• Canada's ex-Defense Minister who ultimately shaped Canada's armed forces during the Cold War: Aliens
    240 replies, posted
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43445465]I don't know how you wrote all of this and ended up with the conclusion "They have no reason to just kill us" when you outline exactly why they wouldn't come here to say hello and enslave us. How you don't see a communication problem being a thing is beyond me too. [editline]6th January 2014[/editline] oh for fucks sakes spam breaks the auto merge[/QUOTE] I do see communication being a problem (I made that point in passing), but communication is only an issue when it comes down to things such as differing religions and ideologies. Any biological drive (such as a need to eat, which they can't satisfy with us anyway) to kill one another doesn't require communication. Communication would only be an issue for non biological reasons to kill one another, such as when you come to differing ideologies and religions (assuming they were fanatic).
[QUOTE=sltungle;43445469]Given that game theory works on the premise that all agents make perfectly rational decisions all of the time, and nobody is putting forth any rational reasons for us wanting to murder them or them wanting to murder us (except for fear of the other side doing the same first, which is NOT a [I]rational[/I] fear because it needs some justification to be rational... which I'm yet to see provided) I'm going to say that either everyone here is applying game theory wrong or these AREN'T the supremely logical aliens I thought we were discussing originally.[/QUOTE] Okay first of all, game theory is the study and science of how creatures, any and all, will act to stay alive and to survive. The proof you need is thus; When you don't know what's coming your way, but it seems terrifiying all the same, you're going to react in self interest. Why are you for some reason smarter than all the incredible scientists like Neal De Grasse Tyson or Stephen Hawking who advocate that game theory WOULD play out this way? I understand their claims. I don't understand yours. Care to make it clear? [editline]6th January 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=sltungle;43445491]I do see communication being a problem (I made that point in passing), but communication is only an issue when it comes down to things such as differing religions and ideologies. Any biological drive (such as a need to eat, which they can't satisfy with us anyway) to kill one another doesn't require communication. Communication would only be an issue for non biological reasons to kill one another, such as when you come to differing ideologies and religions (assuming they were fanatic).[/QUOTE] what are you talking about? if we and they can't communicate on any level, regardless of ideology or "religion", we're in for trouble. Food and other needs aren't going to be the topic of dicussion here. It'll be survival of our species or theres at discussion, and that discussion won't happen without an understanding of xenolinguistics which we won't have the time to have. They are not going to look at us like we look at fellow human beings. They will look at us like we look at lions in the jungle. Fear, desire to survive, and the will to act. Fight or flight instincts take over and while we have no idea if they have those or not, we can assume that there's some premise similar to that in their biology at some level. We can also assume, you can't flight from a planet very effectively. We've discussed that in this thread, so what cna you do? You can fight pretty easily as a realitivistic society. And what are you going to do? Let the lion in the night of the jungle prowl around? Or next time you see him are you going to fire at him and do your best to ensure your own survival?
[QUOTE=TheTalon;43445477]If this were true, I'd gamble on giving us the tech and uniting the world, and if we're still too dumb to then just nuke the planet with your super special alien rays I'm amazed someone like this was in such a seat of power[/QUOTE] What are you on about - the man was probably absolutely sane 30 years ago - you'd be surprised what dementia can do to your brain.
