory undergraduate classes. Now, this was at a | time when mathematicians were still trying to rigorously | define set theory and ground mathematics on a foundation | of logic, but still it's a relatively simple and | understandable proof. I think the moral of the story is | that people are stubborn and are capable of disagreeing | about just about everything. | resource0x wrote: | Bad example. Cantor's theory is controversial to this | day. | | "Classical logic was abstracted from the mathematics of | finite sets and their subsets .... Forgetful of this | limited origin, one afterwards mistook that logic for | something above and prior to all mathematics, and finally | applied it, without justification, to the mathematics of | infinite sets. This is the Fall and original sin of | Cantor's set theory." | | -- Hermann Weyl | Joeri wrote: | Ah, but my sister always says I'm not open-minded because | I won't read all her antivaxer info. If we give all ideas | equal credence, better ideas will not win out. | anamexis wrote: | I think antivax claims have been given equal credence, | they've just been found false. | sli wrote: | A better example is that equal time is frequently given | to both sides of the climate change debate despite the | actually numbers showing that calling it a "debate" is | journalistic laziness. Equal credence would mean the | deniers only get about 3% of the allotted time to make | their crackpot case, because that's the closest they come | to being a "side" in this non-debate against the other | 93% that also have 100% of the data and research. | xattt wrote: | The most recent event that comes to my mind is the lead | up to the discovery of H. pylori causing gastric ulcers. | hntrader wrote: | Another: Many World's Interpretation of QM. Not known to | be true but less ridiculed and more widely subscribed. | eth0up wrote: | Append Ignaz Semmelweis to this important list, which is | a plump one. | sterlind wrote: | Tectonic plates was another big one. | mensetmanusman wrote: | This is a current fun topic with some controversy related | to tectonic plates: do solar flares cause earthquakes? | | https://astronomy.com/news/2020/07/powerful-eruptions-on- | the... | Enginerrrd wrote: | Despite being a really stupid-sounding premise, that is | actually kind of interesting. | treeman79 wrote: | Peoples position on that one shifted very slowly. | DyslexicAtheist wrote: | sir, may I see your dad license please? | eloff wrote: | Yeah that's a good one. | | Another is recommending trans-fat based margarine over | butter. That was counter-productive health advice that | took decades to reverse - even although the evidence it | was based on was extremely flimsy. | | Once the group-think machine gets going in a direction, | it has a tremendous amount of inertia. | rtx wrote: | Yet we find this to be a recurring theme, I wonder when | this switch happens. From a curious boy/girl who becomes a | scientist to a conservative. | irrational wrote: | Grad school. | voldacar wrote: | Yes, it is. And it has also been happening for the whole | history of anything recognizable as "science." | | The nice, pretty scientific method we learn about in school | is largely an idealized myth | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: | There seems to be a giant mismatch about what side is open | minded. People who think its most likely aliens think it's | closed minded to assign that low probability, presumably | because we're this tiny corner of the universe. People who | think it's most likely not aliens Think it's closed minded to | assign everything else low probability, presumably because | aliens are a tiny corner of everything else. | | Is it a misapplication of the anthropic principle to say there | are probably gazillions of advanced aliens, given that we | appeared and therefore life probably is common? Or is it a | misapplication to say it's probably just another of the | gazillions of non-alien things we've seen? | | It's all differences of opinion over which claim is the | extraordinary one. It is bold to claim confidence about the | impossibility of FTL travel, or bold to claim confidence about | the possibility of it? Is it bold to say we're a freak | occurrence or bold to say we aren't? Most generally, is it bold | to say we know a lot or bold to say we don't? | ncmncm wrote: | Their best future course is to stop sniping at one another. | | It is _possible_ that it 's aliens. It is _possible_ that it | 's not. We don't have enough evidence even to estimate | probabilities, so anything further is pure speculation. | Speculation is a look that wears no better on conservatives | than on radicals. | | There is hardly a field to be found where young radicals are | not promoting evidence for what the tenured consider | anathema, waiting for the latter to retire or die and get the | hell out of the way. As Max Planck said, "Science advances | one funeral at a time." | | It is common to insist that the right idea wins in the end, | but there is no reason to believe it: every case you can cite | in its favor amounts to confirmation bias. The frequency of | such examples that first languished for decades, with the | original proposer driven from the field, would properly make | us suspect that the majority of their also-correct peers | remain unvindicated, however many