Two neighboring stars develop intelligent life. (discussion)

[Stargate525]

It might not be as hard as you think. Releasing the amount of energy needed to get to Mars is hard to hide. Even with our (relatively primitive) technology, the amount of energy released by launching a Shuttle into orbit could be detected across the Solar System.

But not 40 light years away.

I don't know about "no clue". You can say fairly confidently, for example, that we won't have interstellar travel in twenty years' time, not least because the energy needed is prohibitive. Perhaps -- and I admit that this is pretty empty conjecture -- it's also possible to state developmental time limits about nearly any race that's just starting to figure out radio waves.

As I've said before, we don't need interstellar travel, we need a viable colony on another planet. And, we CAN travel interstellar if we're prepared to wait. Generation ships are hypothetically possible, just prohibitively expensive.

And I'd like to point out that nearly every time limit humanity has set for itself, we've broken.

And yea, mea culpa on descendants. >.<

[Nikolai]

Fair points, all.

[metaphor]

The vast time distances involved make this mutually assured destruction argument a little irrelevant. Any intelligent species we're likely to meet will probably be hundreds of millions or even billions of years more advanced than us. At that point, one of the species has innumerably more options in eradicating the other before they would be able to react. They might be able to alter the fabric of spacetime and enclose the Earth or solar system into its own pocket universe that we would never be able to escape from, if they judged humans any kind of threat. It's basically impossible to guess the technology of a species millions of years more advanced than us. They might value knowledge and would probably have a lot more to learn by keeping humans alive than by destroying them, knowing that they could eradicate us at any point if we became a problem. The genes that encode all the emotions we attribute to them would have been long gone and replaced by some other thought structures.

[nhnifong]

The vast time distances involved make this mutually assured destruction argument a little irrelevant. Any intelligent species we're likely to meet will probably be hundreds of millions or even billions of years more advanced than us. At that point, one of the species has innumerably more options in eradicating the other before they would be able to react. They might be able to alter the fabric of spacetime and enclose the Earth or solar system into its own pocket universe that we would never be able to escape from, if they judged humans any kind of threat. It's basically impossible to guess the technology of a species millions of years more advanced than us. They might value knowledge and would probably have a lot more to learn by keeping humans alive than by destroying them, knowing that they could eradicate us at any point if we became a problem. The genes that encode all the emotions we attribute to them would have been long gone and replaced by some other thought structures.

Perhaps exponential technological development is not the trajectory we are on. I believe we are seeing the first half of an S-curve in which we plateau at a level dependent on our inherent abilities, until we are displaced by a different species which plateaus at a different level. That succession of species may not be necessarily lead towards greater technology.

I suspect that another alien race is not likely to be any more than a few thousand years "more advanced" that we are because a technological revolution probably does not last much longer than that before plateauing. I do concede of course that we may encounter planets that have had life for billions of years longer or shorter than Earth, but I suspect that any intelligent systems we encounter there will have "power levels" drawn from a fairly narrow normal distribution, and that we are no exception.

[Space_Kraken]

I suggest you guys read the Ender's Game series, it's right down this alley.

[SargeRho]

Exponential technological development IS the trajectory we are on.

[Stargate525]

I suggest you guys read the Ender's Game series, it's right down this alley.

I have, it's quite good. And VERY honest about how much of *******s we can be when we want to be.

Exponential technological development IS the trajectory we are on.

Zoom in far enough on a lot of curve types and they look exponential. It's entirely possible we're on the upwards tick of a sine wave, or a serpentine curve.

[Camacha]

It might not be as hard as you think. Releasing the amount of energy needed to get to Mars is hard to hide. Even with our (relatively primitive) technology, the amount of energy released by launching a Shuttle into orbit could be detected across the Solar System.

Maybe that is true, maybe it is not. However, we are talking about interstellar distances (increasing the difficulty exponentially) here, so that is a bit of a different game. And who knows what our ships/probes that we sent across the solar system are capable of - not to mention the possibility of intentionally hidden systems or bases.

Even as confined as we are to Earth right now, taking us out and hoping you got us all is a huge, dangerous bet. Get it even slightly wrong and you have made a new, very tenacious enemy that will do everything and anything to strike back. Remember that we are the species that kills prey by walking after it. Not by being strong or fierce, but by simply showing up wherever it is. If we want you, we will get you.

As with everything in nature, you do not mess with anything that can bite - unless you are really sure you can control it.

Zoom in far enough on a lot of curve types and they look exponential. It's entirely possible we're on the upwards tick of a sine wave, or a serpentine curve.

It has been like this since the dawn of technology. We might not evolve alongside our machines, but those machines are already developing capabilities to maintain and accelerate the upwards progress themselves. Whether our future is purely biological, technological or a mix between the two or extinction, progress will be made. Unless all life on Earth is ended, alongside Earth itself, by an impact bigger than that of Theia of course

Personally I think our future will be a strange symbiosis between biology and technology - assuming you would be able to tell the difference between those two.

[KerbMav]

Technical question:

Would it take a high powered directed signal to cross a distance of 4ly - or longer? I remember reading that humans wouldnt have to send specific signals since we are beeping heavily for some decades since the development of radio, Sat-TV and even the use of open wire lines.

Regarding the opening of a dialogue/determining their level of development:

Whenever we sent messages into space we used simple mathematical principles coded into modulations of the wave length or binary signals. It was always a simple "someone is here and knows stuff", all that was conveyed was the existence of a technological apt entity by the signal itself and it containing information that marked it as "cannot have a natural source".

The language of old egypt was deciphered because we found a tablet containing the same text three times in three different languages: one was in hieroglyphs and one of the other two was old greek, which was/is still known.

Decoding a signal to find a language we do not know at all and then even translating it without any frame of reference ... I dont know about that one ...

Depending on the actual distance of the signal, all we could know was, that x ly away and therefore x years ago, their was a technological device active built by another intelligent entity that might have originated from the same star system as the signal and might still be there/existent.

And if it was a broadband "Great Maker, they are destroying our planet and killing every single one of us!", maybe we shouldnt even answer, shouldnt reveal us to them.

(Disclaimer: I only read the first page.)