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On January 06 2012 08:58 Nevermind86 wrote:
What if aliens are one huge cloud of thinking neutrons like in Arthur C. Clarke childhood's end? RVK would be absolutely worthless ^^ and you still lose.
idd, these rvk's the op mentioned arent some unstoppable killing machine. simple radar will give you ample warning to stop them, assuming you knew how. he used an example of hours from the edge of the solar system, but we already use light bouncing off objects to measure every peice of rock large enough to hit us and do damage in a massive radius. a rock based weapon would be almost useless.
but i think the discussion is more about the logic behind how do you choose how to act as soon as you see them, not about the weapons used. the weapon brought up by the op would be completely useless
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The step for a civilization to be able to kill those RKV's doesnt seem impossible for me to overcome.
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The entire OP is based on the speed of light being the fastest possible communication method that is ever developed.
Looking at current physics theories and observed phenomenon it is more than likely we develop faster than light communications methods before we find highly intelligent alien lifeforms.
I'm not worried.
Also, it is more than likely if one race discovers the other (we discover aliens, aliens discover us) there will be a period of observation before communication is made. There is also the consideration of contact before we know their location. If you receive communications from possibly light-years away, you're more likely able to send a non-direct communication out before you can pinpoint the location of the communication, good luck launching an RKV without knowing the exact location.
Seems just like a paranoia circle-jerk to me, people have more reasonable, probable and tangible things to be worried about than alien extermination of our planet.
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An interesting topic and understandably a lot of wrong opinions.
First of all someone said you can't claim anything about aliens, not even if they exist or not because it is not based on facts. What you call facts are not really facts at all, they're just theories build around observation. It could for instance be that since we have not directly detected an extrasolar planet, that the solar system is the only system with planets. That doesn't seem very likely though. For the same reason, unless there is something terribly special about us, it's a strange assumption to assume that there are no aliens.
Also there is no such thing as human logic. Logic is independent of circumstances- that's the whole point of logic-.
With regards to the original topic.
1. RKV's can be detected. Even if you succeed into making one entirely cold, which is very hard but theoretically doable, a RKV launch will surely be detectable. The sheer energy to accelerate a RKV to any significant fraction of c is enourmous.They can also be stopped relatively easily. Just send a mass into its projected path: it will blow itself up with it's own energy.
2. 200 Gigatons may seem a lot, and yes it will do a lot of damage, but it is not necceseraly an instant kill. Part of it would burn up in the atmosphere(there are countermeasures) but more importantly: tenfolding the energy contained in an explosions doesn't increase its size by 10. In fact due to the area square law this increase in size will diminish very quickly.
3. Hitting a planet may seem very easy but is actually surprisingly hard. Also any significantly advanced civilisations will have colonized space. These space habitats are almost completely immune to RKV's.
4. A spread out empire with lots of colonies can't be destroyed by an attacker. The attacker simply doesn't know all the positions of colonies, so they could react when the central system is destroyed.
5.A sufficiently advanced civilisation probably isn't aggresive. Just like democracy coincided with the industrial revolution and modern weaponry.
6. Other alien civilisations could detect RKV attacks on a civ by an violent alien intelligence. Violent civs would then be eliminated by neutral alien civs.
7. More importantly this doesn't actually work in game theory.
First a communication message conveying peaceful intentions wouldn't preclude an RKV exchange. Both players can't be sure the other isn't lying. An agressive civilisation would just lie.
Consider. A and B make contact. A can't be sure that B will not attack. However in the case that B attacks both their choices would be equally bad. Both would result in complete destruction. Yes destroying B will give the consolation of revenge, but I don't think that is significant enough.
Little graph I made to illustrate.
B(Hawk) B (Dove)
A (Hawk) -10/-10 -10/-5
A (Dove) -10/-5 5/5
First value is for A, second for B.
-10: complete destruction by a RKV attack.
-5 : Cost of building RKV's + guilt for genocide (you could argue that alien civs dont feel guilt. I'd argue they most likely will if their a social species. which is highly likely. It doesn't really matter for the argument anyway.)
