
A New Theory on Why We Haven’t Found Aliens Yet - rbanffy
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/07/maybe_we_haven_t_found_alien_life_because_it_s_sleeping.html
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philipkglass
Shortcut to full PDF:

[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.03394.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.03394.pdf)

On a first reading, and accepting the major premises for the sake of argument,
this seemed like the weakest point:

 _The reader might wonder whether starting these computations now is rational
since the universe is quickly cooling and will soon (compared to the overall
lifespan of the civilization) reach convenient temperatures. The computational
gain of doing computations at time t is ∝ exp(Ht): it increases exponentially
until the temperature is dominated by the internal heating rather than the
outside temperature. Since most of the integrated value accrues within the
last e-folding and the energy used early was used exponentially inefficiently,
it is not worth starting early even if the wait is a minuscule fraction of the
overall lifespan._

Grant that there's an exponential efficiency gap between computing now and
computing a trillion+ years from now. There is _also_ an exponential
efficiency gap between using the power radiated from stars to power Dyson
Swarm computing for the next trillion years and just letting it radiate away
without computing anything, like a chump. A coolly rational maximizer isn't
going to leave additional gains on the table with the human-like reasoning of
"it's _only a very small_ additional gain."

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mdip
Interesting read and not my area of expertise, but it sounds like a bunch of
hypotheticals built on top of other hypotheticals. And, of course, I didn't
read the scientific paper behind it[0] so I'm sure some of my misgivings on
this "research" are due to the filter it's been presented through but it felt
like this whole "an advanced alien civilization uploaded itself into a
computer in a post-biological move" technology would be a whole lot bigger of
a problem to solve than the "cooling down a system to achieve system
processing performance required".

I couldn't help but laugh, though, in that the first thing that came to mind
was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference to the inhabitants of the
legendary planet of Magrethea who went into hibernation to wait out the
galactic economic collapse. Maybe _that 's_ the real reason they're sleeping!

[0] Which means the "telephone game" of this author's interpretation of the
paper in order to write a story that will generate clicks is at play here.

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jack9
I first read this theory in the book Calculating God, but it has also appeared
in the Hyperion book series. I recently saw it in Black Mirror season 3 (for
humanity).

Not exactly a new theory. Still has the problem of the exponential population
expansion (in any form like probe or seeding or terraforming or colonization)
leaving physical traces everywhere...if they were even marginally successful
beyond an origin galaxy. The universe has been around a loooooooooooooooo...ng
time.

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mobilethrow
Humans are so cute. The reason you haven't met us yet is simply that you're
not ready. How do you expect.to love your galactic neighbour if you can't even
love YOUR OWN PLANET.

Please stop killing each other and _make Earth great again_ (sorry). We can
help you build the next one.

Signed, Your friendly neighbourhood aliens

~~~
EduardoBautista
I have always disliked the assumption that aliens are somehow supposed to be
highly more intelligent and peaceful beings. They could be cannibal sloths for
all we know.

