I also want to say the Isaac's own argument can be used against him. On this world, there are more similarities between cultures than there are differences, right?

Yet on this world, not too long ago, it was the Soviet Union vs. US. Before that, it was the Allies vs. the Axis. And now, there's rising tensions between China and the United States (how that grows, we'll have to see).

The Soviet Union was an alliance of many countries with many different languages, with many different cultures; it collapsed, and many of those different cultures asserted independence. That's still a contentious issue today.

China has its own culture and its own language. Many of them are learning English, but either way, I can't expect to walk into China and communicate with everyone. While some of the things found in the US can be found in China, it's still different enough to cause a bit of a culture clash/shock.

All this within one world.

Isaac says, hey no big deal, they're more similar than they are different, right?

Yet over the past few decades there have been many conflicts; in the past century, a couple of world wars.

Yet we're supposed to expect homogeneous unified peace amongst what could be tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions of civilizations throughout the universe, or even just a galaxy?

I'd be hard pressed enough to believe that ONE world can "dominate" another world so powerfully as to suppress its own ideas, culture, and activities without totally eradicating the local life and instituting their own. It would be as difficult as Britain keeping hold of the United States; and even worse, dealing with a group that has no similarities at all to Britain.

Aliens are not going to be just humans with oddly shaped foreheads. They're going to have totally different evolutionary backgrounds, which will affect the way they act and think. They're going to be a mixture of different cultures with different ways of thinking and acting. And yet one force can unify them all and turn them into "just like us"?

Sorry, I don't see why this alternative is quite so simple as Isaac thinks it is. It requires far more assumptions than he assumes Fermi's question does.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

Also, this all just pushes the question back one more step.

If there's one dominating force with presence all over the entire universe/galaxy:

Where is it?

Or are other civilizations at our equal rate of technology just not affected by it? In which case, there are other civilizations that are not influenced by this Megaforce. So that also refutes the idea as being the "one answer to Fermi's Paradox"

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

Looking once again to science fiction for inspiration, one finds Alistair Reynolds' Inhibitors with the single purpose of keeping intelligent life forms "in their place" and if none are to be detected keeping dormant and hiding. Similar form of laylow galactic dominator, albeit one with less sinister aims, is to be found in Robert Charles Wilson's Spin/Axis/Vortex trilogy. One might envision, as IsaacKuo does, such selfreplicating machine "culture", tho those going for a more scientific approach to finding solutions to the Fermi paradox tend to rather offhandedly dismiss it (see Webb's If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens... for example).

__________________
The dog, the dog, he's at it again!

It's nice when working with fiction; you can make a goal and then attain it through writing.

IsaacKuo is stating that Fermi must assume non-interstellar travel, though, so he's not posing one "solution" to Fermi's question, he's stating that it's a fundamental fact that with interstellar travel, this would occur; otherwise, his whole argument falls apart.

Well, maybe not so strongly, but he states things like:

So if interstellar travel is possible, then one dominant force is likely enough to make Fermi's Paradox obselete (or whatever). That's the implication in all of his posts I've been reading, or else, like he said, "So what?" Yes, you postulated a possible solution to Fermi's Paradox. So have many others; it's not like you're treading new ground here. Fermi's Paradox was first stated for just that purpose. Yet Isaac is making it seem like he's overturning Fermi on his head; as if, if talking to Fermi face to face, he would expect Fermi to go "Wow, I didn't think of that!"

What he's positing takes a lot of speculation. And that's what science fiction does -- speculate. It speculates on future technology, it speculates on how extraterrestrial beings would act and react, and it also speculates on what future technology would be accepted or embraced, it speculates on how "easy" it would be to make others like you or dominate races.

There are a tremendous amount of assumptions behind IsaacKuo's "solution", and in those science fiction pieces quoted. I might as well assume that alien races will go the way of Greg Egan's Diaspora and just become electronic entities in their own Poleis.

It's not a catch-all "easy" solution at all.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

Obviously there are rather few fundamental facts to be found when dealing with the Fermi paradox. I would think the galactic dominator idea comes to serious problems if we can't rule out abundant intelligence (difficult to cull the bigger herds without "rising a stink") and/or very rapid cultural evolution (as Webb comments, an advanced civilization might be able to "inocculate" itself against a phage-like entity), which we really can't at this point.

