Think about THAT!
Carl Sagan often warned about nuclear winter in the 80's, when it seemed that Reagan was about to push the button at any instant. He used examples of civilizations that had nuked themselves out of existence more than once.

What if his warning turns out to be even bleaker than that? What if ruin after ruin is the only thing out there?! Somebody has to be the most advanced - wouldn't it be a crapper if that was US?!?

Maybe our lovely little war-riddled planet is simply being sequestered from a rich galactic civilization, that would no more invite our membership at the present than you would invite chimps to a dinner party.

I am not suggesting even for one second that we abandon SETI due to this speculation. But I'd have to agree with Fermi - where the heck is everyone?!?


PS - Much as I hate BOINC and refuse to use it, I still love the idea of SETI. So I'll happily and agreeably talk about these other subjects.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

Think about THAT!

What if his warning turns out to be even bleaker than that? What if ruin after ruin is the only thing out there?! Somebody has to be the most advanced - wouldn't it be a crapper if that was US?!?

Take a look at this thread where some of this was discussed very briefly.

If it takes generations of stars to produce enough heavy elements to produce life as we understand it, we could well be among the oldest civilizations within a few thousand lightyears. There's no reason to assume we are the oldest, but it is a possibility for which we should be prepared.

If we're the first to travel to other star systems, how do we treat primitive life? Must we assume that any given species might someday evolve into intelligence and thus must be protected? This would make interstellar colonization impossible. But fear not, some future legislator will propose it.

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

Well, on Earth, it seems to have taken about 3 1/2 billion years for life to progress from pre-cell thru single celled to multicelluar life. Somewhere around that time sexual reproduction evolved and that really helped things move forward. It also appears that many significant extinction events were neccessary(?) to help push things forward. The real history of life as we generally refer to it is in the last 500 - 700 million year range.

We are closer to colonial algae than colonial algae is to the first pre-life.

Life and/or it's precursors seems to have developed rather early on Earth. It took a long long long time for it to really start getting anywhere though. Many times during that period it was almost wiped out. Our stellar neighborhood has been relatively nice to us. A nearby supernove could have ended the whole thing. So could a less regular Sun, dust clouds, gamma ray bursts, close encounters with other stars and a myriad of other things. Hell, it now looks like a planetary collision has helped us along quite a bit. Normally, planets colliding would not bode well for life. In our case it gave us our Moon, which has played a significant role in the development of life on Earth.

One thing I do agree with the ID people about is that is mighty darn amazing that it progressed so far as to produce us. But we are here, so it did. To deny that would be equivelant of a Powerball lottery winner giving back their winnings because "the odds are just so impossible, it couldn't have really happened".

I suspect life is developing quite regularily in today's Universe, if we are talking about pre-cells and early single celled forms. In fact, it should be developing more and more everyday as the Universe evolves. Someday the Universe will pass that point and new life development will start to decline. My wild arse guess is that's still a long ways in the future (by human time scales). My basis for that is that it seems to me that planetary systems that are rich in heavy elements are forming faster than ever. Another way to say it is that a higher percentage of new star systems are capable of producing life now than in the past.

I also suspect that a lot of those new systems will have better chances of surviving long enough to produce life like ours than previous systems. It just seems like a lot of the wild youth of the Universe is behind us now.

Now, it is entirely possible that systems such as ours could have started developing within the first billion years after the BB. Early stars tended to be big and have short lives, some less than 100 million years I believe, perhaps less. They would have provided the initial seeding of heavy elements and could have spawned systems such as ours. It's debatable how long it took before the concentrations of heavies was sufficient to reliably produce a system such as ours. Another factor was that the Universe was a much wilder place back then. Also, everything was also a lot closer together, better chance of being near something nasty. A nearby Quasar would probably not be a good neighbor for a potential life bearing system. Especially if the Quasar happened to be your own Galaxy :-(

So, it seems to me we need to give the Universe a little more time, say 1-3 billion years before we can start developing systems that could ultimately lead to advanced forms of life such as ours.

If we assume the Earth is a rough average that means that other planets could have reached our stage 6-9 billion years ago. That's just to produce the planet and the right conditions and give it sufficient time.

A big problem is we don't know what happens next. Our history is so short that we have no idea what the future possibilities are. What if an intelligience did develop 6 billion years ago and did survive the intervening time and continued to advance their science and technology? What could such a civilization do? Would it care to do anything?

