
Galaxy Simulations Offer a New Solution to the Fermi Paradox - Errorcod3
https://www.quantamagazine.org/galaxy-simulations-offer-a-new-solution-to-the-fermi-paradox-20190307/
======
btilly
I have a boring solution to the Fermi paradox. It is old, but really, really
boring.

Start looking at things that are weird about our Solar System and the Earth.
Figure out which ones are probably necessary for intelligence. Add those into
the Fermi calculation. And see that it is likely that we're the first
intelligent life in this galaxy.

What are some of those special things? It is not enough to have a planet that
has the right ingredients to start life. It is necessary that it's progress
not be constantly wiped out by major disasters over a very long time scale.
What kinds of disasters?

You don't want a supernova going off too close. We have been lucky to avoid
that. Our odds were greatly improved by the fact that we spend most of our
time out of the galactic plane, away from other stars that could be about to
go boom. This is an unusual orbit.

You don't want to be hit by too many comets. We've been hit by some, but far,
far less than we would have without Jupiter acting like a sweeper to clean up
dangerous stuff in our neighborhood. How rare is that? We have cataloged
planets in hundreds of other solar systems. We see ones with only rocky
planets. Ones with only gas giants. But we're the only one we know of with
both gas giants and rocky planets. The only one where the rocky planets wind
up protected from most of dinosaur killer kinds of impacts.

Oh, and get this one. Without the Moon, the tilt of the Earth's spin is
unstable. Without it, in simulations we would wind up with one pole aimed at
the Sun and the other not once every few tens of millions of years. Probably
not good for the development of intelligent life. Again we don't know how rare
this is, but we suspect that it is rather uncommon.

Suppose that each of these only happens to one star out of a thousand. Suppose
further that there is one more, as yet unidentified, special factor about us
that is also required. Again make that a 1/1000 coincidence. That would make
the odds good that of the ~250 billion stars in our galaxy, we're the only
ones with intelligent life.

Or if you do the back of the envelope just with the three that I named, and
made them 1/10,000 coincidences, you get the same result.

As a sanity check, the fact that no other intelligent life has been observed
is evidence that it is unlikely. And given Fermi's argument, it is probably
unlikely at least on the scale of 100 billion to one against.

~~~
millstone
I think there is no way we can know what is necessary for intelligence.

Life is not necessary for intelligence. As a counter-example, intelligent
robots are certainly possible. What other substrates might support
intelligence?

Life does not require proper axial tilt or distance from supernovas. There is
life on the bottom of the ocean that survive on the heat and chemicals from
hydrothermal vents, a metabolic pathway that does not depend on the sun. What
other possibilities are there that don't happen to be present on earth?

We are biased towards human size, time scales, and biochemistry. And time and
again, we have been surprised by forms of life that work differently.

~~~
TomMarius
Optical computing fascinates me. Imagine an intelligence based on that.

~~~
ethbro
There was an argument somewhere that biological computational substrate
_density_ (with respect to round trip signal speed) was critical.

If you've only had time for 3 thoughts (to simplify) since evolving
intelligence... a civilization of your beings probably isn't doing too well.

------
lukifer
My favorite solution: The galaxy is teeming with life, but in the form of
quasi-immortal software that lives at such vast timescales, they're as
uninterested in talking to us as we would be in talking to a fruit fly.
(Imagine Space Ents that say hello, and are perfectly content to wait 10,000
years for a reply.) It may well be that becoming such a life form is the only
practical way to deal with the speed-of-light constraint, either in travel or
communication.

~~~
burtonator
We don't have conversations with paramecium.

If you wanted to build a Dyson sphere you would capture all the light from
your star and might not exhibit ANY radiation.

We wouldn't see such a species and if there's such a small blink of time
between the industrial age to the singularity the probability that there is an
overlapping species is very very low.

We would only have about 20-40 years to actually have the technology to find
them before we hit the singularity.

We have NO idea what happens after that point but my plan is to just chill
with my wife in a virtual Yosemite park once we hit the singularity.

~~~
sampo
> might not exhibit ANY radiation

That would be against thermodynamics. Every object that has a temperature
(above 0K) emits radiation.