false leads have been | exposed. (Hypotheses promoted by women driven from a field | make a rich vein of ideas to vindicate.) | | Loeb is right about one thing: the notion of "extraordinary | evidence" is very destructive. Evidence is evidence. It is | _always_ easy to make greater demands on evidence you don 't | like than on evidence you do, and always easy find excuses to | discount evidence incompatible with the consensus of the | moment. Every field, to be considered legitimate, should | maintain an officially taught compendium of "damned facts", | evidence that seems to be incompatible with one or more | leading theories. Even when a consensus theory is largely | correct, the damned evidence will be the basis of any | progress. | | Nature doesn't play favorites: it is possible for a consensus | theory _and_ all its challengers to be wrong. Evidence | against one of the latter is not evidence in favor of the | former. | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: | > Loeb is right about one thing: the notion of | "extraordinary evidence" is very destructive. Evidence is | evidence. | | I agree with pretty much everything you're saying except | this. Though I still do agree with this a bit. It seems | like a shorthand for "be bayesian" that's unfortunately | taken too far too frequently. But if I have a strong prior | one way or another, I will need stronger evidence to turn | me around. | | +1 on your main point though. Why can't more people be more | comfortable in a state of uncertainty ;_; | ncmncm wrote: | Few things in science are more subjective than the | relative importance of a piece of evidence. | | It is not at all unusual for a key measurement to be | wrong, but also not unusual to trust the wrong one. | gfxgirl wrote: | I thought the idea that there are gazillions of advanced | aliens has been pretty much disproven by the fermi paradox. | | If there are gazillion, at least one out of all the diversity | out there should have already colonized the entire galaxy and | evidence should be plentiful. | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: | There's a nice analysis of the Fermi paradox out there | somewhere that takes into account uncertainties in each of | the parameters. As you multiply them together, the | uncertainties compound each other. The end result is a big | old who knows, rather than a paradox. Our observations are | compatible with a really wide variety of realities, many of | which include lots of aliens and many of which don't. | shrimp_emoji wrote: | A possible chink is that civilizations just don't do that | -- carpet colonize the whole galaxy, or fill it with their | probes to the extent that we seem them all over the place. | The Fermi paradox relies on material (probes, colonies) and | light (signals). | | With the material explained away, the lack signals is much | easier to explain in that we haven't listened long and we | can only hear very loud signals. (Or maybe advanced civs | don't use light and use gravity waves or tachyon beams or | whatever, but you don't even need to go that far.) The only | way we hear a signal is if it's: | | 1. loud (high energy) and aimed directly at us, like a | tight beam | | 2. EXTREMELY LOUD and aimed everywhere, isotropically | | 1 is unlikely since they'd have to know where we are; 2 is | unlikely since you're talking about an _insane_ level of | energy. If it 's the case that civs don't seem to be making | Dyson spheres or harvesting whole galaxies for energy, | being able to throw around that kind of power is | prohibitively expensive. In both these cases, the inverse | square law applies (for every unit x of distance, the | light's x2 less bright). Ironically, that means we're more | likely to detect signals from an improbably close | civilization (like 4 light years next door, in Alpha | Centuari), than from farther away -- and even then, by a | chance sweep of an umodulated asteroid scanning beam[0] or | something, if we happened to be paying attention at the | time. | | 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLC1 | jrumbut wrote: | Do you know if about any simulations of what it would | look like if there were alien radio operators? | | If there were 50 other Earths scattered around the galaxy | (ones that have been broadcasting like us but for longer) | should the first television have imnediately picked up | interstellar "I Love Lucy" or would it be faint anomalies | from SETI? Somewhere in between? | stretchcat wrote: | Every advancing civilization will eventually create an | internet. Once they do that, interstellar travel is off the | table. Advanced civilizations stay closely packed because | they cannot tolerate latency once they get a taste for near | instant communication. | PoachedSausage wrote: | Maybe there has been some sort of accident of scale, like | the intergalactic fleet in Hitch Hiker Guide to the Galaxy | that arrives to destroy Earth but is eaten by a dog. | | There could be a banging ET party going at the Planck scale | and we would never know, they might as well be on the other | side of the universe. | godelski wrote: | The problem with this is that mechanics is not scale | invariant. This puts bounds on creatures. Unless there's | some crazy different way to compute I wouldn't expect a | being to be able to have strong cognitive functions