I'm always amazed at how people discussing alien life forms always seem to think or suggest that these life forms should adhere to our vision or knowledge of life.
The answer is simple. Despite all our knowledge and technology, the fact is, most humans still see us as the center of the universe created by a "god" and that we are his children created in his image.
Such a viewpoint doesn't allow for such outside the box thinking.
You're thinking too much like a primitive human being.
A lot of people in this thread are having this problem.
Frankly, the whole thing might not happen for exactly that reason. 500 years from now, we might not even keep our human bodies, once we figure out how to upload ourselves into computers.
Such an idea is horrifying to my mother and wife, both of whom think that sounds terrible. But that doesn't mean it won't happen. Doesn't mean it will either of course.
You think people in 1903 would understand how the Rocketdyne F-1 engines worked?
There is a difference between understanding that "long stick has fire on the bottom and goes up" and understanding how to make the turbopumps work without blowing up.
I get that FTL drive uses something to go faster than light, it would not shock me at all to see one in action. I have no idea how the technology works however.
There would be surprises, but it's very unlikely that we would be completely clueless.
That mistake has been made before. More than once.
I would submit that we have just climbed a 100ft hill and you're quite proud of yourself. I see Mt. Everest in the distance and know we have much further to go.
We're both right, from our own points of view. I simply believe that you're going to be disappointed when you find that we have so much further to go.
So great, I'm stuck in the configuration of quantum states where I'm a nerd posting on/. instead of the configuration where I'm Batman having a three-way with Kate Upton and Katy Perry on my space yacht. FML.
This totally made me laugh out loud, thanks for the mental image, which I'll now steal!:)
You can be as snarky as you like and come up with as many silly examples as you like.
It doesn't change the basic point.
If FTL travel is possible (which we don't know if it is or isn't), then sooner or later, someone is bound to discover it.
If we assume it is possible, then the odds of that happening is very high given the number of stars, number of galaxies, and time scales involved.
However, while the odds of it being discovered is very high, the odds of it being discovered near us is very low and the odds of it being discovered during a time in which humans have been around is even lower.
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Humans clearly still think they are the center of things, we are not. Humans have a history going back ten to twenty thousand years. That is a very short period of time to the Universe. We only live about 100 years, give or take, that is even shorter.
You'll have to start by first finding some fundamental physics which allows superluminal travel.
And if we can't, then no one can, anywhere?
That is a very human centered view, and a flawed one. You are assuming that we have to discover FTL drive before someone else can do so and use it it come here.
If it is possible (which we don't know), then our discovery of it doesn't matter, only someone else's.
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In any case, let me turn it around. Lets say that we discovered it tomorrow. We then use it to go to our nearest star. Great, how cool is that!
How long would it take before we go to ALL of them? Or even the few million likely to have Earth type planets, just in our galaxy?
We could spend a million years flying around in starships before finding another "Earth" with people on it, just in our own galaxy.
That they are not here neither proves nor disproves anything.
If physics doesn't allow for it, it doesn't allow for it anywhere. It doesn't matter how large the Universe happens to be.
While that sounds like a reasonable statement, you and I simply don't know if physics does or does not allow for it.
We don't know all there is to know about such things. We can't even explain what makes gravity happen. We know it is real, the evidence is obvious, but what causes it, can you affect it, can you create or destroy it?
That assumes that it uses propulsion the way we would, which is to use the Newtonian "equal and opposite reaction" thing.
What makes you think that is how it moves? Perhaps it has a gravity drive that allows it to move via artificial gravity. It simply places a gravity well in front of the ship and the ship "falls into it", then it places another one in front of that, and so on.
There would not be any emissions that we could detect from such a drive.
Humans are pretty good at adapting the technology of other humans.
We are already starting to get serious about smart guns. You think aliens traveling from another solar system wouldn't have weapons that are smart enough to not be used by anyone else?
They would likely have "smart" guns in the literal sense, in that AI in the guns would be smart enough to know who was holding the gun. Self-destructing would be an easy way to make it not worth picking up the alien guns.
As for the supply train, a starship traveling to other solar systems needs to be self contained, it is its own supply train. It makes internally everything it needs.
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Coming back to the idea of the US military going back in time, of course I'm assuming that the supply chain goes with them, a tank is useless without fuel of course.
While it is true that the Napoleon era tech wasn't all bows and arrows, they didn't have anything that flew (that was useful, they had balloons). The first thing to do would be to take out HIS supply using bombers, helicopters, and drones.
