One of the best and smartest things about this show is how it acknowledges known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, or possible current misconceptions. This is a great sign of intelligence and critical thinking.
Indeed. .. and then there's Tiktok, which I think could be considered as a possible solution/contributing factor to the Fermi Paradox. Imagine alien civilizations seeing what people put online; Hopefully they'd see things like this and realize we're not (yet) a lost cause!? :D
The stars are within our potential. Also I think the Prime Directive forbids alien cultures from contacting any species with a TikTok similar app!? Space ain't big enough to let those weirdos in! :D:D
That o'neill cyllinder seems like a wild idea for an RPG game setting. You would be in a civilisation thats just inventing advanced technology but you find out your whole world is an anomaly and the universe works vastly differently.
Not only that; but I could imagine a setting where a recovering civilisation on an O'Neill cylinder is far less technologically advanced, but not needing 9 odd kms^-1 of delta v, would be prolific space travellers with significantly more primitive technology (I.E, taken to the extreme, a pre electrical civilisation on an O'neill cylinder could probably manage short manned spaceflights to other nearby O'Neill cylinders once they figure out the airlock controls, classical physics and some thermodynamics)
@@tophatsurgeon7469 this type of scifi is perfect for educational game where the AI on board has a secret education course in their language to teach them science once they discover the truth.
Not only an RPG setting but a lot of sci-fi stories too. A cylinder that was abandoned but has become a danger, perhaps with some people in board. Or there is something important in it, rockets to stop an asteroid or cameras to observe the planet. Information that is needed to stop a problem. Or it is the danger, heading to planet earth with hostile colonists in board or the disease ridden survivors of an expedition.
I wonder. How did a primitive civilisation got onto one of these habitat? If it is built by an interstellar empire trying to preserve a primitive culture on a doomed planet, this action will ought to leave some myths and legends behind. Something like, gods descended in massive metallic arks that darkened the sky, carrying the people to a paradise above the mortal world. And despite tales of extraterrestrial activity being common in ancient myths, gamers are likely to take it much more seriously than historians, because they knew the messages are significant to the plot of the game.
Reminds me of a Greg Egan book called "Quarantine". It involves the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. A giant alien civilization relies on galaxies not being collapsed waveforms into clusters of stars but when we start looking out we start collapsing galaxies into clusters of stars so they build a solid opaque sphere around our whole solar system until we learn to control our ability to collapse quantum wave duality. One of the strangest books I ever read.
That in turn reminds me of a different book. The Pathfinder series by orson Scott card I believe his name is. It involves time travel, time manipulation, paradoxes, quantum mechanics, and a lot more. Also one of the stranger books out there. Highly recommend if you can deal with how confusing it actually gets sometimes.
Is that based on the knowledge that beams of light behave differently until observed? Or something like that, I saw a video on that, it was described along the lines of Schrodingers cat hypothesis where the cat in the box is there, not there, dead, and alive in a state of Flux until the box is opened, and 1 reality is set, there was an awesome anime about an experimental machines meltdown created multiple paradoxes, and their effects on organic, and inorganic objects, it blew my mind, the poor marble fell right out of my ear, lol.
One interesting perspective I've heard about the Fermi Paradox is that the great filter might be the evolution of the eukaryotic cell, which is necessary for any form of complex life. The basis of this is that the eukaryote only evolved once on Earth, and only after over a BILLION years of simpler life. Thus the evolution of the eukaryote would be a stupidly rare, one-in-a-billion event that only happened on Earth and a few remote places. I particularly like this theory because it implies that out there there might be plenty of planets with prokaryotic bacterial life that could provide us with oxygen and nutrients without all those pesky ethical questions you get with more complex life.
watching Isaac Arthur without his speech tendencies would be like watching Stephen Hawking without his digitized voice. it just wouldnt be the same. Love your channel, content, and above all, the touch you bring to it all. --stutterin' mike
Niven's Ring World was a prison planet. Partly because the solar system had been disassembled to build the Ring by the Pak, and there wouldn't be anything to explore unless you had relativistic vehicles able to reach another star within a lifetime, so there wasn't much point except for the most advanced Ringworlder civilizations. But mostly because the Puppeteers released a persistent plague prior to the expedition in the first book, that destroyed all advanced technology on the ring used by the civilizations living there like room-temperature superconductors, out of paranoia that the Ringworlders could become powerful enough to challenge them if Ringworlder tech advanced enough to copy the Pak engineering used to build and maintain the ring.
@@MartijnHover That inherent instability, and the extreme engineering to make it work again as it breaks down, is the basis of the plot of the later books in the series.
What bothered me about that was the author's speculation that "addictive behaviors" could be bread out, that a population could just let all addicts kill themselves. It struck me as Eugenics, and spoiled it for me as someone who has dealt with family and friends with addictions. If I ever met Niven I'd punch him in his face. The jerk!
@@squirlmy Well, there is a genetic component to lots of human behaviour. Or so it would seem. Addictive bahaviour seems to be one of those. If you could cure it with medication that could be created through gene-technology would you feel the same? I had more of a problem with his hypothesis that you could breed human beings for "luck".
The intergalactic void one reminds me of Iain Banks' "Against a Dark Background" which is actually set in a star system in intergalactic space, cut off from the rest of the universe by the vast gulf. They can see that galaxies exist, but they're so far that even if they developed FTL the journey would be impractical, so the entire system is just literred with millennia of civilisations building on top of each other.
as a longtime SFIA listener, I know that's bunk. O'Neill cylinder with fusion, sent at 0.1%c even from 1Mly away, would only take a billion years but the reality is there's enough stars out there that they could reach one in a few centuries and start dysoning
@@cosmictreason2242 Those timescales are not practical from a human scale, and like I said they were deep in the void between galaxies, there were no stars in their near vicinity they could travel to. If ther'es no other stars for hundreds or thousands of LY, the *desire* to develop tech or attempt to go there is gone, because the gulf is too large. You don't dream of going to the stars if the stars are civilisation-lifetimes away at light speed itself
Great episode. Imprisoned planets; not to be confused with prison planets (Australia in spaaaaace) or impounded planets ("Where'd it go? I only left for a century...")
i really like the planet "detritus" in the skyward series -- the humans living there crashed some hundred years ago, but they can't get off because the previous occupants built an insane amount of semi-orbital infrastructure (basically a shell around the planet) oh and also there's a basically constant war with some alien race that wants to keep them prisoner, but the shell is still a big hinderance to space travel there
Per radioactives: granite often is relatively high in such materials. Not your first or second choice for that, but as a sixth or tenth, granite is a potential fissile material ore.
One of the more interesting "solutions" to the Fermi Paradox I've heard is that Humans are just rather early to the party. Like, out Galaxy isn't THAT old, and it was vomiting out a lot of ionizing radiation, which would seriously hurt life in pretty much any form. So it took awhile to get going. So congrats guys, we aren't alone, we're just the Ancient Species everyone else gets to talk about and find!
I suspect that is one of the biggest factors in the Fermi paradox combined with complex life being generally rare, and civilizations developing industrial revolution levels of technology being relatively rare as well. Most other filters seem to be too weak at least on their own.
Not to mention the generations of stars that have had to come and go to seed enough heavier elements into the cosmos to actually form rocky planets, ice giants, and even gas giants.
We are early to the party. Life was only made on earth and ~6026 years ago. But we might still colonize the whole place, depending on if #datpostmil is correct
One thing people should keep in mind is that our intelligent brain isn't the be-all-end-all of evolution. There's a reason that life keeps evolving into crabs.
I love Isaac’s content, so I say this with all due respect, but I think his speech impediment unfortunately hinders his channel’s potential growth. I have no doubt he’d already have 2 million subscribers otherwise.
@@alexcallender if you’ve followed this channel you’ll know he once or twice said he was going to hire a narrator for this channel but everyone here said NOOOO!!!! So, I’m afraid you’re in the minority.
@@Jaggerbush No, I'm aware of that, and I acknowledge there is certainly a vocal component of Isaac's already existing audience which pretty passionately disagrees with me, but I'm talking about his potential growth - new subscribers - and I sincerely believe his speech impediment is also an impediment to wider popular reception of his content. Obviously you don't have to agree with me, and I've accepted nothing is likely to change, but I feel your comment kind of misses the point.
Those references seem quaint and old fashioned to me. Have you explored PBS Space Time on RUclips? The science is more advanced than on this channel and generally loses my attention as it's too much. 🤯 After struggling with that, your reference seems a little out-of-touch 🤷
This reminds me of Star Control 2 where the Ur-quan imprisoned anyone who refused to be subservient to them, confining them to their own worlds with a red forcefield, apparently for their own good. Great plot and great game.
also, don't forget the Spathi who, once you give/sell them the tech, make a shield around their world. (Not to mention my 'favorite' the Ur-Quan Korh-Ah who just xenocide species) they come across
@@toddkes5890 Yes well updated to todays graphics. The star map was revolutionary I’m pretty sure whoever created the star map for Mass Effect also played Star Control 2. The version on Ur Quan Masters is the 3do version.
The thing is, you don't necessarily need "STEM geniuses" to get tech going. Give me a kid who can read and write and I could give you an adult who would be at least somewhat useful in a creative problem solving capacity. Which is really what you need in order to push boundaries in STEM, not necessarily 1-in-1000 level genius. It is a mistake to think that because the intellectual elite comprise some fraction of a percent of the population, that only a fraction of a percent are capable of solving the same problems.
Exactly, "what's a century in the grand scheme of things". For basically all of recorded history, the bottleneck in technology hasn't been individual intelligence, it has been raw materials, perquisite technologies, economies of scale, etc. Many incredibly disruptive technologies have been incredibly simple. It doesn't take a genius to design a bicycle or a heat engine or even a rocket, it just takes a lot of knowledge from previous experimentation and the specialized materials required.