__________________
The dog, the dog, he's at it again!

Exactly. A civilization would have to preceed all others by a million years, then run all over the galaxy squashing new ones arising before they can be detected by us. Right. Where is their motivation for doing so??

And even if it were so, we could likely detect that civilization's activities.

And why haven't they come here and squashed us? We are in space, and hopefully within 150 years of leaving the Solar system. Aren't we a threat?


Personally I think the answer lies with:

1. FTL Travel is just not possible. Using wormholes or other shortcuts are either not viable or not practical.

2. Interstellar travel at sublight is possible, but there is no compelling payoff to make someone want to do it because of the great time, distance and cost expenditures required for a very low percentage payoff.

We know the concept about Von Neumann machines, but we don't really have a compelling reason for a civilization to actually use them. And they are also probably dangerous to the creating civilization (Read the paper cited in the OP).

3. Life is common, but space-faring intelligences rare, and the distances between intelligent civilizations, in both time and linear space, are too great to allow direct contact.

4. Interstellar Communcation methods among different species with different sensory apparatus, different environments, and motivations make the chances of contact small. And the cost and sheer magnitude of the problem, as well as the low percentage chance of a payoff make it possibly not worth the effort.

We have sent signals out to a few stars, but we arent actively engaged in sending out signals all the time. A 100 year delay between responses doesn't exactly make for an engaging conversation - at least on earth, the humans could ask a question or give a response, but they'd be dead before the reply came. ANd society and culture would have changed so much in the meantime that our motivations and values would be different each time.

To clarify, I'm not saying that your idea has no merit. I'm just saying that you're admitting that it's an "idea", not a fact.

My problem with Isaac is that he's speaking more against Fermi and his Paradox more than just positing ideas.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

Yep, I got that. Am just making conversation, is all... Almost the only fact I'll be admiting to in relation to FP is that we don't know the answer to it yet.

__________________
The dog, the dog, he's at it again!

Look, we don't have a world government preventing us humans from attempting CETI with star systems thousands of light years away. And yet we don't do it! Why not? Is it because of a monolithic world government? Of course not.

It's because we're all human, and we live within the limits of our human culture. It costs a lot of money to build/operate the sort of hardware required for long range CETI, and the potential payoff is quite dubious since we humans simply lack the lifespans to live long enough for a reply.

You guys are assuming some sort of all-powerful government is required to impose these restrictions, when actually no such all-powerful entity is required. We humans and our human ways of doing things alone are already enough of a restriction.

Suppose we humans had evolved (or have evolved) to be the first technological species in the galaxy, and we develop interstellar colonization technology. Where would we go? One possibility is that we would only colonize Earth-like planets, and for all we know these are so rare as to be thousands of light years apart from each other. Would some monolithic galactic government be required to enforce this policy? No. It's in our human nature to colonize places where we can live rather than places where we can't.

So turn that around--suppose the first alien civilization's home planet was the planet Oog, a warm neptune in orbit around a blue star. They colonize the galaxy, but they only colonize Oog-like planets. Does there need to be a galactic government to enforce this policy? No. They prefer Oog-like planets because it's in their nature.

If these aliens are living only on Oog-like planets and their CETI behavior is anything like our own CETI behavior, then we really shouldn't be surprised that they haven't contacted us yet.

Issac, you are arguing out of both sides of your face. Your argument changes to meet whatever argument is presented to you.

you said before:
well, if your Oog civilization is colonizing planets, then Interstellar travel is possible. By your earlierler remarks, if it is possible, then naturally ONE civilization would take over. But in this latest post, you are changing your argument . Instead of Oog-ians taking over the entire galaxy and preventing anyone from contacting us, now they are only colonzing Oog-like planets and are not motivated to call us.

