Humanity As Precursors / Fermi / What do we do?

[Ostroeuropa]

https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.08448

Summary; The hypothesis is Earth got lucky and generated abundant life statistically earlier than the rest of the Universe. Supposedly the more abundant "low mass stars" can generate life, but require more time than suns like or larger than our own. We hit the jackpot and managed to come from a system with the goldilocks conditions to generate life earlier than other systems which are still forming and developing, and for added badassness, our home system will have a star that is enormous compared to theirs. It may take millions of years before we have some intelligent company develop. This is a proposed solution to the fermi paradox.

How should this influence our behavior?
A lot of people have ideas of how humanity should act in an intergalactic community, but what if we're the first, or one of the first, to the party?
How should this influence our actions and what should our civilization look like?
Are aliens totally fucked because we'll take ages to consider them "Properly intelligent", to the point that eventually they're just farmfood and can't breed proper intelligence?
Should we uplift some, or leave them alone? When should we uplift?

What do we tell them about us? The truth?
Or a bunch of hilarious and badass lies?

What will we do to wile away eternity without xeno to purge?

What are the implications for that galactic community if the entry conditions are decided by us, and what'll happen to the rejects? Suddenly, the not-so-alien aliens of those visions start to make a bit more sense.
"Well these are clearly just ugly green and blue people, so they're fine, but that floating polygon that keeps turning inside out and screaming at us isn't proper, so let's just kill them and use them as decorations."

Basically, outline your vision for a space faring human civilization that doesn't have contact with aliens, but in the context of those aliens eventually arising and how we should prepare, prevent, or protect that outcome, and how to present ourselves to them.

I personally think we should troll. Trolling the shit out of them as a first contact policy will get them prepared for shit.
Like, put the dog on the video phone and just do a voiceover, shit like that. Just mess with them for a bit, then go "Pranked son!" and do it properly.

If we find a planet that is developing life, we fucking quarantine it from outside interference and wait for intelligent life to develop, and spend literally thousands of years observing them thinking up the most elaborate prank we can pull specifically tailored to that civilization.
THAT'S who the precursors of this universe will be, and we'll have the best tech too.

We should tell everyone we're absolutely perfect and wait for them to cotton on to the fact we're just lucky savannah chimps, and we should INSIST dogs are from mars and a co-equal member of the federation. Our actual greeting should be "Did you know the dodo bird? Neither did we, pleased to meet you." just for the terror when they later figure it out.

"Why did you make a mockery out of one of the most significant and important events in our species history by turning it into a comical farce?"
"For you, the day you found out there was another species of intelligent creature in the universe was the most important day of your history. For us, it was tuesday."

[Genivaria]

If we are the lucky ones then it is up to us to shape the galaxy in our image.
But seriously I don't like the idea of the Prime Directive being an absolute rule, more like a guideline of non-intervention with a few exemptions.

[Ostroeuropa]

If we are the lucky ones then it is up to us to shape the galaxy in our image.
But seriously I don't like the idea of the Prime Directive being an absolute rule, more like a guideline of non-intervention with a few exemptions.

Such as? Can you elaborate?

I'd agree we should intervene if there's geological or planetary level extinction threats that could endanger the growth of life on a planet.
But until we see shit resembling civilization, we should be hands off unless it's threat to life from non-life.
MAYBE kidnap subjects and breed them elsewhere if they seem useful, but only animal level ones.

"Oh this thing? It's like, a distant cousin of yours. We use it for milk. Don't worry, it didn't develop intelligence like you." might be a bit awkward though.

We could perhaps interfere and do sociological shit like, secretly somehow poll the population on whether they would like aliens to show up now and fix their problem.
Random phone calls from strange sounding people, and then, "Okay well it's a majority, surprise!"

[United Muscovite Nations]

No, the real reason for the Fermi Paradox is that no one has discovered FTL and other sci fi technologies because they're either physically impossible or they require such incredible resources that there's not much point.

[Ostroeuropa]

No, the real reason for the Fermi Paradox is that no one has discovered FTL and other sci fi technologies because they're either physically impossible or they require such incredible resources that there's not much point.

Generation ships tho.

[United Muscovite Nations]

No, the real reason for the Fermi Paradox is that no one has discovered FTL and other sci fi technologies because they're either physically impossible or they require such incredible resources that there's not much point.

Generation ships tho.

Where would they get their provisions?

[United Muscovite Nations]

Generation ships tho.

Where would they get their provisions?

There's also the issue that generation ship travel could potentially take so long that they'd reach their destination having evolved into a new species or completely adapted for their spaceborne lives.

[Ostroeuropa]

Generation ships tho.

Where would they get their provisions?

Created on board from initial investment carefully managed. We can already calculate resources for trips. This would merely mean more complex calculations involving a degrading supply over a long distance that would eventually make hydroponics and such impossible on board due to lack of energy. The capacity would degrade over time, but that doesn't make it impossible. In fact, if they're built in-space, mass is much less of an obstacle.

[United Muscovite Nations]

Where would they get their provisions?

Created on board from initial investment carefully managed. We can already calculate resources for trips. This would merely mean more complex calculations involving a degrading supply over a long distance that would eventually make hydroponics and such impossible on board due to lack of energy. The capacity would degrade over time, but that doesn't make it impossible. In fact, if they're built in-space, mass is much less of an obstacle.

And that's the problem, that this is a trip that would take so long that they would eventually run out and just become space hulks.

[Genivaria]

Where would they get their provisions?

There's also the issue that generation ship travel could potentially take so long that they'd reach their destination having evolved into a new species or completely adapted for their spaceborne lives.

Real Quarians ugh.