We we developed atomic bombs long ago, and if the aliens did see that, It probably won't shock them, as they probably have weapons of mass destruction as well that can destroy our sun and causes a supernova to happen.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43445497]Okay first of all, game theory is the study and science of how creatures, any and all, will act to stay alive and to survive. The proof you need is thus; When you don't know what's coming your way, but it seems terrifiying all the same, you're going to react in self interest. Why are you for some reason smarter than all the incredible scientists like Neal De Grasse Tyson or Stephen Hawking who advocate that game theory WOULD play out this way? I understand their claims. I don't understand yours. Care to make it clear?[/QUOTE] That was the entire point of the wall of text. Analyising the potential reasons for conflict, and seeing which ones would actually be of any use to an alien. A big, unknown scary thing running at you out of the woods at night time might mean to eat you. And if it's a bear or something like that it CAN eat you. If it's an alien it probably can't, so there goes one source of conflict. There can't be any purely biological drives for them to kill us (to use us as a food source, to eliminate sexual competition, etc) because we're not going to be biologically compatible. Any space faring species will surely be aware of the fact that instinctual fear of this sort (running from the big scary predator) isn't rational. I don't think you could be flying around in space in your relativistic rockets and not be aware of this fact. Any reason they would conceivably have to kill us (or we them) would be non-biological in nature. Competition over resources, differing ideologies, a desire for slaves, etc. You could solve the resources issue without resorting to interstellar war by just hoping over to a different asteroid or planet - it's not worth going to war over. Differing ideologies is a harder problem to tackle and that might be where the real issues arise. Slaves, like I said, would be pretty useless given that you'd need to feed them with their own food (which is wasted space that you could use to grow your own) and they'd probably be dying pretty quickly if you're making them do tasks you deem too dangerous for your own people. [editline]7th January 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43445497]what are you talking about? if we and they can't communicate on any level, regardless of ideology or "religion", we're in for trouble. Food and other needs aren't going to be the topic of dicussion here. It'll be survival of our species or theres at discussion, and that discussion won't happen without an understanding of xenolinguistics which we won't have the time to have. They are not going to look at us like we look at fellow human beings. They will look at us like we look at lions in the jungle. Fear, desire to survive, and the will to act. Fight or flight instincts take over and while we have no idea if they have those or not, we can assume that there's some premise similar to that in their biology at some level. We can also assume, you can't flight from a planet very effectively. We've discussed that in this thread, so what cna you do? You can fight pretty easily as a realitivistic society. And what are you going to do? Let the lion in the night of the jungle prowl around? Or next time you see him are you going to fire at him and do your best to ensure your own survival?[/QUOTE] Everyone keeps talking about survival and saying it'll be us or them but you're not explaining WHY. You're not explaining WHAT would be the catalyst for conflict. We need to reasonably have something they want or they need to have something we want for conflict to break out. With the exception of raving lunatics people don't go around murdering others for no reason. Unless we're hogging EVERY resource in the entire galaxy and aren't letting anybody anywhere mine their own stuff I can't see why there'd be any problem at all, or why there'd be any perceived problem that would lead to a real one.
[QUOTE=sltungle;43445573]That was the entire point of the wall of text. Analyising the potential reasons for conflict, and seeing which ones would actually be of any use to an alien. A big, unknown scary thing running at you out of the woods at night time might mean to eat you. And if it's a bear or something like that it CAN eat you. If it's an alien it probably can't, so there goes one source of conflict. There can't be any purely biological drives for them to kill us (to use us as a food source, to eliminate sexual competition, etc) because we're not going to be biologically compatible. Any space faring species will surely be aware of the fact that instinctual fear of this sort (running from the big scary predator) isn't rational. I don't think you could be flying around in space in your relativistic rockets and not be aware of this fact. Any reason they would conceivably have to kill us (or we them) would be non-biological in nature. Competition over resources, differing ideologies, a desire for slaves, etc. You could solve the resources issue without resorting to interstellar war by just hoping over to a different asteroid or planet - it's not worth going to war over. Differing ideologies is a harder problem to tackle and that might be where the real issues arise. Slaves, like I said, would be pretty useless given that you'd need to feed them with their own food (which is wasted space that you could use to grow your own) and they'd probably be dying pretty quickly if you're making them do tasks you deem too dangerous for your own people.[/QUOTE] Wolves kill for fun. To mark their territory. Sometimes they kill entire herds of cattle but only eat one or two at most. Even in animals, food is not the sole instinct. Often leaving a message is just as important. Even in the animal world, simply removing a threat is a totally normal and common idea. Actually, running from the scary predator in the dark is TOTALLY AND UTTERLY RATIONAL. If you KNOW you're at risk from a lion in the jungle at night, not running from it or killing is irrational. See, they have no reason to slave us, eat us, mate with us, study us, take our stuff, yet you're saying they'd travel that distance to be stymied by the inability to communicate? We're not going to have any manner to communicate in. It's not going to be a difference in ideology or religion that drives a wedge in the discussions, it will be the problem that we and them might not even share a relate able form of communication. They might not even have vocal chords. So why would they travel that distance? They would most likely see that effort, like we do, as useless and only making you vulnerable to strike in the future as now they can trace where you came from to say hello from. You don't dare shout for help. There are no policemen. There is no help. The night never ends.