[HN Gopher] What do we do if SETI is successful?
___________________________________________________________________
What do we do if SETI is successful?
Author : leephillips
Score : 101 points
Date : 2025-10-20 17:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.universetoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.universetoday.com)
| alganet wrote:
| We can make it so it's never aliens, or always aliens. Public
| _and_ science opinion has become a free for all lately.
|
| People are so caught up in the 3I/ATLAS stuff, for example.
| Should we beam a message to it? What should we think of it? It's
| a circus.
|
| Let's go back to Boyajian's Star instead. Can we really be sure
| the dimming is not caused by a mothership coming from that
| direction? It explains everything, right? Maybe that's how they
| communicate, by sending a paper plane and opening a large
| occlusion origami that says "we come from this general direction"
| (I'm cosplaying Avi Loeb here, satirically).
|
| There's something about _interpretation_ in all of this. Space is
| full of radio signals. We determine lots of them to be natural
| (with good reason).
|
| I'm afraid proposing "we should answer" (in case of
| electromagnetic signals) could lead to a scenario in which people
| are encouraged to believe something without the means to
| verifying it. Some idiot group could do it just to increase the
| popular optimism about space in order to induce a favorable
| perception on the development of space technologies with the
| ultimate goal of just bumping some industry with money. It's the
| kind of world we live in right now, unfortunatelly.
|
| If we want to be serious about humanity's place in the universe,
| first we need to be serious about our home right here. I don't
| think we're mature enough to have responsible control over
| technologies that could be used to send a powerful signal into
| space.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| I've always thought that the public reaction to aliens in
| Contact was precisely, painfully accurate. Panic, cults,
| religions, the typical human response to something huge,
| unknown, and unknowable.
| vee-kay wrote:
| You should see the movie Don't Look Up. It is even more
| painfully accurate portrayal of our times, and it eeriely
| explains why the world's richest men are building and testing
| rockets and spaceships. (Answer: No, it ain't merely for
| space tourism or mere profits. They know their misdeeds will
| ruin the Earth one day, so they are preparing a Plan B.)
| alganet wrote:
| Dude, the movie _Don 't Look Up_ is a metaphor for climate
| change denialism. It has nothing to do with asteroids.
| vee-kay wrote:
| The movie Don't Look Up is still an apt metaphor, because
| the variable (how the apocalypse will happen) may change,
| but the outcome won't.
|
| The same richest elites that refuse to acknowledge and do
| anything to revert climate change, will do nothing
| (except try to escape Earth in spaceships) if and when
| any humanity detects and anticipates any Earth destroying
| apocalypse inducer (asteroid/meteor or extreme solar
| flare) from out of the depths of space.
| alganet wrote:
| It's kind of a stretch.
|
| To a more naive, metaphor-blind audience, your mention of
| _Don 't Look Up_ makes it look like the scientists are
| warning about an alien comet and I'm the one ignoring it.
|
| I'm very familiar with apocalyptical narratives of all
| kinds, but what I'm approaching here is much different.
| I'm talking about the integrity of scientific endeavours.
| In particular, space exploration endeavours.
| wijwp wrote:
| > People are so caught up in the 3I/ATLAS stuff, for example.
| Should we beam a message to it? What should we think of it?
| It's a circus.
|
| Is it really a circus? Seems almost everyone who knows what
| they're talking about says it's just a natural object.
|
| Anything can be a circus if you listen to people who don't know
| what they're talking about.
| alganet wrote:
| I think Avi knows what he's doing, and he wants other
| scientists to dismiss him in public, so he gets an audience.
|
| However, there is a chance he could be underestimating that
| audience, or at least part of it.
|
| Finding a new type of comet is a scientific breakthrough, and
| I think his work points in that direction (still a guess from
| him though, but an educated one). He is trying to cake up
| those potential genuine discovers with sloppy sensacionalist
| makeup on top, and that's why I call it a circus.
|
| If in a few months we confirm that 3I/ATLAS is a new kind of
| comet, he could use the papers he wrote to say he found
| evidence of that new type first, and also described its
| landmark characteristics. It would "legitimize" him. But the
| alien stuff would probably continue to be garbage. He can
| then say the scientists were skeptics, but he was right.
|
| Now, what angle the aliens narrative serve? Why would a
| scientist subject himself to being a clown? I don't exactly
| know. In his case, I don't think it's good stuff.
|
| I chose Tabby's Star to satirize him because my description
| of a mothership deploying an origami-like occluder matches
| the overall conclusion from the research at the time (a
| disturbed exomoon). It's an object from that system that
| changed is shape. In fact, "disturbed exosatellite" and
| "unfolding mothership from a planet" are quite compatible
| descriptions. What matters here is epistemology (we can't
| know if it's natural or not). Also, it's a good demonstration
| that we (general public non-astronomers) don't need his
| antics to imagine things.
| Bender wrote:
| _What Do We Do If SETI Is Successful?_
|
| Not sure. Can _some_ of HN at least agree that if it 's the
| Empire we all join and act as if we love serving the Emperor and
| then put subtle code in the planet killing weapons that overload
| and self destruct if pointed at human listed planets?
| tetris11 wrote:
| If survival is key in that regard, then we'd probably be
| encouraged to spread/cohabit with other species' planets so
| that the target is more fuzzy.
|
| Earth might still be at risk, but never underestimate the human
| ability to sell large tracts of land to foreign investors in
| exchange for a few concessions.
| Bender wrote:
| _we 'd probably be encouraged to spread/cohabit with other
| species_
|
| I will do my part to find out which humanoid-like species are
| genetically compatible with as wide of coverage humanly
| possible.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Username does not check out.
| general1465 wrote:
| Unless we will find some Space Nazis like Qu from All
| Tomorrows.
| boznz wrote:
| Humanity Needs Aliens to Survive => https://rodyne.com/?p=3051
| no_wizard wrote:
| Though I feel this is fairly lazily written, it does have a
| basic premise I've seen before.
|
| I read an article about post cold war US society. Basically,
| from 1989-2001 the United States was in a transition period
| that culminated with the first opportunity to seize on a
| "universal bad" (terrorism) because the USSR filled the role so
| readily for so long, US society was set adrift with partisan
| factions that couldn't find a common enemy to get behind in
| times of internal struggle.
|
| That is the gist of the article, sub USSR for aliens and all of
| humanity for US society and you have the same basic outline
| general1465 wrote:
| As a pragmatic opportunist
|
| - Setup a massive array of antennas in space for reception only
|
| - Try to decode their radio traffic and understand how they are
| exchanging information
|
| - Steal their their knowledge and use it to advance human race
| forward.
|
| - Reduce all our electromagnetic emissions to minimum to deny
| them the same advantage. Forbid anyone from sending signal
| towards them so we have time to technologically catch up to them
| without them noticing.
|
| Any kind of contact will ends up in abysmal disaster as we have
| seen in the past, when advanced civilization shown up on shores
| of less advanced one.
