Interstellar Extinction Event

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, tomf said:

Wow that might be the biggest bang since the big one. It sounds like it was powerful enough to destroy whole galaxies. Even a galaxy spanning civilization may not be entirely safe.

Make me think of the core chain detonation in Nivens known world but this more likely a black hole eating an huge star. 

 

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, Shpaget said:

I'll borrow this phrase.

Already borrowed. I first saw it in one of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker Guide books. Although, IIRC, it was in a guide entry about a triple-breasted sex worker.

Or maybe that was "the best bang since the big one"? I would have to dig up my paperback copy of the novel to be sure.

Edited October 4, 2022 by mikegarrison

[tomf]

8 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Already borrowed. I first saw it in one of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker Guide books. Although, IIRC, it was in a guide entry about a triple-breasted sex worker.

Or maybe that was "the best bang since the big one"? I would have to dig up my paperback copy of the novel to be sure.

Correct except that it was "the best bang" said by eccentrica galumbits about zaphod beeblebrox.

Which reminds me we should probably add improper use of an infinite improbability drive to the list of potentially interstallar civilization ending disasters.

And cricket.

Edited October 5, 2022 by tomf
More for Douglas Adams fans

[Beamer]

23 hours ago, tomf said:

Wow that might be the biggest bang since the big one. It sounds like it was powerful enough to destroy whole galaxies. Even a galaxy spanning civilization may not be entirely safe.

Nice find, I never heard of that one. This line made me laugh:

"The scientists calculated that it would take about 5 times 10^54 joules of energy to create such a cavity. (For perspective, humanity’s total global energy consumption each year is about 6 times 10^20 joules.)"

10^34 orders of magnitude difference is hardly a perspective. I think I need a perspective to grasp the difference of perspectives there

 

[Kerbalsaurus]

I’m aware that this necro posting, but there is much I have to say about this.

Now, biological causes probably wouldn’t cause such an event. And natural causes probably wouldn’t destroy it, but this depends on the size of the civilization. War would probably be a the most  likely cause of an extinction event. Now, an interspecies war wouldn’t cause an extinction, as they would definitely want to keep themselves alive. However, if they were discovered by another species, then they would be screwed. Even if it the discovered species was completely peaceful, the invaders wouldn’t understand. Instead, they will want to eliminate the species all together, just to be safe ya know? The weapons they’d use would probably be way out of our comprehension. They could be able to blow up stars, or boil atmospheres away. If this empire has had a significant amount of time to develop or evolve, then they could destroy the discovered civilization before they even knew what hit them. It’s either that, or the kraken is real. This is far fetched, but we’re talking about interstellar civilizations so we can get crazy here.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Kerbalsaurus
Necro posting, not "Me to" posting. Damn you autocorrect!

[Minmus Taster]

The only thing that comes to mind for a quick ending to an interstellar species would be a supernova, that is of course assuming that said species as only spread to it's local neighbourhood. An old star explodes and fries everything in a couple hundred lightyears. Even then some of the further colonies or bases will probably survive if they've spread out far enough but any civilization they once had has been destroyed. A slower ending would be a galactic collision, which would take place over billions of years, though beings that evolved to somehow live that long would have to prepare for it. Though it would probably just disperse the 'species' , not that were looking at anything biological (or conceivable) at this point, they may not even care or notice.

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, Minmus Taster said:

The only thing that comes to mind for a quick ending to an interstellar species would be a supernova, that is of course assuming that said species as only spread to it's local neighbourhood. An old star explodes and fries everything in a couple hundred lightyears. Even then some of the further colonies or bases will probably survive if they've spread out far enough but any civilization they once had has been destroyed. A slower ending would be a galactic collision, which would take place over billions of years, though beings that evolved to somehow live that long would have to prepare for it. Though it would probably just disperse the 'species' , not that were looking at anything biological (or conceivable) at this point, they may not even care or notice.

Collapse from within from ideological social contagion is another possibility.

[kerbiloid]

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/181681

Quote

a study from 1963 suggested that, if detonated 28 miles (45 kilometers) above the surface of the Earth, a 10,000-megaton weapon could set fires over an area 500 miles (800 kilometers) in diameter. Which is to say, an area about the size of France.

800 km in diameter = 500 000 km² = 0.5 mln km².

Earth land area = 140+ mln km².

Say, a half of the land is deserts and wastelands.

