Physicist proposes answer to Fermi Paradox

[UM-Bot]

If the universe is teeming with intelligent alien civilizations, then why have we yet to discover any ?

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/337467/physicist-proposes-answer-to-fermi-paradox

[Ironside]

"What if the first life that reaches interstellar travel capability necessarily eradicates all competition to fuel its own expansion ?" he asks.

But if such a scenario were true, why have we yet to be destroyed in the same manner ?

That's because, Berezin argues, we are most likely to be the very destroyers he describes.''


That's on the assumption we actually become an interstellar species and not eat each other before we achieve it.
 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Ironside

[Tom1200]

There's not much new in this speculation.  Read the full paper at https://arxiv.org/pdf/1903.11599.pdf to see that he's not taking this terribly seriously.

In fact he's arguing that civilisations inevitably destroy themselves, by collecting sufficient resources in one location to create a black hole that destroys everything of value - goods, knowledge, technology, etc.

His premise is that there will always be competition between agents within a civilisation to obtain the greatest resources.  Extrapolating this to an interstellar civilisation he concludes that wealth will be stored in the centre of a spherical region where it will be safest from rival intelligences.  Then, since no one person is in charge of everything, at some point this mass turns into a black hole.

To quote from the paper - "In the near future, private space industry should grow dramatically.  ...  Slowly but inevitably, engineering challenges that seem insurmountable today will become real targets; challenges such as gathering enough resources to collapse into a black hole."

So is it just another catastrophic solution to the Fermi Paradox?  Well - not quite.  This is one that requires virtually zero evidence - except the existence of aberrant black holes.  "Basically, observing multiple black holes that do not fit accepted astronomical models of star/galaxy formation might be considered as weak evidence for this hypothesis, and vice versa."  (My italics.)

That's the bit that makes the least sense to me - what does he mean by "and vice versa"?  Argument - unusual black holes may be remnants of huge civilisations; vice versa = "remnants of huge civilisations may be black holes"?  Can anyone¹ interpret this for me?

¹ If Waspie - remember to dumb it down with short words for me.

[Piney]

28 minutes ago, Tom1200 said:

In fact he's arguing that civilisations inevitably destroy themselves, by collecting sufficient resources in one location to create a black hole that destroys everything of value - goods, knowledge, technology, etc.

I argue we are a first generation rocky planet with metals orbiting a first generation exceptionally quiet yellow dwarf and all the factors in the "Rare Eatth Hypothesis".

 

[Rlyeh]

I'm pretty sure you're going to be having a ton of problems long before your resources collapse into a black hole.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Rlyeh

[bison]

The galaxy is just waiting for us to fill it? I hardly think so. The average age of Earth-like planets in our galaxy has been estimated to be one billion years older than Earth, many would be twice that old. There could have been a huge number of opportunities for civilizations to arise and expand their territory throughout the galaxy, far before we came along.  Even if only a few, or even one such civilization managed to do this, the effect would be the same, a civilized galaxy.

Dr. Fermi was a pretty sound reasoner, his paradox will not be dismissed as easily as all that.

 

[ufoguy]

Quote

The question of whether we are alone in the universe remains one of the biggest philosophical conundrums of our time. While it seems almost inconceivable that our civilization is alone in the cosmos, the fact still remains that we have yet to see any evidence to the contrary.

The Fermi paradox, which highlights the contradiction between the likely existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the fact that we have still never encountered any, seems to suggest that either there are no aliens out there, or they are so rare that it is unlikely we would ever come across them.

Now one physicist has come up with another explanation - one that could explain, not only why we have yet to discover alien life, but also what might ultimately happen in the future.

There is mountain of evidence that Aliens are already here. This is just another way of dismissing obvious evidence of pictures and videos of UFOs and even flying humanoids. I mean you can even verify them right now just by surveillance of the moon...

Even NASA knows that there is an alien base on the dark side of the moon. 

I mean when you have cases like the Battle of LA and the Rendlesham Forest incident, its pretty obvious they are here.

Edited June 9, 2020 by Saru
Keep it civil please.

[Seti42]

This explanation for the Fermi Paradox is no more or less likely than any other, IMO.
I think the distance and time scales of the universe are just too vast for civilizations to come into contact with each other. That said, there could be two (or more) civilizations that are just lucky enough to be close enough to each other that contact between them is possible or even likely. For all we know, there's life on Europa and we'll discover it in 50-100 years or so. There could easily be solar systems with two or more bodies conducive for life to evolve, IMO.

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Seti42

[Seti42]

13 hours ago, ufoguy said:

There is mountain of evidence that Aliens are already here. This is just another way of dismissing obvious evidence of pictures and videos of UFOs and even flying humanoids. I mean you can even verify them right now just by surveillance of the moon...

Even NASA knows that there is an alien base on the dark side of the moon. 

I mean when you have cases like the Battle of LA and the Rendlesham Forest incident, its pretty obvious they are here.

Are you serious or trolling?

There is no scientific evidence of extraterrestrial contact on earth; at least not any that is widely known. There is a mountain of hearsay, conjecture, and hypothesis. There's also a mountain of intentional fakes and grift.

[the13bats]

48 minutes ago, Seti42 said:

Are you serious or trolling?