Thermodynamics does not allow it. All the heat generated running the ship and all that absorbed radiation has to be radiated.
So the ship couldn't have heat sinks to store the heat for later release?
It doesn't have to be stealthed forever, maybe it only needs a few hours.
Mass Effect (the game) covered this concept with the ship Normandy, it was "stealth" in that it stored all heat internally in heat sinks that had to be purged to space every few hours.
People simply didn't believe the Wright Brothers when they announced they flew an airplane, they had to take it on tour and demo it over and over before people finally accepted that the age of aviation had arrived.
And anyone who has actually seen a big rocket go up would understand they aren't the same thing at all.
I missed the Saturn V launches, but I've watched two shuttles go up, one launch from the closer in viewing stands.
Holy crap that is an experience, the videos do NOT do that justice. The ground shakes, your guts shake, your bones shake, the air shakes. It is a visceral experience that has to be had in person.
Just like the US military in Iraq, right? Or the British, Russian, and now US armies in Afghanistan for the last 150 years? Or both Napoleon and Hitler invading Moscow? While a thousand armored vehicles would flatten any native standing army any interstellar military force has _incredibly_ long supply lines. If transportation and communications are cheap and quick, and the invader's resources large enough, natives can be conquered quickly and thoroughly. But if the supply lines are long, slow, and expensive as we've seen in Terran warfare, we've seen amazing feats of local defenders against invading armies.
If the natives weapons have _any_ effect, home turf advantage and guerrilla warfare are well established and critical factors. One of the critical keys to warfare is the _economics_. Is it worth the resources to commit the invasion justified by the gain? And at interstellar ranges, what does the supply line cost?
I'm not sure if you're trying to be serious, or what... Iraq had modern weapons, they were not some tribe with arrows. Afghanistan was losing until the US intervened and provided them modern weapons.
The technology difference also isn't so vast, maybe a few decades at best. Try centuries...
In addition, the Russians were not trying to exterminate all of Afghanistan, the US wasn't trying to exterminate all of Iraq. Both nations have the ability to do that, we have nuclear weapons. What exactly would either nation have done about that?
Imagine if the aliens have super computers that can write viruses on the fly to invade our networks. Our security should be a joke to them. Or how about directed EMP weapons to simple disable our weapons systems (yes, many of ours are "hardened, but not against alien technology).
Regarding "home turf advantage and guerrilla warfare", what makes you think they have to come down from their ships to hurt us? This illusion of ground combat is put fourth by the movies and video games, but it is stupid. Don't give up the high ground, and space is the ultimate high ground.
It'd only take 1 civilization to decide to colonize our galaxy. Mathematically, they could have done it in 50 million years without FTL travel. So where are they?
You are looking at it from the viewpoint of your own life and civilization, neither of which are very long lived.
If they show up in 5,000 years, that would be "soon" from their point of view, but "forever" from ours.
You have a very human centric view of the situation, and that isn't unusual, but it does mean you can't see the forest for the trees until you remove your own human biases from the study.
A one in a billion planet that has a climate which is accommodating to our species?
What makes you think Earth type planets are so rare?
NASA has recently revised their estimates that there are between 3 and 7 million Earth type planets just in our own Galaxy.
There are likely to be tens of thousands of "Earths" full of "people" spread around just the Milky Way Galaxy, to say nothing of the rest of the Universe.
Humans like to think they are so special, it makes them feel important.
Slashdot Mirror
While that's cute... aliens smart enough to fly here wouldn't likely be that dumb...
And even if they were, they would learn from the example...
Even if we somehow survived the first assault, we wouldn't survive the second or third.
Remember, unlike wars on Earth, we can't march on their lands, because they are in space.
I'm always amazed at how people discussing alien life forms always seem to think or suggest that these life forms should adhere to our vision or knowledge of life.
The answer is simple. Despite all our knowledge and technology, the fact is, most humans still see us as the center of the universe created by a "god" and that we are his children created in his image.
Such a viewpoint doesn't allow for such outside the box thinking.
You're thinking too much like a primitive human being.
A lot of people in this thread are having this problem.
Frankly, the whole thing might not happen for exactly that reason. 500 years from now, we might not even keep our human bodies, once we figure out how to upload ourselves into computers.
Such an idea is horrifying to my mother and wife, both of whom think that sounds terrible. But that doesn't mean it won't happen. Doesn't mean it will either of course.