Well, if there is one civilization of oogs, and One Earth civilization, then there are likely others out there, because 2 examples shoots down anthropomorphism and uniqueness. And these others who dont live on Earth like worlds or "warm Neptunes" circling blue stars might very well try to contact us or otherwise make their presence known, which then shoots down your original theory.

this Oog argument is also different than:


I posted my particular thoughts on the answer to Fermi's paradox a few posts ago, and I agree with your #3 - there arent likely to be a lot of space faring civilizations out there, and distances in both time and space are likely too great for it to be worthwhile.

I dont agree with #4 though. If there is a giant galaxy spanning civilization out there, there are many methods by which we could detect their activities either now, or soon.

And even if we couldnt detect them, then why would such a civilzation ignore us? There is als no particular reason why they wouldn't, since they have the capability to do so. I beleive if a species has enough interest in Space, they'd have similar motiviations to find other civilizations.

Of course, all of this is speculation.

I think this is where this particular argument runs into problems.

The basic problem is that the galaxy has been around long enough for entire generations of stars to die. Any civilizations which evolve around any of those stars either develop interstellar capability or go completely extinct. I think the payoff of surviving would generally be compelling.

So if we assume there are, say, a thousand early civilizations which are forced to develop interstellar colonization capability for this reason, then we're left to wonder--will all of them simply stop using this technology after the first hop into interstellar space? All it takes is one of them to decide to use the technology to colonize the local area rather than just doing the bare minimum.

(If it's in the civilization's nature to colonize multiple stars in the local area, then the colonized star systems will also have it in them to continue colonization--pretty soon the entire galaxy is colonized.)
I completely reject the notion that Von Neumann machines would probably be dangerous to the creating civilization. As long as they are programmed appropriately, they're no more likely to rise up against their creators than a Commodore 64.
Assuming what we know of physics is sufficiently accurate, there are compelling reasons to expect narrow-band focused radio signals to be the communication method of choice. Radio wavelength photons are low energy, so a given amount of power can transmit many orders of magnitude more radio photons than any other sort of particle (higher energy photons, or other particles). Anything lower than radio wavelength, though, and you can't focus the beam without expensive megastructures and you also run into background noise issues.

It does cost a lot to do long range radio CETI, but it's technically within our civilization's means. That we don't do it has to do with our civilization's culture and nature rather than tecnological limitations.
Right--and no world government is required to enforce any of this.

I think you're just getting confused because we have opposite views of what interstellar capability implies, and we are apparently using different definitions of "civilization".
Yes. In this case, it's the Oog civilization that took over the galaxy.
They did take over the entire galaxy. Would you agree that we humans have taken over Earth? Even though we don't actually physically occupy every cubic inch of Earth's biosphere?

I have explained before that once you accept the possibility of a dominant galactic civilization, there are many possible reasons why this civilization has not contacted us yet. This is true whether the galactic civilization is some sort of oppressive mind-control state or it's some liberal collection of freedom-loving states.
Because the Oog civilization has colonized the galaxy, it's far more likely for any other civilizations to contact the Oog civilization before us. When they do so, they either get absorbed into the Oog civilization through sharing of information and culture, or they get exterminated in war because IF there's a war the Oog will win.

(Assuming the Oog are not implacably hostile, the intelligent choice would be to accept peaceful absorption rather than war to extinction.)
Why would they take notice of us? We're not a threat, and our primitive capabilities don't offer any opportunity to learn new technologies.

Consider how we study other species. We study ants. We even regularly "speak" to ants by conducting lab experiments using ant pheromones and other signals. But what's the experience of a typical anthill in its natural environment? We humans simply ignore them.

So, even if an alien civilization is as interested in us as we are in ants, that doesn't necessarily mean ongoing large scale communications with us in our natural habitat. Aliens might have visited Earth thousands or millions of years ago, studied Earth's inhabitants the way we study other species, and maybe even took some samples for controlled lab experiments. And perhaps that was enough to satisfy their curiosity.

You are assuming a civilzation would have to survive intact for billions of years. Life might well arise quickly eslewhere as it did on earth, and stars live for billions of years. it is unlikley that a civilization would arise in even the last billion years of a stars lifetime because by then its out of main sequence and life processes arent likely to take hold. So in order for a civilization to have to move because their star is dying or no longer capable of sustaining life, they'd have to survive intact for billions of years. Which I find very very unlikely. They would evolve, change, and some catastrophe would reset them back to the stone age every million years, and they'd have to reinvent everything. Each culture would be as different as the Mayans are to the Aborigines and the Chinese. There is no reason to assume continuity for that long.