I rather envision building an intergalactic beacon. Perhaps form a black hole and start feeding it stars on a regular basis. Maybe align galaxies in specific patterns? If relativity holds up these may be billion or multi-billion year projects. Bit tough to sell to today's corporate boards, but to a civilization with 5 billion years under it's belt?

We don't seem to see anything of that nature out there though. Some early false hopes, darn pulsars. So far though, no where we look do we see evidence of mind.

What's the odds of getting from where we are to the next level?

Maybe what we should be concerned with is, will we be the first (or one of the first) to get to the next level?

---

Think about THAT!
Carl Sagan often warned about nuclear winter in the 80's, when it seemed that Reagan was about to push the button at any instant. He used examples of civilizations that had nuked themselves out of existence more than once.

What if his warning turns out to be even bleaker than that? What if ruin after ruin is the only thing out there?! Somebody has to be the most advanced - wouldn't it be a crapper if that was US?!?

Maybe our lovely little war-riddled planet is simply being sequestered from a rich galactic civilization, that would no more invite our membership at the present than you would invite chimps to a dinner party.

I am not suggesting even for one second that we abandon SETI due to this speculation. But I'd have to agree with Fermi - where the heck is everyone?!?


PS - Much as I hate BOINC and refuse to use it, I still love the idea of SETI. So I'll happily and agreeably talk about these other subjects.

I can't disagree that we may be the only "intelligent" life in our part of the galaxy, but I'd hate to think that we are the only "intelligent" life in the galaxy as a whole. It also begs the question of what is "intelligence" - let's call it life that can build civilisations and consider (and even possibly achieve) space travel (and I don't mean interstellar travel).

Live long and crunch.

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Paul
(S@H1 8888)
And proud of it!

Since time is dependent on mass it's a pretty wild question being tabled. Makes the noodle between the ears ache.

But thinking in a universal time frame I would suppose that a planet, and it's civilization, with twice the mass/gravity would develop twice as fast in the exact same evolutionary pattern.

Remember the Star Trek episode where they visited the planet that was less evolved but time on the surface was MUCH faster than outside it's atmosphere, or envelope of mass/gravity?

Not to mention gravitational waves caused by you name it, etc...

Ouch, my noodle is swelling up again. Better stop now.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Interesting thread. Some comments ...

"Somebody has to be the most advanced - wouldn't it be a crapper if that was US?!?... Maybe our lovely little war-riddled planet is simply being sequestered from a rich galactic civilization... I am not suggesting even for one second that we abandon SETI due to this speculation. But I'd have to agree with Fermi - where the heck is everyone?!?" - Chuck

Agree with you 100% Chuck. If you want to believe that we have (or have ever had) any intelligent neighbors in this galaxy, you pretty much have to invoke something like a quarantine theory to explain why they are not obvious. Well maybe I only agree with you 90%. I actually like the idea that we are the most advanced (or the oldest, or the first, or the only one). If you have to believe in something, I'll believe in that. - S

"I rather envision building an intergalactic beacon. Perhaps form a black hole and start feeding it stars on a regular basis. Maybe align galaxies in specific patterns? If relativity holds up these may be billion or multi-billion year projects. Bit tough to sell to today's corporate boards, but to a civilization with 5 billion years under it's belt?"- mray

Now,I have a bit of problem with this notion. If you posit a civilization with this much disposable and controllable energy, why would they waste it on a beacon, when they could spend that energy to just go anywhere in the galaxy they wanted? There is no difference between FTL travel and relativistic Time Dilation, as long you are on the ship. If you could harness enough energy to accelerate a starship continuously in a 1G-2G range, you could circumnavigate the entire galaxy within one human lifetime (of course, 'home base" would age some millions of years while you were out on your joyride - better take your friends with you). If you have this much energy to spend, wouldn't this be a preferable way to spend it? Just get in your ship and go see what is out there for yourself? That is certainly what I do with it, as opposed to spending even more energy to send signals that perhaps no one would see and it would take millions of years to get a response. Much better use of resource. - s

"What's the odds of getting from where we are to the next level?"-mray

The odds may be better than you think. We have no theoretical obstacle to becoming a star faring civilization. Relativity and Time Diltion are all we need for a scientific foundation. We do need to become much more proficient at storing and controlling hellish quantities of energy, but we probably already know the fuel we need [anti-matter]. And ... as it turns out, we are already manufacturing and storing that fuel today (albeit in very small quantities and for very short periods of time and in an extremely inefficient manner). We just have a few little engineering details to work out, scale the process up, and we're there.

