EPTGame theory, applied to aliens - Page 3
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Requizen
United States33802 Posts
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sviatoslavrichter
United States164 Posts
On January 06 2012 07:53 Caller wrote: Let me explain something to you. I have a fucking telescope. I spot your space dick. I can trace that space dick perfectly damn well using geometry. In the time that your space dick has travelled 1 foot light travels 2 feet. If it takes 10 days for your space dick to land I see it on the 5th day. I most assuredly will not be bending over waiting for the space dick to come. I will be pissed and shoot my space dicks at you. And I can most assuredly shoot my space dicks in the 5 days before the space dick explodes all over my planet. I win again. You can't see an RKV through a telescope, man. If the other civ had any intelligence whatsoever they'd build the RKV as a blackbody with an albedo of zero. If that RKV does not have radiate or reflect any heat or light, what are you going to look for? Essentially you'd have to scan the entire galactic plane constantly, and freak yourself anytime a star is mysteriously obscured and then immediately assume that obscuring is a giant bomb coming to kill you. | ||
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Sinterklaas75
34 Posts
On January 06 2012 07:21 jcroisdale wrote: This is assuming that all other planets have reached the same exact conclusion that they must destroy anything new to them. Hopefully Civilizations at the point in time where they can discover and destroy worlds light-years away, will have better ideologies and beliefs then to just destroy us. If there bad Aliens then there must be good ones. Lets hope the good ones find us first. This, this and this. And this is also exactly why earth will never be an advanced civilization if it stays like this. | ||
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Maxd11
United States680 Posts
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Maxd11
United States680 Posts
On January 06 2012 07:55 Requizen wrote: Anyone else reminded of Ender's Game? Didn't see this when I posted but my thoughts exactly. Perhaps more specifically Ender's Shadow? | ||
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sviatoslavrichter
United States164 Posts
On January 06 2012 07:54 aebriol wrote: You can't assign probability to something you know nothing about. It's like arguing that it's more probably that God exists than he does not ... sure, you can make that argument, and it has been made before, and it will be made again (even in the book the probability of god by a physicist), but it ignores a very simple truth: you are making assumptions about something you know nothing about in order to make a claim about it, it's chance of existing, or its actions. Either aliens exists, or they do not. Either God exists, or he does not. IF there is a God, or some sort of Alien species, we know absolutely nothing about them, and therefore cannot make any predictions whatsoever ever them. Any predictions we make are based off what we believe, our values, our reasoning, our logic. Outside our assumptions, which are not based on facts - since we know absolutely no facts about said God or said Aliens, we have nothing to base our assumptions on. It's like saying it's 50% probability that God exists because either he does or he doesn't. Which sounds cool and all. But it's insanely stupid, because probability is based off having some facts to work with. TL;DR: Aliens if they exists obviously live off other species, and they would not sterilize our planet, because they would harvest us periodically to serve us as meat in an intergalactic hamburger restaurant. I know this, because all my assumptions of aliens are based on Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which is the only factual documentary about alien behaviour. Game Theory applied to aliens? Game Theory applied to God? Game Theory applied to unicorn riding alien elves led by God? It has the exact same meaning behind it: nothing. No value to it at all. You can kind of assume that alien life has gotten there by evolution, which is to say aliens which are good at surviving tend to survive, while aliens that suck at survival tend not to. If you think about it that way, then aliens which blow up everything without warning and never communicate their own planets' positions would tend to survive over aliens that don't, no? Especially if there is no way for the peaceful aliens to ever coordinate with one another, given how slow communications are? | ||
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oBlade
United States6195 Posts
On January 06 2012 07:53 Caller wrote: Let me explain something to you. I have a fucking telescope. I spot your space dick. I can trace that space dick perfectly damn well using geometry. In the time that your space dick has travelled 1 foot light travels 2 feet. If it takes 10 days for your space dick to land I see it on the 5th day. I most assuredly will not be bending over waiting for the space dick to come. I will be pissed and shoot my space dicks at you. And I can most assuredly shoot my space dicks in the 5 days before the space dick explodes all over my planet. No. I don't agree with the argument, but this criticism is lacking. This is something small, cold, and moving very fast. It's in principle going to be difficult to detect against a background of stars and other junk. It's like looking for a bullet for binoculars. But let me tell you where the bullet analogy falls apart, and that is on the other half of your criticism. This is a self-propelled weapon. It's not like tracking an apple falling. | ||
