Fermi Paradox

[Green Baron]

 http://www.nature.com/news/earth-s-days-are-numbered-1.13788

A discussion (not a paper) on the stability of "habitable" zones around stars. Habitable zones are not stable as the star matures, a possible evolution has to be quick to produce something intelligent, conversational, fermiparadoxwise ... :-)

Earth surely did take its time for that to happen.

 

[Green Baron]

(Hypothetical) last common ancestor (LUCA) of all branches of life on earth, a microbe, anaerobic metabolism (CO2-, H2-breathing) in a warm environment, rich in Fe. Supporting the emergence of life on earth in a hydrothermal environment.

http://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2016116

[Aethon]

 

 

The Hubble Space Telescope reveals ten times more galaxies than previously thought.  

 

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/hubble-reveals-observable-universe-contains-10-times-more-galaxies-than-previously-thought

 

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

(Hypothetical) last common ancestor (LUCA) of all branches of life on earth, a microbe, anaerobic metabolism (CO2-, H2-breathing) in a warm environment, rich in Fe. Supporting the emergence of life on earth in a hydrothermal environment.

http://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2016116

Ok so it looks like it lived at volcanic vents. This is interesting regarding ice moons, however its not sure life started there only that it was the only place with life during an snowball earth period

[Green Baron]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

Ok so it looks like it lived at volcanic vents. This is interesting regarding ice moons, however its not sure life started there only that it was the only place with life during an snowball earth period

Absolutely. From a palaeontological point of view i would consider it improbable. But not because of snowball, the oldest supposed snowball situations are much younger than the first microbes, but because the tectonic processes where much faster. That means that there was much more ocean floor activity (active ridges, transform cracks, active continental edges, ...) and thus many more heat sources than todays vents and middle ocean ridges. Traces of early ocean floor are gone cause ocean floor, due to it's high density, doesn't grow much older than 200my before it get's subducted.

Regarding earth, tectonics is one of the necessary ingredients for life(tm) and the early rapid tectonics might have accelerated or even triggered the forming of life. At the end of the archaean 3/4 of todays continental crust was formed. With todays stressed environment an event like the e.g. the deccan trap would surely be contraproductive to life ...

Edit: Ice moons, if we project earth-conditions to other bodies, must have some sort of heat producing activity, presumably through tidal forces, that's where to look. If someone would care to take a look ... :-)

 

Edited October 13, 2016 by Green Baron

[magnemoe]

16 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Absolutely. From a palaeontological point of view i would consider it improbable. But not because of snowball, the oldest supposed snowball situations are much younger than the first microbes, but because the tectonic processes where much faster. That means that there was much more ocean floor activity (active ridges, transform cracks, active continental edges, ...) and thus many more heat sources than todays vents and middle ocean ridges. Traces of early ocean floor are gone cause ocean floor, due to it's high density, doesn't grow much older than 200my before it get's subducted.

Regarding earth, tectonics is one of the necessary ingredients for life(tm) and the early rapid tectonics might have accelerated or even triggered the forming of life. At the end of the archaean 3/4 of todays continental crust was formed. With todays stressed environment an event like the e.g. the deccan trap would surely be contraproductive to life ...

Edit: Ice moons, if we project earth-conditions to other bodies, must have some sort of heat producing activity, presumably through tidal forces, that's where to look. If someone would care to take a look ... :-)

Don't get the " From a palaeontological point of view i would consider it improbable" do you think life started in vents or not. More tectonic would expand that ecosystem a lot.
 
Gas giant moons should get serious tidal effects from other moons. One major issue might be bottom ice who will form under high pressure. 
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/03121716-ganymede-ocean.html
Don't see how you can get vents trough 200 km of ice. 
Smaller moons looks more promising because of the low gravity pressure even 50 km down is not high enough. 

[Green Baron]

... improbable that vents are the only places. Ridges and transform cracks as well as hotspots are far more "productive". I don't think that cold world's would have life present or maybe it could take billions of years to get specialized microbes, but a single event or slight change resets it.

