Why is the universe so full of stars but so silent?
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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.
EDIT #4: Even if hitting a planet with an RKV is hard, then you have to imagine that, by the same logic, reaching it by a manned spacecraft or robotic probe is even harder, because not only do you have all the same guidance and fueling problems of an RKV, you'd also have life support problems, communications, etc. etc. Hence an RKV is still the most likely form in which we will encounter alien life.
The idea is a funny thought experiment, and I agree that if interstellar war works the way you describe (essentially insta-gib on first contact), evolution will favour kill-first behaviour. why 50% of light speed though? If the civilization is very advanced, I think it is safe to assume that they can shoot at 100% light speed. Just take a big asteroid or a chunk of a big planet or whatever, transform 1% into a laser beam and you will hit before the target can see anything.
You assume that there is no way for another civilization to defend themselves from this kind of attacks, on the basis that they wont see it coming. This is not true. The problem the killer has is that the information they have about their target is old (depending on distance, but from a few years for neighbouring stars to billions of years on the other side of the universe), and they wont hit until later in the future. ( in the rest-frame of the killer for example). You can calculate the orbit of the planet if you are good at gravity calculations, sure. But a planet can regularly manually change it's orbit randomly, for example by shooting out some ray in some direction, giving recoil. If the killer just calculates the orbit assuming the planet stays as it is, it will miss. This would completely change the picture of accurate instant kill snipes, into a picture of wild shooting and crossed fingers.
What a killer CAN do however, is to shoot a killing device, that takes up information about the target as it moves, and uses this information to adjust trajectory. This would return the picture the one originally described in the OP.
BUT: then the first civilization can do the same. This first message doesn't have to be just a "hi". It can be a killing device programmed to identify other civilizations, and kill them if they find them a threat. Then the original guys will get a report (a million years later) that the probe found this civilization and didn't trust it, so it killed it. In this way, the optimal strategy seems to be to send out a lot of almost-speed-of light probes in all direction, programmed to identify and kill threats, or if they find an empty system, to stop there, multiply, and send out 1000 new identical probes at almost speed of light. Maybe set up a warning beacon to warn the "home planet", if there even is such a planet, in case it sees a threat. Then the picture would be that of civilizations expanding like spheres in space at close to speed of light, killing (absorbing, multiplying, consuming, whatever) everything it passes. I can see the queen of blades doing this.
The winning civilizations would be the one that expands the fastest, and that can beat other probes when they encounter them. If there is such a thing as a home-planet, they will sit in the centre and get more and more delayed reports from the front as it moves out. until one day you will get a message from a beacon 25 000 light years away: "unidentified probe spotted. moving at 0.9999c. Activate defensive measures." then 3 seconds later "ERROR: DEFENCE BREACHED" then silence. Then you know that you have 2.5 more years to live, and that's the end of that civilization.
This assumes that there will be no faster-than-light BS, or workarounds like wormholes etc, but that advanced civilizations will get very close to the limit of light speed in terms of warfare.
Then what would the winning strategy be? What if a drone from a successful civilization came to earth? How will the drone do to best make sure that we don't kill them, and to as soon as possible send out new drones, and maximise defence from other incoming drones? Answer is: I have no idea. But I doubt that we will enjoy it.
EDIT #6: People keep trying to use traditional methods of game theory and int'l relations theory to think about this. The core problem here is that all these theories rest upon the assumptions of instantaneous communication and easy identification of who is responsible for the killing. Unfortunately, across interstellar distances, both are untrue, and especially compared with how fast weapon systems themselves can move, and also especially compared with how technologically hard it is to see who is doing the killing versus breaking the agreement yourself. This is why I've avoided using math in describing this post, as any game theoretic analysis I ran here would immediately be invalid because every freaking game theory principle out there rests on people being able to talk to one another..
EDIT #7: People also talk about the "pacifist" civilizations banding together against a hostile civ. Putting aside the idea that pacifism automatically will make different intergalactic species set aside their differences to go on a mutual witch hunt, there's also the more mundane problem of how the fuck to establish an alliance or even communicate peaceful intentions when each conversation could take thousands of years, time in which the "pacifist" civilization could easily just blow you up.
EDIT #8: Please see below for a more rigorous explanation of this scenario:
1.) Player 1 chooses to broadcast or not broadcast. 2.) Player 2 receives message and chooses whether or not to broadcast or launch a RKV. 3.) Player 1 either receives broadcast or detects RKV and decides whether to launch RKV. (this stage is a 3-fold branching. Detect response first, detect RKV first, or detect nothing)
That fully specifies an extended form game (tree structure) with all the necessary components to establish information sets given some strongly negative payoff for being dead and some presumably slightly negative payoff for having to launch an RKV, with broadcasting information being basically free. Information sets come into play in stage 3, since player 1 does not know if an RKV has been sent or not and has to make a decision based on the possibility of both situations.
The OP suggests that a SPNE is for 1 not to broadcast and launch RKV on detection of traceable communication. This is trivally a SPNE since the payoffs are 0 for both parties and we have not formulated any positive payoffs in this game. Thus, since we cannot do better (period), we cannot do better by deviating. (simple argument from weakening)
Later on, the OP suggests a peaceful outcome if the game is extended into
1.) Player 1 chooses to broadcast location, not broadcast, or to broadcast that player possesses advanced first strike and broadly decentralized second strike capabilities. 2.) Player 2 receives message and chooses whether or not to broadcast or to broadcast in turn the possession of advanced first strike and broadly decentralized second strike capabilities or to launch a RKV. 3.) Player 1 either receives broadcast or detects RKV and decides whether to launch RKV.
In this game, we see that broadcasting advanced first strike capabilities with broadly decentralized second strike capabilities while committing to launch RKV on detection of incoming RKV is also a SPNE. Given the payoffs we described earlier, there is a strongly negative payoff for player 2 to launch RKV, since they will be greeted in turn with an RKV in response.
A point that was somewhat unclear to me after the somewhat confusingly ordered edits in the OP was whether or not the origin of an RKV could be successfully traced for MAD. If RKVs are traceable then as I said in the previous paragraph, communication can still be an RKV. Otherwise, the only SPNEs are those where the first player does not broadcast.
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Had a long chat with a friend while drinking about what would happen if aliens ever knew we existed. Probably freaked the hell out of him, sorry about that, but we didn't get to the really scary stuff (see the last paragraph for that). But anyhow, with all the hubbub about finding habitable planets lately--maybe cooked up by a clever NASA spokesperson, or maybe not--human beings should understand that if aliens behave according to game theory, the most probable way that Earth will encounter alien life will be in the form of a relativistic kill vehicle (RKV) that instantly and without warning sterilizes the planet. We will not see any cute spaceships or wise aliens--it will simply be a 130 MT to 200 GT explosion happening somewhere on the earth's surface. (The latter explosion would turn us into Alderaan.) This is because across interstellar distances, talking is slow (bound by lightspeed), while RKVs and interstellar weapons are, relatively speaking, fast, so it makes sense to kill everything and ask questions later.
What is an RKV? An RKV is a simply a lump of matter accelerated to a significant fraction of lightspeed and sent on its merry way to a target. The faster it travels, the less warning time it gives for the recipient (if we put sensors in a spherical grid along the edge of the solar system, for example, an RKV traveling at 50% of the speed of light would give Earth approximately 2 hours to react). The effects of an RKV impact on earth would vary with mass and speed of target; a 1000 kg object traveling at 50% of the speed of light would result in a 3.3 gigaton energy release, or the equivalent of 66 copies of the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated going off at once.
In theory, there is no upper limit to the size of an RKV, and speed is limited only by the length of distance between us and the aliens. The longer the distance, the more space there is to accelerate, so the bigger a fraction of lightspeed can be reached. As for size, they could even decide upon overkill and launch entire asteroids at us (which would shatter earth), or guarantee some amount of destruction by placing a thermonuclear warhead in the asteroid to break it up into hundreds of chunks before it gets within range of earth, giving a sort of interstellar shotgun effect, where each pellet of buckshot can recreate the dinosaur extinction event.
A few other things to note: the RKV can be propelled with any sort of technology. It can even be propelled with current human technology. I always thought that if world peace were achieved, the first order of business for a unified human government would be to strap all preexisting nuclear warheads in a long daisy chain to one of the smaller asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, and then keep it ready to launch at the first alien civilization we detect. The slow pulse detonation of all 23000 nuclear warheads would be a cheap and effective way to propel the rock to a good fraction of lightspeed. Hell, we could even split those up amongst ten or twelve smaller rocks, and use solar mirrors and gravitational slingshots to get the first couple of speed boosts.
This also means that RKVs, at least speaking with regards to any spacefaring civilization, are energy-efficient compared to other weapons systems. With a good interstellar map, Civilization A could not only launch RKVs at Civilization B's home planet, but launch smaller shotgun blasts at all the other stars within a 100 light-year box around Civilization B's home planet, just to make sure any colonies are severely damaged as well. This level of capability is reachable with an Earth-level civilization with just a few years of dedicated RKV production (making as many nukes as possible to hook up to as many asteroids as possible). Assuming that Civ A has full energy infrastructure over one planet and partial energy harvests over a few more planets, simply by diverting 1% of their annual energy production into charging up RKVs over a few dozen years would let them have thousands of relativistic weapons to launch, enabling saturation bombardment of every single alien civilization they encounter.
Also, since the RKV is going so fast, it will be impossible to get to it with a shutdown code once it has traveled far enough away. This means that an RKV is essentially an unrecallable weapon for use only against predictible targets like orbiting planets, which means that even unused, RKVs are one of the best forms of interstellar MAD against planet-based life possible.
Note, I say this is the most probable way, not necessarily with a >50% probability, but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions, then eventually the aliens which choose the insta-kill, no-radio-broadcast action 100% of the time will outnumber the aliens who are actively broadcasting and announcing their home planet's location to the universe. Hence these aliens will be the more common type by evolution. There are still chances that we will encounter happy aliens or dumb aliens (preferably both happy and dumb, as any other combination would pose extreme threats to our survival as a species), but they will be outweighed by chances we will encounter aliens which are intelligent and violent.
This concept rests upon four basic assumptions: 1) communications will never evolve beyond lightspeed, 2) in any interstellar communication, the sender species reveals the exact coordinates of their planet, 3) the most lethal and reliable methods of long-range species elimination all operate at near-light-speeds, and 4) there is no way to show peaceful intent without actively communicating peaceful intent. Currently, all 4 assumptions hold true.
Drawing together these four assumptions, let's consider a thought experiment.
Civilization A detects the radio waves of Civilization B. If a second pulse comes shortly thereafter, Civilization A can triangulate a position in the sky. Civilization A has a choice: it can broadcast radio waves that travel at 100% lightspeed, or launch an RKV that travels at 50% lightspeed. Since it will take at least a back-and-forth to establish peaceful intent, in the time before both sides know each other is peaceful, RKVs could already annihilate the home planets of the other civilization. So Civilization A will essentially think: "why take the risk? What if they launch immediately upon hearing a reply from us?" and will launch first. Civs which do not think this way will be killed off by Civs that do, until the universe is truly silent.
If the universe is anarchic and civs are competing with each other, then a few trends emerge in politics. First and foremost is that the dominant form of government will be a centralized authority with totalitarian control over energy production. The main function of the central authority will be how to most efficiently convert produced energy into RKVs or other ways to perform interstellar first strikes. However, they will need to spread out their colonies as fast as they can to survive, which means their local political institutions have to become somewhat autonomous because lightspeed communications are slow the further out you get--their populations will need to not be coerced by a central authority into giving up all their energy production to the center, but be morally or spiritually compelled to do so. The third aspect is that the civilization will need to be dead silent and paranoid with regard to radio communications, as any comms can leak the position of population centers. Fourth is that the civ must kill without any warning any other civilization which it encounters. Civs which obey these four precepts will quite simply kill off all civs which don't. Basically, because of how slow communications and trade are compared to instant death when dealing with interstellar distances, the dominant form of government will resemble North Korea, except worse. And over time, that's all that will be left, and no civs will ever know how to stop as you will never know whether or not there is another civilization with more RKVs and more spread out colonies waiting to pounce on you.
There is, of course, one, small, faint glimmer of hope in this. One way out. And that is to make sure that in the initial communication pulse, a clear message of deterrence AND peace is recieved; that humankind is shown to already be spread out amongst thousands of planets with millions of RKVs and other first strike weapon systems ready to go, but we resolve conflict peacefully. Unfortunately, most of humankind's messages to space thus far have telling at least one of three messages: 1) we are confined to one planet, 2) we are violent amongst ourselves, and 3) we have not yet invested in interstellar weapons systems.
Maybe it's time we, as humans, got serious about colonizing other planets. After all, we have already sent out the Hitler TV broadcasts and the Arecibo message cheerfully broadcast to a star system chosen because it was likely to contain life, telling them exactly how to find Earth. After all, short of adopting a policy of active xenocide, how else are we going to defend ourselves if some other cosmic civilization is flinging white-hot spears of destiny at us just because their analysts used game theory to design their defense policy?
I question how you are actually using game theory to come to your conclusions. It seems like you are making some very large assumptions on how future (and alien) civilizations operate, especially that all those hypothetical civilizations can be regarded as individual decision-makers. Any proper application of game theory to this scenario would attempt to explain why (the majority) of these civilizations would reach the same conclusion.
An interesting read. The same thing goes with nuclear warheads within Earth. You're basically just trusting that the other party to have an interest in peace. The difference here is that you will have no communication with the other party.
There's some serious math behind a good RKV. Hitting a planet that's lightyears away and moving at a constant orbital speed is one thing, but you've also gotta consider all the potential objects in the RKV's path. You're trying to take out Pandora, and BAM. Sorry Saturn, bro, we just asploded you.
We could do it, by combining all existing warheads, like you mentioned... but I just don't see that ending well... Some retard on earth would see it as an oppourtunity to set them all off together or something.. About the only thing scarier than being nuked is the idea of 23,000 nukes all hanging out together....
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?
On January 06 2012 07:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote: This concept rests upon four basic assumptions: 1) communications will never evolve beyond lightspeed, 2) in any interstellar communication, the sender species reveals the exact coordinates of their planet, 3) the most lethal and reliable methods of long-range species elimination all operate at near-light-speeds, and 4) there is no way to show peaceful intent without actively communicating peaceful intent. Currently, all 4 assumptions hold true.
4 isn't clear to me. The idea (in some ways it's also a hope) that violence is self-destructive among intelligent life implies that a civilization's simple existence at an advanced state of technology entails its peaceful intent.
On January 06 2012 07:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote: Unfortunately, most of humankind's messages to space thus far have telling at least one of three messages: 1) we are confined to one planet, 2) we are violent amongst ourselves, and 3) we have not yet invested in interstellar weapons systems.
Our active SETI has been negligible, though. As you say, there are so many habitable places, but apparently no species. It's probably impossible to isolate each individual potential world and send a message to it. Actually, even active SETI is passive, with simple beacons (like on the hydrogen line) probably being the norm. The only really potentially stupid active SETI event I know of was our message to Gliese.
On January 06 2012 07:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote: After all, we have already sent out the Hitler TV broadcasts and the Arecibo message cheerfully broadcast to a star system chosen because it was likely to contain life, telling them exactly how to find Earth.
Wow, wow, wow. You took Contact too literally. Our local EM traffic isn't strong enough to reach anyone who's listening. The Arecibo message realistically isn't going to reach anyone. When it was sent, we didn't know what a star system likely to contain life looked like, or how to detect one. We pointed it at a very far globular cluster. It's something akin to trying to shoot a deer with a relativistic wind. The bullet will end up fuck knows where.
Cause an Alien civilization million years advanced, heck even several thousand years, wouldn't have better astronomical, communication tools to detect radio waves etc... Second what if their space program(s) are that much older and their version(s) of Voyager are further out... and so forth.
Then there is the possibility, however slim, that said planet just destroyed has neighbors... or allies, even enemies that are just as advanced as Civilization that sent the deathblow...
This is assuming that all other planets have reached the same exact conclusion that they must destroy anything new to them. Hopefully Civilizations at the point in time where they can discover and destroy worlds light-years away, will have better ideologies and beliefs then to just destroy us. If there bad Aliens then there must be good ones. Lets hope the good ones find us first.
Interesting read. As I Science Fiction fan, I liked your take on the inevitable-violent trait of galactic civilizations. It would make an interesting background for a story.
And this is why aliens have not contacted us yet. Because they've realized that we haven't outgrown our barbaric, warlike roots. Humans are still selfish, greedy and violent, and we are not prepared for contact with other civilizations.
Also your assumptions are wrong. Your whole post is a silly intergalactic conspiracy theory which I find to be less plausible than people who claims aliens have been watching us for centuries.
Aliens wouldn't bother to annihilate us immediately they would rather enslave us harvest our planet for resources THEN annihilate us. If they are that kind of Aliens anyway
The way I see it, if there is any civilization with such advanced technology, one way or the other, there's just no way to defend ourselves and no way to talk peace into this.
The gap between them and us would be the equivalent of the gap between us and ants. We don't talk to ants, we just step on them and move on.
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.
Your logic only applies if you can get your RKV's to travel at least half the speed of light. I'm not sure how feasible that is. Also, you assume alien races would be incapable of detecting or deflecting our RKV. If they can detect it before it arrives, then they would probably respond, which would make sending it a bad idea. If they can deflect the attack, then obviously we are screwed, as they would likely destroy us as we have demonstrated we want to destroy them.
Not to mention, all of this lies on the assumption that alien logic is at all similar to human logic. It's fun to think about though...
On January 06 2012 07:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote: This concept rests upon four basic assumptions: 1) communications will never evolve beyond lightspeed, 2) in any interstellar communication, the sender species reveals the exact coordinates of their planet, 3) the most lethal and reliable methods of long-range species elimination all operate at near-light-speeds, and 4) there is no way to show peaceful intent without actively communicating peaceful intent. Currently, all 4 assumptions hold true.
4 isn't clear to me. The idea (in some ways it's also a hope) that violence is self-destructive among intelligent life implies that a civilization's simple existence at an advanced state of technology entails its peaceful intent.
That's a slim hope, but would you as a defense planner base your species' survival on the "likely peaceful natures" of the rest of the universe? How can you make that conclusion?
On January 06 2012 07:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote: Unfortunately, most of humankind's messages to space thus far have telling at least one of three messages: 1) we are confined to one planet, 2) we are violent amongst ourselves, and 3) we have not yet invested in interstellar weapons systems.
Our active SETI has been negligible, though. As you say, there are so many habitable places, but apparently no species. It's probably impossible to isolate each individual potential world and send a message to it. Actually, even active SETI is passive, with simple beacons (like on the hydrogen line) probably being the norm. The only really potentially stupid active SETI event I know of was our message to Gliese.
Fair enough, although even if these actions are ineffective, the mentality behind them is extremely dangerous as it presumes that aliens would want to communicate with us first rather than just wipe us out on contact.
On January 06 2012 07:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote: After all, we have already sent out the Hitler TV broadcasts and the Arecibo message cheerfully broadcast to a star system chosen because it was likely to contain life, telling them exactly how to find Earth.
Wow, wow, wow. You took Contact too literally. Our local EM traffic isn't strong enough to reach anyone who's listening. The Arecibo message realistically isn't going to reach anyone. When it was sent, we didn't know what a star system likely to contain life looked like, or how to detect one. We pointed it at a very far globular cluster. It's something akin to trying to shoot a deer with a relativistic wind. The bullet will end up fuck knows where.
True, but with the current excitement over finding planets that might contain life, it's not a stretch to imagine some group or another "broadcasting a peaceful message" to them.
On January 06 2012 07:28 DreamChaser wrote: Aliens wouldn't bother to annihilate us immediately they would rather enslave us harvest our planet for resources THEN annihilate us. If they are that kind of Aliens anyway
The likely resources they would be after in a terrestrial planet (water comes first to mind) could still be harvested after an interstellar bombardment.
Well we haven't been done in yet, so that's a good sign. The way I see it, a civilization that has the power to detect and annihilate others is enlightened enough not to do such a thing. OP is also assuming that accelerating stuff towards light speed is the end-all of technology. It could be our scientific knowledge is very limited and an attack by "RKV" would be laughable to our neighbours in the universe.
Aliens would never shoot RKVs at anyone they suspected might have RKVs themselves. Just like with the Cold War, it's about mutually assured destruction. If there is any chance at all of a civilization having RKVs, there is also that same chance that they have methods to detect them. Even if they can't be stopped, a civilization could launch one right back and ensure the destruction of both planets. Any civilization wanting to take out another would do things the old fashioned way and send in the fleet in order to make sure their victims couldn't respond.
On January 06 2012 07:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote: This concept rests upon four basic assumptions: 1) communications will never evolve beyond lightspeed, 2) in any interstellar communication, the sender species reveals the exact coordinates of their planet, 3) the most lethal and reliable methods of long-range species elimination all operate at near-light-speeds, and 4) there is no way to show peaceful intent without actively communicating peaceful intent. Currently, all 4 assumptions hold true.
4 isn't clear to me. The idea (in some ways it's also a hope) that violence is self-destructive among intelligent life implies that a civilization's simple existence at an advanced state of technology entails its peaceful intent.
That's a slim hope, but would you as a defense planner base your species' survival on the "likely peaceful natures" of the rest of the universe? How can you make that conclusion?
On January 06 2012 07:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote: Unfortunately, most of humankind's messages to space thus far have telling at least one of three messages: 1) we are confined to one planet, 2) we are violent amongst ourselves, and 3) we have not yet invested in interstellar weapons systems.
Our active SETI has been negligible, though. As you say, there are so many habitable places, but apparently no species. It's probably impossible to isolate each individual potential world and send a message to it. Actually, even active SETI is passive, with simple beacons (like on the hydrogen line) probably being the norm. The only really potentially stupid active SETI event I know of was our message to Gliese.
Fair enough, although even if these actions are ineffective, the mentality behind them is extremely dangerous as it presumes that aliens would want to communicate with us first rather than just wipe us out on contact.
On January 06 2012 07:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote: After all, we have already sent out the Hitler TV broadcasts and the Arecibo message cheerfully broadcast to a star system chosen because it was likely to contain life, telling them exactly how to find Earth.
Wow, wow, wow. You took Contact too literally. Our local EM traffic isn't strong enough to reach anyone who's listening. The Arecibo message realistically isn't going to reach anyone. When it was sent, we didn't know what a star system likely to contain life looked like, or how to detect one. We pointed it at a very far globular cluster. It's something akin to trying to shoot a deer with a relativistic wind. The bullet will end up fuck knows where.
True, but with the current excitement over finding planets that might contain life, it's not a stretch to imagine some group or another "broadcasting a peaceful message" to them.
It doesn't matter. To think that human weapons would be able to scratch the paint off a vessel of the ship of an alien species advanced enough to actually send ships across the entire void of the galaxy is silly.
A modern cruiser could blow up a WW2 era battleship from hundreds of miles away. An old ship of the line from the age of sail could pull up alongside a WW2 battleship and blast it with cannons all day and not achieve much. The battleship could blast it to pieces in a single shot whenever it wanted. If human weapons render themselves obsolete in mere decades, what the heck makes you think that we'd have a chance against a species which in theory would have had centuries of millennia of tech advantage over us?
Makes for cool movies and video games, but kinda ridiculous in reality, (assuming aliens exist and all that jazz, lol)
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.
True, that is the likeliest possibility, and the traditional answer to the question posed at the top of the OP. The OP is an alternate explanation.
it's actually quite easy. The universe is so silent, because it's actually in a vacuum. What does a vacuum have to do with sound, you ask? Well, sound just means, that the air around you is vibrating. It's vibrating in different frequenzies to make different notes. So, sound can only exit if there exists air. But, as one may think, the universe does not contain a lot of air outside of our planet. This means the universe is so silent because there is no air.
After we explained this, could someone explain to me how magnets do work?
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.
On January 06 2012 07:32 alphafuzard wrote: Your logic only applies if you can get your RKV's to travel at least half the speed of light. I'm not sure how feasible that is. Also, you assume alien races would be incapable of detecting or deflecting our RKV. If they can detect it before it arrives, then they would probably respond, which would make sending it a bad idea. If they can deflect the attack, then obviously we are screwed, as they would likely destroy us as we have demonstrated we want to destroy them.
Matter/antimatter pulse propulsion can reach staggering relativistic speeds (it's a step up from nuclear pulse propulsion). 0.5c is possible. I would tend to say they couldn't detect it. It's like trying to hear a bullet since it's impossible to. An asteroid-sized thing just sneaks up on your civilization and vaporizes it. It depends what kind of resolution you can make your telescopes, and whether you have enough to watch the whole sky, and enough people/software to dig it out of everything else in the pictures your telescopes take.
On January 06 2012 07:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote: If the universe is anarchic and civs are competing with each other, then a few trends emerge in politics. First and foremost is that the dominant form of government will be a centralized authority with totalitarian control over energy production. The main function of the central authority will be how to most efficiently convert produced energy into RKVs or other ways to perform interstellar first strikes. However, they will need to spread out their colonies as fast as they can to survive, which means their local political institutions have to become somewhat autonomous because lightspeed communications are slow the further out you get--their populations will need to not be coerced by a central authority into giving up all their energy production to the center, but be morally or spiritually compelled to do so. The third aspect is that the civilization will need to be dead silent and paranoid with regard to radio communications, as any comms can leak the position of population centers. Fourth is that the civ must kill without any warning any other civilization which it encounters. Civs which obey these four precepts will quite simply kill off all civs which don't. Basically, because of how slow communications and trade are compared to instant death when dealing with interstellar distances, the dominant form of government will resemble North Korea, except worse. And over time, that's all that will be left, and no civs will ever know how to stop as you will never know whether or not there is another civilization with more RKVs and more spread out colonies waiting to pounce on you.
Well, if you fracture your civilization into colonies, depending on where you live in the galaxy, you will still have noticeable relativistic communications problems between stars. Think about our reasons for non-proliferation right now. Even if one nuke falls into the wrong hands, there is a huge problem. Then apply that to the agendas different people will have in this imaginary politics. The authoritarian model is rife with internal power struggles, which adds to my self-destructive argument - they may end up simply using RKVs on themselves.
On January 06 2012 07:42 Xiron wrote: Listen,
it's actually quite easy. The universe is so silent, because it's actually in a vacuum. What does a vacuum have to do with sound, you ask? Well, sound just means, that the air around you is vibrating. It's vibrating in different frequenzies to make different notes. So, sound can only exit if there exists air. But, as one may think, the universe does not contain a lot of air outside of our planet. This means the universe is so silent because there is no air.
After we explained this, could someone explain to me how magnets do work?
This didn't have anything to do with anything. But in the spirit of jocularity, I will refute you with the Star Wars argument: In space, explosions are actually louder because there is no air to get in the way.
Fascinating post. Even granting you that the state of the (inter)galatic system is anarchic I find your conclusions puzzling. You acknowledge that the RKV´s are relatively simple to create and use. In that case, how can a civilizations first move be to launch their RKV´s at another civilization? The trajectory of the projectile would give away its starting location (or reveal a possible set of starting locations, depending on how advanced the attacked civilization is) and its not a stretch to imagine that they would launch a retaliatory strike (which could be possible with some sort of dead mans trigger or something). Therefore, if both civilizations are acting logically, then they would surely realize that the chances that the other civilization maintains second strike capabilities is sufficiently high to deter any pre-emptive strike. And if this is true, as I assert it is, any race with the ability to create and launch RKV´s would reach the same logical conclusion and not attempt a first strike.
However I don´t necessarily concede the anarchic state of the galactic or inter galactic system. That conclusion seems premature given our lack of information.
TLDR OP´s assumptions are a stretch EDIT: People are getting of the topic of game theory though, which is what this was about
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.
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.
On January 06 2012 07:39 KaBoom300 wrote: Aliens would never shoot RKVs at anyone they suspected might have RKVs themselves. Just like with the Cold War, it's about mutually assured destruction. If there is any chance at all of a civilization having RKVs, there is also that same chance that they have methods to detect them. Even if they can't be stopped, a civilization could launch one right back and ensure the destruction of both planets.
A civilization couldn't necessarily do that with reasonable certainty, though. There is no way to know where the other civ is in the galaxy on the basis of a single RKV shot pattern. Only a general direction; and given how the RKVs could launch slow, then accelerate about 2 or 3 hundred light-years away from their launch sites, it gets even harder to figure it out. The only reliable way to aim an RKV launch is through triangulating radio comms or identifying likely planets with life by looking at spectrometer results.
Any civilization wanting to take out another would do things the old fashioned way and send in the fleet in order to make sure their victims couldn't respond.
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?
This would be like us deciding to engage in the practice of killing every chimpanzee in the world out of fear that they will evolve into future competition.
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
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).
Also can you explain how you used game theory to come to these conclusions?
One mayor flaw with your argument is time and the future.
First lets say civ a is earth and civ b is hostile civ.
Civ a is advanced enough to effectivly send out messeges to all planets say us in 20 years. We send a messege at ligth speed to civ b 100 ligth years away. Takes 100 years. Civ b launches rkv. Takes 200 years.
In 2330 rkv reaches our solar system. Rkvs are pretty nice. But in the 1700 the most advanced weapon imaginable was a really big cannon. Today we have nukes and tech increase is exponential. There is a very good chance the rkv is obsolete waaaaaaaaay before it hits. If civ b was unlucky civ a was even infront of them in tech and destroys them and every star in a 50 ly radius with their supernova generator instead.
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.
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.
You can't assign probability to something you know nothing about.
It's like arguing that it's more probably that God exists than he does not ... sure, you can make that argument, and it has been made before, and it will be made again (even in the book the probability of god by a physicist), but it ignores a very simple truth: you are making assumptions about something you know nothing about in order to make a claim about it, it's chance of existing, or its actions.
Either aliens exists, or they do not. Either God exists, or he does not.
IF there is a God, or some sort of Alien species, we know absolutely nothing about them, and therefore cannot make any predictions whatsoever ever them. Any predictions we make are based off what we believe, our values, our reasoning, our logic. Outside our assumptions, which are not based on facts - since we know absolutely no facts about said God or said Aliens, we have nothing to base our assumptions on. It's like saying it's 50% probability that God exists because either he does or he doesn't. Which sounds cool and all. But it's insanely stupid, because probability is based off having some facts to work with.
TL;DR: Aliens if they exists obviously live off other species, and they would not sterilize our planet, because they would harvest us periodically to serve us as meat in an intergalactic hamburger restaurant. I know this, because all my assumptions of aliens are based on Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which is the only factual documentary about alien behaviour.
Game Theory applied to aliens? Game Theory applied to God? Game Theory applied to unicorn riding alien elves led by God? It has the exact same meaning behind it: nothing. No value to it at all.
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.
On January 06 2012 07:21 jcroisdale wrote: This is assuming that all other planets have reached the same exact conclusion that they must destroy anything new to them. Hopefully Civilizations at the point in time where they can discover and destroy worlds light-years away, will have better ideologies and beliefs then to just destroy us. If there bad Aliens then there must be good ones. Lets hope the good ones find us first.
This, this and this. And this is also exactly why earth will never be an advanced civilization if it stays like this.
Someone just finished reading Ender's Game I guess lol. Well all this stuff is sure interesting to think about but as was stated on the first page the odds of multiple advanced civilizations existing simultaneously is based on our current knowledge extremely small. Although I suppose it is possible for a civilization to become so advanced that they can avoid all potential civilization-ending catastrophes. I would prefer to assume all aliens are not only happy but friendly and that if they aren't and we somehow have time to figure it out before we get destroyed nobody will tell me.
On January 06 2012 07:54 aebriol wrote: You can't assign probability to something you know nothing about.
It's like arguing that it's more probably that God exists than he does not ... sure, you can make that argument, and it has been made before, and it will be made again (even in the book the probability of god by a physicist), but it ignores a very simple truth: you are making assumptions about something you know nothing about in order to make a claim about it, it's chance of existing, or its actions.
Either aliens exists, or they do not. Either God exists, or he does not.
IF there is a God, or some sort of Alien species, we know absolutely nothing about them, and therefore cannot make any predictions whatsoever ever them. Any predictions we make are based off what we believe, our values, our reasoning, our logic. Outside our assumptions, which are not based on facts - since we know absolutely no facts about said God or said Aliens, we have nothing to base our assumptions on. It's like saying it's 50% probability that God exists because either he does or he doesn't. Which sounds cool and all. But it's insanely stupid, because probability is based off having some facts to work with.
TL;DR: Aliens if they exists obviously live off other species, and they would not sterilize our planet, because they would harvest us periodically to serve us as meat in an intergalactic hamburger restaurant. I know this, because all my assumptions of aliens are based on Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which is the only factual documentary about alien behaviour.
Game Theory applied to aliens? Game Theory applied to God? Game Theory applied to unicorn riding alien elves led by God? It has the exact same meaning behind it: nothing. No value to it at all.
You can kind of assume that alien life has gotten there by evolution, which is to say aliens which are good at surviving tend to survive, while aliens that suck at survival tend not to. If you think about it that way, then aliens which blow up everything without warning and never communicate their own planets' positions would tend to survive over aliens that don't, no? Especially if there is no way for the peaceful aliens to ever coordinate with one another, given how slow communications are?
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.
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.
