We’re not alone in the universe but space is so vast that it’s a difference without a distinction. 💀
Given how curious we are, I think being scared of aliens is odd. I would assume that a civilization capable of interstellar travel is fairly chill.
And a sufficiently advanced alien civilization could sterilise earth from the comfort of their home star system, so if advanced aliens wanted us dead, it would not be hard, we wouldn’t even see it coming.
I think the scary part stems from looking at ourselves. We’re well on our way “out there” but still kill each other in the cruellest ways. Our sadistic qualities only limited by our means to perpetrate them.
Hawkins shared his thoughts on this subject and, although less morbid, still quite scary.
Basically the plot of the latest in a nutshell video:
How to Win an Interstellar War - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybKnGZRwcU
I suggest Isaac Arthur for some great content on various sci-fi topics too, he has covered a lot of these over various long form videos.
Yes I know about his channel. Great content although I mist admit that Iam not watching it very often due to the lengthy videos.
I also think his channel is basically source for many futurism stuff. :)
They may have stupid politics like us and need us as a common enemy to unite their factions/be racist at. So even if theyre not naturally genocidal, they might choose to “for the greater good”. Plus our sweet sweet natural resources/scrap.
Have you heard of the Fermi paradox?
The best estimates of how many intelligent civilizations there should be suggest that the galaxy should be teeming with them. If any of them evolved mere millions of years before we did, given our pace of technological improvement they should have figured out interstellar travel by now, and they should be broadcasting communication across the galaxy like we’re doing. Yet we’ve detected nothing. Why?
A possible explanation is that an advanced civilization is exterminating all other civilizations, perhaps to avoid competition. It seems like a sensible approach to lie low until we can figure this out, just in case.
That is a solution, there are multiple other solutions all equally or more likely that don’t involve murderous aliens.
One just as out there would be a sort of galactic zoo - there is simply an agreement not to interact with intelligent life before they reach a certain step, say establish global unity or develop a certain tech.
It could be that we are in fact a statistical outlier or are simply wrong in our probability calculations.
It could be that intelligence develops but spacefaring is rare. It could be that intelligent life simply has a tendency to collapse before it gets there. It is certainly still possible for us and it is not like we are making super meaningful progress towards space colonisation.
It could be that there are not great viable interstellar travel options, almost every option we have thought of that makes sense time wise has big ifs attached to it assuming we have a good idea of physics. Of those probably relativistic travel is the most likely and even then it would take quite a decent chunk of time to span the galaxy, going to war on those timescales is basically non-sensical.
I expect that any civilisation capable of cooperating at scale to achieve meaningful interstellar travel would also be developed enough in ethics to most likely not pose a danger to us.
A civilisation capable of waging war like that is probably around a K2 civ and the idea that a single planet somehow threatens them is also silly. Even a fully K1 civ to them would be close to a stadium packed full on earth in terms of relative size.
Absolutely, there’s lots of possibilities. But I don’t think that negates the point that the most sensible approach to any unknown situation is to be cautious and lie low until you fully understand the situation.
Of course, flawed as we are, we’re not doing that, as we aren’t responding to other potential existential threats.
I’m alone in the universe.
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
Honestly I’d take the “we are alone” route, Chrysalids and Floaters from XCOM can go fuck themselves.
Look, you brought this on yourself
(very NSFW)
You spent time and energy specifically looking for a picture of an XCOM Chrysalid jerking itself off on a Rule 34 website.
I am equal parts disgusted, horrified, and impressed with your actions.
The weird part was it was a 5 second search and that’s the first one that came up.
you mean both are absolutely awesome
Why is not being alone in the universe a bad thing though?
I actually get a great deal of comfort from the thought that us and our silly little squabbles are so inconsequential to the universe at large. That some alien species we can’t even begin to imagine is just doing the same shit we are 800 billion light years away. Makes me feel like maybe getting up for work in the morning ain’t so bad when you consider the scale
Why is not being alone in the universe a bad thing though?
There are possible concerns relating to the Fermi paradox. Perhaps there aren’t many space faring civilizations because the most advance civilization exterminates others that they see as a potential threat.
But yeah, I also find it comforting to know our existence really isn’t that big a deal lol. It just makes me feel like we should do what we can to get the most joy out of our lives while we’re here
Maybe they’re also bickering and arguing about who killed who in the Guejenjdjja-Otoenenjda conflict, taking place in the desert of purple sand, with very geographically-literate Ghdisixoosbdbjzoakan college students obnoxiously cosplaying it in the quads
The arguments some people make is that if it’s likely there’s so many other civilizations out there, then why haven’t we found any evidence of any of them? You have Great Filter and Dark Forest theories that try to explain it, both of which would likely be very bad for humanity.
But it all forgets that we really haven’t searched much of even our own solar system in incredible detail, so it’s very possible we either haven’t looked in the right places, or don’t have the tech in place to see civilizations
According to the drake equation we’re looking at at least a few million planets with at least ordinary carbon-and-water-based life in this galaxy alone- and in such an unimaginably huge place as even the galaxy (never mind UNIVERSE) there’s bound to be at least 2 of everything, including sentient species.
The universe is just an emergent artifact of language.
Atheism ☹️