[Scotius]

I had a chilling thought today. What if we don't find anything alive outside of Earth? In our solar system at least. Nothing on Mars. Nothing on Europa. Sterile, dirty water under Enceladus ice crust. All ice moons just dead balls. Not a single living cell anywhere outside of our little mudball. That thought scared me. Our entire existence just a fluke on a cosmic scale. So much free space for expansion of life - so much energy spewed continuously by stars, so much water, minerals. And all of it for naught if we never go there. It's like living completely alone in a sprawling, luxurious mansion - thousands of empty rooms, but no company whatsoever. This is the worst part, i think - loneliness. Forever. No one to talk to, no one to share experiences, compare points of view, learn about and from each other. Because even if we colonise other bodies and new cultures will form - they will still be us, humans. We will never learn something fundamentally new - we will never know how accurate our approach on science, philosophy, ethic is. Because we will see everything only from one, anthropocentric side. Even if we create a truly sentient A.I. one day, it will still be our creation - it will learn everything from its creators, it will think and react in the way we do.

Kraken dang it - i think i just had a (hopefully) minor philosophical breakdown.

Come on, find something already!

[justidutch]

I think that's why beer was invented.  Or religion.  Or both...

[magnemoe]

5 minutes ago, Scotius said:

I had a chilling thought today. What if we don't find anything alive outside of Earth? In our solar system at least. Nothing on Mars. Nothing on Europa. Sterile, dirty water under Enceladus ice crust. All ice moons just dead balls. Not a single living cell anywhere outside of our little mudball. That thought scared me. Our entire existence just a fluke on a cosmic scale. So much free space for expansion of life - so much energy spewed continuously by stars, so much water, minerals. And all of it for naught if we never go there. It's like living completely alone in a sprawling, luxurious mansion - thousands of empty rooms, but no company whatsoever. This is the worst part, i think - loneliness. Forever. No one to talk to, no one to share experiences, compare points of view, learn about and from each other. Because even if we colonise other bodies and new cultures will form - they will still be us, humans. We will never learn something fundamentally new - we will never know how accurate our approach on science, philosophy, ethic is. Because we will see everything only from one, anthropocentric side. Even if we create a truly sentient A.I. one day, it will still be our creation - it will learn everything from its creators, it will think and react in the way we do.

Kraken dang it - i think i just had a (hopefully) minor philosophical breakdown.

Come on, find something already!

Wrong picture, I find mine a more realistic first contact scenario.


In short, life is probably pretty common, life started fast on earth, advanced cellular life as in animals and plants took 1.5 billion years, 
We might be moderate lucky here so average is 5-10 billions. 
More advanced life like fishes might also be rare I doubt it but can well be wrong. 
Intelligence looks hard, it just happened once. It might happened later with other mammals without humans, many are social and pretty smart.
Brings up the next issue, so your smart and social, you are also adaptable so you spread out over most of the planet, top predator (nothing except humans hunted adult mammoth) 
Things goes well, you have domesitcatable animals and plants, 
justidutch. beer might be important to start with farming, other option is long time famine so beer wins out  Neolithic farming is extremely hard work so you need an initiative. 
Next filter, how does large groups work, humans do this very well, we are more like social insects than mammals like chimpanzee or wolfs here.  No reason why this should evolve in the first place.
Bind luck and an major filter again, note that tribalism is an major issue in an huge fraction of humans today.

Now this ends in in an cute setting there an stone age catgirl tries to eat you billion dollar rover. Time for the high ISP nightmare fuels. 
So you have farming, civilization even iron, nice. Next filter is you smart enough, the time leading up to the industrial revolution  generates boatloads of new problems, first resource you run out of is firewood, coal solved this, however in the next 200 year you need to replace resources faster and faster, mineral oil replace whale oil, is you smart enough. 
Industrial revolution was an unique event where productivity growth increased faster than population growth over time. Part of the revenue was invested into more growth. 

Are you smart enough, social enough for civilization still flexible enough for multiple singularity level events. 
Something like the Chinese empire would clamp down hard. that is until it ran out out of resources and crashed hard.
next step is even harder, you got nuclear technology, either you fight an low level nuclear war until your world ls more like Fallout than our, or worse the Chinese empire fail again but now from an higher tech level this time making it harder to rebuild. Or you get advanced medicine, an high sex drive and no wish of separating sex and having children. 
The lucky ones established an stable technological civilization but found the matrix more fun and took the blue pill over and over. 
 

