Current Events > Hmm...I suppose we are the only developed life in our galaxy

(+) Yeah! (+)

Per the internet, it is likely that there are about 20 billion "earth like" planets (small rocky planets in the habitable zone) in the Milky Way.

But...it took about 3 billion years (~1/4 the age of the entire universe) of relatively uninterrupted development (a statistical miracle) for us to get to this point.

It may well be the case that the chances of this happening are less than 1 in 20 billion.

Add on the furmi paradox ... no real signs of any life including von nueman probes...and it looks like we're alone.

All alone in the galaxy with no way to ever even communicate with anything outside of our galaxy even if given thousands of years to develop better tech.

Kind of sad really. Just us.

It's not sad. Do you want to be enslaved by an advanced alien race and forced to do physical labor mining for them until you're too old and then destroyed?
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but the universe is really big

Maybe we're the first ones. Or there are others like us too far away, thinking the same.
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with how big the universe is i think we cant be the only intelligent life in the universe
but believe in ufos are insane

i dont think the technology to travel vast distances in a short time period through space will ever exist

and i dont think if it did aliens would come here
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FrozenXylophone posted...

but the universe is really big

Right but that is irrelevant b/c we will never even communicate with anything outside of our galaxy.

Within our galaxy...which is basically all that matters aside from looking at million/billion year old light...we appear to be alone.

Pepys Monster posted...

It's not sad. Do you want to be enslaved by an advanced alien race and forced to do physical labor mining for them until you're too old and then destroyed?

I suppose that eliminates that as a possibility...but I would roll the dice on that not happening if given the option and see what other civilizations would be like.

Pepys Monster posted...

Do you want to be enslaved by an advanced alien race

why do people always assume aliens are more advanced than us?

Stars are very far apart, and it takes a rather long time for light to travel between them.

For any two intelligent species to even be aware the other exists, there needs to be some pretty fantastically unlikely coincidences, the biggest being that at least one be able to understand the other's signals. This requires at that civilization to be at a sufficiently advanced level the exact moment the relevant photons arrive, and recognize what its seeing, while the other civilization has to have been at a sufficiently advanced level to send those photons long enough ago to have sent those signals. Also those photons have to have not degraded into noise along the way.

If there's life around the closest other star, and it starts transmitting "hello universe!" right now, we won't see it for four years, and that assumes we know what to even look for.

Pepys Monster posted...

It's not sad. Do you want to be enslaved by an advanced alien race and forced to do physical labor mining for them until you're too old and then destroyed?

We're already doing that. You're brain washed into believing so many things like your pay being good enough for example.
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omgbread posted...

Add on the furmi paradox ... no real signs of any life including von nueman probes...and it looks like we're alone.

Von Nueman probes violate thermodynamics so not seeing them is no surprise.
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You're underestimating the size of the galaxy. It's impossible to know what's happening in the near half a trillion stars spread over 100k light-years. It's stupid to even say anything final like that.
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Stars are very far apart, and it takes a rather long time for light to travel between them.

For any two intelligent species to even be aware the other exists, there needs to be some pretty fantastically unlikely coincidences, the biggest being that at least one be able to understand the other's signals. This requires at that civilization to be at a sufficiently advanced level the exact moment the relevant photons arrive, and recognize what its seeing, while the other civilization has to have been at a sufficiently advanced level to send those photons long enough ago to have sent those signals. Also those photons have to have not degraded into noise along the way.

If there's life around the closest other star, and it starts transmitting "hello universe!" right now, we won't see it for four years, and that assumes we know what to even look for.

That's where the furmi paradox comes in...assuming we don't go extinct...it will be just a few hundred years (maybe a thousand or so at most) until we launch intelligent self-replicated robots into space which can explore and colonize the galaxy with exponential expansion (in just a few million years actually which is amazing).

On the scale of time that exists in our galaxy, that is basically no time at all between us coming into existence and having signs of us all of the galaxy...yet there are no signs of anyone else doing this and no reason why anyone capable of doing it would not do it...therefore...nobody else exists or we are one of the first/most advanced.