Yes, but realistically by the time the 100 IQ people figure out how to keep dirt fertile that society would have already died because there wasn't enough farm land. Not saying they die completely, but a good portion of them would. Then they start again, and again before they can figure out how to make farm land tenable through generations; they die off again. Eventually they may and probably would figure it out. But they may never become space faring due to similar situations playing out again and again. If they did however, they would be billions of years past us. The universe is 14 billion years old. Life on Earth started 3.5 billion years ago. It took at least 5 billion years for the universe to stabilize to a point that life giving planets could even start to form. Realistically, we are also lucky because humans evolved near the beginning of energy expansion (do not like the term big bang as it creates a visual that is not accurate in any way). Our luck, will happen infinite times after after. There will be infinite other species to do what we do. We just happen to be one of the earliest species to have this amount of luck. As he mentions, we are maybe 1% into the beginning of the universe falling apart. And even then, the universe will still support life for trillions of years after. We are not the 1%. Earth is the 0.0000001%, in my opinion anyways. And part of that is having people like Einstein. Actually irritated by him saying "What's a century in the grand scheme of things". Not much when you consider the age of the universe. But is a lot, when you consider the life span of humans and the damage they can do to their planet in that time (which he also mentions - but seems to be overlooked). A month ago, I would have said humans are doing fairly well and will probably survive. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and I start to question how this will all end. 3 weeks, being the difference in how things are. Realistically, with things as they are, it might be a day that determines the fate of humans. One day Russia sends a nuke to hit Tacoma. 15 minutes later the US Nukes two Russian cities. 15 minutes later, a few thousand humans are still alive. A century isn't much in universal standards, but 15 minutes can be everything to a society looking to colonize space. And lastly, the Earth has many societies. Likely, a majority (not saying a vast majority, but it does affect the odds) of planets with intelligent life would end up with a single government/ruler. In that case, scientific progress would probably be hindered. Just another hurtle that Earth has avoided, by somehow having close to 200 countries. If we die by nuclear war, I hope your last thought is. Even though we are a very lucky world, We lost to the odds. We made it through 1 in a million chance, twice. But even of those worlds. 2 out of three of them fail afterwards, and we are one of the 2. Out of the very rare planet that makes it to where we are, some of us have to fail. Our luck ran out, and that is the why we do not see aliens. Hope that does not happen, but realistically we are fighting the odds everyday to continue to survive where many aliens have failed.
In terms of gravity I think with enough effort a civilisation on nearly any sized planet could reach space, it would just get exponentially harder to get enough up to do anything useful , If you had a super earth with a super dense atmosphere with enough effort you could still launch things to space by raising the ship high in the atmosphere using a launchpad floated with vast balloons first and from there use a railgun to accelerate a rocket or ion propelled spaceplane to minimise the delta v required by the actual ship to get from launch to orbit, to get out of the gravity well you'd need something very efficient with minimal fuel required like ion engines. Whilst there may be planets with atmospheres too turbulent for even that to work where it's truly impossible to escape I Imagine most civilisations on rocky planets would be able to escape their planets with varying degrees of required investment and effort.
A world of heavy gravity, where the apex species are those able to raise their heads enough to look towards the horizon to see the low to the ground herds. Would a world like that even breed a species capable of looking up and dreaming of what lay beyond the blank sky?
It might be a mistake to be searching for a single, universal solution to the Fermi Paradox. It seems to me that the creation of an interstellar civilization might be a case of everything going right, and there are a lot more of ways for *something* to go wrong than for everything to go right.
I think Matt's point is that there may not be a great filter. Which is very true. Several minor filters could clearly do the same filtering as one or two great filters. The question is mostly about how much of the filtering is previous to _our_ level of development, vs. in _our_ future. On the other hand, the solution, by definition, *_does_* have to be "universal", in the sense that it has to apply universally to actual and hypothetical planets, life, civilizations, etc, -universally. The question isn't why one particular civilization hasn't colonized our Galaxy, but why _all_ of the possibly possible civilizations _have failed to_ colonize our Galaxy.
@@jengleheimerschmitt7941 there are multiple filters, a filter is just Fermi paradox jargon for anything that would prevent a civilization from expanding beyond their home planet.
Thank you! I read Dragon Egg by Robert Forward in the 80's but forgot the name of the author and the book. I have been looking for it to add to my library for some time, and now i can. Yeah, there are so many reasons to love this channel!
Actually with regards to cosmic voids there is pretty strong evidence that our galaxy the Milky Way is actually within an enormous cosmic void. Sure we are within one of the largest galaxies within the local void but this still opens up the possibility that life might be restricted to forming in voids where planets might have enough time to develop complexity before something disrupts their ecology via collisions or blasting away the planets atmosphere etc. This doesn't deal with the possibility for life around the various stars of said galaxy but if the timescale for intelligence is greatly constrained by additional factors i.e. scarcity of phosphorus it is very possible we could be among the first generation of civilizations within the Milky Way. If this is the case it could greatly constrain the local subset of places alien civilizations could arise
"Highly technological societies in the universe often destroy their own natural environment, such as humanity is doing now. This requires that they travel to other worlds to gain resources and begin the process of engaging in certain contexts for trade and commerce. This profoundly affects their cultures. In many cases, they are overtaken by stronger races. In other cases, they are able to survive and to maintain their own identity. They have not mastered the physical requirements of life, such as is so hoped for here in the world. They must deal with their own physical requirements. They must deal with security issues regarding other races. And they must become functional in the mental environment." A quote from a free online book - *Preparing for the Greater Community* - by Marshall Vian Summers.
Though not so easy to analyze as Physics and Technology, one of the major aspects influencing space tech and space communication (maybe deserving a whole episode) is cultural mindset that needs to happen in sync with technological ability. Perfect example here on Earth are Ancient Egyptians, many way more capable cultures have followed but none attempted anything even close to the monumental building as their Great Pyramids were... Many theoretically could but didn't, despite the ability... That may be the crucial filter...
In my top 5 favorite channels on youtube. I truely appreciate this. I hope this channel never experiences a book burning, or a loss. These ideas are to be studied, pondered upon, and applied even in our modern times. Have you ever considered organizing a few different programs with multiple videos.. & burning them to DVDs, & sending them out to different institutes? Such as schools, writers guild, directors etc. (Or doing so digitally & emailing with an adequate & eyecatching title) It wouldn't be overly expensive & I think doing so over a few years we could see a huge spike in these ideas being propagated & potentially sparking a surge of inspiration in young creative &/or scientific minds.
Any society that forms on a planet and decides to reach into space, will have to be at minimum inquisitive if not acquisitive in nature. Both those attributes could be classified as low level “violent” at a minimum. And let’s not forget during what period our first real rocket advances occurred.
My issue with this is that this pretends that our galaxy is way too small to hold more than one civilization. Sure, the Milky Way is not the biggest galaxy, but it's still really, really big. There's more than enough room at the table for everyone, so anyone trying to hog the food is just being a jerk. Given that the biology of other alien civilizations may possibly mean that they could colonize planets we can't, there's no good reason that we all just can't share. While we still have only one planet, it might be a problem, but even we only had a territory of about 100 light years, there wouldn't really be any reason to go to war over a lack of resources. The only reason any interstellar civilization might go to war is either a civil war, a clash of ideals, or just because "We don't like sharing, so screw you guys."
"I really have difficulty picturing a dystopian ruin of civilization where alcohol was not considered a valued commodity." Judging by 90s Russia, I think you could basically say Dystopian ruins usually have a society stabilized BY alcohol. And judging by 2020 USA, Alcohol went to become such a valued commodity people couldn't by concentrated alcohol because of supply shortages and rampant speculative hoarding, though mostly for cleaning, not drinking.
That is both sad and scary. We have to set an example to future species, and also we have to be alone. Maybe we can seed the galaxy, and even the universe with species. kinda like that one from that ST:TNG episode where they found out about that one that seeded life throughout the galaxy in the hopes of them all becoming friends.
Civilisations in those intergalactic voids will probably face distinct challenges to reaching humanity’s mid-late 20th century tech level. Like assuming they’re on earth-like planets, imagine the development of navigation without a big celestial map over your heads
Thanks ror another excellent episode. FWIW: Assuming the solution to the Fermi paradox isn't simply "because there is nobody out there" I wonder if the answer might be that after billions of years of evolution solely on one's planet of origin species that might try moving in to space find they are so suited to their home planet that they are physically and psychologically incapable of leaving for anything other than the kind of short trips we have currently attempted.
Only a solution for non-technological species since any planetary conditions can just be exactly reproduced on a habitat or the need for them edited out of the genome
1:25 Space race was between USA and USSR because these were the two dominating countries back then. In a theoretical situation where one of them had conquered the world, there would be no international space race. The ability of this single country to develop space flight would then relay solely on this country's stance to promote or block the economic competition and thus technological progress.
Have only just found this channel and was wandering where to start as I’ve noticed they blend one to another, if anyone could advise me, absolutely love this man already.
No particular need to start anywhere specific, just pick a subject of interest, though newer does of course tend to be better done. I'm sure you've noticed that though.
We're at the baby stage of the universe, considering the enormous timeline 'til heat death. Perhaps it's exceptionally rare for the conditions of spacefaring life to be met at this stage, and simply by chance the next civilization of that kind is so far away that its light hasn't reached us yet. Of course, the plausibility of this varies depending on the existence of faster-than-light travel, how much faster it is, and what kind of "great filters" might apply to it, if any. Of course, my "baby stage" logic here is also an exercise in human pattern thinking, given the obvious lack of data beyond our own planet, and prone to being fallacious thus. After all, the prevalence of favourable conditions for such civilizations might be plotting quite differently from the age of the universe.
There was a movie a few years ago about the Manhattan Project where a couple of the scientists were trying to get a meeting with the President to beg him to not use the atomic bomb because, "If you use the bomb you will give away the only secret worth keeping: That it can be done at all." Another very good (although naturally audience limited, being a VERY adult story) post-collapse rebuilding civilization is shown in the graphic novel Tranceptor. (The second chapter came out a few years back, after about a 17 year wait, so the third chapter might come out any time now.) The first chapter takes place at a way-station maintained at what they call a mine. They dig tunnels through the ground looking for, in their case, internal combustion engine parts in the desert soil. (They seem to find them in groups, implying they're digging through the remains of a storage facility of some kind. Nobody mentioned anything about finding unfinished parts, raw materials, or any kind of forming machine.)
