
Fermi's Paradox [audio] - benbreen
https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/617/fermis-paradox
======
antognini
One of the professors in my department when I was a grad student in astronomy
was a vegetarian because of the Fermi Paradox. His reasoning was that
intelligent life probably doesn't exist anywhere else in the universe and so a
chicken is one of the most intelligent life forms in the universe. And given
~100 million years of evolution it could even become as intelligent as a
human. Another professor I knew thought that the Fermi Paradox implied that
interstellar space travel was probably too difficult an engineering problem to
ever be solved.

I got the sense that a lot of astronomers (though probably not a majority)
have strong opinions about the Fermi Paradox, but they only rarely discuss
them. It's one of those weird problems where there's _some_ data --- enough to
reason out some conjectures --- but not enough to really make any definitive
conclusions. But because the answer you end up with has such profound
consequences you feel obligated to at least try to make the most of the little
data you have. I guess in Bayesian terms, it's one of those situations where
the priors you put in basically determine the answer you get out --- if you
disagree about the priors, you'll disagree about the conclusions.

~~~
flukus
> And given ~100 million years of evolution it could even become as
> intelligent as a human.

Birds we're around long before humans, apes or even primates. They had their
chance and they blew it.

------
hashhar
I find the pair of videos by Kurzgesagt on YouTube to be much more appealing
for me. Link for people interested:

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

2\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fQkVqno-
uI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fQkVqno-uI)

~~~
pault
I really enjoy Isaac Arthur's videos on the subject (he has a playlist with
several hours of content exploring different possible solutions). The rest of
his channel is great too; he posts a new 30-60 minute video every Thursday.

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

Edit: The entire playlist:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0LulClL2dHXh...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0LulClL2dHXh8TTOnCgRkLdU)

~~~
stcredzero
Issac Arthur has his stuff together. His videos are for the most part well
researched and contain a lot of interesting hard sci-fi ideas. The only time
I've seen him fall down is his video about quantum computing, but to be fair,
a lot of people get caught by the same mistake. It's _not_ the case that a
quantum computer is trying out all of the bit-strings that are possible
answers in a kind of quantum-superposed parallel computing. That's not exactly
what is happening.

One of the key insights: Qubits store complex numbers!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrbJYsep45E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrbJYsep45E)

------
BhavdeepSethi
For those who want the less emotional/philosophical version, I prefer WBW
article on Fermi's Paradox: [http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-
paradox.html](http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html)

~~~
YCode
I'm actually kind of partial to the Wikipedia entry:

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

------
chmike
I have a two comments to share about this paradox.

1\. The assumption that there are many advanced ET civilizations in the
universe is based on the idea that life emergence is a natural and random
process. This has not yet be proven to be valid. I share this opinion, but it
is important to be aware of the underlying hypothesis because this is what can
invalidate the claims.

2\. The other point is the "we don't see them". There is also an underlying
hypothesis that ET manifestation would be ostensible. Many people deduce from
this that they are not on earth and start to speculate on different reason for
that.

The hypothesis that ET do not visit us is really not so sure. The first reason
is that this visit and exploration may not be in the form we expect (e.g.
colonization, diplomatic) and not directly visible to us (e.g. Spying, non-
interfering scientifc study). The other reason is that they might have been
visible for decenies as UFOs and third type contact encounter. But this
possibility is rejected, and had been rejected by Enrico Fermi. To me this is
the only paradox in the Fermi Paradox.

However, I do agree that if UFOs are visible ET manifestion on earth, this
manifestation has puzzling and unexpected properties. The strongest one being
that they apparently seem to leave us alone. There is currently no way for us
to know why and deduce anything from this, like for instance rejecting the UFO
phenomenon as possible ET manifestavtion because their behavior doesn't match
our expectation.

~~~
groby_b
> if UFOs are visible ET manifestion on earth, this manifestation has puzzling
> and unexpected properties

The weirdest property being that they stopped visiting us as cell phone cams
became ubiquitous. Camera shy little buggers.

~~~
chmike
To be more accurate, the report of UFO sightings dropped significantly after
the eighties. The other weird property is an increase in UFO sighting after
the second world war. Jean Jacques Velasco (GEPAN) suggested that it was
correlated with nuclear explosions on earth. This is nonetheless suprizing
because it would imply that they can make interstellar travels at a very high
speed. We currently don't know how this is possible.

Anyway, we have to be careful to not consider a behavior not matching our
expectation as a reason to invalidate the phenomenon because it is our
expectations that may be invalid.

------
sixQuarks
My gut instinct tells me we're not special enough to be the only intelligent
life out there. We humans have reliability had our egos crushed over and over
again as we learned that we are not the center of the solar system, nor the
only galaxy, etc, etc.

I think it's way more likely the universe is teeming with intelligent life,
but in dimensions that we're not evolved enough to comprehend or sense, and
the thought that we are alone is laughable from the point of view of the
"aliens".

Hell, we don't even have the faintest idea of how our own brains work, why we
need to sleep, and all kinds of other things. To even believe for an instant
that we are so special that we're actually alone in the entire universe or
even the galaxy is a bit ridiculous.

~~~
jobigoud
The fact that it's ridiculous is precisely why it's a paradox. Some aliens may
be evolving on different levels as you say, but _all_ of them? Your resolution
is they are there but we can't see _any_ of them or their effects.

~~~
sixQuarks
It could well be that the exponential advancement in technology makes it so
there is only about a 100 or 200 year gap where civilizations send out radio
waves, or whatever our current technology is capable of receiving - before
hitting these other dimensions.

But even so, there would still be a chance to detect this kind of stuff. I
mean, I totally see your point - I just don't think we're that special though.

------
sutro
_There could be no greater irony: For all the sublimity of art, physics,
music, mathematics and other manifestations of human genius, everything
depends on the mundane, frustrating, often debased vocation known as
politics._

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/are-we-alone-in-
the-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/are-we-alone-in-the-
universe/2011/12/29/gIQA2wSOPP_story.html)

------
carapace
We have contact all the time --on the fringes.

It's obvious that humanity could collective lose its mind if contact were
widely and publicly acknowledged, so no one does.

Literally the moment we grow up there will be aliens (anthropologists) all
over this planet. ;-)

~~~
detritus
Dare I ask... source?

:|

