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On January 06 2012 12:57 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 12:08 turdburgler wrote:On January 06 2012 09:26 Ender985 wrote:
Interesting read.
If a kill-first-ask-later policy would be the best course of action for any individual/society/alien species, life on Earth would already have become extinct, after a ferocius fight between the first few self-replicating RNAs that came to be. Since the social behavior is clearly a better alternative for survival in general, I think we can pretty much expect the same outcome in a galactic scale.
The only relevant difference between Earth and the Universe is the information speed limit, which for the Universe distances is admittedly quite low. I can see two possible scenarios regarding this: either there is a way to circunvent it, or there isn't.
If there is a way to supraluminic communication, then the Universe case becomes the same as the Earth case, and we'll live in a mix of collaboration and agression between species, as we do now between ourselves,. But not on a death-on-first-contact Universe.
If there is no way around the speed of light, then any space-faring race will inherently become fragmented and anarchic, spreading out to distant planets or systems that will inevitably become fully independent, since there will be no phisical way to control all society from any central government. Which would lead to a completely RKV-proof habitat, making the death-on-first-contact way simply not plausible.
Either way, I think we should worry much more about our own politicians than any lightspeed asteroids being sent our way. kill all is the best (at the most basic level) strat in a feral world. you protect your babies and kill everything else, look at any animal. the only time you dont fight is when you judge them to be stronger than you or that the fight will make you too weak for further fights, again look at any animal, its all about presenting strength. tribal systems built up around extended families which were still worth defending and civ's grew up around that. even today power blocks exist between similar peoples and you care more about the survival of your son than a random kid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_(game) required reading for anyone who doesnt know what game theory is The difference in the OPs scenario (everyone can insta-gib other civilizations) is that communication is slow. You dont have the information to judge if someone is stronger etc, and everyone are equally strong anyways, in the sense that they can one-shot you whenever they like. I think his scenario can be compared to a huge black area with a lot of ppl, everyone armed with instant-kill guns. You will not survive long if you try to engage in discussion with people you bump into, rather than shot first. So the scenario is different than "real world" were there are stronger individuals that can defend or retaliate to an attack from a weaker individual. to OP: The idea is a funny thought experiment, and I agree that if interstellar war works the way you describe (essentially insta-gib on first contact), evolution will favour kill-first behaviour. why 50% of light speed though? If the civilization is very advanced, I think it is safe to assume that they can shoot at 100% light speed.  Just take a big asteroid or a chunk of a big planet or whatever, transform 1% into a laser beam and you will hit before the target can see anything. You assume that there is no way for another civilization to defend themselves from this kind of attacks, on the basis that they wont see it coming. This is not true. The problem the killer has is that the information they have about their target is old (depending on distance, but from a few years for neighbouring stars to billions of years on the other side of the universe), and they wont hit until later in the future. ( in the rest-frame of the killer for example). You can calculate the orbit of the planet if you are good at gravity calculations, sure. But a planet can regularly manually change it's orbit randomly, for example by shooting out some ray in some direction, giving recoil. If the killer just calculates the orbit assuming the planet stays as it is, it will miss. This would completely change the picture of accurate instant kill snipes, into a picture of wild shooting and crossed fingers. What a killer CAN do however, is to shoot a killing device, that takes up information about the target as it moves, and uses this information to adjust trajectory. This would return the picture the one originally described in the OP. BUT: then the first civilization can do the same. This first message doesn't have to be just a "hi". It can be a killing device programmed to identify other civilizations, and kill them if they find them a threat. Then the original guys will get a report (a million years later) that the probe found this civilization and didn't trust it, so it killed it. In this way, the optimal strategy seems to be to send out a lot of almost-speed-of light probes in all direction, programmed to identify and kill threats, or if they find an empty system, to stop there, multiply, and send out 1000 new identical probes at almost speed of light. Maybe set up a warning beacon to warn the "home planet", if there even is such a planet, in case it sees a threat. Then the picture would be that of civilizations expanding like spheres in space at close to speed of light, killing (absorbing, multiplying, consuming, whatever) everything it passes. I can see the queen of blades doing this. The winning civilizations would be the one that expands the fastest, and that can beat other probes when they encounter them. If there is such a thing as a home-planet, they will sit in the centre and get more and more delayed reports from the front as it moves out. until one day you will get a message from a beacon 25 000 light years away: "unidentified probe spotted. moving at 0.9999c. Activate defensive measures." then 3 seconds later "ERROR: DEFENCE BREACHED" then silence. Then you know that you have 2.5 more years to live, and that's the end of that civilization. This assumes that there will be no faster-than-light BS, or workarounds like wormholes etc, but that advanced civilizations will get very close to the limit of light speed in terms of warfare. Then what would the winning strategy be? What if a drone from a successful civilization came to earth? How will the drone do to best make sure that we don't kill them, and to as soon as possible send out new drones, and maximise defence from other incoming drones? Answer is: I have no idea. But I doubt that we will enjoy it.