I have always felt that the Fermi paradox isn’t really that much of a paradox. When we consider evolution, we see that nature incentivizes behaviors that keeps an organism alive. If you lived in a jungle and a tribe heard rustling in the grass nearby, the guy that went out to investigate was far less likely to pass on his genes because the rustling might have been created by a tiger or any predator. It’s likely a spacefaring capable species have little desire to stray off planet so they don’t run into the proverbial space tiger. Other species simply might not have any desire to explore at all because the tech required to do so would have to be so advanced they should also have the tech to satisfy any wants or needs so they might not see the point of exploration. We might be unusual in that since we also evolved to be more than herbivores and have hunted we might have been more biologically adapted for exploration than what is typical.
If you have a world surrounded by dead habs, having one deorbit every 100 years could reset progress. It would still be a slow march of progress to get to space before the main belt of habs crash at once.
@@Mr1995Musicman well, I am going to r/wooosh myself here and just drop that it is impossible to change the average IQ by its very definition. It is always centered around 100.
@@JCavinee That is not the point. Humanity did in fact get collectively smarter since the implementation of the IQ scale, as education improved overall. The scale is however defined to be always centered around 100. IQ 100 is THE mediocre inrelligent person right now. If you have an IQ of 120 you are smarter (at least by the scale) than a specific amount of humans, etc.. You can get smarter, but you can't push the scale. It is comming with you.
32:23 The Iain M. Banks novel "Against A Dark Background" is set in a star system that was long ago ejected from it's galaxy, having flown out far enough that there are practically no stars in the sky and all of the planets visited are within that system. It's never explained how it became colonized by humans in the first place and clearly it was long ago given all of the ancient tech that the characters come across that nobody knows how to recreate.
I figure we would, because we'd still see things moving through the air. Bubbles, seeds, leaves, etc. We'd have to work more from scratch since we'd have fewer biological inspirations.
Actually I think it would have happened quicker. Even cavemen saw smoke rising. Early inventors would have focused on that rather then ridiculous flapping machnes.
On this earth, flying is possible for some creatures due to the level of gravity and thickness of the atmosphere. For there to not be any flying creatures, some of these physical characteristics would have to be different.
You know what sucks. If we fixed the socioeconomic issues plaguing the majority of the world or even in respective first world countries the Average I.Q would increase since these factors hinder I.Q by several points for a variety of reasons of negative enviornments and the stressors it puts on humans in those environments and those affected by the negatively affected humans (Ripple Effects). "Strong as your weakest link".
Heyyyyyy you didn't tell us you were going to do a new episode on our own little rock! What a nice surprise! Also, what's the actual name? Terra? Earth? What are we using for the official name of our planet, I forget. Like Sol-Sun or Luna-Moon...
:) Thanks Akira, sorry its your first reaction form me, I'm sure I've read comments from you before, the UserID seems familiar, I just tend to read most of the comments after the first couple hours in my email inbox
@@isaacarthurSFIA and a reply. You made my year omg 😱 You've helped change my mind about humanity. I used to be doom and gloom, "humans bad". I'm now 100% team "Gardener" and "live to 700 or die trying" by following rule #1, using enough brute force 😂
My solution to the Fermi paradox is that there are few civilizations within our practical threshold for detecting them currently in our position around the galactic core. I assume there are 10 or so, and more of them are concentrated near the core. I don't think we've gone around the core once yet since modern humans even appeared. So as our solar system swims its way up and down the galactic equator and around the core, perhaps we will eventually "swim" near core civilizations and the Fermi paradox will turn out to have been an artifact of when we started paying attention and where the few civilizations are to be found. This occurred to me when I heard the podcast with Avi Loeb, which suggested Oumuamua was a navigational buoy, and it didn't so much pass through the solar system, as we "swam" *past* it. Perhaps we are approaching the suburbs of the Milky Way.
I swear if I hear the word "fermi paradox" one more time I'm gonna demote pluto from dwarf planet to oversized comet. We've been looking for alien intelligence for less than 50 years, and we've only searched like 1 septillionth of the stars in our observable universe. There shouldn't be any surprise that we haven't found anything yet, and it certainly doesn't warrant the naming of a paradox from our lack of findings. Just based on the shear number of stars in our universe, it is a mathematical certainty that life elsewhere exists. So please just keep searching instead of wondering why you haven't found anything yet after only examining a few million stars. Btw this isn't aimed at you Isaac Arthur, I love your content. This was just a rant aimed at the scientific community in general
Well said. SETI is wonderful, but we couldn’t hardly detect a civilization equal to our own, more than a few dozen light years away. Drives me nuts. We have the technological equivalent to a grubby cup against the door, and are acting like it’s a surprise when we don’t hear anything. Frankly the lack of a space based radio telescope array is disturbing to me. I am not convinced that the people in charge are particularly interested in really listening.
This episode strangely embodied the opposite of existential dread for me. Even if WW3, 4 and 5 came, even if we bomb ourselves into oblivion. The chances for humanity to survive and venture out into the stars again are not that low. Inspiring!
If there's a WWIII, you won't have to worry about another for a thousand years. To paraphrase Einstein, world war four will be fought with sticks and stones.
Maybe planets that don't have materials that allow the making of rockets... That could explain it, or planets with very high gravity, many reasons that could make space travel impractical for other species.
It could be rich with life but missing dry land. Launching a rocket from underwater is not easy. Making fuel or forging metal isnt easy either but could be done with volcanic vents or something... how would a fish alien even discover fire right?
I always assumed there was at least one civilization who happened upon FTL by accident early in their development. They might even be what we would call a "dumb" species who doesn't care how or why it works, just that it works. It could be even as simple as they have some unknown (to the periodic table or theories that we know of) to us element or material that naturally occurs on their world on the surface and you can pick it up without negative effects, oh and it happens to be a shelf stable energy source capable of powering anything (almost) to FTL ;) These guys are the ones in SciFi that make us question how they got to space in the first place; only to find out they are the dominant power in the region due to exorbitant taxes on said material to the rest of the region. Thus we get a plot point for said SciFi show lol. I have enjoyed this episode the most Isaac. thanks for the content.
Just no. That is basically impossible. While I'm willing to think even a "leftover" population might use ancient AI or computers... Consider that according to known science FTL is impossible, then to propose a civilization would accidentally find it... Might as well have wish granting genies in bottles. Pure fantasy.
I think this is the most likely "solution" to the paradox. Life isn't exceptionally rare, but space travel is prohibitively difficult. Life is trapped where it gets seeded. Going out requires a chain of inventions, a chain of exceptionally smart and dedicated people. You absolutely need: computers & math (in one breath), life support, a good body, a generation ship, unimaginable goals and their accompanying demand/dedication/desperation. You don't just need to be space faring but you need to be galactic faring.
math & science is definitely necessary but life support, "a good body", & gen ships definitely aren't. You can colonize with robots, you can self-modify for whatever environment, & you can use sleeper, seed, or data ships to colonize
Nostalgia for war does have the point that it is a likely cause for a Kessler Effect. Nevertheless, I get a bit tired of hearing "civilizations self-destruct" themes. It is basically a contradiction in terms. I do understand that the 20th century provides a case in point - and, so far, the 21st century does not seem significantly improved in terms of social evolution. The so-called United Nations seems no more effective that the League of Nations. Nevertheless, most educated people believe that social evolution is a useful goal. So, while progress seems like "three steps forward, two steps back" ... I think there has been some progress. I am old enough to remember when psychology and social science was much cruder than it is today.
There should be an episode called "Imprisoned Solar Systems". Travel time between solar systems has all sorts of non-biological or partially biological risks, such as ionizing radiation, and such as high velocity strikes by tiny bits of space debris that potentially perforate what is intended to be an airtight environment. Travel time between solar systems also has biological risks interfering with having fertile travelers who can reproduce on the destination world. The original travelers might be too old to reproduce, but could possibly have spawned younger travelers during the soace trip. Even so, the numerical amount of acceleration of gravity on the destination world is a potential barrier to the normal development of an embryo or fetus. Every species has an upper and lower limit. The lower gravity limit might be zero for some species, but for vertebrates a space experiment involving bird eggs indicated that many vertebrates might have a non-zero lower limit on the amount of gravity needed for normal development of a fertilized egg. One worthwhile experiment for the planet Mars, which has less than half of Earth's gravity at the surface, might be to see if some primate species, perhaps some small monkey species, can successfully reproduce in the lower gravity of the planet Mars. Having to build rotating space bases on a planet that is to be colonized in order to artificially enhance too weak planetary gravity would greatly complicate colonizing planets with weak gravity. Short version: Most of the risks of lengthy space travel have been discussed, but what has been little discussed is the risk that in practice the gravity upon arrival on a target planet might, for embryo and fetus development reasons, very easily turn out be too weak or too strong to allow the colonizers to successfully reproduce.
29:51 Wait that was you!? I found that concept in the Stellaris mod Gigastructures way before I found you on a Star Trek fanfic thread. I am impressed. You are very influential
A life form originating on a neutron star might be able to tilt the magnetic axis away from the rotational axis, turning their home star into a pulsar, and surf the polar jets to reach space.
You made a great point with your "tectonic goldilocks zone" conjecture. I'm a geologist myself, but so help me, that never occurred to me! Without an active geology that spawns tectonism, there's not going to be a lot of pooling of technologically vital elements. Similarly, a super active world would likely be a lot heavier and with all the concurrent negatives that go with it... including those of having to dodge lava flows constantly! Indeed, Earth may exist in a narrower zone of viability for this reason alone; along with the many others mentioned. Fermi solution candidate? I'll leave that to you!
I actually danced a bit when I recognized the topic this morning. Waiting until tonight to listen. I just said openly f$%# yes it's 41 minutes long recognizing it now. Thanks brotha.....
