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On February 09 2012 07:43 aebriol wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 06:24 mcc wrote:
If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct. Statistically extinct? ... what ... the ? So we are running statistics on imaginary aliens now? Also, no way we could aim a weapon at something that far away. Gravitation would pull it off course, and we can't chart everything in between and their movements relative to each other perfectly, because we can't see them all. People just don't realize how big space is ...
What does it have to do with my post ? Do you have any point related to mine ? They are statistically extinct as in if any such civilization exists it is because it did not meet any of the killer civilizations yet.
The rest of the post has nothing to do with my point as I said "if we assume". The effectivness and existence of the weapons is the premise of the inference. Unless the premises are contradictory there is nothing wrong with my statement from that angle. If we do not assume that is completely different scenario that I did not comment on.
People just don't realize how logic works...
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On February 09 2012 08:35 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 06:39 HardlyNever wrote:On February 09 2012 06:24 mcc wrote:On February 09 2012 05:52 HardlyNever wrote:On February 09 2012 05:22 mcc wrote:On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote:
There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance. Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way. While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way. Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make. You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point. Anything other than that makes no sense. Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed. If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct. Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ? And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning. Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right... You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while. There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is. I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over. That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities. There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you. Condescending much? First, as I said in different post, we on Earth actually do something similar, just not on that scale as there is no need to do that as we do not have weapons capable completely destroying an enemy or without them retaliating. If for example Iran was developing a weapon that was capable destroying US with no warning whatsoever and the only means for US to strike back was to use the same weapon they already possess they would immediately and completely wipe out Iran without thinking twice. Our only luck is that such weapons are (now?) impossibility on intraplanetary scale, as even if we had such destructive power, there is no way it would also not destroy neighbours of the target and most likely also the attacker. Game theory is actually pretty well suited to analyze this situation if done properly. It is exactly where game theory is useful. You require evidence of how other species behave. I do not need that to conclude that if OP's assumptions are correct (big if) that if the other species are rational agents the result is most likely as he describes. The problem is that if the weapon is undeflectable and prevents a second strike any possible alliances are unstable. In your example the best solution, as far as survival goes, for any species in your theoretical alliance is to immediately destroy the other members of the alliance before they do the same to them and colonize their planets if possible to increase the chance of survival. The game might be more comlicated and maybe allow for some kind of alliance, but that is what OP was asking about. If you have some actual objection to his conclusion please show it. Your objection saying that alliances or cooperation might be the more likely outcome is not necessarily wrong, but you need to provide some argument other than your irrelevant one based on hypothetical psychology of the aliens. You need to show how and why. How would they overcome the absolute assymetricity between attack and defense. Why would they choose to join an alliance when their partners might be using it to just gain information about where to strike and there is no way to trust them until a lot of time has passed. You need to show that such a system can be stable. All this can be done using an assumption that they are somewhat rational agents, without knowing their actual psychology. Of course they might be completely irrational, but that is uninteresting scenario. You are trying to base your analysis on some biological and psychological factors. They might be important or not. Problem is there are even more general rules that rational(as in trying to maximize their survival in this scenario) agents will obey. So if those civilizations can be assumed to be close to rational, they will behave a certain way and I need not to know much else. Entire species will not think as I do as I would not destroy anyone even if in such a scenario, problem is states, civilizations, species "think" much more differently than individuals and as our own planet is an evidence, they "think" pretty closely to what is described.
The burden of proof isn't on the people disproving the theory. The burden of proof is on the person putting the theory forth. He gave no proof (which I don't think is possible given the subject matter), but simply stated a line of reasoning that had tons of holes in it, as I and other people in this thread have pointed out. How am I supposed to "prove" that an alliance/federation of mutually beneficial relationships between interstellar species is supposed to be better/worse than destroying all other sentient life? It isn't possible to do either, because there are too many variables involved.
My whole issue with the OP was not that he presented it as possible scenario. He presented it as THE scenario, which just doesn't work. Of course it is a possible scenario, but there are infinite other possible scenarios.
I'm not going to get into the philosophical discussion of some form of universal rationality, which you would have to buy into in order to apply game theory at this sort of level. Assuming all sentient life would behave as "rational agents" as we would define it is an assumption I'm not willing to make. Humans cannot live up to the standard of completely rational agents, I don't know why you would assume other species would.
The only "evidence" that can be produced is what has happened here, because that is all we can study. The closest thing I'm aware of is the Cold War and the concept of mutually assured destruction. However, even this isn't a fair comparison, as both parties can communicate faster than destroy each other.
