What If Humanity Is Among The First Spacefaring Civilizations?

[RoadWithoutEnd]

If we are the first (or among the first), we are obligated from two ends:

* Obligated to make the future more benign for subsequent prospects.  But also...

* Obligated not to waste our own opportunity, since there is no guarantee there would be any other.

[Greg Hullender]

When people talk about a "grabby" civilization "conquering" the Earth, I think it's important that they realize we're not talking about aliens attacking Earth as it is. For most of its history, Earth didn't even have multicellular life, much less intelligence. So the question is, why didn't the Earth get "grabbed" hundreds of millions of years before humanity evolved?

To offer a reason someone might have wanted to "grab" the ancient Earth, imagine that, in the future, humanity starts exploring the stars at, say 10% light-speed (maybe using hibernation). Suppose we find a world like the ancient Earth: oxygen atmosphere, no life on the land, nothing in the oceans except bacteria (including photosynthesizing cyanobacteria). We'd be delighted. It'd be well worth investing a few centuries to stock it with Earth life. Given how long it takes to get between stars, we couldn't afford to be picky, so such a world would be a promising, empty vessel. Over the next million years or so, we'd grab all such worlds in the whole galaxy.

What the original post was trying to do was put a bound on how common that kind of grabby civilization could be. By definition, they're the kind who would have grabbed the Earth, had they found it. Since the Earth hasn't been grabbed yet, that lets us put a ceiling on how common that sort of civilization could be.

[JulesVerneATV]

July 2024

Are We the First Intelligent Life in our Galaxy? with David Kipping

[Eric Hedman]

If we are the first (or among the first), we are obligated from two ends:

* Obligated to make the future more benign for subsequent prospects.  But also...

* Obligated not to waste our own opportunity, since there is no guarantee there would be any other.

I understand your second point,  But what do you mean by "Obligated to make the future more benign for subsequent prospects"?  Does that mean we make it easier for them by helping them?  Or does that just mean we don't stop them?
What if a subsequent species is violent and wants to conquer or exterminate us?

[laszlo]

When people talk about a "grabby" civilization "conquering" the Earth, I think it's important that they realize we're not talking about aliens attacking Earth as it is. For most of its history, Earth didn't even have multicellular life, much less intelligence. So the question is, why didn't the Earth get "grabbed" hundreds of millions of years before humanity evolved? ...

...Since the Earth hasn't been grabbed yet, that lets us put a ceiling on how common that sort of civilization could be.

Who says it wasn't? Maybe even multiple times. Plate tectonics would erase the physical evidence if it was long enough ago. There are too many assumptions needed to accurately calculate that ceiling.

[laszlo]

If we are the first (or among the first), we are obligated from two ends:

* Obligated to make the future more benign for subsequent prospects.  But also...

* Obligated not to waste our own opportunity, since there is no guarantee there would be any other.

I understand your second point,  But what do you mean by "Obligated to make the future more benign for subsequent prospects"?  Does that mean we make it easier for them by helping them?  Or does that just mean we don't stop them?
What if a subsequent species is violent and wants to conquer or exterminate us?

Who or what obligates us for any of that? Is there a shared and universally accepted moral code? A behavioral enforcement authority? Or that just what you think would be the right thing to do?