and | be the size of a fly. They would also have a difficult | time building advanced machinery to get to galactic | travel scales. Similarly I wouldn't expect a creature the | size of a Brontosaurus to become space faring. Because of | their sizes they would have to consume significantly more | resources to build simple things. A two story house | probably couldn't be created out of wood or other basic | biological materials making it difficult to transition | into even the stone age. They also require higher food | because energy requirements aren't linear. But think how | much it costs to send a pound to space. Their first to | space would be significantly more expensive. | | This doesn't mean these things are impossible because | maybe there are ways around them, but it certainty shifts | the probabilities by quite a bit. Given our current | understanding of biology _and_ mechanics it makes it much | more probable for creatures to be within the ballpark of | our size (let 's say crow to elephant?). | gfodor wrote: | Paradoxes are paradoxes precisely because they fail to | disprove two contradictory claims. | | For the Fermi paradox, the paradox is that the immensity of | the universe leading to life seems obvious, yet the | complete absence of that life around us seems to show it's | not there. So it disproves nothing, but actually highlights | the difficulty of disproving either claim given the other. | sli wrote: | I never much liked this being called a paradox since it | has so many built in assumptions, most of them centered | around any given, theoretical alien civilization | resembling a human civilization in any way. It's a | limitation of what we know for sure, since there's | certainly no rule that civilization elsewhere should | resemble civilization on Earth. That's an acceptable | limitation, it's difficult to notice things you don't | know you should notice, but it's a limitation | nonetheless. | | Of course, it's also possible for civilizations to be so | far away that we will like never detect them due to the | inverse square law. They could even be in parts of the | universe we can't observe. | mtts wrote: | According to the Chinese science fiction author Liu Cixin | the Fermi paradox is solved by the certainty that if an | alien civilization announces its presence to the rest of | the universe, one of the gazillions of other advanced alien | civilizations is sure to destroy it. So they keep quiet. | phkahler wrote: | The Killing Star. | mensetmanusman wrote: | That would imply the laws of physics somehow dictate the | self-manifestation or creation of intelligent clouds of | elements (e.g. humans) who by their vary quantum waveform | / nature are violent and want to destroy other clouds of | elements even if the cost involves harvesting energy from | your only local star. | emteycz wrote: | Not necessarily - the laws of physics might merely make | it likely enough to be common. | yoz-y wrote: | The books and all are nice but the Dark Forest Theory | doesn't hold agains much scrutiny. Among other reasons | because if that were true we would be already dead. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmCTmgavkrQ | galkk wrote: | I mean - it's called Dark Forest, but if you will look at | any documentary, even dark forest is full of life. You | will hear crickets, you will hear owls, you may see | fireflies. | | The theory has catchy name, but even the earth's nature | disproves it. | lambda_obrien wrote: | If you read the three books, you realize that the true | message is that if you're considered a possible threat to | an advanced species, they'll annihilate you, otherwise | you'll be left alone. Maybe every other species which | knows about us knows we can't even leave our own | planet/moon right now, the most we can do is send useless | robots to other planets over 30 years. | y-c-o-m-b wrote: | > If we assume that Oumuamua is an alien construct, what "new | vistas of exploration for evidence and discovery" open up that | we are not already pursuing? | | I think what he's trying to convey is that thinking of this | object under the assumption of "aliens" pushes us to develop | experimental technology to prove it. This could then lead to | future advances (whether intentional or accidental) potentially | helping us detect alien technology where we otherwise wouldn't | be able to had we not begun that pursuit. He's looking at it | from a very long-term perspective. | jonny_eh wrote: | Also infuriating since Sagan was a proponent of long-shot | science like SETI and the golden disc on Voyager. He proved | that we can be scientifically rigorous and still take chances | to explore. | jzer0cool wrote: | We should plan for another such event should Oumuamua (or | another) arrives again. I would find it fascinating to land on | such a device where we can place a beacon on it and watch it | through space. This may also help Oumuamua (should it be a probe) | to also detect a friendly landing on its ship for the remote | alien to detect. | [deleted] | syshum wrote: | I watched Ancient Aliens so clearly the answer is Yes | | /s | neonate wrote: | https://archive.is/AyFjv | mrbonner wrote: | I just started to watch the 1993 series Star Trek new generation. | The show has some interesting ideas regarding advanced | civilizations vs the primitive ones. One