We Are All Alone In This Galaxy :( [Harsh Truth]

[AkshullyizDaren]

Maybe alone in the galaxy bit probs not alone.on the.universe

[Spill512]

We?

I'm certainly not a part of it.


Its generally the regressive humans who initiate violence against others.


IMO, he who initiates violence should be swiftly removed from the gene pool, even for non-lethal offenses (assault, rape, etc). Same goes for politicians and anyone else who authorizes the use of offensive violence. "Snip". It's eugenics. If the predisposition for offensive violence is partially a genetic trait then IMO it should be humanely culled from our genome until the only violence we commit is defensive in nature, protecting ourselves from exogeneous threats.

You put yourself in a different situation and you might not be so against violence. I mean you aren't even right now, you are basically advocating we take people against their will and take away their ability to produce offspring, that in itself is a violent act.

[TSFP]

http://media.skysurvey.org/openzoom.html

your argument is invalid

amazing

[bambarby]

This theory would rely on the other intelligent life form who are advanced enough to travel FTL to have the desire to colonize every single planet with robots?

Why the **** would they want to do that?

Yep. But then your argument would be none of them wants to do that. Which is not a bad argument tbh

[TinoD_Voe]

there's plenty of theories out there this is one of many.... http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ites-the-origi

if life originated from a meteorite floating around space, that means the building blocks are most likely spread across the universe. any other planet that has a habitable environment can be teaming with life. from some sort of single celled organism to some huge dinosaur looking mother****er to things we can't even wrap our brains around.

take a look at this and try to grasp just how ****ing small we are if you can. This is just a tiny section of what we see every night looking up at the sky. (scroll in an area and give it some time to load up the high res picture)

http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1242a/zoomable/

[Sladjan]

1. a lot of civilizations most likely destroy themselves - just like we will
2. it is probably still harder then they say to populate "the entire galaxy"
3. the universe is constantly expanding so this destroys every argument

I agree most civilizations do destroy themselves and we are well on our way of doing the same but we should not be using it as an excuse. We are extremely intelligent and endowed with such things as empathy and thought which I personally believe is sufficient for us to do extraordinary things. You wouldn't say all people are intelligent and exhibit these characteristics of our species (fuk no) but we have the capability and should strive for extraordinary feats (just like we still do in the fields of science and technology).. just you know extend it to perhaps something a little bit more significant in the grand scheme of things.

We don't have to populate the entire galaxy. There will come a time where this planet is inhabitable and at that point we should have advanced enough to be able to inhabit another planet or survive in outer space growing food, producing oxygen and sustaining life (somehow, this is in pure hope we can solve these questions that will allow us to survive beyond our planet).

I think we sometimes sell short ourselves how great we are but at the same time we overestimate ourselves in thinking we (truly) matter. This will all remain sci fi unless we curb the habit or preference of killing ourselves off before the universe gets the chance.

[LoweRider]

type 4 = zipping around galaxies
type 5 = zipping around universes

that's not an entirely accurate description, but just imagine progressing to a higher plane of dimensional existence as a more achievable result than harnessing the energy of multiple galaxies.

*disclaimer of pure, pure broscience*

michio kaku says there are only 3 types of civilizations. you're argument is invalidated

[surf junkie]

You put yourself in a different situation and you might not be so against violence. I mean you aren't even right now, you are basically advocating we take people against their will and take away their ability to produce offspring, that in itself is a violent act.

Can you tell me a situation in which I might be supportive of offensive violence?

You are telling me that punishment for crime--such as death penalty--is murder (offensive violence) in your eyes?

IMO, getting rid of people who start violence, is not initiating violence. It is responding with violence. I never said violence was wrong/bad. I said starting it is. If someone initiates violence, I think they're fair game.

