What If Humanity Is Among The First Spacefaring Civilizations?

[whitelancer64]

Hydropower, solar, and wind are all very reliable. By the way, they currently generate about 30% of the global supply of electricity.

The reactors at the Fukushima power plant were designed in the 60s, the construction of the facility was started in 1971.

Cost overruns would be far less of an issue if they were being built en masse, instead of as one-off builds. This is also largely a US problem, other countries that build nuclear power plants on a more regular basis don't see such issues.

Why aren't lots being built is because lots of people are dumb and are scared of nuclear power. We should ignore them and just build lots of nuclear power plants.

Hydropower doesn't work in a drought,  solar doesn't work at night, wind doesn't work when the wind stops.
All of them take up a large area compared to the wattage output.
By the way Germany just dug up a wind farm to get to the fossil fuel coal underneath it.

LOL. Hydropower definitely works during droughts, that's why hydroelectric dams produce huge reservoirs to provide power during dry years.

Intermittent power does not mean it is unreliable. There's these newfangled things called batteries that can hold power generated during the day, or when the wind blows, that can release that power over time when it's night or the wind doesn't blow.

About 30% of the world's electricity is produced by renewable energy sources, roughly split between the big three - hydropower, wind, and solar.

Your backwards thinking is being replaced with the wave of the future. Catch up with the times.

[whitelancer64]

Statistical we wouldn't be first or last. There are  trillions of planets out there. Life on earth has existed for few 100million years and we've gone from ape to spacefaring in 100,000years.

My argument here is the same as it has been in the many other similar threads on this topic.

Evolution does not have a purpose or a goal, and it does not necessarily select for complexity or intelligence. Simple / Bacterial life forms ruled the Earth for ~4 billion years. There is no particular reason, that we know of anyway, that they could not have continued to be the dominant life form for tens of billions of years.

There may be trillions of planets out there with such simple life, but that does not guarantee they will eventually produce an intelligent species that creates a civilization. Even using Earth as an example, it is statistically very unlikely. We are the only one of many billions of the complex species on Earth that has developed the high level of intelligence we have.

Darwinism promotes dominance, because in the survival of the fittest, the dominant prevail. Clearly intelligence would be an eventual outcome of that, since intelligence helps dominance. We don't see bacteria actively seeking ways to become multiplanetary, like we humans are doing. It's just that it takes time for Darwinism to do its work, and evolve organisms up to our level.

You are falling into the anthropic fallacy. Evolution DOES NOT have a goal. It does not have a purpose. It does not "level up" species. Intelligence is not an inevitable outcome of evolution.

Intelligence does come with drawbacks. Humans have a much larger brain than other primates, this actually causes problems like death during childbirth being more common (for both mother and child). Humans have to give birth at an earlier stage of fetal development than most other animals, requiring a lot of support during early years of life. The human brain also requires a lot of caloric intake to support.

 

And even if a species develops intelligence, it may not have the capability or resources to produce technology. A human-intelligent dolphin could never smelt metals and build a radio, for example. Or their planet may not have a crust rich in workable metals, or they don't have any animals suitable for domestication, or crop plants that can be grown en mass with storable seeds for food during lean seasons / years. Humanity really hit the jackpot with a large amount of exploitable resources on our planet.

Intelligence finds a way, because of what we like to call "the human condition", which may in fact just be "the intelligent condition". All human (read: intelligent) beings seek to have their cake and eat it too - that means trying to get more work done with less effort, and all that. Which means developing tools, instruments, and all the rest. Just like everything else in the universe, we living things seek conserve our energy.

That's not possible if you don't have the resources to do so. For example if humanity didn't have any storable grains, large concentrations of people forming complex societies could never have developed, since we'd be spending so much more time and energy gathering food and much less time thinking about other things, developing writing, tools, etc.

It's also possible also that supernovae and gamma ray bursts extinguish life in large areas of the galaxy (one of the several possible Great Filters).