This is actually really cool. I'm adding it to the OP
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The point of this thread is not only to think about whether this particular scenario is likely or not. It's also to think about what form a first contact would likely take. After all, this is a starcraft website, and Starcraft, at least nominally, is based on a first contact scenario...
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I actually read something similar to this in a college astronomy textbook, basically it said that extraterrestrials are concealing their presence to Earthlings until we develop psychic and ecological awareness, at which point they will ask us to join the Intergalactic Space Federation, composed of one hundred other alien civilizations located in galaxies neighboring the Milky Way.
Something like that.
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On January 06 2012 13:46 sviatoslavrichter wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 12:57 Cascade wrote:On January 06 2012 12:08 turdburgler wrote:On January 06 2012 09:26 Ender985 wrote:
Interesting read.
If a kill-first-ask-later policy would be the best course of action for any individual/society/alien species, life on Earth would already have become extinct, after a ferocius fight between the first few self-replicating RNAs that came to be. Since the social behavior is clearly a better alternative for survival in general, I think we can pretty much expect the same outcome in a galactic scale.
The only relevant difference between Earth and the Universe is the information speed limit, which for the Universe distances is admittedly quite low. I can see two possible scenarios regarding this: either there is a way to circunvent it, or there isn't.
If there is a way to supraluminic communication, then the Universe case becomes the same as the Earth case, and we'll live in a mix of collaboration and agression between species, as we do now between ourselves,. But not on a death-on-first-contact Universe.
If there is no way around the speed of light, then any space-faring race will inherently become fragmented and anarchic, spreading out to distant planets or systems that will inevitably become fully independent, since there will be no phisical way to control all society from any central government. Which would lead to a completely RKV-proof habitat, making the death-on-first-contact way simply not plausible.
Either way, I think we should worry much more about our own politicians than any lightspeed asteroids being sent our way. kill all is the best (at the most basic level) strat in a feral world. you protect your babies and kill everything else, look at any animal. the only time you dont fight is when you judge them to be stronger than you or that the fight will make you too weak for further fights, again look at any animal, its all about presenting strength. tribal systems built up around extended families which were still worth defending and civ's grew up around that. even today power blocks exist between similar peoples and you care more about the survival of your son than a random kid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_(game) required reading for anyone who doesnt know what game theory is The difference in the OPs scenario (everyone can insta-gib other civilizations) is that communication is slow. You dont have the information to judge if someone is stronger etc, and everyone are equally strong anyways, in the sense that they can one-shot you whenever they like. I think his scenario can be compared to a huge black area with a lot of ppl, everyone armed with instant-kill guns. You will not survive long if you try to engage in discussion with people you bump into, rather than shot first. So the scenario is different than "real world" were there are stronger individuals that can defend or retaliate to an attack from a weaker individual. to OP: The idea is a funny thought experiment, and I agree that if interstellar war works the way you describe (essentially insta-gib on first contact), evolution will favour kill-first behaviour. why 50% of light speed though? If the civilization is very advanced, I think it is safe to assume that they can shoot at 100% light speed. Just take a big asteroid or a chunk of a big planet or whatever, transform 1% into a laser beam and you will hit before the target can see anything. You assume that there is no way for another civilization to defend themselves from this kind of attacks, on the basis that they wont see it coming. This is not true. The problem the killer has is that the information they have about their target is old (depending on distance, but from a few years for neighbouring stars to billions of years on the other side of the universe), and they wont hit until later in the future. ( in the rest-frame of the killer for example). You can calculate the orbit of the planet if you are good at gravity calculations, sure. But a planet can regularly manually change it's orbit randomly, for example by shooting out some ray in some direction, giving recoil. If the killer just calculates the orbit assuming the planet stays as it is, it will miss. This would completely change the picture of accurate instant kill snipes, into a picture of wild shooting and crossed fingers. What a killer CAN do however, is to shoot a killing device, that takes up information about the target as it moves, and uses this information to adjust trajectory. This would return the picture the one originally described in the OP. BUT: then the first civilization can do the same. This first message doesn't have to be just a "hi". It can be a killing device programmed