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43445497]what are you talking about? if we and they can't communicate on any level, regardless of ideology or "religion", we're in for trouble. Food and other needs aren't going to be the topic of dicussion here. It'll be survival of our species or theres at discussion, and that discussion won't happen without an understanding of xenolinguistics which we won't have the time to have. They are not going to look at us like we look at fellow human beings. They will look at us like we look at lions in the jungle. Fear, desire to survive, and the will to act. Fight or flight instincts take over and while we have no idea if they have those or not, we can assume that there's some premise similar to that in their biology at some level. We can also assume, you can't flight from a planet very effectively. We've discussed that in this thread, so what cna you do? You can fight pretty easily as a realitivistic society. And what are you going to do? Let the lion in the night of the jungle prowl around? Or next time you see him are you going to fire at him and do your best to ensure your own survival?[/QUOTE] It's worse than that. Let me give the example from the novel Blindsight. Humanity encounters an alien race. This race has a biology extremely optimized for the goal of carrying neural signals, making them extremely efficient at processing data, with an insect-like hive structure. They're not self-aware, but they're extremely good at number-crunching and solving problems. They're clearly intelligent, but not sentient in the slightest. These aliens, on their homeworld, receive radio signals from Earth. They process these signals and start decoding them. It's music. Film. Communication. All these little aspects of human society. The aliens have no analogue. They're barely even what we could consider alive- they're basically just mobile computers. As far as they're concerned, it's gibberish. Meaningless data that does nothing but take up processing power to decode. And how do you suppose an expansionist, self-preservative computer would react to what appears to be a deliberate attempt to damage its information-processing capability? Hollywood has yet to depict an alien that is truly [I]alien[/I]. The scariest part of possible contact, and the main reason why I think genocide is inevitable, is that in all likelihood if we met another alien race they would be so utterly unlike us that we would never be able to understand their motivations, if they even [i]have[/i] motivations as we understand them. If you can't understand or reason with another being, and if they have the capacity to wipe you out, you can't afford to gamble on them being friendly.
[QUOTE=sltungle;43445573] Everyone keeps talking about survival and saying it'll be us or them but you're not explaining WHY. You're not explaining WHAT would be the catalyst for conflict. We need to reasonably have something they want or they need to have something we want for conflict to break out. With the exception of raving lunatics people don't go around murdering others for no reason. Unless we're hogging EVERY resource in the entire galaxy and aren't letting anybody anywhere mine their own stuff I can't see why there'd be any problem at all, or why there'd be any perceived problem that would lead to a real one.[/QUOTE] Survival alone is the largest drive of every species that reaches the top of it's food chain. Or else it would not be there. Why we would need to fighting over something is beyond me. We're fighting over our own survivals. The problem arises from the threat of the lion in the jungle disappearing into the night, and coming back out a few moments later with it's fucking fangs barred ready to pounce. That fear and the certainty that without communication this is what will happen is enough to drive our reaction. Now you keep stressing communication being something we'll achieve, but we have no reason to believe this what so ever. We have no reason to believe there can and will be any form of communication possible.
[QUOTE=catbarf;43445637]It's worse than that. Let me give the example from the novel Blindsight. Humanity encounters an alien race. This race has a biology extremely optimized for the goal of carrying neural signals, making them extremely efficient at processing data, with an insect-like hive structure. They're not self-aware, but they're extremely good at number-crunching and solving problems. They're clearly intelligent, but not sentient in the slightest. These aliens, on their homeworld, receive radio signals from Earth. They process these signals and start decoding them. It's music. Film. Communication. All these little aspects of human society. The aliens have no analogue. They're barely even what we could consider alive- they're basically just mobile computers. As far as they're concerned, it's gibberish. Meaningless data that does nothing but take up processing power to decode. And how do you suppose an expansionist, self-preservative computer would react to what appears to be a deliberate attempt to damage its information-processing capability? Hollywood has yet to depict an alien that is truly [I]alien[/I]. The scariest part of possible contact, and the main reason why I think genocide is inevitable, is that in all likelihood if we met another alien race they would be so utterly unlike us that we would never be able to understand their motivations, if they even [i]have[/i] motivations as we understand them. If you can't understand or reason with another being, and if they have the capacity to wipe you out, you can't afford to gamble on them being friendly.[/QUOTE] This I like. This is a reasonable reason as to why things might go to shit, but I imagine if you play the same scenario again and introduce sentience the story would go a whole different direction. I think if we're dealing with sentient beings a lot of these problems can be avoided, but if they're as you described then we could be in trouble.