Another type of imprisoning that's not mentioned a lot is if a planet is using a red dwarf as its star. It would be so close to the star that it's energetically difficult to launch space missions (large escape velocity)
"A person dumped into New York city tries to find signs of intelligent life by going to Antarctica" Seems perfectly reasonable to me, it's not like there's any of that in New York
I suspect the main explanation of the fermi paradox is the rarity of planetary systems having sufficient quantities of the lesser-used metals in complex life. The carbon, nitrogen, oxygen etc required (any element at or below iron) for complex life are very common in star-forming nebulae but the small but critical amounts of phosphorous to form ATP energy transport system, or any alternative system, are perhaps quite rare as they are above iron so not formed by stars until supernovae, with the proper mix being very rare.
in the scifi novel ''Alternaties'' by Michael P. Kube-McDowell, an alien entity or alien civilization gets very worried about Earth's future, sometime in the 1940s or 1950s. It saw the possiblitly that we humans might wage global nuclear war to ourselves at any time, destroying our world completely. It first created a dimensional bubble at some distance away from the solar system, locking us up within it, but we we were still able to watch the universe around us.The second thing it did was even more spectacular: It created several alternate timelines in the other dimensions of the bubble. Each of the alternate solar systems (i.e. each of the alternate Earths) was allowed to live and develop its own society. So in the case that one (or more than one...) alternate Earth destroys itself, other alternate Earths will survive. The different Earths (there aren't many of them, less then ten I think I remember) start out the same but over time they change remarkably. The novel concentrates on how the politcal systems of the different USAs move away from each other, from democracy to tyranny. In ONE alternative, the existence of the other alternatives is accidentally discovered. It seems the alien bubble is not without flaws: If you can find the exact spot you can move through the dimensions and visit the other Earths - not unlike moving between the different worlds of ''His Dark Materials'' by Philip Pullman. This alternative starts to exploit the other ones (not unlike in the TV series ''The Man in the High Castle'').
Long time fan here: you are talking about the krikkit. A race of people with a sky so dull and clouded that they did not even consider looking up and therefor did not consider that there is life somewhere else...
I'm not sure if you'll read this but I have bumped into some online Science Fiction stories that have their own swing at the Fermi Paradox. In particular look up The Veil of Madness or Out of Cruel Space. The first is older and much more to the point, but they both have a similar premise as for why contact with aliens hasn't happened yet. Effectively Earth is in the middle of some kind of anomaly or hazardous part of space that is at the least difficult, if not nigh on impossible, to be navigated. Either it does not confirm to the laws of physics known to the galaxy outside of this zone or has some kind of detrimental effect on alien biology. The reason we haven't had any contact could be due to a fairly reasonable assumption that this part of the galaxy is simply too dangerous to support life, as such contact with aliens will only begin once we cross this border into their own parts of the galaxy. Something that would likely come as a big surprise because if there's even half a percent of the galaxy that has this hazard then the sheer amount of space until we find another species is nothing short of literally astronomical. What do you think of this theory? It has flaws, but I do think it at least addresses all the points of the Fermi Paradox. Also the reason why we would not be able to tell we're within the anomaly is because of course, we're in the middle of it. All of our observations are filtered through it. Like standing in smoke.
I would argue that successful space flight is indeed exclusive to species with a strong foundational understanding of physics. I think the mathematics part is debateable as I do not believe we can assume this is the only possible solution to interface evolutionary biology to observational physics. Now were we to generalise mathematics to instead be having devised a mechanism to model physical reality that is comprehensible to some general intelligence then sure, but who are we to assume that the mechanics we made up to do this are universal? I would argue mathematics is more the result of our attempt to formulate a programming language to program novel predictive capabilities into the processing meat we evolved. Other evolutionary pathways may potentially have led to a substrate that required radically different mechanics to generate cognitively workable models of reality. Mathematics as we know it could be as alien to them as x86 machine code would be to an ARM CPU if not more so, mathematics strikes me as potentially being more like an API to covert aspects of the model into something the biological substrate can interpret and produce outputs that are informative predictions of the objective behaviour of the external physical reality. Aliens may do this in a way that is utterly incomprehensible nonsense to us and does not resemble mathematics as we know it given their brains (or equivalent organ) could function in fundamentally different ways to our own. Even among our own species we have individuals that to some degree can observe and perceive aspects of reality in ways that cannot be fully communicated and understood by others eg those with forms of synesthesia. It is possible that alien evolution could have produced something similar as the default condition that may perhaps have developed some weird system of operations based on some analogy of what we call colour or whatever. These operands could also be entirely different for all we know, hell even we can simulate arithmetic operations using sequences of bitwise operations two different systems that can get the same output by using fundamentally differently laid out substrates. The latter of which being of our own creation heavily influenced by our own subjective understanding and modelling of reality imagine what systems beings with a entirely different subjective consciousnesses might end up producing in their attempt to internalise models derived from their observation of reality.
Its going to be so surreal, that after the "Post Nuclear Apocalypse." The list I have, in order for me to rebuild civilization, the only thing I'm going to remember, is Isaac advice -"manufactured booze, make's for caught rats more palpable to eat." Not how to make, penicillin or freezer or combustion engine,etc. Though would be nice to have a freezer, just for the post-it notes on the door. Guess - I could put one, on an uneaten cooked rat. ;)
I'm currently writing a post apocalyptic story where the main character has all her initial influence because she makes the best booze and has "secret" food knowledge. Is it because I feel underappreciated as a chef and brewer in this society, and am constantly surprised by how few people know how simple booze is to make or how many "weeds" are edible? Yes, absolutely. But hopefully the rest of the story makes up for my fantasy of living in a world where my skills are valued more.
Hehehe. For many decades, the underground art of cannabis edibles was pretty much exactly what your premise for "secret ethanol" is. You might search for ideas in old issues of "High Times"! 🤣
Hey man, can you do a video on the fermi paradox and the dark forest, i just finished liu cixin trilogy and really would love to watch one of your videos covering the dark forest theory and the purging scenarios pressented in death’s end
15:15 One example that the Finns used in times of crisis and was experimented around the world, was the usage of wood gas as fuel for vehicles. Quite literally, you underburn wood and it produces a combustable gas, that has been used in cars and sleds.
One of the best and smartest things about this show is how it acknowledges known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, or possible current misconceptions. This is a great sign of intelligence and critical thinking.
Indeed.
.. and then there's Tiktok, which I think could be considered as a possible solution/contributing factor to the Fermi Paradox. Imagine alien civilizations seeing what people put online; Hopefully they'd see things like this and realize we're not (yet) a lost cause!? :D
@@TheEyez187 😆 The solution to the Fermi paradox - civilizations go mad from 60 seconds or less videos.
Donald Rumsfeld has a raging chubby reading your comment!
@@PhoticsTV imagine where we could go without TikTok.
The stars are within our potential.
Also I think the Prime Directive forbids alien cultures from contacting any species with a TikTok similar app!? Space ain't big enough to let those weirdos in! :D:D
That o'neill cyllinder seems like a wild idea for an RPG game setting. You would be in a civilisation thats just inventing advanced technology but you find out your whole world is an anomaly and the universe works vastly differently.
Not only that; but I could imagine a setting where a recovering civilisation on an O'Neill cylinder is far less technologically advanced, but not needing 9 odd kms^-1 of delta v, would be prolific space travellers with significantly more primitive technology (I.E, taken to the extreme, a pre electrical civilisation on an O'neill cylinder could probably manage short manned spaceflights to other nearby O'Neill cylinders once they figure out the airlock controls, classical physics and some thermodynamics)
@@tophatsurgeon7469 this type of scifi is perfect for educational game where the AI on board has a secret education course in their language to teach them science once they discover the truth.
Not only an RPG setting but a lot of sci-fi stories too. A cylinder that was abandoned but has become a danger, perhaps with some people in board. Or there is something important in it, rockets to stop an asteroid or cameras to observe the planet. Information that is needed to stop a problem.
Or it is the danger, heading to planet earth with hostile colonists in board or the disease ridden survivors of an expedition.
I'd play this.
I wonder. How did a primitive civilisation got onto one of these habitat? If it is built by an interstellar empire trying to preserve a primitive culture on a doomed planet, this action will ought to leave some myths and legends behind.
Something like, gods descended in massive metallic arks that darkened the sky, carrying the people to a paradise above the mortal world. And despite tales of extraterrestrial activity being common in ancient myths, gamers are likely to take it much more seriously than historians, because they knew the messages are significant to the plot of the game.
Reminds me of a Greg Egan book called "Quarantine". It involves the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. A giant alien civilization relies on galaxies not being collapsed waveforms into clusters of stars but when we start looking out we start collapsing galaxies into clusters of stars so they build a solid opaque sphere around our whole solar system until we learn to control our ability to collapse quantum wave duality. One of the strangest books I ever read.
That in turn reminds me of a different book. The Pathfinder series by orson Scott card I believe his name is. It involves time travel, time manipulation, paradoxes, quantum mechanics, and a lot more.
Also one of the stranger books out there. Highly recommend if you can deal with how confusing it actually gets sometimes.
Sounds trippy
Is that based on the knowledge that beams of light behave differently until observed? Or something like that, I saw a video on that, it was described along the lines of Schrodingers cat hypothesis where the cat in the box is there, not there, dead, and alive in a state of Flux until the box is opened, and 1 reality is set, there was an awesome anime about an experimental machines meltdown created multiple paradoxes, and their effects on organic, and inorganic objects, it blew my mind, the poor marble fell right out of my ear, lol.
@@dianeneedham6703 what was the name of that anime?
@@FutureMan420Blazer eon Flux? Aeon Flux, something like that
One interesting perspective I've heard about the Fermi Paradox is that the great filter might be the evolution of the eukaryotic cell, which is necessary for any form of complex life. The basis of this is that the eukaryote only evolved once on Earth, and only after over a BILLION years of simpler life. Thus the evolution of the eukaryote would be a stupidly rare, one-in-a-billion event that only happened on Earth and a few remote places.
I particularly like this theory because it implies that out there there might be plenty of planets with prokaryotic bacterial life that could provide us with oxygen and nutrients without all those pesky ethical questions you get with more complex life.