FTL travel, or even FTL communication, is forbidden by the laws of physics.
You say that with a degree of certainty that I don't believe is due.
What makes you think it is so limited? Perhaps they have matter replicators on-board that only require power and they can refuel at any star.
The ship itself becomes a self-sustaining factory that runs forever, making anything you need, including spare parts for the ship.
The external power source is any nearby star for fuel. With enough fuel, there is no supply chain, just the ship.
You think people in 1903 would understand how the Rocketdyne F-1 engines worked?
There is a difference between understanding that "long stick has fire on the bottom and goes up" and understanding how to make the turbopumps work without blowing up.
I get that FTL drive uses something to go faster than light, it would not shock me at all to see one in action. I have no idea how the technology works however.
To you and me? No, probably not...
How about to the rest of the 7 billion people on this planet, many of whom still believe in religion?
There would be surprises, but it's very unlikely that we would be completely clueless.
That mistake has been made before. More than once.
I would submit that we have just climbed a 100ft hill and you're quite proud of yourself. I see Mt. Everest in the distance and know we have much further to go.
We're both right, from our own points of view. I simply believe that you're going to be disappointed when you find that we have so much further to go.
So great, I'm stuck in the configuration of quantum states where I'm a nerd posting on /. instead of the configuration where I'm Batman having a three-way with Kate Upton and Katy Perry on my space yacht. FML.
This totally made me laugh out loud, thanks for the mental image, which I'll now steal! :)
You can be as snarky as you like and come up with as many silly examples as you like.
It doesn't change the basic point.
If FTL travel is possible (which we don't know if it is or isn't), then sooner or later, someone is bound to discover it.
If we assume it is possible, then the odds of that happening is very high given the number of stars, number of galaxies, and time scales involved.
However, while the odds of it being discovered is very high, the odds of it being discovered near us is very low and the odds of it being discovered during a time in which humans have been around is even lower.
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Humans clearly still think they are the center of things, we are not. Humans have a history going back ten to twenty thousand years. That is a very short period of time to the Universe. We only live about 100 years, give or take, that is even shorter.
You'll have to start by first finding some fundamental physics which allows superluminal travel.
And if we can't, then no one can, anywhere?
That is a very human centered view, and a flawed one. You are assuming that we have to discover FTL drive before someone else can do so and use it it come here.
If it is possible (which we don't know), then our discovery of it doesn't matter, only someone else's.
---
In any case, let me turn it around. Lets say that we discovered it tomorrow. We then use it to go to our nearest star. Great, how cool is that!
How long would it take before we go to ALL of them? Or even the few million likely to have Earth type planets, just in our galaxy?
We could spend a million years flying around in starships before finding another "Earth" with people on it, just in our own galaxy.
That they are not here neither proves nor disproves anything.
If physics doesn't allow for it, it doesn't allow for it anywhere. It doesn't matter how large the Universe happens to be.
While that sounds like a reasonable statement, you and I simply don't know if physics does or does not allow for it.
We don't know all there is to know about such things. We can't even explain what makes gravity happen. We know it is real, the evidence is obvious, but what causes it, can you affect it, can you create or destroy it?
Much to learn, we have...
That assumes that it uses propulsion the way we would, which is to use the Newtonian "equal and opposite reaction" thing.
What makes you think that is how it moves? Perhaps it has a gravity drive that allows it to move via artificial gravity. It simply places a gravity well in front of the ship and the ship "falls into it", then it places another one in front of that, and so on.
There would not be any emissions that we could detect from such a drive.
Humans are pretty good at adapting the technology of other humans.
We are already starting to get serious about smart guns. You think aliens traveling from another solar system wouldn't have weapons that are smart enough to not be used by anyone else?
They would likely have "smart" guns in the literal sense, in that AI in the guns would be smart enough to know who was holding the gun. Self-destructing would be an easy way to make it not worth picking up the alien guns.
As for the supply train, a starship traveling to other solar systems needs to be self contained, it is its own supply train. It makes internally everything it needs.
---
Coming back to the idea of the US military going back in time, of course I'm assuming that the supply chain goes with them, a tank is useless without fuel of course.
While it is true that the Napoleon era tech wasn't all bows and arrows, they didn't have anything that flew (that was useful, they had balloons). The first thing to do would be to take out HIS supply using bombers, helicopters, and drones.
Thermodynamics does not allow it. All the heat generated running the ship and all that absorbed radiation has to be radiated.