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On February 09 2012 08:25 strongandbig wrote:
The closer to light speed something is going (and thus the harder it is to detect), is also how hard it is for it to change its direction. The idea of "course corrections" the OP proposes could easily use up the majority of the mass of the object, especially considering each such "course correction" would have to take into account all possible future changes in the predicted behavior of the object.
Additionally, I think the OP is overestimating offensive technology and underestimating defensive technology. Assuming a projectile moving at .5c, there's no reason that a sufficiently advanced civilization couldn't launch an intercepting vehicle at .6c and quickly catch it, since an active interceptor would be much lighter than the OP's proposed passive projectile - all it would have to do is deflect it, rather than actually vaporize it. In fact,
And one other thing - according to chaos theory it is probably *actually impossible* to hit a planet on the other side of the galaxy with a dumb projectile. Quantum-scale changes in initial conditions, in a system that complex, can lead to macroscopic changes in outcomes. In other words - by the uncertainty principle, it would be impossible to ever know the location of everything between you and the target with enough accuracy to shoot something and hit it. And once you go and make your projectile intelligent, it can be detected and destroyed or tricked.
Also - a sufficiently advanced civilization could easily detect incoming projectiles - either by gravitational lensing, or by active sensing, or even just by detection of the projectile's blackbody radiation. (Unless the projectile is an actual black hole, there will always be a certain amount of blackbody radiation.) In fact, this defensive civilization would likely detect the projectile with the exact same mechanisms they set up to detect comets and asteroids, and interstellar refuse, which is on a collision course with their planet.
Once a civilization has detected and stopped your attack, you're *completely* fucked. If life is non-unique, then the only reasonable assumption is that there will always be a bigger fish out there.
You are right .5c could be deflected by a civilization of similar technological level. Harder to do with .9999c projectiles as you cannot detect them ahead of time too well. As for how probable this whole scenario is, (nearly?) impossible to determine, so no reason to actually ponder the probability of those weapons existing. Thinking about outcomes if we assume that they can exist is more fun.
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On February 09 2012 08:35 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 06:39 HardlyNever wrote:On February 09 2012 06:24 mcc wrote:On February 09 2012 05:52 HardlyNever wrote:On February 09 2012 05:22 mcc wrote:On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote:
There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance. Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way. While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way. Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make. You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point. Anything other than that makes no sense. Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed. If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct. Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ? And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning. Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right... You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while. There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is. I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over. That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities. There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you. Condescending much? First, as I said in different post, we on Earth actually do something similar, just not on that scale as there is no need to do that as we do not have weapons capable completely destroying an enemy or without them retaliating. If for example Iran was developing a weapon that was capable destroying US with no warning whatsoever and the only means for US to strike back was to use the same weapon they already possess they would immediately and completely wipe out Iran without thinking twice. Our only luck is that such weapons are (now?) impossibility on intraplanetary scale, as even if we had such destructive power, there is no way it would also not destroy neighbours of the target and most likely also the attacker. Game theory is actually pretty well suited to analyze this situation if done properly. It is exactly where game theory is useful. You require evidence of how other species behave. I do not need that to conclude that if OP's assumptions are correct (big if) that if the other species are rational agents the result is most likely as he describes. The problem is that if the weapon is undeflectable and prevents a second strike any possible alliances are unstable. In your example the best solution, as far as survival goes, for any species in your theoretical alliance is to immediately destroy the other members of the alliance before they do the same to them and colonize their planets if possible to increase the chance of survival. The game might be more comlicated and maybe allow for some kind of alliance, but that is what OP was asking about. If you have some actual objection to his conclusion please show it. Your objection saying that alliances or cooperation might be the more likely outcome is not necessarily wrong, but you need to provide some argument other than your irrelevant one based on hypothetical psychology of the aliens. You need to show how and why. How would they overcome the absolute assymetricity between attack and defense. Why would they choose to join an alliance when their partners might be using it to just gain information about where to strike and there is no way to trust them until a lot of time has passed. You need to show that such a system can be stable. All this can be done using an assumption that they are somewhat rational agents, without knowing their actual psychology. Of course they might be completely irrational, but that is uninteresting scenario. You are trying to base your analysis on some biological and psychological factors. They might be important or not. Problem is there are even more general rules that rational(as in trying to maximize their survival in this scenario) agents will obey. So if those civilizations can be assumed to be close to rational, they will behave a certain way and I need not to know much else. Entire species will not think as I do as I would not destroy anyone even if in such a scenario, problem is states, civilizations, species "think" much more differently than individuals and as our own planet is an evidence, they "think" pretty closely to what is described.