Too bad in practice retards can never develop interstellar civilizations. In our case, Lady Gaga and Snooki are taking good care we aren't getting anywhere soon. Wait... maybe they are aliens sent from outer space to turn us all into morons?
Let's see ... I want to start a shitty thread on the Team Liquid forums! I'm going to write some masturbatory science fiction and then imply that it has scientific merit by adding the phrase 'game theory' in the title, even though I don't know what that actually is.
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.
On January 06 2012 08:02 blah_blah wrote: Let's see ... I want to start a shitty thread on the Team Liquid forums! I'm going to write some masturbatory science fiction and then imply that it has scientific merit by adding the phrase 'game theory' in the title, even though I don't know what that actually is.
Yes.
This is a good idea.
I don't agree with the OP but I've been more impressed with his effort than posts like these and tl;drs, which don't contribute anything or help any of us flush out ideas.
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.
On January 06 2012 07:55 Requizen wrote: Anyone else reminded of Ender's Game?
Didn't see this when I posted but my thoughts exactly. Perhaps more specifically Ender's Shadow?
Actually, I began to think of this after I read the book "On Thermonuclear War" by Herman Kahn, one of the seminal works on Cold War nuclear defense policy.
On January 06 2012 07:12 CosmicSpiral wrote: I question how you are actually using game theory to come to your conclusions. It seems like you are making some very large assumptions on how future (and alien) civilizations operate, especially that all those hypothetical civilizations can be regarded as individual decision-makers. Any proper application of game theory to this scenario would attempt to explain why (the majority) of these civilizations would reach the same conclusion.
the game theory part is simply deciding how to act based on your choices. imagines its a game called steal or share (stolen from 100 game shows ever) if both people share, you both get the prize (survival in OPs case) if you both steal you both die, if 1 steals 1 shares, the stealer survives and the sharer dies.
which is the best choice? well in the end it doesnt even matter, because in this universal game of steal or share, stealers kill all sharers, its not a 1 on 1 experience. therefore leaving only stealers, who will develop faster ways to steal before the other team knows the game is even being played.
the logical conclusion is to destroy every rock in the universe ;/
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 personally don't believe their even can be aliens. I reckon I could be wrong, but the Bible tells us that when Adam sinned, sin was brought into the world, the whole universe. Jesus died for all mankind, descendants of Adam in fact, that they might be saved. This would exclude aliens. So, aliens would still be born into sin, but have no way out of eternal separation from God. I just don't see it to be the nature of God to create mankind with free will, those same humans willfully parting from God, but Him still with a plan for the salvation of mankind, but not have this same kind of plan for the aforementioned aliens. It just doesn't make sense.
edit: BUT, I guess if there were aliens, your logic stands to some reason. Though, we wouldn't do that, would we? Curiosity sometimes trumps fear. Sometimes.
On January 06 2012 07:54 aebriol wrote: You can't assign probability to something you know nothing about.
It's like arguing that it's more probably that God exists than he does not ... sure, you can make that argument, and it has been made before, and it will be made again (even in the book the probability of god by a physicist), but it ignores a very simple truth: you are making assumptions about something you know nothing about in order to make a claim about it, it's chance of existing, or its actions.
Either aliens exists, or they do not. Either God exists, or he does not.
IF there is a God, or some sort of Alien species, we know absolutely nothing about them, and therefore cannot make any predictions whatsoever ever them. Any predictions we make are based off what we believe, our values, our reasoning, our logic. Outside our assumptions, which are not based on facts - since we know absolutely no facts about said God or said Aliens, we have nothing to base our assumptions on. It's like saying it's 50% probability that God exists because either he does or he doesn't. Which sounds cool and all. But it's insanely stupid, because probability is based off having some facts to work with.
TL;DR: Aliens if they exists obviously live off other species, and they would not sterilize our planet, because they would harvest us periodically to serve us as meat in an intergalactic hamburger restaurant. I know this, because all my assumptions of aliens are based on Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which is the only factual documentary about alien behaviour.
Game Theory applied to aliens? Game Theory applied to God? Game Theory applied to unicorn riding alien elves led by God? It has the exact same meaning behind it: nothing. No value to it at all.
You can kind of assume that alien life has gotten there by evolution, which is to say aliens which are good at surviving tend to survive, while aliens that suck at survival tend not to. If you think about it that way, then aliens which blow up everything without warning and never communicate their own planets' positions would tend to survive over aliens that don't, no? Especially if there is no way for the peaceful aliens to ever coordinate with one another, given how slow communications are?
You can assume that. I certainly would not.
You are also assuming that there does not exist the possiblity of any kind of technology for communicating faster than light speed. I certainly would not assume that.
You are assuming aliens exist. I certainly would not.
You are assuming aliens exist with the technology to reach us. I certainly would not.
Put it another way: I find no reason to believe in the existence of any aliens, or that if they exist, their civilization exists at the same point in time as ours, or that they know of our existence, or that they know of our existence while our species exist, or that ... the list goes on.
Sure, make your assumptions - but don't pretend they are based on fact. They aren't. You have no facts to make assumptions off.
On January 06 2012 07:54 aebriol wrote: You can't assign probability to something you know nothing about.
It's like arguing that it's more probably that God exists than he does not ... sure, you can make that argument, and it has been made before, and it will be made again (even in the book the probability of god by a physicist), but it ignores a very simple truth: you are making assumptions about something you know nothing about in order to make a claim about it, it's chance of existing, or its actions.
Either aliens exists, or they do not. Either God exists, or he does not.
IF there is a God, or some sort of Alien species, we know absolutely nothing about them, and therefore cannot make any predictions whatsoever ever them. Any predictions we make are based off what we believe, our values, our reasoning, our logic. Outside our assumptions, which are not based on facts - since we know absolutely no facts about said God or said Aliens, we have nothing to base our assumptions on. It's like saying it's 50% probability that God exists because either he does or he doesn't. Which sounds cool and all. But it's insanely stupid, because probability is based off having some facts to work with.
TL;DR: Aliens if they exists obviously live off other species, and they would not sterilize our planet, because they would harvest us periodically to serve us as meat in an intergalactic hamburger restaurant. I know this, because all my assumptions of aliens are based on Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which is the only factual documentary about alien behaviour.
Game Theory applied to aliens? Game Theory applied to God? Game Theory applied to unicorn riding alien elves led by God? It has the exact same meaning behind it: nothing. No value to it at all.
Well, that's true...but I think its still interesting to consider what it would be like if alien beings did have similar mindsets to humans, and similar technology levels. If there were a set of alien races that all thought like humans, would they rather wipe out a civilization as opposed to trying to be friendly with it?
There are lots of technical issues that have to be dealt with, such as whether the trajectory of the relativistic weaponry can be interpolated back to its source...but assuming this is not the case (because mutually assured destruction would be a deterrent to this type of action), it might be deemed safer to not take the risk and kill off an alien species before it has a chance to do the same.
I have to say though, it seems much more likely that certain races will simply evolve in their capabilities to the point where these weapons would probably just anger them, and cause a much more advanced retaliatory strike that could kill off the offending race. But I agree, there really are too many variables to assume that game theory predicts this type of future as a certain result.
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.
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.
human beings should understand that if aliens behave according to game theory, the most probable way that Earth will encounter alien life will be in the form of a relativistic kill vehicle (RKV) that instantly and without warning sterilizes the planet. We will not see any cute spaceships or wise aliens--it will simply be a 130 MT to 200 GT explosion happening somewhere on the earth's surface. (The latter explosion would turn us into Alderaan.) This is because across interstellar distances, talking is slow (bound by lightspeed), while RKVs and interstellar weapons are, relatively speaking, fast, so it makes sense to kill everything and ask questions later.
no, that actually doesnt make any sense at all, sorry.
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.
Maybe this other civilization had a terminator-style robot apocalypse and instead of running into Quarians we run into Geth?
You guys are taking this thread wayyyy too seriously. Needs more space dicks imo.
this is why you should never try to have a discussion after a night of drinking, you are probably going to talk alot out of your asses and have no idea what youre talking about, not saying i know jack shit about this or so but yeah my 2cents.
Id rather want Aliens to abduct me introduce their homeplanet and live like a king over there and then gather up all the forces and invade Earth just because I CAN AND will save my family first and enjoy my life in another planet in another galaxy
ps. Only Day9 Tasteless and Artosisis allowed to join my ship and survive. + 3 hot chicks for them to make sure mankind will survive.
Good read. How the hell do you hit a planet revolving around a star which may be revolving around something (e.g. a blackhole) which is in a galaxy which is rotating with an RKV whose trajectory would absolutely be effected chaotically by the myriad of gravitationally non-negligible sources (and without getting too close to a blackhole) from just a radio signal though? I can't think of a more difficult target.
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.
Because unified species that actively exterminate tend to survive past those that aren't. When you are dealing with an infinite range of possibilities, you have to use evolutionary logic to start weeding out all the possiblities which won't make it in the long run.
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.
even a single nation on a planet like the US would be able to do these things, we are assuming that most planets will form a single government by the time they reach space age. we have large power blocks on earth, and we've only been space faring for 50 years. give it another 100, is it unrealistic that world war 3 doesnt leave a single power around?
"If the universe is anarchic and civs are competing with each other"
Civs are not competing with each other. I don't care how close to the speed of light you learn to travel, this scenario just cannot happen with the scale of space. You might be able to find two civilizations in the universe close enough to compete if you had the luxury of searching through all of it, but no civilization will ever turn itself into a machine of destruction directed at all these civilizations which could not compete with them or be relevant to their lives. Even if distant colonies of civilizations could conflict, you yourself pointed out the aunotomous nature they would have to adopt.
On January 06 2012 08:26 Nightmarjoo wrote: Good read. How the hell do you hit a planet revolving around a star which may be revolving around something (e.g. a blackhole) which is in a galaxy which is rotating with an RKV whose trajectory would absolutely be effected chaotically by the myriad of gravitationally non-negligible sources (and without getting too close to a blackhole) from just a radio signal though? I can't think of a more difficult target.
Seeing how even balistic missile defense has been nothing but a horrible failure, I think this is the main concern. Sure, we can throw rocks at planets. We'll just never hit them.
On January 06 2012 08:26 Nightmarjoo wrote: Good read. How the hell do you hit a planet revolving around a star which may be revolving around something (e.g. a blackhole) which is in a galaxy which is rotating with an RKV whose trajectory would absolutely be effected chaotically by the myriad of gravitationally non-negligible sources (and without getting too close to a blackhole) from just a radio signal though? I can't think of a more difficult target.
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.
Obviously it's a fallacy to ascribe unity of agency to a community of billions of individuals. This is just one of many problems with the analysis in the OP, which are all about the same amount of jumping the gun ...so to speak. And I'd rather address a much more compelling issue than any out of the marble bag of problems with the assumptions and reasoning.
Intelligent life quickly (in cosmic terms) moves beyond the need to simply survive and proliferate. Aside: our next energy revolution will solidly cement the dawn of this new paradigm globally, aided by our ever-improving information systems. I doubt such a civilization, either concentrated or scattered, would be able to maintain a unified policy of shoot first, for all the politico-logistic problems the OP analysis ignores, but more importantly because a "civilized" ideology -- any speck of dissent -- will nullify the whole policy. Moreover, that ideology is the natural first step of anyone with a scrap of serious, scientific existential introspection who has security of means.
Essentially you take a pessimistic view of alien life that assumes for some reason that a scourge-barbarian mindset is predominant. That's like saying everything is out to get you, germs animals and other people, when clearly, most of each of those three categories are no such thing.
Do you see how a non-violent, pro-communication mindset has an implicit high ground of agency? This is only magnified by the scale and sparseness of the universe.
To be even more abstract and possibly muddle the point entirely: self awareness breaks any game theory analysis because one dissenting agent in a non-idealized reality throws the rationality underpinnings out the window. But more than that, intelligent agency with ever-increasing command of physical resources must extend its self awareness to others that reside in its purview, be they inert (a specious term) or themselves possessing agency (again a specious distinction). The environment, the fellow and the alien are all increasingly the self.
The scenario proposed in the OP isn't impossible, so I would like to make clear I don't think it's complete garbage. It is one unfortunate contingency, like an initial state that shows promise and then dies out unexpectedly in the game of life. Personally I find it unlikely.
tl;dr -- Self preservation on the level of biology is a medieval trait in cosmic terms.
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.
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.
On January 06 2012 08:21 Tor wrote: 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.
This is not how game theory works. The existence of a win/win scenario doesn't mean it's safer not to shoot.
On January 06 2012 08:26 Nightmarjoo wrote: Good read. How the hell do you hit a planet revolving around a star which may be revolving around something (e.g. a blackhole) which is in a galaxy which is rotating with an RKV whose trajectory would absolutely be effected chaotically by the myriad of gravitationally non-negligible sources (and without getting too close to a blackhole) from just a radio signal though? I can't think of a more difficult target.
The engine is ON THE WEAPON. It's not throwing a rock, it's launching a missile. This isn't speculation, Project Orion (Freeman Dyson) and derivative research explain how to launch a probe to an interstellar destination at relativistic speeds.
On January 06 2012 08:21 Tor wrote: 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).
The first sentence assumes all aliens know "we" (or any target species) exist.
Actually, the best way to undermine the argument is to explain the apparent silence by the prevalence of xenophobic hermit civilizations that just don't talk, rather than there being certain apex species that just obliterate most of the others. Of course for argument's sake we can grant that there are enough species around.
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.
Wait, so where exactly was the math? Game theory isn't just some conspiracy funding bullshit. If you're saying something makes sense according to game theory, do the fucking math so we actually have something to discuss instead of just throwing some un-checkable undiscussable assumptions out there and pasting a label on it with game theory?
Having said that, reading your post was fun OP, and I've seen some pretty epic replies. Still approve of this thread
edit: also reminded me to start reading some asimov as I haven't yet and apparently it's pretty epic
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?
On January 06 2012 08:26 Nightmarjoo wrote: Good read. How the hell do you hit a planet revolving around a star which may be revolving around something (e.g. a blackhole) which is in a galaxy which is rotating with an RKV whose trajectory would absolutely be effected chaotically by the myriad of gravitationally non-negligible sources (and without getting too close to a blackhole) from just a radio signal though? I can't think of a more difficult target.
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.
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.
How much area is that RKV taking up? 1km wide square of RKV's? 10km2 ? 100km2? Even 10000km2 is small in space. What's your margin of error? Over a 20ly distance you'd still require essentially 100% accuracy, no margin for error.
There is a fantastic science fiction short story all about the idea of Game Theory + Aliens by Eliezer Yudowsky. It also has a lot of crazy morality questions in it. It's called Three Worlds Collide.
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.
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.
On January 06 2012 08:26 Nightmarjoo wrote: Good read. How the hell do you hit a planet revolving around a star which may be revolving around something (e.g. a blackhole) which is in a galaxy which is rotating with an RKV whose trajectory would absolutely be effected chaotically by the myriad of gravitationally non-negligible sources (and without getting too close to a blackhole) from just a radio signal though? I can't think of a more difficult target.
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.
The question that I have about an "RKV" is what actually guarantees that you hit a target light years away in space? By your explanation, all you need is a necessary supply of nukes and a large mass like an asteroid. But in reality, how would you have any clue where that bomb would even go?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 08:12 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. 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.
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'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.
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.
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.
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 must be a compelling reason to commit it.
OP is bullshit. Hitting a planet at earth's distance from the sun moving around a star a light year away is like trying to hit a fly circling .1 meters from a light with a grain of sand, from 6.33 km away.
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
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 08:12 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. 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.
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?
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.
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.
It's just the way people are talking about it in this thread, with their crazy ideas. But it is funny to read though.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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 ^^)
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.
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
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!
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....
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Why would you freak out about something that we can't stop
If there is some form of alien culture that discovers us, no human is mentally equipped or qualified to determine what they would do. Humans aren't even capable of predicting what the human race would do.
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!
The issue is whether or not first strike is possible. (first Strike destroys MAD)
If a civilization stays silent, then you don't get a second strike against it.... Unless 1. a civilization sends the reply that they have RKVs 'ready to fire'
2. a civilization is spread out (Earth gets destroyed, but various comm systems give the data on where the RKV came from to colonies in Barnard's Star, Alpha centauri, Epsilon Eridani, etc.)
The North Korean empire would have the problem that their colonies might turn on each other (maintaining complete radio silence)
On January 06 2012 10:52 Simberto wrote: 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.
But that takes all the fun out of it! The concept of RKVs is at least rooted in physical reality. I prefer that subject over a purely theoretical scenario with more or less rational "players".
On January 06 2012 09:26 Ender985 wrote: 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.
kill all is the best (at the most basic level) strat in a feral world. you protect your babies and kill everything else, look at any animal. the only time you dont fight is when you judge them to be stronger than you or that the fight will make you too weak for further fights, again look at any animal, its all about presenting strength. tribal systems built up around extended families which were still worth defending and civ's grew up around that. even today power blocks exist between similar peoples and you care more about the survival of your son than a random kid.
it depends on whether resources are contested or not.
This is fucking awesome, best post in a looong time. I fully agree with OP that we will probably "encounter" aliens by just receiving a huge blast somewhere on Earth.
However once a civilization reaches MAD arms tech, they wouldn't have that long of a window of time to launch anything into space before one day their politics screws up and they annihilate their own planet. Just like Einstein said: "I don't know what weapons we would use for World War 3, but World War 4 we would be using sticks and stones."
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!
Theory destruction: Planets dont have to be the only way habitate, spaceships harvesting needed supplies from planets is much more likely for advanced "aliens", meaning you cant just destroy every planet in their system to assure their destruction.
1. Why are aliens "isolated" to planets? 2. I dont think it would be as hard to detect as you imagine give possible technologies 3. "It's easy to launch with currently technology". No, it's not. also a "blackbody?" 4. The delay time in launching and landing is ridiculous
It's just really bad logic and thinking, seems like someone took a game theory course and thought up all of htis without thinking much.
An intelligent alien species is INCOMPREHENSIBLE, can you imagine humanity (assuming we survive) in 40,000 years? Life will be completely different, and even living on a planet maybe something of the past, even having a single physical location might not be something that exists, it could be AI's stored on a mainframe and drone bodies everywhere etc. Also the idea such an advanced civiilzation would not be dispersed EVERYWHERE is ridiculous. The much more likely scenario is one civilization is infinitely more advanced than the other and doesn't really care or easily in ANY way they choose destroy the others. That or there are just so many questions and space there really is no reason to mess with the other or a form of MAD type scenario.
On January 06 2012 09:26 Ender985 wrote: 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.
kill all is the best (at the most basic level) strat in a feral world. you protect your babies and kill everything else, look at any animal. the only time you dont fight is when you judge them to be stronger than you or that the fight will make you too weak for further fights, again look at any animal, its all about presenting strength. tribal systems built up around extended families which were still worth defending and civ's grew up around that. even today power blocks exist between similar peoples and you care more about the survival of your son than a random kid.
it depends on whether resources are contested or not.
You might want to consider the real world before you start making claims that kill all is the best strategy... there aren't many animals that run around murdering everything in their sights... neither humans nor any other animal I can think of actually attacks things without a reason (self defence or food), the risk of injury typically deters most animals from getting into fights (with maybe the exception of the wolverine). Probably the biggest detractor from kill all is the many examples of symbiotic relationships in the wild, evidence that the "best" strategy is actually whatever keeps you alive, not some preconcieved notion that everything can hurt you.
On January 06 2012 12:35 dacthehork wrote: This is some really bad logic.
Theory destruction: Planets dont have to be the only way habitate, spaceships harvesting needed supplies from planets is much more likely for advanced "aliens", meaning you cant just destroy every planet in their system to assure their destruction.
1. Why are aliens "isolated" to planets? 2. I dont think it would be as hard to detect as you imagine give possible technologies 3. "It's easy to launch with currently technology". No, it's not. also a "blackbody?" 4. The delay time in launching and landing is ridiculous
It's just really bad logic and thinking, seems like someone took a game theory course and thought up all of htis without thinking much.
An intelligent alien species is INCOMPREHENSIBLE, can you imagine humanity (assuming we survive) in 40,000 years? Life will be completely different, and even living on a planet maybe something of the past, even having a single physical location might not be something that exists, it could be AI's stored on a mainframe and drone bodies everywhere etc. Also the idea such an advanced civiilzation would not be dispersed EVERYWHERE is ridiculous. The much more likely scenario is one civilization is infinitely more advanced than the other and doesn't really care or easily in ANY way they choose destroy the others. That or there are just so many questions and space there really is no reason to mess with the other or a form of MAD type scenario.
Maybe the proper response then is to not aim at their planets, but aim at the stars instead? Destroy all their sources of energy production?
On January 06 2012 12:35 dacthehork wrote: This is some really bad logic.
Theory destruction: Planets dont have to be the only way habitate, spaceships harvesting needed supplies from planets is much more likely for advanced "aliens", meaning you cant just destroy every planet in their system to assure their destruction.
1. Why are aliens "isolated" to planets? 2. I dont think it would be as hard to detect as you imagine give possible technologies 3. "It's easy to launch with currently technology". No, it's not. also a "blackbody?" 4. The delay time in launching and landing is ridiculous
It's just really bad logic and thinking, seems like someone took a game theory course and thought up all of htis without thinking much.
An intelligent alien species is INCOMPREHENSIBLE, can you imagine humanity (assuming we survive) in 40,000 years? Life will be completely different, and even living on a planet maybe something of the past, even having a single physical location might not be something that exists, it could be AI's stored on a mainframe and drone bodies everywhere etc. Also the idea such an advanced civiilzation would not be dispersed EVERYWHERE is ridiculous. The much more likely scenario is one civilization is infinitely more advanced than the other and doesn't really care or easily in ANY way they choose destroy the others. That or there are just so many questions and space there really is no reason to mess with the other or a form of MAD type scenario.
Maybe the proper response then is to not aim at their planets, but aim at the stars instead? Destroy all their sources of energy production?
So instead of an RKV we should make a giant hose to extinguish their sun? I agree.
On January 06 2012 09:26 Ender985 wrote: 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.
kill all is the best (at the most basic level) strat in a feral world. you protect your babies and kill everything else, look at any animal. the only time you dont fight is when you judge them to be stronger than you or that the fight will make you too weak for further fights, again look at any animal, its all about presenting strength. tribal systems built up around extended families which were still worth defending and civ's grew up around that. even today power blocks exist between similar peoples and you care more about the survival of your son than a random kid.
The difference in the OPs scenario (everyone can insta-gib other civilizations) is that communication is slow. You dont have the information to judge if someone is stronger etc, and everyone are equally strong anyways, in the sense that they can one-shot you whenever they like. I think his scenario can be compared to a huge black area with a lot of ppl, everyone armed with instant-kill guns. You will not survive long if you try to engage in discussion with people you bump into, rather than shot first. So the scenario is different than "real world" were there are stronger individuals that can defend or retaliate to an attack from a weaker individual.
to OP: The idea is a funny thought experiment, and I agree that if interstellar war works the way you describe (essentially insta-gib on first contact), evolution will favour kill-first behaviour.
why 50% of light speed though? If the civilization is very advanced, I think it is safe to assume that they can shoot at 100% light speed. Just take a big asteroid or a chunk of a big planet or whatever, transform 1% into a laser beam and you will hit before the target can see anything.
You assume that there is no way for another civilization to defend themselves from this kind of attacks, on the basis that they wont see it coming. This is not true. The problem the killer has is that the information they have about their target is old (depending on distance, but from a few years for neighbouring stars to billions of years on the other side of the universe), and they wont hit until later in the future. ( in the rest-frame of the killer for example). You can calculate the orbit of the planet if you are good at gravity calculations, sure. But a planet can regularly manually change it's orbit randomly, for example by shooting out some ray in some direction, giving recoil. If the killer just calculates the orbit assuming the planet stays as it is, it will miss. This would completely change the picture of accurate instant kill snipes, into a picture of wild shooting and crossed fingers.
What a killer CAN do however, is to shoot a killing device, that takes up information about the target as it moves, and uses this information to adjust trajectory. This would return the picture the one originally described in the OP.
BUT: then the first civilization can do the same. This first message doesn't have to be just a "hi". It can be a killing device programmed to identify other civilizations, and kill them if they find them a threat. Then the original guys will get a report (a million years later) that the probe found this civilization and didn't trust it, so it killed it. In this way, the optimal strategy seems to be to send out a lot of almost-speed-of light probes in all direction, programmed to identify and kill threats, or if they find an empty system, to stop there, multiply, and send out 1000 new identical probes at almost speed of light. Maybe set up a warning beacon to warn the "home planet", if there even is such a planet, in case it sees a threat. Then the picture would be that of civilizations expanding like spheres in space at close to speed of light, killing (absorbing, multiplying, consuming, whatever) everything it passes. I can see the queen of blades doing this.
The winning civilizations would be the one that expands the fastest, and that can beat other probes when they encounter them. If there is such a thing as a home-planet, they will sit in the centre and get more and more delayed reports from the front as it moves out. until one day you will get a message from a beacon 25 000 light years away: "unidentified probe spotted. moving at 0.9999c. Activate defensive measures." then 3 seconds later "ERROR: DEFENCE BREACHED" then silence. Then you know that you have 2.5 more years to live, and that's the end of that civilization.
This assumes that there will be no faster-than-light BS, or workarounds like wormholes etc, but that advanced civilizations will get very close to the limit of light speed in terms of warfare.
Then what would the winning strategy be? What if a drone from a successful civilization came to earth? How will the drone do to best make sure that we don't kill them, and to as soon as possible send out new drones, and maximise defence from other incoming drones? Answer is: I have no idea. But I doubt that we will enjoy it.
On January 06 2012 12:52 Tektos wrote: So you're saying if I'm walking down the street late at night and I see a stranger I should shoot them in case they are going to shoot me?
Imagine if you and the stranger had the ability to kill each other faster than being able to communicate. Infact imagine if everyone on earth had this ability, everyone would start killing each other immediately for their own survival. That is what the op is saying, that communication takes too long compared to just using the RKV (because the wave has to reach and return to the source).
On January 06 2012 09:26 Ender985 wrote: 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.
kill all is the best (at the most basic level) strat in a feral world. you protect your babies and kill everything else, look at any animal. the only time you dont fight is when you judge them to be stronger than you or that the fight will make you too weak for further fights, again look at any animal, its all about presenting strength. tribal systems built up around extended families which were still worth defending and civ's grew up around that. even today power blocks exist between similar peoples and you care more about the survival of your son than a random kid.
The difference in the OPs scenario (everyone can insta-gib other civilizations) is that communication is slow. You dont have the information to judge if someone is stronger etc, and everyone are equally strong anyways, in the sense that they can one-shot you whenever they like. I think his scenario can be compared to a huge black area with a lot of ppl, everyone armed with instant-kill guns. You will not survive long if you try to engage in discussion with people you bump into, rather than shot first. So the scenario is different than "real world" were there are stronger individuals that can defend or retaliate to an attack from a weaker individual.
to OP: The idea is a funny thought experiment, and I agree that if interstellar war works the way you describe (essentially insta-gib on first contact), evolution will favour kill-first behaviour.
why 50% of light speed though? If the civilization is very advanced, I think it is safe to assume that they can shoot at 100% light speed. Just take a big asteroid or a chunk of a big planet or whatever, transform 1% into a laser beam and you will hit before the target can see anything.
You assume that there is no way for another civilization to defend themselves from this kind of attacks, on the basis that they wont see it coming. This is not true. The problem the killer has is that the information they have about their target is old (depending on distance, but from a few years for neighbouring stars to billions of years on the other side of the universe), and they wont hit until later in the future. ( in the rest-frame of the killer for example). You can calculate the orbit of the planet if you are good at gravity calculations, sure. But a planet can regularly manually change it's orbit randomly, for example by shooting out some ray in some direction, giving recoil. If the killer just calculates the orbit assuming the planet stays as it is, it will miss. This would completely change the picture of accurate instant kill snipes, into a picture of wild shooting and crossed fingers.
What a killer CAN do however, is to shoot a killing device, that takes up information about the target as it moves, and uses this information to adjust trajectory. This would return the picture the one originally described in the OP.
BUT: then the first civilization can do the same. This first message doesn't have to be just a "hi". It can be a killing device programmed to identify other civilizations, and kill them if they find them a threat. Then the original guys will get a report (a million years later) that the probe found this civilization and didn't trust it, so it killed it. In this way, the optimal strategy seems to be to send out a lot of almost-speed-of light probes in all direction, programmed to identify and kill threats, or if they find an empty system, to stop there, multiply, and send out 1000 new identical probes at almost speed of light. Maybe set up a warning beacon to warn the "home planet", if there even is such a planet, in case it sees a threat. Then the picture would be that of civilizations expanding like spheres in space at close to speed of light, killing (absorbing, multiplying, consuming, whatever) everything it passes. I can see the queen of blades doing this.
The winning civilizations would be the one that expands the fastest, and that can beat other probes when they encounter them. If there is such a thing as a home-planet, they will sit in the centre and get more and more delayed reports from the front as it moves out. until one day you will get a message from a beacon 25 000 light years away: "unidentified probe spotted. moving at 0.9999c. Activate defensive measures." then 3 seconds later "ERROR: DEFENCE BREACHED" then silence. Then you know that you have 2.5 more years to live, and that's the end of that civilization.
This assumes that there will be no faster-than-light BS, or workarounds like wormholes etc, but that advanced civilizations will get very close to the limit of light speed in terms of warfare.
Then what would the winning strategy be? What if a drone from a successful civilization came to earth? How will the drone do to best make sure that we don't kill them, and to as soon as possible send out new drones, and maximise defence from other incoming drones? Answer is: I have no idea. But I doubt that we will enjoy it.
This is actually really cool. I'm adding it to the OP
The point of this thread is not only to think about whether this particular scenario is likely or not. It's also to think about what form a first contact would likely take. After all, this is a starcraft website, and Starcraft, at least nominally, is based on a first contact scenario...
I actually read something similar to this in a college astronomy textbook, basically it said that extraterrestrials are concealing their presence to Earthlings until we develop psychic and ecological awareness, at which point they will ask us to join the Intergalactic Space Federation, composed of one hundred other alien civilizations located in galaxies neighboring the Milky Way.
On January 06 2012 09:26 Ender985 wrote: 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.
kill all is the best (at the most basic level) strat in a feral world. you protect your babies and kill everything else, look at any animal. the only time you dont fight is when you judge them to be stronger than you or that the fight will make you too weak for further fights, again look at any animal, its all about presenting strength. tribal systems built up around extended families which were still worth defending and civ's grew up around that. even today power blocks exist between similar peoples and you care more about the survival of your son than a random kid.
The difference in the OPs scenario (everyone can insta-gib other civilizations) is that communication is slow. You dont have the information to judge if someone is stronger etc, and everyone are equally strong anyways, in the sense that they can one-shot you whenever they like. I think his scenario can be compared to a huge black area with a lot of ppl, everyone armed with instant-kill guns. You will not survive long if you try to engage in discussion with people you bump into, rather than shot first. So the scenario is different than "real world" were there are stronger individuals that can defend or retaliate to an attack from a weaker individual.
to OP: The idea is a funny thought experiment, and I agree that if interstellar war works the way you describe (essentially insta-gib on first contact), evolution will favour kill-first behaviour.
why 50% of light speed though? If the civilization is very advanced, I think it is safe to assume that they can shoot at 100% light speed. Just take a big asteroid or a chunk of a big planet or whatever, transform 1% into a laser beam and you will hit before the target can see anything.
You assume that there is no way for another civilization to defend themselves from this kind of attacks, on the basis that they wont see it coming. This is not true. The problem the killer has is that the information they have about their target is old (depending on distance, but from a few years for neighbouring stars to billions of years on the other side of the universe), and they wont hit until later in the future. ( in the rest-frame of the killer for example). You can calculate the orbit of the planet if you are good at gravity calculations, sure. But a planet can regularly manually change it's orbit randomly, for example by shooting out some ray in some direction, giving recoil. If the killer just calculates the orbit assuming the planet stays as it is, it will miss. This would completely change the picture of accurate instant kill snipes, into a picture of wild shooting and crossed fingers.
What a killer CAN do however, is to shoot a killing device, that takes up information about the target as it moves, and uses this information to adjust trajectory. This would return the picture the one originally described in the OP.
BUT: then the first civilization can do the same. This first message doesn't have to be just a "hi". It can be a killing device programmed to identify other civilizations, and kill them if they find them a threat. Then the original guys will get a report (a million years later) that the probe found this civilization and didn't trust it, so it killed it. In this way, the optimal strategy seems to be to send out a lot of almost-speed-of light probes in all direction, programmed to identify and kill threats, or if they find an empty system, to stop there, multiply, and send out 1000 new identical probes at almost speed of light. Maybe set up a warning beacon to warn the "home planet", if there even is such a planet, in case it sees a threat. Then the picture would be that of civilizations expanding like spheres in space at close to speed of light, killing (absorbing, multiplying, consuming, whatever) everything it passes. I can see the queen of blades doing this.
The winning civilizations would be the one that expands the fastest, and that can beat other probes when they encounter them. If there is such a thing as a home-planet, they will sit in the centre and get more and more delayed reports from the front as it moves out. until one day you will get a message from a beacon 25 000 light years away: "unidentified probe spotted. moving at 0.9999c. Activate defensive measures." then 3 seconds later "ERROR: DEFENCE BREACHED" then silence. Then you know that you have 2.5 more years to live, and that's the end of that civilization.