Again, you are assuming a static civilization that doesnt evolve. And again, you are changing the premise of your argument. Now we have a thousand civiliations all with interstellar capability, yet we havent heard from them because despite being a different species and a different kind of life, thay are all as lazy as humans and won't send out signals to communicate. and hide all the evidence of their presence. Or are being suppressed by a giant galaxy wide civiliation as you have proposed earlier.

You are also forgetting or failing to realize that a society doesnt have to be talking to US to be overheard. Consider a civilization that has several planets, say 12, all within 1000 LY. Wouldn't they want to talk with one another?? Wouldnt they then use your focused beam radio to talk? Isnt it possible then that some of their radio chatter would be picked up by another civiliation who is engaged in SETI? Or do we need to further suppose that the beam is so narrow and unique that it can only be heard by the intended receiver? I reject this as well. 1000 LY requires power and bandwidth.

Further, civilizations that had a common origin that are now 1000 LY apart will evolve independantly. Each will change over time. SUrely some will go their own way, explore the stars and reach out to other civlizations. WHo could stop them?

DId you read the OP Article? What about the reference cited for this possiblity? What about the motivation to build Von Neuman machines? if they cover the galaxy but the creating civlization doesnt receive any benefit, why go to all that trouble? its the same argument you use for Earth cultures not engaging in sending signals out to space.

see my argument above. If they are using this, they dont have to be talking to us in order to detect them.

It does cost a lot to do long range radio CETI, but it's technically within our civilization's means. That we don't do it has to do with our civilization's culture and nature rather than tecnological limitations.

yes, but you have argued that if Interstellar travel is possible that the most likely reason we havent heard from ET is that some galactic spanning culture is actively preventing anyone from contacting us. Now you are saying they are all exactly like us, too lazy or unmotivated to send out a signal.


We dont send out signals all the time because its futile without some intelligent targets to shoot for. Its a million times more futile than a bottle with a note in it dropped in an ocean.

I'd say when Kepler mission returns some good data on stars with Earhlike planets and interesting spectral signatures that indicate life processes, you will see many interested groups sending directed signals to those places.

@Isaak Kuo: I saw your answer to my post only now. I think you are wrong, and this should be discussed, but not here, as things have developped in quite a different direction here.

Really? I think you are watching way too much SyFy.

1. Why would it be more likely that an advancing civlization contact the Oogs? what if a civilization arises, but they cant live on a warm neptunes (which are gas giants) and blue stars make them nauseous? But what if they like rocky planets with mean temperatures in the 80s (f), liquid water and golden sunshine? Whom do you think they'd contact then? If we follow your reasoning that oogs ONLY seek out Warm Neptunes, then wouldnt our New Aliens seek out Class M stars, like ours? They might run into us first!


you said earlier:

OK, you said your Oogs ONLY seek Warm Neptunes around Blue stars, implying that they IGNORE all other systems that dont match theirs, whcih would imply that they are missing a LOT of other civlizations who could be contacting us.

AGAIN, you are changing the parameters of your argument to meet whatever responses you will get.

Your solution has way too many details to be the most logical one. By Far.

No, it only needs to "survive" for billions of years. I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "intact", but you seem to be assuming some sort of "Roman Civilization" style definition of civilization.

But this definition of civilization is merely an arbitrary construct. The practical reality is that a civilization is made up of its people, and whether those people call themselves Romans or Italians or whatever, the fact remains that they're still living and still building upon the technological knowledge and cultural history of what came before.