You're coming close to neo-realist theories of statecraft with that statement, and even in the field of international relations, neo-realism is hardly uncontested as a theory. There's different kinds of rationalism (logic of consequences /appropriateness /every-day), and even states don't follow any single one of them on a regular basis. With different rationalities, different outcomes are predicted. Power is meaningless until it is structured in a specific social relationship, as your Iran example shows. An Iranian nuke is somehow a problem, while a NK nuke or, taking it to the extreme, british nuke matter a great deal less. If your assesment held true, the US would have started nuking everyone and anyone that wanted to develop nukes during the period they maintained the only functional nuclear arsenal.
There's been academic work on theoretical circumstances close to what the OP describes (first contact), one famous article by Wendt comes to mind (http://ptx.sagepub.com/content/36/4/607.abstract, if you have acces to academic journals). It's an interesting read if you're into this kind of thing. That said, there's also historical evidence of the complete opposite. Most of what is now Kenya was destroyed on first contact by the portugese. It all depends on how a state ('planet') sees itself and the others.
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On February 09 2012 08:57 HardlyNever wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 08:35 mcc wrote:On February 09 2012 06:39 HardlyNever wrote:On February 09 2012 06:24 mcc wrote:On February 09 2012 05:52 HardlyNever wrote:On February 09 2012 05:22 mcc wrote:On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote:
There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance. Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way. While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way. Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make. You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point. Anything other than that makes no sense. Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed. If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct. Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ? And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning. Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right... You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while. There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is. I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over. That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities. There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you. Condescending much? First, as I said in different post, we on Earth actually do something similar, just not on that scale as there is no need to do that as we do not have weapons capable completely destroying an enemy or without them retaliating. If for example Iran was developing a weapon that was capable destroying US with no warning whatsoever and the only means for US to strike back was to use the same weapon they already possess they would immediately and completely wipe out Iran without thinking twice. Our only luck is that such weapons are (now?) impossibility on intraplanetary scale, as even if we had such destructive power, there is no way it would also not destroy neighbours of the target and most likely also the attacker. Game theory is actually pretty well suited to analyze this situation if done properly. It is exactly where game theory is useful. You require evidence of how other species behave. I do not need that to conclude that if OP's assumptions are correct (big if) that if the other species are rational agents the result is most likely as he describes. The problem is that if the weapon is undeflectable and prevents a second strike any possible alliances are unstable. In your example the best solution, as far as survival goes, for any species in your theoretical alliance is to immediately destroy the other members of the alliance before they do the same to them and colonize their planets if possible to increase the chance of survival. The game might be more comlicated and maybe allow for some kind of alliance, but that is what OP was asking about. If you have some actual objection to his conclusion please show it. Your objection saying that alliances or cooperation might be the more likely outcome is not necessarily wrong, but you need to provide some argument other than your irrelevant one based on hypothetical psychology of the aliens. You need to show how and why. How would they overcome the absolute assymetricity between attack and defense. Why would they choose to join an alliance when their partners might be using it to just gain information about where to strike and there is no way to trust them until a lot of time has passed. You need to show that such a system can be stable. All this can be done using an assumption that they are somewhat rational agents, without knowing their actual psychology. Of course they might be completely irrational, but that is uninteresting scenario. You are trying to base your analysis on some biological and psychological factors. They might be important or not. Problem is there are even more general rules that rational(as in trying to maximize their survival in this scenario) agents will obey. So if those civilizations can be assumed to be close to rational, they will behave a certain way and I need not to know much else. Entire species will not think as I do as I would not destroy anyone even if in such a scenario, problem is states, civilizations, species "think" much more differently than individuals and as our own planet is an evidence, they "think" pretty closely to what is described. The burden of proof isn't on the people disproving the theory. The burden of proof is on the person putting the theory forth. He gave no proof (which I don't think is possible given the subject matter), but simply stated a line of reasoning that had tons of holes in it, as I and other people in this thread have pointed out. How am I supposed to "prove" that an alliance/federation of mutually beneficial relationships between interstellar species is supposed to be better/worse than destroying all other sentient life? It isn't possible to do either, because there are too many variables involved. My whole issue with the OP was not that he presented it as possible scenario. He presented it as THE scenario, which just doesn't work. Of course it is a possible scenario, but there are infinite other possible scenarios. I'm not going to get into the philosophical discussion of some form of universal rationality, which you would have to buy into in order to apply game theory at this sort of level. Assuming all sentient life would behave as "rational agents" as we would define it is an assumption I'm not willing to make. Humans cannot live up to the standard of completely rational agents, I don't know why you would assume other species would. The only "evidence" that can be produced is what has happened here, because that is all we can study. The closest thing I'm aware of is the Cold War and the concept of mutually assured destruction. However, even this isn't a fair comparison, as both parties can communicate faster than destroy each other.
