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Game theory, applied to aliens - Page 8

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grush57
Profile Joined March 2011
Korea (South)2582 Posts
January 06 2012 00:47 GMT
#141
WTF?
"Every thing is either simply awful or awfully simple." | "Weaklings can't pick... their way of death."
Rafael
Profile Joined January 2011
Venezuela182 Posts
January 06 2012 00:54 GMT
#142
Holy shit OP, what kinds of drugs where you dealing with when you came out by this idea.

Why complicated it so much, it's simple:

If a more advanced alien civ wants to kill us right now, THEY'LL KILL US.

We just need in the coming thousand of years find a way to defend from an alien attack, that's all.
ThaZenith
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada3116 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-06 00:56:55
January 06 2012 00:55 GMT
#143
I don't really disagree with what you're saying. But the more spread out a civilization is, the less likely it will be to insta-kill anyone it finds, because they'd still have the majority of their 'people' alive if one planet is targetted. Even less likely to kill if they can infer we're on one planet, because we obviously don't have any capability to really do anything, and wouldn't risk doing anything in case they can't be killed off in one shot (since on other planets). And failing to kill them in one shot ensures our death because we're stuck on just earth.

Plus, I think faster-than light communication is a possibility, and that we'll have it reasonably soon. (by reasonably soon I mean within 100 years or so) I seem to remember research into quantum-linked particles or something that, when one is influenced, the other shows the same result at the exact same time over a huge distance. But don't quote me on that, lol.
Maenander
Profile Joined November 2002
Germany4926 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-06 02:38:13
January 06 2012 01:02 GMT
#144
On January 06 2012 09:27 oBlade wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 06 2012 09:26 FuzzyJAM wrote:
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.


It's admittedly hard to make any course corrections if you are riding an asteroid at relativistic speeds, but then again a planet cannot make any course corrections either and orbits can easily be computed for several millennia given good observational data.

@ OP
I am not convinced a RKV would be undetectable by a sufficiently advanced civilization, by a radar network for example. I would have to do some numbers. It is relatively easy to destroy once detected, however.

I guess it would be advantageous for it to have an elongated form like a cigar or something in order to minimize the collision cross section with interstellar matter, interstellar dust would hit it with the energy of several tons of TNT and characteristic radiation might be emitted at some frequencies that are not crowded by background noise.

It would also be prudent to hide the start behind a star or something. It would be no problem to track back the trajectory to its point of origin after the deed is done, however, provided some observational data survive.

I don't agree with your conclusions btw, I doubt our first contact, if there ever is one, will be a RKV ^^

(On a second thought maybe it would be harder to destroy than I assumed, there are countless possibilities of deception, realistic estimates are just not feasible ^^)
Maenander
Profile Joined November 2002
Germany4926 Posts
January 06 2012 01:08 GMT
#145
On January 06 2012 09:54 Rafael wrote:
Why complicated it so much, it's simple:

If a more advanced alien civ wants to kill us right now, THEY'LL KILL US.

Haha, in a way that is true. A single von Neumann probe reaching our Solar System could have killed us a long time ago if it would have been programmed to do so, just by crashing an asteroid into lovely old Earth.
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-06 01:13:49
January 06 2012 01:09 GMT
#146
I've always believed we shouldn't even attempt to send out radio waves telling our location because what if they are hostile? and even if they are not, our planet is perfect for life and will be a perfect target for colonization, fuck sharing a planet with aliens we can barely feed millions of children in africa.

Honestly we need to stop sending out radio waves, it's pointless. What's gonna happen when aliens come? teach us some shit? I don't give a fuck, I'd rather we figure it out ourselves because eventually we'll have the biggest war the universe has ever seen (or that humans have seen).

keanu reeves conspiracy: what if aliens are actually "like" humans and found monkeys that were "similar" to themselves, evolved us on earth (2011 space odyssey anyone?) as an experiment to see how it would pan out on one planet compared to hundreds? and these "aliens" shoved us in the right direction by helping us build pyramids and all that shit. lol
Abort Retry Fail
Profile Joined December 2011
2636 Posts
January 06 2012 01:22 GMT
#147
I'm getting a brain hemorrhage.
Reading again to better understand it.
BSOD
Flamingo777
Profile Joined October 2010
United States1190 Posts
January 06 2012 01:28 GMT
#148
On January 06 2012 07:14 FeUerFlieGe wrote:
I'm not sure why they would kill us. If they live thousands of light years away and have no way of reaching us or communicating then would they really even care?