So, you need ~150 x 10 Gt to eliminate the terrestrial life.

Say, it's based on LiD and uses 238U for casing. Then it's ~50 000 t heavy in total,

Together with propulsion and other, 200 000 t.

Say, average density is ~1 t/m³, like for the known meganukes.

Total volume ~200 000 m³.

Centrifugal artificial gravity habitat safe radius = 100..200 m.
A typical crewed ark cross-section area = pi * (100..200)² = 30..120 * 10³ m².

200 000 / (30..120 * 10³) ~ several meter length.

So, the 150 x 10 Gt fit the mass-dimensional capability of a typical space ark (i.e. an interstellar genetration ship, or a mass rescue ship at the Earth, or a near-Mars orbital habitat), with a hundred-up-to-thousands crew and a fridge+incubator facility with frozen ravioli colonists.
Just it is a ring of 10 Gt warheads instead of the artificial gravity ring.
And their propulsion unit is absolutely the same.

So, there is no problem to send three such ships in advance, before sending the colonists.

It comes to the star of interest, calculates intervals of arrival (to let the warheads keep the safe distance from each other, and to let the planet of interest rotate and bring next hit point under the next warhead hit), and releases the warheads, without braking.
The no-brake scheme is important. If the local biosphere is equipped with defense systems, it's much harder to intercept the incoming warheads, which are moving at the near-interstellar speed.

After the 150 x 10 Gt near-space explosions, the landmass is totally burnt, so the local lifeforms are eliminated, the local ecological chains are broken, the local biosphere starts collapsing.

Next, another crewless set of ships arrives and spreads the terrestrial grass, rodents, rabbits, cats, and wolves (consult with Australians, what they don't let to import, it's exactly what you should send).
They eliminate the remains of the local biosphere, and form the Tier 1 of the terraforming.

Several decades later, the fleet of colonial arks begins arriving, occupying the planet, and populating it with the correct set of lifeforms.

By repeating this scheme on every next star system, you will successfully perform the interstellar extinction  of the previous sapient species, and terraform entire galaxy.

***

In case if somebody thinks, that it's a joke, no.
It's absolutely the traditional historical way, how the things are being done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash-and-burn

https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Подсечно-огневое_земледелие?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=wapp

"Slavic colonists are developing the eco-village on the burnt surface of Epsilon Eridani 5".

(You can see the already terraformed areas at the background)

Spoiler

Edited November 29, 2023 by kerbiloid

[SunlitZelkova]

17 hours ago, darthgently said:

Collapse from within from ideological social contagion is another possibility.

I don’t know if this would be an extinction event though. When this has happened to societies on Earth, something usually comes out from the rubble.

[DDE]

On 11/29/2023 at 8:30 AM, darthgently said:

Collapse from within from ideological social contagion is another possibility.

 

On 11/30/2023 at 1:57 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

I don’t know if this would be an extinction event though. When this has happened to societies on Earth, something usually comes out from the rubble.

I think people tend to have a really low bar for what "end of the world" means because they consider any state of the world other than their familiar one to be, basically, death. Same with global warming - a runaway greenhouse effect is exceedingly unlikely, and the mass migrations and wars that the worst-case scenario could bring are not, on the net, an apocalypse.

I don't see an ideological contagion as an X-risk unless it's some really weird, thoroughly rectified form of gnosticism that seeks to escape this false, cursed world by destroying all of it. Unlike a certain gameplay option in Stellaris, where this can be made the political programme of a Type 2 civilization, usually the holders of such beliefs are too messed up to be issued a driver's license and too slothful to even resort to low-level terrorism, and both of those are features of the worldview, not bugs.

[kerbiloid]

Most of humans are too lazy and stupid to be sensitive to mental viruses.

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, DDE said:

I think people tend to have a really low bar for what "end of the world" means because they consider any state of the world other than their familiar one to be, basically, death. Same with global warming - a runaway greenhouse effect is exceedingly unlikely, and the mass migrations and wars that the worst-case scenario could bring are not, on the net, an apocalypse.

I don't see an ideological contagion as an X-risk unless it's some really weird, thoroughly rectified form of gnosticism that seeks to escape this false, cursed world by destroying all of it. Unlike a certain gameplay option in Stellaris, where this can be made the political programme of a Type 2 civilization, usually the holders of such beliefs are too messed up to be issued a driver's license and too slothful to even resort to low-level terrorism, and both of those are features of the worldview, not bugs.