~~~
androidgirl
You're right obviously, but a Matrioshka Brain would put out such a small
amount of radiation, it'd be invisible for all sensor technology outside of,
say, black hole lenses.

~~~
sampo
> a Matrioshka Brain would put out such a small amount of radiation, it'd be
> invisible for all sensor technology

A huge object emitting infrared radiation would be quite detectable.

At the level of energy output from our Sun, a Dyson sphere with a diameter of
the Earth's orbit, would actually have a surface temperature of 395K or 122C.
It would put out lots of infrared radiation, and would be very detectable
against the cosmic background which has a radiation temperature of 2.7K.

Some SETI programs have looked for these, and already in 1984 we had the
technology to observe, and as it turns out, to rule out any of these (Dyson
spheres around stars with energy output comparable to our Sun) existing within
the nearest 300 light years.

[https://www.aleph.se/Nada/dysonFAQ.html#HEAT](https://www.aleph.se/Nada/dysonFAQ.html#HEAT)

[https://www.aleph.se/Nada/dysonFAQ.html#OBS](https://www.aleph.se/Nada/dysonFAQ.html#OBS)

[http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/weirdastronomy....](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/weirdastronomy.php#id
--Object_X)

------
planck01
I think that thinking around the Fermi Paradox has the fatal flaw that we
think our current technological boom can be extrapolated. We have the feeling
that the Kardashev scale, even type 1, is attainable. I'm more technological
pessimistic and think it is not attainable. I think the technological boom
will peter off, because of hard insolvable questions limited by nature and
energy and money. We are enthusiastic now because of past progress and
progress we see we can still make. But we will get in diminishing return time
and slow stabilization before too long. And progress will become hard until
impossible.

Humans will never colonize this galaxy. It's too hard, too expensive, and too
pointless. And neither will other intelligent civilizations, of which I guess
a small handful at most will exist in the lifetime of our galaxy. Maybe some
galaxies do exist where a civilization lives that put everything of their
energy on spreading within their galaxies. But even they will not be able to
spread to other galaxies. The acceleration of the universe and the extreme
distances and nothingness forbids that.

~~~
pretendscholar
Why do you think we are in danger of a dramatic slow down in new tech? The
tech challenges today are certainly more difficult but our gains compound on
themselves. Faster computers allow for previously computationally infeasible
techniques, better tech allows for better understanding of biology from which
we draw better, biologically inspired techniques, better cultural
improvements/ greater access to information allows more people to work on a
given problem. I definitely see certain roadblocks like the end of moore's law
but there are other ways forward too.

~~~
jcranmer
Exponential curves are unnatural. If there is something that constrains growth
--such as physical laws about energy constraints--then you'll get a sigmoid
curve instead. And it does seem that we're on the slowdown section of that
curve for computers. Meanwhile, in biology, we can summarize most of the
research results of the past few decades as "it turns out that this is more
complex than we thought it was."

------
thangalin
The Percolation Theory reasons that Earth might linger in an uninteresting
part of the Milky Way: its galactic backwaters. See:

* [1998] [http://www.geoffreylandis.com/percolation.htp](http://www.geoffreylandis.com/percolation.htp)

* [2014] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1404.0204](https://arxiv.org/abs/1404.0204)

~~~
CodeMage
Oh, okay, so we should be fine until the Vogons come.

------
rbanffy
The notion we'd settle on planetary surfaces makes assumptions on the
anthropology of our offspring.

Moving between stars requires us to master living in enclosed habitats for
generations. If we do that, why would we bother with planets? We could arrive
at the periphery of a system or an accretion disk of a young star, get all the
materials to build a couple hundred new habitats and launch them towards the
next system.

Would we still want to settle on planetary surfaces?

~~~
slfnflctd
This is a huge aspect. We've already got lots of precedent of splits between
nomadic vs. agricultural societies. I think we would naturally group ourselves
into 'travelers' and 'settlers', with a small amount of migration between the
two-- and eventually in the long run, species differentiation.

~~~
rbanffy
With small populations isolated during the centuries between stops,
differentiation will be _very_ fast and could happen within a single longer
trip. There are only 10,000 years between wolf and poodle.

In order to avoid it, the groups could start the journey with a set of frozen
eggs (or static genomes in whatever medium they find convenient) to be
reinserted into the population along the trips, as well as extensive genetic
matching between the living populations to ensure a viable long-term gene
pool.

And, of course, it's not unreasonable to expect some groups to engage in
active eugenics and direct their evolution so they are better suited to their
way of live - nomadic or settler.