I also like the idea that the Great Filter is behind us as well, and the formation of eukaryotic life seems a very plausible candidate to me.
watching Isaac Arthur without his speech tendencies would be like watching Stephen Hawking without his digitized voice.
it just wouldnt be the same. Love your channel, content, and above all, the touch you bring to it all. --stutterin' mike
Niven's Ring World was a prison planet. Partly because the solar system had been disassembled to build the Ring by the Pak, and there wouldn't be anything to explore unless you had relativistic vehicles able to reach another star within a lifetime, so there wasn't much point except for the most advanced Ringworlder civilizations.
But mostly because the Puppeteers released a persistent plague prior to the expedition in the first book, that destroyed all advanced technology on the ring used by the civilizations living there like room-temperature superconductors, out of paranoia that the Ringworlders could become powerful enough to challenge them if Ringworlder tech advanced enough to copy the Pak engineering used to build and maintain the ring.
It was also an inherently unstable structure, impossible to ceate in any realistic scenario.
@@MartijnHover That inherent instability, and the extreme engineering to make it work again as it breaks down, is the basis of the plot of the later books in the series.
@@nekomakhea9440 Yes, I know. I have read them. 🙂
What bothered me about that was the author's speculation that "addictive behaviors" could be bread out, that a population could just let all addicts kill themselves. It struck me as Eugenics, and spoiled it for me as someone who has dealt with family and friends with addictions. If I ever met Niven I'd punch him in his face. The jerk!
@@squirlmy Well, there is a genetic component to lots of human behaviour. Or so it would seem. Addictive bahaviour seems to be one of those. If you could cure it with medication that could be created through gene-technology would you feel the same?
I had more of a problem with his hypothesis that you could breed human beings for "luck".
The intergalactic void one reminds me of Iain Banks' "Against a Dark Background" which is actually set in a star system in intergalactic space, cut off from the rest of the universe by the vast gulf. They can see that galaxies exist, but they're so far that even if they developed FTL the journey would be impractical, so the entire system is just literred with millennia of civilisations building on top of each other.
as a longtime SFIA listener, I know that's bunk. O'Neill cylinder with fusion, sent at 0.1%c even from 1Mly away, would only take a billion years but the reality is there's enough stars out there that they could reach one in a few centuries and start dysoning
@@cosmictreason2242 Those timescales are not practical from a human scale, and like I said they were deep in the void between galaxies, there were no stars in their near vicinity they could travel to. If ther'es no other stars for hundreds or thousands of LY, the *desire* to develop tech or attempt to go there is gone, because the gulf is too large. You don't dream of going to the stars if the stars are civilisation-lifetimes away at light speed itself
Great episode. Imprisoned planets; not to be confused with prison planets (Australia in spaaaaace) or impounded planets ("Where'd it go? I only left for a century...")
Australia‽ Impossible! Everyone knows 'Space' is the **one place** uncorrupted by capitalism!
Or more specifically space Brisbane. Go space Broncos!
Dude where's my planet?
@@papabaer6069 “I don’t know bro! I swear we parked it right here over 10,000 years ago!”
@@cheapshotninja SPACE!
Love Tim Curry.
Here's just that.
ruclips.net/video/g1Sq1Nr58hM/видео.html
i really like the planet "detritus" in the skyward series -- the humans living there crashed some hundred years ago, but they can't get off because the previous occupants built an insane amount of semi-orbital infrastructure (basically a shell around the planet)
oh and also there's a basically constant war with some alien race that wants to keep them prisoner, but the shell is still a big hinderance to space travel there
I love that series!
A
Per radioactives: granite often is relatively high in such materials. Not your first or second choice for that, but as a sixth or tenth, granite is a potential fissile material ore.
Such a mine almost saw greenlight in Spain, but the population density in the area was deemed too high.
One of the more interesting "solutions" to the Fermi Paradox I've heard is that Humans are just rather early to the party.
Like, out Galaxy isn't THAT old, and it was vomiting out a lot of ionizing radiation, which would seriously hurt life in pretty much any form. So it took awhile to get going.
So congrats guys, we aren't alone, we're just the Ancient Species everyone else gets to talk about and find!
I suspect that is one of the biggest factors in the Fermi paradox combined with complex life being generally rare, and civilizations developing industrial revolution levels of technology being relatively rare as well. Most other filters seem to be too weak at least on their own.
Not to mention the generations of stars that have had to come and go to seed enough heavier elements into the cosmos to actually form rocky planets, ice giants, and even gas giants.
We are early to the party. Life was only made on earth and ~6026 years ago. But we might still colonize the whole place, depending on if #datpostmil is correct
@@cosmictreason2242 the evidence doesn't support that particular set of claims.
One thing people should keep in mind is that our intelligent brain isn't the be-all-end-all of evolution. There's a reason that life keeps evolving into crabs.
Even without the images, you paint such vivid pictures with words alone.
As usual Isaac Arthur bringing great content to the people!
I love Isaac’s content, so I say this with all due respect, but I think his speech impediment unfortunately hinders his channel’s potential growth. I have no doubt he’d already have 2 million subscribers otherwise.
@@alexcallender if you’ve followed this channel you’ll know he once or twice said he was going to hire a narrator for this channel but everyone here said NOOOO!!!! So, I’m afraid you’re in the minority.
@@Jaggerbush No, I'm aware of that, and I acknowledge there is certainly a vocal component of Isaac's already existing audience which pretty passionately disagrees with me, but I'm talking about his potential growth - new subscribers - and I sincerely believe his speech impediment is also an impediment to wider popular reception of his content. Obviously you don't have to agree with me, and I've accepted nothing is likely to change, but I feel your comment kind of misses the point.
This channel and it's content are on par with PBS Nova and Cosmos. Another brilliant episode.
Those references seem quaint and old fashioned to me. Have you explored PBS Space Time on RUclips? The science is more advanced than on this channel and generally loses my attention as it's too much. 🤯 After struggling with that, your reference seems a little out-of-touch 🤷
@@squirlmy Do you have a point? Your comment seems a bit irrelevant and out-of-touch. 🤦🤷
This reminds me of Star Control 2 where the Ur-quan imprisoned anyone who refused to be subservient to them, confining them to their own worlds with a red forcefield, apparently for their own good. Great plot and great game.
also, don't forget the Spathi who, once you give/sell them the tech, make a shield around their world.
(Not to mention my 'favorite' the Ur-Quan Korh-Ah who just xenocide species) they come across
Too bad this gem of a game isn't more widely appreciated. A remaster would be great
@@nothingnobody1454 Like the free game 'The Ur-Quan Masters'?
@@toddkes5890 ty
@@toddkes5890
Yes well updated to todays graphics. The star map was revolutionary I’m pretty sure whoever created the star map for Mass Effect also played Star Control 2. The version on Ur Quan Masters is the 3do version.
Just recently finished "The Three Body Problem" trilogy. Loved this episode!
It's on my reading queue too, thanks to things I've heard about it here!
@@jerrysstories711 definitely recommend it! I also recommend your book to anyone who likes medieval fantasy!
It was good. The most haunting sci-fi series I’ve ever read.
@@beastvg123 Thanks! Also, wow I'm impressed you recognized my username!
@@jerrysstories711 well, your historical fiction writing skills definitely enthralled me! So I remembered from when Isaac linked your channel!
The thing is, you don't necessarily need "STEM geniuses" to get tech going. Give me a kid who can read and write and I could give you an adult who would be at least somewhat useful in a creative problem solving capacity. Which is really what you need in order to push boundaries in STEM, not necessarily 1-in-1000 level genius. It is a mistake to think that because the intellectual elite comprise some fraction of a percent of the population, that only a fraction of a percent are capable of solving the same problems.
Exactly, "what's a century in the grand scheme of things". For basically all of recorded history, the bottleneck in technology hasn't been individual intelligence, it has been raw materials, perquisite technologies, economies of scale, etc.
Many incredibly disruptive technologies have been incredibly simple. It doesn't take a genius to design a bicycle or a heat engine or even a rocket, it just takes a lot of knowledge from previous experimentation and the specialized materials required.
And a lot of geniuses in history were only considered such after they'd solved a famous problem.
Give me non sociopaths who can problem solve and I'll fix the world.
Yes, but realistically by the time the 100 IQ people figure out how to keep dirt fertile that society would have already died because there wasn't enough farm land. Not saying they die completely, but a good portion of them would. Then they start again, and again before they can figure out how to make farm land tenable through generations; they die off again.
Eventually they may and probably would figure it out. But they may never become space faring due to similar situations playing out again and again.
If they did however, they would be billions of years past us.
The universe is 14 billion years old. Life on Earth started 3.5 billion years ago. It took at least 5 billion years for the universe to stabilize to a point that life giving planets could even start to form. Realistically, we are also lucky because humans evolved near the beginning of energy expansion (do not like the term big bang as it creates a visual that is not accurate in any way).
Our luck, will happen infinite times after after. There will be infinite other species to do what we do. We just happen to be one of the earliest species to have this amount of luck. As he mentions, we are maybe 1% into the beginning of the universe falling apart. And even then, the universe will still support life for trillions of years after. We are not the 1%. Earth is the 0.0000001%, in my opinion anyways. And part of that is having people like Einstein.
Actually irritated by him saying "What's a century in the grand scheme of things". Not much when you consider the age of the universe. But is a lot, when you consider the life span of humans and the damage they can do to their planet in that time (which he also mentions - but seems to be overlooked).
A month ago, I would have said humans are doing fairly well and will probably survive. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and I start to question how this will all end. 3 weeks, being the difference in how things are. Realistically, with things as they are, it might be a day that determines the fate of humans. One day Russia sends a nuke to hit Tacoma. 15 minutes later the US Nukes two Russian cities. 15 minutes later, a few thousand humans are still alive.
A century isn't much in universal standards, but 15 minutes can be everything to a society looking to colonize space.
And lastly, the Earth has many societies. Likely, a majority (not saying a vast majority, but it does affect the odds) of planets with intelligent life would end up with a single government/ruler. In that case, scientific progress would probably be hindered. Just another hurtle that Earth has avoided, by somehow having close to 200 countries.