There is no scientific evidence of extraterrestrial contact on earth; at least not any that is widely known. There is a mountain of hearsay, conjecture, and hypothesis. There's also a mountain of intentional fakes and grift.

Anyone who uses Battle of LA and the Rendlesham Forest incident, as examples of anything besides embellishment of mundain non events cant be taken seriously.

[+Razman]

They probably avoiding us.

[Dejarma]

4 hours ago, ufoguy said:

Even NASA knows that there is an alien base on the dark side of the moon. 

is it a secret base?

[Rlyeh]

3 hours ago, RickFromTexas said:

"While it seems almost inconceivable that our civilization is alone in the cosmos, the fact still remains that we have yet to see any evidence to the contrary."

Any evidence? That's ridiculous, there's plenty of evidence in the UFO phenomenon, evidence that scientists routinely ignore because they don't understand the phenomenon or are afraid to admit that they've been wrong all these years. 

Aliens not UFOs.

[Rlyeh]

2 hours ago, RickFromTexas said:

Anyone who spells mundane, mundain, even with a red line under the word indicating that it's misspelled, disqualifies themselves from serious debate. I bet you think those Navy UAP videos are fake, too, even though they were taken by experienced military pilots who can tell the difference between drones and piloted craft. the13bats is a good name for you, they're in your belfry.

I bet you can't show they're from another planet.

Edited June 9, 2020 by Rlyeh

[Ironside]

@ufoguy @RickFromTexas welcome to the party guys!

[Laserburn]

So we should be demolished for an interstellar bypass.

[woopypooky]

Either we are the first/most advanced civilization
or
planet Earth is categorised under a protected-observation-but-non-interference habitat by little grey men who happen to declare the entire 3,500 light-years Orion arms as their territory.

[RoofGardener]

Well, the reason we havn't been contacted by an advanced alien civilisation is just because space is HUGE. They just haven't got here yet. 

 

[jowasmus]

1 hour ago, Laserburn said:

So we should be demolished for an interstellar bypass.

That was pretty much what Zaphod Beeblebrox said. LOL

[Trelane]

I'm sure their is an abundance of intelligent life. The vastness of the universe may prevent our detection or communication with those beings. What I see often though is speculation based on human history, the human perspective and knowledge of the universe from our tiny outpost. The speck of dust suspended in a sunbeam. in quaint little area of our own galaxy. 

[+Hammerclaw]

Trying to communicate across interstellar distances with radio might seem as ridiculously futile to more advanced civilizations as would be trying to communicate across the Atlantic with drums. Chances are, we have yet to discover or invent the most common form of communication being used across the Galaxy. We may be flooded with all sorts of communications for which we have no receiver to intercept.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Hammerclaw

[bison]

It's conceivable that radio waves could still be in use by advanced civilizations in space. We discovered fire several hundred thousand years ago, but still find many uses for it. Maybe they find some way to send radio through wormholes, or bulk space, greatly reducing the problems of time lag and signals fading with distance. 

We could be surrounded by such signals and not even know it. As the use of radio waves has advanced, signals begin to look more and more like random noise to the naive observer. Try looking at a digital tv broadcast with an old set with just an antenna, and without a digital converter, and you'll begin to see what I mean. 

[jbondo]

On 6/8/2020 at 5:48 AM, Ironside said:

"What if the first life that reaches interstellar travel capability necessarily eradicates all competition to fuel its own expansion ?" he asks.

But if such a scenario were true, why have we yet to be destroyed in the same manner ?

That's because, Berezin argues, we are most likely to be the very destroyers he describes.''


That's on the assumption we actually become an interstellar species and not eat each other before we achieve it.
 

Or, they just haven't gotten to us yet to do their eradication.

On 6/8/2020 at 7:17 AM, Rlyeh said:

I'm pretty sure you're going to be having a ton of problems long before your resources collapse into a black hole.

Now there's some logic you can't really argue with. We tend to wait until the sht hits the fan before we make a real effort to correct it. Sooner or later, the sht will be such that we can't fix it. Then again, there is a slight chance that we could change our greedy, violent and consumptive habits....a very slight chance. I wouldn't place a bet in Vegas on it.

[ufoguy]

On 6/8/2020 at 2:45 PM, Seti42 said:

Are you serious or trolling?

There is no scientific evidence of extraterrestrial contact on earth; at least not any that is widely known. There is a mountain of hearsay, conjecture, and hypothesis. There's also a mountain of intentional fakes and grift.

Really?....if you were a scientist and you saw an actual ufo craft BY YOUR SELF would you come forward with your story? or even if you have physical proof, would you come out to the public with your story...or would you be scared to get laughed at and called a lunatic?.....

There are no main stream scientist that will risk their careers over this topic even if they do have evidence. And even if they have physical proof they will be visited by national security personnel and your proof will be confiscated, never to be seen again. And they will force you to sign a non disclosure form or else.

[ufoguy]

On 6/8/2020 at 3:36 PM, the13bats said:

Anyone who uses Battle of LA and the Rendlesham Forest incident, as examples of anything besides embellishment of mundain non events cant be taken seriously.

Yeah and i'm not taking people like you seriously either because, even if you saw an Alien or ufo, you would keep it to your self and never come forward thinking you might be laughed at. The typical Skeptic.