to identify other civilizations, and kill them if they find them a threat. Then the original guys will get a report (a million years later) that the probe found this civilization and didn't trust it, so it killed it. In this way, the optimal strategy seems to be to send out a lot of almost-speed-of light probes in all direction, programmed to identify and kill threats, or if they find an empty system, to stop there, multiply, and send out 1000 new identical probes at almost speed of light. Maybe set up a warning beacon to warn the "home planet", if there even is such a planet, in case it sees a threat. Then the picture would be that of civilizations expanding like spheres in space at close to speed of light, killing (absorbing, multiplying, consuming, whatever) everything it passes. I can see the queen of blades doing this. The winning civilizations would be the one that expands the fastest, and that can beat other probes when they encounter them. If there is such a thing as a home-planet, they will sit in the centre and get more and more delayed reports from the front as it moves out. until one day you will get a message from a beacon 25 000 light years away: "unidentified probe spotted. moving at 0.9999c. Activate defensive measures." then 3 seconds later "ERROR: DEFENCE BREACHED" then silence. Then you know that you have 2.5 more years to live, and that's the end of that civilization. This assumes that there will be no faster-than-light BS, or workarounds like wormholes etc, but that advanced civilizations will get very close to the limit of light speed in terms of warfare. Then what would the winning strategy be? What if a drone from a successful civilization came to earth? How will the drone do to best make sure that we don't kill them, and to as soon as possible send out new drones, and maximise defence from other incoming drones? Answer is: I have no idea. But I doubt that we will enjoy it. This is actually really cool. I'm adding it to the OP
thanks!
If you copy my code (take quote, copy the text there, then cancel the quote) you will keep the formatting (the bold fonts).
edit: Not sure how familiar you are with special relativity, but note that if you just shoot, you can go at 100% light speed. If you want the projectile to actually think along the way, you have to slow down, as time stops completely at light speed. If you ride a beam of light, you arrive the same instant you leave, even if you go to the other side of the universe. The universe will have aged though.
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Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
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On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote:
Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
edit: oh, now i understand what you refer to. you mean that the statement "first contact will most likely be a RKV" depends on the distributions of strategies among the civilizations. That is ofc true. sorry. 
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On January 06 2012 14:12 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote:
Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
You do realize the dangers of classifying an entire universe into two types. It's very possible a "hippie" civilization may be peaceful but may possess technology far more advanced than a "shoot-first". It could simply intercept the MKV and then imprison or destroy the attacker. History has shown pacifists can dominate even the most powerful aggressor not usually immediately, but with time. To say a shoot-first civilization would go unhindered seems unlikely.
A third type for example; passive-aggressive types of civilizations with extreme technology. They could act the hippie, play the hippie and hide any imperialist ambitions and appear to be harmless and ripe for subjugation to entrap aliens too eager or gun-ho and in turn enslave the aggressor for their own profit.
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On January 06 2012 14:12 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote:
Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
of course, this is assuming that the hippies do not believe in defending themselves and do not communicate with one another in the slightest, a problem the OP overlooks entirely. A shoot-first civilization might encounter another civilization and attempt to destroy it. But in what is a more likely scenario (there are several hippie civilizations who can and will defend themselves and are allied with each other), after this occurrence the hippie civilizations will immediately begin searching out this hostile civilization and eliminate it. I mean, if you are a super advanced civilization, allied with other super advanced civilization, and you know that somewhere in a certain vicinity of the galaxy is a super advanced civilization who wants to screw with you, you go find them and blow their faces off.
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You know, Aliens don't have to be super advanced.. An Avatar like situation could happen too. :o
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Where is the game theory?
Essentially, all the alien nonsense unnecessarily complicates (or perhaps, makes more interesting for some) what you're trying to say. Substitute plants or civilizations for states, the anarchy of intergalactic space for the international system, RKVs for nuclear weapons, RKV-armed colonies with second-strike capabilities like submarines, proxy missile sites, and nuclear-armed allies, and you can find fairly good answers in international relations and military strategy literature.