------
jl6
My “boring” “explanation”: the number of alien intelligences is unknowable and
irrelevant because interstellar travel and communication are both near as
damnit impossible.

~~~
magicnubs
Yeah I wonder if this isn't the simple (and sad) truth. Maybe every
intelligent species discovers that the laws of physics are unavoidable hard
limits and eventually decide it's a pointless waste of energy to endlessly
broadcast signals to other stars and galaxies that are moving, ever faster,
further and further away.

------
pavel_lishin
Is it just me, or did I not catch any new solutions to the paradox in the
article?

~~~
eyeundersand
Exactly my thinking. Seems like a whole lot of fluff sans new insight.

~~~
slowmovintarget
It isn't a new solution, it's a contradiction of the paradox. That is, the
initial assumptions of the prevalence and proliferation of life are
statistically wrong. If we account for x, y, and z, we get the results we
observe today.

------
bergoid
FTA: "Faster-growing, rapacious societies might peter out before they could
touch all the stars."

I don't get this reasoning. The way I see it: every solar system that gets
settled is a fresh roll of the dice. Every newly colonized system increases
the odds that at least one of these settlements will not self-destruct.

Polynesia is a great analogy. While Easter Island is suffering, Hawaiʻi,
Tahiti and hundreds of other islands might still be going strong.

~~~
maze-le
That is if it is somehow economically feasibly for those societies to develop
interstellar travel in the first place. When a civilization is occupied with
its own struggles and conflicts (the fast-living rapacious ones), they might
be incentivized to first exploit local resources before interstellar travel is
considered seriously.

------
fernly
Folks, the "Great Filter"[1] is looking us right in the face, in the form of
catastrophic climate change[2].

It seems quite a likely hypothesis that any upcoming intelligent species
would, like us, ride the horse of fossil fuels right into disaster.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter)

[2] [http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-
change-...](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-
too-hot-for-humans-annotated.html)

~~~
ams6110
Climate change won't end life on earth.

It may be an extinction event for humans. Personally I think this is unlikely,
but so what if it is? There have been extinction events before, and in fact
that is why we are dominating the planet instead of the dinosaurs.

------
zackmorris
I propose the Morris equation for the odds of alien life finding us:

N = ( R * fp * ne * fl * fi * fc * L ) / ( AI * VR * D * S * M )

Where the Drake equation:

N = The number of civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy who detect our
electromagnetic emmissions

R = Average rate of formation of suitable stars (stars/year) in the Milky Way
galaxy

fp = Fraction of stars that form planets

ne = Average number of habitable planets per star

fl = Fraction of habitable planets (ne) where life emerges

fi = Fraction of habitable planets with life where intelligent evolves

fc = Fraction of planets with intelligent life capable of interstellar
communication

L = Years a civilization remains detectable

Is divided by the karma equation:

AI = Whether or not aliens have merged with artificial intelligence, become
their own God and are no longer interested in us (tends towards 1)

VR = Whether or not aliens have virtual reality akin to the movie The Matrix
and live in a hedonistic paradise indefinitely (tends towards 1)

D = Number of psychedelic drugs available to aliens that are at least as
compelling as actual reality (tends towards infinity)

S = Percentage of aliens that reproduce sexually or are able to spend a
lifetime living in their parents' basement pondering aliens (let's just say
50%)

M = Whether or not aliens use money so contact with extraterrestrials is
considered too great a risk (somewhere between 0 and 1)

So as with all things, first contact by extraterrestrials is likely dominated
by the need to procreate and money.

------
coldcode
Out of millions of species that have appeared on this planet, only 1 made it
to space. It could be most aliens never make it to space.

~~~
joe_the_user
Every single slightly habitable planet in the galaxy could harbor a species
that has gone to it's nearest moons and planets, and we wouldn't be able to
tell. Every transmission our species has made is indistinguishable from
quantum noise at the distance of Alpha Centauri.

In the sense of the Fermi Paradox, zero species on this star have "made it to
space".

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
But one of the tenets of the paradox is so much time has passed you shouldn’t
have to work hard to detect alien life, they should have already colonized
everywhere.

>Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky
Way galaxy could be completely traversed in a few million years.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Which assumes that we know what "colonised" looks like.

The entire premise is rather bizarre.

"Let's send out probes that make probes that send out more probes until we've
covered the galaxy!"

"But... why would anyone do that?"

It seems obvious until you think about it - and then it stops being obvious.

So you cover your galaxy with probes that keep sending probes back and forth.
So what? What have you actually achieved?