of which is called the | prime directive prohibiting any star fleet from intervening with | the evolution of primitive people. | | In one of the episodes "who watches the watcher" the USS | enterprise travels to planet Minkita 2 for a rescue mission and | encounters a primitive species of humanoid. By accident, they | exposed themselves and their technologies to the people there. | Now, those people consider star fleet personnel as god. Without | spoiling much, Jean Luc idea to refuse them this thought is | interesting and worth thinking when it comes to our scenario | here, don't you think? | | (I have to say that I am now big fan of the Star Trek series with | Sir Patrick. How could I miss it all those years?) | t-writescode wrote: | What's the spoiler-filled version of what happened? | postalrat wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Watches_the_Watchers#Plot | StavrosK wrote: | You should try DS9 when you're done with TNG. It's very | different, but still great. I think they're some of the best | shows ever made, especially because they didn't tiptoe around | ethical dilemmas, they made them a main part of each episode's | plot. | _Microft wrote: | ,,Computer - erase that entire personal log" | | This is from the DS9 episode ,,In the pale Moonlight". Check | Memory Alpha if you want to know more but be aware that | reading about this episode would be a massive spoiler if you | haven't watched DS9. Either way DS9 is absolutely | recommended. | mrbonner wrote: | Ann, the episode about Commander Data being asked to be | dissected for the study of his body? Jean Luc brilliantly | relates this idea of cloning the entire android to serve | human as a tread toward slavery. They are way ahead of us in | time. | StavrosK wrote: | The one with the court to determine whether Data is | sentient/human or property? Yeah, that's one of my favorite | episodes, and where I realized how amazing the show was. | floren wrote: | "The Measure of a Man", s2e9 | throwanem wrote: | After DS9 (or maybe before it), also take a look at Babylon | 5, the show that arguably inspired DS9 and certainly did a | lot of things that no Trek show to date has been bold enough | to try. It's a bit camp by today's standards, and the first | season struggles a bit in places - but the same can be fairly | said of TNG, and the depth of B5's narrative and | characterization remains in many ways unequaled since its | original run in the mid-90s. | 7thaccount wrote: | B5 is arguably the best scifi show ever in my opinion. | Amazing story, acting, ship battles, and philosophy | mrec wrote: | Agree 100%. What always struck me most about it was the | sheer _ambition_ of it - not just the raw scale of the | drama, not just setting things up in Season 1 that wouldn | 't pay off until the very end of Season 5 (if Michael | O'Hare hadn't needed to be written out), but getting | compelling long-term character arcs (especially for Londo | and G'Kar) into small-screen SF for the first time. | | If I have one major gripe about the show, it's the way it | was constantly padded out with filler eps at a time when | JMS's ability to get the core storylines finished was still | in doubt. The threat to S5 and resulting hasty | rearrangement of S4 meant that the final season didn't hit | with the weight it could have done; it felt like an | afterthought rather than a climax. | StavrosK wrote: | I remember watching Babylon 5 when I was young, but I was | probably too young to grasp all the meanings. I will | rewatch it, thanks! | throwanem wrote: | Oh, do! I also saw a few early episodes as a kid, but | didn't really have a chance to get what they were trying | to do; it wasn't until years later, when I had a chance | to watch the full series straight through thanks to a | friend's carefully made VHS tapes, that any of what I was | seeing really made sense to me. Nothing since then has | even come close to replacing B5 at the head of my SF TV | affections. | | Reflecting on that experience, I think the major flaw of | B5 is that, in structure and intent, it was twenty or | more years ahead of its time. Given the handicaps under | which the creators then had to labor, it's even more | remarkable how much they accomplished - B5 might have | been the very first example of what we today call the | 'binge-worthy show', made on a shoestring in a time when | syndication and time slots and missed episodes were still | problems that a show could have. This show overcame them | admirably - even so, I can't help but wish a little for | the chance to see what the same people could've | accomplished today, with the kind of resources available | for something like _Stranger Things_. | | That won't happen, of course, not least because the show | is niche even by comparison with something like Firefly. | For the same reason, even a Trek-style HD remaster is | unlikely - a shame in its own right, since the then- | revolutionary CGI space effects are by far the part of | the show that's aged most badly, and a shame all over | again because the creators were looking far enough ahead | to shoot in 16:9 and 5.1 surround throughout, which would | give an HD remaster the kind of payoff that, if we're | being honest, the ones done for old Trek shows never | really have. | | In any case, it's a small miracle the show got made at | all, and