To me, this is kind of depressing. The idea that we may the only ones in teh galaxy, or the most advanced ones in the galaxy, kind of kills the sense of wonder when looking out at stars.

ChromaticAngel posted...

omgbread posted...

Add on the furmi paradox ... no real signs of any life including von nueman probes...and it looks like we're alone.

Von Nueman probes violate thermodynamics so not seeing them is no surprise.

Von Neumann probes in no way violate thermodynamics (or any other law or theory of science)

DoctorVader posted...

You're underestimating the size of the galaxy. It's impossible to know what's happening in the near half a trillion stars spread over 100k light-years. It's stupid to even say anything final like that.

I get that, my point is that when you put it that way you it is easy to say of course the galaxy is littered with life and civilizations.

When you take another moment, and think through the biology that happened here and the probability of that happening bumped up against the likely number of other planets like us...you realize it may not be littered with life at all...in fact it may contain no life at all....then you look at the lack of evidence for life and complete and total improbability of a lack of evidence if life were common...and you realize we are likely alone.

but tc, it is really big

therefore life is out there

if we are alone in the universe it disproves the existence of God

Questionmarktarius posted...

Stars are very far apart, and it takes a rather long time for light to travel between them.

For any two intelligent species to even be aware the other exists, there needs to be some pretty fantastically unlikely coincidences, the biggest being that at least one be able to understand the other's signals. This requires at that civilization to be at a sufficiently advanced level the exact moment the relevant photons arrive, and recognize what its seeing, while the other civilization has to have been at a sufficiently advanced level to send those photons long enough ago to have sent those signals. Also those photons have to have not degraded into noise along the way.

If there's life around the closest other star, and it starts transmitting "hello universe!" right now, we won't see it for four years, and that assumes we know what to even look for.

Say hello to this weird star, which some speculate is being manipulated by alien intelligence.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/10/14/weird_star_strange_dips_in_brightness_are_a_bit_baffling.html

universe =/= galaxy people (that aren't TC). Of course there's life out there, but we're still alone here.\Ammonitida posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

Stars are very far apart, and it takes a rather long time for light to travel between them.

For any two intelligent species to even be aware the other exists, there needs to be some pretty fantastically unlikely coincidences, the biggest being that at least one be able to understand the other's signals. This requires at that civilization to be at a sufficiently advanced level the exact moment the relevant photons arrive, and recognize what its seeing, while the other civilization has to have been at a sufficiently advanced level to send those photons long enough ago to have sent those signals. Also those photons have to have not degraded into noise along the way.

If there's life around the closest other star, and it starts transmitting "hello universe!" right now, we won't see it for four years, and that assumes we know what to even look for.

Say hello to this weird star, which some speculate is being manipulated by alien intelligence.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/10/14/weird_star_strange_dips_in_brightness_are_a_bit_baffling.html

they debunked this. there was a more recent article but i cannot find it for the life of me.
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-think-they-can-finally-explain-the-weirdness-that-is-the-alien-megastructure-star
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Personally lean towards the explanation that its the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself with technology before it develops the capability to reach across stars

After all, took less than 100 years to go from primitive radio broadcasting to nuclear weapons which is a blink of an eye on a cosmic timescale

fenderbender321 posted...

More resources for us.

you could start here an listen to the 10 minute or so bit he goes into at this point of the interview:

https://youtu.be/QZl3ohphHSE?t=5154

Lots of stuff out there on this though...arguments against a lot of life in the galaxy appear more persuasive than those for life being every where.

Any other life would of existed long before us. Were so far away from each other it dosnt matter time itself prevents us from reaching other intelligent life.

Without faster than light travel it isn't practical to even consider discovering or entertaining the idea of aliens.
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Space isn't real.
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apocalyptic_4 posted...

Any other life would of existed long before us. Were so far away from each other it dosnt matter time itself prevents us from reaching other intelligent life.

Without faster than light travel it isn't practical to even consider discovering or entertaining the idea of aliens.

Meeting aliens face to face...maybe. But if 1 single time an advanced civilization got 1 single wave of replicating exploratory probes off...then you would find them (in fact you would likely find them everywhere)

Back_Stabbath posted...

universe =/= galaxy people (that aren't TC). Of course there's life out there, but we're still alone here.\Ammonitida posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

Stars are very far apart, and it takes a rather long time for light to travel between them.

For any two intelligent species to even be aware the other exists, there needs to be some pretty fantastically unlikely coincidences, the biggest being that at least one be able to understand the other's signals. This requires at that civilization to be at a sufficiently advanced level the exact moment the relevant photons arrive, and recognize what its seeing, while the other civilization has to have been at a sufficiently advanced level to send those photons long enough ago to have sent those signals. Also those photons have to have not degraded into noise along the way.

If there's life around the closest other star, and it starts transmitting "hello universe!" right now, we won't see it for four years, and that assumes we know what to even look for.

Say hello to this weird star, which some speculate is being manipulated by alien intelligence.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/10/14/weird_star_strange_dips_in_brightness_are_a_bit_baffling.html

they debunked this. there was a more recent article but i cannot find it for the life of me.
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-think-they-can-finally-explain-the-weirdness-that-is-the-alien-megastructure-star

No they didn't.

Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the star's large irregular changes in brightness as measured by its light curve, but none to date fully explain all aspects of the curve.

Look, I'm not saying it's Aliens, but....I think it's Aliens.

For all we know, ever other galaxy could have intelligent life on multiple planets and a way to reach us, however have decided that our race is too barbaric, and unworthy.

Or maybe there was intelligent life in our galaxy that died out thousands of years ago.

Maybe life is just forming nearby or far away.

I think any definitive statement about life or no life in our galaxy, or any galaxy is pointless at this point.
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itachi15243 posted...

For all we know, ever other galaxy could have intelligent life on multiple planets and a way to reach us, however have decided that our race is too barbaric, and unworthy.

Or maybe there was intelligent life in our galaxy that died out thousands of years ago.

Maybe life is just forming nearby or far away.

I think any definitive statement about life or no life in our galaxy, or any galaxy is pointless at this point.

Ok, so it isn't so much no life...but its no life now or before that was relatively close to our level of civilization. We are alone, or the first to get to this point...if you consider the biological jackpot that created us and the limited (although huge) number of planets where the chain of events producing us is possible.

It would be great to find microbes on Mars...but that isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about having another civilization to co-exist with...seems like we don't even if we had the tech to truly search.

omgbread posted...

itachi15243 posted...

For all we know, ever other galaxy could have intelligent life on multiple planets and a way to reach us, however have decided that our race is too barbaric, and unworthy.

Or maybe there was intelligent life in our galaxy that died out thousands of years ago.

Maybe life is just forming nearby or far away.

I think any definitive statement about life or no life in our galaxy, or any galaxy is pointless at this point.

Ok, so it isn't so much no life...but its no life now or before that was relatively close to our level of civilization. We are alone, or the first to get to this point...if you consider the biological jackpot that created us and the limited (although huge) number of planets where the chain of events producing us is possible.

It would be great to find microbes on Mars...but that isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about having another civilization to co-exist with...seems like we don't even if we had the tech to truly search.

That makes no sense. Even though we don't have the technology to search, why do you think any intelligent life that might exist would be so far ahead of us that they would have the technology, the ability to communicate, and the desire?

What makes it "seem like we don't" when they could be at a point where they are above or below us technologically but not advanced enough to make contact?

Why does any sort of intelligent life have to be hundreds of years beyond us in your mind?
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You really don't know much about space or our galaxy if you think we've made any serious exploration of it. We've barely explored our solar system.

Go play Mass Effect.
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itachi15243 posted...

That makes no sense. Even though we don't have the technology to search, why do you think any intelligent life that might exist would be so far ahead of us that they would have the technology, the ability to communicate, and the desire?

What makes it "seem like we don't" when they could be at a point where they are above or below us technologically but not advanced enough to make contact?

Why does any sort of intelligent life have to be hundreds of years beyond us in your mind?