If you assume massively superhuman intelligence, what are the odds there are
more interesting goals for a civilisation to aim for?

~~~
Loughla
>Which assumes that we know what "colonised" looks like.

100% my problem with this. We're applying a human-centric lens to this.
Remember that these theories are based on a life-form that evolved completely
separate from anything we have ever known. That doesn't just mean separate
body structures, but an entirely novel and completely unknowable circumstance.

This is why these theories all upset me - they should all say things like "we
should have seen (an alien species that is similar to us) in this amount of
time.

Because fuck only knows what an alien who evolved in a system based on helium
or some other gas would think. We certainly can't try to figure it out. The
most creative minds in this area are those writing hard sci-fi, I would argue.
And most of them only treat that subject with a hand-waving and 'we can never
know those mysterious aliens' sort of thing.

~~~
whatshisface
The Fermi paradox isn't that there are no aliens, it's that there aren't
billions of them, and if there are billions of them not a single one is as
expansionist as humanity.

~~~
maze-le
Humanity is not expansionist on a galactic level. Once we are in a position we
could make it to the stars, maybe we wouln't do it either, since it might take
too much resources that can be spent more efficiently in ensuring our own
survival here in this system.

~~~
reallydude
> Humanity is not expansionist on a galactic level

The sun will go boom soon enough, so survival is also temporal. We understand
distributed systems are more reliable and require 1+n

~~~
maze-le
>> The sun will go boom soon enough

Depends on your definition of 'soon enough'. The sun will have exhausted its
hydrogen supply in about 5 billion years. In about 1 billion years, the
temperature on this planet will probably become unsustainable for life.

Your right of course, but that event is so far in the future, I doubt we can
speak of anything even resembling humanity by that time. I was thinking in
timeframes of about a ten to hundred thousand years, not billions.

------
8bitsrule
On a related note, this recent article explores the idea that life may be
inevitable. (An idea going back at least as far as Ilya Prigogine.)

[https://qz.com/1539551/is-the-universe-pro-life-the-fermi-
pa...](https://qz.com/1539551/is-the-universe-pro-life-the-fermi-paradox-can-
help-explain/)

"According to the inevitable life theory, biological systems spontaneously
emerge because they more efficiently disperse, or “dissipate” energy, thereby
increasing the entropy of the surroundings. In other words, life is
thermodynamically favorable."

~~~
scotty79
Still takes a hell lot of time to develop to a point of spreading from one
star to another.

------
lowdest
Isaac Arthur has a whole series of podcasts that cover all the current ideas
around the Fermi paradox, which ones are more or less likely and why. Really
interesting stuff. Here's a link to his Fermi Paradox playlist on Youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0LulClL2dHXh...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0LulClL2dHXh8TTOnCgRkLdU)

He's also got a Soundcloud for audio-only format and a Facebook group.

------
PavlikPaja
The problem with the Fermi paradox is that it requires you to assume the
existence of spacefaring civilizations, with all the expected technology. The
possibilities are just to many, and we only know relatively well our own solar
system, we don't know how normal it is (recent observations suggests it could
be at least kind of odd) or how normal Earth is. As it is quoted, Earth for us
is all there is and it would seem completely normal to us even if for any well
educated alien it could look obviously artificial.

The Black planet hypothesis: There are planets intentionally cut off the
bigger society. Spacefaring civilizations are largely immortal, and would be
kept in an evolutionary stasis, so there are planets that are intentionally
kept isolated and prisoners are kept on them in a pre galactic stage as a way
to keep evolving.

Impending doom hypothesis: An immense catastrophe is expected to happen in the
general area, and all the surrounding space has been evacuated.

Presumed recluse hypothesis: Our solar system is recognized as obviously
artificial, yet attempts to communicate are met with no response. We are
perceived as unwilling to communicate and intentionally left alone.

Planets are primitive hypothesis: More advanced civilizations have no interest
in settling planets, planets are seen as primitive as living in a rainforest
is to us, while advanced civilizations normally live in artificial habitats.

Unpleasant star hypothesis: The solar wind, neutrino flow or other forms of
radiation may be disruptive to highly advanced technology, so the sources are
avoided unless necessary.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _it requires you to assume the existence of spacefaring civilizations_

That's one of the variables in the Fermi equation. Set it to zero, and the
paradox vanishes.

~~~
PavlikPaja
Well, yeah. "with all the expected technology" is the important part.

~~~
pavel_lishin
That's another variable.

~~~
PavlikPaja
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Do you disagree with me on something?

~~~
pavel_lishin
The Fermi Paradox requires you to assume a lot of things that we just don't
know. They're all variables; you just named two of the more interesting and
contentious variables out there.

