What if that other civ built all its RKV launchers in remote, hidden corners of its sector of the galaxy, kind of like how the US and USSR hid nukes on submarines?
Over intergalactic distances with an inherent limitation on communication speed, such a strategy would be foolish (and costly).
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.
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.
Based on the religious history of our planet, would it not be equally likely that the theocracy would split apart and eventually turn upon themselves (i.e. every single major Judeo-Christian religion and the vast majority of other ones)? Of course one wonders how a theocracy and advanced science of that level could ever mutual exist.
On January 06 2012 07:32 Haemonculus wrote: If aliens exist or have ever existed, I just find it highly unlikely that they and us exist in the same time period. Humanity has existed as a species for roughly what, 200,000 years, and we've only really been aware of ourselves as a species for the last 10,000 or so, and only in the last 50 have we even had the technology to bother thinking we can actually communicate with an alien race.
Given the age of the universe, what are the odds that an advanced alien species is out there, at the exact same time that we presently exist? Chances are they either were born, lived, and died off billions of years ago, or they'll be born, live, and die billions of years after we're gone.
You have a good point, but that's not taking into account the sheer size of the universe and the resulting probability of the existence of lifeforms.
What if that other civ built all its RKV launchers in remote, hidden corners of its sector of the galaxy, kind of like how the US and USSR hid nukes on submarines?
Over intergalactic distances with an inherent limitation on communication speed, such a strategy would be foolish (and costly).
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.
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.
I can imagine a civilization that eat stars. It would be more dangerous.
I can imagine a civilization that made those robots with an AI that runs them. They would be more dangerous, since they had that imagination.
Hell, it is fact that I have read a scifi series of books lately that featured those and even worse things ...
On January 06 2012 07:07 iPAndi wrote: What the hell did i just read.
iknorite?
is it me or is this an analogy to the single planet as well. the same article i feel could be written about the earth, without even considering outer space.
this certainly is interesting...
i wish we could focus on colonization of space, but unfortunately we are unable to realize that all of the resources we need as a human race are right here and CAN be GIVEN to ALL peoples. (money is irrelevant, or should be) we have the resources to feed, clothe, and educate every person here, probably many times over. once we get that out of the way, we can focus on leaving the earth, and assuring the survival of the species, in a sense...
until then, any attempts to do so will only carry our current mentalities into the outer reaches. i feel we wouldn't get past pluto.
i sure hope there is FTL communication in the future, perhaps a kind of psychic/interdimensional communication, and that there are more benevolent intelligent races out there that belligerent...
On January 06 2012 07:43 Caller wrote: this isn't game theory this is needless speculation with gross assumptions in a disgusting parody of natural selection masquerading as prisoner's dillema. I could make the same example.
Assume there is a 50/50 chance that a man will kick another man in the balls. If a man gets kicked in the nuts, they won't be able to kick you back. Traits are inherited genetically. Since someone who gets kicked in the nuts will likely not be able to have children, it is only natural that the only ones who will pass their genes onto the next person would be people who don't get kicked in the balls. Since all people want to pass their genes on, they will try to avoid getting their balls kicked. Because this is game theory, we assume that all indivduals make their decisions at the same time.
You have two options: kick or don't kick. Neither one of these options will stop you from getting your balls kicked. However, if I see you kick someone else in the nuts, I will almost certainly kick you in the nuts just to keep myself safe. Otherwise, it doesn't matter if I kick you in the nuts or not. But since kicking someone in the nuts will almost assuredly, as a result, get you kicked in the nuts in following rounds, you have a strong incentive not to kick anyone in the nuts.
Similarly, as two civilizations shooting each other with giant space dicks, I will certainly detect somebody firing a giant space dick and it exploding. I will certainly be able to tell that whoever fired that is certainly likely to do it again. Therefore, I have a strong incentive to shoot a space dick at anybody who shoots space dicks. Since shooting space dicks is now certain to get you space dicked, nobody will shoot space dicks, meaning we all live happily ever after.
See how my argument makes no sense? Your argument makes even less sense. Metastupidity, in other words.
tldr ow my balls
You can't detect the source of an RKV launch with reasonable certainty. I need to add this to the OP
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.
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.
Yeah, we already search in the infrared wavelength. He just said you can build something that has no albedo, and you suggest looking for things based on their heat. Here's the science of how this would actually work, which I don't like seeing refuted with space dicks: you take a picture on Friday of the sky and see a bunch of really small, cold things, like comets and just sparse interstellar junk. Then you take a picture on Saturday and you see that one of them happened to disappear. And there are billions of these. Also, on Saturday, you took a picture of a slightly different part of the sky and find that it has... a billion and one extra of these tiny objects.
