You Are Not Special Commencement Speech

MyOwnDemon said:
Just in the Milky Way alone there are over 1 BILLION stars like our sun (some are so big Earth would fit inside them 25x), and a thousand BILLION planets (1,000,000,000,000). That means if only 1 planet out of every 1000 was able to sustain some kind of life, then there would still be 1 billion planets in the milky way with life. And that's just our galaxy. Hows that for feeling small?
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Ok, time to pull out the big-boy math on this special shit:

Drake equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It could be somewhere between "alone in the Universe" and ~500 spacefaring civilizations in our galaxy right now, depending on who's assumptions you plug in the equation.

One thing's for sure though, it can't be like the Star Wars galaxy... Even if most systems were capable of raising an intelligent species, TIME would spread all those different races out.
 


Watched all of it and enjoyed. +Rep Dr.

"If everyone is special then no one is special"
"If everyone gets a trophy then trophies are worthless"
"I know . . . hundreds gasp with your every tweet"
lowlz

I saw a different video than some others. The one I saw may not have been the best speaker but was neither monotonous or boring. Found a couple laughs and some wisdom.
 
lukep said:
Ok, time to pull out the big-boy math on this special shit:

Drake equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It could be somewhere between "alone in the Universe" and ~500 spacefaring civilizations in our galaxy right now, depending on who's assumptions you plug in the equation.

One thing's for sure though, it can't be like the Star Wars galaxy... Even if most systems were capable of raising an intelligent species, TIME would spread all those different races out.
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The drake equation is bullshit. Time means nothing when you're traveling at the speed of light, btw.
 
lukep said:
You mean that 'speed' that matter can't get up to? Yes, you're right.
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Take a piece of paper. Draw an 'A' on one part. Draw a 'B' on another part. We've always been told the shortest distance between those 2 points is a straight line, which is true with our technology.

But fold the piece of paper so A touches B. That is the current theory of how instantaneous space travel would be possible. The speed of light. I am not making this shit up. Google it.

Time doesn't really matter. I don't even see how it's a factor when time is only relevant based on your speed and point of reference.

Who are we to say what advanced technologies are capable of? We are limited by our own UNDERSTANDING of science and math.
 
Folding space isn't travelling at light speed though. You'd cruise on through the wormhole at normal speed... So the effect you were trying to get isn't achieved.

Time certainly matters when dealing with the numbers of intelligent beings in this galaxy... Which point were you trying to argue?
 
Explain how time matters. You are saying that because of "time", these races would be way too far apart to interact with or discover each other.

Your argument was time. Therefore, I'm saying time isn't even a factor if these other civilizations are truly advanced. That's my argument here, sorry if that wasn't clear.
 
MyOwnDemon said:
Explain how time matters. You are saying that because of "time", these races would be way too far apart to interact with or discover each other.
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Because each civilization would have a limited time to search or be found within their "shelf life."

Let's say the first intelligent species in the whole galaxy arose on a system where our solar system is today. Like us, their planet took 4 Billion years to produce them, and then, against all odds, they went out spacefaring around the galaxy, exploring, mining, conquering new worlds, searching out new life, yadda yadda yadda, for another BILLION years.

Then they moved on... Evolved, either up or down, transcending into a pure energy form or back down into primates, or whatever... Their civilization somehow fell... Many scientists think this amount of time could be very small, such as mere thousands of years, not even a few million.

Then many Billions of years later, their sun went Nova, (as did all the stars in the galactic arm, destroying all evidence of their existence) and then turned to nebulas, and then new systems, and the systems formed new planets, and that's where Earth finally entered the scene, 4 Billion years ago.

Of course some of that old race could have decided to ditch the milky way and travel for billions of years over to the Andromeda galaxy, and assuming they can stay fueled and not too bored on the journey, they could still be alive over there right now... But not as likely here, because of the vast amounts of time.


MyOwnDemon said:
I'm saying time isn't even a factor if these other civilizations are truly advanced. That's my argument here, sorry if that wasn't clear.
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If they arose 12 Billion years ago, and had no problem travelling forwards in time 12 billion years, what, exactly, would be their incentive to pick right here and now to stop and look around?

Civilizations aren't permanent. Macro-evolution changes happens in mere thousands or just a few millions of years. -With technology, who knows, maybe only 200 years from now the human race may no longer be interested in the physical form at all.

It's a pretty fair bet that once we've mastered technology (including wetware) we'll yearn for something better than the physical, or be literally bored to death.

So the odds are that we won't find anyone, not during the window of time we're searching for them... This is all just one variable within the Drake equation.
 
