EPTYour theory of Game Theory would really only be realistic if you think that's what we would do. I mean, assuming we meet some aliens like us, we wouldn't necessarily just instantly kill them.
Game theory, applied to aliens - Page 6
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
Your theory of Game Theory would really only be realistic if you think that's what we would do. I mean, assuming we meet some aliens like us, we wouldn't necessarily just instantly kill them. | ||
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liberal
1116 Posts
Of course, we won't know which direction to specifically choose, so we must launch countless attacks randomly and in every direction to wipe out as many civilizations preemptively as possible. This might exhaust the entire resources of our planet, but it's better than being killed off completely by the less-than-human space scum. I bet they are communists, too. | ||
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Insomni7
667 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:31 sviatoslavrichter wrote: You use a shotgun, of course. You put a H-bomb into the asteroid, and split it up into chunks as it's getting close to the general area of the planet. Actually, better yet, you fling about 100 RKVs at the star it's orbiting, each fragmenting into 100 chunks, so you have 10,000 mini-RKVs, each of which is carrying enough energy to burn off the planet's atmosphere. Essentially, a carpet bombing of an entire solar system. In that case, you'd only have to plot the course of a star, which is a trivial exercise any first-year astrophysics student could do. Dude this is so wrong. 10000 is actually nothing with the scales we are talking about. The chance of hitting anything is still miniscule. It is hard to explain how big the scales actually are, but believe me they are massive on a level we cannot even comprehend and this is just one solar system. 10000 missles would stand very little chance of hitting anything. | ||
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TheToaster
United States280 Posts
Tons of factors would change the direction of a projectile over that much distance in space. The RKV would be passing by hundreds or even thousands of celestial bodies, each with their own unique gravitational effect on the projectile. The massive amount of nukes also causes a huge problem. Simply by watching Mythbusters, it's easy to realize how difficult setting off a simultaneous launch sequence can be. More nukes means more possibility for problems with timing and launch failure. An asteroid would also make a terrible mass to make an RKV out of. Their irregular shapes would most likely cause a headache full of issues as the RKV travels through space. Taking these and several other unmentioned issues into account, the idea of an RKV would either be impossible in the immediate future or require a highly elaborate real-time guidance system that would rely on future advances in interstellar communication. There are simply too many issues with an RKVs path control, that making a remote control guidance system would be the only real option. | ||
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Insomni7
667 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:38 liberal wrote: If we REALLY want to be ahead of the curve in the gallactic space wars, we should preemptively launch these RKV's BEFORE we receive a signal from anyone. Because by the time you actually receive the signal, it may be too late for you, they already launched at your ass. Of course, we won't know which direction to specifically choose, so we must launch countless attacks randomly and in every direction to wipe out as many civilizations preemptively as possible. This might exhaust the entire resources of our planet, but it's better than being killed off completely by the less-than-human space scum. I bet they are communists, too. I really hope you are a troll. | ||
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Sinterklaas75
34 Posts
He is telling the people in this stupid thread in an ironic way how stupid this thread actually is. I hope you realized that, right? | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:33 FuzzyJAM wrote: I can't imagine humans being OK with committing genocide against an entire planet's life as a first act and I see no reason to assume other intelligent species would either. If a species has lived long enough to develop interstellar weaponry it seems far more reasonable to assume they must be relatively peaceful. There is next to no chance of humans ever finding intelligent life "out there" anyway (if there is even any to find), and that minute chance approaches zero if you're talking about the lifespan of people alive today. We're not talking about this as (metaphorically) an upcoming spaceage civ in the universe is like arriving at a party: once in the front door do you shoot everyone or say hi? Obviously most of us will vote for say hi, and so you might assume for aliens, or whatever. But... The point of departure is that given a silent universe, why, and given a reasonable chance of the predominance of the policy outlined in the OP, should we adopt that policy? You can't just say "no way" without providing an argument against either the choice of premises or the reasoning. On January 06 2012 08:34 CosmicSpiral wrote: Game theory is developing mathematical models as applied to decision-making between rational agents. It's closely related to decision theory and no more cynical or logical than Marxism-Leninism and analytic philosophy. It doesn't assume that everyone shares the same values and goals, it incorporates those possibilities into the models themselves to provide better explanations and hypothetical scenarios. And of course for the more complex scenarios you need a lot of prior information to make assumptions about said goals and values. Often times cooperation and altruism results in better rewards than mere self-interest. Nice post Cosmic. | ||