[vopcho]

More ramblings to consider when discussing aliens

Imagine if like inception (the way time scales kept getting longer in the real world the deeper you went), their technology augments their intellect to the point that they begin living "everyday life" at planck scales. Think about what it would mean if 10^-44 seconds of our time became 1 second of their time. By the time our first radio signals even reached our moon, they could have advanced further than they had in all their previous history combined

[bambarby]

Maybe alone in the galaxy bit probs not alone.on the.universe

I think we should only focus on this galaxy, and not even mention about life in other galaxies. Galaxies are so damn far apart that there's no way species from different galaxies will even be able to contact each other. Sure there's life in the universe, but if we can't find any friends here, we are alone

[BrotatoChip]

More ramblings to consider when discussing aliens

Imagine if like inception (the way time scales kept getting longer in the real world the deeper you went), their technology augments their intellect to the point that they begin living "everyday life" at planck scales. Think about what it would mean if 10^-44 seconds of our time became 1 second of their time. By the time our first radio signals even reached our moon, they could have advanced further than they had in all their previous history combined

I like the idea but planck time scales might be stretching it lol.

We're pretty sure quark recombination happens on a timescale of ~10^-18 s.

[TheKalleMyster]

OP lemme explain this to you.
(and I'm going to say universe not galaxy because it just increases the chances, etc, but both apply).
In the universe, there is a finite chance of a planet that can sustain life. Then a finite chance that life will evolve (ie single cell organism, bacteria, etc). <--these alone are "life" so i guess that proves you wrong, but i think you meant intelligent life.
So then, IF this life evolves, and reaches intelligence, then we have to consider the fact that most likely they will blow themselves up or kill themselves. Lets say they have a lifespan as a species of 2000 years (of being able to contact us). They then have to be close enough to send us a signal, within a 2000 year period within the parameter that nothing travels faster than the speed of light.

So basically, the rough chance that life exists is tiny. Even smaller is the chance they're intelligent. Even smaller is the chance that both humans and the aliens both simultaneously (within 2000 years) are able to broadcast signals and then they have to actually REACH us which is highly unlikely.

Cliffs: Life exists, so does intelligent life probably, the chances of them ever contacting us are smaller than 0.0000000001%.

[Lastman13]

Why haven't they found us yet?

Because there is nothing particularly special about Earth. From a distant vantage point, earth is but a point of pale light surrounded by cosmic darkness.

Even if there is some super-species that has colonized the entire milky way galaxy, they have no reason whatsoever to visit our particular solar system, when there are hundreds of millions of stars just like our own.

Why would aliens have any reason whatsoever to visit this solitary speck of dust, among the billions of other specks of dust?

You see the pale blue dot in the sunbeam? That's Earth, taken from the Voyager spacecraft just past Saturn. Even from within our own solar system, Earth appears insignificant. Extraterrestrials would have no reason whatsoever to visit this lonely speck of dust.

[Sladjan]

We?

I'm certainly not a part of it.


Its generally the regressive humans who initiate violence against others.


IMO, he who initiates violence should be swiftly removed from the gene pool, even for non-lethal offenses (assault, rape, etc). Same goes for politicians and anyone else who authorizes the use of offensive violence. "Snip". It's eugenics. If the predisposition for offensive violence is partially a genetic trait then IMO it should be humanely culled from our genome until the only violence we commit is defensive in nature, protecting ourselves from exogeneous threats.

Like it or not man, we are all in it together. The same species and the same people. Of course we can argue it's the bad seeds that are weighing us down and they should be eradicated from the species and so forth. I don't think you are giving the problem enough credit. The divisiveness in our species is easily over 90% if you were to put a figure on it. This obviously stems from religion, gender, race, sexual preferences, anecdotal ancestral hate towards overs and some other chit I don't even know. It is the vast majority over what me and you would call the normal ones. The easiest one to point out is religion, no matter what else you think and believe but due to the numerous strains of religion out there and the fact they are all incompatible, there is an underlying divisiveness present in every religious being. It is just innate in religion with ideas such as heaven and hell and the promotion of the us vs them tribal mentality.

I despise that you use, the 'its not me' and 'i'm not part of it' argument.. what, are you going to save the whole species and all civilizations yourself?

[AdamsAwesome]

I seriously believe that something will happen to us before we reach another solar system.

A "nearby" star could go supernova or un-nova (black hole) at any time and fuk our **** up thousands of light years away. A sunspot could anally scorch our surface. An asteroid could piitb. Humans could die of our own causes, biological, nuclear, you name it. Superviruses, Supercalderas, Supernovas - this galaxy is full of **** that could super fuk us up.