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| You're unlikely to get any radio signal that isn't specifically
| meant for you.
| general1465 wrote:
| If SETI would be able to catch their signal on Earth, then
| antenna array in the space aimed at them, far from Earth to
| prevent our noise could work.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| That's not how electromagnetic radiation works.
| nh23423fefe wrote:
| Efficient communication looks like noise.
| jerf wrote:
| It kind of is. You're thinking directionality, but there's
| also the fact that optimal transmission will involve using
| compression and possibly encryption, which by its nature
| turns the signal into noise if you don't already know it's
| a signal. An optimal signal, which it seems reasonable to
| assume would be what aliens would be using by the time
| they're communicating across star systems, would be much
| more difficult to detect as a _signal_ than something like
| an FM radio station, which puts a lot of energy into
| broadcasting a carrier that is there even if the station is
| transmitting total silence.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You're forgetting the Contact method where the actual
| signal is buried in a beacon signal. The beacon signal is
| very much a "primitive" non-random not noise
| signal...primes. Now that you've recorded enough of that
| beacon signal, someone analyses each of the pulses to
| realize there's a message embedded within. This way, you
| don't need a response to know someone go it. When they
| magically show up in the machine you've sent the plans as
| that message, you'll know the message was received.
| ivell wrote:
| > Forbid anyone from sending signal towards them so we have
| time to technologically catch up to them without them noticing.
|
| This is going to be difficult. Immediately there would be cults
| that would be inviting them to earth to salvage us.
| general1465 wrote:
| Yeah but they would need to transfer for a long enough time
| to be noticed and decoded by the other side, so it would easy
| to spot and eliminate them quickly. Unless they are a smart
| cult and managed to make some self unpacking and executing
| coding which they could send over radio.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Shades of "Three body problem".
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| Sounds like you read Remembrance of the Earth's Past
| general1465 wrote:
| I did not, but it looks interesting, thanks for the tip.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I didn't know Proust wrote sf.
| leephillips wrote:
| He did, but he called his SF novel _In Search of Lost
| Earth_.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| This presumes they have the same nasty survival-of-the-fittest
| kill-or-be-killed attitude as humanity. Our evolution kinda
| created that but it doesn't have to apply everywhere. I think
| it's entirely possible that alien civilisations could exist
| that are a lot more symbiotic.
|
| We have a saying in Holland "the innkeeper trusts his guests
| like himself" which seems to apply here.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Right; or, since they are not competing with us for
| resources, they could kill us just for sport.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Again the concept of sport imposes human concepts on a
| hypothetical alien culture.
|
| There's no reason to assume their society would have
| developed along similar lines. I'm sure there's alien
| civilisations that are more aggressive than us, but also
| ones that are less so.
|
| I don't think we'll ever meet any though as our lifespan is
| just so short on a universal scale. And FTL travel seems to
| be impossible otherwise we'd have seen signs of it.
|
| Of course according to our current physics understanding it
| is also impossible but I don't think humanity is very smart
| yet. But this thing might be right.
| akimbostrawman wrote:
| >the concept of sport imposes human concepts on a
| hypothetical alien culture.
|
| Many animals like cats do it. Its not a human concept but
| one from superior smarter predators which should occur
| regardless from what planet they are. The greater the
| differences in intelligence and power the easier it is to
| justify cruelty.
|
| I do think it's less likely because to actually travel
| space they would need to be so technologically advanced
| that we simply wouldn't be worth fighting or destroying.
| Maybe studying which could be cruel in its own way.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> And FTL travel seems to be impossible otherwise we 'd
| have seen signs of it._
|
| What signs? Projects like LIGO that measure gravitational
| waves are still measuring cataclysmic collisions of ultra
| massive bodies. Maybe once the detector is good enough to
| detect exoplanets and smaller objects we can start
| drawing some conclusions.
|
| I don't believe FTL is possible, but on the off chance
| that it is, we'd be so deep into technology-as-magic
| territory that any speculation on detectability is
| totally pointless.
| scj wrote:
| > I'm sure there's alien civilisations that are more
| aggressive than us, but also ones that are less so.
|
| What is the minimum amount of aggression necessary to
| evolve sentience? What is the maximum amount of
| aggression in an interstellar space-faring species? Where
| is humanity on that scale?
|
| A super-aggressive species would likely self-annihilate
| before possessing sufficient energy to travel
| interstellar distances... So the jury's still out on us.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >Our evolution kinda created that but it doesn't have to
| apply everywhere.
|
| Presumably any alien species was also shaped by evolution, so
| is also likely to be similarly competitive. Maybe you can
| escape your evolutionary past. But maybe not.
| wijwp wrote:
| They'd have to get through The Great Filter, so maybe
| they'd have avoided or have moved beyond some of our
| evolutionary downfalls.
| babelfish wrote:
| "The Great Filter" is probably just interspecies contact.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It doesn't even apply in this world. There are many examples
| of a more advanced civilization steamrolling a simpler one,
| but there are also examples of that not happening. It's by no
| means an inevitability.
| layman51 wrote:
| I would hope so, but this whole situation reminds me of a
| quote from the writer William S. Burroughs: "This is a war
| universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be
| other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but
| ours seems to be based on war and games."
|
| It is a bleak view. When I even think about the behaviors of
| some of the animals (e.g. seals, praying mantises) we share
| existence with, it seems like it could be accurate. On the
| positive side, the concept of the infinite game (e.g.
| culture) is what should give us hope.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Hopefully we never have the pleasure of discovering Prothean
| style ruins on a nearby planet and Pluto isn't actually a
| frozen mass relay. That one never ends well.
|
| Though I personally love the idea of advanced, civilized
| extraterrestrial life. I hope it exists (statistically feels
| likely but yet to be confirmed). Even if it turns out we humans
| are at a near lockstep with another civilization it'd be game
| changing if we could communicate especially.
|
| All that said, maybe there's a "galactic civilization
| onboarding" program once a species meets a sufficiently
| advanced criteria independently, with no outside intervention.
| Perhaps the universe will turn our ideas on their head, and
| assumptions may not apply.
|
| Our understanding of the world, for however great it is, is
| still likely full of things we can't fathom and unknowns we
| don't know. Its fun to speculate but the reality is we are only
| basing most of our knowledge on how things might be in the
| universe based on our singular planet's path of evolution.
|
| It makes it truly hard to think of what alternative life forms
| may exist.