Because in a Zero Sum Game, one party wins, and the other must lose!
hp.Shell
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States2527 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-06 01:37:06
January 06 2012 01:33 GMT
#149
On January 06 2012 08:58 turdburgler wrote:
Show nested quote +
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.

The only way to guarantee survival is to be the big dog. You can't know the tech of a civilization that knows 99% of everything there is to know in the universe, including everything that goes on at all times at all locations. Imagine a species that has developed a technology that allows omniscience extending to 99% of the universe. You can run the risk that every species above you is peaceful because you can't know how advanced someone is. Therefore you can assume that there is a species that can time travel, has omniscience of the entire universe, can instantly travel anywhere, reincarnates infinitely, etc. You can assume that the technology to transfer information (or matter) instantaneously between any two points in the universe exists based on this thought experiment. So there is no reason to attack anyone, because you can also assume that there is a species who have found it to be 100% necessary to protect everyone from interplanetary attacks, and is 100% efficient at doing so.

Edit: Yes, I have smoked enough weed in my lifetime to discuss this intelligently on par with anyone....
Please PM me with any songs you like that you think I haven't heard before!
SpectralFremen
Profile Joined January 2011
Australia386 Posts
January 06 2012 01:39 GMT
#150
This has to be one of the most crackpot theories I've ever hear. I'm bloody glad the neither the US or USSR nuclear tacticians thought this way during the cold war or Humanity would have been extinct for 30yrs by now.
"And so he spoke, and so he spoke, that lord of Castamere"
dudeman001
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States2412 Posts
January 06 2012 01:46 GMT
#151
On January 06 2012 09:55 ThaZenith wrote:
I don't really disagree with what you're saying. But the more spread out a civilization is, the less likely it will be to insta-kill anyone it finds, because they'd still have the majority of their 'people' alive if one planet is targetted. Even less likely to kill if they can infer we're on one planet, because we obviously don't have any capability to really do anything, and wouldn't risk doing anything in case they can't be killed off in one shot (since on other planets). And failing to kill them in one shot ensures our death because we're stuck on just earth.

Plus, I think faster-than light communication is a possibility, and that we'll have it reasonably soon. (by reasonably soon I mean within 100 years or so) I seem to remember research into quantum-linked particles or something that, when one is influenced, the other shows the same result at the exact same time over a huge distance. But don't quote me on that, lol.

Aw man, wouldn't it be awesome if we discover a new means of communication then suddenly we find aliens have been sending messages all around us and we can finally see them. Sigh it's never wrong to dream. :D
Sup.
Simberto
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Germany11640 Posts
January 06 2012 01:52 GMT
#152
I think there are some major flaws in this whole argument.

I am pretty sure that one should not talk about stuff one does not really understand as if one would do so. For example, i am pretty sure game theory is more complex then the prisoners dilemma, because otherwise i can't see why someone would study it. One should not assume one has sufficient knowledge of a subject just because one heard it mentioned in some movie.

Also, we should stop polluting debates on concepts with technobabble. Quite realistically, i don't think anyone in this thread has any idea how hard or not hard it would be to fire missiles to other solar systems, or to intercept those. But for the general discussion, this information is not actually needed. This is a purely theoretical argument trying to analyse the results of a certain basic principles. If those are not correct, the whole analysis is probably not correct, but that does not mean one can not talk about it regardless, one just needs to realise that it not necessarily reflects reality.

So, those basics are:
It is possible to somehow kill an other civilisation one detects.
It is significantly harder to deflect that kill attempt then it is to execute it.
It is significantly easier to detect a civilisation that actively communicates.

Now, the main problem i have with the original argumentation is that it pretty randomly decides to group up "staying silent" with "attempt to kill others". There is absolutely no reason to do this. In fact, any attempt to kill others will probably be less silent then not doing so. So you have two completely unrelated decisions. One is staying silent or not, and the other is killing or not.

Generally speaking, staying silent is probably better in most situations. Exceptions would only be if other civilisations are more likely to kill silent civilisations than communicating ones, or if communication provides some sort of advantage. Both of those could be the case, and there is no really realistic way to determine if they are or are not true, but from a human perspective shooting at people just because they are silent does not sound like something a lot of civilisations would do. Especially since this does not include civilisations shooting at everyone, just those shooting only or preferably at silent civilisations. There might be benevolent civilisations who benefit those who reveal themselves, or bilaterally positive relations, but it is hard to determine how much you would benefit from revealing yourself when compared to just reacting to positive communications you receive, or staying silent.