5: peacefull relations
Choosing dove is always the better outcome in this situation because if they choose hawk, choosing hawk or dove doesn't matter in your decision: you're dead either way.
Hence I predict galactic peace.
EDIT: Damn ninjas.
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On January 06 2012 07:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote:
EDIT: There is no known way to determine the source of an RKV launch, as even determining the path of an RKV launch would still force you to retaliate against every star system in the path of that RKV as a likely candidate.
EDIT #2: If an RKV is a blackbody, the only way to detect an incoming RKV would be by the gravity well it creates as it passes. It wouldn't show up on a telescope.
EDIT #3: If you want to be a peaceful civilization, the single most critical invention you will need is faster than light communication. Without it, liberal, humanistic values as we know them would simply not work on a galactic scale.
1) You can still calculate the trajectory
2) How so? Not all telescope are optical. In fact blackbody just means it emits wavelength relative to its temperature. A radiotelescope would definitly see it. It is a question of resolution and intensity, which can be improved.
3) A defensive civilization could just intercept RKVs, without sending them to get the first shot like paranoiacs.
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On January 06 2012 08:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 08:17 Warfie wrote:On January 06 2012 08:12 CosmicSpiral wrote: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. Game theory is developing mathematical models as applied to decision-making between rational agents (which range from individuals ----> civilizations). 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.
Thank you for enlightening me and, I am sure, many others. I retract my statements about game theory but keep the ones about some of the replies. :p
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On January 06 2012 09:04 Tektos wrote:
The entire OP is based on the speed of light being the fastest possible communication method that is ever developed.
Looking at current physics theories and observed phenomenon it is more than likely we develop faster than light communications methods before we find highly intelligent alien lifeforms.
And what 'current physics theories' is it that you are looking at?
I am not saying it's impossible to go faster than light (we don't even know all the particles that exist yet), but saying it's 'more than likely' it wil happen? No.
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On January 06 2012 09:03 creepcolony wrote:
The step for a civilization to be able to kill those RKV's doesnt seem impossible for me to overcome.
if they are traveling at 50% of the speed of light you could fire a tiny pebel at them and they would explode. remember if you can use a rock to destroy a planet, you can use a tiny rock to destroy the rock. like i said above, some kind of kinect weapon would be completely useless for the purpose of destroying planets. infact even getting 1 across space without hitting some small piece of dust that wouldnt destroy it would be close to impossible. and the bigger you make the kinetic weapon to survive minor collisions on the way, the harder it is to avoid the pull of stars and planets on the way.
its aaaallllssoo worth remembering, that since stars are 1000s of light years apart, a 50% speed of light weapon will take 2000 years to get there, using simple light to detect it, you would have up to 500 years to stop it even after detecting it twice (what you would need to know its speed and direction.
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On January 06 2012 08:52 sviatoslavrichter wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 08:49 FuzzyJAM wrote:On January 06 2012 08:43 EatThePath wrote: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. 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.
Correct me if I'm wrong (this was just based on some very rough calculations of mine, but I was generous in making sure I made it the easiest possible), but aren't we talking about needing to send a weapon across light years with an accuracy exceeding 0.000000001 degrees?
I'm not convinced we can do that I'm afraid. Perhaps you could try to convince me.
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Since you clearly don't understand what game theory means, let me show you game theory for high schoolers:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/EVd8D.png)
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On January 06 2012 09:09 Sinterklaas75 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 09:04 Tektos wrote:
The entire OP is based on the speed of light being the fastest possible communication method that is ever developed.
Looking at current physics theories and observed phenomenon it is more than likely we develop faster than light communications methods before we find highly intelligent alien lifeforms.
And what 'current physics theories' is it that you are looking at? I am not saying it's impossible to go faster than light (we don't even know all the particles that exist yet), but saying it's 'more than likely' it wil happen? No.
Tektos didn't say that we will be able to go faster than light soon, but there have been breakthroughs in the field of quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation which can (theoretically) make communication instant between two points anywhere in the universe.
