What if we confirmed Aliens around KIC 8462852?

[Bill Phil]

On May 2, 2016 at 10:26 PM, Matuchkin said:

The star is currently assumed to be undergoing late heavy bombardment. You don't usually see life at that stage.

I'll sit here and wait until the bombardment stops.

No one said they had to be natives...

On May 3, 2016 at 9:03 PM, PB666 said:

I have the star on my ignore list and all that. I think if someones going to build a bypass through the solar sustem, im simply going to rely on the infinite improbabilty drive to save me. I have lots of towels handy. . . . . . . 

Oh, you wanted me to take this thread seriously . . . . . 

Really, aliens aren't going to mind us, we are in a fairly boring backwater of the galaxy. If i'm an alien species my biggest concern is finding the best stars to reach out to seed and move on, more or less have all the elements in relatively shallow gravity wells, a stable star, low end of the yellow spectrum, cause i want my colony to last, finally biggest troublemaker are supernova and 'ramblin stars'. Ah and don't forget what to do about the andromeda collision. 

The andromeda collision won't cause too many issues. Stars aren't that dense. Some stars will get messed up, thrown around, and the like, but not a large amount.

55 minutes ago, Darnok said:

First of all, science wouldn't matter, military would. Geopolitics of Earth would change, since now we have zero protection from orbital strikes, we also can't defend or attack any spot in solar system.

If aliens would be on level of Dyson spheres and be able to travel to our solar system, it would be like Columbus meets Indians, but with modern technology and we would play Indians role. Our civilizations (we have few on Earth) would end, Earth and those who would survive, first few years of conquest, would be slaves forced to build bases for aliens.

The good thing with all this would be that we as humans would have to change our way of thinking and turn around from artificial constructs like bureaucracy, democracy, banking, equality etc etc and back to things that do work and let civilization to grow.

 

Earth sucks. Why come here? It's likely that they don't know we exist. And everything that can be found on Earthcan be found somewhere else. Except for life, and even then...

[Darnok]

53 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

I didn't say that, and I know there would likely be that one military civilization, I just don't think that we'll have a bad first contact.

Name one independent country that doesn't have military When politicians are talking it is bad contact? Even leaders of countries that are during war are talking from time to time. Having military doesn't mean you have to shoot to everything, it is for your protection.

For sure first contact with alien civilization would be diplomatic... I doubt Columbus shot at first Indians he met, killing part was later when Indians refused to give all their shiny resources and lands

41 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Earth sucks. Why come here? It's likely that they don't know we exist. And everything that can be found on Earthcan be found somewhere else. Except for life, and even then...

To discover what is in here? People didn't explored entire Earth because they couldn't find resources where they lived, they were exploring to find new things and more things that makes their survival easier.

Your second statement just killed every reason for larger budget for space programs

Edited May 4, 2016 by Darnok

[Matuchkin]

4 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

No one said they had to be natives...

Why does anyone even have the faintest thought that anything else can travel between stars?

Please look at this page, and scroll through it by hand to understand the size of the distances between the main objects in our very own solar system. Then think about how far away other stars may be.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Matuchkin

[More Boosters]

We don't randomly attack primitive tribes or even other animals. I'd hope that a society which has advanced enough to travel those distances would have also learned to value scientific curiosity and studying over warmongering and destruction. I'd expect them to appreciate life, having had many more chances and better technology to detect it, having a better grasp of how rare it actually is.

[regex]

If it is a Dyson swarm in construction then I don't see any reason to panic.  It's highly likely in that case that whatever civilization is building it does not have FTL or even relativistic-level space drives.  Why bother building a mega structure when you can simply expand into the surrounding neighborhood to handle your population growth?  Of course, engineering on that scale would also imply mastery over material science that we don't comprehend, so there's that.  Either way, if it is another civilization I don't believe it's anything for us to worry about considering the distances.

Flash-in-the-pan excitement followed by long term study, plus increased hope for the future of humanity.

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Earth sucks. Why come here?

To make a prison for their fugitives.

[HebaruSan]

5 minutes ago, regex said:

It's highly likely in that case that whatever civilization is building it does not have FTL or even relativistic-level space drives.  Why bother building a mega structure when you can simply expand into the surrounding neighborhood to handle your population growth?

What if such drives need a lot of energy to operate? I'm not aware of any low-energy plans to make quantum black holes or warp fields or antimatter. Even a generation ship would need a way to accelerate all that mass.