Will those people simply accept their own extermination?
In human history, there has not yet been a catastrophe so severe as to reset us back to the stone age; there has not yet been a catastrophe so sever that we had to reinvent everything. Will there be in the future? Possibly, but not likely. It would have to be a catastrophe severe enough to either exterminate all humans (including ones living off-world in space stations/colonies), or severe enough to exterminate all of our records and technology (it's hard to imagine something severe enough to do this which doesn't also exterminate all humans in the process).
All of these human cultures are fundamentally similar, and part of a larger continuity of humanity.
Giving the physics behind communications technology, they pretty much have to be talking specifically to us to be overheard.
Yes, although it would be using broadband digitally compressed signals rather than narrowband uncompressed signals. Digital compression uses available bandwidth orders of magnitude more efficiently than uncompressed signals (for, say, full motion video), so there's a compelling reason to use it. Unfortunately, it turns the signal into something which mathematically looks like white noise. Without knowing the details of the method of compression, the data stream is meaningless and looks like random noise.
It's possible but highly unlikely. For the sake of efficiency, interstellar communications beams will be highly focused. You would have to be in the direct line of the beam to see the signal. Now consider how rare it is for two stars in the sky to overlap (if they overlap, then that means we'd be in the direct line of a beam sent from the further star to the nearer star).
It does indeed require a lot of power and bandwidth--which is why the beam would be narrowly focused. If you focus the beam into, say, a 1/10,000 radian wide cone, you reduce your power requirements by a factor of 400,000,000 compared to an unfocused signal.
Even if they go their own way, they can't escape their own nature.
What about it? All this says is that if you build Von Neuman machines, then there's that much more incentive to program them properly so they don't go and attack you.

Again, I absolutely reject the idea that Von Neumann machines would probably be a threat to the creating race.
No. I have said that there are any number of reasons why a galactic civilization hasn't contacted us yet. I have listed many possible reasons, and noted that there are so many more possible reasons.
Possibly, but it's also possible that they will only send signals to Earthlike planets within a hundred light years. And even then, so what? If those Earthlike planets are anything like our own, then we may be just beaming signals at a dead planet, or the alien equivalent of dinosaurs, or prehistoric humanity. It's still an expensive prospect, and the chances of the beam hitting a civilization capable of actually listening are still dubious.

So if those "interested groups" are waiting for us to detect Earthlike planets first, who's to say the won't wait even longer to see if any of those Earthlike planets have characteristics that indicate signs of life? Or signs of intelligence? Or signs of technology?

Anyway, we don't know how common Earthlike planets are yet, and the nearest ones may be thousands of light years away. Would we still be sending signals at them, at that distance?

For two reasons. The Oogs have been around a lot longer, and they would be a lot closer.

If this advancing civilization had arisen during any of the last 13 billion years except for the last hundred years, then they could contact the Oogs but not us.

But even if we're talking about an advancing civilization that had arisen in the last hundred years, or has yet to arise, then it will most likely be closer to an Oog planet than our own. The civilization's home system may fifty thousand light years away from us. Depending on how spread out Oog systems are, they may be only a hundred light years away from the nearest Oog system.
First contact would most likely be via radio waves, rather than physical contact. (Assuming what we know of physics is accurate enough--there may be unknown physics which provide a superior method of communications.)
They don't colonize other systems, but that doesn't mean they completely ignore them. We don't completely ignore planetary bodies which are entirely uninhabitable.

your solution requires more and more conditions. Doesnt that say something to you? you are extrapolating cultural characteristics and motivations of alein species and technologies that we dont even know can exist in order to support your claims. Occams razor cuts it to shreds.

No, it doesn't. The limitations on radio communications are physics limits. They aren't conditions they're just the way the universe works (as far as we know).

The details I'm giving aren't necessary conditions, they're just one of so many possibilities. There are so many different reasons why a galactic civilization wouldn't colonize our star system. There are so many different reasons why a galactic civilization would not have contacted us.
I am merely giving an example which assumes the alien civilization is basically similar to our own. It may not be the ONLY possibility, but it is at least a possibility which has a basis in reality.

I'm saying that even if we assume the alien civilization has no oppressive central government--even if we assume the alien civilization is as disorganized as our own--then that's still perfectly consistent with what we've experienced so far.
Occam's razor cuts away at your arbitrary and artificial conditions. You arbitrarily carve up humanity into subfactions, whereas Occams razor would suggest simply treating humanity as a whole and seeing if that works before adding unnecessary complexifications.

You're the one insisting that a central government is a requirement. Occams razor challenges that requirement--why is it necessary? It's not necessary in the only real life concrete example we have to go on.

