Dissolving the fermi paradoxon

[magnemoe]

21 hours ago, p1t1o said:

 What I mean is, even 100k years is but a moment on these scales of distance+time. And we've only been technological for what? 5000years? Depending on your definition it could be as low as 2-500years.

Theres no reason to assume that the natural state of a civilisation is eternal existence, we only know of one technological civ so far and we are already losing control of our environment, can we keep this up for another ten thousand years? A hundred?

If a civ on one planet can die, a civ on two or more can as well, it just might take longer. The idea that humanity will last forever and conquer the universe is laughably arrogant if you ask me, but there is time enough for a lot of stuff.

This is an good point, civilizations rarely last longer than 2000 years and even that is long. But its important to differentiate between an culture and an species. 
End here is then species goes extinct, an dark age you will recover from. 
Spreading out will negate most of both, however that is many hundred years into the future for humans. 

[Green Baron]

57 minutes ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

Are microbe/bateria fossils similar the ones today? If so that would suggest that they did not need to evolve. Also if I remember correctly a microbe requires chemicals rather than food/other organisms to sustain itself.

Everything evolves, even if it becomes extinct. Because adaptation plays such a big role (it is all about filling in niches), one should always look at an organism and its environment. Both allow conclusions of the other, in certain limits of course. The term "food" means all the intake of an organism to keep up its metabolism. That may be a just a few carbon dioxide molecules or a freshly killed unlucky animal, depends ...

As an example for microbes, relatively well explored are Stromatolites and BIFs, they have an economic value as well. They were formed from the Archaen on by (mostly) shallow marine algae. And yep, they work similar to today's lifeforms. From very early life we only have the assumed products of their metabolism. For example fractionation of stable carbon isotope can give hints if something has biotic or abiotic sources. There is a lot of reading out there :-)

Edited August 9, 2018 by Green Baron

[Wjolcz]

Pretty sure @Cheif Operations Director is either trolling or just not willing to accept that humans as eukaryotic life aren't that special.

4 hours ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

Chemicals+Time=Humans. The biggest problem with that evolutionary model is the transitions from "chemicals" to life and from small microbes with just DNA and a membrane to multi cellular organisms.

It's obviously not that simple. The evolution doesn't work in steps like chemistry->microbes->animals->humans. There's still the case of how life got started on Earth but if you include time and natural selection anything can happen. If you give chemistry enough time and the right conditions some of it will start assembling itself and replicating.

If you are willing to educate yourself check out viroids. They are as simple as it gets. Just a piece of RNA that doesn't even have a membrane. They need a host to reproduce so not technically "alive" but if you really want to get into defining "alive" you might want to switch your interests from science to philosophy.

4 hours ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

Why would a microbe need to evolve

It doesn't. But if the environment changes and the microbe doesn't reproduce fast enough then there's a low chance of the species surviving. With each copy there are errors in DNA/RNA that make for better and worse adaptations. If the organism has an offspring with error that lets it thrive in the new environment then it will not die. If the error isn't beneficial then the offspring will die before reproducing. Reproduce and hope that your offspring makes it or die as a species. It's pretty simple.

Anyway, my point is that if you don't understand something then it doesn't mean it can't happen. You don't have to fully understand how and why the electronic devices work to use your phone.

Edited August 9, 2018 by Wjolcz

[p1t1o]

28 minutes ago, Wjolcz said:

Pretty sure @Cheif Operations Director is either trolling or just not willing to accept that humans as eukaryotic life aren't that special.

I think they are merely younger/inexperienced, which we all once were, and/or still are to varying degrees and in various contexts.

[Xd the great]

I know stuff is mind blowing, but we are the real proof.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

6 hours ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

Chemicals+Time=Humans.

If not wash a planet for a while, you will get humans on it.

 

Edited August 9, 2018 by kerbiloid

[p1t1o]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

  Hide contents

If not wash a planet for a while, you will get humans on it.

 

Ewewewwwwww gross get it off! Omg they have gotten everywhere... JESUS H. WHAT IS THAT SMELL!?

Related but not related:

[Terwin]

On 8/8/2018 at 1:25 PM, kerbiloid said:

Btw if humans find an alien crash site, can they legally take and research the flying saucer?
As if we recognize its former owners as sapient beings, we should presume they have some laws and probably they protect this property.
Of course, humans have some laws about abandoned ships, but unlikely the alien civ accepts them.
So, it's like stealing a crashed car of a foreign citizen because we thought he doesn't need it.
And as we surely understand that this is somebody's property, but still did that, we broke their laws intentionally.

Local authorities will frequently take possession of apparently abandoned vehicles on public property, and they are generally willing to collect unauthorized vehicles from private property as well.

I would assume the major differences in impounding 'that pickup that someone crashed into your tree' and 'that flying saucer that crashed in your field' would be first in getting someone to believe you, and second the degree of care and protection involved in collecting the damaged vehicle.  (A tow-truck driver may or may not be armed, but you can bet that whoever picks up a flying saucer will have military grade back-up once it is known to be legit)

 

If the aliens want their ship back, they will need to pay for the damage it caused, as well as the costs to collect and store it.  Even then it may take some time for all the paperwork to go through.

(If you don't want to abide by the laws of backwards little jurisdictions, then you should not go there in the first place)

Edited August 9, 2018 by Terwin

[cubinator]

4 hours ago, Terwin said:

Local authorities will frequently take possession of apparently abandoned vehicles on public property, and they are generally willing to collect unauthorized vehicles from private property as well.