These are random uncorrelated random events which can indeed strike down the evolved through no fault of their own.
Although, just like humans striving to develop planetary defense against asteroids, one could imagine sufficiently advanced civilizations surveying for these even larger astrophysical phenomena to guard against them as well.

Anyway, when I plug in my personal estimates into the Drake equation, I get maybe 5 technological civilizations in our galaxy. I don't think we are alone, but I think it may be a very long time before we find another intelligent, technology-making civilization. It is entirely possible we are the first (at least in our galaxy or in our region of the galaxy) to be able to leave our home planet.

We are living in a very small timeslice of our overall evolutionary history, and if we succeed in becoming multiplanetary or even interstellar, then our evolutionary history could extend for a lot longer. If we continue on for long enough, we may eventually come upon signs of other technological civilizations, who could quickly pop up out of nowhere.

But is it more prudent for us to try to detect them before allowing them to detect us first?

We're already doing both.

[sanman]

[M.E.T.]

Prof David Kipping on the issue:

[llanitedave]

All these discussions about extraterrestrial civilizations ultimately go back to relying on the Fermi paradox, which is based on a simple fallacy.  It assumes that once a civilization becomes spacefaring, it will choose to focus on finding other planets to exploit and/or colonize.
I don't think this is a compelling assumption.  Once a civilization achieves the technology to leave its home planet and visit other bodies in space, it will find that other planets are not economically desirable.  When humanity begins its expansion into the outer Solar System, Mars and Jupiter will not be the ultimate destinations.  Neither has abundant easily accessible quantities of the elements that humans need to sustain life and industry.  But the small bodies do.  Asteroids will for some time be the primary sources for wealth accumulation in the solar system:  they are relatively undifferentiated, valuable elements are not sequestered in difficult to reach locations, and the energy requirements for arriving and departing are minimal.  Big planets are gravity wells, it takes huge amounts of valuable energy to go back and forth between them, from asteroids the push required is far more gentle.
As humanity spreads further out, it becomes the small icy bodies, the comets, the Trojans, Centaurs, Kuiper belt bodies, and eventually the Oort cloud reservoir that contain the easily extractable wealth.  If our descendants move on to other star systems, the same economics applies.  It will be the small icy bodies in the outer parts of the system, away from the deep gravity wells close to the star, that will be the most attractive and efficient sources of material.
The implication here is that if other civilizations do exist, we will not see them on Earth, because Earth is not a good source of economic materials for anything coming from beyond the solar system.  The Oort Clouds are where the money is.  This implies other predictions about spacefaring civilization, including that they would emphasize efficiency in energy expenditure rather than the generation of raw power.  Energy requirements for mining and moving among small icy distant bodies are small, and the availability of vital elements is large, compared to venturing inward towards Earth.
The huge distances between star systems, and the length of time required for communication between them, regardless of the energy expended to do so, also implies that each exploration entity will be relatively independent and self-contained.  Rather than a massive, monolithic galactic civilization, one would be more likely to encounter smaller, self-contained outposts, each of which has had abundant time to evolve its own variations on the culture, technology, and even biology of its own instance.  I would also argue that for an individual organism, it's far easier to evolve very long lifespans than to support very high travel velocities.  It would be difficult for a central, planet-centric administration to control and coordinate such far-flung outposts.
So the fact that we see no evidence of other civilizations doesn't mean they don't exist.  It's more likely that, if they do exist, the ways of living that are optimal for prospering beyond the home planet do not include involvement with inner planets.

[tesh90]

Whether we are one of the first or not, our destiny is to eventually go dark - and not expand forever. If we avoid self destruction and attain a sufficient understanding of the universe, we will immerse into virtual or alternate universes.  What would be the point in exploring/living in a much of a muchness?