[QUOTE=sltungle;43445656]This I like. This is a reasonable reason as to why things might go to shit, but I imagine if you play the same scenario again and introduce sentience the story would go a whole different direction. I think if we're dealing with sentient beings a lot of these problems can be avoided, but if they're as you described then we could be in trouble.[/QUOTE] I don't believe it would at all. we regularly massacre dolphins. they are intelligent. Intelligence has no bearing on our decisions. I just don't see why you think the rational reaction of a species is to broadcast their wearabouts and act without a great deal of foresight.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43445647]Survival alone is the largest drive of every species that reaches the top of it's food chain. Or else it would not be there. Why we would need to fighting over something is beyond me. We're fighting over our own survivals. The problem arises from the threat of the lion in the jungle disappearing into the night, and coming back out a few moments later with it's fucking fangs barred ready to pounce. That fear and the certainty that without communication this is what will happen is enough to drive our reaction. Now you keep stressing communication being something we'll achieve, but we have no reason to believe this what so ever. We have no reason to believe there can and will be any form of communication possible.[/QUOTE] I still feel like you're missing the root of the problem I'm having here. Why would they come back with fangs barred ready to pounce? What would they gain from that? If there's nothing we have that they want, and there's nothing they have that we want and we both know it... then I see no reason for us to fight. And I see no reason that they would see a reason to fight. If they were non-sentient like mentioned above, sure, they might just try to remove an annoyance that is eating into their processing abilities. But if they're sentient I don't see why conflict would arise in such a situation. There's no clear gain to fighting on either side.
[QUOTE=sltungle;43445656]This I like. This is a reasonable reason as to why things might go to shit, but I imagine if you play the same scenario again and introduce sentience the story would go a whole different direction. I think if we're dealing with sentient beings a lot of these problems can be avoided, but if they're as you described then we could be in trouble.[/QUOTE] The novel's argument is that sentience is entirely unnecessary for intelligence and that evolution will favor a non-sentient race rising to the top, dispensing with all the clumsy frivolities of self-awareness in favor of a leaner, meaner, ruthless killing/reproducing/expanding/colonizing machine. That right there is the problem. You can't assume another race will be sentient. Even the idea of sentience presupposes that it's enough like us that we can understand it. But we're talking about alien life that developed under completely unknown conditions. In all likelihood it would be so far removed from us that all interaction would be essentially meaningless. Even something like Ender's Game, which anthropomorphizes its aliens to an unrealistic degree, has a perfectly logical reason for genocidal war immediately occurring between humans and aliens. The aliens are intelligent, they're sentient, they're enough like us that they can communicate- but their social structure is just different enough that a casual assumption (that we are a hive species like them, and so individuals don't matter) results in extermination. We can't afford that risk.
[QUOTE=sltungle;43445689]I still feel like you're missing the root of the problem I'm having here. Why would they come back with fangs barred ready to pounce? What would they gain from that? If there's nothing we have that they want, and there's nothing they have that we want and we both know it... then I see no reason for us to fight. And I see no reason that they would see a reason to fight. If they were non-sentient like mentioned above, sure, they might just try to remove an annoyance that is eating into their processing abilities. But if they're sentient I don't see why conflict would arise in such a situation. There's no clear gain to fighting on either side.[/QUOTE] because like the lion, and like us, we are each defending our territory and are afraid. fear is rational. please accept this.
[QUOTE=DarthVivic;43436279]Here's the real question, why does it matter that this guy even has this opinion? Right? What gives this guy the right to say he's a nutjob, when he himself is into furry which by the way guess what... most people would think he was the nutjob. None the less, you guys seem very butt hurt by me sticking up for some guy none of you guys even know. So before you start saying stuff, think about your life first. EDIT: I really dislike people like you guys, quick to judge but if someone judges you... GOD FORBID![/QUOTE] You've made your judgement of others, so shall we judge you.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43445733]because like the lion, and like us, we are each defending our territory and are afraid. fear is rational. please accept this.[/QUOTE] I don't accept that. Fear is only rational when there's something actually at stake. I'm not afraid of a giant tortoise because it means me no harm for any reason at all. I'd be afraid of a lion because it might want to kill and eat me (or merely kill me to take out competing predators). I'm 'afraid' of heights (I can still go rock climbing and such because I know I'm reasonable safe in those situations) because I realise that falling from a sufficiently high one will end my existence. I'm not afraid of trees because they're inanimate objects that, baring some unfortunately accident, won't harm me. If the aliens can't consume us, mate with us, etc, and on the assumption that they're sentient, non-hivemind creatures like we are then I don't think they'd mean us any harm unless we did something to impact their survival (by hording resources and not allowing them access to them for example). Also, I was thinking about that novel Blindsight in the shower and a thought stuck me. Instead of wiping humanity out would it not benefit the non-sentient aliens more (by conserving resources, removing the problem more quickly thus not wasting further processing power, etc) to just, y'know, tune out that particular tiny portion of the sky? Or if they're unable to do that build some big, thick metal shield that subtends the portion of the sky that our broadcasts come from that would adequately absorb any radio signals that were annoying them? That would put a stop to the problem much more quickly and would waste far fewer resources than destroying all of humanity.
[QUOTE=sltungle;43445994]I don't accept that. Fear is only rational when there's something actually at stake. I'm not afraid of a giant tortoise because it means me no harm for any reason at all. I'd be afraid of a lion because it might want to kill and eat me (or merely kill me to take out competing predators). I'm 'afraid' of heights (I can still go rock climbing and such because I know I'm reasonable safe in those situations) because I realise that falling from a sufficiently high one will end my existence. I'm not afraid of trees because they're inanimate objects that, baring some unfortunately accident, won't harm me. If the aliens can't consume us, mate with us, etc, and on the assumption that they're sentient, non-hivemind creatures like we are then I don't think they'd mean us any harm unless we did something to impact their survival (by hording resources and not allowing them access to them for example).[/QUOTE] But we don't know. The premise of Ender's Game is that the hive mind aliens don't realize that humans aren't a hive mind until long after it's too late. The very idea of individuals is alien to them, it's beyond their understanding. We're talking about completely alien life. Its thought processes, if it has them, will most likely be inscrutable to us. If you don't know if the animal coming out of the forest is a lion or a tortoise, and you have the ability to kill it before it can harm you, and you knew that if it meant you harm the only way to survive would be to strike first, what would you do? I don't think you'd sit around and say 'Well, it might mean me no harm'. I think you'd say 'I'd rather not die, and even if I'm wrong, well, better an animal than me'. And you kill it. You value your own life over a completely different species. It's not impossible that there could be communication, but the stakes are too high for anyone to take the risk. [QUOTE=sltungle;43445994]Also, I was thinking about that novel Blindsight in the shower and a thought stuck me. Instead of wiping humanity out would it not benefit the non-sentient aliens more (by conserving resources, removing the problem more quickly thus not wasting further processing power, etc) to just, y'know, tune out that particular tiny portion of the sky? Or if they're unable to do that build some big, thick metal shield that subtends the portion of the sky that our broadcasts come from that would adequately absorb any radio signals that were annoying them? That would put a stop to the problem much more quickly and would waste far fewer resources than destroying all of humanity.[/QUOTE] It's not the signal itself, it's that the signal appears to them to be an act of war from a hostile race. As far as they're concerned, we fired first. Genocide is an inevitability.
[QUOTE=Asmaedus;43436356]God I haven't read this for about 5 years, thank you. Now through reading this again I see a pretty big plot hole :( [sp]The infallible predictor wrongly predicted that we would spill out and destroy the writers planet. Yet the next post says that we become cool dudes all about art.[/sp][/QUOTE] That's because the predictor was fallible. It only looked at our overarcing history of war and not the human tendency to feel compassion and empathy.
[QUOTE=sltungle;43445469]Given that game theory works on the premise that all agents make perfectly rational decisions all of the time, and [B]nobody is putting forth any rational reasons for us wanting to murder them or them wanting to murder us (except for fear of the other side doing the same first, which is NOT a [I]rational[/I] fear because it needs some justification to be rational... [/B]which I'm yet to see provided) I'm going to say that either everyone here is applying game theory wrong or these AREN'T the supremely logical aliens I thought we were discussing originally.[/QUOTE] [I]The rational reason is that there's no reason for an alien civilization that values its own existence to [B]risk[/B] letting the other party doing the same first.[/I] It's a (mostly?) self perpetuated threat, but a very real one.
[QUOTE=catbarf;43446055]But we don't know. The premise of Ender's Game is that the hive mind aliens don't realize that humans aren't a hive mind until long after it's too late. The very idea of individuals is alien to them, it's beyond their understanding. We're talking about completely alien life. Its thought processes, if it has them, will most likely be inscrutable to us.[/quote] To be fair we don't even know if a true, sentient hivemind would ever even be possible in reality. It's completely possible that all sentient life in the universe is restricted to living out its own existence in its own head. Sure there might be non-sentient 'hiveminds' (although I think that kind of goes against the notion of the 'mind' part if it's nonsentient) like ant colonies and such, but communication would be useless with them anyway because they'd just be slaves to instinct and unable to form actual thoughts. And in that case I really don't see how they'd be spacefaring anyway, but given that they were I'd agree they could be a real threat. Somehow I think we'd be more likely to come across a species like us (sentient, individual minds, etc) simply because we're an easier construct and would probably be more likely to form as a result. [QUOTE=catbarf;43446055]If you don't know if the animal coming out of the forest is a lion or a tortoise, and you have the ability to kill it before it can harm you, and you knew that if it meant you harm the only way to survive would be to strike first, what would you do? I don't think you'd sit around and say 'Well, it might mean me no harm'. I think you'd say 'I'd rather not die, and even if I'm wrong, well, better an animal than me'. And you kill it. You value your own life over a completely different species. It's not impossible that there could be communication, but the stakes are too high for anyone to take the risk.[/QUOTE] This is true in that very specific example, but that's a very oversimplified way of looking at things and not every situation will be that devoid of information or context. If it really was a tortoise or a lion you'd be able to tell VERY quickly by how fast it was moving - even if you can't see it, you'd be able to hear how quickly branches are snapping and leaves are being rustled about. You can't reasonably have the notion of, "I have to kill everything before it kills me!" or nothing on Earth would be alive right now. Everything is contextual.
Jesus christ, if I ever meet any if you guys, I'll make sure to keep my hands where you can see them.
[QUOTE=sltungle;43445573]-unnecessary long posts[/QUOTE] stungle I literally said the same thing you did in a way that not only didn't come off as condescending (like yours) but was short and concise (unlike yours). Make a clear and concise post or don't make on at all.
[QUOTE=sltungle;43445994]I don't accept that. Fear is only rational when there's something actually at stake. I'm not afraid of a giant tortoise because it means me no harm for any reason at all. I'd be afraid of a lion because it might want to kill and eat me (or merely kill me to take out competing predators). I'm 'afraid' of heights (I can still go rock climbing and such because I know I'm reasonable safe in those situations) because I realise that falling from a sufficiently high one will end my existence. I'm not afraid of trees because they're inanimate objects that, baring some unfortunately accident, won't harm me. If the aliens can't consume us, mate with us, etc, and on the assumption that they're sentient, non-hivemind creatures like we are then I don't think they'd mean us any harm unless we did something to impact their survival (by hording resources and not allowing them access to them for example). Also, I was thinking about that novel Blindsight in the shower and a thought stuck me. Instead of wiping humanity out would it not benefit the non-sentient aliens more (by conserving resources, removing the problem more quickly thus not wasting further processing power, etc) to just, y'know, tune out that particular tiny portion of the sky? Or if they're unable to do that build some big, thick metal shield that subtends the portion of the sky that our broadcasts come from that would adequately absorb any radio signals that were annoying them? That would put a stop to the problem much more quickly and would waste far fewer resources than destroying all of humanity.[/QUOTE] Our lives, all human life, and all alien life of that given species is at stake. That's what's at stake. I don't know how that isn't obvious to you.
From what I gather he's trying to say that an alien civilization may have other motivations that don't strictly pertain to it's survival, although he obviously has trouble getting his point across. However there is another point to be brought up. If the threat isn't immediate then who's to say the civilization would immediately react to it? The same point is oft made about global warming in that the politicians of today don't care about tomorrow because it doesn't affect them. To give a more relevant example... What are we doing to stop the sun from dying?
[QUOTE=Kyle902;43454355]From what I gather he's trying to say that an alien civilization may have other motivations that don't strictly pertain to it's survival, although he obviously has trouble getting his point across. However there is another point to be brought up. If the threat isn't immediate then who's to say the civilization would immediately react to it? The same point is oft made about global warming in that the politicians of today don't care about tomorrow because it doesn't affect them. To give a more relevant example... What are we doing to stop the sun from dying?[/QUOTE] Well the problem is you're not going to take out a civilization of people who are not going anywhere. And you're not going to take out a group of people you don't have any chance of coming across. So where he is right is that if there is no presence of a threat, there is no need to act. Where he is wrong is that once you do know there is a relativistic civilization within range of you, you're posed with an immediate choice, and an immediate threat. Two relativistic civilizations in range of each other is a scary thought to each of them. They are unaware of the extent of actions each other can take. They are unaware of each others thought processes. They can be sure however that self survival is of the utmost importance to each group and that any chance to stop a threat before it becomes a serious one will be taken. [editline]7th January 2014[/editline] If the sun is dying we can theoretically potentially drop a bomb into the sun of an enormous mind shattering amount of matter to restart the reaction, but if the sun is dying, we're likely to die and going to need a new home. Simple as that really. It's a game over in a big way.
There lies another problem. One relativistic bomb would represent a huge use of resources. It also wouldn't be effective at taking out a relativistic civilization. Therefore I could see the potential of an invasion fleet of sorts, I could easily see them sending something along the lines of a self replicating probe to wipe out any interplanetary colonies they might have. But again if the other civilization is relativistic then they easily could have sent some slowboat colonies or something to that effect. The combination of these variables means that a MAD scenario is a very real possibility and therefore might result in both sides avoiding action unless they are sure it would result in the immediate and complete destruction of the opposing civilization.
[QUOTE=Kyle902;43454572]There lies another problem. One relativistic bomb would represent a huge use of resources. It also wouldn't be effective at taking out a relativistic civilization. Therefore I could see the potential of an invasion fleet of sorts, I could easily see them sending something along the lines of a self replicating probe to wipe out any interplanetary colonies they might have. But again if the other civilization is relativistic then they easily could have sent some slowboat colonies or something to that effect. The combination of these variables means that a MAD scenario is a very real possibility and therefore might result in both sides avoiding action unless they are sure it would result in the immediate and complete destruction of the opposing civilization.[/QUOTE] a quick strike that destroys the base of resources and society will destroy and cripple a society. whatever is left will be scattered remenants, and sure a threat is posed, but who's to say they even maintain the ability to form a fleet, let alone scrape by? you've destroyed their home, the place they naturally get their resources from and have the largest base of people. MAD isn't so assured over distances of light years in a first strike case. They won't even know they're dead until they are.
MAD can easily be assured with the death of a civilization. Russia had a system in place that automatically launched its nuclear arsenal should the leadership be eliminated. To a relativistic civilization a deadmans switch would be trivial to construct and almost necessary if it detects an obvious threat. And that doesn't solve the problem of the hypothetical slowboat colonies that a relativistic civilization would almost assuredly send to insure its survival.
but they'd need to have a ship and a massive engine and the destination exactly of where it would have to go all built well before they were killed so they should have clearly just launched theirs first and not be in this situation. it's not impossible but it's the best threat minimization possible.
Slowboat colonies don't require massive engines. At our stage of civilization we already have the specifications for what a life bearing planet would look like and the means to detect extrasolar planets. An alien civilization that has achieved relativistic tech would in all likelihood have extensively mapped their local star group and found viable colony sites. A relativistic bomb would require massive engines anyways so If they're already building those then they are going to have the tech to make slowboat colony ships.
[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;43435755]As if they wouldn't have that technology too.[/QUOTE] Think you're missing the point. Imagine yourself in the position of an alien species that was observing earth. "Oh, good, they're stockpiling nuclear weapons. Should we give them more technology that'll help them travel through space and to create much, much deadlier weapons? Look at how they kill each other. Nope."
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