"But thinking in a universal time frame I would suppose that a planet, and it's civilization, with twice the mass/gravity would develop twice as fast in the exact same evolutionary pattern... Better stop now."- tik

Yes...ummm... Well... uh ... I can confidently state I agree with that last part, tik.

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- Skeptic - "... and there is no intelligent life in Washington D.C. either."

Here's a nice, dreary thought:

Although we have become progressively more advanced, we've also become exponentially more capable of wiping ourselves out.

What if...randomness does prevail, and we're just the only current intelligent life that hasn't inevitably wiped itself out yet? On a smaller scale, what's the oldest human civilization? Not very old, not even a thousand years, and we've been around for a million. They just can't seem to last, ever. What would be the next logical destiny of a global civilization?

What if self-destructiveness is the cause of the void?




....lol...hope I'm all wrong here!

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I'm afraid your right.

$1.00 says there's a nuclear strike somewhere in the world in the next 18 months.

Now that's dreary, but probably true. The monkeys with opposing thumbs just can't get it together. No wonder we're not visited in a more social manner.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Here's a nice, dreary thought: Although we have become progressively more advanced, we've also become exponentially more capable of wiping ourselves out... jj

Well, that is a "glass half empty" way to look at it. The "glass half full" view, is that this self-same destructive capability is the first step of a journey that will take us to the stars.

The "capability of wiping ourselves out" can be equated to "the amount of explosive energy we can manufacture and control". Indeed we probably do have enough explosive energy manufactured and stored on this planet today to wipe ourselves out. However this is nowhere near enough for us to be a star faring civilization. Today we control explosive energy sufficient to destroy cities. To be a star faring civilization, we will need to be able to manufacture and control explosive energy on an order of magnitude that would be capable of destroying planets or stars.

The capability is not a problem. In fact, it is neccessary.

Think of it as a race with ourselves.

If our creative and exploring nature wins the race - we colonize the galaxy.

If our destructive nature wins the race - we don't.

So far, so good.

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- Skeptic - "... and there is no intelligent life in Washington D.C. either."

Retraction of my last post.

It was morbid. I have faith that we'll get past all of our short comings and learn from our past mistakes.

Shouldn't have been so negative, or negative at all.

Public forums, not a stupid joke room.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

$1.00 says there's a nuclear strike somewhere in the world in the next 18 months.

If there is. it's 100% that it get's blamed on Iran. The middle east would be gone.

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TEAM
LL

Sleestak,

Aren't sleestack the pointy headed aliens guys from the land of the lost tv series? Man that brings back memories.




Iran or al queda. Either way a nuke in Jerusalem or Israel would set a serious confrontation into motion. Scary stuff.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Think about THAT!

Could be, anything's possible.

Hey, we MIGHT be "the oldest" (or one of them) civilizations out there in OUR galaxy (but, there's TONS of galaxies too, keep that in mind, NOT just ours).

If you assume a few things (lol, as physicists are wont to do), then it might be a possible...

Here's why I think this (or, the total reverse - but, I don't have enough data/background/research into this really to know, one way or another. Perhaps someone here may know more on THIS part, & tell me more):

If you look @ the shape of our galaxy, it seems we are on the outer rim iirc, of a gigantic lenticular shaped spiral... now, IF it "exploded" outwards?

We're on the outermost rings/spirals of it, & thus, the oldest.

(Of course, most times I have seen a spiral? It is in things going towards a central point, like water draining out of your bathtub for instance - which means we'd be one of the "youngsters" out here!)

Depends on your point-of-view I suppose...

Carl Sagan often warned about nuclear winter in the 80's, when it seemed that Reagan was about to push the button at any instant. He used examples of civilizations that had nuked themselves out of existence more than once.

Personally, I think we've actually done that to ourselves before in the past.

I guess things like the giant roads on the bottoms of our ocean (iirc, places like the "bermuda triangle" have these) formed of HUGE blocks which we would have trouble doing the same today (watched this on NOVA once or some show like it in the past).

