Which of these answers make you happiest?

[capri0mni]

Okay, granting that the Fermi Paradox is a hot mess, fallacy-wise, which of these common* answers to the question: “So Where is Everybody?!” would please you most -- or should I say -- leave you feeling the least depressed?

A. There’s no else out there.

We really are special snowflakes in the entire universe, and the only life to have sophisticated civilizations and advanced technology.

B. They’re all dead.

Any civilization with technology advanced enough to contemplate interstellar / intergalactic travel will end up destroying itself through war and/or pollution before they succeed.

C. They don’t care about us, or our planet.

We’re too insignificant and boring for anyone to spend resources to get here or try to communicate with us -- not even to mine our asteroids or kidnap us and harvest our livers ... or whatever.

D. Interstellar / intergalactic travel actually is impossible.

Doesn’t matter how sophisticated a civilization is, or how advanced their technology, no one is getting off any of their respective rocks, and we’re never going to get to meet them, or they, us.

E. Why are you talking like “first contact” is a good thing?!

You better hope we never do find proof of more powerful, alien, beings out there. Only bad things could result. Very. Bad. Things.

*”Fool! They’ve been communicating with Earthlings for years, already -- just ask the elephants!” is, unfortunately, an uncommon answer.

Comments

[sqbr]

D. But I prefer the idea that it's hard and will happen *eventually*.

[capri0mni]

Actually, that's my favorite too.

The thing about the Fermi Paradox that really annoys me no end is the second of two working assumptions -- to quote that Wikipedia article I linked, above:

[G]iven intelligent life's ability to overcome scarcity, and its tendency to colonize new habitats, it seems possible that at least some civilizations would be technologically advanced, seek out new resources in space, and colonize their own star system and, subsequently, surrounding star systems.

Not only does it assume that all "intelligent" species must be, by default, like humans in terms of how they use (up) resources and inhabit environments, it also assumes that all "intelligent" species must be like Western Europeans by default when it comes to colonizing other civilizations.

And the fact that this idea has been discussed semi-seriously by people such as Carl Sagan, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson (as well as cock-eyed sci-fi fan geeks on the Internet, like myself), with hardly anyone pointing out the absurdity of that - - - *sputters*

I prefer D, because I prefer to imagine that billions of advanced civilizations are deciding that living a beautiful, happy life, taking good care of each other at home, is a much higher priority than establishing a vast galactic empire. It would not upset me in the least if the real world turned out to be very different from a 1950s pulp fiction Space Opera.

Ya know?

[sqbr]

Something I've been thinking about lately (inspired by Mass Effect Andromeda's unfortunate lack of vision) is the distinction between "colonising" space in the broad sense of humans ending up living on other planets one way or another, and the specific 19th Century White European Coloniser With A Manifest Destiny vision most scifi has when presenting how that "colonisation" might play out. I'm not sure what a post-colonial "colonisation" might look like but I wish more writers would at least try to imagine it.

I mean I agree that alien species might well not bother moving out into space. But if they did, it might not be in the way people are imagining it.

[capri0mni]

But if they did, it might not be in the way people are imagining it.

That's my instinct as well. After all, the stories we tell are as much an attribute of our species as our physiology. Expecting real-world alien cultural history to match up with the fictional stories we tell about them is about as reasonable to imagine that aliens look like humans, except maybe with blue skin, and cute little moth antennae.

[redsixwing]

C. But if we're insignificant now, that doesn't mean we always will be, or that resource exploitation is the only reason to make contact.

... or that we won't get out there eventually, and figure out a niche that suits us.

[capri0mni]

Nod.

I just scanned the Wikipedia article on the Drake Equation (which is what the Fermi Paradox is based on), and the highest current guess-timate for the number of advanced civilizations who could communicate with us is 156,000,000.

It would really not hurt my feelings at all if there were 155,999,999 other species out there to choose to strike up a conversation with, and the aliens choose to talk to someone else.

:-)

[redsixwing]

Right? Especially because we're sort of the wallflowers at the party.

w/r/t the colonialist assumptions of the Fermi paradox, it may also be a matter of simple politeness - just as you don't go up to someone who's having a good time on their own and insist they join you in your flavor of fun* maybe it's generally rude to go bother some species that hasn't really come out of its shell yet.


*well, some people do, but see E

[capri0mni]

And, as dialecticdreamer has pointed out, when it comes to life outside our own sphere,* we're at about the intellectual level of a toddler, who points at any four-legged animal and squeals: "Goggy!" at an ear-splitting pitch, and runs toward it with grabby hands.

Any species with a modicum of self preservation instinct has probably learned to give us a wide berth.

*(which, to be honest, is our sphere of familiarity, much less our planetary sphere),

[redsixwing]

"I'm not going near those people until they learn to keep their hands to themselves."

"Oh, come on. They can't be so bad."

"Look, Hzyrt. Do you have a flesh body? No. You're made of plasma. If they tried to grab you, they'd regret it. Me? Not only am I corporeal, I'm fuzzy, and they'd perceive my coat as being a color associated with their young. I wouldn't stand a chance."