Issac,

you insist repeatedly that IF Interstellar Travel is possible and there are civilizations out there, then the most logical answer to Fermi's paradox is that ONE civilization is controlling all of the other ones and preventing them, either through military control or corporate acquisitons, from making their presence known and hiding all their tracks. You didnt say this was one of many possibilities, you insist that its the most plausible one. Which, in my opinion, is at best, fantasy. It requires too many assumptions and conditions that arent based on anything concrete.

I am saying one civilization controlling all others is unlikely using the only example we have: Different cultures on Earth. I have made the case that Earth isn't a united culture at all, despite all of our human similarities; we can't unite ourselves on economics, religion, culture or anything. If some of us could leave and have our own planet to get away from the others, I have no doubt we would. And we are all the same species! Therefore, The idea that a single civilization could therefore unite all galactic civilizations under them, and control them despite the huge distances and resources needed, would seem highly unlikley given the problems we see on much smaller scales.

you cannot argue that we as a world are culturally united. This is not artificial or arbitrary. We are in the middle of many wars. as was pointed out, we have had two world wars in the past century. We are still trying to kill each other over cultural and religious differences. Ignoring this doenst make it go away. SImplifying it doesnt make it go away.

The reason I am making this point is that since we arent unified, it would be impossible for say the US to decide it was going to control all other coutries completely so they couldnt communicate witrh each other, or send anything into space. No one country has successfully unified or controlled the world. And again, we dont have to contend with different species, light year travel and communication delays or anything. We cant do it. SO how is ONE civilization going to do the same thing for an entire galaxy? YOU are the one saying that's the most plausible explanation. I am not the one who says its necessary. Yet when pinned down, you change the circumstances.

ANd occams razor wouldnt slice up a galactic federation as the most logical reason we havent heard form ET if Interstellar travel was possible? Are you serious?

Of course, since we are all human living on the same world, there are many similarities between human cultures. But, Please tell me how arbitrary the differences between eastern and western cultures are? How different is Iran and Syrias Worldview to your own? I am not making up artifical subfactions, they are a FACT, We are not united as a world, no matter how you look at it. I can treat a rabid dog as a cute bunny. I am still going to get ripped to shreds when I pet it.

You are completely missing my point. I am absolutely not saying a Central government is required for anything. I am saying that the fact we on Earth aren't united despite us being on the same world and of the same species would make the task of uniting an entire galaxy of different species impossible, especially across light years. Please read my posts more carefully. You dont even seem to know what point I am making with this.

I honestly am starting to believe that Isaac is being purposefully disingenuous in this debate. He certainly isn't using the term "Occam's Razor" in the way it was intended, and is distorting its meaning to affect his argument.

I think I'm out.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

LOL. Yes, I know. If I had anything better to do, I wouldnt waste my time.

No, I have said that one civilization is dominating the galaxy. You are the one who insists it must mean centralized control in order to work.
See? You are the one insisting on the model of centralized control. I'm noting that while centralized control might be one model, it certainly isn't necessary to explain why the galactic civilization hasn't contacted us.
Not very different. They are still modern humans living with modern human technology with modern human behavior and modern human values. They are limited by the same technological and economic realities that I'm limited by. Compared to any nonhumans we know of, we're like peas in a pod.
So? We humans can be violent to each other, regardless of nationality, religion, or ethnicity. There are "good guys" and "bad guys" within any group of humans; it's in our nature.

Hello? YOU are the one who said (if there is IST) there is a master civiliation which is dominating all other civilizations to the point that it prohibits them from contacting anyo one else. In order for such a civilization to manage a galactic empire , would it not have to have centralized control?????? If there is no control,. how then can your galactic empire stop all others from making contact?

Here is one quote below from you detailing how your master civilization would suppress other civilizations. Yet you argue they dont actually have to be in central control to dominate them? what?

edit: almost every one of those points implies central control.

Do I need to go back to your many posts and remind you of your position and previous arguments? Please explain to me how its possible for a civilization to completely control a hundred others and stop them from making contact with us, all without central control? I am all ears. If there is no central control, then your argument decomposes into all civilizations are purposefully not talking to us. WHich is slightly more fantastic that your first proposal.