This assumes that there will be no faster-than-light BS, or workarounds like wormholes etc, but that advanced civilizations will get very close to the limit of light speed in terms of warfare.
Then what would the winning strategy be? What if a drone from a successful civilization came to earth? How will the drone do to best make sure that we don't kill them, and to as soon as possible send out new drones, and maximise defence from other incoming drones? Answer is: I have no idea. But I doubt that we will enjoy it.
This is actually really cool. I'm adding it to the OP
thanks! If you copy my code (take quote, copy the text there, then cancel the quote) you will keep the formatting (the bold fonts).
edit: Not sure how familiar you are with special relativity, but note that if you just shoot, you can go at 100% light speed. If you want the projectile to actually think along the way, you have to slow down, as time stops completely at light speed. If you ride a beam of light, you arrive the same instant you leave, even if you go to the other side of the universe. The universe will have aged though.
Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
edit: oh, now i understand what you refer to. you mean that the statement "first contact will most likely be a RKV" depends on the distributions of strategies among the civilizations. That is ofc true. sorry.
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
You do realize the dangers of classifying an entire universe into two types. It's very possible a "hippie" civilization may be peaceful but may possess technology far more advanced than a "shoot-first". It could simply intercept the MKV and then imprison or destroy the attacker. History has shown pacifists can dominate even the most powerful aggressor not usually immediately, but with time. To say a shoot-first civilization would go unhindered seems unlikely.
A third type for example; passive-aggressive types of civilizations with extreme technology. They could act the hippie, play the hippie and hide any imperialist ambitions and appear to be harmless and ripe for subjugation to entrap aliens too eager or gun-ho and in turn enslave the aggressor for their own profit.
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
of course, this is assuming that the hippies do not believe in defending themselves and do not communicate with one another in the slightest, a problem the OP overlooks entirely. A shoot-first civilization might encounter another civilization and attempt to destroy it. But in what is a more likely scenario (there are several hippie civilizations who can and will defend themselves and are allied with each other), after this occurrence the hippie civilizations will immediately begin searching out this hostile civilization and eliminate it. I mean, if you are a super advanced civilization, allied with other super advanced civilization, and you know that somewhere in a certain vicinity of the galaxy is a super advanced civilization who wants to screw with you, you go find them and blow their faces off.
Essentially, all the alien nonsense unnecessarily complicates (or perhaps, makes more interesting for some) what you're trying to say. Substitute plants or civilizations for states, the anarchy of intergalactic space for the international system, RKVs for nuclear weapons, RKV-armed colonies with second-strike capabilities like submarines, proxy missile sites, and nuclear-armed allies, and you can find fairly good answers in international relations and military strategy literature.
Structural realism, as posited by Kenneth Waltz, is a international relations theory that posits that the international system exists under conditions of anarchy with no central authority that can to impose order. Anarchy in the system is the ultimate cause war. States are the primary actor in the system and act rationally and in their self-interest. In the self-help world, states seek security for survival. Waltz identifies the structure of the system as the arrangement of states based on their relative capabilities. Great powers are distinguished from others by their economic strength, military prowess, political stability, of territory, population, etc. The number of great powers in the system sets the polarity of the system. For structural realists, a multipolar world produces instability due to the number of great powers in the system. Wars in these conditions are often the result of uncertainty and miscalculation - not simple acts of aggression. Structural realism predicts that there are too many great powers in a multipolar system to achieve stability because they have difficulty distinguishing between their allies and enemies. The security dilemma, originally posited by Robert Jervis, suggests that states seek security because of the anarchic nature of the international system in which no central authority exists to impose order. States therefore build up their military capability as the only way to ensure their survival.
@forgotten @kaboom I agree, in reality it is not necessary that the hippies (or non-shoot-first or other flavours) always die. I was just talking about what would happen in the model the OP introduced, where the shoot-first civilization always wins. I started with "according to OPS approach", but I guess I didn't make it clear exactly what I referred to. I think it is very hard for us to say anything reliably about how interstellar warfare (or any interaction) between alien civilizations is like, but it is fun to speculate I think.
Feel free to start from different assumptions (allowing non-shoot-first civilisations to survive encounters with shoot-first) and see if you can reach some conclusion about what earth's first contact will look like! It'd be fun and probably a nicer prospect.
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
of course, this is assuming that the hippies do not believe in defending themselves and do not communicate with one another in the slightest, a problem the OP overlooks entirely. A shoot-first civilization might encounter another civilization and attempt to destroy it. But in what is a more likely scenario (there are several hippie civilizations who can and will defend themselves and are allied with each other), after this occurrence the hippie civilizations will immediately begin searching out this hostile civilization and eliminate it. I mean, if you are a super advanced civilization, allied with other super advanced civilization, and you know that somewhere in a certain vicinity of the galaxy is a super advanced civilization who wants to screw with you, you go find them and blow their faces off.
Tell me, how do you coordinate when each message you send between each other takes thousands of light years?
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
edit: oh, now i understand what you refer to. you mean that the statement "first contact will most likely be a RKV" depends on the distributions of strategies among the civilizations. That is ofc true. sorry.
Actually, I think your first point was close to what I was arguing.... I think the OPs approach is wrong in that he/she assumes the proportions don't matter.
Using your example, if there are 1M hippy Civs and only one shoot first Civ, it is more likely that a hippy Civ will make first contact with another hippy Civ. And what do hippies do when they first meet? They hook up! As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves.
Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
edit: oh, now i understand what you refer to. you mean that the statement "first contact will most likely be a RKV" depends on the distributions of strategies among the civilizations. That is ofc true. sorry.
Actually, I think your first point was close to what I was arguing.... I think the OPs approach is wrong in that he/she assumes the proportions don't matter.
Using your example, if there are 1M hippy Civs and only one shoot first Civ, it is more likely that a hippy Civ will make first contact with another hippy Civ. And what do hippies do when they first meet? They hook up! As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves.
Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
How are the hippie civs supposed to talk to one another if each message takes tens of thousands of years to transmit?
EDIT: what if the lifespan of individuals in one civ is 50 years, while the lifespan of the other civ is 5000? Would the longer-lived civ see the short-lived civ as inherently untrustworthy because there is no guarantee that the same people will be around when their reply message gets to the capital planet?
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
of course, this is assuming that the hippies do not believe in defending themselves and do not communicate with one another in the slightest, a problem the OP overlooks entirely. A shoot-first civilization might encounter another civilization and attempt to destroy it. But in what is a more likely scenario (there are several hippie civilizations who can and will defend themselves and are allied with each other), after this occurrence the hippie civilizations will immediately begin searching out this hostile civilization and eliminate it. I mean, if you are a super advanced civilization, allied with other super advanced civilization, and you know that somewhere in a certain vicinity of the galaxy is a super advanced civilization who wants to screw with you, you go find them and blow their faces off.
Tell me, how do you coordinate when each message you send between each other takes thousands of light years?
Alright, let's play this game. How did the civilization firing the RKV even find out about their victims? From some sort of radio transmission that took thousands of years to arrive? And now you are firing an RKV at a planet many light years away, which will take even longer to arrive because the RKV isn't actually travelling the speed of light? Alright that makes sense. There are so many holes in this theory. You talk about how evolution would dictate that civilizations would eliminate each other as they encountered each other, forgetting to apply the argument you just used against me to your own theory. If this civilization encounters another by some sort of transmission, it's guaranteed that by the time you receive that transmission and launch the RKV, and the RKV arrives, that civilization will be incredibly different than it was. If it's a direct encounter (i.e. LOOK AT THAT SPACE SHIP OVER THAR!) Then each civilization is instantly alerted to the other and we now have a stalemate of mutually assured destruction. And remember, all of this is assuming that advanced civilizations have the exact same understanding of RKVs that we do now and don't know how to stop them (LOL)
On January 06 2012 14:44 Mercy13 wrote: As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves.
as I understood it, the point was that speed of light limits also communication speed, so by the time you get the "OH, SHIIIII-" message from your hooked up fellow hippie civilization that is 2 hours from being hit by a RKV, you will have one 2 hours from yourself. Which wont give time for teaming up. But all this is assuming a (near) speed-of-light entire-civilization insta-gib weapon commonly available.
So this would be the difference from nuclear war and the OPs model: in nuclear war before you launch (and even after you launch) there is plenty of time for the two sides to talk and make their intentions clear. while with the OPs assumption about almost-light-speed entire-civilization insta-gib, it is enough to say "hi, is anyone out there?" and you will make yourself a target that you can kill without any risk to yourself. In nuclear war, if you fire missiles, the other side sees it and have time to shoot their own, which is a very different scenario.
Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
hehe, I wanted more hardcore game theory in the OP. Like coming up with a large set of strategies, and then theorycraft how they'd do vs each other and do Nash equilibrium of it.
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
edit: oh, now i understand what you refer to. you mean that the statement "first contact will most likely be a RKV" depends on the distributions of strategies among the civilizations. That is ofc true. sorry.
Actually, I think your first point was close to what I was arguing.... I think the OPs approach is wrong in that he/she assumes the proportions don't matter.
Using your example, if there are 1M hippy Civs and only one shoot first Civ, it is more likely that a hippy Civ will make first contact with another hippy Civ. And what do hippies do when they first meet? They hook up! As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves.
Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
How are the hippie civs supposed to talk to one another if each message takes tens of thousands of years to transmit?
They are a peculiar species of space plant that lives for 1 million years on average. To them, ten thousand years is naught but the blink of an eye.
This is a frivolous example which demonstrates why it is silly to try to apply logic when you are working with highly imperfect information.
I did find the OP an interesting read. I just think that if you're going to say that it's logical you're going to have to add a lot more assumptions. Like that there's no long-lived space plants that are perfectly happy to wait 10K years to recieve a message. It's illogical to assume that, by looking at something logically when you have virtually NO information, you will come up with anything approaching an accurate result.
Edit: slightly off topic, but I just remembered something the OP might want to discuss. We actually have some evidence of what happened the last time humanity encountered a new species it couldn't communicate with : ) Neandertals anyone? Def. not a reliable proxy for two advanced Civs encountering each other, but still...
I remember Steven Hawking saying we shouldn't send out signals.
We only need to look at our only planet and how many dumb politicians there are to realise that sending out signals is probably the worst idea ever. If a country is willing to spend trillions of dollars on propaganda/army mobilisation to capture oil and its citizens are dumb enough to vote for such a person, just imagine what aliens would be willing to do to our planet. Benevolent dictatorships are rare too and we can't expect much from them.
Even if it weren't RKV's, if it were achievable to reach a planet in any form, it would probably be in the form of destruction, in order to do away with peace talks and what not and just inhabit the planet. There's really no point in engaging in talks, what are you going to achieve, instead either you blow up the planet, or you don't communicate with it at all so you don't risk it yourself.
A few points I would like to make though: -RKV's are expensive to make, why make them when you can just remain silent? Other civs have buckley's chance of detecting you unless you respond, so just stay quiet and you are completely safe! -RKV's aren't completely undetectable. The faster and/or heavier they are, the easier they are to detect from relativistic effects. -And over such large distances we would have plenty of time to intercept the "missile", A lot of time, in fact, millions of years at the very least to prepare from when we first detect it from gravitational lensing. -As far as I know we are completely undected by the rest of the univers because, as others in this thread have pointed out, our electromagnetic transmissions dissipate into background noise within 50 light years. Even if we wanted to be detected we would have to go to great lengths to make that happen
So yeah I think any other civilizations out there probably wouldn't bother with RKV's, although they would stay quiet just as a precaution.
First, the difference in technology is going to be great between the two civilizations (either for us or against us) in the sense that it isn't really going to matter wtf we do, one side will have all the chips.
Second, most rational and curious people would rather form some sort of relationship with them, game theory be damned. I know earth would not just wipe out an alien species unless it's survival was knowingly at risk. We'd want to learn from them, study them, attempt to form some sort of symbiotic relationship. Attack would only happen after this. There is no reason to think that an alien race would be any different.
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
edit: oh, now i understand what you refer to. you mean that the statement "first contact will most likely be a RKV" depends on the distributions of strategies among the civilizations. That is ofc true. sorry.
Actually, I think your first point was close to what I was arguing.... I think the OPs approach is wrong in that he/she assumes the proportions don't matter.
Using your example, if there are 1M hippy Civs and only one shoot first Civ, it is more likely that a hippy Civ will make first contact with another hippy Civ. And what do hippies do when they first meet? They hook up! As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves.
Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
How are the hippie civs supposed to talk to one another if each message takes tens of thousands of years to transmit?
They are a peculiar species of space plant that lives for 1 million years on average. To them, ten thousand years is naught but the blink of an eye.
This is a frivolous example which demonstrates why it is silly to try to apply logic when you are working with highly imperfect information.
I did find the OP an interesting read. I just think that if you're going to say that it's logical you're going to have to add a lot more assumptions. Like that there's no long-lived space plants that are perfectly happy to wait 10K years to recieve a message. It's illogical to assume that, by looking at something logically when you have virtually NO information, you will come up with anything approaching an accurate result.
Edit: slightly off topic, but I just remembered something the OP might want to discuss. We actually have some evidence of what happened the last time humanity encountered a new species it couldn't communicate with : ) Neandertals anyone? Def. not a reliable proxy for two advanced Civs encountering each other, but still...
Imagine a brain, but instead of nodes in a skull sending electrical signals to each other, you have planets in a galaxy sending signals! A galaxy would be a huge brain, and a single thought would take a million years. The Andromeda galaxy, being only 2.6M light years away, would be close enough to have a chat with the milky way without any communication problems.
On January 06 2012 14:44 Mercy13 wrote: As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves.
as I understood it, the point was that speed of light limits also communication speed, so by the time you get the "OH, SHIIIII-" message from your hooked up fellow hippie civilization that is 2 hours from being hit by a RKV, you will have one 2 hours from yourself. Which wont give time for teaming up. But all this is assuming a (near) speed-of-light entire-civilization insta-gib weapon commonly available.
So this would be the difference from nuclear war and the OPs model: in nuclear war before you launch (and even after you launch) there is plenty of time for the two sides to talk and make their intentions clear. while with the OPs assumption about almost-light-speed entire-civilization insta-gib, it is enough to say "hi, is anyone out there?" and you will make yourself a target that you can kill without any risk to yourself. In nuclear war, if you fire missiles, the other side sees it and have time to shoot their own, which is a very different scenario.
Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
hehe, I wanted more hardcore game theory in the OP. Like coming up with a large set of strategies, and then theorycraft how they'd do vs each other and do Nash equilibrium of it.
Haha, I actually wasn't referring to your long post ealier. After reading the entire OP I didn't feel like reading another lengthy opinion, sorry : ) Tbh I'm not that familiar w/ game theory. I know about the prisoners dilemma, how to find the Nash equilibrium in a simple example, and the rest of the basics. My understanding is that the analysis gets exponentially more complicated for each new variable that is added, so that in a situation like the one descibed by the OP (or for most real world situations for that matter) game theory isn't all that useful. I may be incorrect though.... like I said, I'm no game theory expert. My apologies if you have already addressed this point.
On January 06 2012 14:44 Mercy13 wrote: As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves.
as I understood it, the point was that speed of light limits also communication speed, so by the time you get the "OH, SHIIIII-" message from your hooked up fellow hippie civilization that is 2 hours from being hit by a RKV, you will have one 2 hours from yourself. Which wont give time for teaming up. But all this is assuming a (near) speed-of-light entire-civilization insta-gib weapon commonly available.
So this would be the difference from nuclear war and the OPs model: in nuclear war before you launch (and even after you launch) there is plenty of time for the two sides to talk and make their intentions clear. while with the OPs assumption about almost-light-speed entire-civilization insta-gib, it is enough to say "hi, is anyone out there?" and you will make yourself a target that you can kill without any risk to yourself. In nuclear war, if you fire missiles, the other side sees it and have time to shoot their own, which is a very different scenario.
Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
hehe, I wanted more hardcore game theory in the OP. Like coming up with a large set of strategies, and then theorycraft how they'd do vs each other and do Nash equilibrium of it.
Haha, I actually wasn't referring to your long post ealier. After reading the entire OP I didn't feel like reading another lengthy opinion, sorry : ) Tbh I'm not that familiar w/ game theory. I know about the prisoners dilemma, how to find the Nash equilibrium in a simple example, and the rest of the basics. My understanding is that the analysis gets exponentially more complicated for each new variable that is added, so that in a situation like the one descibed by the OP (or for most real world situations for that matter) game theory isn't all that useful. I may be incorrect though.... like I said, I'm no game theory expert. My apologies if you have already addressed this point.
No worries, I wasn't referring to my long post either (and I didnt talk about game theory there anyways). I'm not really sure about applications, but I think some versions of game theory can be used in economy for stock market analysis, but I'm not sure... There will for sure be a lot of model dependence if you try to apply game theory to an actual real-word problem.
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
edit: oh, now i understand what you refer to. you mean that the statement "first contact will most likely be a RKV" depends on the distributions of strategies among the civilizations. That is ofc true. sorry.
Actually, I think your first point was close to what I was arguing.... I think the OPs approach is wrong in that he/she assumes the proportions don't matter.
Using your example, if there are 1M hippy Civs and only one shoot first Civ, it is more likely that a hippy Civ will make first contact with another hippy Civ. And what do hippies do when they first meet? They hook up! As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves.
Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
How are the hippie civs supposed to talk to one another if each message takes tens of thousands of years to transmit?
They are a peculiar species of space plant that lives for 1 million years on average. To them, ten thousand years is naught but the blink of an eye.
This is a frivolous example which demonstrates why it is silly to try to apply logic when you are working with highly imperfect information.
I did find the OP an interesting read. I just think that if you're going to say that it's logical you're going to have to add a lot more assumptions. Like that there's no long-lived space plants that are perfectly happy to wait 10K years to recieve a message. It's illogical to assume that, by looking at something logically when you have virtually NO information, you will come up with anything approaching an accurate result.
Edit: slightly off topic, but I just remembered something the OP might want to discuss. We actually have some evidence of what happened the last time humanity encountered a new species it couldn't communicate with : ) Neandertals anyone? Def. not a reliable proxy for two advanced Civs encountering each other, but still...
Imagine a brain, but instead of nodes in a skull sending electrical signals to each other, you have planets in a galaxy sending signals! A galaxy would be a huge brain, and a single thought would take a million years. The Andromeda galaxy, being only 2.6M light years away, would be close enough to have a chat with the milky way without any communication problems.
Good one! How about this:
A passive aggressive race has mastered the power of quantum entanglement, which allows them to communicate instantly over extremely long distances. They send a Doomsday Probe to the newly discovered planet Earth, and use it to send real time data back regarding its civilization so they can evaluate whether or not humans are a threat.
The Probe continuosly gathers information relating to such topics as technology, politics, and, unfortunately, popular culture, and sends it back to its alien masters. The human race survives for ~11 milliseconds subsequent to the Probe relaying the latest Justin Bieber song.
I'm not sure what the Nash equilibrium would be in this case, but it would probably involve a preemptive strike against Justin Bieber by US Navy SEALS.
On January 06 2012 15:15 Selendis wrote: Very interesting read.
A few points I would like to make though: -RKV's are expensive to make, why make them when you can just remain silent? Other civs have buckley's chance of detecting you unless you respond, so just stay quiet and you are completely safe! -RKV's aren't completely undetectable. The faster and/or heavier they are, the easier they are to detect from relativistic effects. -And over such large distances we would have plenty of time to intercept the "missile", A lot of time, in fact, millions of years at the very least to prepare from when we first detect it from gravitational lensing. -As far as I know we are completely undected by the rest of the univers because, as others in this thread have pointed out, our electromagnetic transmissions dissipate into background noise within 50 light years. Even if we wanted to be detected we would have to go to great lengths to make that happen
So yeah I think any other civilizations out there probably wouldn't bother with RKV's, although they would stay quiet just as a precaution.
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
edit: oh, now i understand what you refer to. you mean that the statement "first contact will most likely be a RKV" depends on the distributions of strategies among the civilizations. That is ofc true. sorry.
Actually, I think your first point was close to what I was arguing.... I think the OPs approach is wrong in that he/she assumes the proportions don't matter.
Using your example, if there are 1M hippy Civs and only one shoot first Civ, it is more likely that a hippy Civ will make first contact with another hippy Civ. And what do hippies do when they first meet? They hook up! As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves.
Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
How are the hippie civs supposed to talk to one another if each message takes tens of thousands of years to transmit?
They are a peculiar species of space plant that lives for 1 million years on average. To them, ten thousand years is naught but the blink of an eye.
This is a frivolous example which demonstrates why it is silly to try to apply logic when you are working with highly imperfect information.
I did find the OP an interesting read. I just think that if you're going to say that it's logical you're going to have to add a lot more assumptions. Like that there's no long-lived space plants that are perfectly happy to wait 10K years to recieve a message. It's illogical to assume that, by looking at something logically when you have virtually NO information, you will come up with anything approaching an accurate result.
Edit: slightly off topic, but I just remembered something the OP might want to discuss. We actually have some evidence of what happened the last time humanity encountered a new species it couldn't communicate with : ) Neandertals anyone? Def. not a reliable proxy for two advanced Civs encountering each other, but still...
Imagine a brain, but instead of nodes in a skull sending electrical signals to each other, you have planets in a galaxy sending signals! A galaxy would be a huge brain, and a single thought would take a million years. The Andromeda galaxy, being only 2.6M light years away, would be close enough to have a chat with the milky way without any communication problems.
Good one! How about this:
A passive aggressive race has mastered the power of quantum entanglement, which allows them to communicate instantly over extremely long distances. They send a probe to the newly discovered planet Earth, and use it to send real time data back regarding its civilization so they can evaluate whether or not humans are a threat.
The probe continuosly gathers information relating to such topics as technology, politics, and, unfortunately, popular culture, and sends it back to its alien masters. The human race survives for ~11 milliseconds subsequent to the probe relaying the latest Justin Bieber song.
I'm not sure what the Nash equilibrium would be in this case, but it would probably involve a preemptive strike against Justin Bieber by US Navy SEALS.
:D FYI: quantum entanglement doesn't work that way. You can't use it to send information. You know that they will measure the same thing you measure, but there is no way to affect their measurement, so no information can be sent. Quantum field theory is not at conflict with special relativity. Actually, consistency with special relativity was a big reason to why it got introduced. But it's getting a bit too far off topic now maybe....
It is indeed very possible that the day "baby" was transmitted the first time was the day we doomed earth to destruction by aliens acting for a greater good. I think that must be regarded as the final conclusion of this thread.
On January 06 2012 15:15 Selendis wrote: Very interesting read.
A few points I would like to make though: -RKV's are expensive to make, why make them when you can just remain silent? Other civs have buckley's chance of detecting you unless you respond, so just stay quiet and you are completely safe! -RKV's aren't completely undetectable. The faster and/or heavier they are, the easier they are to detect from relativistic effects. -And over such large distances we would have plenty of time to intercept the "missile", A lot of time, in fact, millions of years at the very least to prepare from when we first detect it from gravitational lensing. -As far as I know we are completely undected by the rest of the univers because, as others in this thread have pointed out, our electromagnetic transmissions dissipate into background noise within 50 light years. Even if we wanted to be detected we would have to go to great lengths to make that happen
So yeah I think any other civilizations out there probably wouldn't bother with RKV's, although they would stay quiet just as a precaution.
Hey, I read these books. The last one being "Star Marines". the Destroyers of the Dawn (or something like that) Go around killing all life. the Humans send a huge starship filled with sand at 99% the speed of light to wipe out one of their planets.
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
of course, this is assuming that the hippies do not believe in defending themselves and do not communicate with one another in the slightest, a problem the OP overlooks entirely. A shoot-first civilization might encounter another civilization and attempt to destroy it. But in what is a more likely scenario (there are several hippie civilizations who can and will defend themselves and are allied with each other), after this occurrence the hippie civilizations will immediately begin searching out this hostile civilization and eliminate it. I mean, if you are a super advanced civilization, allied with other super advanced civilization, and you know that somewhere in a certain vicinity of the galaxy is a super advanced civilization who wants to screw with you, you go find them and blow their faces off.
Tell me, how do you coordinate when each message you send between each other takes thousands of light years?
Alright, let's play this game. How did the civilization firing the RKV even find out about their victims? From some sort of radio transmission that took thousands of years to arrive? And now you are firing an RKV at a planet many light years away, which will take even longer to arrive because the RKV isn't actually travelling the speed of light? Alright that makes sense. There are so many holes in this theory. You talk about how evolution would dictate that civilizations would eliminate each other as they encountered each other, forgetting to apply the argument you just used against me to your own theory. If this civilization encounters another by some sort of transmission, it's guaranteed that by the time you receive that transmission and launch the RKV, and the RKV arrives, that civilization will be incredibly different than it was. If it's a direct encounter (i.e. LOOK AT THAT SPACE SHIP OVER THAR!) Then each civilization is instantly alerted to the other and we now have a stalemate of mutually assured destruction. And remember, all of this is assuming that advanced civilizations have the exact same understanding of RKVs that we do now and don't know how to stop them (LOL)
Actually, a spaceship would show the other species absolutely nothing that can hurt the spacefaring species as a whole. A spaceship does not give away the location of a home planet, nor does it give away the number and position of key colonies. On the contrary, if a spaceship crew does sight another species, standard protocol should be to take note of the position of that planet and relay a message home for immediate RKV launch, then cloak your spaceship and head in the other direction. (Or possible stick around in the outer edges of the star system to go into stasis until the attack is done, then go in and kill all the survivors.)
For the defending civilization, detecting alien spaceship should send it into hyper-alert mode. If your MAD approach is what you want the other side to believe, you will need to broadcast to every civ in your vicinity the ability and willingness of your planet defenders to torture the crew and hack the systems of the incoming exploration craft for the location of the other race's home planet.
On January 06 2012 15:16 BluePanther wrote: Simple oversight by you.
There are two problems with the OP.
First, the difference in technology is going to be great between the two civilizations (either for us or against us) in the sense that it isn't really going to matter wtf we do, one side will have all the chips.
Second, most rational and curious people would rather form some sort of relationship with them, game theory be damned. I know earth would not just wipe out an alien species unless it's survival was knowingly at risk. We'd want to learn from them, study them, attempt to form some sort of symbiotic relationship. Attack would only happen after this. There is no reason to think that an alien race would be any different.
The other assumption here is that technological evolution will always follow an exponential progression. What if it doesn't? What if you can't get more high-tech than, say, antimatter rockets and Jupiter brains?
Second, the reason to think they'd be different is that the violent, silent species will, on hte long run, outsurvive the peaceful species...
On January 06 2012 15:15 Selendis wrote: Very interesting read.
A few points I would like to make though: -RKV's are expensive to make, why make them when you can just remain silent? Other civs have buckley's chance of detecting you unless you respond, so just stay quiet and you are completely safe! -RKV's aren't completely undetectable. The faster and/or heavier they are, the easier they are to detect from relativistic effects. -And over such large distances we would have plenty of time to intercept the "missile", A lot of time, in fact, millions of years at the very least to prepare from when we first detect it from gravitational lensing. -As far as I know we are completely undected by the rest of the univers because, as others in this thread have pointed out, our electromagnetic transmissions dissipate into background noise within 50 light years. Even if we wanted to be detected we would have to go to great lengths to make that happen
So yeah I think any other civilizations out there probably wouldn't bother with RKV's, although they would stay quiet just as a precaution.
Small asteroids are quite difficult to detect...
Not when they are travelling at 0.5c!
How would that change things?
EDIT: I'm not a physics expert, I'm sincerely curious
On January 06 2012 15:15 Selendis wrote: Very interesting read.
A few points I would like to make though: -RKV's are expensive to make, why make them when you can just remain silent? Other civs have buckley's chance of detecting you unless you respond, so just stay quiet and you are completely safe! -RKV's aren't completely undetectable. The faster and/or heavier they are, the easier they are to detect from relativistic effects. -And over such large distances we would have plenty of time to intercept the "missile", A lot of time, in fact, millions of years at the very least to prepare from when we first detect it from gravitational lensing. -As far as I know we are completely undected by the rest of the univers because, as others in this thread have pointed out, our electromagnetic transmissions dissipate into background noise within 50 light years. Even if we wanted to be detected we would have to go to great lengths to make that happen
So yeah I think any other civilizations out there probably wouldn't bother with RKV's, although they would stay quiet just as a precaution.
Ooh. What's the gravitational lensing effect? And how does it apply to small objects? I thought it only applied to large objects like black holes.
As for the other points--that's quite true. We are silent right now. But once we set up our first, second, third, Nth space colonies, we, being the liberal, social society that we are, will have to talk. And what then? When we're beaming out comms across light-years, our leakage envelope increases exponentially. How will we protect ourselves?
On January 06 2012 15:15 Selendis wrote: Very interesting read.
A few points I would like to make though: -RKV's are expensive to make, why make them when you can just remain silent? Other civs have buckley's chance of detecting you unless you respond, so just stay quiet and you are completely safe! -RKV's aren't completely undetectable. The faster and/or heavier they are, the easier they are to detect from relativistic effects. -And over such large distances we would have plenty of time to intercept the "missile", A lot of time, in fact, millions of years at the very least to prepare from when we first detect it from gravitational lensing. -As far as I know we are completely undected by the rest of the univers because, as others in this thread have pointed out, our electromagnetic transmissions dissipate into background noise within 50 light years. Even if we wanted to be detected we would have to go to great lengths to make that happen
So yeah I think any other civilizations out there probably wouldn't bother with RKV's, although they would stay quiet just as a precaution.
Small asteroids are quite difficult to detect...
Not when they are travelling at 0.5c!
How would that change things?
EDIT: I'm not a physics expert, I'm sincerely curious
When a mass travels at relativistic speed (I think 0,1c to c is considered relativistic speed), it curves spacetime. This is easier to detect than the object itself.
I have a hard time believing a warlike species is capable of reaching that level of technology before they destroy themselves. Just look at Earth, we're nowhere near any kind of advanced space technology, why? Because we're too busy killing ourselves and our planet.
On January 07 2012 00:46 Thorakh wrote: I have a hard time believing a warlike species is capable of reaching that level of technology before they destroy themselves. Just look at Earth, we're nowhere near any kind of advanced space technology, why? Because we're too busy killing ourselves and our planet.
ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
On January 06 2012 15:15 Selendis wrote: Very interesting read.
A few points I would like to make though: -RKV's are expensive to make, why make them when you can just remain silent? Other civs have buckley's chance of detecting you unless you respond, so just stay quiet and you are completely safe! -RKV's aren't completely undetectable. The faster and/or heavier they are, the easier they are to detect from relativistic effects. -And over such large distances we would have plenty of time to intercept the "missile", A lot of time, in fact, millions of years at the very least to prepare from when we first detect it from gravitational lensing. -As far as I know we are completely undected by the rest of the univers because, as others in this thread have pointed out, our electromagnetic transmissions dissipate into background noise within 50 light years. Even if we wanted to be detected we would have to go to great lengths to make that happen
So yeah I think any other civilizations out there probably wouldn't bother with RKV's, although they would stay quiet just as a precaution.
Small asteroids are quite difficult to detect...
Not when they are travelling at 0.5c!
How would that change things?
EDIT: I'm not a physics expert, I'm sincerely curious
When a mass travels at relativistic speed (I think 0,1c to c is considered relativistic speed), it curves spacetime. This is easier to detect than the object itself.
Could you determine the trajectory and source of an object using this technique?
On January 06 2012 15:15 Selendis wrote: Very interesting read.
A few points I would like to make though: -RKV's are expensive to make, why make them when you can just remain silent? Other civs have buckley's chance of detecting you unless you respond, so just stay quiet and you are completely safe! -RKV's aren't completely undetectable. The faster and/or heavier they are, the easier they are to detect from relativistic effects. -And over such large distances we would have plenty of time to intercept the "missile", A lot of time, in fact, millions of years at the very least to prepare from when we first detect it from gravitational lensing. -As far as I know we are completely undected by the rest of the univers because, as others in this thread have pointed out, our electromagnetic transmissions dissipate into background noise within 50 light years. Even if we wanted to be detected we would have to go to great lengths to make that happen
So yeah I think any other civilizations out there probably wouldn't bother with RKV's, although they would stay quiet just as a precaution.
Small asteroids are quite difficult to detect...
Not when they are travelling at 0.5c!
How would that change things?
EDIT: I'm not a physics expert, I'm sincerely curious
When a mass travels at relativistic speed (I think 0,1c to c is considered relativistic speed), it curves spacetime. This is easier to detect than the object itself.
Could you determine the trajectory and source of an object using this technique?
I don't know. I'm not an expert in general relativity either :D . I'm interested but not an expert.
You're giving aliens a human mind, I can't see how you could predict alien's reaction. Also if they're able to send such a weapon, I hope for them they have something to deflect it.
On January 07 2012 00:46 Thorakh wrote: I have a hard time believing a warlike species is capable of reaching that level of technology before they destroy themselves. Just look at Earth, we're nowhere near any kind of advanced space technology, why? Because we're too busy killing ourselves and our planet.
ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
That's wrong, it may seems that way tho. Look at China. Or maybe Brazil.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
The scariest thought for me about aliens is that their method of existence in and their perception of the universe would be so different from ours that any form of communication would be impossible, and the aliens themselves would be unimaginably different from humans, as humans always make the assumption any other civilization that exists MUST think and exist in a way similar to humans. (have you ever seen an alien depicted or theorized that did not bear even the tiniest bit of resemblance to humans? You never will, we cannot imagine something we cannot comprehend) Even OP makes that assumption, and bases his entire post on the assumption that aliens will even develop similar technology, and need to obey the same patterns that shaped the Earth and its people.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
symbiosis is a mechanism by which organisms establish relationships in order to have a competitive advantage against other creatures. This is like an alliance between two countries. for instance, in the case of some smaller fish eating parasites off of big fish, the big fish benefits because parasites suck. the small fish benefits because it doesn't need to compete against faster, more aggressive, fish for food. similarly, england and france would ally, because they are afraid of germany. not all development is technological, some of it is political. the small feudal kingdoms banded together and centralized because individually they were far more vulnerable than otherwise.
epigenetics has nothing to do with what i'm saying. that is developmental biology, which is the growth of organisms. country development is a different aspect-it's not like China had "heavy industry" hard coded into its constitution. stop trying to use big words.
as for the china and brazil example, china only developed by waging what amounted to a trade war with Japan and the United States. Similarly, Brazil is now busy trying to reassert control of the South American market. It may not be an armed war. But there is still conflict.
I have recently been to a good lecture by a frustrated would-be exobiologist (actually works as a cosmologist due to funding). He went through a big formula, along with uncertainties, based on a very famous scientist's work (Frank Drake).
Basically, considering the percentage of habitable planets in our vicinity, and the small communicative period in which civilisations exist (we, for example, will only have strong radio wave emissions for a total of about 100 years), the chance of communicating with aliens is extremely small, in humanity's lifetime. More worrying is that, even if we did communicate, is the potential for 50-year-each-way communications, which will never work out.
N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible; and R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space.[
As you can see, even with very optimistic values, N is tiny. On a universal scale, however, it's almost inevitable, just we won't be communicating with them.
On January 06 2012 15:15 Selendis wrote: Very interesting read.
A few points I would like to make though: -RKV's are expensive to make, why make them when you can just remain silent? Other civs have buckley's chance of detecting you unless you respond, so just stay quiet and you are completely safe! -RKV's aren't completely undetectable. The faster and/or heavier they are, the easier they are to detect from relativistic effects. -And over such large distances we would have plenty of time to intercept the "missile", A lot of time, in fact, millions of years at the very least to prepare from when we first detect it from gravitational lensing. -As far as I know we are completely undected by the rest of the univers because, as others in this thread have pointed out, our electromagnetic transmissions dissipate into background noise within 50 light years. Even if we wanted to be detected we would have to go to great lengths to make that happen
So yeah I think any other civilizations out there probably wouldn't bother with RKV's, although they would stay quiet just as a precaution.
Small asteroids are quite difficult to detect...
Not when they are travelling at 0.5c!
How would that change things?
EDIT: I'm not a physics expert, I'm sincerely curious
When a mass travels at relativistic speed (I think 0,1c to c is considered relativistic speed), it curves spacetime. This is easier to detect than the object itself.
Could you determine the trajectory and source of an object using this technique?
I don't know. I'm not an expert in general relativity either :D . I'm interested but not an expert.
Ok, so I did a master thesis on super-gravity, and I have to admit I don't really understand what you are referring to.
- Everything massive bend spacetime. the heavier it is, the more it bends. - Something that moves get more energy, but the rest mass does not change. I am honestly not sure if the extra kinetic energy bends the space more or not. Don't remember... What I do know is that 0.5c only gives 15% more mass, 0.9c roughly doubles the mass and 0.99c give around 7 times the rest mass. So it is not a huge difference. it's not like an asteroid will start bending space like a star at 0.99c. - current earth technology can only see veeery heavy stuff through gravitational lensing. Who knows what other more advanced civilizations can see.
All in all, it is very hard to say at what distance a high tech civ can first detect an incoming (cloaked) spaceship/asteroid at 0.5c. With the assumption that faster-than-light will not appear, a faster object will give you less and less head warning. example:
you detect a 0.5c projectile at 1 light year distance. When the light from 1 light year away arrives at your planet, the projectile will have travel 0.5 light years, so when you receive the information from 1 light year away, the projectile will already be at 0.5 light year distance. thus you will get 1 year head warning.
you detect a 0.9 projectile at 1 light year distance. at arrival of inforamtion frmo 1 light year, the projectile will be at 0.1 light year distance, and you will only get 0.1 years/0.9 = 0.111 years, which is a bit less than 6 weeks.
a 0.99c projectile detected at 1 light year distance will give you just below 4 days head warning.
However, light speed projectiles, essentially very powerful light beams (probably lasers), are impossible to detect ahead of arrival, as any information from it would travel at the same speed, or slower, than the beam.
Any species capable of inter-galaxy space travel will be so advanced that all they see when they meet us is ants or bacteria on a rock.
How do you communicate with an ant or a bacteria?
Let's say there is a 1 billion year old species out there that is dominant in our galaxy. Just think how much technological advancements we have done in the last 100 years. Things we have done include first steps of space travel, a planetary wide communication network where any person can soon contact any person withing few seconds, scientists are already working on making things invisible, sound-based weaponry already exists, nuclear weapons, we cure diseases with genetic modification (or try to), cloning attempts have been done with variying success..
We did that in last 100 years or so. Now think what a species can do in 1 billion years. So yeah, if that species is dominant then we are just ants on a rock compared to them.
Why is the universe so silent? Because we can't comprehend it well enough to be part of it.
Could you not set up a communication beacon a decent distance away from your home planet (like 25 LY away)? Therefore you can communicate peaceful intent without actually giving away your exact co-ordinates?
On January 06 2012 15:15 Selendis wrote: Very interesting read.
A few points I would like to make though: -RKV's are expensive to make, why make them when you can just remain silent? Other civs have buckley's chance of detecting you unless you respond, so just stay quiet and you are completely safe! -RKV's aren't completely undetectable. The faster and/or heavier they are, the easier they are to detect from relativistic effects. -And over such large distances we would have plenty of time to intercept the "missile", A lot of time, in fact, millions of years at the very least to prepare from when we first detect it from gravitational lensing. -As far as I know we are completely undected by the rest of the univers because, as others in this thread have pointed out, our electromagnetic transmissions dissipate into background noise within 50 light years. Even if we wanted to be detected we would have to go to great lengths to make that happen
So yeah I think any other civilizations out there probably wouldn't bother with RKV's, although they would stay quiet just as a precaution.
Small asteroids are quite difficult to detect...
Not when they are travelling at 0.5c!
How would that change things?
EDIT: I'm not a physics expert, I'm sincerely curious
When a mass travels at relativistic speed (I think 0,1c to c is considered relativistic speed), it curves spacetime. This is easier to detect than the object itself.
Could you determine the trajectory and source of an object using this technique?
I don't know. I'm not an expert in general relativity either :D . I'm interested but not an expert.
Ok, so I did a master thesis on super-gravity, and I have to admit I don't really understand what you are referring to.
- Everything massive bend spacetime. the heavier it is, the more it bends. - Something that moves get more energy, but the rest mass does not change. I am honestly not sure if the extra kinetic energy bends the space more or not. Don't remember... What I do know is that 0.5c only gives 15% more mass, 0.9c roughly doubles the mass and 0.99c give around 7 times the rest mass. So it is not a huge difference. it's not like an asteroid will start bending space like a star at 0.99c. - current earth technology can only see veeery heavy stuff through gravitational lensing. Who knows what other more advanced civilizations can see.
All in all, it is very hard to say at what distance a high tech civ can first detect an incoming (cloaked) spaceship/asteroid at 0.5c. With the assumption that faster-than-light will not appear, a faster object will give you less and less head warning. example:
you detect a 0.5c projectile at 1 light year distance. When the light from 1 light year away arrives at your planet, the projectile will have travel 0.5 light years, so when you receive the information from 1 light year away, the projectile will already be at 0.5 light year distance. thus you will get 1 year head warning.
you detect a 0.9 projectile at 1 light year distance. at arrival of inforamtion frmo 1 light year, the projectile will be at 0.1 light year distance, and you will only get 0.1 years/0.9 = 0.111 years, which is a bit less than 6 weeks.
a 0.99c projectile detected at 1 light year distance will give you just below 4 days head warning.
However, light speed projectiles, essentially very powerful light beams (probably lasers), are impossible to detect ahead of arrival, as any information from it would travel at the same speed, or slower, than the beam.
Do you know if it would be possible to detect the gravitational waves created by an rkv? Granted its mass would be small, but at relativistic speeds may be a noticiable effect. Also, how much would an rkv slow down due to the grav. wave emision?
EDIT: well I asked a friend who is has a Phd on gravitation, he tells me that relativistic objects on a uniform linear movent don't emit grav. waves. Only during the acceleration process would be noticible grav. effects,which would dilute with the square of the distance.
On January 06 2012 15:15 Selendis wrote: Very interesting read.
A few points I would like to make though: -RKV's are expensive to make, why make them when you can just remain silent? Other civs have buckley's chance of detecting you unless you respond, so just stay quiet and you are completely safe! -RKV's aren't completely undetectable. The faster and/or heavier they are, the easier they are to detect from relativistic effects. -And over such large distances we would have plenty of time to intercept the "missile", A lot of time, in fact, millions of years at the very least to prepare from when we first detect it from gravitational lensing. -As far as I know we are completely undected by the rest of the univers because, as others in this thread have pointed out, our electromagnetic transmissions dissipate into background noise within 50 light years. Even if we wanted to be detected we would have to go to great lengths to make that happen
So yeah I think any other civilizations out there probably wouldn't bother with RKV's, although they would stay quiet just as a precaution.
Small asteroids are quite difficult to detect...
Not when they are travelling at 0.5c!
How would that change things?
EDIT: I'm not a physics expert, I'm sincerely curious
When a mass travels at relativistic speed (I think 0,1c to c is considered relativistic speed), it curves spacetime. This is easier to detect than the object itself.
Could you determine the trajectory and source of an object using this technique?
I don't know. I'm not an expert in general relativity either :D . I'm interested but not an expert.
Ok, so I did a master thesis on super-gravity, and I have to admit I don't really understand what you are referring to.
- Everything massive bend spacetime. the heavier it is, the more it bends. - Something that moves get more energy, but the rest mass does not change. I am honestly not sure if the extra kinetic energy bends the space more or not. Don't remember... What I do know is that 0.5c only gives 15% more mass, 0.9c roughly doubles the mass and 0.99c give around 7 times the rest mass. So it is not a huge difference. it's not like an asteroid will start bending space like a star at 0.99c. - current earth technology can only see veeery heavy stuff through gravitational lensing. Who knows what other more advanced civilizations can see.
All in all, it is very hard to say at what distance a high tech civ can first detect an incoming (cloaked) spaceship/asteroid at 0.5c. With the assumption that faster-than-light will not appear, a faster object will give you less and less head warning. example:
you detect a 0.5c projectile at 1 light year distance. When the light from 1 light year away arrives at your planet, the projectile will have travel 0.5 light years, so when you receive the information from 1 light year away, the projectile will already be at 0.5 light year distance. thus you will get 1 year head warning.
you detect a 0.9 projectile at 1 light year distance. at arrival of inforamtion frmo 1 light year, the projectile will be at 0.1 light year distance, and you will only get 0.1 years/0.9 = 0.111 years, which is a bit less than 6 weeks.
a 0.99c projectile detected at 1 light year distance will give you just below 4 days head warning.
However, light speed projectiles, essentially very powerful light beams (probably lasers), are impossible to detect ahead of arrival, as any information from it would travel at the same speed, or slower, than the beam.
Do you know if it would be possible to detect the gravitational waves created by an rkv? Granted its mass would be small, but at relativistic speeds may be a noticiable effect. Also, how much would an rkv slow down due to the grav. wave emision?
gravitational waves are only emitted by accelerating objects. Once the projectile reaches target speed it will not emit gravitational waves.
This is a typical property of relativity, as there actually is no objective way to say if the projectile is moving fast or not. it may be moving fast if you sit still at the target planet an look at it, but sitting on the projectile it is the target moving quickly, and the projectile at rest, and you could argue that it should be the target planet that should emit. Acceleration breaks this symmetry as it is only the accelerating object that will feel the g-forces.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
symbiosis is a mechanism by which organisms establish relationships in order to have a competitive advantage against other creatures. This is like an alliance between two countries. for instance, in the case of some smaller fish eating parasites off of big fish, the big fish benefits because parasites suck. the small fish benefits because it doesn't need to compete against faster, more aggressive, fish for food. similarly, england and france would ally, because they are afraid of germany. not all development is technological, some of it is political. the small feudal kingdoms banded together and centralized because individually they were far more vulnerable than otherwise.
epigenetics has nothing to do with what i'm saying. that is developmental biology, which is the growth of organisms. country development is a different aspect-it's not like China had "heavy industry" hard coded into its constitution. stop trying to use big words.
as for the china and brazil example, china only developed by waging what amounted to a trade war with Japan and the United States. Similarly, Brazil is now busy trying to reassert control of the South American market. It may not be an armed war. But there is still conflict.
Why can't an alliance with aliens be better for survival than war with aliens? On the scale of lightyears with faster than light travel being impossible there realistically can't be any competition, and if there IS competition it is for habitable planets, not asteroid fields, destroying planets in this case would be a terrible idea (keep in mind we don't compete with animals living deep within the sea because there is no point).
People seem to forget that acts of aggression always carry risks. It could make you LESS safe and thus LESS likely to survive by being an aggressive alien race over a peaceful one. Likely the best way to survive is simply to hide, to develop technologies that mask you from detection. Consider a spacefaring species that can harness the power of suns, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they could create enough interference to make detecting their planets impossible. Also, a species that has the information advantage can improve upon itself by assimilating ideas, technologies, cultures etc. from other alien races. It's entirely concievable that the very first spacefaring species would the best survival rate simply because they can control EVERYTHING. If they see you as a threat they can destroy you before you even gain the ability to detect them, otherwise they can absorb you or use you. Maybe there is one galactic species right now, cultivating us for some reason or another.
War is NOT the best way to survive, the best way to survive is to ensure growth and evolution. Growth doesn't mean destroying everything in your path, it means absorbing and utilizing the best traits and materiel available to you. I got news for you, if we shot an RKV at the first alien race we discovered, we could very likely be irradicated as well, and or also be destroying our only ally we had that would save us from some other tyrannical alien race. Adaptability is the key to survival, not absolute destruction of all competitors (at the very least you have to consider subjugation of other species before destruction).
Very clearly, in a world of imperfect information, you have no idea whether launching an RKV is going to lead to mutually assured destruction (the worst possible decision for survival), or remove a powerful cooperative relationship that would've improved our chances of survival, or actually removed a threat worth removing. Therefor it's probably best to focus on not being found, rather than destroying everything we see (even if that means holding off space travel and colonization until we've found a way to mask ourselves completely).
I agree with the ''kill everything, ask questions later''. And i also agree that we would be pretty much screwed if inteligent life made contact, however, i doubt that aliens would use something like a RKV.
For what purpose aliens would want us extinct? Probably because they have taken an interest in the planet, and a weapon that kills the entire human race(and destroys the planet in the process) is not quite effective. If we assume they are so technological advanced that they can recover Earth after the blast, then why would they be here in the first place? There's plenty of planets in the universe that they can recover, so thats out of the question.
What would probably happen is invasion, think Independece day/war of the worlds, but worse.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
symbiosis is a mechanism by which organisms establish relationships in order to have a competitive advantage against other creatures. This is like an alliance between two countries. for instance, in the case of some smaller fish eating parasites off of big fish, the big fish benefits because parasites suck. the small fish benefits because it doesn't need to compete against faster, more aggressive, fish for food. similarly, england and france would ally, because they are afraid of germany. not all development is technological, some of it is political. the small feudal kingdoms banded together and centralized because individually they were far more vulnerable than otherwise.
epigenetics has nothing to do with what i'm saying. that is developmental biology, which is the growth of organisms. country development is a different aspect-it's not like China had "heavy industry" hard coded into its constitution. stop trying to use big words.
as for the china and brazil example, china only developed by waging what amounted to a trade war with Japan and the United States. Similarly, Brazil is now busy trying to reassert control of the South American market. It may not be an armed war. But there is still conflict.
Why can't an alliance with aliens be better for survival than war with aliens? On the scale of lightyears with faster than light travel being impossible there realistically can't be any competition, and if there IS competition it is for habitable planets, not asteroid fields, destroying planets in this case would be a terrible idea (keep in mind we don't compete with animals living deep within the sea because there is no point).
People seem to forget that acts of aggression always carry risks. It could make you LESS safe and thus LESS likely to survive by being an aggressive alien race over a peaceful one. Likely the best way to survive is simply to hide, to develop technologies that mask you from detection. Consider a spacefaring species that can harness the power of suns, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they could create enough interference to make detecting their planets impossible. Also, a species that has the information advantage can improve upon itself by assimilating ideas, technologies, cultures etc. from other alien races. It's entirely concievable that the very first spacefaring species would the best survival rate simply because they can control EVERYTHING. If they see you as a threat they can destroy you before you even gain the ability to detect them, otherwise they can absorb you or use you. Maybe there is one galactic species right now, cultivating us for some reason or another.
War is NOT the best way to survive, the best way to survive is to ensure growth and evolution. Growth doesn't mean destroying everything in your path, it means absorbing and utilizing the best traits and materiel available to you. I got news for you, if we shot a space dick at the first alien race we discovered, we could very likely be irradicated as well, and or also be destroying our only ally we had that would save us from some other tyrannical alien race. Adaptability is the key to survival, not absolute destruction of all competitors (at the very least you have to consider subjugation of other species before destruction).
Very clearly, in a world of imperfect information, you have no idea whether launching a space dick is going to lead to mutually assured destruction (the worst possible decision for survival), or remove a powerful cooperative relationship that would've improved our chances of survival, or actually removed a threat worth removing. Therefor it's probably best to focus on not being found, rather than destroying everything we see (even if that means holding off space travel and colonization until we've found a way to mask ourselves completely).
bro you associated my post with me agreeing with the op
if you read the posts i make in this thread you will very clearly understand what is going on
like my first post in this thread where i make exactly the same argument you do because this entire thread is one of the stupidest thing ever written
also, i don't remember mentioning space dicks in this post, so i have no idea why you're bringing them up
On January 07 2012 03:39 DDie wrote: I agree with the ''kill everything, ask questions later''. And i also agree that we would be pretty much screwed if inteligent life made contact, however, i doubt that aliens would use something like a RKV.
For what purpose aliens would want us extinct? Probably because they have taken an interest in the planet, and a weapon that kills the entire human race(and destroys the planet in the process) is not quite effective. If we assume they are so technological advanced that they can recover Earth after the blast, then why would they be here in the first place? There's plenty of planets in the universe that they can recover, so thats out of the question.
What would probably happen is invasion, think Independece day/war of the worlds, but worse.
If aliens wanted us extinct but wanted the planet "habitable" they could just send out von Neumann probes armed with nanite replicators to morph our biosphere into a biosphere similar to their home planet.
That would solve both the problem of getting rid of us and also terraforming the planet.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
symbiosis is a mechanism by which organisms establish relationships in order to have a competitive advantage against other creatures. This is like an alliance between two countries. for instance, in the case of some smaller fish eating parasites off of big fish, the big fish benefits because parasites suck. the small fish benefits because it doesn't need to compete against faster, more aggressive, fish for food. similarly, england and france would ally, because they are afraid of germany. not all development is technological, some of it is political. the small feudal kingdoms banded together and centralized because individually they were far more vulnerable than otherwise.
epigenetics has nothing to do with what i'm saying. that is developmental biology, which is the growth of organisms. country development is a different aspect-it's not like China had "heavy industry" hard coded into its constitution. stop trying to use big words.
as for the china and brazil example, china only developed by waging what amounted to a trade war with Japan and the United States. Similarly, Brazil is now busy trying to reassert control of the South American market. It may not be an armed war. But there is still conflict.
Why can't an alliance with aliens be better for survival than war with aliens? On the scale of lightyears with faster than light travel being impossible there realistically can't be any competition, and if there IS competition it is for habitable planets, not asteroid fields, destroying planets in this case would be a terrible idea (keep in mind we don't compete with animals living deep within the sea because there is no point).
People seem to forget that acts of aggression always carry risks. It could make you LESS safe and thus LESS likely to survive by being an aggressive alien race over a peaceful one. Likely the best way to survive is simply to hide, to develop technologies that mask you from detection. Consider a spacefaring species that can harness the power of suns, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they could create enough interference to make detecting their planets impossible. Also, a species that has the information advantage can improve upon itself by assimilating ideas, technologies, cultures etc. from other alien races. It's entirely concievable that the very first spacefaring species would the best survival rate simply because they can control EVERYTHING. If they see you as a threat they can destroy you before you even gain the ability to detect them, otherwise they can absorb you or use you. Maybe there is one galactic species right now, cultivating us for some reason or another.
War is NOT the best way to survive, the best way to survive is to ensure growth and evolution. Growth doesn't mean destroying everything in your path, it means absorbing and utilizing the best traits and materiel available to you. I got news for you, if we shot an RKV at the first alien race we discovered, we could very likely be irradicated as well, and or also be destroying our only ally we had that would save us from some other tyrannical alien race. Adaptability is the key to survival, not absolute destruction of all competitors (at the very least you have to consider subjugation of other species before destruction).
Very clearly, in a world of imperfect information, you have no idea whether launching an RKV is going to lead to mutually assured destruction (the worst possible decision for survival), or remove a powerful cooperative relationship that would've improved our chances of survival, or actually removed a threat worth removing. Therefor it's probably best to focus on not being found, rather than destroying everything we see (even if that means holding off space travel and colonization until we've found a way to mask ourselves completely).
But again, all your statements rest upon the central idea of being able to coordinate all your actions with the other party from a pair of central decision-makers. This model works for states on Earth, but it does not work on interstellar distances simply because it does not work with our own lifetimes. There is no way to guarantee political continuity on Earth across several thousand years, and hence alien races, even if they are cultivating us, may simply view it as impossible to negotiate with us anyways.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
symbiosis is a mechanism by which organisms establish relationships in order to have a competitive advantage against other creatures. This is like an alliance between two countries. for instance, in the case of some smaller fish eating parasites off of big fish, the big fish benefits because parasites suck. the small fish benefits because it doesn't need to compete against faster, more aggressive, fish for food. similarly, england and france would ally, because they are afraid of germany. not all development is technological, some of it is political. the small feudal kingdoms banded together and centralized because individually they were far more vulnerable than otherwise.
epigenetics has nothing to do with what i'm saying. that is developmental biology, which is the growth of organisms. country development is a different aspect-it's not like China had "heavy industry" hard coded into its constitution. stop trying to use big words.
as for the china and brazil example, china only developed by waging what amounted to a trade war with Japan and the United States. Similarly, Brazil is now busy trying to reassert control of the South American market. It may not be an armed war. But there is still conflict.
Why can't an alliance with aliens be better for survival than war with aliens? On the scale of lightyears with faster than light travel being impossible there realistically can't be any competition, and if there IS competition it is for habitable planets, not asteroid fields, destroying planets in this case would be a terrible idea (keep in mind we don't compete with animals living deep within the sea because there is no point).
People seem to forget that acts of aggression always carry risks. It could make you LESS safe and thus LESS likely to survive by being an aggressive alien race over a peaceful one. Likely the best way to survive is simply to hide, to develop technologies that mask you from detection. Consider a spacefaring species that can harness the power of suns, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they could create enough interference to make detecting their planets impossible. Also, a species that has the information advantage can improve upon itself by assimilating ideas, technologies, cultures etc. from other alien races. It's entirely concievable that the very first spacefaring species would the best survival rate simply because they can control EVERYTHING. If they see you as a threat they can destroy you before you even gain the ability to detect them, otherwise they can absorb you or use you. Maybe there is one galactic species right now, cultivating us for some reason or another.
War is NOT the best way to survive, the best way to survive is to ensure growth and evolution. Growth doesn't mean destroying everything in your path, it means absorbing and utilizing the best traits and materiel available to you. I got news for you, if we shot an RKV at the first alien race we discovered, we could very likely be irradicated as well, and or also be destroying our only ally we had that would save us from some other tyrannical alien race. Adaptability is the key to survival, not absolute destruction of all competitors (at the very least you have to consider subjugation of other species before destruction).
Very clearly, in a world of imperfect information, you have no idea whether launching an RKV is going to lead to mutually assured destruction (the worst possible decision for survival), or remove a powerful cooperative relationship that would've improved our chances of survival, or actually removed a threat worth removing. Therefor it's probably best to focus on not being found, rather than destroying everything we see (even if that means holding off space travel and colonization until we've found a way to mask ourselves completely).
But again, all your statements rest upon the central idea of being able to coordinate all your actions with the other party from a pair of central decision-makers. This model works for states on Earth, but it does not work on interstellar distances simply because it does not work with our own lifetimes. There is no way to guarantee political continuity on Earth across several thousand years, and hence alien races, even if they are cultivating us, may simply view it as impossible to negotiate with us anyways.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
symbiosis is a mechanism by which organisms establish relationships in order to have a competitive advantage against other creatures. This is like an alliance between two countries. for instance, in the case of some smaller fish eating parasites off of big fish, the big fish benefits because parasites suck. the small fish benefits because it doesn't need to compete against faster, more aggressive, fish for food. similarly, england and france would ally, because they are afraid of germany. not all development is technological, some of it is political. the small feudal kingdoms banded together and centralized because individually they were far more vulnerable than otherwise.
epigenetics has nothing to do with what i'm saying. that is developmental biology, which is the growth of organisms. country development is a different aspect-it's not like China had "heavy industry" hard coded into its constitution. stop trying to use big words.
as for the china and brazil example, china only developed by waging what amounted to a trade war with Japan and the United States. Similarly, Brazil is now busy trying to reassert control of the South American market. It may not be an armed war. But there is still conflict.
Why can't an alliance with aliens be better for survival than war with aliens? On the scale of lightyears with faster than light travel being impossible there realistically can't be any competition, and if there IS competition it is for habitable planets, not asteroid fields, destroying planets in this case would be a terrible idea (keep in mind we don't compete with animals living deep within the sea because there is no point).
People seem to forget that acts of aggression always carry risks. It could make you LESS safe and thus LESS likely to survive by being an aggressive alien race over a peaceful one. Likely the best way to survive is simply to hide, to develop technologies that mask you from detection. Consider a spacefaring species that can harness the power of suns, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they could create enough interference to make detecting their planets impossible. Also, a species that has the information advantage can improve upon itself by assimilating ideas, technologies, cultures etc. from other alien races. It's entirely concievable that the very first spacefaring species would the best survival rate simply because they can control EVERYTHING. If they see you as a threat they can destroy you before you even gain the ability to detect them, otherwise they can absorb you or use you. Maybe there is one galactic species right now, cultivating us for some reason or another.
War is NOT the best way to survive, the best way to survive is to ensure growth and evolution. Growth doesn't mean destroying everything in your path, it means absorbing and utilizing the best traits and materiel available to you. I got news for you, if we shot an RKV at the first alien race we discovered, we could very likely be irradicated as well, and or also be destroying our only ally we had that would save us from some other tyrannical alien race. Adaptability is the key to survival, not absolute destruction of all competitors (at the very least you have to consider subjugation of other species before destruction).
Very clearly, in a world of imperfect information, you have no idea whether launching an RKV is going to lead to mutually assured destruction (the worst possible decision for survival), or remove a powerful cooperative relationship that would've improved our chances of survival, or actually removed a threat worth removing. Therefor it's probably best to focus on not being found, rather than destroying everything we see (even if that means holding off space travel and colonization until we've found a way to mask ourselves completely).
But again, all your statements rest upon the central idea of being able to coordinate all your actions with the other party from a pair of central decision-makers. This model works for states on Earth, but it does not work on interstellar distances simply because it does not work with our own lifetimes. There is no way to guarantee political continuity on Earth across several thousand years, and hence alien races, even if they are cultivating us, may simply view it as impossible to negotiate with us anyways.
i don't see any math, so this isn't a model.
qed
Ryan, drop the UChicago antics bro. We can't really talk math here because the central paradigm behind all the identities of modern game theory (instantaneous and unlimited communication bandwidth) doesn't exist here, and therefore the existing models aren't equipped to handle this discussion.
If we wanted to model this, we would have to rebuild everything from scratch. While that may be an interesting exercise, regretfully I graduated 2 years ago. Of course if you would like to do something like this for your honors thesis that would be fucking awesome.
What is the point of defining or trying to predict something (ie the attitude of extra-terrestrial life forms) according to our extremely ignorant and limited point of view? The universe is so vast that the possibilities are endless; and by the way many replies on this thread are highly biased by american movies and such.
We do everything according to our knowledge (and also sadly according to pathetic action sci-fi movies) and apparently everybody here including the OP is desperately trying to define things. Why not accept to not know? That isn't giving up.
But to go with the flow, I'd say that Humanity is a very agressive life form and violence seems to always be the only way to fix things, whether it's verbal or physical. We can't seem to stop and understand the pointlessness of the struggle in unison (and in unison only). The only way another civilisation in the universe could thrive for thousands of years is by thinking in unison.
Though the odds of that happening is very unlikely due to the universal laws of evolution (the strongest survive for the short term and the most adaptive survive for the longterm), the most straightforward way to survive is ours: own, rule, use and destroy everything for our existence, only thinking short term. So honestly, I don't know how small the odds would be for a fundamentally solidary (thinking and working in unison) civilisation to spawn somewhere in the universe... Yet the universe is so vast that it must have happened somewhere sometime. But on top of that, the odds of that civilisation to find us in our little corner, to have the exact technology to do so, to "travel" all the way here and to be visible (and to speak english hahahahaha) is even less than what it was initially.
Extra-terrestrial life does exist, it must, due to the vastness of the universe, but for it to be visible and recognizable for us humans is so unlikely. On top of that, Humanity will be extinct soon, so the tiny lifespan of existence Humans had on this planet minimizes even more the chances of encountering other life forms in the universe. By now, after those 3 layers, it's nearly impossible for "aliens" to get in contact with us.
On January 07 2012 06:20 sorrowptoss wrote: What is the point of defining or trying to predict something (ie the attitude of extra-terrestrial life forms) according to our extremely ignorant and limited point of view? The universe is so vast that the possibilities are endless; and by the way many replies on this thread are highly biased by american movies and such.
We do everything according to our knowledge (and also sadly according to pathetic action sci-fi movies) and apparently everybody here including the OP is desperately trying to define things. Why not accept to not know? That isn't giving up.
But to go with the flow, I'd say that Humanity is a very agressive life form and violence seems to always be the only way to fix things, whether it's verbal or physical. We can't seem to stop and understand the pointlessness of the struggle in unison (and in unison only). The only way another civilisation in the universe could thrive for thousands of years is by thinking in unison.
Though the odds of that happening is very unlikely due to the universal laws of evolution (the strongest survive for the short term and the most adaptive survive for the longterm), the most straightforward way to survive is ours: own, rule, use and destroy everything for our existence, only thinking short term. So honestly, I don't know how small the odds would be for a fundamentally solidary (thinking and working in unison) civilisation to spawn somewhere in the universe... Yet the universe is so vast that it must have happened somewhere sometime. But on top of that, the odds of that civilisation to find us in our little corner, to have the exact technology to do so, to "travel" all the way here and to be visible (and to speak english hahahahaha) is even less than what it was initially.
Extra-terrestrial life does exist, it must, due to the vastness of the universe, but for it to be visible and recognizable for us humans is so unlikely. On top of that, Humanity will be extinct soon, so the tiny lifespan of existence Humans had on this planet minimizes even more the chances of encountering other life forms in the universe. By now, after those 3 layers, it's nearly impossible for "aliens" to get in contact with us.
True, but this post is more about analyzing what they do AFTER they detect us. Even if they don't, the chance becomes that once they do, it would result in instant catastrophe...
what if aliens shoot magic lasers that ignore the laws of physics, travel faster than light and burn hotter than any star
what if aliens are sentient energy beings who can teleport and inhabit human minds
what if aliens have an anal fetish, and rather than destroy us, simply come to probe us with a RAD (relativistic anal dildo)
I mean, that's the problem with talking about things that are not based on facts whatsoever, you can just make up anything you like because you have no input data, the conclusions drawn by the OP are equally as legitimate as what I wrote above, because they are based on the assumption that other civilizations exist in the universe, and that their sole goals are to harvest more energy and make more planet-bullets.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
symbiosis is a mechanism by which organisms establish relationships in order to have a competitive advantage against other creatures. This is like an alliance between two countries. for instance, in the case of some smaller fish eating parasites off of big fish, the big fish benefits because parasites suck. the small fish benefits because it doesn't need to compete against faster, more aggressive, fish for food. similarly, england and france would ally, because they are afraid of germany. not all development is technological, some of it is political. the small feudal kingdoms banded together and centralized because individually they were far more vulnerable than otherwise.
epigenetics has nothing to do with what i'm saying. that is developmental biology, which is the growth of organisms. country development is a different aspect-it's not like China had "heavy industry" hard coded into its constitution. stop trying to use big words.
as for the china and brazil example, china only developed by waging what amounted to a trade war with Japan and the United States. Similarly, Brazil is now busy trying to reassert control of the South American market. It may not be an armed war. But there is still conflict.