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oBlade
United States5496 Posts
Sounds to me like he was joking, not trolling. On January 06 2012 08:36 Purind wrote: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/804/aliensl.png/ I'm not seeing it. How would killing benefit aliens? Case 1: Humans also kill Aliens die either way. Makes no diff. what they choose Case 2: Humans are unaware Aliens live either way. Makes no diff. what they choose Case 3: Humans are aware and don't kill Aliens live either way. Makes no diff. what they choose unless they see value in integrating aspects of human culture. If there are NO benefits to trying to befriend humans then sure, kill us. If there's even an inkling of a chance that contacting humans could be beneficial, why would you kill? How does game theory arrive at the conclusion that aliens will instantly shoot space dicks at everyone? Yeah, the crux seems to be awareness/communication. If a civilization has control of whether it is loud enough to be detected, then they can just choose to be silent. In that case if they still listen and find other civilizations talking, there would be no difference between destroying and not destroying another civilization. Actually, there would be a difference because of the collateral internal pressures it takes to support a genocidal attitude. | ||
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TheToaster
United States280 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:43 Sinterklaas75 wrote: He is telling the people in this stupid thread in an ironic way how stupid this thread actually is. I hope you realized that, right? The thing about all these "new age" ideas is that you can't automatically call it stupid and discredit the thinking. Because if you do and it someday becomes true, the supporters will just laugh at you for being the one who's wrong. That's what separates "new age" from "crazy". The content might actually be found to exist in some way. | ||
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FuzzyJAM
Scotland9300 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:43 EatThePath wrote: We're not talking about this as (metaphorically) an upcoming spaceage civ in the universe is like arriving at a party: once in the front door do you shoot everyone or say hi? Obviously most of us will vote for say hi, and so you might assume for aliens, or whatever. But... The point of departure is that given a silent universe, why, and given a reasonable chance of the predominance of the policy outlined in the OP, should we adopt that policy? You can't just say "no way" without providing an argument against either the choice of premises or the reasoning. Well, what is there to argue exactly? If a species is capable of destroying entire planets millions of light years away and hasn't yet killed itself then it is, almost certainly, fairly rational and peaceful. There is no reason to believe anyone would be aggressive, therefore there is no reason for anyone to be aggressive. Genocide isn't a default, therefore there must be a compelling reason to commit it. | ||
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wswordsmen
United States987 Posts
Also the closest star is 4 and a bit light years away, so we are looking at a minimum difficulty of hitting a fly with a grain of sand from 25km+ away | ||
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sviatoslavrichter
United States164 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:43 EatThePath wrote: We're not talking about this as (metaphorically) an upcoming spaceage civ in the universe is like arriving at a party: once in the front door do you shoot everyone or say hi? Obviously most of us will vote for say hi, and so you might assume for aliens, or whatever. But... The point of departure is that given a silent universe, why, and given a reasonable chance of the predominance of the policy outlined in the OP, should we adopt that policy? You can't just say "no way" without providing an argument against either the choice of premises or the reasoning. Nice post Cosmic. Yepyep. It would like arriving at a party only to find the entire mansion is dead silent, covered in cobwebs, and everyone inside is blind, has a gun, and is trying to kill each other. What are you going to do then? Cosmic, that's a great post and I'll try to back this up with some math soon (although my class on game theory was 2 years ago.) That being said, the lightspeed communications barrier is the main factor I'm arguing for here. What happens to a game theory model when the ability for actors to communicate themselves is highly restricted? | ||
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Sinterklaas75