| kakacik wrote:
| Star trek-ish idea of massive cooperation between species is
| desperately naive though. Its secondary-school level of hand-
| holding and singing kumbayah around fire, and yet it still
| couldn't evade massive wars that sometimes wiped out entire
| civilizations.
|
| Lockstep evolution is extremely improbable. Even 1000 years
| head start is massive, a more realistic one would be tens of
| millions of years or more.
|
| The space is finite, so is Milky way. Eventually, even if its
| far in the future, species will compete for resources and
| energy. The smarter ones realize that problems are easier
| solved as soon as possible, and we have dark forest stuff.
| Mankind is slowly also inching in that realization. We should
| work hard on improving ourselves massively and spreading out
| before caring whats out there. I simply can't imagine a
| realistic scenario where there won't be some immediate
| attack, ie speeding up some very dark asteroid into
| relativistic speeds, aimed at Earth.
|
| Also, why should xenophoby, racism and similar perks be
| available only to humanity. Even we can see how deeply flawed
| creatures we are.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| When I see what kind of information _we_ sent out, I would not
| koof my breath.
|
| We would learn that they are gelatinous beings who coi5nt in
| base 17 and show an antenna to say hello.
| thrance wrote:
| Your are reasoning like a 15th century conquistador with
| spaceships.
|
| > Any kind of contact will ends up in abysmal disaster as we
| have seen in the past, when advanced civilization shown up on
| shores of less advanced one.
|
| Interstellar travel is mind-boggingly difficult and expensive.
| Even assuming 100% fuel-efficiency, it is basically impossible
| to conquer other worlds, and doing so would come at zero
| benefits for the homeworld, as anything that could be brought
| back from conquered exoplanets could be made for far cheaper
| and faster at home. Atoms are the same everywhere in the
| galaxy, no planet has any unique stuff that is valuable enough
| that is makes sense to haul it across the galaxy.
|
| The one thing that is cheap to trade is information, so why not
| cooperate with everyone? Competition is useless as we've seen,
| so why not give away everything we know in exchange for
| everything they know?
| general1465 wrote:
| We could give them everything what we know and they could
| give us back a relativistic kill missile. No reason to try to
| conquer a planet if you can just extinguish a protentional
| threat, which luckily was naive to be useful before
| extinguishing.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I'd be more concerned about some alien force moving through
| our part of the galaxy and we get stepped on and squashed
| like an ant on the pavement.
| layman51 wrote:
| Your comment just reminded me of a sci-fi novel called
| Roadside Picnic that I learned about on a different thread.
| Just because of that idea where aliens could come across us
| and not pay us any attention in the same way that a human
| might ignore an ant.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| If some species out there is trying to detect life by the
| organisms electromagnetic emissions... that's a dumb species.
| fph wrote:
| With the current world leadership, I'm (non-sarcastically) afraid
| someone will try to 'export democracy' to Mars.
| vee-kay wrote:
| Don't Look Up
| knowitnone3 wrote:
| Send memes. Most commenters here assume receiving a message means
| aliens can reach us - they can't. Think about how distant the
| closest galaxy is and think about how long it would take to reach
| them even at light speed. The size of the ship needed, the amount
| of fuel needed not only for acceleration but stopping as well.
| Even if they 100x or 1000x our space abilities, it would still be
| impossible.
| ianburrell wrote:
| It also assumes that it is nearby aliens. Our radio
| transmissions have only gone 100 light years, and probably not
| detectable beyond a few. But the aliens could be saying hello
| to everyone from thousand light years away.
|
| It also could not be a message. I think we have ruled out
| nearby Dyson Swarm (as in thousands of light years), but we
| could find one in rest of our galaxy or even Andromeda. Dyson
| Swarms should be noticeably weird infrared stars.
|
| It is also quite possible that we never decode their message.
| Even with one designed to be decoded, their thinking could be
| too different.
| general1465 wrote:
| Or they could just pop up here because they have mastered
| quantum physics and can just use quantum tunnelling to teleport
| whole ship across space in an instant.
| leeroyjenkins11 wrote:
| Get better camouflage so we don't get get found in the Dark
| Forrest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis
|
| >The name of the hypothesis derives from Liu Cixin's 2008 novel
| The Dark Forest, as in a "dark forest" filled with "armed
| hunter(s) stalking through the trees like ghosts". According to
| the dark forest hypothesis, since the intentions of any newly
| contacted civilization can never be known with certainty, then if
| one is encountered, it is best to make a preemptive strike, in
| order to avoid the potential extinction of one's own species. The
| novel provides a detailed investigation of Liu's concerns about
| alien contact.
| sdwr wrote:
| That's an allegory for life under authoritarian rule, not a
| literal alien contact plan
| cousinbryce wrote:
| Bold to assume aliens will ascribe to something besides
| despotism
| kulahan wrote:
| You can't imagine that one single alien race anywhere will
| deviate from this?
|
| Wouldn't that kinda imply that your vision on the topic is
| almost certainly wrong anyways?
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Or, both.
| 9dev wrote:
| IIRC the author said there are no meta layers of meaning,
| it's just honest to god fiction written to be entertaining.
| I'm struggling a little myself to accept that for the entire
| trilogy, but that's that.
| teekert wrote:
| What would we become in such a universe? We would take a step
| back, it will become about survival again (I know it's like
| that on earth here and there), not about growing together,
| exploring. It's like Star Trek's mirror universe.
|
| Sure I'd fight for humanity, but I'd be so disappointed. Maybe
| even enough to just give up.
|
| (I have to admit I just could not make it through part 2 of the
| Three Body problem, it went to slow for me.)
| ge96 wrote:
| Following that:
|
| > The Berserker hypothesis, also known as the deadly probes
| scenario, is the idea that humans have not yet detected
| intelligent alien life in the universe because it has been
| systematically destroyed by a series of lethal Von Neumann
| probes.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Yeah but they clearly didn't do a very good job on Earth so
| how systematic could they be?
|
| Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful premise for a book which
| can simply mobilize a plot device to brush this problem
| aside. However, if we want to bring the conclusions back to
| reality they have to undergo a customs inspection which flags
| said plot device.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| Liu Cixin had to break the laws of physics -- badly, multiple
| times -- in order to make the Dark Forest game theory work.
| That's not a problem, fictional rules are good fun, but
| generalizing his conclusions back to the real world without
| sending them through a customs inspection first is a problem.
| See also: do the dinosaurs escape because the laws of chaos
| theory dictate that dinosaur zoos are mathematically
| impossible? Or do they escape because otherwise I wouldn't pay
| to see the movie and neither would you?