another that it ended up being so close to what | JMS intended it to be. Anyone who can enjoy TNG or DS9 | today can, I think, enjoy B5 at least as well, and on | that basis I recommend it without the slightest | reservation. | StavrosK wrote: | I'll definitely watch then, thank you. As a sidenote, I | _think_ that the TNG I watched has remastered CGI. I | remember remarking how good the CGI looked for the 90s, | and realized /heard later than they redid all the CGI. | The new CGI was definitely not out of place, if not | fairly good, but I'm not _entirely_ sure that what I 'm | saying is true. Just mentioning it in case you wanted to | look into it. | throwanem wrote: | I saw the originals when they were first broadcast, and | have since seen the remasters. The latter definitely | improve on the look of the series, but incrementally, and | they also suffer from some of the same problem that led | the makers of Generations to underlight scenes on, and | finally blow up, the Enterprise-D: while TNG's space | effects were on par with movies of their time, its sets | and props were decidedly _not_ , having been designed | with the understanding that SD TV quality would hide a | lot of imperfections that would be visible otherwise. | Beside that, the pillarboxing necessary to render 4:3 | content on a 16:9 display feels really obtrusive these | days, or so at least I've come to find it since 16:9 | became the standard. | | The thing about B5 is that few of its space scenes | involve much compositing, since they were all CGI from | the start and compositing was hard back then. For that | reason, I think a space-effects redo would be unusually | feasible for that show, albeit still too expensive for | anyone to actually _do_ one. | | A harder, if smaller, remastering issue would be that | they shot practical effects on video and special effects | on film, largely due to that being the cheapest option | for both. In standard definition you can't really see the | difference, but watching the show today you definitely | do. | BugWatch wrote: | TMK very little of its effects are strictly new: almost | all are digitally re-composited, color-corrected and | slightly enhanced high-resolution scans of the original | film footage (which used physical models and optical | effects), since they were still available. IIRC, planets | - as seen from space - are a notable exception (and | better for it). It was a major remastering process, with | beautiful results. (Although major, remastering cost less | (for the whole series) than a single episode of the (IMO) | abomination called "Discovery".) | | Sadly, such an approach is impossible for the majority | parts of the latter series (DS9, VOY) since their effects | were mostly CGI, and rendered directly to standard | definition video. Further more, many of the 3D models and | scenes have been lost, so it would probably require a | total effects re-do from scratch (on top of film stock | scans), which is "a very costly proposition with | questionable (financial) returns". | nobody9999 wrote: | >You should try DS9 when you're done with TNG. It's very | different, but still great. | | I'm going to recommend Babylon 5 for this as well. It's not | nearly as utopian as Star Trek and focuses on many of the | issues interacting with other people/groups/alien species | that ST (DS9 does do this, in some respects) generally | ignores. | | It also doesn't ignore capitalism, greed and general bad | behavior like ST mostly does. | kenny87 wrote: | Those that like this episode would also very much enjoy VOY, | Episode 6x12, Blink of an Eye [1]. Fascinating premise, | essentially a pre-warp society views Voyager as a sky deity, | eventually Voyager becomes the raison d'etre for the scientific | progress of an entire civilization. | | [1] https://memory- | alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Blink_of_an_Eye_(episod... | GoblinSlayer wrote: | Don't people in Star Trek have our culture? But our culture is | that of a primitive civilization, which means they are | primitive too. | yoz-y wrote: | Star Trek definition of primitive is "no warp drive tech". | cpuguy83 wrote: | You're in for a great ride! Enjoy! | flycaliguy wrote: | I can't say I've ever seen a post on the internet go ahead and | explain what the prime directive is before. | itronitron wrote: | Yes, having the prime directive explained on the internet | almost seems 'alien' | bierjunge wrote: | S03E04 for everybody who want's to watch it. | | Star Trek and especially TNG is one of the best SciFi series | made. The technological point of view is very interesting, but | the philosophical issues are even more intriguing and up to | date. | mixmastamyk wrote: | Great shows though TNG doesn't hit its stride until the third | season. Don't give up early. The main problem is too many | episodes per season; several are "phoned in" per season. | | I loved watching the remastered version on Netflix, it looked | better than new. | | Second on the Babylon 5 recommendations, it is one of the best | sci fi shows ever. Was hooked | silicon2401 wrote: | by 1993 series do you mean the 1993 season? I was confused at | first because I thought it was from the 80s and just confirmed | that it came out in 87. | | Anyway, definitely an excellent show. I watched it a bit as a | kid when it aired on G4 and I've