[HebaruSan]

47 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

Please look at this page, and scroll through it by hand to understand the size of the distances between the main objects in our very own solar system.

Love it. Wish it included a depiction of the brightness of the sun at each distance.

[regex]

3 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

What if such drives need a lot of energy to operate? I'm not aware of any low-energy plans to make quantum black holes or warp fields or antimatter. Even a generation ship would need a way to accelerate all that mass.

If you're building a Dyson swarm to power such a drive then it would be tied to the Dyson swarm by range.  The target likely isn't going to be Earth because there are likely much more enticing targets closer to home to investigate or expand to.  In that case we just need to keep a lookout for new Dyson swarms appearing as time goes by, because that means they're slowly expanding using that technology.  If by chance the target is Earth, and you're using the Dyson swarm to accelerate kinetic weapons to relativistic velocities towards Earth, we'll never know until we're hit.

If they're creating warp fields or using some sort of FTL then they're probably already in our backyard watching us considering the swarm was being built 1500 years ago and they've likely completed the project and have sent out said ships.  If the warp field is created by energy from the swarm then I would assume it is a one-way trip and they're travelling to enticing neighboring stars instead of Earth because that makes more sense.  Again, watching for more Dyson swarms makes sense then.

Either way, it's nothing to really worry or panic about until we have our own technology to better assess any threat to our species, or they decide to meet us in their FTL ships.  Long-term study makes sense no matter the case, if for no other reason to figure out a means to do it for ourselves.

[Matuchkin]

3 hours ago, Matuchkin said:

Why does anyone even have the faintest thought that anything else can travel between stars?

Please look at this page, and scroll through it by hand to understand the size of the distances between the main objects in our very own solar system. Then think about how far away other stars may be.

For anyone who thinks that we can communicate with anyone, or that anyone is trying to reach us, I raise my previous comment, stated above. I would also show this:

You would probably recognize this image, and the perfect quote that goes along with it, said by Carl Sagan. And even Carl Sagan glorified this dot. Even he called it "suspended in a sunbeam" to show how "special" it is, even though the sunbeam effect was caused by something that happens to all camera lenses. It just goes to show how we lie to ourselves, how important we think we are, even though we are nothing, non-existent, and are living on a dying speck of dust. We create our own damn mother-goose stories, and kill ourselves for them over a course of thousands of years. We were egotistic enough to believe that we have something special within us. And yet we live, thinking that everything we are doing has a reason, believing that we are "someone", not knowing our immediate fate in this universe and thinking that it is so far ahead. Yet all of this meaningless madness is going to end right now. I bet you, that we are not even going to live a few more centuries. And when we quietly and slowly die, without notice, no one else is going to give a damn. There is no point for communication with anyone else, those distances are too great, and we're about to disappear anyway. We are going to die alone, like everyone else. And then, this universe is going to follow.

Edited May 4, 2016 by Matuchkin

[HebaruSan]

3 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

4 hours ago, Matuchkin said:

Please look at this page, and scroll through it by hand to understand the size of the distances between the main objects in our very own solar system.

Love it. Wish it included a depiction of the brightness of the sun at each distance.

Hmm, the commentary goes a bit loopy after Uranus. I would have preferred a bit more nothing.

[Matuchkin]

48 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Hmm, the commentary goes a bit loopy after Uranus. I would have preferred a bit more nothing.

I scarcely read after Uranus, because I was too impatient. Will try again.

[Bill Phil]

8 hours ago, Matuchkin said:

Why does anyone even have the faintest thought that anything else can travel between stars?

Please look at this page, and scroll through it by hand to understand the size of the distances between the main objects in our very own solar system. Then think about how far away other stars may be.

It's called "a joke."

Anyways, it's actually easy to travel between stars. We can do it now. It might take millions of years... But who's counting?

Also, they might've used Orion nuclear drives, a technology from the 60s, which could've gone to 10% light speed. Then you can slow down with a mag sail.

Bussard ramjets, while limited, can still get you to 11.7% light speed. Then there's RAIR, which could potentially go as fast as needed. 

And if we didn't use Orion starships, we could use Orion interplanetary ships to establish an infrastructure within the solar system, and use laser sail starships with mag sails. 

Also, the distance between stars is only large relative to a certain scale. It's actually quite small. We're just way smaller, so it looks really big. And it is relative to us. 

But we're already saying "what if there are aliens", it isn't much of a stretch to assume they might already have a dyson swarm around their home star.