CosmicSpiral
United States15275 Posts
On January 06 2012 07:54 sviatoslavrichter wrote: Touché. However, if the RKV strategy was purely offensive (not reactive), then a communications lead time would not be a big hindrance. Then this begs the question of how the remote RKV strategy was ever implemented in the first place. If communication speeds can never exceed c, then it may be practically impossible to construct and arrange such a system under an unified government. It is more likely that as a civilization expands across the stars, it will split into multiple smaller (not necessarily more autonomous) civilizations just to deal with logistical/communication issues. Centralized government as we understand it would be a big hindrance. | ||
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Kickboxer
Slovenia1308 Posts
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blah_blah
346 Posts
Yes. This is a good idea. | ||
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Caller
Poland8075 Posts
On January 06 2012 07:56 sviatoslavrichter wrote: You can't see an RKV through a telescope, man. If the other civ had any intelligence whatsoever they'd build the RKV as a blackbody with an albedo of zero. If that RKV does not have radiate or reflect any heat or light, what are you going to look for? Essentially you'd have to scan the entire galactic plane constantly, and freak yourself anytime a star is mysteriously obscured and then immediately assume that obscuring is a giant bomb coming to kill you. Thermal telescopes? If we've reached the point where we can send communications at the speed of light, knowing the natural intrinsic behavior of scientists, we certainly have invented every single method of seeing space dicks, whatever shape they're taking, especially if they're heading in our fucking direction. I know from personal experience that people can tell if a space dick is headed straight for them even without a telescope. | ||
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oBlade
United States6195 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:02 blah_blah wrote: Let's see ... I want to start a shitty thread on the Team Liquid forums! I'm going to write some masturbatory science fiction and then imply that it has scientific merit by adding the phrase 'game theory' in the title, even though I don't know what that actually is. Yes. This is a good idea. I don't agree with the OP but I've been more impressed with his effort than posts like these and tl;drs, which don't contribute anything or help any of us flush out ideas. | ||
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Caller
Poland8075 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:01 oBlade wrote: No. I don't agree with the argument, but this criticism is lacking. This is something small, cold, and moving very fast. It's in principle going to be difficult to detect against a background of stars and other junk. It's like looking for a bullet for binoculars. But let me tell you where the bullet analogy falls apart, and that is on the other half of your criticism. This is a self-propelled weapon. It's not like tracking an apple falling. I don't agree with your assessment that my space dick is small and cold, but I assure you it is moving very fast. | ||
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sviatoslavrichter
United States164 Posts
On January 06 2012 07:59 Maxd11 wrote: Didn't see this when I posted but my thoughts exactly. Perhaps more specifically Ender's Shadow? Actually, I began to think of this after I read the book "On Thermonuclear War" by Herman Kahn, one of the seminal works on Cold War nuclear defense policy. | ||
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Holykitty
Netherlands246 Posts
On January 06 2012 07:12 CosmicSpiral wrote: I question how you are actually using game theory to come to your conclusions. It seems like you are making some very large assumptions on how future (and alien) civilizations operate, especially that all those hypothetical civilizations can be regarded as individual decision-makers. Any proper application of game theory to this scenario would attempt to explain why (the majority) of these civilizations would reach the same conclusion. the game theory part is simply deciding how to act based on your choices. imagines its a game called steal or share (stolen from 100 game shows ever) if both people share, you both get the prize (survival in OPs case) if you both steal you both die, if 1 steals 1 shares, the stealer survives and the sharer dies. which is the best choice? well in the end it doesnt even matter, because in this universal game of steal or share, stealers kill all sharers, its not a 1 on 1 experience. therefore leaving only stealers, who will develop faster ways to steal before the other team knows the game is even being played. the logical conclusion is to destroy every rock in the universe ;/ | ||
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CuddlyCuteKitten
Sweden2808 Posts
Also its pointless because in the 100-300 years it takes for the thing to arrive it will be obsolete and observable for 50-150 years. | ||
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sviatoslavrichter
