The author's tone is too pessimistic, but in light of SETI's failure to capture any transmissions, his general assumptions can be justified. I personally will be delighted if life, or evidence of past life, is discovered on Mars - it seems to me that this would increase the odds of alien civilisations.

I don't consider our civilisation to be overly intelligent. Certainly as individuals we are - but taken as a whole, we are a superstitious, frightened and squabblesome lot.

We have yet to unite in our desire to explore our own system and have so far to go before even contemplating interstellar travel. The distances are so great, FTL engines are still the stuff of fantasy and the light barrier appears insurmountable. We have not even colonised the moon, something that is widely considered to be the first real step. The ISS is tiny by comparison (an argument in favour of increased funding).

Time may be against us, the ever present threat of war could be what overcomes us eventually - assuming no galactic disaster hits us. Thats quite a gauntlet to run.

Speculation is all we have, its no idle thing, some good will always come of this.


I always wondered about Fermi's Paradox and the calculations for the existence of other civilisations in our galaxy. Don't they assume all stars to be the same?

If i recall correctly, isn't our star a 3rd generation one? Which allows for the heavier elements in our makeup. Is it not the case that the star systems towrds our central hub are more chaotic, and prone to galactic disasters?

Its not my area of expertise, apologies if i'm mistaken. But i've always thought that intelligent civilisations would be more likely along the outside edge of our galaxy.

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The most important mental attribute anyone can have is the ability to recognize when one's own comprehension of a topic is insufficient. Without that, one's knowledge simply becomes tautological: it is "impossible" for there to exist wisdom one does not already possess. - JayUtah

There is no light in space. - Moon Man

You might be thinking of the Drake Equation there; I agree with you, that particular equation does seem to assume that the Galaxy does not change over time. When in fact the amount of heavier elements is increasing. Quite right. The centre of the Galaxy is probably unsuitable for the emergence of life as we know it. That might leave a window open for life as we don't know it, however.Well, the Galactic Habitable Zone is probably migrating slowly outwards over time:http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclo...able_zone.html
so it may be the case that civilisations emerged somewhat earlier in locations slightly closer to the galactic core than our own Sun. Perhaps the Sagittarius Arm is filled with ancient civilisations.

Or their ruins.

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An idea I've batted about for a few years--but do not subscribe to, for the obvious reason that it's not falsifiable by its very nature--is that if they were here, we couldn't detect them. Not because they're invisible, in the conventional sense of the term, but that once they reached here (and everywhere else) they could ensure, through technological means, that whatever life evolves after them simply can't see, feel, etc. the evidence of their existence.

We don't see the real world directly. Our senses are fallible, and are filtered in our brain.
If they made it here back when our (and everything else's) ancestors were bacteria (or whatever passes for their version of primitive), they could have left behind self-reproducing micro and nanoscale technology for the purpose of being incorporated into any life that becomes too intelligent. Into our nervous systems. Could toy with our brains, and simply edit our senses in real time, our memories, and even what we're capable of thinking. No matter how far we advance, if even into hyper intelligent artificial machines and computers the size of solar systems, we would be incapable of detecting if such a thing were being done to us, since we'd have to detect it through our senses.

The reason for why they'd do such a thing is simple: absolute control. Nothing that evolves after them could destroy or otherwise make war with them.

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I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.-Albert Einstein
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.-Tom Waits
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo.-Enoch Root, The Confusion
When I was a kid, if someone brandished a shrink gun he'd get a little bit of respect!-Myron Reducto, Harvey Birdman

Wouldn't it just be simpler to destroy possible threats rather than mess with all of their brains?

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Simpler, but not as ingenious. An advanced civilisation can be assumed to have an arbitrary level of ingenuity.

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I begin to wonder if, on the hypothesis that there is a "great filter" (apart from the unknown cumulative improbability of the existence and survival of any culture even vaguely analogous to modern humanity), it is miniaturisation.

As technology gets smaller, and with the large assumption that biomechanics can enable life forms to be smaller, why would a culture able to inhabit every corner of even a single planet at high density and low energy usage, bother to spread beyond a single solar system?

Exploration? Yes, but as has been pointed out, very small scale exploration by a very high technology (and perhaps very different) culture would be undetectable.

A culture that had been doing this for millions of years just might develop an artistry of it, so a more ingenious xenocide may very well be preferable.
Puts a whole new spin on 'a good death' though, doesn't it?

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Simpler, yes, but why destroy when you don't have to?

If you could keep mosquitoes from biting people through some technological means, would you rather simply destroy them all with the same technology, and be done with them?