[Green Baron]

1 hour ago, Scotius said:

I had a chilling thought today. What if we don't find anything alive outside of Earth? In our solar system at least. Nothing on Mars. Nothing on Europa. Sterile, dirty water under Enceladus ice crust. All ice moons just dead balls. Not a single living cell anywhere outside of our little mudball. That thought scared me. Our entire existence just a fluke on a cosmic scale. So much free space for expansion of life - so much energy spewed continuously by stars, so much water, minerals. And all of it for naught if we never go there. It's like living completely alone in a sprawling, luxurious mansion - thousands of empty rooms, but no company whatsoever. This is the worst part, i think - loneliness. Forever. No one to talk to, no one to share experiences, compare points of view, learn about and from each other. Because even if we colonise other bodies and new cultures will form - they will still be us, humans. We will never learn something fundamentally new - we will never know how accurate our approach on science, philosophy, ethic is. Because we will see everything only from one, anthropocentric side. Even if we create a truly sentient A.I. one day, it will still be our creation - it will learn everything from its creators, it will think and react in the way we do.

Kraken dang it - i think i just had a (hopefully) minor philosophical breakdown.

Come on, find something already!

A plausible scenario and by far the most probable. And a valid solution to the fermi paradox.

But this is a space game forum and people are ambitious to discuss :-)

 

[magnemoe]

10 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

A plausible scenario and by far the most probable. And a valid solution to the fermi paradox.

But this is a space game forum and people are ambitious to discuss :-)

 

Well in this case we have to take it all, call the galaxy our birth right, call it manifest destiny it don't matter after some millenniums. Everybody agreed on it like everybody agree on lots of stuff today. 
After many millenniums we found aliens, they had also searched for some millenniums, like us they found only bacteria, they had an ideology much like our regarding other stars. 
 

[Green Baron]

 

Reality check: The most probable other body in the solar system is Mars, right ? Mars will in a few decades (probably) be in our reach for an actual expedition. Mars is assumed to have had flowing water and it is in the "habitable" zone (i hate that word because it's grossly misleading). The assumption is based on eyeballing geological formations and comparing them to those on earth, based on a basic working principle of geology.

Now in the first semester of sedimental geology the professor will tell you to never judge an outcrop just from eyeballing. As long as noone has actually been there, taken a probe, made a thin section and had it under a microscope, made further analysis, any assumptions about flowing water in the past of Mars remain a hypothesis. Mars has no tectonics, otherwise we would see transform cracks from plates moving over the ball. Good news: the surface was not exchanged since then and the old surfaces aren't buried under kilometers of sediments or subducted into the mantle.

Let us assume there existed flowing water long enough and the conditions were right for a along enough time that microbes did form before water and (most of the) atmosphere were lost. It obviously didn't spread all over the surface. Would traces (remains of their metabolism) in the right places (where are these ?) be found ? It could take hundreds of years of robotic or human expeditions and whatever suits your fantasies until such a place was luckily found, if it exists. What i want to say is that there are too many uncertainties for a clear "yes or no" from the distance.

 

All the other of the above bodies in our solar system are just playgrounds for the mind and movies right now and extrasolar projections are based on very little data, like distance from the star, orbital period and size. The rest is derived from that, often led by enthusiasm.

 

[magnemoe]

56 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

 

Reality check: The most probable other body in the solar system is Mars, right ? Mars will in a few decades (probably) be in our reach for an actual expedition. Mars is assumed to have had flowing water and it is in the "habitable" zone (i hate that word because it's grossly misleading). The assumption is based on eyeballing geological formations and comparing them to those on earth, based on a basic working principle of geology.

Now in the first semester of sedimental geology the professor will tell you to never judge an outcrop just from eyeballing. As long as noone has actually been there, taken a probe, made a thin section and had it under a microscope, made further analysis, any assumptions about flowing water in the past of Mars remain a hypothesis. Mars has no tectonics, otherwise we would see transform cracks from plates moving over the ball. Good news: the surface was not exchanged since then and the old surfaces aren't buried under kilometers of sediments or subducted into the mantle.