I agree, now an interstellar civilization would also be much more safe from this as culture will be different on different planets.  

Now Niven wrote an horror story. Humans ran into an civilization with an weird religion and they said they was close to an theological breakthrough.
Couple of years later and everybody on planet had committed suicide. 
Weird so they gathered all the data and document they found. Now as this was very weird they was not allowed to transmit anything, just set up an research station on this planet or another. 
Now after some weeks they lost contact with the research base, sent down an landing party and everybody had committed suicide, all humans not aliens. 
Captain of the warship escorting the science mission then nuked the base from orbit as its the only way to be sure. 
And this is idiotic unlikely, evolution has strongly selected against these kind of stuff since we had speech. 

[DDE]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

I agree, now an interstellar civilization would also be much more safe from this as culture will be different on different planets.  

It could go both ways. A unified culture generally drowns out dissident cultures and thus could prevent the rise of some weird, isolated cult that needs to drift away from reality and marinate in its own juices. However, I would agree that, on the net, it's a problem - cultures tend to reach crisis and burn out, and a single global culture will crash and burn harder.

Spoiler

Hey there, Hollywood! How's global hegemony and trillion-dollar markets treating you?

(Which of course isn't an X-risk, and there is an argument to be made that the cycle of decline of cultures/civilizations Weber et al love to scry for is Western-centric)

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Captain of the warship escorting the science mission then nuked the base from orbit as its the only way to be sure. 

The SCP Foundation franchise calls these a 'memetic hazard'.

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

And this is idiotic unlikely, evolution has strongly selected against these kind of stuff since we had speech. 

I'd say the individual human's mind is different enough from others that there isn't a 'skeleton key' for controlling it.

[SunlitZelkova]

10 hours ago, DDE said:

I don't see an ideological contagion as an X-risk unless it's some really weird, thoroughly rectified form of gnosticism that seeks to escape this false, cursed world by destroying all of it. Unlike a certain gameplay option in Stellaris, where this can be made the political programme of a Type 2 civilization, usually the holders of such beliefs are too messed up to be issued a driver's license and too slothful to even resort to low-level terrorism, and both of those are features of the worldview, not bugs.

I am skeptical this could ever become a prevalent worldview. Unless preceded by some catastrophic event that sets back all of civilization by hundreds of years, such a misanthropic view would not catch on. The shiny things in life tend to prevent people from diving into such a hole.

This may be skirting the rules a bit but I’d also like to mention this. Also, like modern day Gnosticism itself, such a world view would be predicated on people coming to this conclusion on their own, not a small group of men preaching dogma through an organization or social movement to the masses. Part of the reason why Gnosticism disappeared in the early CE when it did was because of the lack of a centralized structure. This apocalyptic future variant of it would probably be stamped out by more organized, comparatively progressive forces.

If not, it’d probably just be seen as a doomsday cult. Maybe it could catch on with the preceding catastrophic event like I mentioned earlier, but at that point, the backwards nature of technology and society in the aftermath of that would probably prevent these people from having enough power to actually wipe out all of civilization anyways.

Thinking about it more I doubt a “social contagion” could ever wipe out a species. Unless they have some biological peculiarity that makes them extremely united and agreeable, they (and of course we) are probably too divided to be overcome with such a threat.

It could be a threat to a small colony though. But it wouldn’t kill the species.

[DDE]

19 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I am skeptical this could ever become a prevalent worldview. Unless preceded by some catastrophic event that sets back all of civilization by hundreds of years, such a misanthropic view would not catch on.

There's always the cliched counterargument that misanthropy is a luxury, and deprivations quickly cure doubts in humanity.

20 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

This may be skirting the rules a bit but I’d also like to mention this. Also, like modern day Gnosticism itself, such a world view would be predicated on people coming to this conclusion on their own, not a small group of men preaching dogma through an organization or social movement to the masses. Part of the reason why Gnosticism disappeared in the early CE when it did was because of the lack of a centralized structure. This apocalyptic future variant of it would probably be stamped out by more organized, comparatively progressive forces.

The overall decentralization (contrasting with internal centralization - comes with the territory when your leader is literally God, Christ or Adam) is actually likely the strength of small-g gnosticism. It's allowed for a mycelium of separate but related cults to endure and spread for almost a millennium and a half.

