Current Events > How would society react if tomorrow NASA said they found a Dyson Sphere?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Robot2600 posted...

how many times.... the star doesn't need to be 100% covered

It better be if it expects to keep living under MY roof.

If a civilization has the capability of building a dyson sphere, would it have any benefit from doing so? If you're that good at the spacing guild thing, do you really want to stick around in one specific solar system that you can't use for habitation since you've blotted out the sun, and do the constant maintenance on the sphere and collect all that stored energy and ship it off all around the galaxy? Wouldn't this civilization rather that each system relies on special technologies involving their own star?

Zikten posted...

Only if it's builders are malevolent

Think of all the worst aspects of human civilization: greed, corruption, rape, murder, tribalism, etc. Now picture a society that has made the transcendence beyond those selfish impulses, which would be necessary to focus on the singular societal goal of interstellar travel. Now think about how you treat your pets, or how we treat animals in the zoo: you love them and care for them, but you also take necessary steps to limit / control their behavior to keep them from chewing up your clothes, shitting on the carpet, and ripping out each others throats. Now picture how an alien society who is that far above us in terms of societal advancement would view us.

Bottom line: even if our alien visitors were benevolent, the best-case scenario is that we'd be treated like their pets.

DeadBankerDream posted...

If a civilization has the capability of building a dyson sphere, would it have any benefit from doing so? If you're that good at the spacing guild thing, do you really want to stick around in one specific solar system that you can't use for habitation since you've blotted out the sun, and do the constant maintenance on the sphere and collect all that stored energy and ship it off all around the galaxy? Wouldn't this civilization rather that each system relies on special technologies involving their own star?

Interstellar travel is almost impossible given universal restraints. Any expansion beyond the home solar system would be extremely hard.

It's easy to say we don't know what type of crazy stuff alien civilizations might have, but even the theoretical stuff involves too much to get anywhere.

archedsoul posted...

Interstellar travel is almost impossible given universal restraints. Any expansion beyond the home solar system would be extremely hard.

It's easy to say we don't know what type of crazy stuff alien civilizations might have, but even the theoretical stuff involves too much to get anywhere.

You're right, but surely any civilization that is making a dyson sphere would have to be interstellar.

DeadBankerDream posted...

You're right, but surely any civilization that is making a dyson sphere would have to be interstellar.

"We've made our Dyson Sphere! Never again will we need energy!"

"yo why's it getting dark so early"

DeadBankerDream posted...

You're right, but surely any civilization that is making a dyson sphere would have to be interstellar.

Interstellar travel would be in the interim step between a type 2 civilization that can harness the output of their star and type 3, that can harness the output of their entire galaxy and which is probably not possible. Being able to create a Dyson Sphere does not mean they're capable of interstellar travel just yet.

At best, they might colonize their closest neighbor star after a lot of time and effort.

archedsoul posted...

At best, they might colonize their closest neighbor star after a lot of time and effort.

That sounds like interstellar travel.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Cavemen are type 0.

Every level of society from cavemen to even beyond our current level is all Type 0

You don't even reach type 1 until you can leave your solar system I think

It could give us a idea of how far we can advance as a civilization Ling after colonizing mars. Since our limit in this regard is still relativily unknown.

Although I'd be wondering why such a civilization has failed to contact us in any capacity if a far less advance one could find them.

If you see a civilization inhabiting a Dyson sphere and somehow, improbably, its coming towards you, you are fucked.