[Laterade]

Yep. But then your argument would be none of them wants to do that. Which is not a bad argument tbh

Yea. If another life form was advanced enough to travel FTL they would get seemingly no benefit trying to colonize EVERY planet. Chances are they have discovered other life forms other than themselves, and already colonized plenty of planets to sustain whatever they are doing. There are over 50 billion just in our galaxy....100 billion+ other galaxies out there.....the chance of said life form being advanced enough to have the capabilities to do this mass robot colonization is another factor. There are so many planets it will blow your mind in half just trying to comprehend it.

When you consider what other life forms might be out there I don't you can compare them to us as humans and assume we would be similar. Our goals, motives, way of life, ect. could be not even remotely similar to some other extremely intelligent and advanced life form. I think there is a good chance we are known about but whoever/whatever it is has no reason to make contact with us or destroy us. They would probably consider us completely irrelevant.

[dannyg2127]

Read this: http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal

Fictional short story but a fun interesting read none the less

[Laterade]

So then, IF this life evolves, and reaches intelligence, then we have to consider the fact that most likely they will blow themselves up or kill themselves.

Why would they 'likely' blow themselves up?

[LoweRider]

OP lemme explain this to you.
(and I'm going to say universe not galaxy because it just increases the chances, etc, but both apply).
In the universe, there is a finite chance of a planet that can sustain life. Then a finite chance that life will evolve (ie single cell organism, bacteria, etc). <--these alone are "life" so i guess that proves you wrong, but i think you meant intelligent life.
So then, IF this life evolves, and reaches intelligence, then we have to consider the fact that most likely they will blow themselves up or kill themselves. Lets say they have a lifespan as a species of 2000 years (of being able to contact us). They then have to be close enough to send us a signal, within a 2000 year period within the parameter that nothing travels faster than the speed of light.

So basically, the rough chance that life exists is tiny. Even smaller is the chance they're intelligent. Even smaller is the chance that both humans and the aliens both simultaneously (within 2000 years) are able to broadcast signals and then they have to actually REACH us which is highly unlikely.

Cliffs: Life exists, so does intelligent life probably, the chances of them ever contacting us are smaller than 0.0000000001%.

[Spill512]

Can you tell me a situation in which I might be supportive of offensive violence?

You are telling me that punishment for crime--such as death penalty--is murder (offensive violence) in your eyes?

IMO, getting rid of people who start violence, is not initiating violence. It is responding with violence. I never said violence was wrong/bad. I said starting it is. If someone initiates violence, I think they're fair game.

People in poor urban areas are more likely to commit violent crimes and wealthier people are more likely to commit non-violent white collar crimes. That alone proves that the situation you're in dictates your propensity to commit violence. Then what about people who were born in 3rd world countries, who were born into violence such as child soldiers, they committed violent acts but were basically grown into a situation where they were told it's okay. And who's to say how we would act if the certain fears we have guiding us towards non violence, like cops, fear of retaliation, prison, etc, were gone?

And even if we were advanced enough to look at our genes and come up with a 100% sureproof way of only eliminating people who are capable of violence(not in the foreseeable future), we would then deal with the issue of what constitutes a "violent" act and that would be decided by the politician's of that time who will have their own bias, which is literally justifying a type of genocide at the whim of some politician's bias. Like is fighting your brother when you're 10 violent enough? Is theft considered violent? Is selling a dangerous product (such as a car with faulty brakes), without warning, to an ignorant consumer considered violent? Then think about the consequences of eliminating our ability to commit an offensive violent act, we would lose our survival instincts to atleast some degree, a trait that has evolved in almost every animal and has kept us alive for thousands of years, not to mention all of the other unintended consequences.

[AboveAverage]

what seperates humans from animals (in this whole 'we are like ants to aliens') is that humans ask questions. Scientists have trained various different primates to communicate but not once has it ever occurred to the animal to ask a question. That's where humans differ, and that's why I think Aliens would make contact with us and try to communicate.

[Mcflibber]

Mabe the 1st life form here on earth (Last universal ancestor) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_ancestor was actually a seed of life from a super advanced alien civilization over 4 billion years ago and we are earths version of what these aliens became

[OJAY]

Who is to say we have not been visited before? It's not possible we are not alone in this galaxy..