To me? That indicates a civilization that was stronger than ours in some ways quite possibly, if they could do what we cannot today.

You hear things like the legends of Atlantis (iirc as well, Socrates or Plato even wrote of it)... maybe there was once.

I tell you: Sometimes, when I think about it? How we act, it really ticks me off!

That's because anyone that has the nuttiness to "push a button" to startup a nuke war is out of their minds, or one sad S.O.B., because they ought to take a look @ their kids/babies, & then think twice before such stupidity.

You bring the young into this world and it's on YOUR head to keep them going & safe... they are our future after all.

Somebody has to be the most advanced - wouldn't it be a crapper if that was US?!?

Well, you have a point: BUT, we are a pretty "mixed bag" of goods though. Like Shakespeare said:

"What a piece of work is a man in reason noble in faculty infinite In form and moving express, admirable in action like angel in apprehension how like a god."

(Then, lol, there's the "downside" of that quote (you can look up the rest of it if you like) too, & it's dead-on as well: We can be real scum as I am sure you all can agree: Depends on the situation & what's needed!)

Maybe our lovely little war-riddled planet is simply being sequestered from a rich galactic civilization, that would no more invite our membership at the present than you would invite chimps to a dinner party.

Chimps? I think not... I don't think we are that GOOD to be honest (imo, animals are "better people than people" many times & @ least know how to live WITH nature & not screw it up).

I think it'd be more like inviting a murderous, unpredictable fiend.

Sorry if that offends anyone, but think about this - Were YOU looking down @ us? Seeing us murdering one another & warring??

Well - would you want somebody like that coming to YOUR home, where your kids play?

Also, when you read things like Christianity's "Adam & Eve", well, what happened to them? Kicked outta heaven is what.

Sound kind of like some sort of exile analogy to you? It does me... put into words that anyone could understand @ a fundamental level. Perhaps we are in exile from some galactic civilization & that's how we are told about it, to this very day - in legend, in scripture, etc./et all...

:)

* Anyways/Anyhow: My take on your subject here, for what it's worth...

APK

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http://torry.net/authorsmore.php?id=1781

"The object's hull is made of SOLID neutronium: A single StarShip cannot combat it!" quote Mr. Spock, Star Trek original series, episode title: "The Doomsday Machine"

If you look @ the shape of our galaxy, it seems we are on the outer rim iirc, of a gigantic lenticular shaped spiral... now, IF it "exploded" outwards?

We're on the outermost rings/spirals of it, & thus, the oldest.

The spiral arms are believed to be the younger component of the Galaxy: stars are constantly being born in the associated clouds of gas and dust. These "Population I" stars, including the Sun, have orbits lying more or less in the galactic plane, while the older "Population II" stars found in globular clusters, and in the galactic 'hub' & 'halo', are distributed more spherically, in what's sometimes called the "thick disk" (as opposed to the "thin disk" of the spiral arms).

The younger generation can be identified by their comparatively high content of "metals" (to astronomers that means all elements heavier than helium), which were created in giant stars of the previous generation and 'disseminated' when they became supernovas—but were absent from the early universe. IIRC the orange giant Alpha Boötis, AKA Arcturus, is one of the nearest Population II stars to us; it's probably twice as old as the Sun.

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The spiral arms are believed to be the younger component of the Galaxy: stars are constantly being born in the associated clouds of gas and dust.

Thanks, I was wondering about that, & mentioned it could be that way, here below in these words:

"(Of course, most times I have seen a spiral? It is in things going towards a central point, like water draining out of your bathtub for instance - which means we'd be one of the "youngsters" out here!)"

(So, it IS the "other way around" as I figured it might be, & my weird analog up there I quoted from below appears to be the 'correct' one... either way, now I have what is the commonly accepted viewpoint!)

* Had to be one way, or the other, & that appears to be it...

:)

These "Population I" stars, including the Sun, have orbits lying more or less in the galactic plane, while the older "Population II" stars found in globular clusters, and in the galactic 'hub' & 'halo', are distributed more spherically, in what's sometimes called the "thick disk" (as opposed to the "thin disk" of the spiral arms).

The younger generation can be identified by their comparatively high content of "metals" (to astronomers that means all elements heavier than helium), which were created in giant stars of the previous generation and 'disseminated' when they became supernovas—but were absent from the early universe. IIRC the orange giant Alpha Boötis, AKA Arcturus, is one of the nearest Population II stars to us; it's probably twice as old as the Sun.