[gdelottle]

All these discussions about extraterrestrial civilizations ultimately go back to relying on the Fermi paradox, which is based on a simple fallacy.  It assumes that once a civilization becomes spacefaring, it will choose to focus on finding other planets to exploit and/or colonize.
I don't think this is a compelling assumption..

This is incorrect: actually, you just mentioned one of the many hypotesized solutions to the Fermi Paradox, that as such - a "paradox" - can't contain a fallacy.

[JohnFornaro]

Asteroids will for some time be the primary sources for wealth accumulation in the solar system:  they are relatively undifferentiated, valuable elements are not sequestered in difficult to reach locations...

Asteroids are not in "difficult to reach locations"?

That's good to know.

[llanitedave]

Asteroids will for some time be the primary sources for wealth accumulation in the solar system:  they are relatively undifferentiated, valuable elements are not sequestered in difficult to reach locations...

Asteroids are not in "difficult to reach locations"?

That's good to know.

Compared to planets, no.  I'm not talking about our current state of technology, this thread references "spacefaring civilizations."  For a civilization that is capable of being spacefaring, asteroids are easy.

[llanitedave]

All these discussions about extraterrestrial civilizations ultimately go back to relying on the Fermi paradox, which is based on a simple fallacy.  It assumes that once a civilization becomes spacefaring, it will choose to focus on finding other planets to exploit and/or colonize.
I don't think this is a compelling assumption..

This is incorrect: actually, you just mentioned one of the many hypotesized solutions to the Fermi Paradox, that as such - a "paradox" - can't contain a fallacy.

The fallacy is in thinking of it as a paradox at all.  If it has plausible solutions, it's not a paradox.

[M.E.T.]

All these discussions about extraterrestrial civilizations ultimately go back to relying on the Fermi paradox, which is based on a simple fallacy.  It assumes that once a civilization becomes spacefaring, it will choose to focus on finding other planets to exploit and/or colonize.
I don't think this is a compelling assumption..

This is incorrect: actually, you just mentioned one of the many hypotesized solutions to the Fermi Paradox, that as such - a "paradox" - can't contain a fallacy.

The fallacy is in thinking of it as a paradox at all.  If it has plausible solutions, it's not a paradox.

Your explanation is not a plausible solution, though. For it to be valid it has to address EVERY civilization, not merely most, or 90% or even all except one. Every single civilization needs to act in this way.

[gdelottle]

The point is that is just "a" solution, but for the very reason you pointed out, every single solution is logically hard to trust, whence the paradox.

The problem is we have a single data point available, so we cannot draw any evidence based conclusion but just speculate starting on that data point: ourselves.

[JohnFornaro]

Asteroids ... are not sequestered in difficult to reach locations...

Asteroids are not in "difficult to reach locations"?

That's good to know.

Compared to planets, no.  I'm not talking about our current state of technology, this thread references "spacefaring civilizations."  For a civilization that is capable of being spacefaring, asteroids are easy.

We all, from time to time, handwave into existence hypothetical technologies, and civilizations even, to support our assertions.

[JohnFornaro]

Dunno what "grabby" aliens are, but let me dust off my "3 Civilizations Conjecture".  [3CC]

There are three civilizations in the universe; the ones who achieved sentience the day before mankind did, us, and the ones who achieved sentience the day after we did.  We all have about the same tech, and cannot see each other because we're so widely dispersed.

But are you taking into account the idea that there are those who achieve sentience and civilization after we do, but whose pace of advancement was fast enough to overtake us? Likewise, there could be those who achieved sentience and civilization before we did, and their pace of advancement was slow enough for us to overtake them.

Maybe there's some other Earth out there that didn't have an asteroid impact like the one that killed off our dinosaurs. So they got to evolve farther much sooner, without suffering as many setbacks. Or is it maybe because we suffered an asteroid extinction event, [AEE] that we got to evolve to higher levels of intelligence sooner?

It's entirely possible that the dinos would have continued evolution without an AEE.  Here's a fun clip showing them reading newspapers, shopping and such:



But the 3CC aims merely to illustrate that while a civilization can get pretty well evolved, the neighborhood is sparsely populated.

[JohnFornaro]

Gunpowder was invented in ancient China and resulted in no industrial revolution.
…

It did once spread all over the old world. It took centuries for all the pieces to fit together, but again, gunpowder driven machines predated the steam powered versions by a few decades (a century or two in the case of Leonardo DiVinci writing down an idea).

What gunpowder driven machines?

Um, cannons?

[daedalus1]

Gunpowder was invented in ancient China and resulted in no industrial revolution.
…

It did once spread all over the old world. It took centuries for all the pieces to fit together, but again, gunpowder driven machines predated the steam powered versions by a few decades (a century or two in the case of Leonardo DiVinci writing down an idea).

What gunpowder driven machines?

Um, cannons?

We are talking machines to do useful work for the benefits of humanity eg grinding flour.

[Robotbeat]

Cannons are simple gunpowder driven machines. People had the idea of replacing the cannonball with a piston (or just creating a vacuum), using gunpowder sequentially, and using this to pump water or drive machinery. This concept predated the steam driven Savery pump patented in 1698.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_engine

Huygens and Papin did experiments to this effect in the 1670s, and an invention for using gunpowder to pump water appeared as early as Samuel Morland’s 1661 invention.

Hooke also mentioned the idea in the 1670s. Da Vinci mentioned the idea in 1508.

[daedalus1]

Cannons are simple gunpowder driven machines. People had the idea of replacing the cannonball with a piston (or just creating a vacuum), using gunpowder sequentially, and using this to pump water or drive machinery. This concept predated the steam driven Savery pump patented in 1698.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_engine

Huygens and Papin did experiments to this effect in the 1670s, and an invention for using gunpowder to pump water appeared as early as Samuel Morland’s 1661 invention.

Hooke also mentioned the idea in the 1670s. Da Vinci mentioned the idea in 1508.

Did someone use one to do actual productive work?

[Robotbeat]

Cannons are simple gunpowder driven machines. People had the idea of replacing the cannonball with a piston (or just creating a vacuum), using gunpowder sequentially, and using this to pump water or drive machinery. This concept predated the steam driven Savery pump patented in 1698.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_engine

Huygens and Papin did experiments to this effect in the 1670s, and an invention for using gunpowder to pump water appeared as early as Samuel Morland’s 1661 invention.

Hooke also mentioned the idea in the 1670s. Da Vinci mentioned the idea in 1508.

Did someone use one to do actual productive work?

Other than weapons, not that I’m aware of, but that’s irrelevant. The ideas developed by the development of gunpowder and experiments with it directly led to steam power, which was much more practical (as wood & coal are much cheaper than gunpowder).

Using fire to do physical work is THE principle, and it started with the first gunpowder weapons which launched projectiles.

[daedalus1]

Cannons are simple gunpowder driven machines. People had the idea of replacing the cannonball with a piston (or just creating a vacuum), using gunpowder sequentially, and using this to pump water or drive machinery. This concept predated the steam driven Savery pump patented in 1698.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_engine

Huygens and Papin did experiments to this effect in the 1670s, and an invention for using gunpowder to pump water appeared as early as Samuel Morland’s 1661 invention.

Hooke also mentioned the idea in the 1670s. Da Vinci mentioned the idea in 1508.

Did someone use one to do actual productive work?

Other than weapons, not that I’m aware of, but that’s irrelevant. The ideas developed by the development of gunpowder and experiments with it directly led to steam power, which was much more practical (as wood & coal are much cheaper than gunpowder).

Using fire to do physical work is THE principle, and it started with the first gunpowder weapons which launched projectiles.

I think we're losing the plot of our particular thread.
My only argument has been that the invention of gunpowder didn't directly cause an industrial revolution.  That happened hundreds of years later with the invention of other technologies.