He presented THE scenario, because he was interested in the outcomes of THE scenario. He also presented it in terms of game theory which I took as a sign that he want to treat it as such. So unless you see the scenario as impossible(you do not) or do not like game theory approach (why even post then) or you are saying game theory is extremely bad tool to think about it (you would need to show why) I see no point in your responses to me. If you have problems with other aspects of the OP that I did not comment, why respond to me ?
You do not need completely rational agents and I think I always qualified my statements with "somewhat" and similar words. It is an open question if the possible irrational factors have any significant influence on the scenario as significantly irrational agents would not evolve naturally. I am not assuming universal rationality in philosophical sense, only one arising from assumption that those aliens also evolved in natural environment. Of course there are possibilities of non-evolved entities and even maybe some kind of strange evolutions producing irrational beings or maybe the universe was populated by some civilization that created only irrational species. Those instances are uninteresting.
Yes we have no evidence whatsoever. We cannot say anything. Wait, there is that thing called logic and math that works without evidence. If you just provide some premises (assumptions) it can give you some answers that are conditional on those assumptions being true. Genius.
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On February 09 2012 08:59 Derez wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 08:35 mcc wrote:On February 09 2012 06:39 HardlyNever wrote:On February 09 2012 06:24 mcc wrote:On February 09 2012 05:52 HardlyNever wrote:On February 09 2012 05:22 mcc wrote:On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote:
There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance. Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way. While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way. Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make. You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point. Anything other than that makes no sense. Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed. If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct. Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ? And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning. Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right... You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while. There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is. I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over. That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities. There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you. Condescending much? First, as I said in different post, we on Earth actually do something similar, just not on that scale as there is no need to do that as we do not have weapons capable completely destroying an enemy or without them retaliating. If for example Iran was developing a weapon that was capable destroying US with no warning whatsoever and the only means for US to strike back was to use the same weapon they already possess they would immediately and completely wipe out Iran without thinking twice. Our only luck is that such weapons are (now?) impossibility on intraplanetary scale, as even if we had such destructive power, there is no way it would also not destroy neighbours of the target and most likely also the attacker. Game theory is actually pretty well suited to analyze this situation if done properly. It is exactly where game theory is useful. You require evidence of how other species behave. I do not need that to conclude that if OP's assumptions are correct (big if) that if the other species are rational agents the result is most likely as he describes. The problem is that if the weapon is undeflectable and prevents a second strike any possible alliances are unstable. In your example the best solution, as far as survival goes, for any species in your theoretical alliance is to immediately destroy the other members of the alliance before they do the same to them and colonize their planets if possible to increase the chance of survival. The game might be more comlicated and maybe allow for some kind of alliance, but that is what OP was asking about. If you have some actual objection to his conclusion please show it. Your objection saying that alliances or cooperation might be the more likely outcome is not necessarily wrong, but you need to provide some argument other than your irrelevant one based on hypothetical psychology of the aliens. You need to show how and why. How would they overcome the absolute assymetricity between attack and defense. Why would they choose to join an alliance when their partners might be using it to just gain information about where to strike and there is no way to trust them until a lot of time has passed. You need to show that such a system can be stable. All this can be done using an assumption that they are somewhat rational agents, without knowing their actual psychology. Of course they might be completely irrational, but that is uninteresting scenario. You are trying to base your analysis on some biological and psychological factors. They might be important or not. Problem is there are even more general rules that rational(as in trying to maximize their survival in this scenario) agents will obey. So if those civilizations can be assumed to be close to rational, they will behave a certain way and I need not to know much else. Entire species will not think as I do as I would not destroy anyone even if in such a scenario, problem is states, civilizations, species "think" much more differently than individuals and as our own planet is an evidence, they "think" pretty closely to what is described. You're coming close to neo-realist theories of statecraft with that statement, and even in the field of international relations, neo-realism is hardly uncontested as a theory. There's different kinds of rationalism (logic of consequences /appropriateness /every-day), and even states don't follow any single one of them on a regular basis. With different rationalities, different outcomes are predicted. Power is meaningless until it is structured in a specific social relationship, as your Iran example shows. An Iranian nuke is somehow a problem, while a NK nuke or, taking it to the extreme, british nuke matter a great deal less. If your assesment held true, the US would have started nuking everyone and anyone that wanted to develop nukes during the period they maintained the only functional nuclear arsenal. There's been academic work on theoretical circumstances close to what the OP describes (first contact), one famous article by Wendt comes to mind (http://ptx.sagepub.com/content/36/4/607.abstract, if you have acces to academic journals). It's an interesting read if you're into this kind of thing. That said, there's also historical evidence of the complete opposite. Most of what is now Kenya was destroyed on first contact by the portugese. It all depends on how a state ('planet') sees itself and the others.