34 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:48 TheToaster wrote: The thing about all these "new age" ideas is that you can't automatically call it stupid and discredit the thinking. Because if you do and it someday becomes true, the supporters will just laugh at you for being the one who's wrong. That's what separates "new age" from "crazy". The content might actually be found to exist in some way. It's just the way people are talking about it in this thread, with their crazy ideas. But it is funny to read though. | ||
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TheToaster
United States280 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:50 wswordsmen wrote: OP is bullshit. Hitting a planet at earth's distance from the sun moving around a star light years away is like trying to hit a fly circling .1 meters from a light with a grain of sand, from 6.33 km away. That's basically what I posted, except I explained it in a more scientifically relative way. Try to be more elaborate when you discredit these people. They think they are actually being smart by talking about this stuff. | ||
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sviatoslavrichter
United States164 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:49 FuzzyJAM wrote: Well, what is there to argue exactly? If a species is capable of destroying entire planets millions of light years away and hasn't yet killed itself then it is, almost certainly, fairly rational and peaceful. There is no reason to believe anyone would be aggressive, therefore there is no reason for anyone to be aggressive. Genocide isn't a default, therefore there most be a compelling reason to commit it. You missed the part in the OP where I argued that if we only made an interstellar map of gravity anomalies (say within the surrounding 6000 ly, not hard to do if we use our telescope images to look at where light from faraway stars is getting bent) then we, 21st century humans, could destroy these planets RIGHT NOW. | ||
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sviatoslavrichter
United States164 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:52 TheToaster wrote: That's basically what I posted, except I explained it in a more scientifically relative way. Try to be more elaborate when you discredit these people. They think they are actually being smart by talking about this stuff. Even if you say that hitting a planet with an RKV is unlikely, you'd have to then accept that getting to the planet with a manned spacecraft is even more unlikely. | ||
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Nevermind86
Somalia429 Posts
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turdburgler
England6749 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:34 hp.Shell wrote: Sorry, but your game theory is wrong. You need to understand that you as a human will never know how advanced the most advanced civilization in the universe is. The ideal strategy in universal diplomacy/warfare is peace and cooperative communication; thus RKVs are not needed and should not be discussed. The universe is so big that the most advanced species will probably never know that they are the most advanced. Therefore there is always a huge risk in attacking another species' planet with the intent of genocide. If humans are the most advanced race in the universe, we would never know it. If you have a race that knows what's going on in 60% of the entire universe at all times, they still cannot know for certain that they are the most powerful race. What if we are simply being imprisoned in a matrix-like universe by an interdimensional species? It's like arguing for or against god. There is no reason to believe any higher civilization wants anything other than universal peace. This logically follows from the above thought experiment. Therefore there is no reason for humans to even want to develop interplanetary weapons and defense. this is a fair point, how can you be sure you are the big dog and he isnt watching you waiting to see how angry you are, destroying you when you decide to crush a smaller species. the problem though is that you cant run the risk. as has been stated, your only choice is to blindly attack everything, because firstly its easier to design a weapon of mass destruction than it is to defend a defence. and secondly you have no idea what the thoughts of the other side are. even if they are stronger than you, you dont know they are peaceful, you have to attack. as was stated, assuming non instantaneous information travel, you can blindly attack quicker than you can wait for replies. you only have to be wrong once for your planet to die, so you must continuously attack in order to guarentee survival. and as ive already said even if 99.9% realise that we can all just be safe together, only 1 civ needs to start shooting, and we all start shooting. | ||
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oBlade
United States5496 Posts
On January 06 2012 08:52 TheToaster wrote: That's basically what I posted, except I explained it in a more scientifically relative way. Try to be more elaborate when you discredit these people. They think they are actually being smart by talking about this stuff. Don't get hung up on the dumb (in the sense of unguided) asteroid RKV example of the OP. It's not a very elaborate technological feat to assemble a guided spaceship (weapon) capable of flying relativistic speeds. As he says, we can physically do that now. Hitting a planet is no problem. | ||
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evanthebouncy!
United States12796 Posts
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