|
| If we ground ourselves back in reality where the speed of light
| is probably law and the spooky aliens probably don't get to
| tamper the laws of physics, the actual game-theoretic winning
| move is always to grow voraciously, threat or no.
| bluGill wrote:
| Where the speed of light is probably law (our universe) there
| is no way aliens could reach earth. The only possibly
| scenario where earth is in danger is if we terraform and
| colonize mars (Venus would also do, or a few other large
| rocks), then we have a falling out and start a major war. The
| few survivors would not know if anyone is on Mars, but if so
| they might still be out to get earth so better be quiet. If
| you are not already in this solar system you can't get here
| in a useful timeframe no matter how long lived you are.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| We should expand our definition of Aliens visiting earth.
|
| If we received a signal (at light speed) that described how
| to build a physical alien computer, and then ran a program
| on that computer, which happened to be AI, we would have
| alien visitors.
| bitwize wrote:
| An interocitor!
|
| "Normal view! Normal _view!_ Normal _VIEW!_ Normal
| _VIEEeewwww..._ "
| lordnacho wrote:
| But why do we think the aliens as a polity will behave in a way
| that fits into our own concept of competition between groups?
|
| Couldn't they have some other way of seeing things?
| bluGill wrote:
| They could. However their different way might be worse than
| our concept.
|
| Though survival of the fittest is likely a law and so they
| will have a concept of competition between groups of some
| form (though their definition of groups will be different)
| simply because those without will be destroyed by the first
| group that does have that concept.
| vee-kay wrote:
| The moot question isn't what will happen after Earth receives and
| confirms an alien signal.
|
| The question is moot, because any alien species advanced enough
| to send directed signals across solar systems, can and will
| reach, overwhelm and subsume Earth with ease, once we Earthlings
| manage to contact such aliens.
|
| And if such events happened in the past, that might explain a few
| interesting notions we humans tend to have.
|
| "Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is
| indistinguishable from God." ~Shermer's last law
|
| But what if that was their intention from the very beginning?
| What if Earth itself is just yet another alien farm?
|
| What if Earth's beautiful and bountiful life (flora and fauna)
| was the result of terraforming, by aliens, but indirectly using
| spores tacked onto cosmic flying objects (comets, meteors,
| asteroids) that they knew will cross such solar systems and crash
| into inhabitable planets on some not so random chance?
|
| Abiogenesis is the emergence of life from nonliving organics. It
| is the leading theory regarding how life spawned on Earth, but it
| is being questioned due to recent evidence.
|
| Conditions for Life: For life to exist, certain conditions must
| be met. These include:
|
| * Presence of Water: Essential for biochemical reactions. *
| Organic Compounds: Building blocks like carbon, hydrogen, and
| nitrogen are crucial. * Energy Source: Sunlight or geothermal
| energy can drive life processes.
|
| Evidence and Research: While no definitive evidence of
| extraterrestrial life has been found, scientists continue to
| explore environments on other planets, such as Mars and Europa,
| which may harbor conditions suitable for life. The study of
| extremophiles on Earth--organisms that thrive in harsh conditions
| --provides insights into how life might exist elsewhere in the
| universe
|
| One prominent theory regarding the extraterrestrial origin of
| life is Panspermia.
|
| The Panspermia Hypothesis suggests that life, or the building
| blocks of life, may have been transported to Earth via comets,
| asteroids, or space dust.
|
| There are several forms of panspermia:
|
| * Naturalistic Panspermia: Life evolves on another planet and is
| ejected into space, eventually landing on Earth.
|
| * Directed Panspermia: Intelligent beings from another planet
| intentionally send life to Earth.
|
| * Intelligent Design Panspermia: Life is designed and seeded by
| extraterrestrial intelligences.
|
| I believe Earth life is the result of Natural Panspermia. But if
| SETI or other observatories detect and confirm alien signal, then
| Directed Panspermia might be our origin.
|
| https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a66036689/a-scientist...
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I couldn't imagine worshipping aliens even if they were
| powerful enough to be indistinguishable from gods.
|
| I also think that if such powerful aliens (or actual gods for
| that matter) were to exist, they wouldn't give a rat's ass
| about whether we worship them. Because we'd have nothing to
| offer them. It's like us stepping on ants without thinking
| about it. Their world is so limited it's meaningless to us. If
| any gods existed we'd be the same to them.
|
| In any case my intuition will always be to fight hostile
| authorities, even if its futile. I would never be able to be in
| the military for example.
| vee-kay wrote:
| The aliens, if they exist, will certainly powerful enough to
| destroy humanity's paltry defenses (and our satellites will
| be first to fall during an alien invasion), but you are
| right, they won't bother negotiating or defeating us, they
| will simply annihilate humanity (via biological weaponry,
| perhaps), terraform this beautiful bountiful Earth to suit
| their needs, and use it as they deem fit.
|
| For all of humanity's much vaunted intelligence, we really
| haven't bothered to unitedly plan for any threats from space,
| natural or otherwise.
|
| If advanced alien beings did visit Earth in the past, they
| could be easily have become worshipped as Gods by the humans
| of that time.
|
| Earth is such a tiny speck in the vast emptiness of space,
| that unless galaxy colonising aliens are capable of traveling
| in spaceships at FTL (faster than light) speeds, it may
| indeed take them hundreds or thousands or millions of years
| to pass by Earth again on their next sweep through the
| Goldilocks planets in their terraforming list in this corner
| of the Universe.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >I couldn't imagine worshipping aliens even if they were
| powerful enough to be indistinguishable from gods.
|
| A lot of other people seem to be happy worshipping humans of
| rather limited intelligence right now.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Are you religious?
|
| If yes you are already worshipping and imaginary concept. At
| least with aliens you would have some kind of connection with
| reality.
|
| If not the word god is not really a part of the vocabulary.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| > The question is moot, because any alien species advanced
| enough to send directed signals across solar systems, can and
| will reach, overwhelm and subsume Earth with ease, once we
| Earthlings manage to contact such aliens.
|
| Not possible if our scientific understanding of c is accurate.
|
| I don't care how many episodes of ST you've binged; warp speed
| is just fantasy.
| davisr wrote:
| Is possible, and easy if one accelerates at 1 G for half the
| trip, then decelerates at 1 G for half the trip. Conventional
| nuclear fission AND fusion rocket engines, like NERVA,
| already exist and are flight-certified. 1 light year could be
| traveled in 2 pilot years.
| vee-kay wrote:
| What is SciFi today may become the reality in the future.