On January 06 2012 07:43 Caller wrote: this isn't game theory this is needless speculation with gross assumptions in a disgusting parody of natural selection masquerading as prisoner's dillema. I could make the same example.
Assume there is a 50/50 chance that a man will kick another man in the balls. If a man gets kicked in the nuts, they won't be able to kick you back. Traits are inherited genetically. Since someone who gets kicked in the nuts will likely not be able to have children, it is only natural that the only ones who will pass their genes onto the next person would be people who don't get kicked in the balls. Since all people want to pass their genes on, they will try to avoid getting their balls kicked. Because this is game theory, we assume that all indivduals make their decisions at the same time.
You have two options: kick or don't kick. Neither one of these options will stop you from getting your balls kicked. However, if I see you kick someone else in the nuts, I will almost certainly kick you in the nuts just to keep myself safe. Otherwise, it doesn't matter if I kick you in the nuts or not. But since kicking someone in the nuts will almost assuredly, as a result, get you kicked in the nuts in following rounds, you have a strong incentive not to kick anyone in the nuts.
Similarly, as two civilizations shooting each other with giant space dicks, I will certainly detect somebody firing a giant space dick and it exploding. I will certainly be able to tell that whoever fired that is certainly likely to do it again. Therefore, I have a strong incentive to shoot a space dick at anybody who shoots space dicks. Since shooting space dicks is now certain to get you space dicked, nobody will shoot space dicks, meaning we all live happily ever after.
See how my argument makes no sense? Your argument makes even less sense. Metastupidity, in other words.
tldr ow my balls
You can't detect the source of an RKV launch with reasonable certainty. I need to add this to the OP
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.
I don't agree with your assessment that my space dick is small and cold, but I assure you it is moving very fast.
Great. Lots of things move fast. Is a frozen bullet harder or easier to spot with an infrared camera than a bird?
So many replies in this thread are in bad taste. Game theory in its essence is rational, cynical and logical. If you think this thread is full of bullshit then you must either disagree with the assumptions its logic is based on, or base your disagreement on logical flaws in the arguments that derive from the assumptions.
On January 06 2012 08:12 Warfie wrote: So many replies in this thread are in bad taste. Game theory in its essence is rational, cynical and logical. If you think this thread is full of bullshit then you must either disagree with the assumptions its logic is based on, or base your disagreement on logical flaws in the arguments that derive from the assumptions.
If you actually studied game theory then you would know that you are wrong.
On January 06 2012 08:08 radscorpion9 wrote: 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?
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).
On January 06 2012 07:48 beg wrote: not even humans, the most fucked up race on earth, would try to RKV-kill an alien civilization.
why should the aliens?
also, another thought experiment...
three assumptions.
1) it is unlikely that the alien race is at exactly the point of development that we are. they are either way less or way more developed. 2) an RKV would only kill a less or equally developed species 3) a more devloped species would deflect the attack and kill us.
draw the conclusion yourself.
the ops already brought up arguments to this, even if 99.9% of aliens are peaceful, if even primative species (us) are able to destroy entire planets then the few that are super BM could go around destroying everyone who they ever encounter. it also explains why the most developed species (atleast by realistic standard) could be destroyed by the savages.
i agree that its unlikely (developed species are probably in ships, chances are the distances are just too big or time differences etc) but the discussion is about the proper reaction to finding another species.
On January 06 2012 07:32 Haemonculus wrote: If aliens exist or have ever existed, I just find it highly unlikely that they and us exist in the same time period. Humanity has existed as a species for roughly what, 200,000 years, and we've only really been aware of ourselves as a species for the last 10,000 or so, and only in the last 50 have we even had the technology to bother thinking we can actually communicate with an alien race.
Given the age of the universe, what are the odds that an advanced alien species is out there, at the exact same time that we presently exist? Chances are they either were born, lived, and died off billions of years ago, or they'll be born, live, and die billions of years after we're gone.
You have a good point, but that's not taking into account the sheer size of the universe and the resulting probability of the existence of lifeforms.
Nah, that's exactly what I'm saying. Out of the many many planets that we have discovered, only a few are likely to even be capable of supporting life as we know it. Given the size of the universe, yes it's probable that life has evolved on other planets. What people don't seem to understand is that the universe is *massive* in scale in both time and distance. Intelligent life existing on a planet even close enough to us to be aware of us is one thing, (given how large our estimates of the universe are compared to the portion of it we can actually observe, in turn compared to the part of the universe we could ever feasibly reach). Said intelligent life also existing in the same general frame of time is just another level of improbability.