Why can't an alliance with aliens be better for survival than war with aliens? On the scale of lightyears with faster than light travel being impossible there realistically can't be any competition, and if there IS competition it is for habitable planets, not asteroid fields, destroying planets in this case would be a terrible idea (keep in mind we don't compete with animals living deep within the sea because there is no point).
People seem to forget that acts of aggression always carry risks. It could make you LESS safe and thus LESS likely to survive by being an aggressive alien race over a peaceful one. Likely the best way to survive is simply to hide, to develop technologies that mask you from detection. Consider a spacefaring species that can harness the power of suns, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they could create enough interference to make detecting their planets impossible. Also, a species that has the information advantage can improve upon itself by assimilating ideas, technologies, cultures etc. from other alien races. It's entirely concievable that the very first spacefaring species would the best survival rate simply because they can control EVERYTHING. If they see you as a threat they can destroy you before you even gain the ability to detect them, otherwise they can absorb you or use you. Maybe there is one galactic species right now, cultivating us for some reason or another.
War is NOT the best way to survive, the best way to survive is to ensure growth and evolution. Growth doesn't mean destroying everything in your path, it means absorbing and utilizing the best traits and materiel available to you. I got news for you, if we shot an RKV at the first alien race we discovered, we could very likely be irradicated as well, and or also be destroying our only ally we had that would save us from some other tyrannical alien race. Adaptability is the key to survival, not absolute destruction of all competitors (at the very least you have to consider subjugation of other species before destruction).
Very clearly, in a world of imperfect information, you have no idea whether launching an RKV is going to lead to mutually assured destruction (the worst possible decision for survival), or remove a powerful cooperative relationship that would've improved our chances of survival, or actually removed a threat worth removing. Therefor it's probably best to focus on not being found, rather than destroying everything we see (even if that means holding off space travel and colonization until we've found a way to mask ourselves completely).
But again, all your statements rest upon the central idea of being able to coordinate all your actions with the other party from a pair of central decision-makers. This model works for states on Earth, but it does not work on interstellar distances simply because it does not work with our own lifetimes. There is no way to guarantee political continuity on Earth across several thousand years, and hence alien races, even if they are cultivating us, may simply view it as impossible to negotiate with us anyways.
i don't see any math, so this isn't a model.
qed
Ryan, drop the UChicago antics bro. We can't really talk math here because the central paradigm behind all the identities of modern game theory (instantaneous and unlimited communication bandwidth) doesn't exist here, and therefore the existing models aren't equipped to handle this discussion.
If we wanted to model this, we would have to rebuild everything from scratch. While that may be an interesting exercise, regretfully I graduated 2 years ago. Of course if you would like to do something like this for your honors thesis that would be fucking awesome.
If this is the person that I think it is, long time no see.
Once a civilisation is at a point where it can create an RKV game theory, as we understand it, might well be perceived as nonsense, the gabagooing of an infant.
Although I would really like to read a paper about game theory over relativistic distances, in fact I'm a little surprised there isn't one out there already.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
symbiosis is a mechanism by which organisms establish relationships in order to have a competitive advantage against other creatures. This is like an alliance between two countries. for instance, in the case of some smaller fish eating parasites off of big fish, the big fish benefits because parasites suck. the small fish benefits because it doesn't need to compete against faster, more aggressive, fish for food. similarly, england and france would ally, because they are afraid of germany. not all development is technological, some of it is political. the small feudal kingdoms banded together and centralized because individually they were far more vulnerable than otherwise.
epigenetics has nothing to do with what i'm saying. that is developmental biology, which is the growth of organisms. country development is a different aspect-it's not like China had "heavy industry" hard coded into its constitution. stop trying to use big words.
as for the china and brazil example, china only developed by waging what amounted to a trade war with Japan and the United States. Similarly, Brazil is now busy trying to reassert control of the South American market. It may not be an armed war. But there is still conflict.
Why can't an alliance with aliens be better for survival than war with aliens? On the scale of lightyears with faster than light travel being impossible there realistically can't be any competition, and if there IS competition it is for habitable planets, not asteroid fields, destroying planets in this case would be a terrible idea (keep in mind we don't compete with animals living deep within the sea because there is no point).
People seem to forget that acts of aggression always carry risks. It could make you LESS safe and thus LESS likely to survive by being an aggressive alien race over a peaceful one. Likely the best way to survive is simply to hide, to develop technologies that mask you from detection. Consider a spacefaring species that can harness the power of suns, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they could create enough interference to make detecting their planets impossible. Also, a species that has the information advantage can improve upon itself by assimilating ideas, technologies, cultures etc. from other alien races. It's entirely concievable that the very first spacefaring species would the best survival rate simply because they can control EVERYTHING. If they see you as a threat they can destroy you before you even gain the ability to detect them, otherwise they can absorb you or use you. Maybe there is one galactic species right now, cultivating us for some reason or another.
War is NOT the best way to survive, the best way to survive is to ensure growth and evolution. Growth doesn't mean destroying everything in your path, it means absorbing and utilizing the best traits and materiel available to you. I got news for you, if we shot an RKV at the first alien race we discovered, we could very likely be irradicated as well, and or also be destroying our only ally we had that would save us from some other tyrannical alien race. Adaptability is the key to survival, not absolute destruction of all competitors (at the very least you have to consider subjugation of other species before destruction).
Very clearly, in a world of imperfect information, you have no idea whether launching an RKV is going to lead to mutually assured destruction (the worst possible decision for survival), or remove a powerful cooperative relationship that would've improved our chances of survival, or actually removed a threat worth removing. Therefor it's probably best to focus on not being found, rather than destroying everything we see (even if that means holding off space travel and colonization until we've found a way to mask ourselves completely).
But again, all your statements rest upon the central idea of being able to coordinate all your actions with the other party from a pair of central decision-makers. This model works for states on Earth, but it does not work on interstellar distances simply because it does not work with our own lifetimes. There is no way to guarantee political continuity on Earth across several thousand years, and hence alien races, even if they are cultivating us, may simply view it as impossible to negotiate with us anyways.
i don't see any math, so this isn't a model.
qed
Ryan, drop the UChicago antics bro. We can't really talk math here because the central paradigm behind all the identities of modern game theory (instantaneous and unlimited communication bandwidth) doesn't exist here, and therefore the existing models aren't equipped to handle this discussion.
If we wanted to model this, we would have to rebuild everything from scratch. While that may be an interesting exercise, regretfully I graduated 2 years ago. Of course if you would like to do something like this for your honors thesis that would be fucking awesome.
1.) Player 1 chooses to broadcast or not broadcast. 2.) Player 2 receives message and chooses whether or not to broadcast or launch a RKV. 3.) Player 1 either receives broadcast or detects RKV and decides whether to launch RKV. (this stage is a 3-fold branching. Detect response first, detect RKV first, or detect nothing)
That fully specifies an extended form game (tree structure) with all the necessary components to establish information sets given some strongly negative payoff for being dead and some presumably slightly negative payoff for having to launch an RKV, with broadcasting information being basically free. Information sets come into play in stage 3, since player 1 does not know if an RKV has been sent or not and has to make a decision based on the possibility of both situations.
The OP suggests that a SPNE is for 1 not to broadcast and launch RKV on detection of traceable communication. This is trivally a SPNE since the payoffs are 0 for both parties and we have not formulated any positive payoffs in this game. Thus, since we cannot do better (period), we cannot do better by deviating. (simple argument from weakening)
Later on, the OP suggests a peaceful outcome if the game is extended into
1.) Player 1 chooses to broadcast location, not broadcast, or to broadcast that player possesses advanced first strike and broadly decentralized second strike capabilities. 2.) Player 2 receives message and chooses whether or not to broadcast or to broadcast in turn the possession of advanced first strike and broadly decentralized second strike capabilities or to launch a RKV. 3.) Player 1 either receives broadcast or detects RKV and decides whether to launch RKV.
In this game, we see that broadcasting advanced first strike capabilities with broadly decentralized second strike capabilities while committing to launch RKV on detection of incoming RKV is also a SPNE. Given the payoffs we described earlier, there is a strongly negative payoff for player 2 to launch RKV, since they will be greeted in turn with an RKV in response.
A point that was somewhat unclear to me after the somewhat confusingly ordered edits in the OP was whether or not the origin of an RKV could be successfully traced for MAD. If RKVs are traceable then as I said in the previous paragraph, communication can still be an RKV. Otherwise, the only SPNEs are those where the first player does not broadcast.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
symbiosis is a mechanism by which organisms establish relationships in order to have a competitive advantage against other creatures. This is like an alliance between two countries. for instance, in the case of some smaller fish eating parasites off of big fish, the big fish benefits because parasites suck. the small fish benefits because it doesn't need to compete against faster, more aggressive, fish for food. similarly, england and france would ally, because they are afraid of germany. not all development is technological, some of it is political. the small feudal kingdoms banded together and centralized because individually they were far more vulnerable than otherwise.
epigenetics has nothing to do with what i'm saying. that is developmental biology, which is the growth of organisms. country development is a different aspect-it's not like China had "heavy industry" hard coded into its constitution. stop trying to use big words.
as for the china and brazil example, china only developed by waging what amounted to a trade war with Japan and the United States. Similarly, Brazil is now busy trying to reassert control of the South American market. It may not be an armed war. But there is still conflict.
Why can't an alliance with aliens be better for survival than war with aliens? On the scale of lightyears with faster than light travel being impossible there realistically can't be any competition, and if there IS competition it is for habitable planets, not asteroid fields, destroying planets in this case would be a terrible idea (keep in mind we don't compete with animals living deep within the sea because there is no point).
People seem to forget that acts of aggression always carry risks. It could make you LESS safe and thus LESS likely to survive by being an aggressive alien race over a peaceful one. Likely the best way to survive is simply to hide, to develop technologies that mask you from detection. Consider a spacefaring species that can harness the power of suns, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they could create enough interference to make detecting their planets impossible. Also, a species that has the information advantage can improve upon itself by assimilating ideas, technologies, cultures etc. from other alien races. It's entirely concievable that the very first spacefaring species would the best survival rate simply because they can control EVERYTHING. If they see you as a threat they can destroy you before you even gain the ability to detect them, otherwise they can absorb you or use you. Maybe there is one galactic species right now, cultivating us for some reason or another.
War is NOT the best way to survive, the best way to survive is to ensure growth and evolution. Growth doesn't mean destroying everything in your path, it means absorbing and utilizing the best traits and materiel available to you. I got news for you, if we shot an RKV at the first alien race we discovered, we could very likely be irradicated as well, and or also be destroying our only ally we had that would save us from some other tyrannical alien race. Adaptability is the key to survival, not absolute destruction of all competitors (at the very least you have to consider subjugation of other species before destruction).
Very clearly, in a world of imperfect information, you have no idea whether launching an RKV is going to lead to mutually assured destruction (the worst possible decision for survival), or remove a powerful cooperative relationship that would've improved our chances of survival, or actually removed a threat worth removing. Therefor it's probably best to focus on not being found, rather than destroying everything we see (even if that means holding off space travel and colonization until we've found a way to mask ourselves completely).
But again, all your statements rest upon the central idea of being able to coordinate all your actions with the other party from a pair of central decision-makers. This model works for states on Earth, but it does not work on interstellar distances simply because it does not work with our own lifetimes. There is no way to guarantee political continuity on Earth across several thousand years, and hence alien races, even if they are cultivating us, may simply view it as impossible to negotiate with us anyways.
i don't see any math, so this isn't a model.
qed
Ryan, drop the UChicago antics bro. We can't really talk math here because the central paradigm behind all the identities of modern game theory (instantaneous and unlimited communication bandwidth) doesn't exist here, and therefore the existing models aren't equipped to handle this discussion.
If we wanted to model this, we would have to rebuild everything from scratch. While that may be an interesting exercise, regretfully I graduated 2 years ago. Of course if you would like to do something like this for your honors thesis that would be fucking awesome.
1.) Player 1 chooses to broadcast or not broadcast. 2.) Player 2 receives message and chooses whether or not to broadcast or launch a RKV. 3.) Player 1 either receives broadcast or detects RKV and decides whether to launch RKV. (this stage is a 3-fold branching. Detect response first, detect RKV first, or detect nothing)
That fully specifies an extended form game (tree structure) with all the necessary components to establish information sets given some strongly negative payoff for being dead and some presumably slightly negative payoff for having to launch an RKV, with broadcasting information being basically free. Information sets come into play in stage 3, since player 1 does not know if an RKV has been sent or not and has to make a decision based on the possibility of both situations.
The OP suggests that a SPNE is for 1 not to broadcast and launch RKV on detection of traceable communication. This is trivally a SPNE since the payoffs are 0 for both parties and we have not formulated any positive payoffs in this game. Thus, since we cannot do better (period), we cannot do better by deviating. (simple argument from weakening)
Later on, the OP suggests a peaceful outcome if the game is extended into
1.) Player 1 chooses to broadcast location, not broadcast, or to broadcast that player possesses advanced first strike and broadly decentralized second strike capabilities. 2.) Player 2 receives message and chooses whether or not to broadcast or to broadcast in turn the possession of advanced first strike and broadly decentralized second strike capabilities or to launch a RKV. 3.) Player 1 either receives broadcast or detects RKV and decides whether to launch RKV.
In this game, we see that broadcasting advanced first strike capabilities with broadly decentralized second strike capabilities while committing to launch RKV on detection of incoming RKV is also a SPNE. Given the payoffs we described earlier, there is a strongly negative payoff for player 2 to launch RKV, since they will be greeted in turn with an RKV in response.
A point that was somewhat unclear to me after the somewhat confusingly ordered edits in the OP was whether or not the origin of an RKV could be successfully traced for MAD. If RKVs are traceable then as I said in the previous paragraph, communication can still be an RKV. Otherwise, the only SPNEs are those where the first player does not broadcast.
Whoa thanks. This cleared up a lot of things, I'm adding this to the OP. Caller are you satisfied now?
1, you're theory rests upon the assumption of an anarchic state of relations, and you dont know that this is true. The assertion seems like its based on the idea that there is no effective communication between species, which i am willing to grant for the purpose of the discussion, but it discounts the possibility of one race establishing hegemonic rule. A strong hegemony with effective early warning systems could be relatively secure from RKVs (which I assume can be deflected or destroyed if you have fore warning an counter launch your own devices at the RKV, or if you can manipulate gravity to do the same), and thus make first communications safe, which in turn gives an opportunity for dialogue and cooperation.
2, communications could be established within an anarchic system using satellites, sending messages from uninhabited worlds etc. If Civ A has a small satellite or outpost somewhere removed from its inhabited territories it could use that as a relay station, or even more effectively as the first point in a series of similar relay stations, to establish contact, could it not? And then if Civ B launches RKVs, Civ A can note the location and retaliate, and the loss would be just the satellite. If Civ B does not launch, then either they did not receive the message or they did but lack the capacity for or interest in responding. If a return message is received then dialogue can be attempted, and even if the dialogue fails then Civ A has not been exposed. If a return message is not received, then presumably Civ A has still not been exposed.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
symbiosis is a mechanism by which organisms establish relationships in order to have a competitive advantage against other creatures. This is like an alliance between two countries. for instance, in the case of some smaller fish eating parasites off of big fish, the big fish benefits because parasites suck. the small fish benefits because it doesn't need to compete against faster, more aggressive, fish for food. similarly, england and france would ally, because they are afraid of germany. not all development is technological, some of it is political. the small feudal kingdoms banded together and centralized because individually they were far more vulnerable than otherwise.
epigenetics has nothing to do with what i'm saying. that is developmental biology, which is the growth of organisms. country development is a different aspect-it's not like China had "heavy industry" hard coded into its constitution. stop trying to use big words.
as for the china and brazil example, china only developed by waging what amounted to a trade war with Japan and the United States. Similarly, Brazil is now busy trying to reassert control of the South American market. It may not be an armed war. But there is still conflict.
Why can't an alliance with aliens be better for survival than war with aliens? On the scale of lightyears with faster than light travel being impossible there realistically can't be any competition, and if there IS competition it is for habitable planets, not asteroid fields, destroying planets in this case would be a terrible idea (keep in mind we don't compete with animals living deep within the sea because there is no point).
People seem to forget that acts of aggression always carry risks. It could make you LESS safe and thus LESS likely to survive by being an aggressive alien race over a peaceful one. Likely the best way to survive is simply to hide, to develop technologies that mask you from detection. Consider a spacefaring species that can harness the power of suns, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they could create enough interference to make detecting their planets impossible. Also, a species that has the information advantage can improve upon itself by assimilating ideas, technologies, cultures etc. from other alien races. It's entirely concievable that the very first spacefaring species would the best survival rate simply because they can control EVERYTHING. If they see you as a threat they can destroy you before you even gain the ability to detect them, otherwise they can absorb you or use you. Maybe there is one galactic species right now, cultivating us for some reason or another.
War is NOT the best way to survive, the best way to survive is to ensure growth and evolution. Growth doesn't mean destroying everything in your path, it means absorbing and utilizing the best traits and materiel available to you. I got news for you, if we shot an RKV at the first alien race we discovered, we could very likely be irradicated as well, and or also be destroying our only ally we had that would save us from some other tyrannical alien race. Adaptability is the key to survival, not absolute destruction of all competitors (at the very least you have to consider subjugation of other species before destruction).
Very clearly, in a world of imperfect information, you have no idea whether launching an RKV is going to lead to mutually assured destruction (the worst possible decision for survival), or remove a powerful cooperative relationship that would've improved our chances of survival, or actually removed a threat worth removing. Therefor it's probably best to focus on not being found, rather than destroying everything we see (even if that means holding off space travel and colonization until we've found a way to mask ourselves completely).
But again, all your statements rest upon the central idea of being able to coordinate all your actions with the other party from a pair of central decision-makers. This model works for states on Earth, but it does not work on interstellar distances simply because it does not work with our own lifetimes. There is no way to guarantee political continuity on Earth across several thousand years, and hence alien races, even if they are cultivating us, may simply view it as impossible to negotiate with us anyways.
There is no need to communicate because there is no incentive to destroy other races. Rather, destroying other races could actually negatively effect your survival. Additionally, there is no reason to compete for resources (and risk a war that could destroy you) until resources become limited. Animals do not attack animals pre-emptively, they attack for food or for self defence. The whole argument for killing everything you see is irrational, it could easily lead to your own destruction. If you destroy an alien that can't fight back, then you are throwing away a resource that poses no risk to you. If you destroy an alien planet that CAN fight back (even though there is no evidence it's actually attacking you) then you are risking a war that could lead to your destruction. The imaginary circumstances required to justify total war with all other sentient alien species do not exist in the real world.
Well im reading this..and..basically i want to think up the best defense system assuming rkvs exist and what not, and then how the defense could be broken.
Ideally, if radio waves broadcast location, it would probably be more convenient to have all outside communication done thru effectively proxy galaxies so only they can be destroyed. Ideally the galaxies will be located in a relative circle around the home civilization, and possibly it would be ideal to have a few circles. These planets circleing the home planet would each have intense self defense mechanisms so the home planet is never in danger. Considering this is 3d land, the planets would have to form a sphere
Now a few questions i have: if a defense system fails and the aliens know their planet is dead, could the aliens not just ditch the planet? From this perspective it seems i could suggest a form of machine plain t hat can wrap around planets togather resources, and the aliens can leave and not have to pack up stuff. Im suggesting every alien colony is just a home base vehicle that can go onto planets. I figure this should be possible and it should make just killig people too hard.
Also maybe this is out of the topic but with such advanced technology do you think it could be possible to genetically alter genes? What if a race more intelligent than us can have a baby a month? A week? Its hard to go extinct that way
On January 06 2012 14:03 Mercy13 wrote: Interesting read, but I think you made at least one big error:
"but if you assume all aliens choose their initial actions upon finding other intelligent life from an equally likely basket of hostile and not-so-hostile actions"
You state this is an assumption but then treat it as a given. It is certainly possible that the portion of aliens choosing the non-hostile portion of the basket significantly outweighs the hostile portion of the basket.
according to the OPs approach it doesnt matter much what proportions there are. Even with a million pacifist hippie civilizations, and only a single shoot-first civilization, evolution will take care of the hippies. All the hippies will encounter the shoot-first eventually, and will die once they do. The shoot-first will expand unhindered, and will eventually take all the universe. So in that case we (earth) may be lucky and run into one (or even several) of the hippies first, but we will always hit the shoot-first eventually, and we are doomed the second we send out strong enough signals to be seen by the shoot-first.
edit: oh, now i understand what you refer to. you mean that the statement "first contact will most likely be a RKV" depends on the distributions of strategies among the civilizations. That is ofc true. sorry.
Actually, I think your first point was close to what I was arguing.... I think the OPs approach is wrong in that he/she assumes the proportions don't matter.
Using your example, if there are 1M hippy Civs and only one shoot first Civ, it is more likely that a hippy Civ will make first contact with another hippy Civ. And what do hippies do when they first meet? They hook up! As more hippies band together, it becomes more and more difficult for the 1 shoot-first Civ to survive, b/c eventually even hippies will defend themselves.
Now, I FULLY realize that this is just blind speculating based on highly imperfect information and many assumptions. However, I would never presume to couch it in game theory : )
How are the hippie civs supposed to talk to one another if each message takes tens of thousands of years to transmit?
They are a peculiar species of space plant that lives for 1 million years on average. To them, ten thousand years is naught but the blink of an eye.
This is a frivolous example which demonstrates why it is silly to try to apply logic when you are working with highly imperfect information.
I did find the OP an interesting read. I just think that if you're going to say that it's logical you're going to have to add a lot more assumptions. Like that there's no long-lived space plants that are perfectly happy to wait 10K years to recieve a message. It's illogical to assume that, by looking at something logically when you have virtually NO information, you will come up with anything approaching an accurate result.
Edit: slightly off topic, but I just remembered something the OP might want to discuss. We actually have some evidence of what happened the last time humanity encountered a new species it couldn't communicate with : ) Neandertals anyone? Def. not a reliable proxy for two advanced Civs encountering each other, but still...
Imagine a brain, but instead of nodes in a skull sending electrical signals to each other, you have planets in a galaxy sending signals! A galaxy would be a huge brain, and a single thought would take a million years. The Andromeda galaxy, being only 2.6M light years away, would be close enough to have a chat with the milky way without any communication problems.
Good one! How about this:
A passive aggressive race has mastered the power of quantum entanglement, which allows them to communicate instantly over extremely long distances. They send a Doomsday Probe to the newly discovered planet Earth, and use it to send real time data back regarding its civilization so they can evaluate whether or not humans are a threat.
The Probe continuosly gathers information relating to such topics as technology, politics, and, unfortunately, popular culture, and sends it back to its alien masters. The human race survives for ~11 milliseconds subsequent to the Probe relaying the latest Justin Bieber song.
I'm not sure what the Nash equilibrium would be in this case, but it would probably involve a preemptive strike against Justin Bieber by US Navy SEALS.
they will preemptively send water bottle in his direction
Why wouldn't the best option be to immediately send the message, wait, and at the 25% point of the message's trip (@ full lightspeed), and send a remotely destructible RKV? That way, We will able to receive transmission from the potentially hostile civilization at 75% of the RKV's trip, (assuming they respond immediately) and decide based upon their response to pre-detonate the RKV, or let it annihilate the civilization.
On January 07 2012 12:09 Flamingo777 wrote: Why wouldn't the best option be to immediately send the message, wait, and at the 25% point of the message's trip (@ full lightspeed), and send a remotely destructible RKV? That way, We will able to receive transmission from the potentially hostile civilization at 75% of the RKV's trip, (assuming they respond immediately) and decide based upon their response to pre-detonate the RKV, or let it annihilate the civilization.
You'd have account for the message getting to the RKV. Assume an RKV has already gone 75% there, then the RKV will not get the message itself until after it has already destroyed the other planet.
There is no defense against a single RKV, let alone several of them, unless you break Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Unlikely, to say the least. A single gram of matter fired at 90%c has almost double the payload of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. How are you going to defend an entire planet against specks of dust?
If we exclude the possibility of a space ships acting as a forward defense grid or any other kind of defense or technological superiority and just assume that it's always a case of MAD and the only goal every race has is survival, then:
The game theory solution is clear: being hostile offers no advantages over being peaceful. If everyone follows game theory everyone would be peaceful and this is the only way to guarantee survival.
If there's one hostile race it will be the only one surviving, but this provides no benefit over being peaceful, it will survive in both cases.
However if there's a second hostile race, that guarantees the mutual destruction of both races and the only way to survive in such a universe is to be a peaceful race and remain undetected until the 2 hostile races meet each other.
3+ hostile races are similar to the previous two, either the only way to survive is to be peaceful or being hostile does not offer an advantage over being peaceful, unless we include the possibility of technological advantage(i.e. one race detects the other in advance, but this way the winner will always be the race with the most developed technology, regardless if they are hostile to all or just to other hostile races).
P.S. Broadcasting or not makes absolutely no difference to the solution, it just reduces your chances of survival, if there are hostile races that don't follow game theory and a single hostile race surviving is not the final state, in which case it doesn't change your chances, it just shortens the time before destruction.
On January 07 2012 06:37 darkscream wrote: this thread is just fantasy and conjecture
what if aliens shoot magic lasers that ignore the laws of physics, travel faster than light and burn hotter than any star
what if aliens are sentient energy beings who can teleport and inhabit human minds
what if aliens have an anal fetish, and rather than destroy us, simply come to probe us with a RAD (relativistic anal dildo)
I mean, that's the problem with talking about things that are not based on facts whatsoever, you can just make up anything you like because you have no input data, the conclusions drawn by the OP are equally as legitimate as what I wrote above, because they are based on the assumption that other civilizations exist in the universe, and that their sole goals are to harvest more energy and make more planet-bullets.
I like this, also:
On January 07 2012 06:20 sorrowptoss wrote: What is the point of defining or trying to predict something (ie the attitude of extra-terrestrial life forms) according to our extremely ignorant and limited point of view? The universe is so vast that the possibilities are endless; and by the way many replies on this thread are highly biased by american movies and such.
We do everything according to our knowledge (and also sadly according to pathetic action sci-fi movies) and apparently everybody here including the OP is desperately trying to define things. Why not accept to not know? That isn't giving up.
But to go with the flow, I'd say that Humanity is a very agressive life form and violence seems to always be the only way to fix things, whether it's verbal or physical. We can't seem to stop and understand the pointlessness of the struggle in unison (and in unison only). The only way another civilisation in the universe could thrive for thousands of years is by thinking in unison.
Though the odds of that happening is very unlikely due to the universal laws of evolution (the strongest survive for the short term and the most adaptive survive for the longterm), the most straightforward way to survive is ours: own, rule, use and destroy everything for our existence, only thinking short term. So honestly, I don't know how small the odds would be for a fundamentally solidary (thinking and working in unison) civilisation to spawn somewhere in the universe... Yet the universe is so vast that it must have happened somewhere sometime. But on top of that, the odds of that civilisation to find us in our little corner, to have the exact technology to do so, to "travel" all the way here and to be visible (and to speak english hahahahaha) is even less than what it was initially.
Extra-terrestrial life does exist, it must, due to the vastness of the universe, but for it to be visible and recognizable for us humans is so unlikely. On top of that, Humanity will be extinct soon, so the tiny lifespan of existence Humans had on this planet minimizes even more the chances of encountering other life forms in the universe. By now, after those 3 layers, it's nearly impossible for "aliens" to get in contact with us.
something so infinitely remotely impossible to happen means its just as likely to happen immediately, and thus you've blown my mind and cause me to think the "alienologists", who theorize they've been among us this whole time, are actually correct.
when I was still in high school, I devised an idea that what if:
the reason humans evolved unusually fast, is due to DNA that doesn't come from earth. after all, no other animal is like it's speedy evolution pattern, and life HAS existed on other planets a la mars. Now, what if martian life DNA, or more specifically, a virus from mars travelled to Earth and it's singular nature introduced into the pre-human population caused a highly mutative effect to take place in a set of "cavemen"?
Let's be real about this, Thats TWO planets in one solar system with life on it, at least for mars temporarily. you guys are talking like life only exists on earth, and it must exist on other planets but be very limited. It happened on 2 planets in the same system, and at least one grew intelligent enough to bitch about the world and worry about sc2.
What if humans were artificially accelerated in development by aliens, and we are in fact slaves, but not in the direct slave method you might think of. Imagine the matrix, but reality side.
What if, the reason we have this unquenchable urge to harvest resources and keep building and building and building beyond all sanity when logically this process of behavior is not sustaining, is that we have been very specifically genetically manipulated and programmed to do these things and genetically programmed to stay that shortsighted? I mean, we're already getting to the point where we can do this to ourselves with genetic manipulation, give it two hundred years or less, so why not the aliens?
And imagine this: If the aliens want resouces, why not SEED a planet to make resouirces available, and the alien race seeds bunches of planets, either by visitation or by shooting RKV's of specific genetic material at all planets which can support these "bio-machines as they evolve and become resource processing species", and then there's planets with their resources highly concentrated, pulled from the planet and placed clean on the surface, for the aliens to come along and scoop up, as they make their rounds harvesting their crops?
We're already considering making robots to replicate themselves and build space stations for humans on mars, why couldn't aliens have done this with bio-robots, i.e. us? We've seen blade runner, right? (about using artificial life forms that are actually genetically engineered living tissue beings that are like humans to do dirty and harsh human necessary space labor, not in any other sense than this)
What I dont get about your experiment is the following: Why would not launching the RKV be a risk? In fact it doesnt affect the Alien's decision to launch a RKV on their own. So we would have the risk of getting destroyed no matter how we would react. The only thing we can choose is to eliminate the aliens as well. What I mean basically is that the launch of a RKV can not stop the alien's RKV. Even if they launch it for example two weeks later...
Sure, different context and different figures, but the end result is the same. If you try to cooperate with the other guy, and he doesn't want to, you lose out. If one of the parties doesn't want to cooperate, then it's better that that person is you.
But since this is obviously correct, then both parties will come to this conclusion. And then both parties should (theoretically) decide that in the situation of either both parties cooperating or neither party cooperating, it's in the best interest for both to cooperate.
The problem i have with this scenario is, that the starting conditions have been skewed to make a point. So here just a few counterpoints off the top of my head:
Precision:
The precision needed to hit a tiny planet like earth from several light years afar with an object moving at speeds unbeknown to natural stelar objects are not reachable by current technologies. in flight adjustments to the flight pattern would be needed, exorbitantly increasing energy requirements for these projectile weapons. The chance of being aggressive, but not actually destroying anything are high, and then retaliation becomes possible, destroying the basic premiss of the proposed dilemma.
Proposal of nuclear-powered near light speed flight:
The theory to use such crafts do exist, and conventional chain explosion drives have been used in space probes. The problem with nuclear ones is, that they need a shield that is nuclear explosion proof (or something that absorbs the explosion, like large materials that crumble away with each explosion). In addition, the actual projectile needs to be of a high density, to sustain constant rocking and compression from the sudden accelerations. So a largish piece of concrete would simply crumble into dust, while a steel-cube might be more useful, but immensely costly to produce. Meanwhile future acceleration steps (A-Bombs) need to be completely shielded from all explosions, as they're highly delicate machines. In addition, nuclear bombs disable themselves trough radiating away their explosives over time. As such a rocket would travel several hundreds of years at least, the bombs would need to be assembled on board(!). Of course one could use smaller explosions, or use less energy for each explosion, but that increases the acceleration time, decreases total speed, and makes the premise of these attacks being undiscoverable and non-defendable doubtful.
Our current or near future world building one of these things:
Our only acceleration method would be nuclear chain bombs, as described above. The projectile can be small-ish (in stelar measures), but then we'd need to built nuclear production facilities on the projectile itself. We also need to ship several hundreds or thousands of the current yearly uran production from earth to space, and rockets have quite a high failure rate. Fall-out from an exploding nuclear transport rocket is catastrophic immediately, while the gains of the stelar projectile are highly hypothetical. That skews the risk to reward ratio into the unsustainable. So I'd say, our current world (even 100-500 years into the future), would not be able to produce one of these projectiles, without neglecting self sustenance. Not to speak of a whole arsenal. But then, future technology, and more importantly, economical advances might remove this problem.
Assumption that other races are dangerous to own survival:
If the only thing that can reach aliens are one of the following three, then destruction of alien planets becomes unnecessary: 1. Radio transmissions at light speed 2. Almost light speed projectiles 3. Habitated space ships or robotic probes at slow speeds Warp drives and faster then light travel notwithstanding, moving a live sustaining vessel for light years is costly beyond imagination. Sending a survivable amount of colonists to a planet is even more bonkers. Therefore destroying live on another planet would be useless to begin with, as we'd never have a need for another planet that far away. Ignoring that, bombing and then colonising such a far away planet would simply replace one adversary with another one, because control or unified acting as a single entity is simply impossible when all communication takes more then 20 years for a single question/answer (and finding a habitable planet within 10 light years is optimistic).
