# Why are we getting dissed by the larger inter-galactic community? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 15, 2005, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-getting-dissed-by-the-larger-inter-galactic-community/284835 "2005-01-15T06:15:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-getting-dissed-by-the-larger-inter-galactic-community/284835/121 "2005-01-21T14:54:32Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Not _one_ individual in the entire species or range of species out of countless billions or trillions? I would be extremely surprised if “curiosity in other species” was characteristic only of a particular kind of bipedal primate found in one of the the outer spiral arms of the galaxy, despite many other species being more technologically advanced (indeed, how did they acheive such advancement without “curiosity” in general?) Look to bees, ants & wasps for models for our hypothetical life forms, & you may find the answer. Or, curiosity for these species may be non-social & purely survival-oriented. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-getting-dissed-by-the-larger-inter-galactic-community/284835/122 "2005-01-21T15:03:11Z")
> [@](#): > > Look to bees, ants & wasps for models for our hypothetical life forms, & you may find the answer. Why just such an absurdly restrictive subset? Why not look to all the species ever extant on Earth and all possibilities outside of it? You ask us to consider the possibility that _no_ such species acheived “advanced civilisation” by leaking their electromagnetic communications into space and developing “curiosity” in _other_ advanced civilisations, and even that no single _aberrant individual_ of any such species ever did so. One might as well entertain the notion that these guys have us in a _Matrix_, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-getting-dissed-by-the-larger-inter-galactic-community/284835/123 "2005-01-21T15:14:47Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > Why just such an absurdly restrictive subset? Why not look to all the species ever extant on Earth and all possibilities outside of it? You ask us to consider the possibility that _no_ such species acheived “advanced civilisation” by leaking their electromagnetic communications into space and developing “curiosity” in _other_ advanced civilisations, and even that no single _aberrant individual_ of any such species ever did so. One might as well entertain the notion that these guys have us in a _Matrix_, IMO. :dubious: :dubious: :dubious: No. I’m suggesting that Hive Intelligence is the most common model. BTW–I doubt that any of our detectable radio signals have gone much beyond 50-75 Light Years out, at this date. So, only those species relatively near Earth could even have a chance of finding us. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-getting-dissed-by-the-larger-inter-galactic-community/284835/124 "2005-01-21T15:26:22Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m suggesting that Hive Intelligence is the most common model. On what basis? In terms of species which have acheived advanced civilisation, we have a sample size of precisely **one** : a bipedal primate. > [@](#): > > I doubt that any of our detectable radio signals have gone much beyond 50-75 Light Years out, at this date. > So, only those species relatively near Earth could even have a chance of finding us. You’re right: signals audible across the galaxy are a very [recent](http://www.naic.edu/) possibility for us. But these guys have aer supposed to have been around for _millennia_: quite enough time for _their_ signals to reach _us_. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2005, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-getting-dissed-by-the-larger-inter-galactic-community/284835/125 "2005-01-21T20:08:23Z")
> [@Steve MB](#): > > Stop and look, sure. That also doesn’t leave any obvious traces, presuming that it’s done by someone intelligent enough to avoid messing up the very thing he’s trying to study. > > Colonize, no, because interstellar travellers are necessarily\* adapted to life in deep space rather than life on planets. In this case, it’s not a matter of “just one exception” – when failure to follow a rule involves a basic logical contradiction (i.e. living in an environment for centuries without being adapted to function in that environment), you just aren’t going to get any exceptions. > > \*Assuming that travelling faster than light is completely impossible and travelling fast enough to significantly reduce the shipboard-measured time is effectively impossible, both of which are pretty well supported by everything we know about physics. Isn’t the point of colonizing the galaxy to well, _colonize_ it? I don’t mean colonizing all the planets. You’re right, once you can build large, comfortable artificial habitats in space, you don’t need planets so much. But why would these ET’s just be “passing through?” Wouldn’t some of them have stayed? Unless there’s some rule that if a planet in your system evolves vertebrate life, you have to vacate that system, because vertebrates eventually develop intelligence, language, tool use, and eventually their own space ships. ---
**Author:** ![Snag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Snag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snag)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-getting-dissed-by-the-larger-inter-galactic-community/284835/126 "2005-01-22T02:25:04Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > The question remains: **why NOT ONE signal?** Even if there _were_ some advanced means of communication or coding which we currently could not tell from noise, I struggle to believe that there is _not one_ trickster or technological-history buff in the entire galaxy who might send a recognisably “deliberate” signal our way, and those civilisations could not have chased and terminated those signals emitted from back when they _were_ being used. I read an article in Discovery magazine years ago that detailed the problems. If memory serves, to to look for signals similar to the very weak ones we are sending, we’d need to upgrade SETI by several orders of magnitude to do it efficiently. We’re still guessing about the best frequencies, that could be part of the problem. Likewise, if we wanted to send a strong signal in order to be found, it would require something like a city’s worth of constant power to send a decent one. And if the intended recipients are not in its path they 'd likely not get it. In any case a laser might be better, but damned expensive. There may also be something like quantum forms of communication that may be more efficient and more widely used, but currently unknown here. ---
**Author:** ![Zonyx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a183cd/32.png) [@Zonyx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zonyx)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2005, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-getting-dissed-by-the-larger-inter-galactic-community/284835/127 "2005-01-22T11:19:15Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Well, Gerard K O’Neil claimed we had the technology to do it decades ago. What we lack is the motivation & commitment. The Chinese have apparently committed to a moon base. > > We probably could have a permanent moon base within 50 years. It will most likely be up to private industry, because I don’t think NASA is ever going to do it. It’s really hard to guess how fast private industry can move. Maybe large, permanent orbiting space colonies between 50 and 100 years. Within 200 years I’d say we could have a large colony, or colonies of humans living permanently in space. By permanently I mean, if they had to, they could survive indefinitely without needing anything from Earth. That’s the important milestone I think. Once people don’t need the Earth, then colonizing the galaxy is just a matter of time. > > So, something has to happen sometime between say, now and a couple hundred years from now to either convince us not to colonize the galaxy, or prevent us from colonizing the galaxy. My biggest worry about dying is that I’m gonna miss out on all the interesting stuff. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2005, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-getting-dissed-by-the-larger-inter-galactic-community/284835/128 "2005-01-23T11:48:24Z")
> [@Steve MB](#): > > If a civilization has the technology to build ships that can undertake indefinite one-way missions (which is a prerequisite for interstellar travel if you don’t assume that FTL is possible), they don’t particularly need habitable planets. If anything, habitable planets would be inconvenient – all the useful stuff is at the bottom of a gravity well and under an atmosphere. > They could have harvested the Sol System for resources anytime up to the past century or so and we’d never know it unless we took close-up photos of the right asteroid. They wouldn’t manufacture von Neumann replicators to do nothing but replicate! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-getting-dissed-by-the-larger-inter-galactic-community/284835.md?page=6)