Interesting theory. It's kinda same as how technology lacks progression when there is peaceful situation. When you are threatened you will start inventing something to stop other race / nations / etc. Its gaining advantage against enemy. I'd say most of the current technology came from WWi and WWII inventions/research.
Horrible to say but most likely next "Big War" will give us yet again big leap with technology.
On January 06 2012 08:12 Warfie wrote: So many replies in this thread are in bad taste. Game theory in its essence is rational, cynical and logical. If you think this thread is full of bullshit then you must either disagree with the assumptions its logic is based on, or base your disagreement on logical flaws in the arguments that derive from the assumptions.
If you actually studied game theory then you would know that you are wrong.
Please elaborate. I don't study game theory, so I am not one to disagree. But what I'm trying to get at is exactly this - no one ever cares to explain anything, all they do is state a fact as if it were obvious to anyone and everyone. In this instance I am eager to learn about what the 'essence' of game theory might be, if I can assume you have studied it, but your post doesn't lend itself as of right now.
earth has the technology to trade mass for acceleration, but it doesn't have the technology to hit any target in the skies. If we had, we could already have a real-time complete gps-accurate map of the entire universe. (triangulation of a signal source is not enough to predict the trajectory of the source from now to impact, and the projectile itself cannot travel in a straight line).
Can a civilization have this kind of technology? there are physical upper bounds on how much computations you can have per time frame.
... and you are making assumptions on what is out there, and what they would do if they existed, based off absolutely zero facts, and you come up with that they would even find us at all, and do something about it, as likely?
That is just so many assumptions you have to make to get there, that it's weird to me.
I don't really agree in any way - I think you have misused game theory and made bad assumptions. Reconsider what would happen if two highly advanced and sentient civilizations discovered each other's existence simultaneously. If a civilization chooses to bomb, it would guarantee no change to itself, unless the other civilization chose to bomb as well. If it chooses to transmit information and establish contact, it would die if the other civilization chose to bomb, and reap great profits from collaboration if the other civilization chose the same. Therefore, it's always a dominant strategy to establish contact and collaborate, so there is a 0% chance that a civilization that discovers us will attack without warning.
edit: fuck, caller completely beat me to the chase lol
On January 06 2012 07:48 beg wrote: not even humans, the most fucked up race on earth, would try to RKV-kill an alien civilization.
why should the aliens?
also, another thought experiment...
three assumptions.
1) it is unlikely that the alien race is at exactly the point of development that we are. they are either way less or way more developed. 2) an RKV would only kill a less or equally developed species 3) a more devloped species would deflect the attack and kill us.
draw the conclusion yourself.
the ops already brought up arguments to this, even if 99.9% of aliens are peaceful, if even primative species (us) are able to destroy entire planets then the few that are super BM could go around destroying everyone who they ever encounter. it also explains why the most developed species (atleast by realistic standard) could be destroyed by the savages.
i agree that its unlikely (developed species are probably in ships, chances are the distances are just too big or time differences etc) but the discussion is about the proper reaction to finding another species.
What would compel this super BM species to actually act with a unified will?
I would assume that they are too busy bombing each other to even pay attention to a silly little civilization like us.
On January 06 2012 08:18 dementrio wrote: earth has the technology to trade mass for acceleration, but it doesn't have the technology to hit any target in the skies. If we had, we could already have a real-time complete gps-accurate map of the entire universe. (triangulation of a signal source is not enough to predict the trajectory of the source from now to impact).
Can a civilization have this kind of technology? there are physical upper bounds on how much computations you can have per time frame.
It's possible to sidestep calculating the trajectory of your target precisely by just programming tracking into the weapon, which is self-propelled. It's easy to be approximately on target.
Since we aren't currently dead, we can assume that no alien species wants to destroy us. Since the aliens aren't currently dead, they can assume we don't want to destroy them. Since there is no incentive to destroy the aliens unless we assume they are going to destroy us then we can happily live in a peaceful universe. The only time it would be a good idea to destroy an alien race would be if we both met simultaneously and no clear assumptions about our motives could be made (not going to happen, and totally unverifiable anyways).
Also, if we are already doomed because an RKV is on the way to destroy us, then we have no reason to shoot back since our energy would be better spent living our lives to the fullest, or deflecting the attack, and since we have no idea if a RKV is coming at as, preemptively launching an RKV could force a counterattack which we can't be sure we can defend (and if we're sure we can defend it, there is no reason to assume aliens could not).
In the case of your game theory there actually is a win/win. If noone shoots than everyone wins, and if someone shoots it doesn't matter because there is nothing you can do about it anyways, therefore the safest option is simply not to shoot and reap the economic rewards of cultural exchange.
EPT