Radio silence:
We as a planet are not currently sending radio waves to aliens. This is due to several factors. Our radio transmissions are weak, and even tho they might reach out some, they do diminish in strength exponentially with distance. This is an effect of increasingly much space that the energy has to 'cover' in a 3-D sphere. It's like spreading butter on a bread too thin. Secondly, our radio transmissions are weak, compared to what the sun is producing. It's like using a walky-talky next to a military grade radio tower, on the same frequency. And thirdly, we don't actively try to send out centred, clear transmissions to a single space, but send radio waves that are ideal for small distances. Meanwhile, we are listening on single, high probability spaces ourselves. Why? Because sending to another planet on purpose takes a ton of energy, while listening doesn't cost almost anything at all.
In essence the proposed "dilemma" is so highly abstracted from reality, that it becomes false. Unless we discover an important use for distant planets that are habitable, this is useless at best, but actually misleading and fearmongering/uncertainty/destructive (FUD) at it's worst.
I always like reading stuff like this about really advanced civilizations (specifically warfare because that's way cooler to think about). The post in the OP about having probes that first determine if an alien civilization is a threat before destroying it seems more likely than simply tossing asteroids around the galaxy practically at random.
Also, I feel like a lot of people are assuming an advanced civilization would be like ours in that there could be internal conflict or even thought about the logic of destroying vs. leaving-alone of other civilizations. Imagine an advanced civilization where the organisms are incapable of individual thought. Like ants. It seems possible (though admittedly unlikely, but what the hell is this whole conversation) that there could be an advanced civilization that isn't even conscious. We can't really predict how they would act on an interstellar stage. Or maybe a civilization like ants except the queen actually directs them (yes, like Ender's Game) so that only the one individual has to decide something and everyone else follows orders without question.
Anyway I like thinking about this stuff because its likelihood is irrelevant due to us all dying before things like this matter.
With my basic understanding of game theory I assume you're saying that the aliens would likely have a dominant strategy in the form of the hypothetical RKV, and that due to natural selection the number of aliens that are still around (due to not risking hostile relations with random planets) would be skewed to the side of the more hostile aliens that use RKV's? That's definitely interesting to think about, thanks for sharing.
On January 07 2012 19:16 Humanfails wrote: for further mind blowing:
What if humans were artificially accelerated in development by aliens, and we are in fact slaves, but not in the direct slave method you might think of. Imagine the matrix, but reality side.
What if, the reason we have this unquenchable urge to harvest resources and keep building and building and building beyond all sanity when logically this process of behavior is not sustaining, is that we have been very specifically genetically manipulated and programmed to do these things and genetically programmed to stay that shortsighted? I mean, we're already getting to the point where we can do this to ourselves with genetic manipulation, give it two hundred years or less, so why not the aliens?
And imagine this: If the aliens want resouces, why not SEED a planet to make resouirces available, and the alien race seeds bunches of planets, either by visitation or by shooting RKV's of specific genetic material at all planets which can support these "bio-machines as they evolve and become resource processing species", and then there's planets with their resources highly concentrated, pulled from the planet and placed clean on the surface, for the aliens to come along and scoop up, as they make their rounds harvesting their crops?
We're already considering making robots to replicate themselves and build space stations for humans on mars, why couldn't aliens have done this with bio-robots, i.e. us? We've seen blade runner, right? (about using artificial life forms that are actually genetically engineered living tissue beings that are like humans to do dirty and harsh human necessary space labor, not in any other sense than this)
Why bother when you can just use machines instead?
Presumably any race that can travel from star to star would have machines orders of magnitude faster and more efficient than having humans do their work for them at a painstakingly slow pace. It's like saying I should seed a colony of flies in my trash can to eat all the trash because I don't want to take it out every week.
On January 07 2012 20:28 KainiT wrote: What I dont get about your experiment is the following: Why would not launching the RKV be a risk? In fact it doesnt affect the Alien's decision to launch a RKV on their own. So we would have the risk of getting destroyed no matter how we would react. The only thing we can choose is to eliminate the aliens as well. What I mean basically is that the launch of a RKV can not stop the alien's RKV. Even if they launch it for example two weeks later...
This has been brought up in probably over 5 different ways but TC seems to skip over these posts. TC creates a situation where peace is always the best solution, and that hostility offers absolutely zero reward. Then argues that aliens will without a doubt be hostile. The discussion always steers away from why the aliens will be hostile, and more towards the science of RKVs.
A web of sensor towers won't help since the projectile travels as fast a sensors would be able to send back information about the projectile. However unless we live in star-trek world where information travels faster than matter the defence against a projectile like that has to rely on passive responses. What if we create 5 powerful black holes surrounding the earth. Before freaking out and break out in laughter, note this:
The black holes would have to be powerful (=massive) enough to bend the RKV trajectory off track. Only 5 black holes would suffice since the sun would make it hard to hit from that angle. The black holes would be placed ahead, behind earth's orbit close enough to deflect the RKV. the third is placed in an orbit outside the earth but at the same plane and in line with earth and the sun. the forth and fifth is placed above and under the the earth trajectory outside the earth-solar plane. If black holes isn't possible asteroids might work as a substitute. these matter balls would act as a shield for any approaching rkv.
As I don't know the mass of a rkv and I won't be able to calculate the required mass for a black hole to deflect the rkv. However in the theoretical world a passive net of massive bodies at correctly placed orbits around the sun would do the job. If the aliens are aware of the gravitational shield they would have to rely on sub light speed travel to alter course in the vicinity of the earth thus allowing a sensor net sending back light speed information about the sub speed rkv. thereafter the rkv can be dealt with IN TIME somehow.
On January 07 2012 19:16 Humanfails wrote: for further mind blowing:
What if humans were artificially accelerated in development by aliens, and we are in fact slaves, but not in the direct slave method you might think of. Imagine the matrix, but reality side.
What if, the reason we have this unquenchable urge to harvest resources and keep building and building and building beyond all sanity when logically this process of behavior is not sustaining, is that we have been very specifically genetically manipulated and programmed to do these things and genetically programmed to stay that shortsighted? I mean, we're already getting to the point where we can do this to ourselves with genetic manipulation, give it two hundred years or less, so why not the aliens?
And imagine this: If the aliens want resouces, why not SEED a planet to make resouirces available, and the alien race seeds bunches of planets, either by visitation or by shooting RKV's of specific genetic material at all planets which can support these "bio-machines as they evolve and become resource processing species", and then there's planets with their resources highly concentrated, pulled from the planet and placed clean on the surface, for the aliens to come along and scoop up, as they make their rounds harvesting their crops?
We're already considering making robots to replicate themselves and build space stations for humans on mars, why couldn't aliens have done this with bio-robots, i.e. us? We've seen blade runner, right? (about using artificial life forms that are actually genetically engineered living tissue beings that are like humans to do dirty and harsh human necessary space labor, not in any other sense than this)
Why bother when you can just use machines instead?
Presumably any race that can travel from star to star would have machines orders of magnitude faster and more efficient than having humans do their work for them at a painstakingly slow pace. It's like saying I should seed a colony of flies in my trash can to eat all the trash because I don't want to take it out every week.
machine require maintenance, overhead, and the resources to produce them. Or in other words, what makes you think that biological machines ARE NOT the machines?
it's like saying you seed a colony of flies on tiny specks of dog poop outside your yard so you dont have to pick it up, assuming the dog isn't producing anymore of course. see how the trash analogy is flawed, I hope.
The point is, we as HUMANS are trying to produce machines that work like viruses. They replicate, use instructions to grow objects, and build up parts of extraterrestrial stations and do some work. machines designed to work in this fashion have only been able to be formed precisely because we're telling them to mimic our functions. But if you can just create some biological machine to do it, you could achieve similar results and it has the benefit that these "sentient" machines can be creative in protecting themselves from natural disasters and other events, whereas machines could be wiped out without an artifical intelligence so complex as to be be considered sentient by turing tests. In the end, especially with the medical tech we're aquiring even now, it'd be a simple matter to produce some bio-machines and let them loose.
Just look at the graph curve of technological advancement for humans over the course of the last 3000 years. it skyrockets in a similar fashion to the idea of how fast 10^x nanobots would keep replicating themselves and building something up.
basically, we are the machines they sent out, if all this could be believed.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
symbiosis is a mechanism by which organisms establish relationships in order to have a competitive advantage against other creatures. This is like an alliance between two countries. for instance, in the case of some smaller fish eating parasites off of big fish, the big fish benefits because parasites suck. the small fish benefits because it doesn't need to compete against faster, more aggressive, fish for food. similarly, england and france would ally, because they are afraid of germany. not all development is technological, some of it is political. the small feudal kingdoms banded together and centralized because individually they were far more vulnerable than otherwise.
epigenetics has nothing to do with what i'm saying. that is developmental biology, which is the growth of organisms. country development is a different aspect-it's not like China had "heavy industry" hard coded into its constitution. stop trying to use big words.
as for the china and brazil example, china only developed by waging what amounted to a trade war with Japan and the United States. Similarly, Brazil is now busy trying to reassert control of the South American market. It may not be an armed war. But there is still conflict.
Why can't an alliance with aliens be better for survival than war with aliens? On the scale of lightyears with faster than light travel being impossible there realistically can't be any competition, and if there IS competition it is for habitable planets, not asteroid fields, destroying planets in this case would be a terrible idea (keep in mind we don't compete with animals living deep within the sea because there is no point).
People seem to forget that acts of aggression always carry risks. It could make you LESS safe and thus LESS likely to survive by being an aggressive alien race over a peaceful one. Likely the best way to survive is simply to hide, to develop technologies that mask you from detection. Consider a spacefaring species that can harness the power of suns, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they could create enough interference to make detecting their planets impossible. Also, a species that has the information advantage can improve upon itself by assimilating ideas, technologies, cultures etc. from other alien races. It's entirely concievable that the very first spacefaring species would the best survival rate simply because they can control EVERYTHING. If they see you as a threat they can destroy you before you even gain the ability to detect them, otherwise they can absorb you or use you. Maybe there is one galactic species right now, cultivating us for some reason or another.
War is NOT the best way to survive, the best way to survive is to ensure growth and evolution. Growth doesn't mean destroying everything in your path, it means absorbing and utilizing the best traits and materiel available to you. I got news for you, if we shot an RKV at the first alien race we discovered, we could very likely be irradicated as well, and or also be destroying our only ally we had that would save us from some other tyrannical alien race. Adaptability is the key to survival, not absolute destruction of all competitors (at the very least you have to consider subjugation of other species before destruction).
Very clearly, in a world of imperfect information, you have no idea whether launching an RKV is going to lead to mutually assured destruction (the worst possible decision for survival), or remove a powerful cooperative relationship that would've improved our chances of survival, or actually removed a threat worth removing. Therefor it's probably best to focus on not being found, rather than destroying everything we see (even if that means holding off space travel and colonization until we've found a way to mask ourselves completely).
But again, all your statements rest upon the central idea of being able to coordinate all your actions with the other party from a pair of central decision-makers. This model works for states on Earth, but it does not work on interstellar distances simply because it does not work with our own lifetimes. There is no way to guarantee political continuity on Earth across several thousand years, and hence alien races, even if they are cultivating us, may simply view it as impossible to negotiate with us anyways.
i don't see any math, so this isn't a model.
qed
Ryan, drop the UChicago antics bro. We can't really talk math here because the central paradigm behind all the identities of modern game theory (instantaneous and unlimited communication bandwidth) doesn't exist here, and therefore the existing models aren't equipped to handle this discussion.
If we wanted to model this, we would have to rebuild everything from scratch. While that may be an interesting exercise, regretfully I graduated 2 years ago. Of course if you would like to do something like this for your honors thesis that would be fucking awesome.
If this is the person that I think it is, long time no see.
I already graduated though lawl so no can do
hahaha that was awesome, oh you two
On January 07 2012 23:22 Sbuiko wrote: The problem i have with this scenario is, that the starting conditions have been skewed to make a point. So here just a few counterpoints off the top of my head:
Precision:
The precision needed to hit a tiny planet like earth from several light years afar with an object moving at speeds unbeknown to natural stelar objects are not reachable by current technologies. in flight adjustments to the flight pattern would be needed, exorbitantly increasing energy requirements for these projectile weapons. The chance of being aggressive, but not actually destroying anything are high, and then retaliation becomes possible, destroying the basic premiss of the proposed dilemma.
Proposal of nuclear-powered near light speed flight:
The theory to use such crafts do exist, and conventional chain explosion drives have been used in space probes. The problem with nuclear ones is, that they need a shield that is nuclear explosion proof (or something that absorbs the explosion, like large materials that crumble away with each explosion). In addition, the actual projectile needs to be of a high density, to sustain constant rocking and compression from the sudden accelerations. So a largish piece of concrete would simply crumble into dust, while a steel-cube might be more useful, but immensely costly to produce. Meanwhile future acceleration steps (A-Bombs) need to be completely shielded from all explosions, as they're highly delicate machines. In addition, nuclear bombs disable themselves trough radiating away their explosives over time. As such a rocket would travel several hundreds of years at least, the bombs would need to be assembled on board(!). Of course one could use smaller explosions, or use less energy for each explosion, but that increases the acceleration time, decreases total speed, and makes the premise of these attacks being undiscoverable and non-defendable doubtful.
Our current or near future world building one of these things:
Our only acceleration method would be nuclear chain bombs, as described above. The projectile can be small-ish (in stelar measures), but then we'd need to built nuclear production facilities on the projectile itself. We also need to ship several hundreds or thousands of the current yearly uran production from earth to space, and rockets have quite a high failure rate. Fall-out from an exploding nuclear transport rocket is catastrophic immediately, while the gains of the stelar projectile are highly hypothetical. That skews the risk to reward ratio into the unsustainable. So I'd say, our current world (even 100-500 years into the future), would not be able to produce one of these projectiles, without neglecting self sustenance. Not to speak of a whole arsenal. But then, future technology, and more importantly, economical advances might remove this problem.
Assumption that other races are dangerous to own survival:
If the only thing that can reach aliens are one of the following three, then destruction of alien planets becomes unnecessary: 1. Radio transmissions at light speed 2. Almost light speed projectiles 3. Habitated space ships or robotic probes at slow speeds Warp drives and faster then light travel notwithstanding, moving a live sustaining vessel for light years is costly beyond imagination. Sending a survivable amount of colonists to a planet is even more bonkers. Therefore destroying live on another planet would be useless to begin with, as we'd never have a need for another planet that far away. Ignoring that, bombing and then colonising such a far away planet would simply replace one adversary with another one, because control or unified acting as a single entity is simply impossible when all communication takes more then 20 years for a single question/answer (and finding a habitable planet within 10 light years is optimistic).
Radio silence:
We as a planet are not currently sending radio waves to aliens. This is due to several factors. Our radio transmissions are weak, and even tho they might reach out some, they do diminish in strength exponentially with distance. This is an effect of increasingly much space that the energy has to 'cover' in a 3-D sphere. It's like spreading butter on a bread too thin. Secondly, our radio transmissions are weak, compared to what the sun is producing. It's like using a walky-talky next to a military grade radio tower, on the same frequency. And thirdly, we don't actively try to send out centred, clear transmissions to a single space, but send radio waves that are ideal for small distances. Meanwhile, we are listening on single, high probability spaces ourselves. Why? Because sending to another planet on purpose takes a ton of energy, while listening doesn't cost almost anything at all.
In essence the proposed "dilemma" is so highly abstracted from reality, that it becomes false. Unless we discover an important use for distant planets that are habitable, this is useless at best, but actually misleading and fearmongering/uncertainty/destructive (FUD) at it's worst.
This is a great post which details a few of the problems I didn't bother to enumerate in my first response here. You sir are a better man than I.
On January 07 2012 00:50 Caller wrote: ironically, competition is necessary for development. what better competition is better than war?
evolution by natural selection has creatures developing in specific ways to counter its threats. There were far more innovations during the 50 year Japanese Civil War Period (rise of the peasants, the merchant class, free-market economy, defeudalization) than there were during the peaceful 200 year Tokugawa Shogunate.
Without war, man does not develop: instead they merely stagnate.
I disagree to "competition4development" by pointing out a simple thing in nature: symbiosis. Competition doesn't support development, it only supports:
Natural selection, which has NOTHING to do with development (that would be epigenetics). Natural selection is the process of life passing and not passing through the sieve created by environmental circumstances.
symbiosis is a mechanism by which organisms establish relationships in order to have a competitive advantage against other creatures. This is like an alliance between two countries. for instance, in the case of some smaller fish eating parasites off of big fish, the big fish benefits because parasites suck. the small fish benefits because it doesn't need to compete against faster, more aggressive, fish for food. similarly, england and france would ally, because they are afraid of germany. not all development is technological, some of it is political. the small feudal kingdoms banded together and centralized because individually they were far more vulnerable than otherwise.
epigenetics has nothing to do with what i'm saying. that is developmental biology, which is the growth of organisms. country development is a different aspect-it's not like China had "heavy industry" hard coded into its constitution. stop trying to use big words.
as for the china and brazil example, china only developed by waging what amounted to a trade war with Japan and the United States. Similarly, Brazil is now busy trying to reassert control of the South American market. It may not be an armed war. But there is still conflict.
Why can't an alliance with aliens be better for survival than war with aliens? On the scale of lightyears with faster than light travel being impossible there realistically can't be any competition, and if there IS competition it is for habitable planets, not asteroid fields, destroying planets in this case would be a terrible idea (keep in mind we don't compete with animals living deep within the sea because there is no point).
People seem to forget that acts of aggression always carry risks. It could make you LESS safe and thus LESS likely to survive by being an aggressive alien race over a peaceful one. Likely the best way to survive is simply to hide, to develop technologies that mask you from detection. Consider a spacefaring species that can harness the power of suns, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they could create enough interference to make detecting their planets impossible. Also, a species that has the information advantage can improve upon itself by assimilating ideas, technologies, cultures etc. from other alien races. It's entirely concievable that the very first spacefaring species would the best survival rate simply because they can control EVERYTHING. If they see you as a threat they can destroy you before you even gain the ability to detect them, otherwise they can absorb you or use you. Maybe there is one galactic species right now, cultivating us for some reason or another.
War is NOT the best way to survive, the best way to survive is to ensure growth and evolution. Growth doesn't mean destroying everything in your path, it means absorbing and utilizing the best traits and materiel available to you. I got news for you, if we shot an RKV at the first alien race we discovered, we could very likely be irradicated as well, and or also be destroying our only ally we had that would save us from some other tyrannical alien race. Adaptability is the key to survival, not absolute destruction of all competitors (at the very least you have to consider subjugation of other species before destruction).
Very clearly, in a world of imperfect information, you have no idea whether launching an RKV is going to lead to mutually assured destruction (the worst possible decision for survival), or remove a powerful cooperative relationship that would've improved our chances of survival, or actually removed a threat worth removing. Therefor it's probably best to focus on not being found, rather than destroying everything we see (even if that means holding off space travel and colonization until we've found a way to mask ourselves completely).
But again, all your statements rest upon the central idea of being able to coordinate all your actions with the other party from a pair of central decision-makers. This model works for states on Earth, but it does not work on interstellar distances simply because it does not work with our own lifetimes. There is no way to guarantee political continuity on Earth across several thousand years, and hence alien races, even if they are cultivating us, may simply view it as impossible to negotiate with us anyways.
i don't see any math, so this isn't a model.
qed
Ryan, drop the UChicago antics bro. We can't really talk math here because the central paradigm behind all the identities of modern game theory (instantaneous and unlimited communication bandwidth) doesn't exist here, and therefore the existing models aren't equipped to handle this discussion.
If we wanted to model this, we would have to rebuild everything from scratch. While that may be an interesting exercise, regretfully I graduated 2 years ago. Of course if you would like to do something like this for your honors thesis that would be fucking awesome.
1.) Player 1 chooses to broadcast or not broadcast. 2.) Player 2 receives message and chooses whether or not to broadcast or launch a RKV. 3.) Player 1 either receives broadcast or detects RKV and decides whether to launch RKV. (this stage is a 3-fold branching. Detect response first, detect RKV first, or detect nothing)
That fully specifies an extended form game (tree structure) with all the necessary components to establish information sets given some strongly negative payoff for being dead and some presumably slightly negative payoff for having to launch an RKV, with broadcasting information being basically free. Information sets come into play in stage 3, since player 1 does not know if an RKV has been sent or not and has to make a decision based on the possibility of both situations.
The OP suggests that a SPNE is for 1 not to broadcast and launch RKV on detection of traceable communication. This is trivally a SPNE since the payoffs are 0 for both parties and we have not formulated any positive payoffs in this game. Thus, since we cannot do better (period), we cannot do better by deviating. (simple argument from weakening)
Later on, the OP suggests a peaceful outcome if the game is extended into
1.) Player 1 chooses to broadcast location, not broadcast, or to broadcast that player possesses advanced first strike and broadly decentralized second strike capabilities. 2.) Player 2 receives message and chooses whether or not to broadcast or to broadcast in turn the possession of advanced first strike and broadly decentralized second strike capabilities or to launch a RKV. 3.) Player 1 either receives broadcast or detects RKV and decides whether to launch RKV.
In this game, we see that broadcasting advanced first strike capabilities with broadly decentralized second strike capabilities while committing to launch RKV on detection of incoming RKV is also a SPNE. Given the payoffs we described earlier, there is a strongly negative payoff for player 2 to launch RKV, since they will be greeted in turn with an RKV in response.
A point that was somewhat unclear to me after the somewhat confusingly ordered edits in the OP was whether or not the origin of an RKV could be successfully traced for MAD. If RKVs are traceable then as I said in the previous paragraph, communication can still be an RKV. Otherwise, the only SPNEs are those where the first player does not broadcast.
Above two responses delineate pretty much everything that needs to be considered re: OP. wp all.
I still contend that the game model is highly inaccurate with a bias (understandably) towards biology-survival defined goals for the agents determining the negative scores for the outcomes.
On January 07 2012 19:16 Humanfails wrote: for further mind blowing:
What if humans were artificially accelerated in development by aliens, and we are in fact slaves, but not in the direct slave method you might think of. Imagine the matrix, but reality side.
What if, the reason we have this unquenchable urge to harvest resources and keep building and building and building beyond all sanity when logically this process of behavior is not sustaining, is that we have been very specifically genetically manipulated and programmed to do these things and genetically programmed to stay that shortsighted? I mean, we're already getting to the point where we can do this to ourselves with genetic manipulation, give it two hundred years or less, so why not the aliens?
And imagine this: If the aliens want resouces, why not SEED a planet to make resouirces available, and the alien race seeds bunches of planets, either by visitation or by shooting RKV's of specific genetic material at all planets which can support these "bio-machines as they evolve and become resource processing species", and then there's planets with their resources highly concentrated, pulled from the planet and placed clean on the surface, for the aliens to come along and scoop up, as they make their rounds harvesting their crops?
We're already considering making robots to replicate themselves and build space stations for humans on mars, why couldn't aliens have done this with bio-robots, i.e. us? We've seen blade runner, right? (about using artificial life forms that are actually genetically engineered living tissue beings that are like humans to do dirty and harsh human necessary space labor, not in any other sense than this)
Why bother when you can just use machines instead?
Presumably any race that can travel from star to star would have machines orders of magnitude faster and more efficient than having humans do their work for them at a painstakingly slow pace. It's like saying I should seed a colony of flies in my trash can to eat all the trash because I don't want to take it out every week.
machine require maintenance, overhead, and the resources to produce them. Or in other words, what makes you think that biological machines ARE NOT the machines?
it's like saying you seed a colony of flies on tiny specks of dog poop outside your yard so you dont have to pick it up, assuming the dog isn't producing anymore of course. see how the trash analogy is flawed, I hope.
The point is, we as HUMANS are trying to produce machines that work like viruses. They replicate, use instructions to grow objects, and build up parts of extraterrestrial stations and do some work. machines designed to work in this fashion have only been able to be formed precisely because we're telling them to mimic our functions. But if you can just create some biological machine to do it, you could achieve similar results and it has the benefit that these "sentient" machines can be creative in protecting themselves from natural disasters and other events, whereas machines could be wiped out without an artifical intelligence so complex as to be be considered sentient by turing tests. In the end, especially with the medical tech we're aquiring even now, it'd be a simple matter to produce some bio-machines and let them loose.
Just look at the graph curve of technological advancement for humans over the course of the last 3000 years. it skyrockets in a similar fashion to the idea of how fast 10^x nanobots would keep replicating themselves and building something up.
basically, we are the machines they sent out, if all this could be believed.
(my bold) Sure, why not? But that doesn't change anything about the human condition or optimal course of action re: alien life.
I risk sounding like a giant hippie, or fatalist, or both, or something I guess, but: how do you draw boundaries on complex phenomenon and agency? The partitions that all the theorizing in this thread depends on is so arbitrary -- but that's just because we naturally think that way. If two somethings can interact, they are not separate but the same single something. The more you chunk your chaotic systems into components and behaviors the more imprecise --> inaccurate you become.
It's funny when people make the claim "extra-terrestrial life must exist because the universe is so vast!" Well that's a fallacy on its face.
It's as accurate as me saying "there's only one intelligent, space-faring species in our solar system, therefore there probably isn't intelligent life anywhere else.
infinitismal x infinite = ???
Personally I ascribe to Jared Diamond's idea that even if there was intelligent life in the universe, if they are anything like us, they will likely kill themselves off before they acquire the means to colonize other planets, leading to a scenario of various intelligent civilizations coming and going over the course of the universe, none living long enough to meet another.
On January 07 2012 23:22 Sbuiko wrote: The problem i have with this scenario is, that the starting conditions have been skewed to make a point. So here just a few counterpoints off the top of my head:
Precision:
The precision needed to hit a tiny planet like earth from several light years afar with an object moving at speeds unbeknown to natural stelar objects are not reachable by current technologies. in flight adjustments to the flight pattern would be needed, exorbitantly increasing energy requirements for these projectile weapons. The chance of being aggressive, but not actually destroying anything are high, and then retaliation becomes possible, destroying the basic premiss of the proposed dilemma.
Proposal of nuclear-powered near light speed flight:
The theory to use such crafts do exist, and conventional chain explosion drives have been used in space probes. The problem with nuclear ones is, that they need a shield that is nuclear explosion proof (or something that absorbs the explosion, like large materials that crumble away with each explosion). In addition, the actual projectile needs to be of a high density, to sustain constant rocking and compression from the sudden accelerations. So a largish piece of concrete would simply crumble into dust, while a steel-cube might be more useful, but immensely costly to produce. Meanwhile future acceleration steps (A-Bombs) need to be completely shielded from all explosions, as they're highly delicate machines. In addition, nuclear bombs disable themselves trough radiating away their explosives over time. As such a rocket would travel several hundreds of years at least, the bombs would need to be assembled on board(!). Of course one could use smaller explosions, or use less energy for each explosion, but that increases the acceleration time, decreases total speed, and makes the premise of these attacks being undiscoverable and non-defendable doubtful.
Our current or near future world building one of these things:
Our only acceleration method would be nuclear chain bombs, as described above. The projectile can be small-ish (in stelar measures), but then we'd need to built nuclear production facilities on the projectile itself. We also need to ship several hundreds or thousands of the current yearly uran production from earth to space, and rockets have quite a high failure rate. Fall-out from an exploding nuclear transport rocket is catastrophic immediately, while the gains of the stelar projectile are highly hypothetical. That skews the risk to reward ratio into the unsustainable. So I'd say, our current world (even 100-500 years into the future), would not be able to produce one of these projectiles, without neglecting self sustenance. Not to speak of a whole arsenal. But then, future technology, and more importantly, economical advances might remove this problem.
Assumption that other races are dangerous to own survival:
If the only thing that can reach aliens are one of the following three, then destruction of alien planets becomes unnecessary: 1. Radio transmissions at light speed 2. Almost light speed projectiles 3. Habitated space ships or robotic probes at slow speeds Warp drives and faster then light travel notwithstanding, moving a live sustaining vessel for light years is costly beyond imagination. Sending a survivable amount of colonists to a planet is even more bonkers. Therefore destroying live on another planet would be useless to begin with, as we'd never have a need for another planet that far away. Ignoring that, bombing and then colonising such a far away planet would simply replace one adversary with another one, because control or unified acting as a single entity is simply impossible when all communication takes more then 20 years for a single question/answer (and finding a habitable planet within 10 light years is optimistic).
Radio silence:
We as a planet are not currently sending radio waves to aliens. This is due to several factors. Our radio transmissions are weak, and even tho they might reach out some, they do diminish in strength exponentially with distance. This is an effect of increasingly much space that the energy has to 'cover' in a 3-D sphere. It's like spreading butter on a bread too thin. Secondly, our radio transmissions are weak, compared to what the sun is producing. It's like using a walky-talky next to a military grade radio tower, on the same frequency. And thirdly, we don't actively try to send out centred, clear transmissions to a single space, but send radio waves that are ideal for small distances. Meanwhile, we are listening on single, high probability spaces ourselves. Why? Because sending to another planet on purpose takes a ton of energy, while listening doesn't cost almost anything at all.
In essence the proposed "dilemma" is so highly abstracted from reality, that it becomes false. Unless we discover an important use for distant planets that are habitable, this is useless at best, but actually misleading and fearmongering/uncertainty/destructive (FUD) at it's worst.
These were my thoughts when I first read as well. I also disagree with a central premise of the OP: That a civilization that is capable of accurately launching a relativistic kill vehicle is incapable of defending one. Particularly I would like to focus on the accuracy argument. Hitting a planet in another solar system with an asteroid is like hitting a fly with a BB from across a football field, even with modern mathematics. It is impossible to account for all of the gravity fields the RKV will encounter on its path, or all the matter it will collide with, and at those distances even a pebble would knock it off target.
Obviously a civilization with such capabilities would anticipate such an RKV and would have sufficient infrastructure to foil such nefarious plans.
Near-speed-of-light flight is technically infeasible. The universe is not empty enough to allow it. As you approach higher velocities, you get bombarded by energetic particles from the front. (When you are getting really relativistic, even the CMB becomes hard enough to be an issue). At half the speed of light, your gamam factor is roughly 1,8, that means that every proton you meet that is at rest with the galaxy has almost a GeV (730 MeV) of kinetic energy. That is, to have a comparison, enough energy to ionise apart more than 50000 hydrogen atoms. Maybe you get some feasible window in mass/velocity/distance space so that a significant part of RKV actually reaches the destination, but I won't bet toomuch on it.
Probably hitting the Sun with an RKV would be much easier than hitting Earth, and the effects of doing so would be probably life-ending not only for our planet, but for all possible colonies established through the star system.
On January 09 2012 05:30 Ender985 wrote: Probably hitting the Sun with an RKV would be much easier than hitting Earth, and the effects of doing so would be probably life-ending not only for our planet, but for all possible colonies established through the star system.
Wouldn't a RKV not actually do anything to the Sun?
On January 06 2012 07:01 sviatoslavrichter wrote: Why is the universe so full of stars but so silent?
EDIT #6: People keep trying to use traditional methods of game theory and int'l relations theory to think about this. The core problem here is that all these theories rest upon the assumptions of instantaneous communication and easy identification of who is responsible for the killing. Unfortunately, across interstellar distances, both are untrue, and especially compared with how fast weapon systems themselves can move, and also especially compared with how technologically hard it is to see who is doing the killing versus breaking the agreement yourself. This is why I've avoided using math in describing this post, as any game theoretic analysis I ran here would immediately be invalid because every freaking game theory principle out there rests on people being able to talk to one another..
Actually basic game theory deals with competitive games and specifically excludes the possibility to talk to each other. The ONLY rational option is to act in your own best interest and follow the Nash equilibrium. And yes, that probably means exterminate all other life before they can exterminate you.
Of course, that is assuming that all life forms are risk averse and generally sociopathic (in game theoretic terms: rational), just as humanity (as a society, not individual humans). We don't know enough about the possibilities of evolution to say for sure that that is the case. We do know that with high risk might come high reward: if we encounter a civilization a couple of hundred years more advanced than us that is NOT interested in conquest for some strange reason (but has excellent defense systems towards any asteroids other civilizations might throw their way) we could copy and learn from their technology, giving us a greater chance of not being blasted into oblivion ourselves. Even if it takes 100 years to communicate, we still save a couple of 100 in figuring shit out for ourselves.
Nice write up. People should be aware at least of some stuff written here.
I would add that i'm not that pessimistic about most of civilisations being so aggresive. IF one civilisation reached higher level than others, so it would be almost invincible Than, if we assume that they would have the same ethics as mankind, this civilisation would serve as policeman and didn't let any home-planet-killing. Mankind would do it for sure, if we get that chance. And it would lead to peaceful living in sector under our protection. But that probably assumes faster-than-light tech.
This thread is amazing. I'm supposed to be doing my doctoral research on laser based signature analysis, but you've convinced me to begin research on using lasers to accelerate RKV. BRB, acquiring funding.
I don't know about the theory in the OP, but the mere fact that we even take the time to ask these kinds of questions gives me some more faith in humanity.
On January 07 2012 02:36 Greentellon wrote: Any species capable of inter-galaxy space travel will be so advanced that all they see when they meet us is ants or bacteria on a rock.
How do you communicate with an ant or a bacteria?