|
| The iconic flip-type TriCorder telecommunicator of Star Trek,
| became the inspiration of the world's first portable cellular
| phone (the DynaTac), quickly followed by MicroTac and StarTac
| (world's first portable flip phone, and yup, that name is not
| a coincidence) by Motorola (more famous iteration later as
| the iconic Moto Razr). Motorola engineer Martin Cooper said
| that watching Captain Kirk using his communicator on the
| television show Star Trek inspired him with a stunning idea
| -- to develop a handheld mobile phone".
|
| https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/motorola-startac-rainbow-
| ce...
|
| Star Trek's teleportation may have been SciFi, but Quantum
| teleportation has been proven to be doable in reality.
|
| https://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-science/first-
| demonstrat...
|
| https://www.aol.com/articles/oxford-physicists-achieve-
| telep...
|
| Iron Man's Arc Reactor is a fusion reactor and pure sci-fi,
| but the Chinese and Americans are racing to build the first
| viable fusion reactors. https://www.popularmechanics.com/scie
| nce/energy/a64704814/ch...
|
| Galileo was jailed (put under house arrest, till he died of
| ill health) for his "blasphemous" statements concerning
| Heliocentricity, etc., but ancient Hindus have known and
| documented (in their Vedic texts) about Multiverse, Observer
| Effect, Illusory nature of Reality (e.g., modern science
| confirms that touch is an illusion of reality, we really
| cannot touch anything:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TDgey6g65X0) , and fundamentals
| of mathematics and science since thousands of years, many
| centuries or millennia before such concepts became understood
| and accepted by Western scientists or theorists.
|
| Human flight was considered an impossible fantasy, until the
| Wright Brothers made it a reality.
|
| Space flight was unproven until the Soviets made it a
| reality.
|
| Did you know that scientists estimated the mass of all matter
| and all energy of this Universe, but they believe it accounts
| only for 5% of the content of the Universe? The remaining 95%
| of this Universe is unknown, but scientists believe it to be
| comprised of anti-matter and anti-energy, which are not yet
| understood properly by modern science. SciFi concept, this
| may seem, but that's the prevailing scientific theory.
|
| Now think about this idea.. What if an advanced alien
| species, were made of anti-matter and using anti-energy?
| Would their technology obey the laws of physics as our modern
| science understands? Would they be able to travel across the
| galaxy faster than we humans deem possible with our limited
| understanding of how the Universe works?
|
| 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
| from magic', according to Arthur C. Clarke's third law.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| They are too far away.
|
| Now, if they left some time ago...
| Simulacra wrote:
| Isn't that what the movie Contact was about?
|
| In all seriousness, I think if we did receive something, it would
| be classified immediately, and the government, or governments,
| will move very swiftly with a heavy hand to silence the
| discovery. At the very least until they know exactly what it is,
| what it is conveying, and how to respond.
|
| That said, I think that if it got out, a lot of people would
| absolutely lose their snot. Completely. It would be chaos in some
| places.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| People would simply not believe it. I don't think there is
| world where aliens messaging is taken seriously on earth (at
| scale). People would attribute it to the military.
| tstactplsignore wrote:
| Ha, or, perhaps for a 2025 variant: it would quickly be shared
| publicly by government scientists (who are not as secretive or
| good at keeping secrets as the public seems to think!), the
| evidence all shared publicly, subject to international peer
| review and consensus. And then 70% of people would believe it's
| made-up. The US-sphere would believe China made it up as a plot
| (or "globalists") and the developing world and BRICS would
| believe the US made it up as a plot. Western countries would
| repeatedly sign and then remove themselves from international
| treaties to prepare for contact.
|
| Bit too on the nose, maybe, but a heck of a lot more likely
| than a coverup by government scientists.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| So... Like Contact?
| flux3125 wrote:
| >That said, I think that if it got out, a lot of people would
| absolutely lose their snot. Completely. It would be chaos in
| some places.
|
| It would definitely be the most important discovery ever made
| and would move some billions of dollars, but realistically I
| think people would just carry on with their lives (assuming
| physical contact with them is impossible in a lifetime).
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I think there were be the usual bunch of weirdos that predict
| the end of the world for Thursday, and then the other
| significant batch of weirdos who will quickly explain it with
| their religion of choice.
|
| After some ohhhs and ahhhhs we would switch to the next thing.
| gmuslera wrote:
| Time is a factor here. How close in time and space would be them?
|
| If we get something coming from more than 100 light years away we
| might not have the technology to respond, and if we do it may not
| matter anyway if we are at risk of not having a technological
| civilization anymore 100-200 years forward. So the meaningful
| actions on those cases may not include answering back.
|
| Then it will be the actual use of that message. Lets assume that
| we will decide that is a signal from a civilization that is out
| there. It will be a signal meant for us and for any other
| civilization that doesn't have the knowledge/culture level as
| them, meant for giving us a common ground for communicating back,
| or it will be something that just will tell us that someone
| intelligent is out there, but no mean to understand it?
|
| So the options are that we find apparently benevolent aliens
| willing to contact us, or that we find out that someone is out
| there but no way to communicate/reach them. I think the second
| scenario is the most probable one, and how our civilization will
| react if widely enough will change with time, novelty at first
| and indifference a few years later.
| kulahan wrote:
| I cannot imagine any scenario where we're just 100-200 years
| away from "no more tech" that isn't purely total nuclear
| destruction. Even then, we'd probably be so close to getting
| _back_ to a technological civilization that it 'd be a blip in
| the radar at best if we're talking about a society that far
| away.
|
| We lost 150 years of progress? That's okay, we had 800 more
| years to advance before the aliens showed up or whatever.
|
| It's such a weird thing I see so many people assuming. We were
| down to like 16,000 humans on Earth at one point, and that was
| before we'd developed things that you could theoretically
| scavenge and jumpstart your tech.
|
| People need to stop doomscrolling; I'm certain this is
| depression projected.
| wat10000 wrote:
| It was also before we'd burned all the easily accessible
| fossil fuels.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| We mined all of the easily accessible drywall gypsum too, I
| guess we wouldn't be able to have houses either and would
| have to live outside in the cold and rain!
| nradov wrote:
| Perhaps the aliens will share advanced technology with us
| such as how to build a tent.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I can't wait until everyone realizes how easy it is to
| rebuild Gobekli Tepe with hand tools.
| kulahan wrote:
| Thankfully, unless somehow everything manmade disappears,
| we'll have scraps of windmills, solar panels, and hydro
| electric generators - with that laying around, it's easy to
| eventually figure out the underlying concepts and rebuild
| them.
| jandrese wrote:
| Electrification of transportation is already well underway.
| Obviously ships and planes will lag behind, and may even be
| forced to use biofuels if we run out of fossil fuels, but
| the idea that the world will stop when we run out is
| outdated.