However, killing is a completely different thing. The only situation where this would be useful would be if you hit others who have not yet detected you, but would do so after the point your kill device hits them, and kill you. If they have already detected you, either their killdevice is already on the way, will be before your killthingy hits them, or they would not send one without further action from you. In any of those situations, killing them is not beneficial. You increase the chances of them detecting you by using it since your killthingy can not be completely silent, and you also increase the probability of them using killthingies on you. They might even be so far advanced that they can deflect your killthingy, and be it only by being spread out for some to survive it.

So the conclusion is that if you are worried about aliens with killthingies, the best reaction is to stay silent, have a retaliation strike capacity to discourage people killing you, and don't randomly send killthingies at everyone, because that will get you killed with a far higher probability then not doing so.
cfoy3
Profile Joined January 2010
United States129 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-06 01:59:36
January 06 2012 01:58 GMT
#153
I dont think your really understand relativity. If an object goes close to the speed of light it doesnt behave magically. It will still take aproximently the same time as light to reach us. If their planet is 10,000 years away it will take aproximently 10,000 years to reach us. Your conclusion of only 2hrs is how long the projectile will expierance.
??
oBlade
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States5771 Posts
January 06 2012 02:02 GMT
#154
On January 06 2012 10:58 cfoy3 wrote:
I dont think your really understand relativity. If an object goes close to the speed of light it doesnt behave magically. It will still take aproximently the same time as light to reach us. If their planet is 10,000 years away it will take aproximently 10,000 years to reach us. Your conclusion of only 2hrs is how long the projectile will expierance.

You just misread it. He said if we detected something on the outer edge of the solar system, we would have for example 2 hours notice.
"I read it. You know how to read, you ignorant fuck?" - Andy Dufresne
cfoy3
Profile Joined January 2010
United States129 Posts
January 06 2012 02:04 GMT
#155
The scale of evolution is on hundred of thousands of years if not millions. We would be ants to any other intelligent life form. They would have evolved into intelligence long ago. It would be extremely unlikely to find another alien species that was even remotely on the same technological level as us.
??
cfoy3
Profile Joined January 2010
United States129 Posts
January 06 2012 02:07 GMT
#156
if they detect our signal and say send it immediately it would still take the thing thousands of years to reach us.
??
Happylime
Profile Joined August 2011
United States133 Posts
January 06 2012 02:11 GMT
#157
Why do we always need to assume other things are aggressive?

Maybe if there were aliens they'd be pretty chill yo.
Get busy living, or get busy dying.
Probe1
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States17920 Posts
January 06 2012 02:13 GMT
#158
Space dicks, game theory and a whole lot of I don't know therefore aliens.
우정호 KT_VIOLET 1988 - 2012 While we are postponing, life speeds by
TotalBalanceSC2
Profile Joined February 2011
Canada475 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-01-06 02:38:55
January 06 2012 02:29 GMT
#159
I dont know why aliens would not be friendly, I mean look at the transformers. They always come to lend a helping hand and save our planet, well except for the decepticons but they always lose anyway proving that an inteligent peaceful civ is better.

/end sarcasm

We have nothing to fear from an advanced alien species that employs the methods you lay out, any species that advanced yet violent would not waste such a WMD on little old us. Humans as an intelligent species (Not just a diffrent variety of ape) has barely been around for 10000 years, if they spent 1/1000 the time it would take to calculate the precise trajectory to launch a solid object at us or even program an autonomus self guided object they would realize that we probably won't even be around in 4000 years. (assuming 50% speed of light travel and 2000 light year distance)

The risk of another civ detecting the launch and seeing the launcher as an agressive threat to themselves is too great a risk for the reward of smashing a planet that will probably be a nuclear wasteland. I assume some sort device that would, with ludicris precision fire an enormous body through the depths of space, would be quite detectible by another advanced race. why would they be tuning into star trek when the threat of space dicks being fired at them is so much more prevelent. it is therefore my opinion that any advanced species would be less on the lookout for us and more looking for other similar races with violent intentions. So they can protect themselves.

I was bored.

Edit: Why is the universe so full of stars yet so silent?

Because sound doesn't carry well in a vacuum. Am i doing this right?
nilssonen
Profile Joined June 2011
Sweden41 Posts
January 06 2012 02:31 GMT
#160
This all assumes that we are actually correct in our thinking of physics and mathematical calculations of how the universe behaves.

The human sapiens is VERY young when it comes to life as we know it (considering several major annihilations) i doubt that we are going to have any type of chance if put up against another planets civilization with the intent of killing.

No, focusing on actually developing good long-way communication would be a way safer way for earth to survive in our galaxy.
"On the first day, man created God"
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