Astrum Space - Why this Solution to the Fermi Paradox Is Terrifying

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

Join with me today as we see what we should do when approaching the search for alien life. Because depending on the answer to this question, we have some vitally significant choices ahead of us as a species. And seeing as this is a question that scientists and political leaders are not yet considering seriously, let’s have a go at it on this platform.

Throughout human history, much thought has gone into what alien life might look like. Sometimes they are depicted as grey-skinned humanoids with large eyes, sometimes as strange tentacle monsters. But ultimately, while this is an interesting question to consider, it's not really the most important one, for there is a far more pressing consideration we need to talk about if aliens actually do exist. Namely, if we encounter aliens tomorrow, what might we expect them to do. While this may seem like an idle question, our survival as a species might depend on us knowing the answer, because if aliens do exist, by the time they find us, it will be too late to consider it. By then, it might be too late to do anything at all. This is a

question that determines our species' destruction, or maybe our salvation. I'm Alex McColgan and you're listening to the Astrum podcast. Join with me today, as we see what we should do when approaching the search for alien life, because depending on the answer to this question, we have some vitally significant choices ahead of us as a species. And seeing as this is a question that scientists and political leaders are not yet considering seriously, let's have a go at it on this platform. If our speculations on the behavior of hypothetical aliens are to be useful to us, they need to be grounded in real observations as much as possible.

For instance, we know that life can arise in the universe because it did at least once with us. We also know that rather than a galaxy teeming with alien spaceships and superstructures, our telescopes look up at the night sky and see only quietness. There are no obvious ships flying over our cities. Aliens, if they exist, are difficult to detect, maybe deliberately so. The deductions that we try to make about them must line up with this fact. Finally, as we don't have any alien civilizations to draw conclusions from yet, we'll have to instead look to all the myriad ways humans have lived and worked together over the years

to gain at least some general ideas about what's possible, societally speaking. Comparing ourselves with aliens isn't completely unreasonable. After all, when it comes to biological evolution, there's a surprising amount of convergence that takes place here on Earth, with certain features like eyes or wings, forming independently multiple times, civilizations might well be the same, even alien ones. Some ways of living might just work, so might appear independently more than once. So although we don't know for certain that alien life is even out there, let's bring these ideas together.

In doing so, we gain some revealing insights. It's time to hold up the mirror to ourselves. We are the only instance of life arising in the universe that we know of. The great human experiment of civilization has been going on for thousands of years and has produced many different types of society. Socialist, capitalist, hunter-gatherer, nomadic, and theocratic, to name just a few. We thus have quite a few ideas to compare when considering how aliens might behave. Speaking, though, let's examine two great extremes and see how they might influence alien

civilization. These two extremes are altruism and aggression, love and violence. Let's start with violence. While this may be a pessimistic starting point, it is sadly one we must consider, because as human civilization has developed throughout eras, different groups of humans have almost always clashed violently. This ties in terms of humans. to the evolutionary idea, the competition always occurs when there are more organisms than there are resources. Humans are organisms, and we need resources to survive. And so, all too often, war throughout the ages has been fought over resources.

Agricultural land, people, and all the labor power and industry they can produce. Oil. Gold. Even when a civilization develops space travel and reaches for the stars, this issue will still likely exist. After all, we are nearly at the stars ourselves, and there certainly seems to be no shortage of violent conflict amongst us today. So, with the sample size of exactly one, we have to at least consider the possibility that the other alien races are the same as us, driven by a need for resources to support an ever-growing population. Of course, when it comes to

societies, there are even more reasons why clashes might occur. For instance, religious or ideological differences. The Cold War was largely fought between countries that espoused different political ideologies, capitalism and communism, that threatened each other. Alien civilization might equally differ from us ideologically. In fact, it would be surprising if they didn't. And so it's possible they might feel their ideology is threatened in some way by ours. This could lead to conflict too.

This is not even to mention the fact that some cultures idolize violence itself, deeming themselves of worth only when they are winning victories, such as Viking Raiders or Spartan Hoplites. Others seek to build empires, recognizing it's much easier to take wealth from others than it is to build it yourself. All these reasons are perfectly plausible for an intelligent race that has mastered its planet, out-competed other life forms there, and likely feels good about doing so. Survival feels good. We enjoy feeling strong. But if this leads to conflict, what might an alien conflict look like? Technology raises

the stakes. We currently lack the technology to move objects to other solar systems, given the vast distances throughout space. Unless we intend to just throw insulting messages at each other through the void, actual fighting cannot be achieved until we manage to solve speed of light travel, and probably something faster than that. It is possible that one day we might get around this problem, and this instantly opens a dangerous possibility. It is theoretically impossible to move something up to the speed of light because of the link between mass and energy.

The more energy something has, the more mass it has, because the two are linked, and thus the more energy you need to increase its speed further. This is only noticeable at relativistic speeds, but it does mean you'd theoretically need infinite energy to move mass up to the speed of light. But if you throw an asteroid-sized object at a planet at near light speed, then all that energy gets released in one go. This kind of strike can easily wipe out all life on a planet, and the people on it wouldn't even see it coming.

Any intelligent race would be very aware of the impact potential of objects such as this. For us, we only need to look at the dinosaurs. You don't need nukes or soldiers on the ground to fight an alien war, just rocks thrown really, really fast. This opens up one possible answer to where all the aliens are, a question known as the Fermi paradox. If alien civilizations exist and any of them prove to be willing to do this, maybe the other aliens realized that it was simply safer not to communicate.