If we die by nuclear war, I hope your last thought is. Even though we are a very lucky world, We lost to the odds. We made it through 1 in a million chance, twice. But even of those worlds. 2 out of three of them fail afterwards, and we are one of the 2. Out of the very rare planet that makes it to where we are, some of us have to fail. Our luck ran out, and that is the why we do not see aliens.
Hope that does not happen, but realistically we are fighting the odds everyday to continue to survive where many aliens have failed.
@@justindadswell8610 I admire your faith
In terms of gravity I think with enough effort a civilisation on nearly any sized planet could reach space, it would just get exponentially harder to get enough up to do anything useful , If you had a super earth with a super dense atmosphere with enough effort you could still launch things to space by raising the ship high in the atmosphere using a launchpad floated with vast balloons first and from there use a railgun to accelerate a rocket or ion propelled spaceplane to minimise the delta v required by the actual ship to get from launch to orbit, to get out of the gravity well you'd need something very efficient with minimal fuel required like ion engines. Whilst there may be planets with atmospheres too turbulent for even that to work where it's truly impossible to escape I Imagine most civilisations on rocky planets would be able to escape their planets with varying degrees of required investment and effort.
...but if your atmosphere is opaque... you wouldn't even know there was a space to get to...
A world of heavy gravity, where the apex species are those able to raise their heads enough to look towards the horizon to see the low to the ground herds. Would a world like that even breed a species capable of looking up and dreaming of what lay beyond the blank sky?
It might be a mistake to be searching for a single, universal solution to the Fermi Paradox. It seems to me that the creation of an interstellar civilization might be a case of everything going right, and there are a lot more of ways for *something* to go wrong than for everything to go right.
That is a solution itself though. It's called the Great Filter. Isaac has an episode on it :)
I think Matt's point is that there may not be a great filter. Which is very true. Several minor filters could clearly do the same filtering as one or two great filters. The question is mostly about how much of the filtering is previous to _our_ level of development, vs. in _our_ future.
On the other hand, the solution, by definition, *_does_* have to be "universal", in the sense that it has to apply universally to actual and hypothetical planets, life, civilizations, etc, -universally. The question isn't why one particular civilization hasn't colonized our Galaxy, but why _all_ of the possibly possible civilizations _have failed to_ colonize our Galaxy.
@@jengleheimerschmitt7941 there are multiple filters, a filter is just Fermi paradox jargon for anything that would prevent a civilization from expanding beyond their home planet.
Thank you! I read Dragon Egg by Robert Forward in the 80's but forgot the name of the author and the book. I have been looking for it to add to my library for some time, and now i can.
Yeah, there are so many reasons to love this channel!
I really appreciate all of the work you put into your videos. Thanks
Actually with regards to cosmic voids there is pretty strong evidence that our galaxy the Milky Way is actually within an enormous cosmic void. Sure we are within one of the largest galaxies within the local void but this still opens up the possibility that life might be restricted to forming in voids where planets might have enough time to develop complexity before something disrupts their ecology via collisions or blasting away the planets atmosphere etc.
This doesn't deal with the possibility for life around the various stars of said galaxy but if the timescale for intelligence is greatly constrained by additional factors i.e. scarcity of phosphorus it is very possible we could be among the first generation of civilizations within the Milky Way.
If this is the case it could greatly constrain the local subset of places alien civilizations could arise
"Highly technological societies in the universe often destroy their own natural environment, such as humanity is doing now. This requires that they travel to other worlds to gain resources and begin the process of engaging in certain contexts for trade and commerce. This profoundly affects their cultures. In many cases, they are overtaken by stronger races. In other cases, they are able to survive and to maintain their own identity. They have not mastered the physical requirements of life, such as is so hoped for here in the world. They must deal with their own physical requirements. They must deal with security issues regarding other races. And they must become functional in the mental environment."
A quote from a free online book - *Preparing for the Greater Community* - by Marshall Vian Summers.
That seems like a poorly-informed author. Asteroids are better than planets for basic resources. And, they are not uncommon.
Thanks Ivan
Heya Issac. Keep up the good work. I started watching your videos maybe a month ago, and I am already darn near caught up. I love it!
Though not so easy to analyze as Physics and Technology, one of the major aspects influencing space tech and space communication (maybe deserving a whole episode) is cultural mindset that needs to happen in sync with technological ability. Perfect example here on Earth are Ancient Egyptians, many way more capable cultures have followed but none attempted anything even close to the monumental building as their Great Pyramids were... Many theoretically could but didn't, despite the ability... That may be the crucial filter...
In my top 5 favorite channels on youtube. I truely appreciate this. I hope this channel never experiences a book burning, or a loss. These ideas are to be studied, pondered upon, and applied even in our modern times.
Have you ever considered organizing a few different programs with multiple videos.. & burning them to DVDs, & sending them out to different institutes? Such as schools, writers guild, directors etc. (Or doing so digitally & emailing with an adequate & eyecatching title) It wouldn't be overly expensive & I think doing so over a few years we could see a huge spike in these ideas being propagated & potentially sparking a surge of inspiration in young creative &/or scientific minds.
Any society that forms on a planet and decides to reach into space, will have to be at minimum inquisitive if not acquisitive in nature. Both those attributes could be classified as low level “violent” at a minimum. And let’s not forget during what period our first real rocket advances occurred.
You could also consider the similarity in Colonizing and "Imperialism". They seem to come from the same place.
My issue with this is that this pretends that our galaxy is way too small to hold more than one civilization. Sure, the Milky Way is not the biggest galaxy, but it's still really, really big. There's more than enough room at the table for everyone, so anyone trying to hog the food is just being a jerk. Given that the biology of other alien civilizations may possibly mean that they could colonize planets we can't, there's no good reason that we all just can't share. While we still have only one planet, it might be a problem, but even we only had a territory of about 100 light years, there wouldn't really be any reason to go to war over a lack of resources. The only reason any interstellar civilization might go to war is either a civil war, a clash of ideals, or just because "We don't like sharing, so screw you guys."
@@apollyonnoctis1291 civil wars, differences in ideology, & greed....so the usual reasons for going to war
"I really have difficulty picturing a dystopian ruin of civilization where alcohol was not considered a valued commodity."
Judging by 90s Russia, I think you could basically say Dystopian ruins usually have a society stabilized BY alcohol.
And judging by 2020 USA, Alcohol went to become such a valued commodity people couldn't by concentrated alcohol because of supply shortages and rampant speculative hoarding, though mostly for cleaning, not drinking.
What if the answer to Fermi's paradox is that we're the first intelligent entities.
Maybe older cubs have gone extinct
And we are the only civ in our galaxy
Firstborn
That is both sad and scary. We have to set an example to future species, and also we have to be alone. Maybe we can seed the galaxy, and even the universe with species. kinda like that one from that ST:TNG episode where they found out about that one that seeded life throughout the galaxy in the hopes of them all becoming friends.
That would suck.
This is the likely solution
Civilisations in those intergalactic voids will probably face distinct challenges to reaching humanity’s mid-late 20th century tech level. Like assuming they’re on earth-like planets, imagine the development of navigation without a big celestial map over your heads
Thanks ror another excellent episode.
FWIW: Assuming the solution to the Fermi paradox isn't simply "because there is nobody out there" I wonder if the answer might be that after billions of years of evolution solely on one's planet of origin species that might try moving in to space find they are so suited to their home planet that they are physically and psychologically incapable of leaving for anything other than the kind of short trips we have currently attempted.
Only a solution for non-technological species since any planetary conditions can just be exactly reproduced on a habitat or the need for them edited out of the genome
That picture of Isaac in his military days smoking a cigarette hahahaha. As always great video man. 37:44
1:25 Space race was between USA and USSR because these were the two dominating countries back then. In a theoretical situation where one of them had conquered the world, there would be no international space race. The ability of this single country to develop space flight would then relay solely on this country's stance to promote or block the economic competition and thus technological progress.
Have only just found this channel and was wandering where to start as I’ve noticed they blend one to another, if anyone could advise me, absolutely love this man already.
No particular need to start anywhere specific, just pick a subject of interest, though newer does of course tend to be better done.
I'm sure you've noticed that though.
We're at the baby stage of the universe, considering the enormous timeline 'til heat death. Perhaps it's exceptionally rare for the conditions of spacefaring life to be met at this stage, and simply by chance the next civilization of that kind is so far away that its light hasn't reached us yet. Of course, the plausibility of this varies depending on the existence of faster-than-light travel, how much faster it is, and what kind of "great filters" might apply to it, if any.
Of course, my "baby stage" logic here is also an exercise in human pattern thinking, given the obvious lack of data beyond our own planet, and prone to being fallacious thus. After all, the prevalence of favourable conditions for such civilizations might be plotting quite differently from the age of the universe.
There was a movie a few years ago about the Manhattan Project where a couple of the scientists were trying to get a meeting with the President to beg him to not use the atomic bomb because, "If you use the bomb you will give away the only secret worth keeping: That it can be done at all."
Another very good (although naturally audience limited, being a VERY adult story) post-collapse rebuilding civilization is shown in the graphic novel Tranceptor. (The second chapter came out a few years back, after about a 17 year wait, so the third chapter might come out any time now.) The first chapter takes place at a way-station maintained at what they call a mine. They dig tunnels through the ground looking for, in their case, internal combustion engine parts in the desert soil. (They seem to find them in groups, implying they're digging through the remains of a storage facility of some kind. Nobody mentioned anything about finding unfinished parts, raw materials, or any kind of forming machine.)
I have always felt that the Fermi paradox isn’t really that much of a paradox. When we consider evolution, we see that nature incentivizes behaviors that keeps an organism alive. If you lived in a jungle and a tribe heard rustling in the grass nearby, the guy that went out to investigate was far less
likely to pass on his genes because the rustling might have been created by a tiger or any predator. It’s likely a spacefaring capable species have little desire to stray off planet so they don’t run into the proverbial space tiger. Other species simply might not have any desire to explore at all because the tech required to do so would have to be so advanced they should also have the tech to satisfy any wants or needs so they might not see the point of exploration.
We might be unusual in that since we also evolved to be more than herbivores and have hunted we might have been more biologically adapted for exploration than what is typical.