Until recently, even the average number of planets around a given star was
really unknown; arguably, it's still an incredibly fuzzy figure, one that
changes constantly as our telescopes and observation methods improve.

There's no one "THE" problem with the Fermi Paradox.

~~~
PavlikPaja
It is "the" problem, as it makes it impossible to tell what is natural and
what is intentionally created by advanced civilizations, making it impossible
to know if the paradox even exists at all, since we may be looking at
"obvious" signs of alien activity, yet be completely incapable of recognizing
them as such.

------
cletus
tl;dr it shouldn't take as long as previously thought to colonize the galaxy
based on a simulation.

That's largely an irrelevant finding that adds nothing to the Fermi Paradox
because the time it would take to colonize the galaxy is so small in
cosmological terms that shortening it is irrelevant.

What's more the authors decided to modeled the suitability of star systems
impeding colonization when this seems like it would be largely irrelevant
because starfaring civilizations seem highly unlikely to be planet-bound as
this is a pretty inefficient use of mass. The Dyson Sphere (Swarm) seems much
more likely at which point the only thing of value is the star. The planets
are just piles of raw materials ultimately.

Obligatory plug for Isaac Arthur who has a series of videos on the Fermi
Paradox. Here's an early one [1]. There are 10-20 others that go into
particular aspects.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDPj5zI66LA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDPj5zI66LA)

------
bronz
i dont know why people think there is a paradox. the way that life springs
from barren rock is not known. if we dont know how that works, then we cant
assign a probability to it happening on a given planet. people just assume
that the probability is very high. it could be next to nothing for all we
know, small enough so that even the entire universe only produces one. the
paradox is all based on huge assumptions. there is no paradox until we prove
that the probability is high.

well thats not true, because you need life but you also need intelligence. and
again, everyone assumes that if you have life it will eventually become
intelligent. and people assume that if life is intelligent it will eventually
build space shuttles. its all a huge, huge assumption. look at all the animals
that qualify as intelligent. some birds and monkeys are hugely intelligent,
but they dont build space shuttles. this shows that intelligence doesnt equal
space shuttles and that even when life springs up, and even when it becomes
intelligent, it still could be super unlikely that it will build space
shuttles.

hell, there are even humans that might have never built space shuttles. there
are indigenous communities all over the planet that never developed technology
and probably never would have. when you live in a warm climate and food is
abundant, there may never be a reason to.

it is unproven that it is likely at all for space-shuttle level intelligence
to spring up from bare earth. there is no paradox. its probably just really
unlikely.

------
SketchySeaBeast
If we assume that most stars are in a sort of orbit around the core, wouldn't
the stars stay in relatively the same place? And regardless, wouldn't they
still require the ability and timing to take advantage of those moments the
solar system's get close to each-other? That still requires a monstrous amount
of technology and energy, doesn't it?

~~~
wongarsu
An lower orbit is faster than a higher orbit (orbits trade speed for height a
bit like pendulums). So on long enough timescales your neighbors change as
every solar system is on a slightly different orbit.

> That still requires a monstrous amount of technology and energy, doesn't it?

If we wanted we could spend ~10 years R&D on a practical nuclear pulse drive
and send a probe at 10% the speed of light to the nearest solar system. That
makes 40 years travel time for the probe and 4 years communication delay. Add
some time for acceleration , deceleration and exploration and we might be able
to send a colony ship 60 years after the probe left. Another 40 years travel
time and we have a colony on another solar system 110 years from now, at a
price point attainable for a large corporation or a medium sized country
(after all most of the cost is research spread over half a century)

Now imagine what a more advanced civilization with more incentives for
colonisation could do.

~~~
maze-le
Have you considered the acceleration that such a nuclear pulse drive creates?
I am totally with you on the topic, not just with living organisms. If it were
only electronics that need to be transported the force by acceleration
wouldn't be such a huge issue. But any living organism that is to be
transported is such a way needs to be able to adapt to pretty extreme
acceleration/deceleration forces.

~~~
avian
Maybe parent is a bit optimistic, both in terms of costs and travel time, but
the orders of magnitude are approximately correct. Project Orion did come up
with theoretical designs that were feasible for human travel (1 g
acceleration).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_\(nuclear_propulsion\))

~~~
maze-le
Huh, interesting... I always thought this kind of propulsion would be an
almost instantaneous transmission of energy, thus enormous acceleration in a
small timeframe. Thanks for the link...

------
b_tterc_p
Do we have an estimate for likelihood of noticing earth as a life containing
planet as a function of how far away we might imagine ourselves in the galaxy
given current methods?