Let's say there is a 1 billion year old species out there that is dominant in our galaxy. Just think how much technological advancements we have done in the last 100 years. Things we have done include first steps of space travel, a planetary wide communication network where any person can soon contact any person withing few seconds, scientists are already working on making things invisible, sound-based weaponry already exists, nuclear weapons, we cure diseases with genetic modification (or try to), cloning attempts have been done with variying success..
We did that in last 100 years or so. Now think what a species can do in 1 billion years. So yeah, if that species is dominant then we are just ants on a rock compared to them.
Why is the universe so silent? Because we can't comprehend it well enough to be part of it.
Perhaps the universe is silent because it doesn't exist.
In the last 100 years we've come extremely close to nuclear war.
perhaps these species did the equivalent (for their planet) except they slipped up and got destroyed by themselves
So I was talking to my coworker, who has a PhD in some ridiculous field like material science or something, about the feasibility of a RKV. This is what he had to say:
The impactor that is believed to have created the Chicxulub crater delivered 4x10^23 J. Going at your recommended 0.5 c, and using the relativistic equation for kinetic energy you would need an object that has a mass of 2.9x10^7 kg. If you were to use iron, which has a density of 7,874 kg/m^3, you would need a sphere that is 380 meters in diameter. But the real problem is that iron is currently going at $0.22/lb. If you figure a 10% price break for bulk it would cost 1.4 billion dollars. And since that impact didn’t actually destroy all life on Earth, if we are aiming at an Earth sized planet we would need even more iron. So as soon as you amass, let’s say, 1.7 billion dollars I will help you research an accelerating laser to use for preemptive measures against a potentially hostile planet.
tl;dr - I'm starting a collection for my research.
On January 11 2012 14:02 ghost_403 wrote: So I was talking to my coworker, who has a PhD in some ridiculous field like material science or something, about the feasibility of a RKV. This is what he had to say:
The impactor that is believed to have created the Chicxulub crater delivered 4x10^23 J. Going at your recommended 0.5 c, and using the relativistic equation for kinetic energy you would need an object that has a mass of 2.9x10^7 kg. If you were to use iron, which has a density of 7,874 kg/m^3, you would need a sphere that is 380 meters in diameter. But the real problem is that iron is currently going at $0.22/lb. If you figure a 10% price break for bulk it would cost 1.4 billion dollars. And since that impact didn’t actually destroy all life on Earth, if we are aiming at an Earth sized planet we would need even more iron. So as soon as you amass, let’s say, 1.7 billion dollars I will help you research an accelerating laser to use for preemptive measures against a potentially hostile planet.
tl;dr - I'm starting a collection for my research.
Lol, there you go. Economic reasons are another good reason why RKVs are completely infeasible in the forseeable future
OP for some reason ignores the likeliness of the production of these guys:
Hitting them with RKVs is highly improbable as they have complete freedom of movement. Hitting their planets with RKVs will only serve to anger them; since they have production facilities on board, you can be sure they'll ship you some payback.
Mobile space colonies are the way of the future. Planets in the future will be home to people who will choose to remove themselves from the gene pool.
Interesting. It has already mentioned, but a civilization that hostile would probably destroy itself before being able to research such technology. What I am saying is even though game theory might support the claims in the OP, I think they are based on a contradictory assumption, i.e. only a highly cooperative species would survive past the point of being able to forge that kind of technology.
On January 11 2012 14:02 ghost_403 wrote: So I was talking to my coworker, who has a PhD in some ridiculous field like material science or something, about the feasibility of a RKV. This is what he had to say:
The impactor that is believed to have created the Chicxulub crater delivered 4x10^23 J. Going at your recommended 0.5 c, and using the relativistic equation for kinetic energy you would need an object that has a mass of 2.9x10^7 kg. If you were to use iron, which has a density of 7,874 kg/m^3, you would need a sphere that is 380 meters in diameter. But the real problem is that iron is currently going at $0.22/lb. If you figure a 10% price break for bulk it would cost 1.4 billion dollars. And since that impact didn’t actually destroy all life on Earth, if we are aiming at an Earth sized planet we would need even more iron. So as soon as you amass, let’s say, 1.7 billion dollars I will help you research an accelerating laser to use for preemptive measures against a potentially hostile planet.
tl;dr - I'm starting a collection for my research.
Lol, there you go. Economic reasons are another good reason why RKVs are completely infeasible in the forseeable future
1.7 Billion dollars is hardly even a line item in the US federal budget.
On January 08 2012 12:12 Bigtony wrote: Why would an alien civilization just want to blow planets up?
Also, I don't believe that alien life exists.
The question being asked is "Is there a logical/rational reason to erradicate every sentient lifeform in the universe?"
OP suggests that the only logical route to dominance in a universal scale is through mass erradication of all competitors through the use of an RKV. OP several naive assumptions and calls them reason for total war. The theory being "The universe is silent because either broadcasting your location is tantamount to announcing your death, or the universe is silent because all sentient life has erradicated eachother, so in order to survive we must A) not broadcast our location and B) destroy all others who broadcast"
Naive assumptions:
All alien species are competitors. Problem: We are only competitors if we have a shortage of space, given the limitations of space travel and the vast quantities of space, it's unlikely any species would ever have a reason to compete (unless there was a specific shortage of something, in which case, a destroyed planet is unlikely to have any unique value)
Broadcasting reveals your position: Problem: It's not inconcievable that tactics could be employed to make the broadcast impossible trace. And far more easily, a broadcast does not need to be made from the home planet or system.
Finding planets are easy: Given the limitations of no faster than light travel, it would take years for a accurate information of a system to be relayed back to the home planet. While a probe could be launched to each star system, the probe would have to also be the RKV, an RKV capable of scanning a planet ahead of time (correct me if i'm wrong but, if we're limited to relativity then a just below light speed craft could not send any signal ahead of it since the signal itself can't go faster than light). Furthermore, due to the exponential difficulties in exploring areas, identifying and exploring systems would likely become infeasible for any species after a certain distance.
Launching an RKV makes you safer: For some reason, people seem to think attacking an preemptively attacking and alien species of which you have no knowledge about it's capabilities (except those implied by the limitations of light speed) is the best way to keep you safe. Of course, if you can be sure you can destroy an alien with no consequences than you might have an argument. However given our limited understanding of the universe, it's not inconcievable that both the RKV could be stopped, could miss, could not have a target in the first place, and could force an attack by unknown starsystems. This reinforces the idea the best way to survive in a competitve universe is simply to hide.
We have perfect information: It seems the OP is making the argument that communication is impossible (most likely faulty), and so the best course of action (because our lack of information) is to be as aggressive as possible. This belief ignores all the previous facts I just brought up. Essentially the argument made by the OP is that because we have imperfect information, we must make preemptive attacks on aliens to make sure they don't attack us, however, the problem is, in order to attack the aliens we need perfect or at least better information than our basic assumptions imply. It's a logical fallacy.
I would suggest that, as it currently stands, there are far too many variables to accurately assume launching an RKV is inherently safe. Thus it's far more logical to spend any energy on hiding yourself rather than destroying competitors. Since the very act of aggression could cause our own extinction.
I could go on and on about this topic, but this is alot of words. I will say that this doesn't enough touch the topic of logical fallacies or the actual implications of some of the current assumptions made. For instance, assuming that we cannot communicate because FTL communication is impossible implies far more than just difficulty communicating. It means it's practically impossible to identify other systems on a scale that has the slightest impact on the galaxy (and thus implies there really is no galactic competition). The amount of energy required to explore all the star systems within 100 lightyears is inconcievable. And given a scale of one billion years of sentience, the idea that any species could impact any competitors who could have stretched out and colonized planets nearly one billion light years apart, is laughable at best.
tl:dr Competition on a galactic scale is impossible. The OP makes assumptions that are based on perfect information even though they are motivated by imperfect information. The OP`s assumptions imply far more than just ``RKV`s are the best way to compete``, although the OP does make a decent case for making sure our systems are difficult to detect.
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.
I think it all depends on if inter planetary space travel is actually possible considering distances and narrow conditions needed for a planet to be habitable. If space travel is possible and maybe if terra forming is possible then i think its possible that at least some species would advance that far before their planet was destroyed and then would be able to continue on existing for ever by continually moving to new planets or maybe developing like a world ship assuming a power source able to fuel something like that is even possible. Of course space could simply be too big and too inhospitable to life for an entire civilization to move into space and continue to thrive, but then again maybe there are life forms that are more hardy than us, for all we know there are space whales chilling some where out there. Either way considering what we currently think the size of the universe is i personally think its pretty likely that concurrent life of some form exists some where out there even if its really basic like bacteria, but is almost certainly separated by insurmountable distance. Existence of advanced life right now, within range of any sort of communication or even within our galaxy? yah i doubt that too.
On January 12 2012 06:15 Butcherski wrote: Hasnt faster than light communication been invented already ? The "Spooky action at a distance" or quantum entanglement ?
You can prove that quantum entanglement can not actually carry usefull information FTL. It is such a complex thing that we should probalby make a new thread if we were to discuss that.
I do not have enough knowledge to understand in deep the argument in the EDIT #8, so I will ignore that part (since it spoils the fun anyway, if I understood the overall meaning ).
But, anyway, let's assume the game best strategy is to launch an RKV, as for the OP's post. If you wanna play "peaceful race" than the best option is not to play the game. The comment I am ignoring, consider a game where "to not play" is a playable option, but the game considered by the OP doesn't. If you don't play the game, aka you do not answer to messages and do not send messages, than the only way to have contact is by direct contact. So there are 2 scenarios: another race finds you with its spaceship, or you find one with yours (or you meet somehwere? kinda like startrek).
If you are found by a spaceship, you can evaluate the aliens' behaviour and decide if they can be trusted or you need to send a RKV (if you are able to get the other race homeplanet cohordinates). They could send a message with your planet cohordinates for an attack, but you would be able to destroy their ship (or you wouldn't stand a chance anyway), launch the RKV and would have (probably) enough time to evacuate your planet considering the signal travel time and their RKV travel time. If they send no signal, there is no risk (but we still have to kill them, even if we are peacefull). The only problem is if they send it and we can't get their homeplanet cohordinates, but there is no strategy to counter this event, besides having better tech so this scenario isn't possible. EDIT: even in this case it is possible to evacuate, provided we kill their ship or we won't be able to escape to a new unknown location.
Due to this reasoning, if you wanna go around the space with a spaceship, you want avoid to do the first contact (or if you do, you never communicate it to your planet if the aliens are of the "bad type", and you delete any record of the cohordinates from the computers and your brains (you never know!), which means that (if you can't escape?) you vaporize yourself).
The third scenario is the interstellar meeting, where you can pretty much apply the second scenario strategy (provided you can't simply kill them) in case of "bad aliens".
P.S. There is unsafety in the evacuations, as the bad guys could send RKVs to all the systems near ours, so it would be safest to evacuate very far from home(planet), but this is beyond the game. As for the probes suggestion, what happens is essentially what I described here, as the direct contact in that case is made by an AI, but it's still a direct contact nonetheless.
On the other hand, a defensive civilization, might equalize the balance of power through forging alliances. Perhaps not in terms of aggressive weaponry but in technology that would enable defensive structures. As a civilization fan, this quote struck me "It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls".
Imho reality doesn´t really suggest to kill everything in sight. As much as I like game theory, it is shortsighted. Let me explain: An aggressive and paranoid civilization would kill everyone on first sight. BUT would such a civ actually reach the technological level to fire (whatever) interstellar weaponry?
I came to the conclusion(and maybe there are papers agreeing with me, but I didn´t see them yet), that in doubt, cooperating with other sentient beings is the superior plan. If you are aware of the Prisoner´s dilemma and related experiments(I actually searched for another one, but couldnt find it right now), you will hopefully understand what I mean.
What I actually searched for was an experiment in which real people could gain real money. 2 people(A &B) sit across a table so they cant see each other. At first, 1 dollar is offered to A. He may decline or accept. If he declines, then B will be offered 2 dollars next. Same decision, money doubles evertime one declines. If one accepts, game is over. (Also any other communication aside from accept or decline is naturally forbidden)
Logically and taking game theory as basis, you should accept at first chance(indeed, competitive chess players did without exception). In reality, most players cooperated multiple times, cooperating silently under absolute uncertainty. I don´t remember the specifics, but I think financial standing was insignificant to who would first accept.
Just throwing it out there.(If you remember the experiment I couldnt find,please pm me)
If a civilization is advanced enough to create such a weapon, and to see that our planet is habitable, wouldn't they also be able to detect that our technology is ancient by comparison and that we pose no threat to them? Maybe they'd wipe us out anyway if their only goal is to colonize, and I understand the "game theory" part of your claim is based on the premise that we will only ever be reached out to or required in such a capacity, but I think there are a lot of assumptions in your post.
Isn't it possible that a civilization that advanced will have become enlightened to the point of benevolence? Maybe they're so well-evolved that everything is boring to them besides interacting with and assisting other lifeforms.
If they possess technology that can demolish planets at interstellar distances, why don't they have the technology to just inhabit whatever the hell planet they like and terraform it? To find a way to communicate with us instead of blowing us up? Again, I know you're saying this is just the "most likely" scenario, but I think it is equally likely that they will just be bored/curious and want friends.
There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
On February 09 2012 01:56 tsilaicos wrote: i came here for game theory and perhaps some linear programming and i get this?
Why so serious? Enjoy the thread for what it is.
sorry i just think the OP has a really weird way of concluding things and that it's mostly made up of nonsense. but i guess it's a matter of taste and i suppose i should take it for what it is
Seing how fast technology evolves in the modern era, unless science arrives at a "ceiling" (there's nothing left to discover and all applicable technology has been discovered and applied), any and all other alien races will either be technologically superior (and ABSURDLY so, given how a mere 100 years can completly revolutionize science) and be able to neutralize RKVs or will be too primitive to respond to our signal. The chance of them being at our level (able to build RKVs but not being able to neutralize them) will be likely very low.
I know this does against assumption 3) that RKVs are unstoppable, but unless we reach this science "ceiling", it is probably a false assumption.
Of course, this problem is moot until space colonization is discovered possible, otherwise two alien civilization's home planets will have no reason to harm each other. A galactic civilization that would strike first out of pure paranoia would also be paranoid against everything else and would die before investing space technology.
On January 11 2012 14:02 ghost_403 wrote: So I was talking to my coworker, who has a PhD in some ridiculous field like material science or something, about the feasibility of a RKV. This is what he had to say:
The impactor that is believed to have created the Chicxulub crater delivered 4x10^23 J. Going at your recommended 0.5 c, and using the relativistic equation for kinetic energy you would need an object that has a mass of 2.9x10^7 kg. If you were to use iron, which has a density of 7,874 kg/m^3, you would need a sphere that is 380 meters in diameter. But the real problem is that iron is currently going at $0.22/lb. If you figure a 10% price break for bulk it would cost 1.4 billion dollars. And since that impact didn’t actually destroy all life on Earth, if we are aiming at an Earth sized planet we would need even more iron. So as soon as you amass, let’s say, 1.7 billion dollars I will help you research an accelerating laser to use for preemptive measures against a potentially hostile planet.
tl;dr - I'm starting a collection for my research.
Lol, there you go. Economic reasons are another good reason why RKVs are completely infeasible in the forseeable future
1.7 Billion dollars is hardly even a line item in the US federal budget.
Not even saying that why buy a lot of iron when you can just use projectiles from asteroid belt that already have sufficient size.
On February 09 2012 04:43 Sbrubbles wrote: Seing how fast technology evolves in the modern era, unless science arrives at a "ceiling" (there's nothing left to discover and all applicable technology has been discovered and applied), any and all other alien races will either be technologically superior (and ABSURDLY so, given how a mere 100 years can completly revolutionize science) and be able to neutralize RKVs or will be too primitive to respond to our signal. The chance of them being at our level (able to build RKVs but not being able to neutralize them) will be likely very low.
I know this does against assumption 3) that RKVs are unstoppable, but unless we reach this science "ceiling", it is probably a false assumption.
Of course, this problem is moot until space colonization is discovered possible, otherwise two alien civilization's home planets will have no reason to harm each other. A galactic civilization that would strike first out of pure paranoia would also be paranoid against everything else and would die before investing space technology.
Your last point is not really that clearly inevitable. We can see that even on Earth how with more destructive weapons powerful countries give themselves the right to prevent others from getting the technology using more and more extreme measures. What about weapons that can destroy the opponent completely without sufficient warning ? US would bomb Iran into stone age even at the slightest hint of Iran being able to build a weapon that can annihilate US population.
On February 09 2012 04:53 Kimaker wrote: Whoa...this is actually fucking cool.
Nice read.
im not going to tell you what to think but why do you think this is cool? the things he's saying has no basis at all (sorry i don't know if this is the right terminology to use in english, not too sure). i mean he says that there will probably be an explosion of 130 MT to 200 GT". I mean - why do you even mention tesla? the only rational to talk about here would be joules.
im sorry but i just don't appreciate anti-scientific rabble like this. if the OP would've reasoned a bit more and not just assuming things that are impossible to assume this could've been alot more interesting.
i guess it could be cool if you didn't want to make it look like research or something. i mean why do you even mention game theory in the thread name? there's no mathematical models or anything such used in this thread... however i guess an economist might call this game theory..
On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote: There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way.
On February 09 2012 04:53 Kimaker wrote: Whoa...this is actually fucking cool.
Nice read.
im not going to tell you what to think but why do you think this is cool? the things he's saying has no basis at all (sorry i don't know if this is the right terminology to use in english, not too sure). i mean he says that there will probably be an explosion of 130 MT to 200 GT". I mean - why do you even mention tesla? the only rational to talk about here would be joules.
He is most likely referring to Megaton and Gigaton, not Teslas
On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote: There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way.
While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way.
Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make.
You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point.
Anything other than that makes no sense.
Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed.
On February 09 2012 04:53 Kimaker wrote: Whoa...this is actually fucking cool.
Nice read.
im not going to tell you what to think but why do you think this is cool? the things he's saying has no basis at all (sorry i don't know if this is the right terminology to use in english, not too sure). i mean he says that there will probably be an explosion of 130 MT to 200 GT". I mean - why do you even mention tesla? the only rational to talk about here would be joules.
He is most likely referring to Megaton and Gigaton, not Teslas
I guess so but is it correct to use just "T" for "ton"? I've never seen it but it might be praxis in other countries i don't know. Still doesn't really make it alot more valid... imo.
On February 09 2012 04:53 Kimaker wrote: Whoa...this is actually fucking cool.
Nice read.
im not going to tell you what to think but why do you think this is cool? the things he's saying has no basis at all (sorry i don't know if this is the right terminology to use in english, not too sure). i mean he says that there will probably be an explosion of 130 MT to 200 GT". I mean - why do you even mention tesla? the only rational to talk about here would be joules.
He is most likely referring to Megaton and Gigaton, not Teslas
LOL I read it first as Tesla, but then I was thinking why would he use that unit? But he's using Megaton as in pounds of TNT necessary to create this explosion.
I think this is interesting, albeit depressing. If there are aliens with sufficiently advanced tech to do this, and they aren't benevolent, then we'll never know about them :/ To think that they (or if we encounter them first, we) would just blow another civilization out of the sky without meeting them is so against all my scientific inclinations. If the military controls the planet at that point it probably will happen though!
On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote: There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way.
While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way.
Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make.
You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point.
Anything other than that makes no sense.
Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed.
If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ?
And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning.
On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote: There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way.
While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way.
Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make.
You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point.
Anything other than that makes no sense.
Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed.
If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ?
And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning.
Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right...
You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while.
There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is.
I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over.
That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities.
There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you.
On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote: There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way.
While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way.
Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make.
You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point.
Anything other than that makes no sense.
Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed.
If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ?
And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning.
Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right...
You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while.
There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is.
I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over.
That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities.
There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you.
I don't think you understand, if civilizations are not able to communicate as fast as they can potentially kill each other, there is no motivation for them to try to communicate. Thus the "groups" you mention would only be possible if they somehow could communicate much faster than the speed of light. The only rational thing left to do is to kill everyone in sight, or pray. For survival, the first option is just rationally and objectively better.
Edit: its kinda like the scene in The Dark Knight, where the joker takes the two ships hostage and makes them play their little game. Except in this situation, it would be many ships
First of all, we have no idea how common life is in the universe. It makes sense that the earth is not the only place where life exists, but it may still be so rare that no two civilizations ever encounter each other. Until we have better information on how much life there is in the universe, none of this can be taken as fact.
Secondly, this makes the assumption that much of the life in the universe is similar to that which resides on earth. While life probably does always evolve in similar ways to what happened on earth, that doesn't mean life forms retain many of their evolutionary instincts after they gain access to their own genetic source code.
Our own civilization is quickly nearing this point of redesigning our own species. By the end of the century, many people believe for good reason that we will have reached a technological singularity. We will give birth to machines that are superior to humans in every way, and are capable of redesigning themselves.
I think that trying to make assumptions about whether or not a civilization like this will have any interest in destroying other forms of life in the universe is absurd. We have no way of predicting the goals of any alien civilization that has made this transition into the robotic form.
On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote: There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way.
While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way.
Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make.
You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point.
Anything other than that makes no sense.
Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed.
If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ?
And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning.
Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right...
You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while.
There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is.
I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over.
That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities.
There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you.
I don't think you understand, if civilizations are not able to communicate as fast as they can potentially kill each other, there is no motivation for them to try to communicate. Thus the "groups" you mention would only be possible if they somehow could communicate much faster than the speed of light. The only rational thing left to do is to kill everyone in sight, or pray. For survival, the first option is just rationally and objectively better.
Edit: its kinda like the scene in The Dark Knight, where the joker takes the two ships hostage and makes them play their little game. Except in this situation, it would be many ships
I understand the "logic" of it, the problem is, there is 0 evidence to believe species will behave like that, at all. The one sentient species we know about (humans) don't, so why would we assume that any other species would?
There is plenty of motivation to communicate instead of kill, only communication carries a seemingly larger risk than killing. That isn't mean there is no motivation. This is assuming you could completely kill an entire civilization the first try, which is a huge assumption to make.
My whole point is that there is no reason to assume this is more likely than any of the other infinite possibilities that the behavior of species may take. Just try to convince one single species (our own) that this is the BEST course of action for us to take. It isn't realistically going to happen.
On February 09 2012 06:24 mcc wrote: If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Statistically extinct?
... what ... the ?
So we are running statistics on imaginary aliens now?
Also, no way we could aim a weapon at something that far away.
Gravitation would pull it off course, and we can't chart everything in between and their movements relative to each other perfectly, because we can't see them all.
Chicxulub crater meteroid (the one that wiped out the dinos):
The impactor had an estimated diameter of 10 km and delivered an estimated 96 teratons of TNT (4.0×10^23 J). By contrast, the most powerful man-made explosive device ever detonated, the Tsar Bomba, had a yield of only 50 megatons of TNT (2.1×10^17 J), making the Chicxulub impact 2 million times more powerful. Even the most energetic known volcanic eruption, which released approximately 240 gigatons of TNT (1.0×10^21 J) and created the La Garita Caldera, was substantially less powerful than the Chicxulub impact.
Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe.
You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.
Fools.
The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron.
Commenting on the forementioned meteroid:
Method #6: Blown up
Method: This method involves detonating a bomb so big that it blasts the Earth to pieces.
This, to say the least, requires a big bomb. All the explosives mankind has ever created, nuclear or non-, gathered together and detonated simultaneously, would make a significant crater and wreck the planet's ecosystem, but barely scratch the surface of the planet. There is evidence that in the past, asteroids have hit the Earth with the explosive yield of five billion Hiroshima bombs - and such evidence is difficult to find.
Finally:
Method #9: Pulverized by impact with blunt instrument
You will need: a big heavy rock, something with a bit of a swing to it... perhaps Mars. [...] Obviously a smaller rock would do the job, you just need to fire it faster. Taking mass dilation into account, a 5,000,000,000,000-tonne asteroid at 90% of light speed would do just as well.
The closer to light speed something is going (and thus the harder it is to detect), is also how hard it is for it to change its direction. The idea of "course corrections" the OP proposes could easily use up the majority of the mass of the object, especially considering each such "course correction" would have to take into account all possible future changes in the predicted behavior of the object.
Additionally, I think the OP is overestimating offensive technology and underestimating defensive technology. Assuming a projectile moving at .5c, there's no reason that a sufficiently advanced civilization couldn't launch an intercepting vehicle at .6c and quickly catch it, since an active interceptor would be much lighter than the OP's proposed passive projectile - all it would have to do is deflect it, rather than actually vaporize it. In fact,
And one other thing - according to chaos theory it is probably *actually impossible* to hit a planet on the other side of the galaxy with a dumb projectile. Quantum-scale changes in initial conditions, in a system that complex, can lead to macroscopic changes in outcomes. In other words - by the uncertainty principle, it would be impossible to ever know the location of everything between you and the target with enough accuracy to shoot something and hit it. And once you go and make your projectile intelligent, it can be detected and destroyed or tricked.
Also - a sufficiently advanced civilization could easily detect incoming projectiles - either by gravitational lensing, or by active sensing, or even just by detection of the projectile's blackbody radiation. (Unless the projectile is an actual black hole, there will always be a certain amount of blackbody radiation.) In fact, this defensive civilization would likely detect the projectile with the exact same mechanisms they set up to detect comets and asteroids, and interstellar refuse, which is on a collision course with their planet.
Once a civilization has detected and stopped your attack, you're *completely* fucked. If life is non-unique, then the only reasonable assumption is that there will always be a bigger fish out there.
On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote: There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way.
While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way.
Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make.
You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point.
Anything other than that makes no sense.
Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed.
If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ?
And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning.
Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right...
You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while.
There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is.
I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over.
That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities.
There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you.
Condescending much?
First, as I said in different post, we on Earth actually do something similar, just not on that scale as there is no need to do that as we do not have weapons capable completely destroying an enemy or without them retaliating. If for example Iran was developing a weapon that was capable destroying US with no warning whatsoever and the only means for US to strike back was to use the same weapon they already possess they would immediately and completely wipe out Iran without thinking twice. Our only luck is that such weapons are (now?) impossibility on intraplanetary scale, as even if we had such destructive power, there is no way it would also not destroy neighbours of the target and most likely also the attacker.
Game theory is actually pretty well suited to analyze this situation if done properly. It is exactly where game theory is useful. You require evidence of how other species behave. I do not need that to conclude that if OP's assumptions are correct (big if) that if the other species are rational agents the result is most likely as he describes. The problem is that if the weapon is undeflectable and prevents a second strike any possible alliances are unstable. In your example the best solution, as far as survival goes, for any species in your theoretical alliance is to immediately destroy the other members of the alliance before they do the same to them and colonize their planets if possible to increase the chance of survival.
The game might be more comlicated and maybe allow for some kind of alliance, but that is what OP was asking about. If you have some actual objection to his conclusion please show it. Your objection saying that alliances or cooperation might be the more likely outcome is not necessarily wrong, but you need to provide some argument other than your irrelevant one based on hypothetical psychology of the aliens. You need to show how and why. How would they overcome the absolute assymetricity between attack and defense. Why would they choose to join an alliance when their partners might be using it to just gain information about where to strike and there is no way to trust them until a lot of time has passed. You need to show that such a system can be stable. All this can be done using an assumption that they are somewhat rational agents, without knowing their actual psychology. Of course they might be completely irrational, but that is uninteresting scenario.
You are trying to base your analysis on some biological and psychological factors. They might be important or not. Problem is there are even more general rules that rational(as in trying to maximize their survival in this scenario) agents will obey. So if those civilizations can be assumed to be close to rational, they will behave a certain way and I need not to know much else.
Entire species will not think as I do as I would not destroy anyone even if in such a scenario, problem is states, civilizations, species "think" much more differently than individuals and as our own planet is an evidence, they "think" pretty closely to what is described.
On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote: There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way.
While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way.
Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make.
You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point.
Anything other than that makes no sense.
Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed.
If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ?
And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning.
Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right...
You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while.
There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is.
I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over.
That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities.
There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you.
I don't think you understand, if civilizations are not able to communicate as fast as they can potentially kill each other, there is no motivation for them to try to communicate. Thus the "groups" you mention would only be possible if they somehow could communicate much faster than the speed of light. The only rational thing left to do is to kill everyone in sight, or pray. For survival, the first option is just rationally and objectively better.
Edit: its kinda like the scene in The Dark Knight, where the joker takes the two ships hostage and makes them play their little game. Except in this situation, it would be many ships
To expand on that it reminds me somewhat of multiple agent version of prisonner dilemma where double betrayal guarantees you much better result than only your "partner" betraying you. The only way from the prisonner dilemma is repetition and ability yo punish someone who reneges on the agreement. But in this scenario there is no repetition as the betrayed one is dead. Any alliance in such a scenario is unstable and stable situation is where civilizations try to kill each other as soon as possible.
Of course the game is more complex and thus there might be something that invalidates this conclusion, but it is for those who object to show that the complexity actually changes the game in such a degree as to avoid such outcome.
On February 09 2012 06:24 mcc wrote: If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Statistically extinct?
... what ... the ?
So we are running statistics on imaginary aliens now?
Also, no way we could aim a weapon at something that far away.
Gravitation would pull it off course, and we can't chart everything in between and their movements relative to each other perfectly, because we can't see them all.
People just don't realize how big space is ...
What does it have to do with my post ? Do you have any point related to mine ? They are statistically extinct as in if any such civilization exists it is because it did not meet any of the killer civilizations yet.
The rest of the post has nothing to do with my point as I said "if we assume". The effectivness and existence of the weapons is the premise of the inference. Unless the premises are contradictory there is nothing wrong with my statement from that angle. If we do not assume that is completely different scenario that I did not comment on.
On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote: There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way.
While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way.
Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make.
You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point.
Anything other than that makes no sense.
Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed.
If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ?
And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning.
Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right...
You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while.
There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is.
I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over.
That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities.
There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you.
Condescending much?
First, as I said in different post, we on Earth actually do something similar, just not on that scale as there is no need to do that as we do not have weapons capable completely destroying an enemy or without them retaliating. If for example Iran was developing a weapon that was capable destroying US with no warning whatsoever and the only means for US to strike back was to use the same weapon they already possess they would immediately and completely wipe out Iran without thinking twice. Our only luck is that such weapons are (now?) impossibility on intraplanetary scale, as even if we had such destructive power, there is no way it would also not destroy neighbours of the target and most likely also the attacker.
Game theory is actually pretty well suited to analyze this situation if done properly. It is exactly where game theory is useful. You require evidence of how other species behave. I do not need that to conclude that if OP's assumptions are correct (big if) that if the other species are rational agents the result is most likely as he describes. The problem is that if the weapon is undeflectable and prevents a second strike any possible alliances are unstable. In your example the best solution, as far as survival goes, for any species in your theoretical alliance is to immediately destroy the other members of the alliance before they do the same to them and colonize their planets if possible to increase the chance of survival.
The game might be more comlicated and maybe allow for some kind of alliance, but that is what OP was asking about. If you have some actual objection to his conclusion please show it. Your objection saying that alliances or cooperation might be the more likely outcome is not necessarily wrong, but you need to provide some argument other than your irrelevant one based on hypothetical psychology of the aliens. You need to show how and why. How would they overcome the absolute assymetricity between attack and defense. Why would they choose to join an alliance when their partners might be using it to just gain information about where to strike and there is no way to trust them until a lot of time has passed. You need to show that such a system can be stable. All this can be done using an assumption that they are somewhat rational agents, without knowing their actual psychology. Of course they might be completely irrational, but that is uninteresting scenario.
You are trying to base your analysis on some biological and psychological factors. They might be important or not. Problem is there are even more general rules that rational(as in trying to maximize their survival in this scenario) agents will obey. So if those civilizations can be assumed to be close to rational, they will behave a certain way and I need not to know much else.
Entire species will not think as I do as I would not destroy anyone even if in such a scenario, problem is states, civilizations, species "think" much more differently than individuals and as our own planet is an evidence, they "think" pretty closely to what is described.
The burden of proof isn't on the people disproving the theory. The burden of proof is on the person putting the theory forth. He gave no proof (which I don't think is possible given the subject matter), but simply stated a line of reasoning that had tons of holes in it, as I and other people in this thread have pointed out. How am I supposed to "prove" that an alliance/federation of mutually beneficial relationships between interstellar species is supposed to be better/worse than destroying all other sentient life? It isn't possible to do either, because there are too many variables involved.
My whole issue with the OP was not that he presented it as possible scenario. He presented it as THE scenario, which just doesn't work. Of course it is a possible scenario, but there are infinite other possible scenarios.
I'm not going to get into the philosophical discussion of some form of universal rationality, which you would have to buy into in order to apply game theory at this sort of level. Assuming all sentient life would behave as "rational agents" as we would define it is an assumption I'm not willing to make. Humans cannot live up to the standard of completely rational agents, I don't know why you would assume other species would.
The only "evidence" that can be produced is what has happened here, because that is all we can study. The closest thing I'm aware of is the Cold War and the concept of mutually assured destruction. However, even this isn't a fair comparison, as both parties can communicate faster than destroy each other.