NO. YOU specifically said that the most logical explanation was a galactic empire that dominates all others. Domination specifically implies control. without it, the other civilizations would leave evidence or announce their presence. wrong again.

Nope. The human Values in the US are in sharp contrast to those in the Middle East which do not allow rights to women and allow for killing people who do not beleive in Allah. This would seem to be a BIG difference in values. This is one of many examples. Note I am not talking politics here, i am making about about human cultural differences.

Aborigines and other tribes in various places live at stone age level technology. Many people in Africa dont even have clean water to drink. SOme people in China and Africa also live in sub poverty and have no access to computers, modern medicine or schools. your argument seems only to take into consideration first world countries.

I know this is conjecture, but would it not make sense to put caps on a VN's ability to replicate so as to not cause grey goo-like scenarios?
Perhaps because converting entire planets into probes is wasteful and overkill? Surely entire planet conversion isn't necessary to canvas a galaxy's solar systems with probes.
Perhaps, but perhaps it's simply dictated by our current ability to detect probes and by the logistics of the number of probes actually needed (and therefore the level of resources needed for consumption).

I gave a range of examples of how a dominant civilization could explain the lack of other civilizations making contact with us. This included examples of resource depletion, extermination, control, and simple shared culture.
I gave a range of possibilities already.
I first give a list of 4 possibilities. #3 is the only one implies central control (the one where the dominant civilization makes specific demands of the lesser civilizations). Going down the other possibilities on the list:

#1 - resource depletion. There's no need for centralized control to deplete resources. Even rats and locusts can deplete resources without any centralized control. We humans could certainly chop down forests and suck the planet's petrolium supply dry without centralized control.

#2 - Genocidal aliens. There's no need for centralized control here either. The aliens may simply not accept coexistence with other technological species. We modern humans may have driven Neanderthals to extinction because it's in our nature to exterminate competing species. If so, then this happened without centralized control.

#3 - Imposed demands. This possibility makes most sense when the dominant galactic civilization has centralized control.

#4 - Cultural dominance. There's no need for centralized control, just the cumulative effects of individuals and groups exchanging information.

Then I give a range of how oppressive a galactic civilization may be, starting with the most oppressive and ending with the least oppressive. My point being that even the LEAST oppressive example works fine.
I gave a list of possibilities already. See #1, #2, and #4 above.
This is a terribly simplistic view of the Middle East, and also of the US. Women's rights may be a little better here in the USA than Iran, but only by a minor degree.

If you had used the example of Taliban era Afghanistan, you would be more on the mark. But it's too easy to just paint the Taliban is bad "others"--here in the USA there are plenty of Christian fundamentalists who would love to impose the same restrictions on women's rights here in the USA if they ever got the chance.

Bias against women isn't just something that exists in "others". It's everywhere across the globe. In every culture in every nook and cranny of human existence it exists to some degree or another.

And the willingness to kill others over particular differences in belief? That's even more universal. I'd kill for my own particular ideals of freedom and democracy. Many people I'm not ashamed to call my friends and neighbors would kill for God and country. (I am an atheist, but at a quintessentially human level my basic capacity to kill for my ideals is the same.)
It's not my fault that the countries with wealth, power, and technology are dominant.

Or it might make sense for VN's to have limited abilities to exploit resources because it's easier to program them that way. Maybe they do cause "grey goo-like" scenarios, but only for the particular class of planetary bodies that they're programmed to exploit.
Right. And even if entire planets were converted, how many planets would be needed? It may be more efficient to convert one large moon in a particular system into a whole bunch of probes which are then sent to millions of star systems, than it is to convert a whole bunch of small asteroids into probes. In the former case, you only need one big efficient factory, and your launcher only needs to send the small finished probes to other star systems. In the latter, you need to send a whole bunch of little factories to other star systems.
Right. Could we detect Voyager 2 if we didn't know EXACTLY where to look?

We haven't even tagged all of the potentially dangerous NEO asteroids out there. Should we be surprised if there's an alien probe in the solar system that we haven't detected yet? Even if we had detected it, would we recognize it as such? There could easily be an already cataloged NEO or Kuiper belt object which happens to be an alien probe. We've already misidentified artificial space objects as NEOs.

