They're Here...

[uppi]

You have to know where and when to point the laser to a much greater extent than radio and microwaves.

If you want to be noticed, constant illumination is a bad idea, anyway. To maximize the ability of others to detect your signal you should sweep the sky in regular intervals. We know where the stars are, so we might as well target those. With microwaves most of the energy would be wasted into space.

And the receivers must be much more sophisticated technologically (or at least the ways we developed them) for an x-ray laser.

I can pick up the parts to make a radio or microwave alien detector for a few hundred dollars right now. No one has built an x-ray laser digital pickup that I know of. If you want to be heard by as broad an audience as possible you would stick to simple techniques before swapping to more sophisticated gear once the handshank has been made.

Oh sure this is all biased in the human experience but the physical and technical skills to build the different devices are drastically different in absolute terms.

Digital semiconductor detectors for x-rays exist longer than you or me. The first x-ray telescopes were less than 50 years behind the first radio telescopes - compared to galactic timescales that is nothing. If you can reach 100 civilizations instead of one, it wouldn't matter if 2 of those wouldn't have x-ray detectors.

Technological difficulty doesn't matter much. Sure, you could build a microwave detector on your own, but its sensitivity would be quite bad. So it would be very unlikely to detect anything that a more sophisticated system wouldn't. The limit of what would be detected and what wouldn't is set by the state-of-the-art systems and those are constructed by people with the best technical skills.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Something a lot of the natives who lived in North or America thought hundreds of years ago too I'm sure

Okay well two people have made this analogy now so I guess it must be brilliant and it's just me being stupid for thinking it's almost childishly naïve.

Also it kind of only makes sense if you imagine they were sending up smoke signals to attract people from across the ocean before they ever knew there even were other people across the ocean. And that European settlers actually saw these and that they are the reason that they went over. And that they weren't interested in the land at all, just killing the people who sent the smoke signals. For some reason. And that crossing an ocean is anything like interstellar travel. And also if you assume that intelligent aliens definitely do exist in the same way that Europeans definitely did exist. And well... millions of other incredibly tenuous parallels.

 

[warpus]

Whether you think it's a good metaphor or not, sending out messages of "we exist" into the universe would be stupid in both scenarios

 

[Borachio]

Well to me it's basically saying "some people were wrong about something once in hindsight, therefore the risks of something completely different happening in the future are greater".

But that's not what I'm really saying.

I'm saying do a basic risk assessment. Work out the likelihood of the event (disappearingly small) and multiply it by the effects (potentially catastrophic).

You seem to be concentrated on the disappearingly small likelihood of the event.

Other people here on the potentially catastrophic.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Whether you think it's a good metaphor or not, sending out messages of "we exist" into the universe would be stupid in both scenarios

Not really.

But that's not what I'm really saying.

I'm saying do a basic risk assessment. Work out the likelihood of the event (disappearingly small) and multiply it by the effects (potentially catastrophic).

You seem to be concentrated on the disappearingly small likelihood of the event.

Other people here on the potentially catastrophic.

What if there's a race of interdimensional soul harvesters who find their way into our dimension via dirty socks being left on the floor. The chances of that being true are disappearing small, but the effects of leaving dirty socks on the floor could be potentially catastrophic.

Do you think it would be reasonable to say that humanity leaving dirty socks on the floor is one of the most stupid things we've done as a species? Regardless of your answer, I would say it's silly to even consider doing a basic risk assessment on the situation given that dirty socks are the only part of the scenario that we even know exists.

 

[Borachio]

Leaving dirty socks on the floor, or indeed anything else, is only as nature intended. Otherwise gravity wouldn't insist on placing them there.

I agree that risk assessments are generally silly. And mostly made up by risk assessors assessing stuff randomly.

 

[warpus]

Not really.

I am pretty sure most historians would agree with me that if the native americans had a way to signal to the Europeans in the early 1400s that it would have just lead to their destruction a little bit earlier.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I am pretty sure most historians would agree with me that if the native americans had a way to signal to the Europeans in the early 1400s that it would have just lead to their destruction a little bit earlier.

It was the "both scenarios" bit that I was referring to really. I don't agree that they're remotely comparable. You know... what with one of them being based around real historical events that happened between humans, and the other one being based around the assumption that sci-fi B-movie space monsters actually exist.

 

[warpus]

It's more unrealistic to assume that we are the only space faring civilization the entire universe

 

[Berzerker]

could life precede the big bang?

Imagine if the cyclical nature of the universe (big bang-big crunch) is for real, and material (including life) leftover from a prior universe is not destroyed by the big bang, could it 'fertilize' our universe? Maybe even some life form that develops the technology to avoid being 'crunched'.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

It's more unrealistic to assume that we are the only space faring civilization the entire universe

I completely disagree with that because you have no possible way of knowing, and neither does anyone, but also that's not really the main problem with the idea.