That's wild stuff, I was unaware of it - but, not anymore!

:)

* Once more - thanks for the info.!

APK

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http://torry.net/authorsmore.php?id=1781

"The object's hull is made of SOLID neutronium: A single StarShip cannot combat it!" quote Mr. Spock, Star Trek original series, episode title: "The Doomsday Machine"

What if self-destructiveness is the cause of the void?

My guts cringe for that post, and no, it isn't morbid; it's exactly the kind of thing Carl Sagan warned us about over and over in the 80's. Just because a nut like Reagan is gone doesn't mean another religious "god is on our side!" idiot wouldn't push the button also! And I underline very much the point that was made, namely that no civilization lasts much more than a thousand years or so - the chinese and hebrews be damned; their civilizations have undergone radical changes!

Dr. Sagan had me cringing in the 80's. Then I lost that fear. I am so generally disgusted with human nature, with the petty squabbling over resources and greed that I really don't give 2 shites if we wipe ourselves out of existence. The problem is, by and large, that most of the people, who are kind, not greedy, and just want to live their lives in peace and safety are utterly at the mercy of world leaders and war-mongers. What hope do we have when the ones in charge have proven through history to all be egotistical, greedy and self-serving.

What a world, eh? If we aren't by incredible stroke of improbability, the most advanced ANYWHERE in (13<x<23) billion light years, then it seems pretty logical to me that we are being sequestered and watched...veeerrry carefully. Reminds me of an Arthur C Clarke quote from 2001: "...and sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed."


There is one other thing it reminds me of: A Calvin & Hobbes series, when he found a baby raccoon, tried to save it, but it died overnight. Calvin said to Hobbes "It's either deliberately mean, or else it's arbitrary, and either way, I've got the heebie-jeebies." Doesn't that really bite? If it's arbitrary, and there is ruin after ruin out there, what hope can a bunch of screaming monkeys with opposable thumbs possibly have? When we act like we do day after day? Here we are in the 21st century, we actually MADE it, and we let the government make decisions that help the dark ages come back.
And if, on the contrary, we are being kept to ourselves, that's just damned mean. So many of us will be denied what we dream of more than anything; and I'm sure, I'm SURE there are very few murderers who really want to know what's out there among the stars.

Does everyone understand what I'm trying to say here? (and no, no religion at all)

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

BTW, that picture is Feelix or Phoenix, I can't remember his exact name; but he is supossed to be a time traveler himself, from the past, because in that great sturday morning kids' show, his god-like civilization WIPED ITSELF OUT. Fell into a dark age of green, hissing sleestacks.

Message there?

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

Well,

I understand your bitterness. Lots of things going on that are out of our control. Sucks being cargo when the train drivers make bad calls. I don't like most people for one reason or another but don't want to see our species or any other be destroyed by anything, especially our/them/selves. Biggotry, animal abuse, religious differences, sexual preferences, over zealous national pride, ignorance, and the general "We're better than you are" attitudes make me nausious.

I wondered about the Big Bang in the same light you have. Perhaps evolutions "survival of the fittest" is it's ultimate doom in the end. Unless some kind of an "awakening" can happen within an entire generation or two that can curb and eventually erase the self destructive tide we've been riding in and out on since the beginning of time as we comprehend it.

"And the meek shall inherit the earth."

I sure hope so because the greedy and crazy have definitely had their time at the wheel! I'm not gay, prejudice, religious, or greedy. Live and let live. Period.

Maybe we should start a commune and call it "Meek Ranch." Probably need a bunker of some form and a huge supply of food and water sooner or later...

Then again, maybe something will happen to force us too wake up and fly straight! An offer we can't refuse type of event!

Great footnote on the Sleestack!

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Biggotry, animal abuse, religious differences, sexual preferences, over zealous national pride, ignorance, and the general "We're better than you are" attitudes make me nausious.


I'm not gay, prejudice, religious, or greedy. Live and let live. Period.

Ignorance makes me naseous as well. Also, people who wear too much perfume, turtles, racists, and fish sticks.

And I'm also not gay. Not violent, musical, or hungry either!

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D I mean this in the nicest of ways: You have a very original way of expressing your thoughts!

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Mmmmmm... Fish Sticks!!!

:P

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss