Is 'Zoo Hypothesis' Mainstream?

Yes, that was to disprove the cited idea here that all our signals “will have faded away to quantum noise and nothing more.”

It was agreeing with you that the claim is incorrect.

And was wrong multiple times, and was disagreed with multiple times.

Just the fact that our planet is habitable doesnt make it a target, unless someone is making a target of billions of planets.

Ah yes, that’s right.
I’ve argued here before that a certain level of abstract puzzle solving can be assumed; it’s unlikely that interstellar travel is going to be the same flavor of problem that they needed to solve in their natural environment.

I’m not sure which disagreement you are referring to.

If you are the sort of xenocidal race that would be necessary to explain the Dark Forest hypothesis

Which I do believe was a thing before the book by that name

Then you pretty much HAVE TO be scanning billions of targets. Because if you aren’t, you’d never notice intelligent life in time to react and wipe it out before it spreads to the stars and becomes a threat to you. You’ve got to be proactive about it.

What is wrong? That an oxygen rich atmosphere doesn’t have a distinct signature, that that can’t be seen by powerful telescopes from far away?

The only disagreement on those points that I have seen is from you.

What the implications of that are pure speculation on any of our parts, and therefore, simply asserting that a speculation is “wrong” is about the only way to actually be wrong in a conversation life this.

It certainly makes it a bigger target than a lifeless rock. It makes it worth keeping a closer eye on, or even wiping out, if you are a genocidal civilization that is doing its best to prevent any competition from arising.

And where do you get your info that there are billions of planets with oxygen rich atmospheres?

In any case, the discussion that most of us are having here on these points is that the “hiding” hypothosis is unlikely, for these reasons.

Did you have an opinion on that, or did you just jump into the middle of a conversation without understanding the context?

That a alien civilization would decide to go around eradicating every other O2 planet in the universe.

Okay, so other than declaring a certainty, rather than couching it in probability as most of us prefer to do when dealing with such unknowns, we are on the same page. I think?

The entire point I have been making is that we have been broadcasting the fact that there is life here for billions of years, and no one has wiped us out yet, therefore, the probability that there is a genocidal civ wiping out the competition is low, therefore, there is no reason that we need to hide.

Is there anything you disagree with in that?

Who, in turn, get wiped out by a methane-breathing race.

Or more likely they will have a whole set of planets that they consider targets. Or, even more likely, that’s exactly why the idea of a xenocidal civilization is ludicrous, and rational budding civilizations would know this, so they wouldn’t resort to hiding.

Sure, that’s fine. But let us say there is a alien civ that wants to wipe out all other life.

Now it detects a 02 planet 10000 ly away. It will take them 10000 years to get there. By that time, life back home may well have decided that wiping out all other life is stupid. And certainly life 10000 ly away is not a threat, unless by some chance it is also highly advanced and also wants to destroy all life.

How many planets are there in the universe? 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets that’s how many.

How Many Planets In The Universe? | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Medium.

Now, in order for there to be a billion planets with 02 life, what is the %?

There are so many planets that of course there are billions with a 02 atmosphere. And with intelligent life.

Why would they travel there?

If they did travel there, then how would life back home communicate their change of mind.

Well, that’s exactly the paranoia that we are talking about. Can you take the chance that they won’t?

Ah, so we are talking about the entire universe, not just those in our galaxy, or even within the 2 billion light year radius that we are talking about?

How is that number at all relevant to this conversation?

Do you claim to know what percent of planets have oxygen atmospheres?

Ah, “of course”. Always a good phrase to use in lieu of logic or math.

So, how do they destroy Earth without traveling here? Send a beam? Still takes thousands of years.

Yes, I am willing to take that one in a zillion chance.

I mean, there is a reasonable but very small chance we will be ended by a asteroid or the yellowstone supervolcano. Those odds are actually calculable.

We talked about that upthread a bit. But yeah, they could turn a star into a laser, or they could send relativistic kill missiles. With the types of energies that even a small k2 civ has, there are lots of ways.

So? I fail to see what that matters at all.

And how do you calculate that?

More or less, sure. But as you said, those odds are easier to pin down the variables, giving you a more reasonable estimate.

You have claimed a very specific chance for being wiped out by a civ that you didn’t wipe out first. Can you explain how you got to that number?

This is what we are talking about. Somehow we got off the Zoo Hypothesis.

Now let us assume a interstellar civilization, which is very paranoid. It would think that other advanced civilizations are dangerous.

But algae is not dangerous.

So they have to not only be a advanced interstellar civilization, they have to be a paranoid & evil one, one with the resources to launch “fleets” to wipe out every 02 planet, fleets that will take at the very least 1000 years to travel- and arrive at a green ball with only single celled life. Maybe 10000 years, likely even more like a million.

And of course this is all assuming that they are 02 life and they assume only 02 planets can have life- and that isnt true.

All of which travel at the speed of light- maximum.

But Babale said 'fleets".

What number, what 'specific chance"? What do you think the odds are?

You’ve clearly missed the whole point of the whole conversation.

The Dark Forest hypothesis was brought up as a reason why we do not see aliens - that they are all in hiding, afraid of a bigger badder alien civ ready to wipe them out at the first sign of intelligence.

But for the host of reasons we’ve already outlined, if we take the existence of a big bad xenocidal alien civ as a given, it wouldn’t be limiting itself to radio signals. By the time it hears radio signals from a source hundreds or thousands of light years away, it is potebtially too late to stop the growing intelligence there from becoming interstellar.

Therefore, if a big bad xenocidal alien civ that would rightly scare other civs into remaining hidden existed, HIDING FROM THEM WOULDN’T BE AN OPTION. They would have known about your planet long before you evolved highly enough to ponder their existence in the first place.

Because of this, the fact that we haven’t been wiped out by such a BBXAC already is evidence that no such civ exists. Further, any member of an alien race pondering whether to hide or not would know all this, and realize that they really cannot hide anyways, so they wouldn’t even try. Ergo, we can discount the Dark Forest hypothesis.

When you are arguing about whether or not wiping out planets is practical at all, you are missing the point, and if anything supporting my view that the Dark Forest Hypothesis is bunk.

We are nothing but advanced algae, and we’re pretty dangerous.

Evil means nothing. Are we evil because we wiped out the other hominids on Earth?

“Fleets” is entirely your own contribution. No one else has even mentioned such a thing. How many light years are you willing to travel to wipe out this strawman that you have constructed?

Better early than late, right?

In this you are correct. They would likely have identified other signs of developing life and eliminate them as well.

Still fail to see your point here.

I think you entirely failed to see the context of that post.

You said it was one in a zillion. That’s a specific prediction.

I don’t know, that’s the whole point. And neither do you know, nor does a species that feels a bit terrified at the size and scope of the universe out there.