/polpol/ - Politically Incorrect Discussion

The filter is ahead. Any I don't believe it is a single filter as much as it is a bunch of small filters clumped together.

>>12576
I mean, I should have clarified that numerous things in our past constitute filters.

>The Pre-Cambrian extinction's rapid climate change
>The K-T extinction's asteroid impact
>The jump from unicellular to multicellular life
>evolving intelligence in the first place
They're all filters. I'm wondering if it's viable to consider certain social/political trends as potential filters.

>Fix problems here on Earth before turning to the skies!
That right there has great potential to be a filter for our technological civilization.
>Suppressed technologies (for secular, economic, or religious reasons)
>Public fear of nuclear technology
>Overuse/reliance on fossil fuels as the basis of an energy economy to the point of hindering a switch to renewables/nuclear

There's a lot of political/social/economic issues that might constitute our Great Filter. It's all speculation, but I could see a confluence of things limiting mankind in the future:
>Control of wealth and redistribution schemes inhibit innovation and growth of a planetary economy capable of spending on spaceflight/radio astronomy/etc.
>There is a pervasive, almost primitive fear of nuclear technology
>Religious and new age forces exert power to suppress biotechnologies
>Extractable fossil fuels running low and almost no infrastructure has gone towards better solutions

>>12568
The filter is most likely things like the discovery of writing, the taming of fire, the ability to think ahead, an aptitude for tool use, an aptitude for language… etc.

Once you start thinking about the many steps and leaps we humans had to take to become an advanced society, you start to understand why there might not be many in our universe.

I mean, at any time for the last 500 million years we had tens of thousands of species that could have taken the road towards sentience.

Yet as far as we are aware, there might have been very smart dinosaurs, but non of them even showed a hint of civilization.

Now apply that to the universe and I think it's very unlikely their are many advanced species.

Alien sex harem when?

The filter is not destroying yourself when your ability to manipulate life and matter becomes greater than what your world can withstand. Super novae are industrial accidents and all that. Once they get radio they only last for a century or so before some fuckheads somewhere want to see what happens when you shove matter together at 101 % the force of the last try and their planet unravels itself.

>>12568
See the transcension hypothesis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQOyJUDTKdM

Basically, for the most part the universe is boring and cold and abandoning meatspace to live as immortal spirits in virtual reality paradises full of supernormal stimuli all contained with a supercomputing dyson ring is infinitely preferable to sublight space travel and colonizing rocks and making babies like cavemen.

>>12680
I'm not too sure about transcension being a way to go around or advance beyond the great filter. The star that the dyson sphere/ring is constructed around will still die one day. Anyone inside the supercomputer on board the ring would be destroyed when the star dies.
What exactly keeps everyone safe? It still sounds like there must be a physical component for transcendence, even if it's incredibly small.

A possible solution would be to allow the wireless transfer of minds from one construct to another, but once again that would require a presence in the physical world.

>>12576 has the right idea. There probably won't be some kind of sudden mass extinction that hits us out of nowhere. I believe that we are going to become complacent with mediocrity and just never really advance past a certain level of comfort.

>>12586
I can see the political/social/economic issues playing a key role in the great filter. These seem like the perfect ways to stifle ourselves and keep us grounded on Earth. Especially the aspects relating to nuclear energy. We need to stop being afraid of nuclear technology because, as it stands, it's the best alternative to fossil fuels and the only fuel that can sustain us in the coldness of space beyond our solar system.

>>12637
I take the opposite approach. We are completely and entirely alone. The popularity of lovecraft only goes to show that we would rather live in the same neighborhood with mind shattering horrors than face the fact that we are utterly, completely, and helplessly alone.

>>12568
A big assumption about aliens…

I don't think there is any filter.

The great filter is that anyone who reaches the necessary level for communication stays silent.

>The most humbling feature of the relativistic bomb is that even if you happen to see it coming, its exact motion and position can never be determined; and given a technology even a hundred orders of magnitude above our own, you cannot hope to intercept one of these weapons. It often happens, in these discussions, that an expression from the old west arises: “God made some men bigger and stronger than others, but Mr. Colt made all men equal.” Variations on Mr. Colt’s weapon are still popular today, even in a society that possesses hydrogen bombs. Similarly, no matter how advanced civilizations grow, the relativistic bomb is not likely to go away…

>We ask that you try just one more thought experiment. Imagine yourself taking a stroll through Manhattan, somewhere north of 68th street, deep inside Central Park, late at night. It would be nice to meet someone friendly, but you know that the park is dangerous at night. That’s when the monsters come out. There’s always a strong undercurrent of drug dealings, muggings, and occasional homicides.

>It is not easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. They dress alike, and the weapons are concealed. The only difference is intent, and you can’t read minds.

>Stay in the dark long enough and you may hear an occasional distance shriek or blunder across a body.

>How do you survive the night? The last thing you want to do is shout, “I’m here!” The next to last thing you want to do is reply to someone who shouts, “I’m a friend!”