And that's before it began to shed its religious mimicry and adopted the mantle of "scientific theories of societal transformation".

[SunlitZelkova]

3 hours ago, DDE said:

There's always the cliched counterargument that misanthropy is a luxury, and deprivations quickly cure doubts in humanity.

Very true.

3 hours ago, DDE said:

The overall decentralization (contrasting with internal centralization - comes with the territory when your leader is literally God, Christ or Adam) is actually likely the strength of small-g gnosticism. It's allowed for a mycelium of separate but related cults to endure and spread for almost a millennium and a half.

And that's before it began to shed its religious mimicry and adopted the mantle of "scientific theories of societal transformation".

But would these separate cults be able to coalesce into something capable of enacting an agenda of “ending the world”?

I think not, but perhaps under the Great Man theory if a small number of major leaders happen to subscribe to this ideology they might though. It would be a very technological end though, like grey goo or something. It would not be possible to have a sort of civilization mass suicide, murder would be the name of the game.

Even lone scientists and a billionaire or other financial benefactor in on the cult might be able to do this, without the need for state support and cover.

[DDE]

10 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

But would these separate cults be able to coalesce into something capable of enacting an agenda of “ending the world”?

This is where we arrive to the politically hairy topic of "how do seemingly incompetent people with utterly loony views are able to seize power in the piranha pond of a 'revolutionary situation'?" A lot of the bloodiest dictatorships in history rode the coattails of earlier coups (February 1917 in Russia, July 1932 in Germany) and somehow overtook far more established and pragmatic powers-that-be (the republican-socialist coalition of industrialists and generals in Russia; von Hindenburg, von Papen and the "cabinet of monocles" plotting to restore the monarchy in Germany).

[darthgently]

46 minutes ago, DDE said:

This is where we arrive to the politically hairy topic of "how do seemingly incompetent people with utterly loony views are able to seize power in the piranha pond of a 'revolutionary situation'?" A lot of the bloodiest dictatorships in history rode the coattails of earlier coups (February 1917 in Russia, July 1932 in Germany) and somehow overtook far more established and pragmatic powers-that-be (the republican-socialist coalition of industrialists and generals in Russia; von Hindenburg, von Papen and the "cabinet of monocles" plotting to restore the monarchy in Germany).

To paraphrase Solzhenitsyn, it is because the people themselves go a little loony.  We give the dictator, or police state, permission.  We say yes.  The line between good and evil runs through the heart of every person.  Just say No.

[kerbiloid]

16 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Also, like modern day Gnosticism itself, such a world view would be predicated on people coming to this conclusion on their own, not a small group of men preaching dogma through an organization or social movement to the masses.

No need in billions. Thousands of influential adepts; millions of motivated expendables, ready to self-sacrifice, relevant eschatological discourse, secret plan of eternal life and/or reincarnation.

16 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Gnosticism disappeared

Healthy and worthy like never before.
Just the low-level crowd formally belongs to all religious and spiritual groups (and in 99% of cases doesn't know the very word "gnosticism"), following the p.1.

16 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

when it did was because of the lack of a centralized structure.

The first rule of the Fight Club - you do not talk about Fight Club.

16 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

If not, it’d probably just be seen as a doomsday cult. Maybe it could catch on with the preceding catastrophic event like I mentioned earlier, but at that point, the backwards nature of technology and society in the aftermath of that would probably prevent these people from having enough power to actually wipe out all of civilization anyways.

<...>

It could be a threat to a small colony though. But it wouldn’t kill the species.

No need to affect everyone. The elite is enough.

12 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I think not, but perhaps under the Great Man theory if a small number of major leaders happen to subscribe to this ideology they might though. It would be a very technological end though, like grey goo or something. It would not be possible to have a sort of civilization mass suicide, murder would be the name of the game.

Reincarnation, regeneration, thin plane existence, other bonus options for the chosen.

Show them a possibility, then have a deal.

P.S.
Still insisting that SETI should stop sending their silly pictures, and start translating Marx's Das Kapital at the neutral hydrogen frequency.
Let's hit'em first!

Edited December 3, 2023 by kerbiloid

[darthgently]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

No need to affect everyone. The elite is enough

Yes.  Most just say "yes" and go along to not make waves.  They individually don't want to be the nail that invites the targeted hammer.  En masse, they invite their collective doom instead