Let us assume there existed flowing water long enough and the conditions were right for a along enough time that microbes did form before water and (most of the) atmosphere were lost. It obviously didn't spread all over the surface. Would traces (remains of their metabolism) in the right places (where are these ?) be found ? It could take hundreds of years of robotic or human expeditions and whatever suits your fantasies until such a place was luckily found, if it exists. What i want to say is that there are too many uncertainties for a clear "yes or no" from the distance.

All the other of the above bodies in our solar system are just playgrounds for the mind and movies right now and extrasolar projections are based on very little data, like distance from the star, orbital period and size. The rest is derived from that, often led by enthusiasm.

 

Interesting idea to look after signs of fossil life on Mars. With no tectonics things will last longer. Also no other life to hide the traces, dating is issue on searching fro signs of early life on earth, on Mars any sign is proof. Still Mars don't really answer the question as life might have moved between Mars and Earth. Evidence of life billion of year ago would be impossible to prove has the same origin as life on Earth. 

An robotic mission to the ice moons would be cheaper than an manned Mars mission, no idea how easy it would be to find signs of life here, life is probably pretty low level and low level and only at the vents so it might well be hard to find. 

Still think examining the atmosphere of exo-planets would be the best way. 
Key benefits, its possible with future space telescopes. Don't think Web is designed for it but it would be an objective for an follow up mission.
You would be able to search a lot of planets and the faction of planet who has correct temperature with an atmosphere who proves life against they who don't will tell how common life with photosynthesis is, it would just be one of the tasks of the telescope too keeping mission cost down.
My guess is either very common, or rare, this don't tell how common advanced life is, however advanced life on Mars or ice moons will also be unlikely

 

 

[Diche Bach]

16 hours ago, Scotius said:

I had a chilling thought today. What if we don't find anything alive outside of Earth? In our solar system at least. Nothing on Mars. Nothing on Europa. Sterile, dirty water under Enceladus ice crust. All ice moons just dead balls. Not a single living cell anywhere outside of our little mudball. That thought scared me. Our entire existence just a fluke on a cosmic scale. So much free space for expansion of life - so much energy spewed continuously by stars, so much water, minerals. And all of it for naught if we never go there. It's like living completely alone in a sprawling, luxurious mansion - thousands of empty rooms, but no company whatsoever. This is the worst part, i think - loneliness. Forever. No one to talk to, no one to share experiences, compare points of view, learn about and from each other. Because even if we colonise other bodies and new cultures will form - they will still be us, humans. We will never learn something fundamentally new - we will never know how accurate our approach on science, philosophy, ethic is. Because we will see everything only from one, anthropocentric side. Even if we create a truly sentient A.I. one day, it will still be our creation - it will learn everything from its creators, it will think and react in the way we do.

Kraken dang it - i think i just had a (hopefully) minor philosophical breakdown.

Come on, find something already!

I consider this explanation to be equally as likely as the alternative, perhaps moreso.

I also don't find it the least bit alarming or disturbing. If there is intelligent extraterrestrial life out there, chances are about 50/50 we will not find them to be 'friendly' and may never be able to.

Just as one hypothetical: consider the alien in the Aliens universe. An organism inherently at odds with any other intelligent life and incapable of "peaceful coexistence." Given so many animals on Earth are exactly like that (alligators, ants, innumerable parasites, sharks, etc.), I'd say there is little reason to assume that an intelligent E.T. will be "nice" like we apes.

[Scotius]

We are nice? *blinks* Since when? We didn't claw our way to the top of food chain by being nice The same goes for our cousins - gorillas ofthen fight to the death, chimps are ferocious hunters, bonobos...uh...OK. Bonobos are the flower children of our disfunctional ape-family, with their "make love not war", general approach, lack of interpersonal aggresion and so on.