Structural realism, as posited by Kenneth Waltz, is a international relations theory that posits that the international system exists under conditions of anarchy with no central authority that can to impose order. Anarchy in the system is the ultimate cause war. States are the primary actor in the system and act rationally and in their self-interest. In the self-help world, states seek security for survival. Waltz identifies the structure of the system as the arrangement of states based on their relative capabilities. Great powers are distinguished from others by their economic strength, military prowess, political stability, of territory, population, etc. The number of great powers in the system sets the polarity of the system. For structural realists, a multipolar world produces instability due to the number of great powers in the system. Wars in these conditions are often the result of uncertainty and miscalculation - not simple acts of aggression. Structural realism predicts that there are too many great powers in a multipolar system to achieve stability because they have difficulty distinguishing between their allies and enemies. The security dilemma, originally posited by Robert Jervis, suggests that states seek security because of the anarchic nature of the international system in which no central authority exists to impose order. States therefore build up their military capability as the only way to ensure their survival.
actually, im too tired to continue this thought.
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@forgotten @kaboom I agree, in reality it is not necessary that the hippies (or non-shoot-first or other flavours) always die. I was just talking about what would happen in the model the OP introduced, where the shoot-first civilization always wins. I started with "according to OPS approach", but I guess I didn't make it clear exactly what I referred to. I think it is very hard for us to say anything reliably about how interstellar warfare (or any interaction) between alien civilizations is like, but it is fun to speculate I think.
Feel free to start from different assumptions (allowing non-shoot-first civilisations to survive encounters with shoot-first) and see if you can reach some conclusion about what earth's first contact will look like! It'd be fun and probably a nicer prospect.
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On January 06 2012 14:29 KaBoom300 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 14:12 Cascade wrote:On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote:
Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first. of course, this is assuming that the hippies do not believe in defending themselves and do not communicate with one another in the slightest, a problem the OP overlooks entirely. A shoot-first civilization might encounter another civilization and attempt to destroy it. But in what is a more likely scenario (there are several hippie civilizations who can and will defend themselves and are allied with each other), after this occurrence the hippie civilizations will immediately begin searching out this hostile civilization and eliminate it. I mean, if you are a super advanced civilization, allied with other super advanced civilization, and you know that somewhere in a certain vicinity of the galaxy is a super advanced civilization who wants to screw with you, you go find them and blow their faces off.
Tell me, how do you coordinate when each message you send between each other takes thousands of light years?
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On January 06 2012 14:12 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote:
Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first. edit: oh, now i understand what you refer to. you mean that the statement "first contact will most likely be a RKV" depends on the distributions of strategies among the civilizations. That is ofc true. sorry.
Actually, I think your first point was close to what I was arguing.... I think the OPs approach is wrong in that he/she assumes the proportions don't matter.
Using your example, if there are 1M hippy Civs and only one shoot first Civ, it is more likely that a hippy Civ will make first contact with another hippy Civ. And what do hippies do when they first meet? They hook up! As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves.
Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
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what the fuck is game theory anyways
got it, where's the math OP?
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On January 06 2012 14:44 Mercy13 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 14:12 Cascade wrote:On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote:
Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first. edit: oh, now i understand what you refer to. you mean that the statement "first contact will most likely be a RKV" depends on the distributions of strategies among the civilizations. That is ofc true. sorry. Actually, I think your first point was close to what I was arguing.... I think the OPs approach is wrong in that he/she assumes the proportions don't matter. Using your example, if there are 1M hippy Civs and only one shoot first Civ, it is more likely that a hippy Civ will make first contact with another hippy Civ. And what do hippies do when they first meet? They hook up! As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves. Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
How are the hippie civs supposed to talk to one another if each message takes tens of thousands of years to transmit?
EDIT: what if the lifespan of individuals in one civ is 50 years, while the lifespan of the other civ is 5000? Would the longer-lived civ see the short-lived civ as inherently untrustworthy because there is no guarantee that the same people will be around when their reply message gets to the capital planet?
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On January 06 2012 14:41 sviatoslavrichter wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 14:29 KaBoom300 wrote:On January 06 2012 14:12 Cascade wrote:On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote:
Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first. of course, this is assuming that the hippies do not believe in defending themselves and do not communicate with one another in the slightest, a problem the OP overlooks entirely. A shoot-first civilization might encounter another civilization and attempt to destroy it. But in what is a more likely scenario (there are several hippie civilizations who can and will defend themselves and are allied with each other), after this occurrence the hippie civilizations will immediately begin searching out this hostile civilization and eliminate it. I mean, if you are a super advanced civilization, allied with other super advanced civilization, and you know that somewhere in a certain vicinity of the galaxy is a super advanced civilization who wants to screw with you, you go find them and blow their faces off. Tell me, how do you coordinate when each message you send between each other takes thousands of light years?