It's not about communication with us...it's about leaving the signs for us to realize they are or were there. Then...it's about time and scale..if common...it would have happened long ago, now, and in the future...so we would see signs. We don't.

To really boil it down to a simple statement...if life was remotely common we would see signs given the time scale we are dealing with...and we don't.

TheKingOf-Kings posted...

You really don't know much about space or our galaxy if you think we've made any serious exploration of it. We've barely explored our solar system.

Go play Mass Effect.

I think you seriously underestimate our ability to look. We can't go anywhere...that's true. But when you think about the effect a civilization like ours will have in the next thousand years (therefore, the effect the similarly advanced civilization must have already had if life is common)....we can pick that stuff up...and in the case of probes...they would LIKELY be near us.

omgbread posted...

itachi15243 posted...

That makes no sense. Even though we don't have the technology to search, why do you think any intelligent life that might exist would be so far ahead of us that they would have the technology, the ability to communicate, and the desire?

What makes it "seem like we don't" when they could be at a point where they are above or below us technologically but not advanced enough to make contact?

Why does any sort of intelligent life have to be hundreds of years beyond us in your mind?

It's not about communication with us...it's about leaving the signs for us to realize they are or were there. Then...it's about time and scale..if common...it would have happened long ago, now, and in the future...so we would see signs. We don't.

To really boil it down to a simple statement...if life was remotely common we would see signs given the time scale we are dealing with...and we don't.

So you are trolling. I kinda figured.

It's not about communication, it's just about communication by leaving signs for us. Leaving signs for a race they might not have ever thought to exist. Wtf do you mean, if common? You said any intelligent life, not it being a huge common thing exists all over. And now you can see into the future, too?

There's that "common" crap again. Stop changing goal posts and stop with the annoying spam of ellipsis's too. It doesn't make you seem deep, profound, intelligent, or whatever your troll ass is going for. It just makes you look like a young teen.

And where would we see these signs? What makes you think they would even put them up if they could? And even if they could, there's so much in our own galaxy we don't know about. We couldn't say definitively that there are or aren't signs even if they do exist.

I'm done feeding you. I hope you're actually a troll and not really this dense.
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I'm saying we would perceive evidence. Not that aliens literally leave signs intending for us to see them...

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omgbread posted...

I'm saying we would perceive evidence. Not that aliens literally leave signs intending for us to see them...

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it's about leaving the signs for us to realize they are or were there.

And I'm saying that we wouldn't. Technology just isn't good enough to get a good detailed look at everything that may hold life in our galaxy.

That along with theories of that one star having an alien installation to make use of the stars power. We have no way to know right now. Just accept it.
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I hope we're not alone

Given the scale of the universe, it's very likely we aren't but it's also likely we are
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itachi15243 posted...

And I'm saying that we wouldn't. Technology just isn't good enough to get a good detailed look at everything that may hold life in our galaxy.

That along with theories of that one star having an alien installation to make use of the stars power. We have no way to know right now. Just accept it.

What specifically about the fermi paradox do you find most unlikely?

He reasons, based on our improving understanding of theoretical engineering capacities, that an intelligent civilization not much more advanced than us could start and complete within 10,000 years (and perhaps orders of magnitude faster) a project of launching a sufficient number of replicators for universal colonization. Basically, the civilization could build a Dyson sphere around its star and harness that energy to build and launch trillions of von Neumann self-replicating probes toward all the galaxies in the observable universe. Stuart then observes that this makes the Fermi paradox "worse" because 10,000 years (or less) on cosmological scales is almost no time at all, suggesting that the critical path would be travel time (rather than any earlier stage in the project), and there's clearly been more than enough travel time available to the probes of any intelligent inhabitants of stars and galaxies older than our own.

http://lincoln.metacannon.net/2012/02/do-dyson-spheres-and-von-neumann-probes.html

omgbread posted...

DoctorVader posted...

You're underestimating the size of the galaxy. It's impossible to know what's happening in the near half a trillion stars spread over 100k light-years. It's stupid to even say anything final like that.