So the ship couldn't have heat sinks to store the heat for later release?
It doesn't have to be stealthed forever, maybe it only needs a few hours.
Mass Effect (the game) covered this concept with the ship Normandy, it was "stealth" in that it stored all heat internally in heat sinks that had to be purged to space every few hours.
Yes, and I can write a paper about the folding of space to create wormholes to allow FTL travel from point to point.
That doesn't mean I can actually build the ship and I would be no less impressed if I saw one in person.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
People simply didn't believe the Wright Brothers when they announced they flew an airplane, they had to take it on tour and demo it over and over before people finally accepted that the age of aviation had arrived.
Humans are slow to adapt to change.
And anyone who has actually seen a big rocket go up would understand they aren't the same thing at all.
I missed the Saturn V launches, but I've watched two shuttles go up, one launch from the closer in viewing stands.
Holy crap that is an experience, the videos do NOT do that justice. The ground shakes, your guts shake, your bones shake, the air shakes. It is a visceral experience that has to be had in person.
Just like the US military in Iraq, right? Or the British, Russian, and now US armies in Afghanistan for the last 150 years? Or both Napoleon and Hitler invading Moscow? While a thousand armored vehicles would flatten any native standing army any interstellar military force has _incredibly_ long supply lines. If transportation and communications are cheap and quick, and the invader's resources large enough, natives can be conquered quickly and thoroughly. But if the supply lines are long, slow, and expensive as we've seen in Terran warfare, we've seen amazing feats of local defenders against invading armies.
If the natives weapons have _any_ effect, home turf advantage and guerrilla warfare are well established and critical factors. One of the critical keys to warfare is the _economics_. Is it worth the resources to commit the invasion justified by the gain? And at interstellar ranges, what does the supply line cost?
I'm not sure if you're trying to be serious, or what... Iraq had modern weapons, they were not some tribe with arrows. Afghanistan was losing until the US intervened and provided them modern weapons.
The technology difference also isn't so vast, maybe a few decades at best. Try centuries...
In addition, the Russians were not trying to exterminate all of Afghanistan, the US wasn't trying to exterminate all of Iraq. Both nations have the ability to do that, we have nuclear weapons. What exactly would either nation have done about that?
Imagine if the aliens have super computers that can write viruses on the fly to invade our networks. Our security should be a joke to them. Or how about directed EMP weapons to simple disable our weapons systems (yes, many of ours are "hardened, but not against alien technology).
Regarding "home turf advantage and guerrilla warfare", what makes you think they have to come down from their ships to hurt us? This illusion of ground combat is put fourth by the movies and video games, but it is stupid. Don't give up the high ground, and space is the ultimate high ground.
Yea, I thought that was pretty cool as well... still, those pictures are taken in low lunar orbit, not from Earth...
You of course miss the point, as so many do.
If I have the ability to travel 500 years back in time, I also have the ability to take GPS satellites with me.
It'd only take 1 civilization to decide to colonize our galaxy. Mathematically, they could have done it in 50 million years without FTL travel. So where are they?
You are looking at it from the viewpoint of your own life and civilization, neither of which are very long lived.
If they show up in 5,000 years, that would be "soon" from their point of view, but "forever" from ours.
You have a very human centric view of the situation, and that isn't unusual, but it does mean you can't see the forest for the trees until you remove your own human biases from the study.
Direct observation.
Wow, you've had direct observation of more than one planet in the "life belt" of a star?
I don't think direct observation means what you think it does. We have a sample size of 1, it is useless for figuring out anything.
All we can go off of is the fact that we keep finding life here on Earth in places we didn't think we'd find it.
So what we consider to be "life supporting environments" keeps changing, even in just the past 10 years.
Yes, but not at any given point in time. At the end point of the universe, sure. Maybe even at some mid point.
Today? I have no idea, I lack enough information to even hazard a guess.
I just know that the universe is very large and we are all very small, humans still have trouble understanding how unimportant we really are.
A one in a billion planet that has a climate which is accommodating to our species?
What makes you think Earth type planets are so rare?
NASA has recently revised their estimates that there are between 3 and 7 million Earth type planets just in our own Galaxy.
There are likely to be tens of thousands of "Earths" full of "people" spread around just the Milky Way Galaxy, to say nothing of the rest of the Universe.
Humans like to think they are so special, it makes them feel important.
You of course make the point clearly enough... Even if they just want water, comets would provide that without needing to invade planets...