>What you would like to do is find a policeman, or get out of the park. But you don’t want to make noise or move towards a light where you might be spotted, and it is difficult to find either a policeman or your way out without making yourself known. Your safest option is to hunker down and wait for daylight, then safely walk out.

>There are, of course, a few obvious differences between Central Park and the universe.

>There is no policeman.

>There is no way out.

>And the night never ends.

>>12694
I don't know, being alone is also pretty interesting as a prospect.

If we are alone, the imperative to expand and diversify is all the more powerful.

>>12716
Then who was phone?

>>12593

retard

>>12694
Being alone is mathematically improbable.

>>12568
The drake equation is numbers pulled from drakes ass. For every fact there are a dozen assumptions.

Life has only been observed on a water rich planet with a proper ozone layer and atmosphere in the goldilocks zone orbiting a yellow star in the outer arm of our galaxy. Until life is observed in differing circumstances it is foolish to assume it could exist in differing circumstances.

>>12568
The drake equation is numbers pulled from drakes ass. For every fact there are a dozen assumptions.

Life has only been observed on a water rich planet with a proper ozone layer and atmosphere in the goldilocks zone orbiting a yellow star in the outer arm of our galaxy. Until life is observed in differing circumstances it is foolish to assume it could exist in differing circumstances..

>>12800
>>12799
It doesn't invalidate the questions posed, it doesn't invalidate the concept of civilization-ending challenges/hurdles.

What is your obsession with a single component of this? It's merely used to illustrate part of the Fermi Paradox which itself is just a lead-in to the topic of the thread.

>>12716
This seems like a reasonable possibility. It's likely that if we were found by aliens it wouldn't go well for us. At the same time, I don't think that we as a species will keep quiet. We've already announced our presence in the universe, and it looks like we will continue to do so, whether on purpose or by accident. Just like in the park, we would keep quiet, we can also step on a twig and alert those nearby.

>>12753
Only if you base your math on unproven theories.

The problem with science today is that it is mostly story telling and very little facts. It's funny how we mock religion for relying on a belief system to sustain it and then ask the very same thing for unproven theories.

Our focus in the wrong place and our science fails because of it. Instead of advancing the world we are turning into armchair philosophers wasting the time and resources we have. Most "top" scientists today remind me of the preachers they condemn. There are a few doing some very good work, but due to the importance of "celebrity" status they are largely ignored.

>>12637
That's cynical

>>12815
> turning into armchair philosophers
To be fair, most armchair philosophers only postulate things based on common observable phenomenon. They tend to be more grounded in waking experience than modern science which has isolated itself in the world of abstractions and numbers.

>>12812
It's from a book called The Killing Star.

Basically, the premise is that by the time you CAN be detected by an alien civilization, you are a threat. The ability to travel to another star means the ability to build relativistic weapons and thus pose a mortal danger to others.

Logic of aggression and whatnot aside, the book's not really wrong. We can argue motive all we'd like, but capability exists. Thus, destroying any civilization that we can find/see makes a lot of sense as a policy for dealing with any aliens.

>>12597
This. SETI screaming to the heavens that we exist is ABSOLUTELY FUCKING RETARDED. The most likely visitors to our planet would come here to either jack our shit or see what that goddamn signal cluttering up their comms was. And I'd err on the side of the "jack our shit" side of the spectrum, simply because that's how nature performs in an uninhibited environment on Earth.

>>12841
That's nice and I believe the other anon meant that the pop scientists that the common non STEM trained person hears is going to be saying something completely crazy like the lack of scientific consensus on race or how climate change is caused by you turning your lights on in the evening and you should totally pay 10% more of your paycheck to politicians.

>>12687
>>12576
If the filter theory is at all correct, it's probably this. If it's behind us all I can imagine it being is nuclear weapons and even then it's not actually behind us.

>>12864
Very much this. Earth should lurk the fuck moar. If the universe is silent it's very much possible that's because loud things don't last long. Poking things we don't understand is fucking stupid. If I was an alien I'd pop by Earth to see who was sending the signal deliberately and wipe them out (and only them) and broadcast on all radio spectra used by humans to stop polluting space with their inane bullshit because there's fuckers much worse than me out here.

>>12694
To badly quote someone I forgot "Either we're all alone in the universe or we're not, and I don't know which possibility is more frightening."