Anyways, to get a decently sized ship to 50% the speed of light, you'd need a Type I civilazation's worth of power, and a huge amount of energy. If they're a Type 1.7, though, then interstellar travel is as easy driving a car for us.

I have a firm grasp on the size of the universe. I also have a decent knowledge of methods to cross the tiny gaps between stars that we can use. (Compare parsecs to giga or terra parsecs)

Also, I've alreasy scrolled through that page. But my mouse isn't a spaceship. A spaceship goes kilometers per second. With technology we have in our grasp, we could go thousands of kilometers per second.

12 hours ago, Darnok said:

Name one independent country that doesn't have military When politicians are talking it is bad contact? Even leaders of countries that are during war are talking from time to time. Having military doesn't mean you have to shoot to everything, it is for your protection.

For sure first contact with alien civilization would be diplomatic... I doubt Columbus shot at first Indians he met, killing part was later when Indians refused to give all their shiny resources and lands

To discover what is in here? People didn't explored entire Earth because they couldn't find resources where they lived, they were exploring to find new things and more things that makes their survival easier.

Your second statement just killed every reason for larger budget for space programs

They explored the entire Earth to get money, which they did.

Before that, the migratory expansion of the human race can hardly count as "exploration."

Edited May 5, 2016 by Bill Phil

[crazyewok]

On 04/05/2016 at 5:58 PM, Matuchkin said:

Why does anyone even have the faintest thought that anything else can travel between stars?

Please look at this page, and scroll through it by hand to understand the size of the distances between the main objects in our very own solar system. Then think about how far away other stars may be.

That’s assuming other life forms have the same or similar life spans to us.

 

 

 

For all we know extra-terrestrial life could live hundreds or even thousands of years?

 

 

 

Hell in a hundred years with advances in medicine, genetical engineering and gene therapy we could be living hundreds of years.

 

 

 

If you live a thousand years what’s a hundred year journey?

 

Hell even a unmanned probe could make a interstellar journey. We are likely not far off sending ones ourselves to nearby stars.

Edited May 6, 2016 by crazyewok

[Matuchkin]

Speaking of which, what about compression at relativistic speeds? Would that change ETA to target?

[CptRichardson]

On 5/4/2016 at 3:11 PM, Matuchkin said:

For anyone who thinks that we can communicate with anyone, or that anyone is trying to reach us, I raise my previous comment, stated above. I would also show this:

You would probably recognize this image, and the perfect quote that goes along with it, said by Carl Sagan. And even Carl Sagan glorified this dot. Even he called it "suspended in a sunbeam" to show how "special" it is, even though the sunbeam effect was caused by something that happens to all camera lenses. It just goes to show how we lie to ourselves, how important we think we are, even though we are nothing, non-existent, and are living on a dying speck of dust. We create our own damn mother-goose stories, and kill ourselves for them over a course of thousands of years. We were egotistic enough to believe that we have something special within us. And yet we live, thinking that everything we are doing has a reason, believing that we are "someone", not knowing our immediate fate in this universe and thinking that it is so far ahead. Yet all of this meaningless madness is going to end right now. I bet you, that we are not even going to live a few more centuries. And when we quietly and slowly die, without notice, no one else is going to give a damn. There is no point for communication with anyone else, those distances are too great, and we're about to disappear anyway. We are going to die alone, like everyone else. And then, this universe is going to follow.

Well, that's your opinion. You're welcome to it, but I want no part in it and am happily supporting the guy who is busy building the infrastructure and knowledge to make your pessimism a sad joke.

[justidutch]

4 hours ago, crazyewok said:

...Hell in a hundred years with advances in medicine, genetical engineering and gene therapy we could be living hundreds of years….

The thing is, this may only be a few decades away, not a couple centuries...

Long live the AI revolution!

[Matuchkin]

5 hours ago, CptRichardson said:

Well, that's your opinion. You're welcome to it, but I want no part in it and am happily supporting the guy who is busy building the infrastructure and knowledge to make your pessimism a sad joke.

Heh. I'd also really want that.