First of all you would have to assume it's even possible to detect signals from terrestrial broadcasts at a distance of tens, hundreds, tens of thousands (etc) lightyears away. Even with incredibly sensitive detectors the signals will be so weak as to be utterly swamped in background noise by that point.

Even if I'm wrong about that, there are going to be much easier to detect signatures of life (such as taking spectra of light from our sun filtered through our atmosphere) which is already happening anyway. So it makes it kind of moot anyway.

Then on top of that you have to assume either a) a space-faring race with technology that isn't all that much more advanced than ours, in which case making the journey here is a massive undertaking, or b) a space-faring race far in advance of us to which interstellar travel is as easy as driving down to the shops.

It wouldn't be worth the effort to get here for the former, assuming they'd even want to just inexplicably wipe us out for some reason. The energy and effort expended in getting here (and bringing enough of them and enough weaponry to pose a reaslistic threat) would be immense, and even if they wiped is out entirely and "claimed" the planet it would be a net loss for them. Plus if they just want resources, why not just pick any random solar system rather than one you have to fight for?

It would be easy for the latter, but why would they have any interest in wiping us out? They can already easily go anywhere they want, they clearly are functioning fine with no shortage of resources or potential territory (assuming they would even still need to reside on planets). What possible benefit could there be to coming to this one small world and just killing us all for no reason? Just for kicks?

You really do just have to assume some comic-book/B-movie level of evilness and bewilderingly insane desire to kill other intelligent life forms. AND an ability to detect signals that are probably physically impossible to detect anyway. Or the random chance of stumbling across a Voyager probe. It really does make as much sense as worrying about the interdimensional sock monsters. You're basically assuming something as unlikely as interdimensional sock monsters actually do exist and you're looking at me like I'm weird for not buying into that.

 

[r16]

And nobody traditionally cares for the health of Chinese Moderator Action: <snip> Find another, less racist term, please .

Moderator Action: Please don't use racist epithets to describe people. It's offensive and is not permitted. --LM
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

uh , ı thought it meant worker . My apologies to all .

 

[Borachio]

It's more unrealistic to assume that we are the only space faring civilization the entire universe

I don't think there's any reason to assume that there isn't another space-faring civilization in the entire universe, no.

However, equally, I don't think there's any reason to assume that there is.

Typically, people assume this last on the basis that the universe is "just so huge".

Without any knowledge on the likelihood of civilizations arising in the universe, we just don't have any information on the matter.

Apart from the fact (presumably) that we haven't encountered any aliens. (Apart from ants.)

 

[yung.carl.jung]

The alien debate continues to divide people into the same three camps as the religious debate - Theists, Atheists and Agnosticists. Interestingly, it seems that the same kind of people who deny the existence of an all powerful deity in one place, acknowledge the existence of extraterrestrials in the other place, and vice-versa. Of course not all "I want to believers" are atheist and not all theists are "I don't want to believers", but there is a correlation.

 

[Yeekim]

Size of the universe simultaneously increases the chances of existence of other sentient life and decreases the chances of us ever becoming into contact.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Don't forget that the claim wasn't just that other space-faring civilisations could exist, but also that they would be motivated to come here if they knew of our existence, with the express intention of killing us all or enslaving us or some other horrible thing. Even if the former is true, I can't think of a remotely logical answer as to why the latter would be the case, and so far I don't think one has been presented in this thread.

 

[Yeekim]

Safari tourism?
Maybe not too likely... but not impossible either. And is it a risk worth taking?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I do think it is a risk worth taking, but mainly because I don't see it as a plausible risk.

Edit: "plausible" is probably the wrong word there. I just mean I don't see any reason to suspect it would ever be the case.

 

[warpus]

I don't think there's any reason to assume that there isn't another space-faring civilization in the entire universe, no.

However, equally, I don't think there's any reason to assume that there is.

Typically, people assume this last on the basis that the universe is "just so huge".

Without any knowledge on the likelihood of civilizations arising in the universe, we just don't have any information on the matter.

Apart from the fact (presumably) that we haven't encountered any aliens. (Apart from ants.)

Civilizations don't matter, what matters is life. If life only arose in like 100,000 places in the universe, then sure, send out all the messages into deep space you want. However, life probably arose in a lot more places than that.

We have no idea what's out there, we need to shut the hell up and stop advertising our presence to anyone who might be listening..

It would be easy for the latter, but why would they have any interest in wiping us out?

We know how evolution works, it produces predators that eventually take over the food chain, like humans.

I wouldn't trust humans.

You make it sound like I think there's evil monsters out there in space somewhere waiting to find us so that they can destroy us for no reason whatsoever. Do humans look like evil monsters to you?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

However, life probably arose in a lot more places than that.

What are you basing this probability on?