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If we don't play god, who will?-James Watson
I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.-Albert Einstein
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.-Tom Waits
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo.-Enoch Root, The Confusion
When I was a kid, if someone brandished a shrink gun he'd get a little bit of respect!-Myron Reducto, Harvey Birdman

If it's easier to destroy all mosquitos rather than blunt all their noses or something, and it additionally has the advantage of 100% ensuring I will never be bit again, while the blunting technology has a tiny chance of failure with each mosquito, then I would prefer to destroy the mosquitos rather than allow them to continue to live in a "blunted" form that has a tiny chance to cause future problems.

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"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky

At least two scenarios are worse than that:

1. We would explore the Galaxy and find no civilisations, dead or alive, at all;

2. We would never be exploring the galaxy, and in fact be having mankind's highest achievement peak right now, the future belonging to degenerates and religious fanatics.

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Neptune, Titan, Stars can Frighten...

3. We don't survive.
Though, I think I fear 2. most of all.

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So do I. It's kinda realistic - and might already be happening...

This is not the place to start a dicussion (and I am not a person qualified to bring it up) but it seems to me there is a two-way connection between the 'self-image' of a society / civilization, and scientific progress. Imho Western civilization might be needing a bit more of its pre-1960s arrogance on the one hand... And on the other hand, science needs some mass-inspiring breakthrough...

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I don't think we need any scientific 'boost', on the contrary:
according to most studies on this subject the rate of technological progress is still accelerating.
Technology is evolving much faster today than in the 60's, and the base is also much broader (more countries are involved).

IMO, the trigger for scenario 2 is much more likely to be some major human-induced disaster,
which might lead to generalized technophobia.

That sorta was my point: to counter the tide of technophobia, we need some easy-to-understand scientific breakthru, to get joe sixpack into supporting science again... Alas, no time to elaborate now. Later!

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Neptune, Titan, Stars can Frighten...

Get your point, I think:
most milestones are much less tangible than the Apollo program...

That takes us back to the original post, and Bostrom's suggestion that finding no civilisations would be a good thing.

If we manage to explore the galaxy and find no other civilisations, that means two things

1/ that exploring the Galaxy is possible (because we have just done it ) and
2/ that the Great filter is most likely to be something which we have already passed through, most probably the unlikely nature of civilisation itself. That means, to a long-game thinker like Bostrom, that if we do manage to explore the galaxy and find no other civilisations, we need not fear any existential risks for the foreseeable future.

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Orion's Arm . The Starlark . Voices: Future Tense . OA Flickr set

And even then, the public got bored very quickly. I can understand that from what I know about human nature and psychology, but from a stance of my own thoughts, it seems almost unbelievable. We landed on the moon, a dream almost as old as flight, and accomplished only 66 years after. THAT is the scale achievement that we are missing these days. What was the greatest achievement of the 1990's? The Internet. What has being the biggest achievement of the 2000's so far? Better Internet?

This year will be the fiftieth anniversary of mans first journey beyond the edge of the map, to a world that is not our home. Have we seen even half the changes that occurred in half a century of human flight?
I am sorry, but we haven't.
The year of my birth, 1986, was date set to send people to Mars, back when science was daring. Instead, instead 7 people died trying to do what had been done so many times before, go around and around this blue ball.
Much science has been done, and much exploration. Probes ARE a cheaper way to expand our body of knowledge, to answer questions that before were simply unknowable, and to create new questions to ask. We salute Sputnik, Explorer, Luna, Pioneer, Ranger, Venera, Viking, Giotto, Spirit, Voyager, Selene, Hayabusa, and all the teams of engineers and scientists behind them. New knowledge has been gained, new paths tread, to lead us onward in our quest to understand.

But that is not all Space can be for. Space can also be a bounties harvest, able to allow humanity to grow beyond the limits of this precious orb. Some find the idea of say, strip mining the asteroids, repugnant and even profane. Believe me, I do not make this suggestion lightly. But if our society is to continue on the path of growth it on now, it will need these resources. I would much prefer to get them from a lifeless hunk of rock, then to lay a hand on this world, which has given us so much.

That is the future I hope for, that is the future, I believe with utter conviction, we need. And that is why it saddens me so much the general publics apathy to space travel. It is not our manifest destiny, it will not fall in our hands. Unlike science fiction, where the fulfillment of this hope can be done with the flick of a pen or the click of a keyboard, we need to work for it.

Will it be, I ask and I plead.
Will it be?

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Exactly! A pity, but (apparently) true...

But it would also be kinda boring... I can only speak for myself but I think most people who think about (intelligent/civilized) alien life, want a mirror, or an index or whatever you call it. A way to meausure what aspects of our collective awareness (here used as an umbrella term for intelligence, cilization etc.) would be specific to mankind and what would be universal...

E.g. I would be curious about to which degree our morality is a universal set of concepts, or one largely dictated by local socio-biological (maybe this is another neologism but you'll get my point) features.

Personally I'd pick the realization the universe's expansion is accelerating as more astounishing than the internet... But of course this arguable (I don't even know if I'm sure about that...) Btw great post!!!