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Advanced Civilizations Probably Don't Exist In Our Galactic Neighborhood
schwit1 writes: New observations of the best candidate galaxies now suggest that advanced civilizations are very rare or don't exist in the local universe. Researchers looked at several hundred nearby galaxies that emitted a high amount of mid-infrared radiation (abstract), which could possibly be produced as the waste heat from civilizations using energy on galactic scales.
They found: "The presence of radio emission at the levels expected from the correlation, suggests that the mid-IR emission is not heat from alien factories but more likely emission from dust — for example, dust generated and heated by regions of massive star formation. As Professor Garrett explains: 'the original research at Penn State has already told us that such systems are very rare but the new analysis suggests that this is probably an understatement, and that advanced Kardashev Type III civilizations basically don't exist in the local Universe.'"
Obviously, the uncertainty of these results is quite high. Nonetheless, the results indicate that either humanity really is the only intelligent species in this part of the universe, or advanced civilizations are far more efficient in their use of energy than is reasonable to assume.
They found: "The presence of radio emission at the levels expected from the correlation, suggests that the mid-IR emission is not heat from alien factories but more likely emission from dust — for example, dust generated and heated by regions of massive star formation. As Professor Garrett explains: 'the original research at Penn State has already told us that such systems are very rare but the new analysis suggests that this is probably an understatement, and that advanced Kardashev Type III civilizations basically don't exist in the local Universe.'"
Obviously, the uncertainty of these results is quite high. Nonetheless, the results indicate that either humanity really is the only intelligent species in this part of the universe, or advanced civilizations are far more efficient in their use of energy than is reasonable to assume.
Mmmno. The research doesn't indicate anything like that at all. They were looking for civilizations that harness energy and resources at galactic scales, ie. Kardashev III - level civilizations. Mankind haven't even reached Kardashev I yet. The submitter didn't understand what they were reading and jumped to conclusions.
...as of thousands to millions of years ago, anyway? Speed of light, and all.
My personal opinion is that life is really, really, really, REALLY rare. It only seems like it ought to be common because of the Anthropic Principle. We're can observe ourselves and thus it seems like life is easy. But everything would be exactly the same if we were completely unique in the universe. In fact, if the universe were cyclic and it took 1e1035 universe cycles for life to happen, things would look exactly the same. We simply have no basis for knowing how probable it is. Given how insanely complex we are, I suspect that it's exceedingly rare.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Efficiency can only get you so far. You use enough energy, you will get waste heat as entropy, and entropy is inescapable. Of course, they might use hyperspatial redirection or subspace quantum oscillation phase modulation or something to make it look different to us or send it to another pocket dimension, but chances are, we'd have some indication of a Type III civilization.
What we should really be calling the summary out on is the fact that they equate a Type III civilization with an "advanced civilization". Yeah, it's advanced all right, but the bloody United Federation of Planets would only be something like a Type II. You have to control the energy output of an *entire galaxy* to be a Type III.
I don't think even the United Federation of Planets qualifies as Type II. They haven't harnessed the entire energy output of a star. The engineering implications of that are mind-boggling; we've dreamed up Dyson Spheres, but those really don't seem realistic, unless we can somehow invent "scrith".
Our current civilization doesn't even place on the scale. We're probably like a Type 0.5 at best.
I don't think that's true at all. Anyone who studies technological advancement, or the philosophy of science, can tell that it's a heuristic process. In other words, it's the result of many, sometimes "average" people taking a crack at a problem over a long period of time, until someone is finally able to put all that work together to get a solution.
The oft-cited "genius" making a technological breakthrough by himself is really just a myth.
This Sig does not Exist.