|
| Green power generation is also making huge strides forward,
| and battery technology is improving enough to make fully
| green grids a reality. We already see articles about how
| some countries are managing to go entire days without
| burning any fossil fuels for power generation. This will
| increase over time despite what the doomsayers predict. We
| aren't there yet, but the progress is almost inevitable.
|
| The bigger problem is that we've already burned so much
| fossil fuel that we are noticeably altering the climate.
| This is going to cause a lot of stresses in the future,
| especially in a post-collapse scenario.
| wat10000 wrote:
| They're going days without burning fossil fuels by using
| high tech solar panels and windmills and such. What
| happens when they stop being made and they eventually
| break down? You'll have to bootstrap tech again but
| without low-tech sources of concentrated energy.
| Electrified transport is great today, useless two hundred
| years ago.
| elbasti wrote:
| With all due respect, I don't think you understand what the
| "worst case" scenario looks like for global warming, and how
| close we are to that scenario. For reference, check out
| figure 1 in this nature article [1].
|
| That has warming by 2300 as 8C in an "emissions continue
| current trends" path.
|
| Here's chatgpt giving a picture of what 8C warming looks
| like. Speculative, hallucinations, caveat emptor, etc...but
| to give a sense of proportion this, last time the earth was
| 8C *cooler* than now, ice covered 25% of the planet:
|
| > At +8degC, Earth is fundamentally transformed. Large parts
| of today's populated zones--South Asia, the Middle East,
| Africa, southern Europe, the southern U.S.--are functionally
| uninhabitable for humans outdoors. Wet-bulb temperatures
| regularly exceed survivable limits. Agriculture collapses
| across the subtropics; even mechanized, climate-controlled
| farming is marginal. Most of the world's food comes from
| high-latitude regions: a narrow band across northern Canada,
| Scandinavia, and Siberia. Sea levels are dozens of meters
| higher, drowning coastal megacities; Miami, New York,
| Shanghai, and London are gone. Phoenix is lifeless desert.
| Seattle is coastal tundra, wetter but still survivable.
|
| > Civilization persists only in fragments. Mass migration and
| resource wars have rewritten borders. Population is a
| fraction of 21st-century levels. Global trade, universities,
| and modern governance are mostly memories. Local, self-
| sufficient polities dominate. The United States as an
| institution likely dissolves or transforms beyond recognition
| --2 out of 10 chance of recognizable survival. Harvard or MIT
| survive, if at all, as digital archives or autonomous AI-
| driven knowledge systems--3 out of 10. The world would still
| have people and culture, but not civilization as we know it.
|
| Edit: I would appreciate knowing why I'm getting downvoted
| when I added citations for *possible* warming paths (from
| nature!). Yes, the chatgpt explanation is speculative but I
| mean, look at the thread we're discussing.
|
| [1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-0121-5
| leptons wrote:
| In Carl Sagan's Cosmos, he talks about how many advanced
| civilizations could be out there capable of radio astronomy,
| and how as in our own experience, we have the capability to
| wipe out own civilization, so that would also be a factor in
| other advanced civilizations and could act as a limiting
| factor. There are many such factors other than nuclear
| destruction that could impact all functioning of an advanced
| society, rendering it nonviable.
|
| The idea has nothing to do with "doom scrolling". Go watch
| some Cosmos...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsl9f83P0Ys
| ruszki wrote:
| When we have a nuclear destruction, and some of us survive,
| then we will have a problem which we cannot solve easily even
| today: absolute annihilation of the ozone layer. It won't be
| a soft reset at all. If the ozone layer disappeared right
| now, its consequences would be absolutely catastrophic even
| with the current civilization completely intact.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > So the options are that we find apparently benevolent aliens
| willing to contact us, or that we find out that someone is out
| there but no way to communicate/reach them. I think the second
| scenario is the most probable one
|
| I _hope_ the second scenario is the most probable. Any aliens
| that could contact us would already know we can 't even get
| along with each other, much less them. Even the most benevolent
| of aliens should see us as a "problem". (I was going to say
| "threat" but who am I kidding.)
| em-bee wrote:
| this is a question i have explored as part of my own scifi world
| building:
|
| what is a realistic timeline for first contact, and how will it
| actually happen?
|
| so we decode a message that we are pretty sure is of alien
| origin.
|
| we send a message back and then wait a few decades or centuries.
|
| we don't know how far away the origin of the message is. let's
| assume that it is less than 50 light years. that's still a round
| trip of 100 years. in other words it's a generational project,
| and we don't know if our first response is understood. we'll have
| to keep iterating until we can confirm that we are actually
| communicating. and then, the next step will be to try to
| understand each other.
|
| with a round trip that long, even under the most optimal
| conditions just establishing a dialog based on say math is going
| to take a few centuries.
|
| of course once we have a dialog, communication is going to speed
| up because then we can send longer messages.
|
| but then it could still take anywhere from 500 to 1000 years
| before a common language is developed and we are able to share
| actual scientific and engineering knowledge.
|
| once we reached that level of communication however, we can
| collaborate on developing FTL.
|
| contrary to star trek, it was always my idea that FTL travel is
| not developed by the inhabitants of each planet/star system on
| their own, but only in collaboration across multiple such
| systems. maybe even more than two. driven by the desire to meet
| each other.
|
| so from the point of the first received message it will be one
| millennium before we get to learn anything about and from these
| aliens, and another millennium before we can meet them in person.
|
| and that's the optimistic projection. it could just as well take
| 10 times as long.
| analog31 wrote:
| I predict that if FTL travel is possible, it will happen in our
| lifetimes, perhaps even as soon as 20 years ago.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| That's what they said 30 years ago
| gtech1 wrote:
| uhm, develop FTL ? Break causality and the universe ?
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I don't know about faster than light, but as soon as we have
| real AI, it will simply be information and should be able to
| travel at about speed of light.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| It may be simply information, but if you put it into a
| radio signal and send it into the universe it won't do
| anything on its own. Not unless someone receives it and
| understands it well enough to execute it. Assuming they'd
| want to - I guess it's the interstellar equivalent of
| downloading and running a program from a spam email.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| We fleshy humans will never visit other stars, but our AI
| children will be able to explore the galaxy with all the time
| in the world.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I'm in an AI cult. Send help. No don't.
| saulpw wrote:
| Because hardware never breaks, especially not on galactic
| timescales, and without resources to perpetually replace
| failing components.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| They will have whole galaxies of resources! Massive amounts
| of redundancy. Mines, Refineries, and Factories on
| planetary scales.
|
| Not going to happen tomorrow, but perhaps in the next few
| thousand years something will be ready to begin its
| journey.
| anon291 wrote:
| Consider that, if the time separation is long enough via light
| then physical limits make it such that we do not ever have a
| chance of contact in which case this exchange is essentially
| indistinguishable from communication with supernatural beings.
|
| Not that I believe they are the same, but many people will come
| to this conclusion and they would not be probably wrong.
| Causality is strange.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >What do we do if SETI is successful?
|
| Resume the search for intelligence right here on Earth?
| skc wrote:
| If SETI is successful it would be a fascinating to sit back and
| observe the deeply religious.
| kulahan wrote:
| The Catholic church answered this question ages ago. I assume
| the other major religions did too. It's really not concerning
| at all to the institution; the major problem would be with
| people who don't actually understand their own religion.
|
| Granted, this would be a lot of people, but I think it'd be a
| midrange of "kinda religious, but not enough to dive in"-types
| who are mostly freaking out over the revelation.
| 9dev wrote:
| So, how does the story go? Only earth is blessed by god,
| because Jesus crashed here, and all the alien races are toast
| because they didn't have a chance to learn about Christ,
| Savior of the strange bipeds from Earth?
|
| I'm sure they came up with an elaborate story how Jesus loves
| sentient mollusks from Alpha Centauri, but I hope most people
| are smart enough to realise how little sense it all makes. I
| for one am curious how this plays out, if I'm lucky enough to
| witness it.
| kulahan wrote:
| tl;dr Humans were first and most important, but if you're
| omnipotent and building an ant farm, it's logical to
| provide a nearly infinite number of things to interest and
| enrich your creations. If there are other creatures, and
| they're given a rational soul, they were also made aware of
| God's existence.
|
| At the end of the day, the Catholics (at least) don't
| believe they were given full knowledge of the universe at
| some arbitrary point in the past. Instead, we were plopped
| into it and expected to explore and understand it. This
| will require us to occasionally update our teachings - just
| like how scientists need to update their teachings when
| they discover they didn't understand something before.
|
| It's unbelievably obnoxious to simply assume everyone who
| doesn't scoff at religion simply isn't "smart enough". You
| clearly haven't taken much time to understand the topic if
| you can't come up with even _one_ good argument. Even
| Richard Dawkins is able to connect with religious logic to
| a degree.
| 9dev wrote:
| Note that I didn't refer to religion as a whole, but the
| combination of Catholicism and sentient alien life in
| particular. I am definitely able to sympathise with
| believing in a kind of architect giving it all a sense of
| meaning, even if I don't share that notion. But desperate
| attempts of wringing a somewhat coherent argument out of
| texts written for a feudal society millennia ago? That's
| just coping.
| kulahan wrote:
| Oh, then sure, I won't argue with you there. It's up to
| you at that point to find the arguments convincing or
| not.
|
| I think the idea of Imago Dei is actually the most
| believable part. I am absolutely convinced that we're the
| forerunners of this universe. The first scenario where a
| creation becomes aware of its creator - even if I'm
| imagining the _wrong_ architect.
| wernerb wrote:
| The Catholics learned a lot during their witch-hunts
| regarding heliocentrism..
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| Check out: "UFO, End Times Delusion" as an example of a
| fundie take on extra terrestrials. A bit old now, not sure
| if they've updated it, but it's the kind of stuff I was
| raised in in the 80s/90s.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I don't think it would make any difference.
|
| Religion is completely disconnected from reality, making up
| things as they go.
|
| A signal from a life form would either be conspiracy or a
| signal from god, so strong that we cannot understand it.
|
| Either way, no real difference with what we have today.
| jandrese wrote:
| It would depend a lot on what the alien species was like.
|
| If they go "oh yeah Religion, that's a quirk of your biology,
| don't worry you will outgrow it in time" then yeah, that's
| problematic.
|
| If they go "Oh, you say that the savior Jesus Christ was a
| human? That answers one of our biggest questions. The story
| never made much sense before. Boy, those Angels must be pretty
| freaky looking for you then." then that's entirely different.
| bluGill wrote:
| Most will quickly look and discover the bible is silent on the
| topic which leaves plenty of room for God to create other
| aliens.
|
| I'm not familiar with every religion, but I think most can say
| the same.
| dudeinjapan wrote:
| Broadcast them Star Trek reruns to convince them to adopt the
| Prime Directive.
| aurizon wrote:
| Earth has a number of very high power semi directional
| transmitters operating. By this I mean the assorted 50 hertz and
| 60 hertz AC power systems. These are coherent in areas because
| there are separated adjacent systems that act to isolate them.
| These are long in wavelength at about 3000 miles and will
| penetrate the ionosphere via capacitance. If we had a long wave
| receiver in orbit past the earth, it could listen on an
| incrementally varying wavelength from 25 hertz to ~~300 hertz for
| any similarly radiating civilisation. This radiation would be
| reduced by square law spreading, but a phase locked loop receiver
| that gradually scanned this frequency space should be able to
| detect such radiation out to 100-500 light years. The PLL listens
| for a long integrating interval, and then steps to the next
| frequency. The antenna can be tuned to cover the 25 Hz to 300 Hz
| spectrum by use of mechanically adjustable loading coils. Such an
| antenna could be a simple long wire that is gravitationally solar
| stabilised so it would sweep annually. A similar one could be
| earth centered to enable sweeps at it's far from earth orbit much
| faster than annually? This is a project that Elon Musk could
| easily perform and it might get us a Nobel? if we found anything?
| It would sit there and sieve data in hope of success?
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| I think SETI is a worthwhile thing do but rank its chances of
| success at zero.
|
| Just my personal opinion.
| 7373737373 wrote:
| I think it's wise to follow the maxim of not calling something
| impossible unless some physical law prevents it
| kulahan wrote:
| In the end, I kinda... don't care. Look up - there's nothing.
| There should be at least _some_ alien civilizations trying to
| make their presence known. There should be some signs somewhere
| that could be recognized universally as either "stay away" or
| "come here". It really should be trivial to locate technological
| civilizations unless you've got some incredibly solid reason as
| to why EVERY SINGLE ALIEN CIVILIZATION IN THE UNIVERSE acts a
| certain way. Color me doubtful.
|
| We have billions and billions of data points showing the Universe
| is empty. We have exactly one (1) data point showing it isn't.
| And that's us.
|
| Besides, just look at the timeline. The universe has only been
| cool enough, with enough stable stars, with enough formed planets
| for potential life to form for a few billion years. Between that
| and the Drake equation, life alone is likely to be unreasonably
| uncommon. Life that forms after a planet becomes stable, doesn't
| have any planet-altering disasters, evolves to complex
| multicellular forms, evolves some kind of intelligence, becomes
| social, forms a society, advances technology, and starts
| exploring the universe...? Why bother? The math doesn't work.
|
| Note: I'm not speaking about any KIND of life existing, I'm
| speaking about _technological civilizations_. My belief is that
| we are essentially the forerunners.
| squigz wrote:
| The idea that humanity is the only civilization in the entire
| universe strikes me as the absolute height of human arrogance.
| kulahan wrote:
| Lots of things seem arrogant to lots of people, but without
| some logical basis, it's worth ignoring.
| pfdietz wrote:
| This is an ad hominem argument. It attacks a position not
| because it's wrong, but because if you advance it you're a
| bad person.
| bluGill wrote:
| When you look up remember that the majority of what you see is
| in the same sub-arm of the spiral arm of the milky way that we
| are in. Of those we can see a large number or binary systems -
| two stars orbiting each other. We fancy telescopes we can see a
| lot more of course.
|
| All the power of stars, and most of them still are not powerful
| enough that we can see them even on a dark night! What chance
| does any alien have of sending a message that reaches us if the
| light from their star isn't even powerful enough to be easy to
| detect? It was suggested elsewhere that even if we find an
| alien, we probably cannot respond if they are more than 100
| light years away just because we can't get a message out
| powerful enough that they can detect (I can't verify this claim
| but it is reasonable)
| wafflebot wrote:
| I have no doubt that civilizations are out there. Maybe a
| handful, maybe nearing infinity. But out there.
|
| The problem is "out there" is so far away, we are all
| isolated on our own island worlds. An ocean of space so vast
| we cannot meaningfully traverse it with probes or radio, to
| say nothing of manned interstellar flight.
|
| But it never gets boring for me to imagine what other
| civilizations there might be, and how they might be different
| from us and from each other.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Yes. The Fermi Argument strongly implies this sort of question
| is pointless, an exercise in wishful speculation.
| theletterf wrote:
| For a somber, deeply intellectual view of what could happen, I
| can't recommend enough Stanislaw Lem's His Master's Voice:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master%27s_Voice_%28novel%...
|
| "Given that our civilization is unable to assimilate well even
| those concepts that originate in human heads when they appear
| outside its main current, although the creators of those concepts
| are, after all, children of the same age--how could we have
| assumed that we would be capable of understanding a civilization
| totally unlike ours, if it addressed us across the cosmic gulf?"
| themafia wrote:
| Me and my dog cannot talk.
|
| I understand my dog and he understands me.
|
| If they experience death then we have massive common ground
| already.
| beAbU wrote:
| And you are comfortable being the dog in this cosmic
| relationship then?
| conartist6 wrote:
| it's that we're made out of meat: https://www.mit.edu/peopl
| e/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/think...
| carpo wrote:
| Man I love that story.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| Does it make you uncomfortable to think an alien
| civilization might be somehow superior to humans? That's a
| pretty immature thing to be insecure about.
| manquer wrote:
| Hardly a fair or realistic comparison.
|
| Domesticated mammalian[1] pet which share 80+% of our DNA and
| bred and naturally self-selected over few ten thousand
| generations for their obedience and take fair amount of
| training from birth is not the same as anything else on earth
| let alone from another planet.
|
| [1] Domesticating of non mammalian animals is already quite
| hard with limited true successes, some birds probably come
| the closest.
| Kiboneu wrote:
| Humans and dogs have evolved together to be cooperative...
|
| would you feel common ground with a predatory fish? Or a
| plant? An insect colony?
| breve wrote:
| I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.
|
| It's the only way to be sure.
| allenrb wrote:
| > What do we do if SETI is successful?
|
| Beg to be saved from ourselves? Fire up the old electronic thumb?
| Open a theme restaurant?
| bluGill wrote:
| The decision to not respond should not be considered an option
| for the UN. They can get a week max to decide what to respond,
| but a response needs to be sent quick. Otherwise you can assume
| someone will take the choice away and respond anyway. That
| someone could be a nation not liking the UN discussions, or it
| could be a rogue scientists with access to the powerful radios.
| (I doubt most of us could respond if we wanted to - even if
| someone is willing to break all laws they are either protected by
| too much security or they are too expensive to afford - but I
| guarantee someone who works at such a facility is willing to risk
| responding if governments delay too long)
|
| Even if the UN makes a respond expect someone else to send a
| different one at some point.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| No individual is going to have the resources to respond to an
| alien signal unless it comes from Proxima Centari (very maybe)
| or not much further. No current earth broad would be easily
| recognizable from Proxima Centari with earth technology - a
| factor to consider when thinking about why entities aren't
| being easily detected. A powerful and very carefully aimed
| laser might work for greater distances but that wouldn't be
| something that can assembled in someone's garage.
|
| But oppositely, if naturally defusing radio waves could be
| somehow detected from some further away location, the aliens
| would know already we're here and indeed lots about us so hand
| wringing about responding seems dumb there too.
| wernerb wrote:
| This is referenced in a sci fi book "The dark forest" of the
| series "The 3 body problem". It sets a convincing narrative that
| because of time taken for observation and response and
| development speed of society it is most likely that all
| civilizations that announce themselves would likely be a threat
| in terms of technological supremacy eventually to observing
| civilizations. In other words, we don't hear anything because any
| sufficiently advanced civilization would not want to risk being
| discovered. I.e., the "dark silent forest".
| gxd wrote:
| My upcoming story game, a love letter to SETI and the Hacker News
| crowd, offers some perspectives on the question:
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/3040110/Outsider/
|
| It will be out in 2 weeks!
| ricksunny wrote:
| former chairman of the board of the SETI Institute John Gertz:
|
| 'In fact, the author has heard from serious U.S. SETI researchers
| that they are convinced that "men in black suits" will appear at
| their laboratory door the moment a detection is confirmed.'
|
| Source: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1701.08422
| psunavy03 wrote:
| And yet no one is ever able to describe what agency or
| jurisdiction these "men in black suits" will work for.
|
| This basically is just demonstrating how people very very good
| in their field can still fail Civics 101. Men In Black were
| some funny movies back in the day, but they were just movies.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| This seems like romanticizing. I don't get the impression that
| maintaining a constant watch on SETI researchers is something
| any intelligence agency is incentivized to do.
| ricksunny wrote:
| The new proposed protocol from IAA that the article references
| but does not link to: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.14506
|
| IMO a protocol that doesn't involve automated instantaneous
| backing up of data on a publicly-referenceable blockchain is
| worthless due to the apparently legitimate (in the eyes SETI
| researchers that a former SETI institute chairman references)
| concern about security services quietly stepping in the way.
|
| (see my other comment for reference)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-10-21 23:01 UTC)