I would assume the major differences in impounding 'that pickup that someone crashed into your tree' and 'that flying saucer that crashed in your field' would be first in getting someone to believe you, and second the degree of care and protection involved in collecting the damaged vehicle.  (A tow-truck driver may or may not be armed, but you can bet that whoever picks up a flying saucer will have military grade back-up once it is known to be legit)

 

If the aliens want their ship back, they will need to pay for the damage it caused, as well as the costs to collect and store it.  Even then it may take some time for all the paperwork to go through.

(If you don't want to abide by the laws of backwards little jurisdictions, then you should not go there in the first place)

Apparently we humans went through a lot of trouble fiddling over copyright law after a monkey took an award-winning photograph, so I bet "the authorities" would deal with it incredibly inefficiently and the aliens would start to get impatient.

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, Terwin said:

If the aliens want their ship back, they will need to pay for the damage it caused, as well as the costs to collect and store it.

On the Earth - yes, certainly. We can even accuse them in breaking and entering aggravated with excessive speeding.

(Unfortunately not in drunk driving as we even don't know how do they look sober.)

But on Mars, Ceres, anywhere else outside of our regulative norms by the time of the accident. They can say it was their Mars in the same degree as ours.

[Xd the great]

Well, worst case, war will break out, best case, we get their tech.

Human law dictates that space is international waters, I dont know about alien laws, but assuming they are the same, we are stealing their crashed ship in international water according to their law, but they are causing damage to us and using unauthorized drones/flying things in our laws if they crash in a country.

If they crash in international waters...

[KSK]

On 8/9/2018 at 9:16 AM, Cheif Operations Director said:

Are microbe/bateria fossils similar the ones today? If so that would suggest that they did not need to evolve. Also if I remember correctly a microbe requires chemicals rather than food/other organisms to sustain itself.

Bacteria are incredibly diverse and adaptable. If there's a source of chemical energy to be exploited somewhere, I'd bet that there's a species of bacteria that has evolved to exploit it. Likewise, bacteria can and do live almost anywhere including habitats that were previously assumed to be too extreme for any sort of life to exist. Do a quick internet search for 'extremophile' some time - it's pretty amazing how hardy bacteria can be.

And bacteria demonstrably do evolve. Unfortunately for us humans, they're evolving resistance to most of the nice antibiotic drugs we've gotten so used to. Actually, they've evolved that resistance impressively quickly. According to Wikipedia, the first antimicrobial drugs hit the market around 1911. Fast-forward a hundred years or so (and several generations of drug) later, and we're finding bacteria that have evolved resistance to pretty much all of them. And on evolutionary timescales, a hundred years is no more than a blink of an eye.

 

[Terwin]

7 hours ago, Xd the great said:

If they crash in international waters...

If you recover a vessel, then you are entitled to a salvage reward, and get a lien against the vessel that the owner must pay to get their vessel back(and if the vessel was already written off as lost, then the insurance will usually just tell you to keep the craft, and if you refuse, they will just not pay the lien, making the craft legally yours).

So if we salvage an alien vessel outside of any jurisdiction, then according to our laws(assuming theirs are similar), we should get paid for the difficulty and expense of the recovery(capped at the value of the craft of course).

Thus, if you don't know who the owner is, you can more or less just hold on to it(presumably after reporting it to the authorities) until a claim is made.

So not a problem there either.

[magnemoe]

13 minutes ago, Terwin said:

If you recover a vessel, then you are entitled to a salvage reward, and get a lien against the vessel that the owner must pay to get their vessel back(and if the vessel was already written off as lost, then the insurance will usually just tell you to keep the craft, and if you refuse, they will just not pay the lien, making the craft legally yours).

So if we salvage an alien vessel outside of any jurisdiction, then according to our laws(assuming theirs are similar), we should get paid for the difficulty and expense of the recovery(capped at the value of the craft of course).

Thus, if you don't know who the owner is, you can more or less just hold on to it(presumably after reporting it to the authorities) until a claim is made.

So not a problem there either.

And its some chance real politic will interfere here pretty hard and fast. its an good reason why crashed ufo at area 51 is popular, its very easy to imagine it would end up there. 

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

6 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

crashed ufo at area 51

getting serial numbers filed

 

[magnemoe]

12 hours ago, cubinator said:

Apparently we humans went through a lot of trouble fiddling over copyright law after a monkey took an award-winning photograph, so I bet "the authorities" would deal with it incredibly inefficiently and the aliens would start to get impatient.

And that was an idiot lawsuit. The ape stole the camera and then managed to take an selfie to document the crime, if an human had done something like that could he claim the ovnership of the picture? Note that the purpose of the trip was to take pictures of apes. 
Could I claim ownership of the picture of me in an speed trap and refuse the police access to it? Its an picture I took of myself. 
i would rater demand statist salary for being filmed by surveillance cameras  

[Scotius]

I'd wager our laws would prove a bit... ineffective, if alien repo squad appeared in orbit and aimed their big honking space guns in Earth's general direction

[Wjolcz]

I remember watching one of Issac Arthur's videos dealing with the dilemma of giving a less developed species the ability to space travel and defend itself from major catastrphes like asteroid impacts. Unless the 'aliens' are some some sort of robotic hive mind the psychology of dealing with the problem of a crashed spacecraft on a foreign planet is pretty interesting.