~~~
Guillaume86
I remember reading than from a radio emissions standpoint, we wouldn't detect
our activity if it was happening on a planet in the closest star system. I
don't know about other methods but very interested too.

------
hliyan
> _It’s possible that the Milky Way is partially settled, or intermittently
> so; maybe explorers visited us in the past, but we don’t remember, and they
> died out. The solar system may well be amid other settled systems; it’s just
> been unvisited for millions of years._

This, however, does not explain the complete lack of artifacts or observable
technological signatures.

~~~
Joe-Z
Oh, but don't forget that one congregation of dust particles that flew by us
really fast, which _might_ (who am I kidding - we all know it's 100%!) have
been an alien probe.

Oumuamua is what it's been called.

~~~
btilly
An alternate explanation for that is that it was effectively a giant fractal
dust bunny left over from the formation of a solar system. The fractal
structure explains why it is so light. As for how fast it is traveling, it was
traveling at close to the average speed of stars around us. The 25 km/s that
we saw is mostly how fast _we_ are traveling, not it. (The Sun bounces up and
down through the galactic plane. We are currently "above" it and heading up.
We'll next arrive back where we are in about 30 million years.)

There might be a lot of objects like that out there. In fact the fact that we
randomly saw one suggests that there are many orders of magnitude more of them
than we had realized.

~~~
cpeterso
The PBS Space Time video series, written and hosted by Lehman College
astrophysicist Matthew O’Dowd, has a nice analysis of popular 'Oumuamua
theories:

"'Oumuamua Is Not Aliens"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wICOlaQOpM0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wICOlaQOpM0)

------
nukeop
The obvious, but hard to swallow solution to the Fermi paradox: aliens are a
product of science-fiction, and don't exist. Not everything we can come up
with in thought experiments has a real life counterpart.

~~~
jcoffland
But unlike time travel or flux capacitors aliens do have a real life counter
part, us. We know life exists, it's not a stretch to imagine there is more of
it.

~~~
nukeop
Before we can postulate a realistic generalized conclusion, we need a sample
size larger than 1. Right now the scientific, rational position on Fermi's
paradox is that outside of Earth the universe is completely devoid of life.

~~~
maze-le
That is one rational position, not THE rational position. I'd say it is the
only empiricist position to take, but not all rational arguments are
necessarily empiricist.

------
bjornlouser
Obviously the aliens wait to make contact until there is only one species left
on the planet.

We're almost there!

~~~
nkrisc
I don't think the tardigrades are going to be able to respond.

------
carapace
There are lots of aliens. Heck, there were aliens attending certain
underground raves in Seattle in the 90's.

The Fermi Paradox is about the psychology of humans, not the external
universe.

As soon as you can psychologically handle communication with other folks it
becomes easy to meet and greet them. There are "outreach coordinators" who
volunteer to take humans on jaunts within the local neighborhood (nearby star
systems, etc.)

Our planet experienced a disaster ("dis": separation; "aster": stars;
"disaster" is a separation from the stars) a few thousand years ago (Younger
Dryas comet) and we've been recovering ever since. Our neighbors have been
helping us for all that time. Psychologically our species is an accident
victim and we have been recovering from the trauma, which is why our history
is so messed up and violent. Normal sentient beings are mensches. We'll get
there.

~~~
king_magic
I guess I just don’t understand this kind of comment. Are you being serious?
Can you cite any sort of scientifically verified evidence for these claims? It
sounds nice and all, but if you’re legitimately being serious, how are we ever
supposed to believe this without hard evidence?

~~~
carapace
> Are you being serious?

Yes. (Although by bringing this up in this thread I could be accused of
trolling, and it would be hard to defend myself. Sorry.)

> Can you cite any sort of scientifically verified evidence for these claims?

It depends on what you accept as "scientifically verified evidence". My whole
point is the Fermi Paradox is about human epistemology and belief systems, not
the actual contents of human experience (which include UFOs and little green
men as well as lots of other weird shit.)

> It sounds nice and all, but if you’re legitimately being serious, how are we
> ever supposed to believe this without hard evidence?

You're not, evidently. Honestly, I'd settle for folks just getting over their
personal problems and returning to a harmonious lifestyle, and if I knew how
to do that I would. A lot of the aliens and other people around here are
working on the problem, but we're a tough nut to crack and time is running
short.