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On January 06 2012 09:21 FuzzyJAM wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 08:52 sviatoslavrichter wrote:On January 06 2012 08:49 FuzzyJAM wrote:On January 06 2012 08:43 EatThePath wrote: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. 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. Correct me if I'm wrong (this was just based on some very rough calculations of mine, but I was generous in making sure I made it the easiest possible), but aren't we talking about needing to send a weapon across light years with an accuracy exceeding 0.000000001 degrees? I'm not convinced we can do that I'm afraid. Perhaps you could try to convince me.
Stop worrying about the specific weapon the OP used. We know how to make guided weapons.
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On January 06 2012 09:24 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 09:21 FuzzyJAM wrote:On January 06 2012 08:52 sviatoslavrichter wrote:On January 06 2012 08:49 FuzzyJAM wrote:On January 06 2012 08:43 EatThePath wrote: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. 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. Correct me if I'm wrong (this was just based on some very rough calculations of mine, but I was generous in making sure I made it the easiest possible), but aren't we talking about needing to send a weapon across light years with an accuracy exceeding 0.000000001 degrees? I'm not convinced we can do that I'm afraid. Perhaps you could try to convince me. Stop worrying about the specific weapon the OP used. We know how to make guided weapons.
Across trillions and trillions of kilometres? Really?
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Interesting read.
If a kill-first-ask-later policy would be the best course of action for any individual/society/alien species, life on Earth would already have become extinct, after a ferocius fight between the first few self-replicating RNAs that came to be. Since the social behavior is clearly a better alternative for survival in general, I think we can pretty much expect the same outcome in a galactic scale.
The only relevant difference between Earth and the Universe is the information speed limit, which for the Universe distances is admittedly quite low. I can see two possible scenarios regarding this: either there is a way to circunvent it, or there isn't.
If there is a way to supraluminic communication, then the Universe case becomes the same as the Earth case, and we'll live in a mix of collaboration and agression between species, as we do now between ourselves,. But not on a death-on-first-contact Universe.
If there is no way around the speed of light, then any space-faring race will inherently become fragmented and anarchic, spreading out to distant planets or systems that will inevitably become fully independent, since there will be no phisical way to control all society from any central government. Which would lead to a completely RKV-proof habitat, making the death-on-first-contact way simply not plausible.
Either way, I think we should worry much more about our own politicians than any lightspeed asteroids being sent our way.
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On January 06 2012 09:26 FuzzyJAM wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 09:24 oBlade wrote:On January 06 2012 09:21 FuzzyJAM wrote:On January 06 2012 08:52 sviatoslavrichter wrote:On January 06 2012 08:49 FuzzyJAM wrote:On January 06 2012 08:43 EatThePath wrote: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. 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. Correct me if I'm wrong (this was just based on some very rough calculations of mine, but I was generous in making sure I made it the easiest possible), but aren't we talking about needing to send a weapon across light years with an accuracy exceeding 0.000000001 degrees? I'm not convinced we can do that I'm afraid. Perhaps you could try to convince me. Stop worrying about the specific weapon the OP used. We know how to make guided weapons. Across trillions and trillions of kilometres? Really?
Yes, we really know how to program a computer to have a target and make its own course corrections.
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I don't know much about game theory but I'm a logic person.
Let's assume that the best aliens at surviving survive...
Surviving doesn't mean you have to develop a huge weapon, but have surviving skills and the most obvious one would be: Aliens live in huge spaceships like Independence day, it gives them an edge over a static civilization, from an evolucionary point of view living in a static place already hurts your chances, migratory aliens cannot be hit by an MKV, their ships could be undetectable the same way you claim an MKV is, or you get a giant cloud of thinking electrons like in Arthur C. Clark - Childhood's end. Life can get many forms we don't even imagine, according to your logic only static civilizations would be wiped out by this type of weapon, maybe the independece day aliens act US-style world police find your MKV-static civilization and wipe them out with their supernova bomb. Who knows?