Letting other races know that you are there would simply place a target on your back. After all, if you could both do this, and they wouldn't see it coming, could they really trust you not to strike first? They could see us as a risk that they are not willing to take. Known as the Dark Forest Theory, this possible answer to the Fermi paradox says that the only aliens out there are silent simply because they don't wish to be on the possible receiving end of these kind of Planet Buster weapons. hunters travelling cautiously through a dark forest, they are all either quiet or dead.

They have been subject to this selective pressure. However, this is not the only plausible model of behaviour that might still prevent us from seeing aliens. The second option is simply indifference. With billions of years of history at play, it might not be the case that we are on technological parity with all the other forms of life that might be out there. life might simply be so far beyond us, they simply regard us as dispassionately as we might an ant.

They might not be talking to us because we have nothing interesting to say. Why do you not talk to insects in your garden? The gap is too great. You understand what they want perfectly, and they have no hope of understanding you. Communication would be frankly pointless. That said, life is probably rare in the universe. If they desire resources and are that far beyond us, they probably wouldn't need to mine our planet specifically.

We might have value as a curiosity, something to be left alone to flourish simply because they have decided that we have some value as a specimen in some kind of grand cosmic zoo. And as any zookeeper would tell you, the closer you get an enclosure to look like an animal's natural habitat, the happier that animal normally is. While they might not care about us, perhaps they do not wish to alarm us by stepping into our natural habitat. In fairness, this is a valid line of reasoning. Humanity would likely find it very distressing to learn that we are in fact not at the top

of the food chain, and that our very existence depends on the mild indifference of a vastly superior alien race. Of course, if this was true, we would need to be careful. In my home, I was perfectly willing to live and let live when I found ants in my garden. When ants came into my kitchen, I quickly got out the ant killer. We would do well not to provoke them. Both of these ideas about alien behavior are bleak, so you'll be glad to know that there is one alternative to hatred and indifference.

And in fact, it may prove to be the most realistic for higher levels of society, cooperation. Cooperation exists within nature. Not all life competes. Within species, packs of wolves can cooperate to achieve their goals, protecting those within the group even as they attack those outside it. There are giant supercolonies of ants that do this, working together and spanning entire countries, with each hill all considering themselves as part of the same colony. Aggressive to those outside of it, but supportive and even self-sacrificing towards those who are. within. There are advantages to this, as we humans are well aware.

We would not have gotten anywhere if we hadn't learned how to work together. Knowledge pooled allows the creation of all kinds of technology. Ironically, no one really knows how to build a computer from scratch, but there are people who know how to build a motherboard, other people who know how to build a screen, and other people that know how to mine the resources. all these people know that the other people exist, and so can work together. Historically speaking, there is compelling evidence that as time has gone on, we humans have become better at this kind of cooperative thinking too.

It used to be that groups of humans were localized into small tribes, fighting other small tribes. However, that elevated to small kingdoms, then big ones, then whole countries and alliances spanning across national borders. Following that to its natural conclusion, at some point, a nation may exist that all humans in the world feel a part of, a unified planet Earth. But why is this a more likely outcome than violence? Simply put, technology forces it. Not only do we remove barriers to communication the more advanced our communication gets,

but as our ability to destroy ourselves increases, there simply isn't an alternative except learning how to get along. than total annihilation, of course, but that's a pretty unappealing alternative, one would hope. And so it's possible that aliens develop the same way. If they did, how might they behave towards the universe at large? While they might still be aggressive to outsiders initially, ultimately, they may have attempted to take this to the next level, embracing new alien races as brothers and sisters, part of a great galactic hole. It's just a continuation of the trend. With potentially millions of years of history drilling the dangers of violence into them,

they may actually abhor fighting, and there may be millions of aliens of many different races, all cooperating peacefully under one banner. Then, why don't we see them? Well, perhaps they prefer to let us learn our own historical lessons about the value of cooperation before speaking to us. An aggressive race would not benefit the galactic community as a whole, so until we learn to get along, advanced alien races might not want to share with us their ideas and technology, particularly if such

toys could then be used as weapons. Perhaps they believe that we will either figure out how to get along, or else we'll wipe ourselves out. Either way, in the meantime, it is better they stay hands off. As any parent will tell you, sometimes telling a child something is not enough for a lesson to sink in. Sometimes experience is the only effective teacher. There might be a galactic community out there just waiting to welcome us.

Violence, indifference, benevolence. In theory, any of these or all of these in some combination might be the reasons we don't hear from alien life. Ultimately, we would be wise to tread carefully. Meeting alien civilizations might sound exciting, but it would inevitably come with terrible risks. And possibly fantastic rewards? Is it worth the gamble? Well, that's all we have time for today. I hope you've enjoyed, or at least we're not too horrified, listening to this podcast on possible answers to the Fermi paradox and what they might mean for first contact. If you like what you've heard, please feel free to

follow us for more podcasts on other fascinating space topics. But for now, I'm Alex McCulligan and this has been Astrum. All the best and see you next time. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi- Vehicle discount. Safe driver discount? New vehicle discount. Storage discount. Legacy. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh, no. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own. If we find anything suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away. All through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app.

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