Isaac: Now I know you are changing your argument. You are leaving out the bits that dont support your latest spin. I asked

My very question is in the context that ONE Civilization is in DIRECT Control of many others. If they want the ability to suppress all these other ones from communicating, then there has to be a coordinated effort through a central command. That specifically implies Central Control. That was your position.

Without Central Control, your theory falls apart, because now it would require various isolated groups all working toward the same goals without any sort of central philisophy or directive. and that is very implausible. It has been shown that isolated groups coming from one society will evolve differently and become something new. You are assuming that they will all continue as they were, even in isolation. Yet here on Earth, the American Colonies didnt do that. Neither did the Spanish, the French, or the Australians.

Any way, Your response to that question about how one civilization could supprss all others from communicating was:

which again, directly implies these are conscious methods one civilization would use as a way to keep others in control so they wouldnt or couldnt communicate thier existance. "Every Step of the way" - this means that they are constantly monitoring these civilizations to make sure they are in control. That is central control.

NOW you are calling them possibilities and denying its central control because its convenient, because it supports your latest spin.

Genocide: The stronger race kills all competition: Your assumption implies that the stronger civilization would have to be a million years ahead of all other civilizations (so there is time to wipe out any up and coming civilizations), and be able to effectively identify ALL civilizations that could possibly evolve to spacefaring civilzations, and kill them. They'd have to have the resources to effectively wipe out entire races, all over the galaxy. Then they'd have to constantly patrol every star system in the GHZ to make sure they hadnt missed anyone. They'd have to be very efficient and cover an aread about a hundred thousand light years across. and they'd have to communicate with each other to organize which star system had been checked, or not, or they'd never complete the job. That sure sounds like central control to me.

Cultural Dominance: Sorry, this is beyond me. We have a galactic culture that dominates every other culture, and communicates to all of its outposts, but doenst have centralized control? thorugh what pressure? Flambouyance? Charisma? Chutzpah? NOPE. Hogwash. Either they are taking them over militarily or like Rome, giving them a chance to be absorbed, or form colonies that drift away because of the long distances. Isolated cultures evolve, and that evolution doesnt insure that they have the same motives or pressures to forward the same behavior, IE suppressing contact. To prevent this, you need regular contact from a central governing body to make sure they are all towing the line. This is a very weak item. Try again.


Resource Depletion: In the context of a master civilization, which is exactly the context in which you used it, you are implying that a civilization is using all of the other civilizations resources so they cant evolve or communicate. And they'd have to get to every civilization that had the capability to go to space. And not miss one. And have some need to deplete these resources, some giant project or reason to do this. And some way to coordinate what the various outposts were doing. This requires central control. Otherwise, you have isolated cultures that will evolve on their own and have different ideas about contact. Nope.

If a Galactic CIv was using one or all of these, they ALL imply central control, by your own context in the original post. They all imply a drive to make sure other civilizations dont communicate with others civilizations. This implies a central directive which is followed by all outposts of the master civilization. This required central control, or it requires a thousand colonies, all acting in isolation, not evolving, yet keeping the exact same ideals and motivations as thier ancient ancestors did. That is very implausible as we have seen here on Earth.

I'm Sorry, you havent made any case that these other items dont involve central control.

And I am saying Central Control on a galactic scale is implausible because of the time, distance and resources, lack of motivations, and many other reasons; so your easy resolution to FP that a dominant civilization is very implausible, certainly not the easy answer, certainly not the most likely.

I understand the point you're trying to make,
but your example of European conquerors in the Americas rather supports Isaac's argument of cultural assimilation by the dominant civilization.

Those European colonies in the Americas went independent, all right, but that didn't make them any less European in their origin.

All native cultures that had previously dominated the Americas, became either extinct or were absorbed
(and note that some of the native cultures had been pretty advanced empire builders of their own)

Interesting point.

Put this way, it might be a bit like the present-day choice between:
- a) building another skyscraper in Manhattan (or London, Dubai, Shanghai, etc.)
- b) colonizing Antarctica

While the latter is technically feasible, it's just not profitable enough.