been meaning to get back into | it. | mrbonner wrote: | I watch it on Netflix and the title shows 1993. I am confused | as well but I realized that 1993 is the last season. The show | itself was in the 80s. | wait_a_minute wrote: | That's one of the biggest problems I have with Star Trek. If we | were literally gods by comparison to some fledgling species, | the only ethical approach would be to elevate them and cure | their diseases and advance their knowledge as quickly as | humanly possible. | cpuguy83 wrote: | The ideals behind the Prime Directive were from Vulcan | influence. The theory behind it is they tried to do exactly | that and it led to disaster in every case. | 7thaccount wrote: | A lot of scifi shows have been influenced by this. In | Stargate SG-1 (spoilers): | | The Tollan civilization were humans taken from earth | millennia ago that developed science faster than us and | ended up being one of the most advanced races in the | galaxy. They gave a source of limitless energy to more | primitive aliens on a nearby planet in their solar system | (think Mars versus Earth) and those aliens weaponized it | and blew up part of their own planet. It messed up the | Tollan's own planer's orbit, so they had to find a new | planet and now don't share any technology. | Coriolis3 wrote: | Check out Iain M. Banks's "Culture" novels for a sci fi | society that takes that approach to other civilizations. The | Culture tries to raise up every lesser species of aliens to | their own level of hedonist, post-scarcity wealth and | technology. "The Player of Games" is both a good introduction | to the series and an example of their cultural outreach at | work. | wait_a_minute wrote: | Thanks a ton, will definitely check those out as I've not | yet seen any writing that explores this idea. | readmodifywrite wrote: | There are TNG episodes that specifically deal with that, and | the problems it causes. I think ENT had a few as well, | instances which led them to the creation of the Prime | Directive. | wait_a_minute wrote: | I will have to check those out since I've not seen them. | I'm open-minded to it, but also pretty confident that the | weight of the logic will eventually fall on the side of | being good and helpful to others if we ever make it to the | stars. | Xelbair wrote: | but were we, humanity, gods? | | There is always a chance that the Higher Civilization missed | something - culturally, scientifically or artistically | speaking. Letting such civilization emerge, and help them | ascend when they reach certain level seems to be saner and | safer approach. | | The Higher Civilization might've been stuck in local maxima, | adding such random element might let the Higher Civilisation | absorb the best parts and move towards another, better local | maxima. | wait_a_minute wrote: | You raise good points, but what you're missing in my | opinion is that life is precious and finite. And if we can | elevate ourselves and other species to a higher state of | life and consciousness and even longer life spans, I | believe we have a moral obligation to do it. It'd certainly | be wise to do it, even if only to have allies against the | vast darkness and whatever lurks in it that might hate us | or our friends. | JackFr wrote: | "Higher" indicates an ordering. How do you rank | civilizations? If we replace "higher" with "more advanced" | it's still not an obvious thing. | cbozeman wrote: | Imagine a race of ultra-advanced aliens were to give us | technology that keeps us not only alive indefinitely, but | robust and healthy, without disease. Just that one piece of | technology. Not even weird weapons like antimatter bombs, | etc. | | Do you think humanity would suddenly come together in | understanding and peace to explore the stars and advance | ourselves... or do you think people who already have enormous | wealth and power would keep themselves positioned such that | their influence and control grows? | | Yeah... | | We're not fucking _worthy_ of that kind of technology. | Neither are any other species. | | Its the struggle to acquire knowledge and power that gives | you the wisdom to use it for beneficial purposes. This is the | whole core of Ian Malcolm's speech to John Hammond in | _Jurassic Park_ (the book), but also to a lesser extent, the | movie. | rmah wrote: | Well no, but people would be robust and healthy, without | disease. And IMO, that's a positive even if all our other | failings are still there. | wait_a_minute wrote: | And it would certainly be an improved platform for us to | build upon and advance even more. | stocknoob wrote: | For the individual, yes, but for society? Death is | nature's term limit. Without it we'd be under a Pharaoh | with bronze-age ethics. | wait_a_minute wrote: | Unless we figure out how to drastically extend our | lifespans or do away with death altogether, although who | even knows if it's possible... | trhway wrote: | >Imagine a race of ultra-advanced aliens were to give us | technology that keeps us not only alive indefinitely, but | robust and healthy, without disease. Just that one piece of | technology. Not even weird weapons like antimatter bombs, | etc. | | I think that exactly what happened 2000 years ago. | Unfortunately we just failed to understand most of the info | and it got lost "in translation" due to communication | barrier. The