Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I’m 95% on UFOs not being real.
We have thousands of telescopes and radio telescopes trained on deep space, including the JWST and Hubble. We’ve never found anything that’s unambiguously life, and certainly no evidence of technology, no ships, no stations, no artificial signals, no Dyson spheres, nothing of the sort. As such there’s no reason to think that there’s anything out there with the capacity to come here.
Most experts on the topic say that FTL travel isn’t just difficult, it’s impossible. And without it, interstellar travel isn’t feasible. The speed and distance are simply too great for beings with lifespans like ours to do much more than conquer their solar system.
Why would we assume that alien beings have lifespans like ours? Anti-aging technology, digital minds, or some form of hibernation do not seem to violate any known laws of physics, and even merely increasing human lifespans by a factor of five or so would make voyages between nearby stars at appreciable but not unattainable fractions of c the equivalent of 18th century transatlantic ship crossings. Automated probes could travel across the galaxy within a hundred thousand years, setting up infrastructure for colonization.
The fact that we don't see any evidence for such a civilization seems to indicate to me that either we've already passed the Great Filter, that living in some sort of VR or simulation is considered preferable by everyone to taking over the physical universe, or that we're missing some key piece of the puzzle (e.g. the technologies I listed above are actually impossible for some reason, or some version of the Katechon hypothesis perhaps, where civilizations that become too complex are deleted).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link