>>12716
>>12812
>>12857
The one potential counterpoint to this is that we've got an Emperor wears no clothes situation where everyone stays silent because they've reasoned shit out this way by the time they had the chance to send signals into space, which is not at all unlikely. We may be the first ones who send a signal out. If everyone in space is thinking along the lines of "I better not give away my position because then I'm a threat to the others" none of them would send something to kill us. Here's why: they can see us now, which means there's at least one other civilization, which means it's extremely unlikely there are no others. While we would be proper fucked by a relativistic bomb, so would its senders because there would be another civilization left to kill them. Assuming either nobody kept quiet or some kept quiet and let the others duke it out, we'd end up with a "last civ standing." They would probably expect to get wiped out too, but after a while nobody would have sent a bomb. So they'd probably colonize some planets for insurance and keep quiet. Then maybe they pick up communications from a new civ. They heard from this one instead of it just outright destroying them, so it must not be aware of what went on previously or it wouldn't take the risk. How does the "last civ standing" respond? Does it destroy the new voice? Does it ignore them? Does it observe them? Does it contact them, on the basis that they should be primitive in comparison? Does it avoid that part of space like the plague because the noise might attract a relativistic bomb from someone else?

And where do we fit in? Could something like this have already happened? Could we be the first to broadcast? Obviously we've given up the chance to play the part of one of the bystanders or a responder.

Now I'll fill in the major blank I left in the paragraph above. What if everyone else sits and waits? What if everyone else makes the rational conservative choice and doesn't send a bomb? And then what if just one other civilization sends something back? What if we make contact and establish a rapport? What if the other civilizations see that? What if they decide it's not just safe but beneficial to come out?

Surely the most rational action is to sit, wait, and watch. Wouldn't we expect most civilizations to do this? Of course, we don't do this, meaning it's possible to develop technology capable of screaming into space without arriving at this rational conclusion. Meaning if there's anybody out there, it's unlikely that we're the only ones who would be the first to do it independently. Which raises the question again. Why don't we hear anyone else? Are we an outlier in our very existence? Are we an outlier in our irrational broadcast? Are we just the latest stupid snack for a world-eater?

>>12983
>While we would be proper fucked by a relativistic bomb, so would its senders because there would be another civilization left to kill them.
It would make no difference, relativistic bombs are practically impossible to detect.

This is just wishful thinking because you really want Star Trek to be true.

>what if
>what if
>what if
Yeah well what if not? Cuz I bet dozens of civs out there aren't staying quiet for no reason.

>what if there aren't any criminals in central park today, and there's only friendly people waiting for someone to call out??? yolo :DDDDD

>>12985
My admittedly oblique point is unlikely events have to pile up for a situation remotely like Star Trek to arise. See my post here >>12976 for my actual concise opinion.

The Drake equation has actually been demonstrated to significantly OVER-estimate the number of technological civilizations. It makes some VERY optimistic assumptions.

I forget where, but I saw it reworked once, making the most pessimistic of assumptions. The numbers came down to "There will be 1.5 technologically advanced civilizations in the area of the universe that we can observe."

So going by that, we've got a pretty good chance of being the only life. And even if we're not, odds are we'll never run into another life form.

>>13009
This. The Drake equation is based on a bunch of unknown variable and "educated guesses." The optimism about friendly intelligent space-faring aliens is getting a bit out of hand. It is no mistake, I think, that the decline of popularity of religion coincides with the increase in popularity of UFO mythology. The Drake equation is a bit like the people who tried to set a historical timeline based on a literal interpretation of the Old Testament. Even if multiple technologically advanced civilizations existed in the universe, what would be the chances, realistically, that their space-exploration phase would overlap?

>>13013

I think it's part of the human exploration instinct. We grew up as a species on a planet where, if you journeyed to parts unknown, you will eventually meet new people. That's a big part of the excitement. Almost all our literature that has to do with themes of exploration involves fascinating new people, cultures, etc. Our history hasn't prepared us for the final frontier being a mostly lifeless void.

There is a pretty good chance we'll find SOME form of primitive life, like bacteria or something like that, eventually. (When I say 'eventually' I mean in the sense of 'humans will eventually get to the point where they will have robotic or human explorers on many different planets capable of detecting said life.) Hell, there's still the chance we may get lucky and detect signs of life on Mars. But honestly, I'd be shocked if we found something even as complex as a trilobite before the sun collapsed.

If aliens DO come down to earth, just look at the colonization of the Americas, almost all the deaths were due to disease. Even if the aliens are peaceful, space viruses could kill us off

>>13019

I'm no biologist, but wouldn't that actually be a marginal concern, unless the aliens were VERY similar to us?

Whatever virus or bacteria they bring with them will have evolved within their particular planetary environment. The reason disease is a problem on earth when two new populations make contact is that separate diseases have been evolving to attack the same basic organism (humans) and thus both populations are vulnerable to these diseases, and their immune systems are completely unfamiliar with them (because of population separation and such.) But that wouldn't actually be a problem if the two human populations weren't so similar. For example, there are a ton of diseases animals can get that humans aren't in danger of contracting.

So unless the alien biosphere was - by wild coincidence - VERY similar to the human biosphere, we wouldn't actually be in much trouble.

>>13097
>nothing on the alien planet can eat it because their DNA/RNA or proteins are heterochiral to our own life

Digestive acids do not care about a protein's geometry. Extraterrestrial cows will devour the xenobacteria with glee.