Wow your voice is getting clearer and clearer
*Isaac Arthur's channel is fabulous .* 💕
If you have a world surrounded by dead habs, having one deorbit every 100 years could reset progress. It would still be a slow march of progress to get to space before the main belt of habs crash at once.
"Possibly a plague that made people dumber..." Didn't we just have that?
Nope. People were always that dumb. In fact, it might have very slightly increased the average IQ by preferentially offing those stupid individuals
@@Mr1995Musicman well, I am going to r/wooosh myself here and just drop that it is impossible to change the average IQ by its very definition. It is always centered around 100.
@@pikadragon2783 it's so sad that half of us will always be below average.
@@pikadragon2783 It's not impossible. You would just need everyone to get collectively more intelligent. Not likely, but not impossible.
@@JCavinee That is not the point. Humanity did in fact get collectively smarter since the implementation of the IQ scale, as education improved overall. The scale is however defined to be always centered around 100. IQ 100 is THE mediocre inrelligent person right now. If you have an IQ of 120 you are smarter (at least by the scale) than a specific amount of humans, etc.. You can get smarter, but you can't push the scale. It is comming with you.
32:23 The Iain M. Banks novel "Against A Dark Background" is set in a star system that was long ago ejected from it's galaxy, having flown out far enough that there are practically no stars in the sky and all of the planets visited are within that system. It's never explained how it became colonized by humans in the first place and clearly it was long ago given all of the ancient tech that the characters come across that nobody knows how to recreate.
Love your work.
Thanks Darren!
@@isaacarthurSFIA can't really understand some of the words you say
Fermi's solution to his own Paradox is that galaxy colonization is just a pain in the arse. That is hilarious.
Here's a weird thought, if there were no birds or any flying animals on the earth, would man have tried to fly?
I figure we would, because we'd still see things moving through the air. Bubbles, seeds, leaves, etc. We'd have to work more from scratch since we'd have fewer biological inspirations.
yes though it would of taken far far longer to do saw without animals to take desgin traits and learn aerodynamics from.
Actually I think it would have happened quicker. Even cavemen saw smoke rising. Early inventors would have focused on that rather then ridiculous flapping machnes.
On this earth, flying is possible for some creatures due to the level of gravity and thickness of the atmosphere. For there to not be any flying creatures, some of these physical characteristics would have to be different.
You know what sucks.
If we fixed the socioeconomic issues plaguing the majority of the world or even in respective first world countries the Average I.Q would increase since these factors hinder I.Q by several points for a variety of reasons of negative enviornments and the stressors it puts on humans in those environments and those affected by the negatively affected humans (Ripple Effects).
"Strong as your weakest link".
Heyyyyyy you didn't tell us you were going to do a new episode on our own little rock! What a nice surprise!
Also, what's the actual name? Terra? Earth? What are we using for the official name of our planet, I forget. Like Sol-Sun or Luna-Moon...
Feel free to invent your own!
Call it dirt
I love the little touch of humor you use when making animations. Space should be a little silly
SECOND. Love you Isaac!
Edit: OMG. I'm a long time fan. This is the first ❤️ from you Isaac. Tyyyyyyyyyyy 😆
You are my favorite RUclipsr!
:) Thanks Akira, sorry its your first reaction form me, I'm sure I've read comments from you before, the UserID seems familiar, I just tend to read most of the comments after the first couple hours in my email inbox
@@isaacarthurSFIA and a reply. You made my year omg 😱
You've helped change my mind about humanity. I used to be doom and gloom, "humans bad".
I'm now 100% team "Gardener" and "live to 700 or die trying" by following rule #1, using enough brute force 😂
@@King_Dogspeed The comment definietly brings some extra cheer to my day, thanks Akira :)
" would be like a person dumped in the middle of new york city trying to find an example of intelligent life *pause*"
there are no accidents
My solution to the Fermi paradox is that there are few civilizations within our practical threshold for detecting them currently in our position around the galactic core. I assume there are 10 or so, and more of them are concentrated near the core.
I don't think we've gone around the core once yet since modern humans even appeared.
So as our solar system swims its way up and down the galactic equator and around the core, perhaps we will eventually "swim" near core civilizations and the Fermi paradox will turn out to have been an artifact of when we started paying attention and where the few civilizations are to be found.
This occurred to me when I heard the podcast with Avi Loeb, which suggested Oumuamua was a navigational buoy, and it didn't so much pass through the solar system, as we "swam" *past* it. Perhaps we are approaching the suburbs of the Milky Way.
So we just ran a stop sign
Can we expect a ticket in the post lol
@@seansoraghan3245 could be worse- could be a Vogon fleet!
Thanks for the other excellent episode, Documentaries and other content are the reason content creators are much better then linear TV.
Anyone ever play Star Control 2?
That red glow over the planet is definitely some Ur-Quan tech
Anyone else think they feel better whenever they see a new post from Isaac?
I swear if I hear the word "fermi paradox" one more time I'm gonna demote pluto from dwarf planet to oversized comet. We've been looking for alien intelligence for less than 50 years, and we've only searched like 1 septillionth of the stars in our observable universe. There shouldn't be any surprise that we haven't found anything yet, and it certainly doesn't warrant the naming of a paradox from our lack of findings. Just based on the shear number of stars in our universe, it is a mathematical certainty that life elsewhere exists. So please just keep searching instead of wondering why you haven't found anything yet after only examining a few million stars.
Btw this isn't aimed at you Isaac Arthur, I love your content. This was just a rant aimed at the scientific community in general
Well said.
SETI is wonderful, but we couldn’t hardly detect a civilization equal to our own, more than a few dozen light years away.
Drives me nuts. We have the technological equivalent to a grubby cup against the door, and are acting like it’s a surprise when we don’t hear anything.
Frankly the lack of a space based radio telescope array is disturbing to me.
I am not convinced that the people in charge are particularly interested in really listening.
This episode strangely embodied the opposite of existential dread for me. Even if WW3, 4 and 5 came, even if we bomb ourselves into oblivion. The chances for humanity to survive and venture out into the stars again are not that low. Inspiring!
If there's a WWIII, you won't have to worry about another for a thousand years. To paraphrase Einstein, world war four will be fought with sticks and stones.
Botch planet: "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."
you'd BETTER reference the South Park episode where the aliens literally imprison earth
Maybe planets that don't have materials that allow the making of rockets... That could explain it, or planets with very high gravity, many reasons that could make space travel impractical for other species.
Any planet missing what's needed to make rockets is very unlikely to have any life at all.
It could be rich with life but missing dry land. Launching a rocket from underwater is not easy. Making fuel or forging metal isnt easy either but could be done with volcanic vents or something... how would a fish alien even discover fire right?
Lol im 23 minutes in and he pretty much just said that.
Sometimes the Internet is a good thing. Thanks for this. In depth and to the point.
Everyone knows that if we attempt to leave Q will show up to stop us. 😉
with the very best digital space cage that 1987 discount SFX can offer :)
That won’t happen. If humanity makes it that far it’s because we have become enlightened
I always assumed there was at least one civilization who happened upon FTL by accident early in their development. They might even be what we would call a "dumb" species who doesn't care how or why it works, just that it works.
It could be even as simple as they have some unknown (to the periodic table or theories that we know of) to us element or material that naturally occurs on their world on the surface and you can pick it up without negative effects, oh and it happens to be a shelf stable energy source capable of powering anything (almost) to FTL ;)
These guys are the ones in SciFi that make us question how they got to space in the first place; only to find out they are the dominant power in the region due to exorbitant taxes on said material to the rest of the region. Thus we get a plot point for said SciFi show lol.
I have enjoyed this episode the most Isaac. thanks for the content.
Just no. That is basically impossible. While I'm willing to think even a "leftover" population might use ancient AI or computers... Consider that according to known science FTL is impossible, then to propose a civilization would accidentally find it... Might as well have wish granting genies in bottles. Pure fantasy.
@@squirlmy and thats why we all love sci-fi friend 😁
I think this is the most likely "solution" to the paradox. Life isn't exceptionally rare, but space travel is prohibitively difficult. Life is trapped where it gets seeded. Going out requires a chain of inventions, a chain of exceptionally smart and dedicated people.
You absolutely need: computers & math (in one breath), life support, a good body, a generation ship, unimaginable goals and their accompanying demand/dedication/desperation. You don't just need to be space faring but you need to be galactic faring.
Computers aren't as necessary as you might think. I mean they really help get some things faster but are not a 'must have'.
math & science is definitely necessary but life support, "a good body", & gen ships definitely aren't. You can colonize with robots, you can self-modify for whatever environment, & you can use sleeper, seed, or data ships to colonize
@@kruk_7279 You're going to eyeball slingshotting around stars? **shivers**
Space-Whales
@@Yezpahr ehh, you know that your smartphone is way more powerfull that all computers humankind have when they sent people to the Moon?!
One of the best series on RUclips! Change my mind !
Nostalgia for war does have the point that it is a likely cause for a Kessler Effect.
Nevertheless, I get a bit tired of hearing "civilizations self-destruct" themes. It is basically a contradiction in terms. I do understand that the 20th century provides a case in point - and, so far, the 21st century does not seem significantly improved in terms of social evolution. The so-called United Nations seems no more effective that the League of Nations. Nevertheless, most educated people believe that social evolution is a useful goal. So, while progress seems like "three steps forward, two steps back" ... I think there has been some progress. I am old enough to remember when psychology and social science was much cruder than it is today.
There should be an episode called "Imprisoned Solar Systems".
Travel time between solar systems has all sorts of non-biological or partially biological risks, such as ionizing radiation, and such as high velocity strikes by tiny bits of space debris that potentially perforate what is intended to be an airtight environment.
