News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on There Probably Have Been Aliens. Parent comment

Re:There Probably Have Been Aliens by drzaiusapelord on Monday January 23, 2017 @12:37PM (#13463969)
Of course, it may be that advanced civilizations, assuming they survive long enough, don't become expansionist or explorist. Imagine a post-scarcity homeworld. People would be happier on that world or in VR or whatever instead of breaking their backs mining some distant planet until their extinction event. Which scenario brings out the most personal satisfaction for hypothetical ET? Why would conscious beings who have reached a high technological development even bother with expansion? That's like asking a cush white collar person to mine coal on the weekends. It doesn't make sense. In his world, the heat comes in via electricity which is taken from a local nuclear power plant. That gives him the most utility and pleasure. Now imagine technology very much past that. Intelligent beings will move towards comfort and safety assuming all other things are provided. Actually considering near killing yourself from labor or risk in a far-off colony only happens when you don't have a satisfying life in your current place.

Its also worth mentioning that FTL travel probably isn't in the cards and even if we consider exploratory advanced civilizations working for billions of years, they most likely would not get far by the time they hit their extinction event anyway. Even an incredible case of E.T. exploring an entire galaxy would be an achievement without peer, but ultimately would leave 2 trillion other galaxies unexplored. Even that would be a stretch considering a galaxy is 100,000 long/wide and in 3 dimensions. Even if you could have a practical 1/10th lightspeed ship, you're looking at 1bn years right there. The universe is only 13bn years old so this civilization could explore maybe 3 or 4 galaxies at most considering inter-galaxy distances.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:There Probably Have Been Aliens by Nadya on Monday January 23, 2017 @12:56PM (#13464168)
>Its also worth mentioning that FTL travel probably isn't in the cards and even if we consider exploratory advanced civilizations, they most likely would not get far by the time they hit their extinction event anyway.

Another possibility is that we've simply explored in the wrong directions.

    ___________________________________________
    |                               Us --> Exploring this direction
    |
    |     [Millions of lightyears of space between Us and Them]
    |
    |             Them
    |                 |                   
    |                 |                    
    |                 |
    |                 v
    |  Exploring this direction
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:There Probably Have Been Aliens by nickpsecurity on Monday January 23, 2017 @01:27PM (#13464499)
It happens to people in Walmarts. They're a lot smaller. Certainly could happen with races looking for each other in space with the timescale that energy takes to cross it. Another thing that popped in my mind are the nuclear submarines looking for each other while emitting almost no sound or energy. It's just a void with a tiny piece of data here or there that must be assembled into evidence of others' presence. This can happen even when they're fairly close to each other.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:There Probably Have Been Aliens by marcosdumay on Monday January 23, 2017 @01:16PM (#13464386)
Our galaxy is pretty much bounded. If any race started spread a few millions of years ago, they should be exploring (and exploiting) the entire galaxy already.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:There Probably Have Been Aliens by Nadya on Monday January 23, 2017 @01:29PM (#13464516)
Did you mean universe? Our galaxy is a spec of dust. Our local galaxy cluster is also just a spec of dust. For how large the universe is - even a supercluster is a spec of dust. The universe is mind boggingly massive.

The observable universe has an estimated diameter of 93 billion light-years. A few million years might be enough to explore nearby galaxies. For example, to explore just our Local Supercluster you would need approximately 65,000,000 years [0]. Travelling at the speed of light.

E: Virgo is further than Ursa Major. Updated 55,000,000-->65,000,000.

E2: I always refer people to this video in regards to aliens, space, and time. I forgot to in this post, so here it is now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPl10L40pBM

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Local_su...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:There Probably Have Been Aliens by vorg on Monday January 23, 2017 @04:55PM (#13466446)
> Why would conscious beings who have reached a high technological development even bother with expansion? That's like asking a cush white collar person to mine coal on the weekends. It doesn't make sense

What about the people who ride on ships from Southport to the Americas to plant crops or cotton?

But most expansion beyond the solar system would be inter-generational anyway, so it's more like people who are born on a spaceship and told by their parents they're a pioneer to an uninhabited world, and can't turn around.

[ Parent | on HN ]