good thing is they did promise to return and | try again when hopefully our development and ability to | understand would get a bit more advanced. | wait_a_minute wrote: | We've never experienced this or had the chance to do it, so | all we have to go off of are parallels to how we interact | with each other. If we did this for others, we'd need to | mentor and guide them into the future. If others did this | for us, they'd need to do the same rather than just boost | our tech and then abandon us. | | I'm optimistic that if it happened to us, even in the | limited hypothetical you presented, we'd rapidly transform | as a species for the better. Now, if that would've happened | 50 years ago or longer...not so optimistic. | mrlala wrote: | Aren't there some amazon tribes that have basically had no | contact with the modern world? By your logic, we are under an | ethical obligation to go in and "modernize them". | | So, you have an example right in front of you.. it's no | longer hypothetical. | Retric wrote: | It's reasonable to try it, but that could also fail quite | spectacularly which was the actual justification. Further, | their where many examples of such failures. Honestly, I found | the idea quite refreshing as it suggests Star Fleet | incompetence was the root issue rather than pure ethics. And | really understanding the culture, biology, politics, etc of | an alien species well enough to be a net positive across | generations is an extremely difficult task. | wait_a_minute wrote: | I do appreciate this nuance. If it was primarily because | Star Fleet was afraid to mess up, that's understandable. | But if I were to see a fledgling species being struck down | by some disease or natural calamity, I think in reality | it'd make more sense to at least try to save them and | elevate them than to just life extinguish that way. | GoblinSlayer wrote: | Already done for indians. Impossibility of FTL travel just | saved all life in universe from you. | sterlind wrote: | What wiped out most of the Indians was plague and genocide | while seizing territory and resources. | | I don't think plague would be an issue - viruses require | proteins to be similar to attach and reproduce, and | bacteria require nutrients to be the same. And as for | resources? Asteroid mining will get you more water, | minerals and metals. | | But territory - terraforming might be really difficult or | take too long. If aliens need an oxygen/CO2/nitrogen | atmosphere and liquid water, Earth could be tempting, even | if the plant/animal life is useless to them. | | If territory isn't an issue, maybe we'd just be friends or | anthropological curios. | wait_a_minute wrote: | The trend of our species has been to become more moral and | nice to one another. Read up on how humans viewed one | another 1,000 years ago or 10,000 years ago and see the | trend. There's no reason to believe or to ONLY believe that | we'd be a violent and evil species if we became space- | fairing and had FTL travel. In such a far future, I'd like | to choose to work towards and to think about having a | society that is even more moral than what it is now. | JackFr wrote: | > as humanly possible | | There's some post-colonial baggage to unpack there. | wait_a_minute wrote: | Only if you choose to read that into my comment or to be | negative about the future. | clort wrote: | see also David Brin's Uplift novels, which deal with this by | having more advanced species engage with undeveloped species | and be responsible for their upbringing, as it were. | wait_a_minute wrote: | Huge thank you for the recommendation, I love the concept | and will check out those novels for sure. | ErikVandeWater wrote: | Humans can't manage that on earth. | notahacker wrote: | Not even for other humans, and not just because we can't or | won't foot the bill for more education and medication, but | also because encouraging relatively primitive tribes to | abandon their traditions and join the modern world is | widely seen as unethical. | wait_a_minute wrote: | I see no issues with telling tribes or ancient cultures | or fledgling species if their beliefs about reality are | incorrect. Otherwise those faulty beliefs could lead the | species to extinction. | sterlind wrote: | There's education and then there's coercion. The Amish | know that technology and modern society exist, and they | even participate some for work, but they don't bring it | back home, and they haven't altered their way of life. | | Coercion is like the Indian boarding school programs in | the Pacific Northwest. Taking Indian children away from | their parents and beating them if they spoke their native | languages, with the goal of wiping out the culture and | forcing assimilation. | | I'm cool with the Amish method but not the boarding | schools. | wait_a_minute wrote: | I'm okay with not coercing someone into something. As | long as it's a choice, I see no harm in that. Although | ultimately we need to make sure that people are actually | educated enough to make an informed choice, and aren't | instead so steeped in their incorrect views of reality | that they can't make any progress... | | What I'm saying can definitely be abused or | misinterpreted if someone wants to justify atrocities, | but that's their negative interpretation and their | choice. The positive interpretation