Alright, let's play this game. How did the civilization firing the RKV even find out about their victims? From some sort of radio transmission that took thousands of years to arrive? And now you are firing an RKV at a planet many light years away, which will take even longer to arrive because the RKV isn't actually travelling the speed of light? Alright that makes sense. There are so many holes in this theory. You talk about how evolution would dictate that civilizations would eliminate each other as they encountered each other, forgetting to apply the argument you just used against me to your own theory. If this civilization encounters another by some sort of transmission, it's guaranteed that by the time you receive that transmission and launch the RKV, and the RKV arrives, that civilization will be incredibly different than it was. If it's a direct encounter (i.e. LOOK AT THAT SPACE SHIP OVER THAR!) Then each civilization is instantly alerted to the other and we now have a stalemate of mutually assured destruction. And remember, all of this is assuming that advanced civilizations have the exact same understanding of RKVs that we do now and don't know how to stop them (LOL)
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On January 06 2012 14:44 Mercy13 wrote:
As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves.
as I understood it, the point was that speed of light limits also communication speed, so by the time you get the "OH, SHIIIII-" message from your hooked up fellow hippie civilization that is 2 hours from being hit by a RKV, you will have one 2 hours from yourself. Which wont give time for teaming up. But all this is assuming a (near) speed-of-light entire-civilization insta-gib weapon commonly available.
So this would be the difference from nuclear war and the OPs model: in nuclear war before you launch (and even after you launch) there is plenty of time for the two sides to talk and make their intentions clear. while with the OPs assumption about almost-light-speed entire-civilization insta-gib, it is enough to say "hi, is anyone out there?" and you will make yourself a target that you can kill without any risk to yourself. In nuclear war, if you fire missiles, the other side sees it and have time to shoot their own, which is a very different scenario.
Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
hehe, I wanted more hardcore game theory in the OP. Like coming up with a large set of strategies, and then theorycraft how they'd do vs each other and do Nash equilibrium of it.
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On January 06 2012 14:50 sviatoslavrichter wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 14:44 Mercy13 wrote:On January 06 2012 14:12 Cascade wrote:On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote:
Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first. edit: oh, now i understand what you refer to. you mean that the statement "first contact will most likely be a RKV" depends on the distributions of strategies among the civilizations. That is ofc true. sorry. Actually, I think your first point was close to what I was arguing.... I think the OPs approach is wrong in that he/she assumes the proportions don't matter. Using your example, if there are 1M hippy Civs and only one shoot first Civ, it is more likely that a hippy Civ will make first contact with another hippy Civ. And what do hippies do when they first meet? They hook up! As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves. Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : ) How are the hippie civs supposed to talk to one another if each message takes tens of thousands of years to transmit?
They are a peculiar species of space plant that lives for 1 million years on average. To them, ten thousand years is naught but the blink of an eye.
This is a frivolous example which demonstrates why it is silly to try to apply logic when you are working with highly imperfect information.
I did find the OP an interesting read. I just think that if you're going to say that it's logical you're going to have to add a lot more assumptions. Like that there's no long-lived space plants that are perfectly happy to wait 10K years to recieve a message. It's illogical to assume that, by looking at something logically when you have virtually NO information, you will come up with anything approaching an accurate result.
Edit: slightly off topic, but I just remembered something the OP might want to discuss. We actually have some evidence of what happened the last time humanity encountered a new species it couldn't communicate with : ) Neandertals anyone? Def. not a reliable proxy for two advanced Civs encountering each other, but still...
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Korea (South)17174 Posts
lol, this thread is awesome
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I remember Steven Hawking saying we shouldn't send out signals.
We only need to look at our only planet and how many dumb politicians there are to realise that sending out signals is probably the worst idea ever. If a country is willing to spend trillions of dollars on propaganda/army mobilisation to capture oil and its citizens are dumb enough to vote for such a person, just imagine what aliens would be willing to do to our planet. Benevolent dictatorships are rare too and we can't expect much from them.
Even if it weren't RKV's, if it were achievable to reach a planet in any form, it would probably be in the form of destruction, in order to do away with peace talks and what not and just inhabit the planet. There's really no point in engaging in talks, what are you going to achieve, instead either you blow up the planet, or you don't communicate with it at all so you don't risk it yourself.
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EPT