[justidutch]

4 hours ago, Diche Bach said:

Just as one hypothetical: consider the alien in the Aliens universe. An organism inherently at odds with any other intelligent life and incapable of "peaceful coexistence." Given so many animals on Earth are exactly like that (alligators, ants, innumerable parasites, sharks, etc.), I'd say there is little reason to assume that an intelligent E.T. will be "nice" like we apes.

Do you think a species or being that is predicated on wiping everything else out is likely to be the species or being that will learn how to expand across multiple worlds?  I don't.  I very much doubt that even given another billion years alligators or ants will eventually reach space on their own. My guess is that a species intelligent enough to make contact would be the top of their food chain, but you don't become top by wiping everything out, you become top by co-existing.  At least here on earth, which is the only model we have to go by.

[todofwar]

1 hour ago, justidutch said:

Do you think a species or being that is predicated on wiping everything else out is likely to be the species or being that will learn how to expand across multiple worlds?  I don't.  I very much doubt that even given another billion years alligators or ants will eventually reach space on their own. My guess is that a species intelligent enough to make contact would be the top of their food chain, but you don't become top by wiping everything out, you become top by co-existing.  At least here on earth, which is the only model we have to go by.

Um, we are in the process of wiping everything else out not co-existing with it. Only a small moral barrier stops us from completely industrializing the planet. 

Another filter possibility: Oil. The planet needs to support life, and also support life long enough for some of that life to be turned into oil and coal. Otherwise, your missing that dense energy source for an industrial revolution. And then you need to find a new energy source before you turn your planet into Venus by accident. 

[Technical Ben]

"Is there life somewhere in the universe" falls somewhere between the questions:

"Are there trees on the moon" and "Are there trees anywhere else in the universe".

I know there are trees on earth. I know there are no trees on the moon. The moon is a part of "anywhere else" and does not have trees. Neither does Mars, Venus or Mercury. So that sets a president.

It is not a given, that trees will be found on other planets. Now it's easy to choose trees because they are big, theoretically could be seen already if they existed on those bodies (telescope, satellite, probe etc). So, do people still ask "are there really trees on the moon, and rivers on Mars"? No...

So, we keep extending "but they could be" to other places? Or accept there are no trees else where?

So if we swap "tree" with "life", then what? Or "tree" with "people (of whatever type)"?

It is better to be surprised to find anything, than disappointed at finding something.

[Bill Phil]

9 hours ago, Scotius said:

We are nice? *blinks* Since when? We didn't claw our way to the top of food chain by being nice The same goes for our cousins - gorillas ofthen fight to the death, chimps are ferocious hunters, bonobos...uh...OK. Bonobos are the flower children of our disfunctional ape-family, with their "make love not war", general approach, lack of interpersonal aggresion and so on.

We are nice. We have pets that we take care of, livestock that, while used for food, owe their large numbers to us. We clawed our way to the top of the food chain be being smart, which involved being nice. Well, relatively nice. And mainly to the animals that suit us, of course. And that means that their survival is almost guaranteed. Only issue is that we may not need them eventually. Even so, that also comes with other things that are not so nice.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

We are nice. We have pets that we take care of, livestock that, while used for food, owe their large numbers to us. We clawed our way to the top of the food chain be being smart, which involved being nice. Well, relatively nice. And mainly to the animals that suit us, of course. And that means that their survival is almost guaranteed. Only issue is that we may not need them eventually. Even so, that also comes with other things that are not so nice.

Yes we are pretty nice compared to most mammals, first we have compassion outside of family or in best case pack, even this is rare among animals, elephants have it not sure about chimpanzee. 
Second we don't fight much compared to most mammals, more is done by talking some claim we killed of most of  the brutes before language, so easy to give him poison or  cut the trough while sleeping.
Yes we are good at large scale organisation including large wars. 

[Plusck]

I would say the opposite: we are really not nice at all compared to virtually every other species.

Nearly every other species has "close cousins" - slightly distinct species that inhabit neighbouring areas (or sometimes, though rare for predators, the same areas).

We, on the other hand, are separated by a gulf of extinction between us and our most closely-related primates. Our tendancy to affiliate with a group and attack anything that isn't in that group is very strong, and only mitigated by the fact that our intelligence has produced a strong culture (language, writing, education) that forces us to recognise that the excesses of group affiliation are wrong.