[jake1224]

The problem with this is that in unexplored space, there's no reason that the laws of reality don't shift. Principles that the most intelligent astrophysicists can't even fathom. Who is to say that the alternate 'life' in the universe, the sentient life, obeys Earthen laws of biology? maybe those ****ers 'evolve' ten thousand times slower. Maybe they're still single-celled organisms, taking their ****ing time. Maybe the cell isn't even the unit of life for them.

The whole thing is ****ing pointless since nobody has any basis for declaring what is or isn't out there since we can't even be sure that their reality is the same as ours. We could be visited tomorrow by alien ****ers that generated their own literal ****ing time continuum and are constantly in a different state of phasing and thus cannot be physically touched or interacted with, only seen or felt.

[SkyGuardian]

Is the Fermi Paradox assuming linear transgression of a species in terms of technological advancement? There could be many things halting a civilization from advancing such as war with themselves or another species or simply a halt in intellectual means to continue as a species.

[surf junkie]

People in poor urban areas are more likely to commit violent crimes and wealthier people are more likely to commit non-violent white collar crimes. That alone proves that the situation you're in dictates your propensity to commit violence. Then what about people who were born in 3rd world countries, who were born into violence such as child soldiers, they committed violent acts but were basically grown into a situation where they were told it's okay. And who's to say how we would act if the certain fears we have guiding us towards non violence, like cops, fear of retaliation, prison, etc, were gone?

And even if we were advanced enough to look at our genes and come up with a 100% sureproof way of only eliminating people who are capable of violence(not in the foreseeable future), we would then deal with the issue of what constitutes a "violent" act and that would be decided by the politician's of that time who will have their own bias, which is literally justifying a type of genocide at the whim of some politician's bias. Like is fighting your brother when you're 10 violent enough? Is theft considered violent? Is selling a dangerous product (such as a car with faulty brakes), without warning, to an ignorant consumer considered violent? Then think about the consequences of eliminating our ability to commit an offensive violent act, we would lose our survival instincts to atleast some degree, a trait that has evolved in almost every animal and has kept us alive for thousands of years, not to mention all of the other unintended consequences.

Never said it would be easy, or 100% effective, or Right.

But the elimination of offensive violence is a worthy ideal to strive for, even if attaining it is impossible, getting closer will make us better.

I'm not a pacifist, I believe in swift and deliberate violence in response to violence ... self-defense being an example.

You're basically providing cover for those who start chit, and saying that it even helps our species.

Its not a simple task, to draw a clean box around the definition of violence. ie. play-fighting your brother.

But that is IMO where the discussion should be. Defining what violence is acceptable and what isn't. IMO, any violence in which one party is not a voluntary participant. Street fight against thugs compared to fighting in a ring for money. One is voluntary, one isn't.



Yes people in bad neighborhoods are more violent. Tough chit, that doesn't excuse their actions. It means we should be finding ways to change the environment, but at the same time not sanctioning offensive violence.


If you're supporting of the evolutionary effects of humans fighting/raping/killing one another, then maybe we should turn that into a sport or something to keep that aspect of evolution going, but making sure that both parties are voluntary participants to the bloodshed.


It's hard to believe that you're saying murder is good for humanity

[StupidWheels]

i like baiters who don't even understand the scope of the universe

[100whey]

Maybe colonizing other planets and exploring the galaxy is something thats so incredibly difficult to do that its just not worth doing. All the life forms just live on their planet until their star dies. Or intelligent life forms are rarely able to evolve to the point where they are successfully colonizing other planets. How often are extinction level events? Just because the galaxy isnt colonized doesnt mean that theres no other forms of life in the galaxy. Sounds to me like silly science fiction drivel. Colonizing an entire galaxy what a joke.

[fawkingjoocy]

you know whats crazy? light only travels so fast. If someone was to looking at this planet right now 300 light years away, they would be seeing the world as it was in the 18th century. French revolution, American revolution, etc. So if there was an alien life force outside of our galaxy that could see us but not travel to us the earth would look very young to them. would still be in pangea mode or something

[TaterSaladJr]

What if we are actually in a simulation created by aliens, and we don't even exist?

Just like humans create virtual worlds like the Sims.