I would hardly call anything in international relations a theory, that would give it too much credibility  From wiki it seems it is more "ought" construct than scientific endeavor. More like ethics for states. In that case I have nothing whatsoever in common with that. My "ought" system for state behaviour derives purely from my personal ethical system for individuals and intrastate affairs. On the other hand what I was saying was not a prescription of behaviour, but a description of observed behaviour and I had enough qualifiers everywhere to make sure it is not taken as absolute statement.
Nukes are far call from having the absolute attributes the OP weapons have. If nukes, that are quite well detectable and not even close to being able to destroy US in quantities Iran can get, are excuse enough to bomb Iran without any regard to non-existence of any real pretext for war, what do you think would a weapon like in OP do ?
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whats left is believing in god.... NOT
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On February 09 2012 05:22 tsilaicos wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 04:53 Kimaker wrote:
Whoa...this is actually fucking cool.
Nice read. im not going to tell you what to think but why do you think this is cool? the things he's saying has no basis at all (sorry i don't know if this is the right terminology to use in english, not too sure). i mean he says that there will probably be an explosion of 130 MT to 200 GT". I mean - why do you even mention tesla? the only rational to talk about here would be joules. im sorry but i just don't appreciate anti-scientific rabble like this. if the OP would've reasoned a bit more and not just assuming things that are impossible to assume this could've been alot more interesting. i guess it could be cool if you didn't want to make it look like research or something. i mean why do you even mention game theory in the thread name? there's no mathematical models or anything such used in this thread... however i guess an economist might call this game theory..
I'm saying conceptually it provides a fascinating framework for a story. Obviously it's empirically fallacious on several points, but there are some VERY cool concepts here that could be worked out.
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It's a crap shoot and logic doesn't apply. The best strategy is to hide and hope they don't bother us.
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Ayone who hasn't read the Penn State paper posted by stealthblue on page one should go do that now.
On January 06 2012 08:13 zasta wrote:
So much fun to read!
My first objection:
As I understand it, we are developing right now in the year 2012 the practical application of quantum entanglement, which would allow us to transmit information instantly. Not just very fast, like 0.0000000000000000001 of a second, but instantly as far as physics understands such a thing as instantly. Which means that information can indeed travel faster than light, and communication could indeed be established before your RKV arrived. (However therefore the best strategy might well be to send out the RKV ahead of time with a recall mechanism in case they turned out to be friendly after all).
I can't believe I just read the entire OP and 5 pages of posts before someone mentioned quantum entanglement!! Instant communication is looking quite possible. Yes "someone make a quantum entanglement communication thread" guy I concede it is not yet proven to work..
So now if you look at it from the perspective of instant and practically undetectable communication being a reality, the peaceful/defensive civilizations seem to have a large advantage over the ones that immediately send the RKV. The RKV sending civs would be showing their hand and likely dooming themselves to annihilation. The civ/civs on the receiving end of the RKV detect them at variable distances from their targets and instantly begin the process of stopping/deflecting and retaliation.
Another issue being discussed that I like is the issue of technology difference between civilizations. It stands to reason that most detection between galactic civilizations would involve a significant technological gap (when you look at the scale of galactic time and our place in it). I picture a match of SC/SC2 where one player gets a 20 minute head start and therefore reaches maximum potential before the other player sends his first workers to mine. (In my example I also imagine that the 1st player to start rolls Protoss and has obs in player 2's base before 2's 1st order is given. (Player 2 rolls Terran.))