"You don't think they'd get aggressive?"

"No, not as such - but I do think they'd try to pick up the ambassador for a cuddle, and that wouldn't end well."

[capri0mni]

Exactly!

And the "Where is Everybody?" question is basically us, wondering through the house calling: "Kitty! Come play with me, Kitty!"

...While the cat does the sensible thing, and hides behind the washer.

[redsixwing]

I'm tickled by this idea.

...okay, that's now the least depressing option I've seen.

[capri0mni]

*chuckle*

[chanter1944]

C, but within limits. If I have to choose, I'll go for the option that allows for opportunities for non hostile first contact in the future, once technological or social thresholds have been reached. ... my growing up with Trek series is showing.

[capri0mni]

Yup.

I grew up with Trek, too (The first season of the original series came on when I was just about to turn 3, and it was "appointment television" for both my parents from the beginning).

...Though, looking back, I always sided with the aliens before the crew.

[jekesta]

I think D is the one I most naturally settle on, I suppose it would be nice to think it was C, which was more what you actually asked, but I don't think it's C.

[capri0mni]

I'd be equally at peace with either D or C. Which one actually makes me happiest at any given moment changes with the wind.

In any case, what annoys me about the Fermi Paradox is that it works on the assumption that reality is just like our science fiction, which A) is entirely, 100% human-made, and B) fiction.

I do know that B (Which is the conclusion I've seen discussed most often, and with the straightest of faces) is the option that makes me the most depressed.

[igenlode]

I don't know about happy, but my instinctive reaction would be A: sustainable, self-reproducing life-as-we-know-it is a fluke, and the chances against it are very, very high...

Or possibly a variation on that: any life-forms are so spread out among such a lot of uninhabitable nothingness that the chances of their actually meeting are vanishingly low.

[capri0mni]

Nod.

I think that variation may be a close approximation of D: interstellar travel is actually impossible; no one is getting off their own home base.

And then there's the point that "as we know it" is a pretty hefty qualifier. We're not even entirely sure how much life is on this planet -- and we live here. If alien life is truly alien, chances are good we wouldn't know it if we saw it.

... And don't get me started on the qualifier "intelligent" -- we're still looking for ways to ignore the intelligence of many of our own species, if the results are convenient for us.

[/cynicism]

[igenlode]

Absolutely -- we're spending all this time looking for 'Earth-like planets' on the assumption that lightning can only strike in the same place twice. But in fact alien life-forms might be incredibly thin, spread-out entities that live in interstellar gases and have a consciousness that only registers the passages of aeons... in which case, our existence would be a mere eye-blink to them, assuming they recognised us as a life-form rather than a random biological process in the first place. Which they probably wouldn't.

[capri0mni]

*Nod*

And even if the aliens are "life as we know it," and could audition successfully for the next installment in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, the chances of us even seeing each other is infinitesimally small.

If there are aliens on those planets recently confirmed, and they happen to be at a similar technological level as ourselves, and if they happen to be looking back at us -- would they have any clue that we were here?

Probably not.

One of the most promising star systems to support life that we could recognize is four hundred light-years away. if we're gazing at each other "simultaneously," then then they'd be seeing Earth as it was in 1617. ... We weren't exactly broadcasting our activities beyond the next village, back then.

[igenlode]

Yes, there's the time factor as well as the distance factor; the universe is not only very, very large but very, very old (and with plenty of future time left to run, too). So in order to meet aliens, we would not only need to be reasonably close (according to whatever means of hypothetical superluminal travel they might have devised -- without that, I think it's hopeless since the distances are just too great) but reasonably coeval as well. Unless you assume that our civilisation is likely to last for millions of years (seems unlikely, given our short history as a species so far), and/or theirs has already done likewise.

[capri0mni]

Superluminal travel is nifty for fiction, but I'm resigning myself to the thought that it is impossible in fact -- which is why I happy enough with option D on my list.

Although, as I wrote here, back in 2005, one option I came up with (as an alternative to time travel) is to have compatible civilizations shifting to micro-planet sized ships traveling at near-light-speed, only interacting with each other, and not bothering with having any "home base" anchored to any particular star.

[vilakins]

D and E for me.

[capri0mni]

Personally, I like "F" -- the "uncommon" answer I gave in the footnote -- they've been communicating with non-humans for years.

[alatefeline]

I'm really hoping that the Uplift answer - we're a wildlife preserve - is accurate.

[capri0mni]

If so, I hope the gamekeepers come by soon, and give Trump a good thump on the backside of his head.

And then, maybe help us cool the oceans back down, so we don't suffocate when all the phytoplankton die.

:-/

[alatefeline]

Yeah. I wish...

[igenlode]

There's also David Brin's "The Crystal Spheres"...

[capri0mni]

Heh.

Yes.

Though the Speed of Light constant is probably working to much the same effect, without such elaborate mechanics.