On February 09 2012 08:25 strongandbig wrote: The closer to light speed something is going (and thus the harder it is to detect), is also how hard it is for it to change its direction. The idea of "course corrections" the OP proposes could easily use up the majority of the mass of the object, especially considering each such "course correction" would have to take into account all possible future changes in the predicted behavior of the object.
Additionally, I think the OP is overestimating offensive technology and underestimating defensive technology. Assuming a projectile moving at .5c, there's no reason that a sufficiently advanced civilization couldn't launch an intercepting vehicle at .6c and quickly catch it, since an active interceptor would be much lighter than the OP's proposed passive projectile - all it would have to do is deflect it, rather than actually vaporize it. In fact,
And one other thing - according to chaos theory it is probably *actually impossible* to hit a planet on the other side of the galaxy with a dumb projectile. Quantum-scale changes in initial conditions, in a system that complex, can lead to macroscopic changes in outcomes. In other words - by the uncertainty principle, it would be impossible to ever know the location of everything between you and the target with enough accuracy to shoot something and hit it. And once you go and make your projectile intelligent, it can be detected and destroyed or tricked.
Also - a sufficiently advanced civilization could easily detect incoming projectiles - either by gravitational lensing, or by active sensing, or even just by detection of the projectile's blackbody radiation. (Unless the projectile is an actual black hole, there will always be a certain amount of blackbody radiation.) In fact, this defensive civilization would likely detect the projectile with the exact same mechanisms they set up to detect comets and asteroids, and interstellar refuse, which is on a collision course with their planet.
Once a civilization has detected and stopped your attack, you're *completely* fucked. If life is non-unique, then the only reasonable assumption is that there will always be a bigger fish out there.
You are right .5c could be deflected by a civilization of similar technological level. Harder to do with .9999c projectiles as you cannot detect them ahead of time too well. As for how probable this whole scenario is, (nearly?) impossible to determine, so no reason to actually ponder the probability of those weapons existing. Thinking about outcomes if we assume that they can exist is more fun.
On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote: There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way.
While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way.
Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make.
You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point.
Anything other than that makes no sense.
Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed.
If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ?
And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning.
Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right...
You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while.
There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is.
I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over.
That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities.
There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you.
Condescending much?
First, as I said in different post, we on Earth actually do something similar, just not on that scale as there is no need to do that as we do not have weapons capable completely destroying an enemy or without them retaliating. If for example Iran was developing a weapon that was capable destroying US with no warning whatsoever and the only means for US to strike back was to use the same weapon they already possess they would immediately and completely wipe out Iran without thinking twice. Our only luck is that such weapons are (now?) impossibility on intraplanetary scale, as even if we had such destructive power, there is no way it would also not destroy neighbours of the target and most likely also the attacker.
Game theory is actually pretty well suited to analyze this situation if done properly. It is exactly where game theory is useful. You require evidence of how other species behave. I do not need that to conclude that if OP's assumptions are correct (big if) that if the other species are rational agents the result is most likely as he describes. The problem is that if the weapon is undeflectable and prevents a second strike any possible alliances are unstable. In your example the best solution, as far as survival goes, for any species in your theoretical alliance is to immediately destroy the other members of the alliance before they do the same to them and colonize their planets if possible to increase the chance of survival.
The game might be more comlicated and maybe allow for some kind of alliance, but that is what OP was asking about. If you have some actual objection to his conclusion please show it. Your objection saying that alliances or cooperation might be the more likely outcome is not necessarily wrong, but you need to provide some argument other than your irrelevant one based on hypothetical psychology of the aliens. You need to show how and why. How would they overcome the absolute assymetricity between attack and defense. Why would they choose to join an alliance when their partners might be using it to just gain information about where to strike and there is no way to trust them until a lot of time has passed. You need to show that such a system can be stable. All this can be done using an assumption that they are somewhat rational agents, without knowing their actual psychology. Of course they might be completely irrational, but that is uninteresting scenario.
You are trying to base your analysis on some biological and psychological factors. They might be important or not. Problem is there are even more general rules that rational(as in trying to maximize their survival in this scenario) agents will obey. So if those civilizations can be assumed to be close to rational, they will behave a certain way and I need not to know much else.
Entire species will not think as I do as I would not destroy anyone even if in such a scenario, problem is states, civilizations, species "think" much more differently than individuals and as our own planet is an evidence, they "think" pretty closely to what is described.
You're coming close to neo-realist theories of statecraft with that statement, and even in the field of international relations, neo-realism is hardly uncontested as a theory. There's different kinds of rationalism (logic of consequences /appropriateness /every-day), and even states don't follow any single one of them on a regular basis. With different rationalities, different outcomes are predicted. Power is meaningless until it is structured in a specific social relationship, as your Iran example shows. An Iranian nuke is somehow a problem, while a NK nuke or, taking it to the extreme, british nuke matter a great deal less. If your assesment held true, the US would have started nuking everyone and anyone that wanted to develop nukes during the period they maintained the only functional nuclear arsenal.
There's been academic work on theoretical circumstances close to what the OP describes (first contact), one famous article by Wendt comes to mind (http://ptx.sagepub.com/content/36/4/607.abstract, if you have acces to academic journals). It's an interesting read if you're into this kind of thing. That said, there's also historical evidence of the complete opposite. Most of what is now Kenya was destroyed on first contact by the portugese. It all depends on how a state ('planet') sees itself and the others.
On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote: There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way.
While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way.
Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make.
You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point.
Anything other than that makes no sense.
Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed.
If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ?
And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning.
Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right...
You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while.
There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is.
I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over.
That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities.
There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you.
Condescending much?
First, as I said in different post, we on Earth actually do something similar, just not on that scale as there is no need to do that as we do not have weapons capable completely destroying an enemy or without them retaliating. If for example Iran was developing a weapon that was capable destroying US with no warning whatsoever and the only means for US to strike back was to use the same weapon they already possess they would immediately and completely wipe out Iran without thinking twice. Our only luck is that such weapons are (now?) impossibility on intraplanetary scale, as even if we had such destructive power, there is no way it would also not destroy neighbours of the target and most likely also the attacker.
Game theory is actually pretty well suited to analyze this situation if done properly. It is exactly where game theory is useful. You require evidence of how other species behave. I do not need that to conclude that if OP's assumptions are correct (big if) that if the other species are rational agents the result is most likely as he describes. The problem is that if the weapon is undeflectable and prevents a second strike any possible alliances are unstable. In your example the best solution, as far as survival goes, for any species in your theoretical alliance is to immediately destroy the other members of the alliance before they do the same to them and colonize their planets if possible to increase the chance of survival.
The game might be more comlicated and maybe allow for some kind of alliance, but that is what OP was asking about. If you have some actual objection to his conclusion please show it. Your objection saying that alliances or cooperation might be the more likely outcome is not necessarily wrong, but you need to provide some argument other than your irrelevant one based on hypothetical psychology of the aliens. You need to show how and why. How would they overcome the absolute assymetricity between attack and defense. Why would they choose to join an alliance when their partners might be using it to just gain information about where to strike and there is no way to trust them until a lot of time has passed. You need to show that such a system can be stable. All this can be done using an assumption that they are somewhat rational agents, without knowing their actual psychology. Of course they might be completely irrational, but that is uninteresting scenario.
You are trying to base your analysis on some biological and psychological factors. They might be important or not. Problem is there are even more general rules that rational(as in trying to maximize their survival in this scenario) agents will obey. So if those civilizations can be assumed to be close to rational, they will behave a certain way and I need not to know much else.
Entire species will not think as I do as I would not destroy anyone even if in such a scenario, problem is states, civilizations, species "think" much more differently than individuals and as our own planet is an evidence, they "think" pretty closely to what is described.
The burden of proof isn't on the people disproving the theory. The burden of proof is on the person putting the theory forth. He gave no proof (which I don't think is possible given the subject matter), but simply stated a line of reasoning that had tons of holes in it, as I and other people in this thread have pointed out. How am I supposed to "prove" that an alliance/federation of mutually beneficial relationships between interstellar species is supposed to be better/worse than destroying all other sentient life? It isn't possible to do either, because there are too many variables involved.
My whole issue with the OP was not that he presented it as possible scenario. He presented it as THE scenario, which just doesn't work. Of course it is a possible scenario, but there are infinite other possible scenarios.
I'm not going to get into the philosophical discussion of some form of universal rationality, which you would have to buy into in order to apply game theory at this sort of level. Assuming all sentient life would behave as "rational agents" as we would define it is an assumption I'm not willing to make. Humans cannot live up to the standard of completely rational agents, I don't know why you would assume other species would.
The only "evidence" that can be produced is what has happened here, because that is all we can study. The closest thing I'm aware of is the Cold War and the concept of mutually assured destruction. However, even this isn't a fair comparison, as both parties can communicate faster than destroy each other.
He presented THE scenario, because he was interested in the outcomes of THE scenario. He also presented it in terms of game theory which I took as a sign that he want to treat it as such. So unless you see the scenario as impossible(you do not) or do not like game theory approach (why even post then) or you are saying game theory is extremely bad tool to think about it (you would need to show why) I see no point in your responses to me. If you have problems with other aspects of the OP that I did not comment, why respond to me ?
You do not need completely rational agents and I think I always qualified my statements with "somewhat" and similar words. It is an open question if the possible irrational factors have any significant influence on the scenario as significantly irrational agents would not evolve naturally. I am not assuming universal rationality in philosophical sense, only one arising from assumption that those aliens also evolved in natural environment. Of course there are possibilities of non-evolved entities and even maybe some kind of strange evolutions producing irrational beings or maybe the universe was populated by some civilization that created only irrational species. Those instances are uninteresting.
Yes we have no evidence whatsoever. We cannot say anything. Wait, there is that thing called logic and math that works without evidence. If you just provide some premises (assumptions) it can give you some answers that are conditional on those assumptions being true. Genius.
On February 09 2012 01:52 HardlyNever wrote: There are some huge issues with the OP, but the two that first came to mind are these:
1. Being a "destroy all other species" civilization is actually a terrible strategy for civilization survival, mainly because we live in an imperfect, and seemingly random universe. Which leads me to my second point.
2. You are using a model that is not only inconsistant, but largely contrary to the only model we know exists. That model is how humans behave on Earth. While I'm certainly willing to accept the possibility of species behaving differently than humans on Earth, to assume that they will automatically behave in an almost contrary fashion makes no sense. We are the only known sentient species, therefore, we have to assume that any behavior will be more like our own, not less like our own, because it is the only one we know to exist.
Tying those two points together sort of destroys your "game theory (why you call this game theory I have no clue, as it isn't related to game theory at all)." Let's say there are 3 nations on Earth. One of these nations behaves like the "destroy everything" civilization you describe. The other two do not (because not all humans want to destroy other civilizations, although some do). The two nations that do not behave that why, by chance, live much closer to each other and discover each other first, and decide to become friendly towards each other and participate in a mutually beneficial relationship. The "destroy all civilizations" species finds out about one of the friendly nations (the one closer to it) and decides to destroy it. However, because destroying entire civilizations can be difficult, they don't succeed (or they even could succeed, it doesn't matter). This lets the surviving "friendly" civilization know about the hostile one, and they take hostile action. Now you have a war, and it comes down to who destroys who first. Now lets say instead of two friendly nations, they are 10. You can add as many "hostile" nations to the equation as you want, because by your logic, they will never cooperate and only want to destroy all other civilizations.
While it is true some humans want to destroy other civilizations, it cannot be the overriding urge, otherwise there would only be one civilization in the world (which there isn't).
TL;DR Humans are the only known sentient species, so you have to assume other sentient species will behave in a similar fashion, because this is the only known way sentient species behave. While it is certainly possible that other species will behave in a way that isn't human-like, your "destroy all civilizations" behavior is one out of infinite possibilies, and one that will likely get that civilization destroyed by more cooperative civilizations.
Edit: You are also assuming all civilizations will be an equal distance away from each other, which makes no sense at all. If three friendly civilizations are all 10 light years away from each other, and the hostile civilization is 1000 light years away from any of them, the friendly nations could find out about each other, and communicate back and forth at least 50 times before the hostile civilization ever even found out about the friendly civilizations, much less divised a way to kill all 3 civilizations in one fell swoop with a device that is untracable and moves at the speed of light. You make WAY to many assumptions that MUST be perfect in order for your theory to have any relevance.
Actually in case of your 2nd point prudent is to not assume anything considering small dataset. So no, assuming sentient beings are like us is as wrong as assuming they are different in specific way.
While I agree the data set is small, scientifically there is no reason to believe that other sentient life will act in one specific way or another. At the very least, you could only say there are infinite, equally probable ways in which a sentient life form would behave. Why would they behave in a manner such as the OP mentioned? There is no scientific evidence to support an idea that they would behave that way.
Additionally, despite the small data set, why would you ignore the one and only data point you had? Saying all sentient life will behave in a human-like way is a flawed theory, for sure, given the small amount of data, but it is the only scientifically supportable theory you could possibly make.
You can either chose to a) ignore all evidence completely and open up the possibilities to infinity or b) acknowledge the small data set and construct a theory the best you can based on your single data point.
Anything other than that makes no sense.
Edit: I've chosen option B, but option A is also viable. The OP has chosen option C, which to say he chose 1 out of infinity possibilities, said "game theory" a couple of times, talked about the speed of light, and said we're all doomed.
If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Even if you look at humans on Earth. We behave in some ways strikingly similarly to the civilizations he describes. Why are you assuming humans are counterexample ?
And no it is not the only supportable scientific theory you can make. There are scientific theories and there is faulty inductive reasoning. This would be a case of faulty inductive reasoning.
Humans are a counterexample because we don't destroy other civilizations upon first contact. We haven't done it here on Earth, and all of our deliberate attempts at interstellar communication have been peaceful. But you are assuming that some other species will premeditate that they will destroy all other species, without ever developing the means to communicate at light speed (radio waves), or send out any other signal that they exist, while simultaneously developing a method to detect said radio waves or other signals. Right...
You're just plain wrong. I really don't know how else to say it. Give a scientifically supportable theory to determine how other sentient species behave based on evidence. I think we'll be here a while.
There is also applying "game theory" to places that they don't belong. That is what this is.
I'll give you one out of infinity scenarios that makes this just as likely as not. Species A is a species that behaves like the OP says. They detect species B, and decide they want to destroy species B. They sent an "RKV" to destroy the species and succeed. However, species B was actually part of a larger federation of species, which Species A did not detect, because they are further away, and their first and only response was to destroy anything on sight. The species that are part of the larger federation discover species A, and destroy it. Species A's civilization destroying days are over.
That is one out of infinity possibilities, because there is now way to know how any other species or groups of species will behave. Claiming you know makes you look stupid. Thinking an entire species will think the (stupid) way you do, and will destroy all other species that think differently is dumb, and is only 1 of infinite possibilities.
There really isn't anything else to say. If you can't see that, there is no helping you.
Condescending much?
First, as I said in different post, we on Earth actually do something similar, just not on that scale as there is no need to do that as we do not have weapons capable completely destroying an enemy or without them retaliating. If for example Iran was developing a weapon that was capable destroying US with no warning whatsoever and the only means for US to strike back was to use the same weapon they already possess they would immediately and completely wipe out Iran without thinking twice. Our only luck is that such weapons are (now?) impossibility on intraplanetary scale, as even if we had such destructive power, there is no way it would also not destroy neighbours of the target and most likely also the attacker.
Game theory is actually pretty well suited to analyze this situation if done properly. It is exactly where game theory is useful. You require evidence of how other species behave. I do not need that to conclude that if OP's assumptions are correct (big if) that if the other species are rational agents the result is most likely as he describes. The problem is that if the weapon is undeflectable and prevents a second strike any possible alliances are unstable. In your example the best solution, as far as survival goes, for any species in your theoretical alliance is to immediately destroy the other members of the alliance before they do the same to them and colonize their planets if possible to increase the chance of survival.
The game might be more comlicated and maybe allow for some kind of alliance, but that is what OP was asking about. If you have some actual objection to his conclusion please show it. Your objection saying that alliances or cooperation might be the more likely outcome is not necessarily wrong, but you need to provide some argument other than your irrelevant one based on hypothetical psychology of the aliens. You need to show how and why. How would they overcome the absolute assymetricity between attack and defense. Why would they choose to join an alliance when their partners might be using it to just gain information about where to strike and there is no way to trust them until a lot of time has passed. You need to show that such a system can be stable. All this can be done using an assumption that they are somewhat rational agents, without knowing their actual psychology. Of course they might be completely irrational, but that is uninteresting scenario.
You are trying to base your analysis on some biological and psychological factors. They might be important or not. Problem is there are even more general rules that rational(as in trying to maximize their survival in this scenario) agents will obey. So if those civilizations can be assumed to be close to rational, they will behave a certain way and I need not to know much else.
Entire species will not think as I do as I would not destroy anyone even if in such a scenario, problem is states, civilizations, species "think" much more differently than individuals and as our own planet is an evidence, they "think" pretty closely to what is described.
You're coming close to neo-realist theories of statecraft with that statement, and even in the field of international relations, neo-realism is hardly uncontested as a theory. There's different kinds of rationalism (logic of consequences /appropriateness /every-day), and even states don't follow any single one of them on a regular basis. With different rationalities, different outcomes are predicted. Power is meaningless until it is structured in a specific social relationship, as your Iran example shows. An Iranian nuke is somehow a problem, while a NK nuke or, taking it to the extreme, british nuke matter a great deal less. If your assesment held true, the US would have started nuking everyone and anyone that wanted to develop nukes during the period they maintained the only functional nuclear arsenal.
There's been academic work on theoretical circumstances close to what the OP describes (first contact), one famous article by Wendt comes to mind (http://ptx.sagepub.com/content/36/4/607.abstract, if you have acces to academic journals). It's an interesting read if you're into this kind of thing. That said, there's also historical evidence of the complete opposite. Most of what is now Kenya was destroyed on first contact by the portugese. It all depends on how a state ('planet') sees itself and the others.
I would hardly call anything in international relations a theory, that would give it too much credibility From wiki it seems it is more "ought" construct than scientific endeavor. More like ethics for states. In that case I have nothing whatsoever in common with that. My "ought" system for state behaviour derives purely from my personal ethical system for individuals and intrastate affairs. On the other hand what I was saying was not a prescription of behaviour, but a description of observed behaviour and I had enough qualifiers everywhere to make sure it is not taken as absolute statement.
Nukes are far call from having the absolute attributes the OP weapons have. If nukes, that are quite well detectable and not even close to being able to destroy US in quantities Iran can get, are excuse enough to bomb Iran without any regard to non-existence of any real pretext for war, what do you think would a weapon like in OP do ?
On February 09 2012 04:53 Kimaker wrote: Whoa...this is actually fucking cool.
Nice read.
im not going to tell you what to think but why do you think this is cool? the things he's saying has no basis at all (sorry i don't know if this is the right terminology to use in english, not too sure). i mean he says that there will probably be an explosion of 130 MT to 200 GT". I mean - why do you even mention tesla? the only rational to talk about here would be joules.
im sorry but i just don't appreciate anti-scientific rabble like this. if the OP would've reasoned a bit more and not just assuming things that are impossible to assume this could've been alot more interesting.
i guess it could be cool if you didn't want to make it look like research or something. i mean why do you even mention game theory in the thread name? there's no mathematical models or anything such used in this thread... however i guess an economist might call this game theory..
I'm saying conceptually it provides a fascinating framework for a story. Obviously it's empirically fallacious on several points, but there are some VERY cool concepts here that could be worked out.
Ayone who hasn't read the Penn State paper posted by stealthblue on page one should go do that now.
On January 06 2012 08:13 zasta wrote: So much fun to read!
My first objection:
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).
I can't believe I just read the entire OP and 5 pages of posts before someone mentioned quantum entanglement!! Instant communication is looking quite possible. Yes "someone make a quantum entanglement communication thread" guy I concede it is not yet proven to work..
So now if you look at it from the perspective of instant and practically undetectable communication being a reality, the peaceful/defensive civilizations seem to have a large advantage over the ones that immediately send the RKV. The RKV sending civs would be showing their hand and likely dooming themselves to annihilation. The civ/civs on the receiving end of the RKV detect them at variable distances from their targets and instantly begin the process of stopping/deflecting and retaliation.
Another issue being discussed that I like is the issue of technology difference between civilizations. It stands to reason that most detection between galactic civilizations would involve a significant technological gap (when you look at the scale of galactic time and our place in it). I picture a match of SC/SC2 where one player gets a 20 minute head start and therefore reaches maximum potential before the other player sends his first workers to mine. (In my example I also imagine that the 1st player to start rolls Protoss and has obs in player 2's base before 2's 1st order is given. (Player 2 rolls Terran.))
The idea that galactic civs would hit a "maximum tech" level has been posited but these would be so advanced that a "RKV" would be a hilarious choice upon encountering one. I chuckle to myself imagining a scenario between a civilization just entering their spacefaring days (A) and one that has been traveling the stars for generations (B). Species A detects species B building a few dyson spheres. Species A decides to shoot first ask questions later then promptly send a bunch of RKVs at B. + Show Spoiler +
B gets a laugh out of the event, A rages after being told "U mad bro? U mad?"
I tend to agree with those pointing out galactic war is likely only in scenarios where resources are scarce enough to make it beneficial to the aggressor. What kind of resources would an advanced galaxy colonizing civ want? Would stars be the ultimate resource? specific elements? Species? Hopefully resources these hypothetical civs want are much more abundant relative to the density of intelligent life in the universe than the abundance of oil on earth relative to the number of people who are using it.
What if the assumption of no FTL/Teleportation is wrong as well!?? OH NOES
On February 09 2012 06:24 mcc wrote: If his assumptions about effectivity of the weaponry were correct (which with current science they seem to be), the civilizations that survive would behave in such a way. There might have been civilizations that were not like that, but those are now statistically extinct.
Statistically extinct?
... what ... the ?
So we are running statistics on imaginary aliens now?
Also, no way we could aim a weapon at something that far away.
Gravitation would pull it off course, and we can't chart everything in between and their movements relative to each other perfectly, because we can't see them all.
People just don't realize how big space is ...
What does it have to do with my post ? Do you have any point related to mine ? They are statistically extinct as in if any such civilization exists it is because it did not meet any of the killer civilizations yet.
People just don't realize how logic works...
Yeah, you don't understand how logic works ...
You cannot use the term "statistically extinct" here. It makes absolutely no sense. You cannot run 'statistics' on imaginary aliens.
You could have said "logically, they would be extinct given these assumptions" - and your post would make sense.
You are right in that the rest of the post didn't have anything to do with yours - but, I had to correct your use of that word.
Statistics is using logic and math applied to actual data to draw conclusions. It's not a word you use for something you imagine, where you have no data whatsoever.
On February 09 2012 04:43 Sbrubbles wrote: Seing how fast technology evolves in the modern era, unless science arrives at a "ceiling" (there's nothing left to discover and all applicable technology has been discovered and applied), any and all other alien races will either be technologically superior (and ABSURDLY so, given how a mere 100 years can completly revolutionize science) and be able to neutralize RKVs or will be too primitive to respond to our signal. The chance of them being at our level (able to build RKVs but not being able to neutralize them) will be likely very low.
I know this does against assumption 3) that RKVs are unstoppable, but unless we reach this science "ceiling", it is probably a false assumption.
Of course, this problem is moot until space colonization is discovered possible, otherwise two alien civilization's home planets will have no reason to harm each other. A galactic civilization that would strike first out of pure paranoia would also be paranoid against everything else and would die before investing space technology.
Your last point is not really that clearly inevitable. We can see that even on Earth how with more destructive weapons powerful countries give themselves the right to prevent others from getting the technology using more and more extreme measures. What about weapons that can destroy the opponent completely without sufficient warning ? US would bomb Iran into stone age even at the slightest hint of Iran being able to build a weapon that can annihilate US population.
The technological difference, in years, between the US and Iran is what, on average? 20, 30, 40 years? My point is: given the age of the universe, the chance that whatever other galactic civilization we encounter being technologically close to us (0-100 years) is very very low, meaning either they will be advanced enough to stop our RKVs or not evolved enough to have invented space technology.
In your example, I'm sure that the US 20-100 years from now will have technology to stop any weapons Iran can build (today) without having to strike preemtively.
If we look at the sky outside of the city (so that we can see stars clearly), we kinda see finite number of light. Altough it is known/accepted, that the actual number of stars is infinite, which means that we should probably see an infinite amount of white dots up in the sky, making it light, without gaps. This doesn't happen because the universe has been spreading out for a long time after the Big Bang, blah blah, the light of most stars doesn't reach us at all. //Hubble's law
So, if the light of most stars didn't reach us by now, then maybe 'probes'/RKV moving significantly slower than light (0.5c?) may not reach us ever; while if the universe will eventually be shrinking, we'll die anyways? o_O
On January 11 2012 14:02 ghost_403 wrote: So I was talking to my coworker, who has a PhD in some ridiculous field like material science or something, about the feasibility of a RKV. This is what he had to say:
The impactor that is believed to have created the Chicxulub crater delivered 4x10^23 J. Going at your recommended 0.5 c, and using the relativistic equation for kinetic energy you would need an object that has a mass of 2.9x10^7 kg. If you were to use iron, which has a density of 7,874 kg/m^3, you would need a sphere that is 380 meters in diameter. But the real problem is that iron is currently going at $0.22/lb. If you figure a 10% price break for bulk it would cost 1.4 billion dollars. And since that impact didn’t actually destroy all life on Earth, if we are aiming at an Earth sized planet we would need even more iron. So as soon as you amass, let’s say, 1.7 billion dollars I will help you research an accelerating laser to use for preemptive measures against a potentially hostile planet.
tl;dr - I'm starting a collection for my research.
Lol, there you go. Economic reasons are another good reason why RKVs are completely infeasible in the forseeable future
1.7 Billion dollars is hardly even a line item in the US federal budget.
Not even saying that why buy a lot of iron when you can just use projectiles from asteroid belt that already have sufficient size.
And who pays for the energy to accelerate it? 4x10^23 J at 10 cents per kilowatt-hour would be 1.1e16 USD, $11 quadrillion. A 2GW nuclear power plant running at 100% for 60 years would produce 3.8e18 J of energy, so you'd need about one hundred thousand of them.
On February 09 2012 21:01 Sbrubbles wrote: In your example, I'm sure that the US 20-100 years from now will have technology to stop any weapons Iran can build (today) without having to strike preemtively.
A city-wide bulletproof jacket for nuclear weapons? Like skyscrapers that retract underground when under attack?!? It would take a lot of nerv to get funding for such a plan
On February 09 2012 09:14 mcc wrote: He presented THE scenario, because he was interested in the outcomes of THE scenario. He also presented it in terms of game theory which I took as a sign that he want to treat it as such. So unless you see the scenario as impossible(you do not) or do not like game theory approach (why even post then) or you are saying game theory is extremely bad tool to think about it (you would need to show why) I see no point in your responses to me. If you have problems with other aspects of the OP that I did not comment, why respond to me ?
You do not need completely rational agents and I think I always qualified my statements with "somewhat" and similar words. It is an open question if the possible irrational factors have any significant influence on the scenario as significantly irrational agents would not evolve naturally. I am not assuming universal rationality in philosophical sense, only one arising from assumption that those aliens also evolved in natural environment. Of course there are possibilities of non-evolved entities and even maybe some kind of strange evolutions producing irrational beings or maybe the universe was populated by some civilization that created only irrational species. Those instances are uninteresting.
Yes we have no evidence whatsoever. We cannot say anything. Wait, there is that thing called logic and math that works without evidence. If you just provide some premises (assumptions) it can give you some answers that are conditional on those assumptions being true. Genius.
OP's scenario is flawed in a fairly obvious way. It's much easier and cheaper to monitor most nearby civilizations in their own system than to go ahead and destroy them completely. The idea that you can't possibly tell where the attack came from is simply untrue and I suspect it was included specifically to ensure the game would have an interesting enough result. In most cases you could tell before the attack was actually launched and threaten retaliation through a semi-autonomous system.
The analysis is shoddy and it's shoddy because OP isn't interested in setting up realistic assumptions and investigating their consequences. He's interested in interesting consequences and will set up whatever assumptions that lead to those, whether they are realistic or not. Great way to write a science fiction novel, not so great for investigating reality.
I think the real question is, how long after first radio broadcast would a civilization spread to have multiple self-sustaining colonies? If you can't reasonably take out the whole civilization, then all you're doing is making them mad. They may not be able to retaliate right away, but it is all they'll work on for the rest of forever.
Game theory places absolutely zero value in communication distance, listening is just a way of being manipulated by the other person. The possibility of retaliation is relevant in a game theoretical approach however, if you with an attack does not significantly reduce the risk of getting attacked yourself, there is no gain. Blowing someones planet up does not affect retaliation attempts if the weapons are confined to space (not so clever to try to achieve relativistic speeds in the atmosphere).
About getting detected or not:
First of all, if you detect a civilization and send a RKP (relativistic kill probe) on them, they will have huge amount of time to detect you and if they havn't already sent their weapons at you, they are not likely to be kill on sight-species anyway.
Second, if you are worried about TV-signals getting intercepted, letting 6000 nukes go off in space to send RKP on other civs is not the best way of staying under the radar you know
Finally, if you detect signals from a civ even remotely close to us in technology, they will due to the distances involved be far above us in technological level when we fire of our RKV. I think it is more prudent to assume that any civilization wont get noticed until long after they have reached a technological singularity (if those exists) just because of technological acceleration. The best alternative for a trigger happy species would be to blanket bomb any planets within habitable distance to a star. But that is the opposite of colonization and is kinda suicidal (yeah, lets destroy all alternative homes if we fuck our own planet up, just to be safe, this is especially clever due to our tendency to nuke eachother).
On February 09 2012 21:01 Sbrubbles wrote: In your example, I'm sure that the US 20-100 years from now will have technology to stop any weapons Iran can build (today) without having to strike preemtively.
A city-wide bulletproof jacket for nuclear weapons? Like skyscrapers that retract underground when under attack?!? It would take a lot of nerv to get funding for such a plan
Well, something like that . Missles that can intercept ICBMs mid-flight sound doable, considering today's technology. Now imagine the kinds of freaky technology we'll have 100 years from now.
First. I don't accept that your RKV, or any method of destruction, cannot be traced. That, to me, is a completely artificial constraint placed on the discussion to make it feasible again. It might not be traceable by us, or someone of our level of advancement, but you can't say its impossible.
While I understand your point about insta-kill species eventually outnumbering peaceful ones if they insta-kill them, there's a problem with that. Lets say you receive earth's message about our location, and instantly locate, calculate, and launch your destruction vehicle even at 100-1000% of the speed of light. Assuming this, I have questions.
1. Even if you can calculate the amount of time since the message was broadcast, how can you know the current level of advancement of the species you're attempting to kill at the time of launch of your vehicle, and again at the time of impact? 2. How can you be certain the broadcast isn't simply a trick to kill your own species? 3. Why isn't the following situation equally likely?
Civilization A receives a broadcast from Civilizaition B and immediately launches their vehicle of destruction. We assume they are advanced enough to calculate location perfectly. Travelling at whatever speed is irrelevant, but we can use your 50% of light speed figure. The vehicle arrives many many years later at Civilization B which is now advanced enough to deflect it AND trace its origin. Moments after your RKV was scheduled for impact, your launch site is demolished, and Civilization B makes it their purpose to find all of Civilization A and demolish it.
Basically what I'm illustrating is this, and it is reflected in exactly how we are thinking. What is the purpose of being paranoid about radio signals, communications signal, and then broadcasting your location with your weapon?
I would argue your game plays out more like this.
1. Player 1 broadcasts or doesn't. 2. Player 2 receives and decides to A. React with a return broadcast, B. Launch RKV, or C. Nothing. 3. Player 1 receives the response or doesn't and: A. Intents are known and the game is effectively over, anything that needs to be communicated can be. B. Is destroyed/crippled by the RKV OR deflects and retaliates. C. You respond with nothing and perhaps use the location information to ensure that Player 1 cannot find you easily in the future, thus Player 1 has no further options as they do not even know Player 2 exists.
Benefits to players of choosing each option:
Player 2: A. If Player 2 opts to return broadcast, they open themselves up to attack by broadcasting their exact location (and possibly technology level via the means they use to communicate). In this case, Player 2 has an no reason to select this choice aside from naivete, and players choosing this choice will, on average, lose overall and be wiped out. Player 2 B. Player 2 has no way of knowing the current level of technology of Player 1. If Player 1 cannot deflect the RKV, Player 2 is safe. If Player 1 can deflect it, they can also likely trace it, and thus Player 2 has assured their destruction via a superior race. Player 2 C. Player 2 can choose to broadcast nothing and give no clue as to their location. Player 2 also can use the information about the location, intent, and technology level to further hide themselves from Player 1.
It seems to me, based on this, that
1. Any given player HAS to assume that other civilizations may be more powerful than they are and therefore capable of taking no damage and retaliating with an equal or stronger attack
Therefore, Civilizations meeting THESE criteria will win out in the long-run.
Complete silence about their locations. Spread out enough/resilient enough to withstand targeted attacks while not being so spread out as to not communicate with others in your group. Employ the best technology to defense against targeted attacks AND be able to respond.
Communication is important, but it's not all verbal or in the form of "messages". Actively responding with an attack is a communication of aggression and thus opens you to retaliation.