The idea that galactic civs would hit a "maximum tech" level has been posited but these would be so advanced that a "RKV" would be a hilarious choice upon encountering one. I chuckle to myself imagining a scenario between a civilization just entering their spacefaring days (A) and one that has been traveling the stars for generations (B). Species A detects species B building a few dyson spheres. Species A decides to shoot first ask questions later then promptly send a bunch of RKVs at B.
+ Show Spoiler +B gets a laugh out of the event, A rages after being told "U mad bro? U mad?"
I tend to agree with those pointing out galactic war is likely only in scenarios where resources are scarce enough to make it beneficial to the aggressor. What kind of resources would an advanced galaxy colonizing civ want? Would stars be the ultimate resource? specific elements? Species? Hopefully resources these hypothetical civs want are much more abundant relative to the density of intelligent life in the universe than the abundance of oil on earth relative to the number of people who are using it.
What if the assumption of no FTL/Teleportation is wrong as well!?? OH NOES
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On February 09 2012 08:50 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 07:43 aebriol wrote:On February 09 2012 06:24 mcc wrote:
If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct. Statistically extinct? ... what ... the ? So we are running statistics on imaginary aliens now? Also, no way we could aim a weapon at something that far away. Gravitation would pull it off course, and we can't chart everything in between and their movements relative to each other perfectly, because we can't see them all. People just don't realize how big space is ... What does it have to do with my post ? Do you have any point related to mine ? They are statistically extinct as in if any such civilization exists it is because it did not meet any of the killer civilizations yet. People just don't realize how logic works...
Yeah, you don't understand how logic works ...
You cannot use the term "statistically extinct" here. It makes absolutely no sense. You cannot run 'statistics' on imaginary aliens.
You could have said "logically, they would be extinct given these assumptions" - and your post would make sense.
You are right in that the rest of the post didn't have anything to do with yours - but, I had to correct your use of that word.
Read about statistics on wikipedia ...
Statistics is using logic and math applied to actual data to draw conclusions. It's not a word you use for something you imagine, where you have no data whatsoever.
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On February 09 2012 05:17 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 04:43 Sbrubbles wrote:
Seing how fast technology evolves in the modern era, unless science arrives at a "ceiling" (there's nothing left to discover and all applicable technology has been discovered and applied), any and all other alien races will either be technologically superior (and ABSURDLY so, given how a mere 100 years can completly revolutionize science) and be able to neutralize RKVs or will be too primitive to respond to our signal. The chance of them being at our level (able to build RKVs but not being able to neutralize them) will be likely very low.
I know this does against assumption 3) that RKVs are unstoppable, but unless we reach this science "ceiling", it is probably a false assumption.
Of course, this problem is moot until space colonization is discovered possible, otherwise two alien civilization's home planets will have no reason to harm each other. A galactic civilization that would strike first out of pure paranoia would also be paranoid against everything else and would die before investing space technology. Your last point is not really that clearly inevitable. We can see that even on Earth how with more destructive weapons powerful countries give themselves the right to prevent others from getting the technology using more and more extreme measures. What about weapons that can destroy the opponent completely without sufficient warning ? US would bomb Iran into stone age even at the slightest hint of Iran being able to build a weapon that can annihilate US population.
The technological difference, in years, between the US and Iran is what, on average? 20, 30, 40 years? My point is: given the age of the universe, the chance that whatever other galactic civilization we encounter being technologically close to us (0-100 years) is very very low, meaning either they will be advanced enough to stop our RKVs or not evolved enough to have invented space technology.
In your example, I'm sure that the US 20-100 years from now will have technology to stop any weapons Iran can build (today) without having to strike preemtively.
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Russian Federation164 Posts
Ok. I'm not-that-well-aware of the modern state of physics, yet let me add something up.
What makes me doubt:
+ Show Spoiler +
If we look at the sky outside of the city (so that we can see stars clearly), we kinda see finite number of light. Altough it is known/accepted, that the actual number of stars is infinite, which means that we should probably see an infinite amount of white dots up in the sky, making it light, without gaps. This doesn't happen because the universe has been spreading out for a long time after the Big Bang, blah blah, the light of most stars doesn't reach us at all. //Hubble's law
So, if the light of most stars didn't reach us by now, then maybe 'probes'/RKV moving significantly slower than light (0.5c?) may not reach us ever; while if the universe will eventually be shrinking, we'll die anyways? o_O
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On February 09 2012 05:07 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 06:41 cLutZ wrote:On January 12 2012 01:44 Acrofales wrote:On January 11 2012 14:02 ghost_403 wrote:So I was talking to my coworker, who has a PhD in some ridiculous field like material science or something, about the feasibility of a RKV. This is what he had to say:
The impactor that is believed to have created the Chicxulub crater delivered 4x10^23 J. Going at your recommended 0.5 c, and using the relativistic equation for kinetic energy you would need an object that has a mass of 2.9x10^7 kg. If you were to use iron, which has a density of 7,874 kg/m^3, you would need a sphere that is 380 meters in diameter. But the real problem is that iron is currently going at $0.22/lb. If you figure a 10% price break for bulk it would cost 1.4 billion dollars. And since that impact didn’t actually destroy all life on Earth, if we are aiming at an Earth sized planet we would need even more iron. So as soon as you amass, let’s say, 1.7 billion dollars I will help you research an accelerating laser to use for preemptive measures against a potentially hostile planet.