So we are constantly on the verge of destroying everything we can. If for some reason our schools all closed down (permanently) tomorrow, I think we all know how shockingly bad the situation would be in a few years' time. It is our education which has (slowly, slowly) turned us from destroying everything that isn't "ours" towards the realisation that what is "ours" is utterly dependent on the continued existence of everything else.

Which is why I'm ambivalent about this question of "niceness" in aliens. To escape to the stars requires great effort, intelligence and technology. For intelligent beings to work together requires culture, education and the acceptance of difference. Therefore, a people that makes it to the stars cannot be a bunch of homicidal maniacs.
On the other hand, however, if it is possible to continue going to space using the efforts and technology that were developed by others, then we may have a problem. If you only just have the intelligence and education to maintain that capability, rather than developing it, you could easily find yourself faced with a bunch of homicidal maniacs.

For that reason alone, if we were to develop the ability to create powerful generation ships in the near future, I'd be extremely dubious about the wisdom of sending them anywhere. Human nature is simply not "nice" enough to trust the crew to stay as smart as the rest of us, and any failure in onboard education could easily leave a bunch of maniacs in charge of something far more advanced than they could ever have built for themselves.

So maybe that is the solution to the Fermi paradox: once intelligent life becomes intelligent enough to go to space, it becomes wise enough to keep all its maniacs at home.

[todofwar]

14 minutes ago, Plusck said:

I would say the opposite: we are really not nice at all compared to virtually every other species.

Nearly every other species has "close cousins" - slightly distinct species that inhabit neighbouring areas (or sometimes, though rare for predators, the same areas).

We, on the other hand, are separated by a gulf of extinction between us and our most closely-related primates. Our tendancy to affiliate with a group and attack anything that isn't in that group is very strong, and only mitigated by the fact that our intelligence has produced a strong culture (language, writing, education) that forces us to recognise that the excesses of group affiliation are wrong.

So we are constantly on the verge of destroying everything we can. If for some reason our schools all closed down (permanently) tomorrow, I think we all know how shockingly bad the situation would be in a few years' time. It is our education which has (slowly, slowly) turned us from destroying everything that isn't "ours" towards the realisation that what is "ours" is utterly dependent on the continued existence of everything else.

Which is why I'm ambivalent about this question of "niceness" in aliens. To escape to the stars requires great effort, intelligence and technology. For intelligent beings to work together requires culture, education and the acceptance of difference. Therefore, a people that makes it to the stars cannot be a bunch of homicidal maniacs.
On the other hand, however, if it is possible to continue going to space using the efforts and technology that were developed by others, then we may have a problem. If you only just have the intelligence and education to maintain that capability, rather than developing it, you could easily find yourself faced with a bunch of homicidal maniacs.

For that reason alone, if we were to develop the ability to create powerful generation ships in the near future, I'd be extremely dubious about the wisdom of sending them anywhere. Human nature is simply not "nice" enough to trust the crew to stay as smart as the rest of us, and any failure in onboard education could easily leave a bunch of maniacs in charge of something far more advanced than they could ever have built for themselves.

So maybe that is the solution to the Fermi paradox: once intelligent life becomes intelligent enough to go to space, it becomes wise enough to keep all its maniacs at home.

I think that's going a bit too far in the other direction. We're not one bad stock market crash away from the purge or anything. Sure, we have some downright horrifying instincts that resurface, but even in supposed dark ages you can find evidence of people maintaining their culture and civility. 

Also, it's not like niceness and intelligence go hand in hand. Scientists are typically not philanthropists. It took scientists to build the nuclear bomb, and we owe much of early rocket science to a need to blow something up. Scientists like science, engineers like building stuff. They don't usually care so much about the application, just what kind of puzzle needs solving. Now, plenty of scientists do have humanity's interest at heart, but there is no correlation between being a decent human with empathy and being a really good scientist or engineer. I would bet such a trend would show an inverse correlation. 