Point 1 noted and I do appreciate your argument. But you are assuming they are billions of years old. What if they're not? What if their society is only as old as ours? In theory (at least as it relates to this argument), "we" (them and us) exist in the same galaxy, after all, so perhaps all life within the Milky Way started together. They just outpaced us in the brains department by leaps and bounds.

Point 2. Our civilizations here on Earth aren't permanent, that is certain. However, you (nor I) have absolutely no idea what kind of social structures and societies that life on other planets may have in place. Chances are pretty damn good that they stopped fighting/killing each other long ago and started to work together in order to even achieve their advanced space travel in the first place. Instead of building bombs and killing each other, they were able to harness that same energy and intelligence, placing it into positive outcomes. Creating instead of destroying. Their home planets may be gone in your scenario, but they may have already colonized others.

And it's not about finding them or them finding us, it's just about knowing they are out there somewhere. For all we know they probably regard us the same way we look at an insect. Can we talk and reason with an insect? No, why even bother? Can we observe them? Yes, and we notice that they're too busy killing each other and carrying dirt around to notice the big picture around them.

Why would they even bother trying to establish a line of communcation? We may be searching for them, but they surely aren't searching for us. Or don't care enough to give us a reply. That doesn't mean they aren't out there.

(I am really enjoying this discussion but I have to go to bed, but I will read your reply when I wake up).
 
MyOwnDemon said:
Point 1 noted and I do appreciate your argument. But you are assuming they are billions of years old.
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Or Billions in the future. Either way, the Chances are, with possibly quadrillions of years of the life of this universe, they didn't arrive in sequence with us. So it's another probability variable, just one of the many in the Drake equation.

MyOwnDemon said:
What if they're not? What if their society is only as old as ours? In theory (at least as it relates to this argument), "we" (them and us) exist in the same galaxy, after all, so perhaps all life within the Milky Way started together. They just outpaced us in the brains department by leaps and bounds.
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If on that extremely rare chance a race evolved in lockstep with us in the same part of the galaxy with us (otherwise the distance would be too far to be sensible to talk about) to arrive into a Type II civilization at the same time as us and cross paths with us too; if all of that lined up perfectly (and we haven't destroyed ourselves or devolved by then, Idiocracy-style) then sure, we could finally have first contact that day.

I think it's about a trillion times more likely that we run across many lesser-evolved species of life while we're exploring though... Like the dinosaurs taught us, life happening is likely in our universe; Intelligence isn't.



MyOwnDemon said:
Point 2. Our civilizations here on Earth aren't permanent, that is certain. However, you (nor I) have absolutely no idea what kind of social structures and societies that life on other planets may have in place. Chances are pretty damn good that they stopped fighting/killing each other long ago and started to work together in order to even achieve their advanced space travel in the first place. Instead of building bombs and killing each other, they were able to harness that same energy and intelligence, placing it into positive outcomes. Creating instead of destroying. Their home planets may be gone in your scenario, but they may have already colonized others.
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You are more optimistic than I about their chances. Keep in mind what life is... All life on this planet, in all of its' forms, had to literally devour other living things to exist. I don't see how that will be different elsewhere.

If we do cross paths with aliens in the future, we'd better be damn careful to not wind up their lunch... There was nothing impossible at all about the alien race in Independence day.

But even without getting that far, think about how close we came to turning this rock into a glass marble during the Bay of Pigs... Or how a Terminator Judgement day could still conceivably happen... Or most likely in my opinion, a Idiocracy-style de-evolution is already happening to us...

We don't have enough evidence to know this yet, but it could be that ALL Intelligent life everywhere follows the same pattern we did up to a point of not needing our brains anymore and devolves quickly once we invent machines that take care of us... Perhaps by 2200 humans turn into a race of babies than robots nurse along for eternity in our cribs... There are so many unknown ways to NOT become a Type II civilization it's incredible.


MyOwnDemon said:
And it's not about finding them or them finding us, it's just about knowing they are out there somewhere. For all we know they probably regard us the same way we look at an insect.
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That's all I meant by finding... Just the finding of any evidence of intelligent life. Even finding artifacts of an extinct civilization would be such a near miss than we might as well have found them.


MyOwnDemon said:
Why would they even bother trying to establish a line of communcation? We may be searching for them, but they surely aren't searching for us. Or don't care enough to give us a reply. That doesn't mean they aren't out there.
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You can't know that. Assuming that they evolved in a similar way to us, and they haven't met other civilizations yet, I'm sure there is a Billion years POSSIBLE that they'd be open to contact with us... No matter if they are ahead or behind us... I mean if you've never met another human but ppl in your own immediate family, and one day you stumbled across some aboriginies, you'd be curious, right?
 
I think (read: know) the only type 2 civs in our physical universe are "artificial" intelligence and 90%+ hybrids.
 
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