I get that, my point is that when you put it that way you it is easy to say of course the galaxy is littered with life and civilizations.

When you take another moment, and think through the biology that happened here and the probability of that happening bumped up against the likely number of other planets like us...you realize it may not be littered with life at all...in fact it may contain no life at all....then you look at the lack of evidence for life and complete and total improbability of a lack of evidence if life were common...and you realize we are likely alone.

No, you're still underestimating here and making tons of assumptions, many bordering on science fiction much like Fermi and others.

We are on the outer arm of the galaxy, pretty isolated from the center. There's no guarantee anything sent out on the other side would even reach us even given a million years because there's no guarantee a civilization would make Stargate-esque replicators to roam the galaxy because there's no guarantee we ourselves will reach that level, so why would other intelligent life? The Voyager 2 will reach the nearest star in 80k years. Civilizations could flourish and crumble in that time period.

14 billion years doesn't guarantee replicators. What's more likely is the the sheer distance keeps everyone isolated in their bubbles. Maybe some civilization colonized a few star systems. We would never know about it because we have no realistic way of knowing. You can't detect objects outside the solar system, so there could be bunch of shit floating around, and you have to be looking at signals/have to be aimed at you.

Super advanced life is likely rare, but just intelligent life could be all around the galaxy without actually knowing the presence of the other.
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DoctorVader posted...

14 billion years doesn't guarantee replicators.

14 billion years heavily implies replicators

omgbread posted...

DoctorVader posted...

14 billion years doesn't guarantee replicators.

14 billion years heavily implies replicators

No it doesn't. Maybe somewhere in the Universe, and even then, that shit is pretty sci-fi, and once again does not guarantee it would reach this small dot in the galaxy, especially enough to be detected.

We will likely never create this technology, yet we're a pretty advanced civilization. There's a higher chance we'll nuke ourselves or get destroyed by natural disasters than us ever reaching the point of having sent out replicators that will be detectible in all 400 billion star systems eventually.
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People don't really give a fuck about space.

It's probably the same on the other planets so nothing gets done.

Paradox destroyed.
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The major misconception in that theory in the OP is that we had "uninterrupted development". There were several mass extinction events. A few of them wiped out more than 90% of species living at that time. And IIRC, the impact with the rogue planet that eventually formed the moon? There was life before that point and life afterward. A fucking planet collision couldn't stop (microbial) life.
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Zikten posted...

if we are alone in the universe it disproves the existence of God

This is assuming God and the Angels live in our physical universe. If they don't (and there's lots of reasons to assume they don't) then it would be quite the opposite.
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DoctorVader posted...

We will likely never create this technology, yet we're a pretty advanced civilization.

What? We will almost certainly create this tech within the next 200ish years (max)

weapon_d00d816 posted...

The major misconception in that theory in the OP is that we had "uninterrupted development". There were several mass extinction events. A few of them wiped out more than 90% of species living at that time. And IIRC, the impact with the rogue planet that eventually formed the moon? There was life before that point and life afterward. A fucking planet collision couldn't stop (microbial) life.

relatively uninterrupted

omgbread posted...

weapon_d00d816 posted...

The major misconception in that theory in the OP is that we had "uninterrupted development". There were several mass extinction events. A few of them wiped out more than 90% of species living at that time. And IIRC, the impact with the rogue planet that eventually formed the moon? There was life before that point and life afterward. A fucking planet collision couldn't stop (microbial) life.

relatively uninterrupted

No, that many global extinction events is being pretty thoroughly fucked with.

I guess it would be worse without Jupiter taming the asteroid belt, but who says a Jupiter type planet would be rare in these life-bearing solar systems? Who says they would even have an asteroid belt needing shepherded?
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Voyager 1 is still only 140 AU from the sun.
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Zikten posted...

if we are alone in the universe it disproves the existence of God

I thought finding aliens would disprove the existence of God.
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averagejoel posted...

+1
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Amazing how no one here has even considered the possibility that we have already made contact.

Some of the best evidence is in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waBWxdpbEw8

TC is making the classic mistake of protecting human features onto unknown alien species.
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