tl;dr - I'm starting a collection for my research. Lol, there you go. Economic reasons are another good reason why RKVs are completely infeasible in the forseeable future  1.7 Billion dollars is hardly even a line item in the US federal budget. Not even saying that why buy a lot of iron when you can just use projectiles from asteroid belt that already have sufficient size.
And who pays for the energy to accelerate it?
4x10^23 J at 10 cents per kilowatt-hour would be 1.1e16 USD, $11 quadrillion.
A 2GW nuclear power plant running at 100% for 60 years would produce 3.8e18 J of energy, so you'd need about one hundred thousand of them.
On February 09 2012 21:01 Sbrubbles wrote:
In your example, I'm sure that the US 20-100 years from now will have technology to stop any weapons Iran can build (today) without having to strike preemtively.
A city-wide bulletproof jacket for nuclear weapons?
Like skyscrapers that retract underground when under attack?!?
It would take a lot of nerv to get funding for such a plan 
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On February 09 2012 09:14 mcc wrote:
He presented THE scenario, because he was interested in the outcomes of THE scenario. He also presented it in terms of game theory which I took as a sign that he want to treat it as such. So unless you see the scenario as impossible(you do not) or do not like game theory approach (why even post then) or you are saying game theory is extremely bad tool to think about it (you would need to show why) I see no point in your responses to me. If you have problems with other aspects of the OP that I did not comment, why respond to me ?
You do not need completely rational agents and I think I always qualified my statements with "somewhat" and similar words. It is an open question if the possible irrational factors have any significant influence on the scenario as significantly irrational agents would not evolve naturally. I am not assuming universal rationality in philosophical sense, only one arising from assumption that those aliens also evolved in natural environment. Of course there are possibilities of non-evolved entities and even maybe some kind of strange evolutions producing irrational beings or maybe the universe was populated by some civilization that created only irrational species. Those instances are uninteresting.
Yes we have no evidence whatsoever. We cannot say anything. Wait, there is that thing called logic and math that works without evidence. If you just provide some premises (assumptions) it can give you some answers that are conditional on those assumptions being true. Genius.
OP's scenario is flawed in a fairly obvious way. It's much easier and cheaper to monitor most nearby civilizations in their own system than to go ahead and destroy them completely. The idea that you can't possibly tell where the attack came from is simply untrue and I suspect it was included specifically to ensure the game would have an interesting enough result. In most cases you could tell before the attack was actually launched and threaten retaliation through a semi-autonomous system.
The analysis is shoddy and it's shoddy because OP isn't interested in setting up realistic assumptions and investigating their consequences. He's interested in interesting consequences and will set up whatever assumptions that lead to those, whether they are realistic or not. Great way to write a science fiction novel, not so great for investigating reality.
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I think the real question is, how long after first radio broadcast would a civilization spread to have multiple self-sustaining colonies? If you can't reasonably take out the whole civilization, then all you're doing is making them mad. They may not be able to retaliate right away, but it is all they'll work on for the rest of forever.
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Game theory places absolutely zero value in communication distance, listening is just a way of being manipulated by the other person. The possibility of retaliation is relevant in a game theoretical approach however, if you with an attack does not significantly reduce the risk of getting attacked yourself, there is no gain. Blowing someones planet up does not affect retaliation attempts if the weapons are confined to space (not so clever to try to achieve relativistic speeds in the atmosphere).
About getting detected or not:
First of all, if you detect a civilization and send a RKP (relativistic kill probe) on them, they will have huge amount of time to detect you and if they havn't already sent their weapons at you, they are not likely to be kill on sight-species anyway.