[Ostroeuropa]

Created on board from initial investment carefully managed. We can already calculate resources for trips. This would merely mean more complex calculations involving a degrading supply over a long distance that would eventually make hydroponics and such impossible on board due to lack of energy. The capacity would degrade over time, but that doesn't make it impossible. In fact, if they're built in-space, mass is much less of an obstacle.

And that's the problem, that this is a trip that would take so long that they would eventually run out and just become space hulks.

Depends on the efficiency of our systems and the potential for breakthroughs in terms of energy.

[United Muscovite Nations]

And that's the problem, that this is a trip that would take so long that they would eventually run out and just become space hulks.

Depends on the efficiency of our systems and the potential for breakthroughs in terms of energy.

And, as I've said numerous times in other threads, that's extremely optimistic. Risking the future of the entire human species on untested hypothesis is pure hubris.

[Ostroeuropa]

Depends on the efficiency of our systems and the potential for breakthroughs in terms of energy.

And, as I've said numerous times in other threads, that's extremely optimistic. Risking the future of the entire human species on untested hypothesis is pure hubris.

What's the alternative to space travel for the future of the human species?

[Genivaria]

And, as I've said numerous times in other threads, that's extremely optimistic. Risking the future of the entire human species on untested hypothesis is pure hubris.

What's the alternative to space travel for the future of the human species?

There isn't one.

[United Muscovite Nations]

And, as I've said numerous times in other threads, that's extremely optimistic. Risking the future of the entire human species on untested hypothesis is pure hubris.

What's the alternative to space travel for the future of the human species?

Reverting to a way of life that doesn't consume resources faster than they're produced. i.e. agrarianism.

[Ostroeuropa]

Hell, there's always the Friendship is Optimal solution, though a little grim.

What's the alternative to space travel for the future of the human species?

Reverting to a way of life that doesn't consume resources faster than they're produced. i.e. agrarianism.

And when Earth perishes?

You may be content to wait in this box until the air runs out and we suffocate, which we know will happen, or we can try the crazy plan that might kill us sooner by exerting us and making us consume the resource quicker, but gives us a chance of escaping and dying a more natural death at an older age.

[United Muscovite Nations]

Hell, there's always the Friendship is Optimal solution, though a little grim.

Reverting to a way of life that doesn't consume resources faster than they're produced. i.e. agrarianism.

And when Earth perishes?

Over a billion years is a pretty good run. We wouldn't last much longer even if we did manage to perfect space travel.

[Ostroeuropa]

Hell, there's always the Friendship is Optimal solution, though a little grim.



And when Earth perishes?

Over a billion years is a pretty good run. We wouldn't last much longer even if we did manage to perfect space travel.

We'll survive ecological collapse. Lots of animals won't, and we'll have a population bottleneck, but we won't be wiped out by this trajectory, even if we don't manage to get environmentalist enough.

[Lord Dominator]

I'm all for pulling pranks on the rest of the galaxy

[United Muscovite Nations]

Hell, there's always the Friendship is Optimal solution, though a little grim.

Reverting to a way of life that doesn't consume resources faster than they're produced. i.e. agrarianism.

And when Earth perishes?

You may be content to wait in this box until the air runs out and we suffocate, which we know will happen, or we can try the crazy plan that might kill us sooner by exerting us and making us consume the resource quicker, but gives us a chance of escaping and dying a more natural death at an older age.

We won't escape death either way. The universe itself is destined to die.

But, either way, we don't have the resources required to last long enough to get interstellar travel anyway.

[Scomagia]

If we are precursors, we ought to do nothing except ensure the overall survival of whatever life we do find by protecting it (them?) from extinction. That and setting a clear policy to whatever civilizations arise that the development of Strong AI is unacceptable and will be considered a direct threat against us and all life and will be met with extreme force.

[Ifreann]

What if we escaped the heat death of the universe by infesting alien worlds and borrowing their evolution until we can transcend the multiverse as we know it?

[Ostroeuropa]

If we are precursors, we ought to do nothing except ensure the overall survival of whatever life we do find by protecting it (them?) from extinction. That and setting a clear policy to whatever civilizations arise that the development of Strong AI is unacceptable and will be considered a direct threat against us and all life and will be met with extreme force.

Why bother when we can just upload ourselves and mindfuck the galaxy by insisting machine life existed first outside of the concept of time or space with no beginning nor end despite that being a blatant lie?

Also, I don't see the problem with AIs unless they're like, paperclip maximizers.

I'm all for pulling pranks on the rest of the galaxy

Good. Good. The movement grows.

Hell, there's always the Friendship is Optimal solution, though a little grim.



And when Earth perishes?

You may be content to wait in this box until the air runs out and we suffocate, which we know will happen, or we can try the crazy plan that might kill us sooner by exerting us and making us consume the resource quicker, but gives us a chance of escaping and dying a more natural death at an older age.

We won't escape death either way. The universe itself is destined to die.

But, either way, we don't have the resources required to last long enough to get interstellar travel anyway.

We'll see, or our descendents will, I suppose.

[Great Nepal]

If we're indeed the first, we should try to minimise impact on the aliens, except to prevent major humanitarian (or xenoitarian?) disaster like nuclear war for the same reason that we don't want to contaminate Mars surface yet. Alien life is awesome natural social lab that we can never replicate (without running planet simulations with sentient AIs which comes with it's own ethical issues), so we should observe and make notes. Once they contact us, we should try to be peaceful and form federations but meh.

[Lord Dominator]

What if we escaped the heat death of the universe by infesting alien worlds and borrowing their evolution until we can transcend the multiverse as we know it?

#DarkForestTheory

Sorta