here would be that | I'd prefer a choice for anyone who wants to be Amish, as | long as being Amish doesn't mean that you're completely | trapped in that society if you're born into it. Some | ideologies trap the mind. | wait_a_minute wrote: | Not yet, but we can and I believe we will. That's been the | trend of history since we've existed. | bigmattystyles wrote: | Reading TNG described as a 30 year old series (which it is), | but being seen as novel by op has made me feel real old. (I'm | just about 40) It's like when I'm with interns and bring up | back to the future.... | lo_fye wrote: | Many people have seen them so near that there's no possible way | it's a misidentification. For example, standing in the same room, | indoors, in their homes... or outside in groups with many other | corroborating witnesses (Google "Ariel School Zimbabwe mass | sighting"). They're not all lying. In fact, if even just 1 is | true, then yes we are being visited by aliens. | bsder wrote: | The problem is that in the past you had corroborating evidence | for gods, demons, angels, witches, etc. until "aliens" became | the socially acceptable "unexplained thing." | | If those "interpretations" weren't correct, there is very | little evidence that "aliens" is a correct interpretation and | that future generations won't have a different one. | | In addition, the one thing that we now know scientifically is | that "first hand observation" is notoriously unreliable. | johnisgood wrote: | I did not search for it yet, but "Mass psychogenic illness"[1] | is a thing. From Wikipedia: "Mass psychogenic illness (MPI), | also called mass sociogenic illness, mass psychogenic disorder, | epidemic hysteria, or mass hysteria, is the rapid spread of | illness signs and symptoms affecting members of a cohesive | group, originating from a nervous system disturbance involving | excitation, loss, or alteration of function, whereby physical | complaints that are exhibited unconsciously have no | corresponding organic aetiology.". | | There also have been mass hysteria cases: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_hysteria_cases | | I would also like to mention "Folie a deux"[2]. From Wikipedia: | "Folie a deux ('madness for two'), also known as shared | psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD), is a psychiatric | syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief, and | sometimes hallucinations, are transmitted from one individual | to another.". | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness | | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux | runjake wrote: | Many people genuinely believe they have seen Bigfoot, the Loch | Ness monster (almost entirely disproven at this point), magic, | and miracles happen before their eyes. | | It doesn't make it true. | higerordermap wrote: | They visited, saw Golang and left. | vorpalhex wrote: | and they're planning to return with a new generics proposal... | philip142au wrote: | The answer is no | trestenhortz wrote: | It's not aliens. | | Nothing can convince me that there's any practical way to travel | the distances between the stars. | | If you don't agree then I think you fundamentally don't grasp how | incomprehensibly vast those distances are. | | I absolutely believe in life in other worlds but there's no way | to travel from star to star. | JoeAltmaier wrote: | And yet, stuff does all the time. We see wandering objects | enter and leave our solar neighborhood. | | It's just a matter of time - perhaps on human timescales its | inconceivable. But that's a problem with humans, not with | interstellar travel. | xtracto wrote: | Angels vs Viruses. | | About 20 years ago I read an interesting theory about how | theoretical aliens would look to us if we happen to find them. | The theory was that the assuming that there is life other than | earth's in the universe, the probability of it being within | +-10,000 years of current human development (i.e being similar | to us now +- 10,000 years) is very very small. Most likely, | life outside the earth will be 20k, 30k or even 50k, or more | years in the future technologically, socially and medically | advanced. | | Think about, how a human now would look like to a human 50,000 | years ago. Or how humanity would look like in 50,000 years. For | all I know, we will be able to replace every organ (lab tissue | growing), live for a LONG time (Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, | metformin) and other unimaginable things. | | So, if we encountered "space traveling" aliens, their frame of | reference would be completely out of our understanding. | time0ut wrote: | I doubt that this was anything but a natural object. | | That said, our civilization already has the technology to send | a probe to another star system. It may take 100k years to get | there, but it could be done if we wanted to. Theoretically, | sending a tiny probe within a human life time isn't that far | out of reach. | | I don't think we can discount the general possibility based on | our own capabilities, limitations, and motivations. If we were | not constrained by our biology, maybe spending thousands of | years in transit wouldn't be a big deal. Or maybe a few gram | payload is all we need to explore the neighborhood. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-20 23:01 UTC)