Second, if you are worried about TV-signals getting intercepted, letting 6000 nukes go off in space to send RKP on other civs is not the best way of staying under the radar you know
Finally, if you detect signals from a civ even remotely close to us in technology, they will due to the distances involved be far above us in technological level when we fire of our RKV. I think it is more prudent to assume that any civilization wont get noticed until long after they have reached a technological singularity (if those exists) just because of technological acceleration. The best alternative for a trigger happy species would be to blanket bomb any planets within habitable distance to a star. But that is the opposite of colonization and is kinda suicidal (yeah, lets destroy all alternative homes if we fuck our own planet up, just to be safe, this is especially clever due to our tendency to nuke eachother).
Think it through, without the doomsday bias.
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On February 09 2012 23:06 gyth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2012 21:01 Sbrubbles wrote:
In your example, I'm sure that the US 20-100 years from now will have technology to stop any weapons Iran can build (today) without having to strike preemtively. A city-wide bulletproof jacket for nuclear weapons? Like skyscrapers that retract underground when under attack?!? It would take a lot of nerv to get funding for such a plan
Well, something like that . Missles that can intercept ICBMs mid-flight sound doable, considering today's technology. Now imagine the kinds of freaky technology we'll have 100 years from now.
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This is such a weird thread.
That said, I have some thoughts.
First. I don't accept that your RKV, or any method of destruction, cannot be traced. That, to me, is a completely artificial constraint placed on the discussion to make it feasible again. It might not be traceable by us, or someone of our level of advancement, but you can't say its impossible.
While I understand your point about insta-kill species eventually outnumbering peaceful ones if they insta-kill them, there's a problem with that. Lets say you receive earth's message about our location, and instantly locate, calculate, and launch your destruction vehicle even at 100-1000% of the speed of light. Assuming this, I have questions.
1. Even if you can calculate the amount of time since the message was broadcast, how can you know the current level of advancement of the species you're attempting to kill at the time of launch of your vehicle, and again at the time of impact?
2. How can you be certain the broadcast isn't simply a trick to kill your own species?
3. Why isn't the following situation equally likely?
Civilization A receives a broadcast from Civilizaition B and immediately launches their vehicle of destruction. We assume they are advanced enough to calculate location perfectly. Travelling at whatever speed is irrelevant, but we can use your 50% of light speed figure. The vehicle arrives many many years later at Civilization B which is now advanced enough to deflect it AND trace its origin. Moments after your RKV was scheduled for impact, your launch site is demolished, and Civilization B makes it their purpose to find all of Civilization A and demolish it.
Basically what I'm illustrating is this, and it is reflected in exactly how we are thinking. What is the purpose of being paranoid about radio signals, communications signal, and then broadcasting your location with your weapon?
I would argue your game plays out more like this.
1. Player 1 broadcasts or doesn't.
2. Player 2 receives and decides to A. React with a return broadcast, B. Launch RKV, or C. Nothing.
3. Player 1 receives the response or doesn't and:
A. Intents are known and the game is effectively over, anything that needs to be communicated can be.
B. Is destroyed/crippled by the RKV OR deflects and retaliates.
C. You respond with nothing and perhaps use the location information to ensure that Player 1 cannot find you easily in the future, thus Player 1 has no further options as they do not even know Player 2 exists.
Benefits to players of choosing each option:
Player 2: A. If Player 2 opts to return broadcast, they open themselves up to attack by broadcasting their exact location (and possibly technology level via the means they use to communicate). In this case, Player 2 has an no reason to select this choice aside from naivete, and players choosing this choice will, on average, lose overall and be wiped out.
Player 2 B. Player 2 has no way of knowing the current level of technology of Player 1. If Player 1 cannot deflect the RKV, Player 2 is safe. If Player 1 can deflect it, they can also likely trace it, and thus Player 2 has assured their destruction via a superior race.
Player 2 C. Player 2 can choose to broadcast nothing and give no clue as to their location. Player 2 also can use the information about the location, intent, and technology level to further hide themselves from Player 1.
It seems to me, based on this, that
1. Any given player HAS to assume that other civilizations may be more powerful than they are and therefore capable of taking no damage and retaliating with an equal or stronger attack
Therefore, Civilizations meeting THESE criteria will win out in the long-run.
Complete silence about their locations.
Spread out enough/resilient enough to withstand targeted attacks while not being so spread out as to not communicate with others in your group.
Employ the best technology to defense against targeted attacks AND be able to respond.
Communication is important, but it's not all verbal or in the form of "messages". Actively responding with an attack is a communication of aggression and thus opens you to retaliation.
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EPT