United States164 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:01 CosmicSpiral wrote: Then this begs the question of how the remote RKV strategy was ever implemented in the first place. If communication speeds can never exceed c, then it may be practically impossible to construct and arrange such a system under an unified government. It is more likely that as a civilization expands across the stars, it will split into multiple smaller (not necessarily more autonomous) civilizations just to deal with logistical/communication issues. Centralized government as we understand it would be a big hindrance. Precisely, which is why the most dangerous civilization imaginable would be a theocracy where even after they split into autonomous civilizations, they had a religious tenet to go and genocide the rest of the universe. | ||
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danl9rm
United States3111 Posts
edit: BUT, I guess if there were aliens, your logic stands to some reason. Though, we wouldn't do that, would we? Curiosity sometimes trumps fear. Sometimes. | ||
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aebriol
Norway2066 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote: You can kind of assume that alien life has gotten there by evolution, which is to say aliens which are good at surviving tend to survive, while aliens that suck at survival tend not to. If you think about it that way, then aliens which blow up everything without warning and never communicate their own planets' positions would tend to survive over aliens that don't, no? Especially if there is no way for the peaceful aliens to ever coordinate with one another, given how slow communications are? You can assume that. I certainly would not. You are also assuming that there does not exist the possiblity of any kind of technology for communicating faster than light speed. I certainly would not assume that. You are assuming aliens exist. I certainly would not. You are assuming aliens exist with the technology to reach us. I certainly would not. Put it another way: I find no reason to believe in the existence of any aliens, or that if they exist, their civilization exists at the same point in time as ours, or that they know of our existence, or that they know of our existence while our species exist, or that ... the list goes on. Sure, make your assumptions - but don't pretend they are based on fact. They aren't. You have no facts to make assumptions off. | ||
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radscorpion9
Canada2252 Posts
On January 06 2012 07:54 aebriol wrote: You can't assign probability to something you know nothing about. It's like arguing that it's more probably that God exists than he does not ... sure, you can make that argument, and it has been made before, and it will be made again (even in the book the probability of god by a physicist), but it ignores a very simple truth: you are making assumptions about something you know nothing about in order to make a claim about it, it's chance of existing, or its actions. Either aliens exists, or they do not. Either God exists, or he does not. IF there is a God, or some sort of Alien species, we know absolutely nothing about them, and therefore cannot make any predictions whatsoever ever them. Any predictions we make are based off what we believe, our values, our reasoning, our logic. Outside our assumptions, which are not based on facts - since we know absolutely no facts about said God or said Aliens, we have nothing to base our assumptions on. It's like saying it's 50% probability that God exists because either he does or he doesn't. Which sounds cool and all. But it's insanely stupid, because probability is based off having some facts to work with. TL;DR: Aliens if they exists obviously live off other species, and they would not sterilize our planet, because they would harvest us periodically to serve us as meat in an intergalactic hamburger restaurant. I know this, because all my assumptions of aliens are based on Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which is the only factual documentary about alien behaviour. Game Theory applied to aliens? Game Theory applied to God? Game Theory applied to unicorn riding alien elves led by God? It has the exact same meaning behind it: nothing. No value to it at all. Well, that's true...but I think its still interesting to consider what it would be like if alien beings did have similar mindsets to humans, and similar technology levels. If there were a set of alien races that all thought like humans, would they rather wipe out a civilization as opposed to trying to be friendly with it? There are lots of technical issues that have to be dealt with, such as whether the trajectory of the relativistic weaponry can be interpolated back to its source...but assuming this is not the case (because mutually assured destruction would be a deterrent to this type of action), it might be deemed safer to not take the risk and kill off an alien species before it has a chance to do the same. I have to say though, it seems much more likely that certain races will simply evolve in their capabilities to the point where these weapons would probably just anger them, and cause a much more advanced retaliatory strike that could kill off the offending race. But I agree, there really are too many variables to assume that game theory predicts this type of future as a certain result. | ||
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