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Despite being a jackass, caller is pretty funny.
On January 06 2012 09:24 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 09:21 FuzzyJAM wrote:On January 06 2012 08:52 sviatoslavrichter wrote:On January 06 2012 08:49 FuzzyJAM wrote:On January 06 2012 08:43 EatThePath wrote: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. 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. Correct me if I'm wrong (this was just based on some very rough calculations of mine, but I was generous in making sure I made it the easiest possible), but aren't we talking about needing to send a weapon across light years with an accuracy exceeding 0.000000001 degrees? I'm not convinced we can do that I'm afraid. Perhaps you could try to convince me. Stop worrying about the specific weapon the OP used. We know how to make guided weapons.
Agreed, this is more about the quietness of space -- huge topic untouched here really so far -- and best practices given lethal interstellar weaponry (in whatever form) and nothing FTL.
Unless of course you are here to seriously discuss interstellar armaments, as one might discuss presidential candidates. x.x
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On January 06 2012 09:09 Sinterklaas75 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 09:04 Tektos wrote:
The entire OP is based on the speed of light being the fastest possible communication method that is ever developed.
Looking at current physics theories and observed phenomenon it is more than likely we develop faster than light communications methods before we find highly intelligent alien lifeforms.
And what 'current physics theories' is it that you are looking at? I am not saying it's impossible to go faster than light (we don't even know all the particles that exist yet), but saying it's 'more than likely' it wil happen? No.
http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/07/diamonds-entangled-in-physics-feat/?hpt=hp_bn2
Also the cern experiment that discovered a neutrino or something travelling faster than the speed of light (although it hasn't been able to be repeated yet).
The only realistic model of alien contact imo is that they've already infiltrated the planet for a long time. If advanced civilisations were to exist, it would be strange that we haven't been contacted yet.
tldr: don't trust them when they say they come in peace!
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On January 06 2012 09:09 Sinterklaas75 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 09:04 Tektos wrote:
The entire OP is based on the speed of light being the fastest possible communication method that is ever developed.
Looking at current physics theories and observed phenomenon it is more than likely we develop faster than light communications methods before we find highly intelligent alien lifeforms.
And what 'current physics theories' is it that you are looking at? I am not saying it's impossible to go faster than light (we don't even know all the particles that exist yet), but saying it's 'more than likely' it wil happen? No.
True, "more than likely" was probably not the correct choice of wording. There have been observations at the quantum level of interaction between particles exceeding the speed of light. I highly doubt we'll encounter aliens anytime soon and who knows what types of quantum communication technologies may have (or may not have) been developed by then. The CERN-OPERA collaboration indicated that muon neutrinos may exceed the speed of light. Then there are theories such as Tachyons.
"More than likely" was inaccurate but it certainly isn't an impossibility.
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On January 06 2012 09:31 sandg wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 09:09 Sinterklaas75 wrote:On January 06 2012 09:04 Tektos wrote:
The entire OP is based on the speed of light being the fastest possible communication method that is ever developed.
Looking at current physics theories and observed phenomenon it is more than likely we develop faster than light communications methods before we find highly intelligent alien lifeforms.
And what 'current physics theories' is it that you are looking at? I am not saying it's impossible to go faster than light (we don't even know all the particles that exist yet), but saying it's 'more than likely' it wil happen? No. http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/07/diamonds-entangled-in-physics-feat/?hpt=hp_bn2Also the cern experiment that discovered a neutrino or something travelling faster than the speed of light (although it hasn't been able to be repeated yet). The only realistic model of alien contact imo is that they've already infiltrated the planet for a long time. If advanced civilisations were to exist, it would be strange that we haven't been contacted yet. tldr: don't trust them when they say they come in peace!
Entangling is more like teleportation. It doesn't really have anything to do with high speeds.
And the experiment is most likely to be a measurement error (ofcourse, we only know for sure when the theorists are done calculating, but for now you can assume the measurements were wrong).
Thanks for the link by the way. I like those kind of blogs! :D
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EPT