[Plusck]

45 minutes ago, todofwar said:

I think that's going a bit too far in the other direction. We're not one bad stock market crash away from the purge or anything. Sure, we have some downright horrifying instincts that resurface, but even in supposed dark ages you can find evidence of people maintaining their culture and civility. 

Also, it's not like niceness and intelligence go hand in hand. Scientists are typically not philanthropists. It took scientists to build the nuclear bomb, and we owe much of early rocket science to a need to blow something up. Scientists like science, engineers like building stuff. They don't usually care so much about the application, just what kind of puzzle needs solving. Now, plenty of scientists do have humanity's interest at heart, but there is no correlation between being a decent human with empathy and being a really good scientist or engineer. I would bet such a trend would show an inverse correlation. 

I agree we're far from the purge - but I would argue that closing all our schools permanently would be far worse than your average catastrophic disaster. And the cure to those horrifying times in history has generally come from outside, one way or another. The people that remain cultured and civil on the inside generally have their hands full just trying to survive. That doesn't mean it has to come from outside: if people hang on long enough then education returns, new generations grow up that overturn the past, but it is a very long process without outside intervention. For a generation ship or colony, therefore, there's no guarantee it would reach its destination in a fit state to be acceptable representatives of the people that sent it.

And I'm not saying that an educated, intelligent person is a nice person. In sufficient numbers, though, I think an intelligent, educated people is, though again they may go through bad spells.

Which brings me back to the long-term effort needed for deep space exploration. Assuming FTL travel is impossible, it's not something you can do with a few mad scientists and a budget. Bringing enough people around the table to get beyond LEO in the first place gave us the Outer Space Treaty, an incredible attention to not polluting other celestial bodies with our own microbes, and popular TV shows based on the "Prime Directive". Our scientists and our leaders (by definition not the nicest among us) also developed ICBMs, but as a whole our entire system of education pushed us to protecting space from ourselves. It wasn't the initial aim, but it has morphed into that over time

So I would argue that this could well be typical of intelligence. It could be the irrefutable conclusion that any group of cooperating intelligent minds reach: we could do so much harm, therefore we must make sure our technology only goes places that it can do no harm and/or is made harmless.

Edited October 15, 2016 by Plusck

[todofwar]

3 minutes ago, Plusck said:

I agree we're far from the purge - but I would argue that closing all our schools permanently would be far worse than your average catastrophic disaster. And the cure to those horrifying times in history has generally come from outside, one way or another. The people that remain cultured and civil on the inside generally have their hands full just trying to survive. That doesn't mean it has to come from outside: if people hang on long enough then education returns, new generations grow up that overturn the past, but it is a very long process without outside intervention. For a generation ship or colony, therefore, there's no guarantee it would reach its destination in a fit state to be acceptable representatives of the people that sent it.

And I'm not saying that an educated, intelligent person is a nice person. In sufficient numbers, though, I think an intelligent, educated people is, though again they may go through bad spells.

Which brings me back to the long-term effort needed for deep space exploration. Assuming FTL travel is impossible, it's not something you can do with a few mad scientists and a budget. Bringing enough people around the table to get beyond LEO in the first place gave us the Outer Space Treaty, an incredible attention to not polluting other celestial bodies with our own microbes, and popular TV shows based on the "Prime Directive". Our scientists and our leaders (by definition not the nicest among us) also developed ICBMs, but as a whole our entire system of education pushed us to protecting space from ourselves. It wasn't the initial aim, but it has morphed into that over time

So I would argue that this could well be typical of intelligence. It could be the irrefutable conclusion that any group of cooperating intelligent minds reach: we could do so much harm, therefore we must make sure our technology only goes places that it can do no harm and/or is made harmless.

But that's just because there's no profit yet. If we discover unobtanium, a magical superheavy element in an island of stability that has properties x y and z that make it super valuable, and we find out that Europa has tons of it on its surface, you'll see that outer space treaty ignored faster than a computer geek in a 1980s high school movie. We happen to be living in an enlightened time now, but 70 years ago we had the most advanced civilizations entirely devoted to destroying each other. 

As for a generation ship, I think education would be a part of it. It would definitely be run in a tribal system by a group of elders, but that wouldnt necessarily be a bad thing.