[PB666]

On May 4, 2016 at 3:11 PM, Matuchkin said:

You would probably recognize this image, and the perfect quote that goes along with it, said by Carl Sagan. And even Carl Sagan glorified this dot. Even he called it "suspended in a sunbeam" to show how "special" it is, even though the sunbeam effect was caused by something that happens to all camera lenses. It just goes to show how we lie to ourselves, how important we think we are, even though we are nothing, non-existent, and are living on a dying speck of dust. We create our own damn mother-goose stories, and kill ourselves for them over a course of thousands of years. We were egotistic enough to believe that we have something special within us. And yet we live, thinking that everything we are doing has a reason, believing that we are "someone", not knowing our immediate fate in this universe and thinking that it is so far ahead. Yet all of this meaningless madness is going . . . .

But if you look at the largest galaxy in the universe from the visible edge its just a spec, its nothing more than a emotional argument. We humans are, for better or worse, what we are and we live on the planet we live on. Theology is just a good excuse to fight, there is an endless list of other irrational reasons. Its not a cause to reason, its to the point that some of the most ferocius warriors have come to state that war is not the best aswer to the  problem, and yet when a war-worthy crisis shows up 95% of niave individuals will support it. 

I have to remind you that the same group that 'lied to themslves' built the backbone of modern science, in some universites the science degree goes along with the theology degree. I have my personal distaste of modern faith, but im not going to reinvent the past to hide from the facts of sciences modern origin. I think the way out fir humans to recognize thier behaviors so that they can fully mature before having one foot in the grave. This is so that they can live a bigger proportion of there lives contributing to a socially robust and war resistent societies. 

If humans can do this we could do this then our threat to aliens markedly subsides, but also we can get off the rock and start colonizing this solar system and building the infrastructure required tongo interstellar. 

And yes we are special, at least in our neighborhood, maybe even further, its really immaterial if there is sentient life in every galaxy, if its not within a few lifetimes of light years, its not really relevant to how we progress. Only spirit to be outstanding or  progessive has divinity, our flesh does not bind it, the characteristics of those aliens and their characters that make them great amoung themselves they might have thier own special ideas. 

The problem with life, as you look around here on earth and elsewhere, its a struggle to survival, a wild animal that is being rescued for its survival still attacks its rescuer. Paranoias are build into our survival, and people do silly things in an attempt to survive. Humans epitomize the problem, we left ancestors and traveled to different environments, and finally since the neolitihc there has been this fast pace cultural revolution and in this you have anti-civil hoards like the huns and mongols that mess all up. Its no wonder paranoias exist, who would have guessed in1918 that germany would have controlled everything from Moscow to the Pyrenees in 15 years.

So its a matter of breaking the cycle of corruption and war. 

[Majorjim!]

On 4 May 2016 at 9:11 PM, Matuchkin said:

We are going to die alone, like everyone else. And then, this universe is going to follow.

Cheer up mate! 

 

Edited May 8, 2016 by Majorjim

[Matuchkin]

On ‎07‎/‎05‎/‎2016 at 8:49 PM, PB666 said:

So its a matter of breaking the cycle of corruption and war. 

But how do we break that cycle? There's always someone who doesn't cooperate:

[There was a picture of an ISIS insurgent platoon here. However, I had to snip it for obvious reasons]

Edited May 8, 2016 by Matuchkin

[Spaceception]

16 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

But how do we break that cycle? There's always someone who doesn't cooperate:

Snip

That doesn't have a place in these threads, please snip that

But that is true, hopefully it'll change someday.

[Matuchkin]

13 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

But that is true, hopefully it'll change someday.

I don't understand how that will work. There will always be terrorists, or criminals, or just plain psychopaths like Pol Pot.

[peadar1987]

On 04/05/2016 at 0:52 PM, Darnok said:

First of all, science wouldn't matter, military would. Geopolitics of Earth would change, since now we have zero protection from orbital strikes, we also can't defend or attack any spot in solar system.

If aliens would be on level of Dyson spheres and be able to travel to our solar system, it would be like Columbus meets Indians, but with modern technology and we would play Indians role. Our civilizations (we have few on Earth) would end, Earth and those who would survive, first few years of conquest, would be slaves forced to build bases for aliens.

The good thing with all this would be that we as humans would have to change our way of thinking and turn around from artificial constructs like bureaucracy, democracy, banking, equality etc etc and back to things that do work and let civilization to grow.

 

The past century, with its huge strides towards equality and democracy, has seen the greatest leap in scientific knowledge in the history of our species. I don't think we're being held back because there aren't many absolute monarchies these days.

[kerbiloid]

If KIC 8462852 builders become aware of us, our social order wouldn't play a greater role than an ants colony order for an excavator driver..