Travel time between solar systems also has biological risks interfering with having fertile travelers who can reproduce on the destination world. The original travelers might be too old to reproduce, but could possibly have spawned younger travelers during the soace trip. Even so, the numerical amount of acceleration of gravity on the destination world is a potential barrier to the normal development of an embryo or fetus. Every species has an upper and lower limit. The lower gravity limit might be zero for some species, but for vertebrates a space experiment involving bird eggs indicated that many vertebrates might have a non-zero lower limit on the amount of gravity needed for normal development of a fertilized egg. One worthwhile experiment for the planet Mars, which has less than half of Earth's gravity at the surface, might be to see if some primate species, perhaps some small monkey species, can successfully reproduce in the lower gravity of the planet Mars. Having to build rotating space bases on a planet that is to be colonized in order to artificially enhance too weak planetary gravity would greatly complicate colonizing planets with weak gravity.
Short version: Most of the risks of lengthy space travel have been discussed, but what has been little discussed is the risk that in practice the gravity upon arrival on a target planet might, for embryo and fetus development reasons, very easily turn out be too weak or too strong to allow the colonizers to successfully reproduce.
Here is something you may consider, book burning culture it self relies on the books, a forgotten forbidden knowledge is destined to be rediscovered.
29:51 Wait that was you!? I found that concept in the Stellaris mod Gigastructures way before I found you on a Star Trek fanfic thread. I am impressed. You are very influential
A life form originating on a neutron star might be able to tilt the magnetic axis away from the rotational axis, turning their home star into a pulsar, and surf the polar jets to reach space.
Prison planet Earth is one of my favorite thought experiments to play around with.
You made a great point with your "tectonic goldilocks zone" conjecture. I'm a geologist myself, but so help me, that never occurred to me! Without an active geology that spawns tectonism, there's not going to be a lot of pooling of technologically vital elements. Similarly, a super active world would likely be a lot heavier and with all the concurrent negatives that go with it... including those of having to dodge lava flows constantly! Indeed, Earth may exist in a narrower zone of viability for this reason alone; along with the many others mentioned. Fermi solution candidate? I'll leave that to you!
Man that asteroid civilization looked sick, never seen that concept before.
Now I'm gonna have that Clutch song stuck in my head all day...
I actually danced a bit when I recognized the topic this morning. Waiting until tonight to listen. I just said openly f$%# yes it's 41 minutes long recognizing it now. Thanks brotha.....
"Imprisoned Planet" is a pretty good name for a heavy metal album
Another type of imprisoning that's not mentioned a lot is if a planet is using a red dwarf as its star. It would be so close to the star that it's energetically difficult to launch space missions (large escape velocity)
I can confirm that roasted rat meat and moonshine are great together.
"A person dumped into New York city tries to find signs of intelligent life by going to Antarctica"
Seems perfectly reasonable to me, it's not like there's any of that in New York
IMHO "the Mote in God's Eye" (by Larry Niven and jerry Pournelle) gives one of the best descriptions of an imprisoned Planet. Read it. Now.
I suspect the main explanation of the fermi paradox is the rarity of planetary systems having sufficient quantities of the lesser-used metals in complex life. The carbon, nitrogen, oxygen etc required (any element at or below iron) for complex life are very common in star-forming nebulae but the small but critical amounts of phosphorous to form ATP energy transport system, or any alternative system, are perhaps quite rare as they are above iron so not formed by stars until supernovae, with the proper mix being very rare.
The vast distances of space and time are the ultimate prison. Many will fail and many won't even try. I hope our species can overcome these barriers.
Hey dude it's all okay.
All we have to do is figure out how to go faster than light.
@@robbirose7032 Or inmortality
@@rommdan2716 yeah. Simple really.
@@robbirose7032 Right, and Dr. Alcubierre already cracked that one. Why was I worried?
@@slabrankle9588 exactly mate.
"...Or some long-lasting anti-tech culture of burning books..."
_Looks nervously at certain places today_
That book the Dragons egg was a awesome read. Loved it . Unfortunately I think it's out of print.
Love the graphics on this episode!
Great episode! How about making an episode on some civilization actually being Lovecraftian and their contact with us and it's applications?
he sorta has an ep on this in "God's & Monsters: Space as Lovecraft envisioned it"
Is that Amish in the space habitat an original idea? That is such an interesting concept.
in the scifi novel ''Alternaties'' by Michael P. Kube-McDowell, an alien entity or alien civilization gets very worried about Earth's future, sometime in the 1940s or 1950s. It saw the possiblitly that we humans might wage global nuclear war to ourselves at any time, destroying our world completely. It first created a dimensional bubble at some distance away from the solar system, locking us up within it, but we we were still able to watch the universe around us.The second thing it did was even more spectacular: It created several alternate timelines in the other dimensions of the bubble. Each of the alternate solar systems (i.e. each of the alternate Earths) was allowed to live and develop its own society. So in the case that one (or more than one...) alternate Earth destroys itself, other alternate Earths will survive. The different Earths (there aren't many of them, less then ten I think I remember) start out the same but over time they change remarkably. The novel concentrates on how the politcal systems of the different USAs move away from each other, from democracy to tyranny.
In ONE alternative, the existence of the other alternatives is accidentally discovered. It seems the alien bubble is not without flaws: If you can find the exact spot you can move through the dimensions and visit the other Earths - not unlike moving between the different worlds of ''His Dark Materials'' by Philip Pullman. This alternative starts to exploit the other ones (not unlike in the TV series ''The Man in the High Castle'').
Long time fan here: you are talking about the krikkit. A race of people with a sky so dull and clouded that they did not even consider looking up and therefor did not consider that there is life somewhere else...
I'm not sure if you'll read this but I have bumped into some online Science Fiction stories that have their own swing at the Fermi Paradox. In particular look up The Veil of Madness or Out of Cruel Space. The first is older and much more to the point, but they both have a similar premise as for why contact with aliens hasn't happened yet.
Effectively Earth is in the middle of some kind of anomaly or hazardous part of space that is at the least difficult, if not nigh on impossible, to be navigated. Either it does not confirm to the laws of physics known to the galaxy outside of this zone or has some kind of detrimental effect on alien biology. The reason we haven't had any contact could be due to a fairly reasonable assumption that this part of the galaxy is simply too dangerous to support life, as such contact with aliens will only begin once we cross this border into their own parts of the galaxy. Something that would likely come as a big surprise because if there's even half a percent of the galaxy that has this hazard then the sheer amount of space until we find another species is nothing short of literally astronomical.
What do you think of this theory? It has flaws, but I do think it at least addresses all the points of the Fermi Paradox. Also the reason why we would not be able to tell we're within the anomaly is because of course, we're in the middle of it. All of our observations are filtered through it. Like standing in smoke.
Biofuels can be made of agricultural biproducts (like straw) in limited amounts. So biofueled tractors definitely make sense.
I just started watching your content and I have to say I'm a fan keep up the good work!
I love your videos. Such a ridiculously intelligent person!
I would argue that successful space flight is indeed exclusive to species with a strong foundational understanding of physics. I think the mathematics part is debateable as I do not believe we can assume this is the only possible solution to interface evolutionary biology to observational physics. Now were we to generalise mathematics to instead be having devised a mechanism to model physical reality that is comprehensible to some general intelligence then sure, but who are we to assume that the mechanics we made up to do this are universal? I would argue mathematics is more the result of our attempt to formulate a programming language to program novel predictive capabilities into the processing meat we evolved. Other evolutionary pathways may potentially have led to a substrate that required radically different mechanics to generate cognitively workable models of reality. Mathematics as we know it could be as alien to them as x86 machine code would be to an ARM CPU if not more so, mathematics strikes me as potentially being more like an API to covert aspects of the model into something the biological substrate can interpret and produce outputs that are informative predictions of the objective behaviour of the external physical reality. Aliens may do this in a way that is utterly incomprehensible nonsense to us and does not resemble mathematics as we know it given their brains (or equivalent organ) could function in fundamentally different ways to our own.
Even among our own species we have individuals that to some degree can observe and perceive aspects of reality in ways that cannot be fully communicated and understood by others eg those with forms of synesthesia. It is possible that alien evolution could have produced something similar as the default condition that may perhaps have developed some weird system of operations based on some analogy of what we call colour or whatever. These operands could also be entirely different for all we know, hell even we can simulate arithmetic operations using sequences of bitwise operations two different systems that can get the same output by using fundamentally differently laid out substrates. The latter of which being of our own creation heavily influenced by our own subjective understanding and modelling of reality imagine what systems beings with a entirely different subjective consciousnesses might end up producing in their attempt to internalise models derived from their observation of reality.
If God had meant man to travel faster than light, he'd have given us warp drive. Harumph.
Lol
Its going to be so surreal, that after the "Post Nuclear Apocalypse."
The list I have, in order for me to rebuild civilization, the only thing I'm going to remember,
is Isaac advice -"manufactured booze, make's for caught rats more palpable to eat."
Not how to make, penicillin or freezer or combustion engine,etc.
Though would be nice to have a freezer, just for the post-it notes on the door.
Guess - I could put one, on an uneaten cooked rat. ;)
I'm currently writing a post apocalyptic story where the main character has all her initial influence because she makes the best booze and has "secret" food knowledge. Is it because I feel underappreciated as a chef and brewer in this society, and am constantly surprised by how few people know how simple booze is to make or how many "weeds" are edible? Yes, absolutely. But hopefully the rest of the story makes up for my fantasy of living in a world where my skills are valued more.
Hehehe. For many decades, the underground art of cannabis edibles was pretty much exactly what your premise for "secret ethanol" is. You might search for ideas in old issues of "High Times"! 🤣
Wait ain’t planet 4546b from subnautica an imprisoned world? It has a giant gun that shoots everyone trying to leave quarantine of the carar disease.
Hey man, can you do a video on the fermi paradox and the dark forest, i just finished liu cixin trilogy and really would love to watch one of your videos covering the dark forest theory and the purging scenarios pressented in death’s end
15:15 One example that the Finns used in times of crisis and was experimented around the world, was the usage of wood gas as fuel for vehicles.
Quite literally, you underburn wood and it produces a combustable gas, that has been used in cars and sleds.
resources like Coal don't get replenished. Easy access oil reserves take a long time to replenish as well, but that can be artificially made too.
37:38 daaam dude is a warrior aaand space scientist/enthusiast ? when alien attack starts we need you to lead the resistance pal. TO THE VICTORY.