Bad news for alien life

Nice.

And that is assuming a long series of improbable events over four billion years that led to the unique emergence of Homo Sapiens.

The fact that life was perfectly happy on Earth for 3 billion years as single celled microbes before making a sudden and abrupt jump to multicellular complex life, suggests life might be perfectly happy to exist as just microbes for billions of years
Agreed. Apples to apples, look at stars about the same age as ours with planets in the Goldilocks Zone. Young stars like in the Pleiades cluster are unlikely to harbor advanced civilizations.


As an open cluster, the stars in the Pleiades were all born around the same time from a gigantic cloud of gas and dust. The brightest stars in the formation glow a hot blue and formed within the last 100 million years. They are extremely luminous and will burn out quickly, with life spans of only a few hundred million years, much shorter than the billions of years our sun will enjoy.

Scientists estimate that the entire cluster is no more than 150 million years old, and possibly as young as 75 million, according to
skywatching site Constellation Guide
nwRnUEaELuneFsNgbF7vKM-650-80.jpg.webp
 
Agree.

I think Star Trek, and the misuse of the Drake Equation in the 1970s primed us to believe that our galaxy would be pregnant with millions of planets with advanced life.

Agree that the laws of physics probably preclude any tangible probability of communication and travel between civilizations
Agreed that fiction stories primed us to be a little too optimistic about alien civilizations. OTOH, even scientists from 200 years ago were speculating about life on Venus or Mars.

The Drake Equation was just an estimate albeit a little more scientific than the ones I've been making. 50 years of research has altered the variables in the equation such as stated in your OP and greatly reduced the number of possible civilizations.
 
Agreed. Apples to apples, look at stars about the same age as ours with planets in the Goldilocks Zone. Young stars like in the Pleiades cluster are unlikely to harbor advanced civilizations.


As an open cluster, the stars in the Pleiades were all born around the same time from a gigantic cloud of gas and dust. The brightest stars in the formation glow a hot blue and formed within the last 100 million years. They are extremely luminous and will burn out quickly, with life spans of only a few hundred million years, much shorter than the billions of years our sun will enjoy.

Scientists estimate that the entire cluster is no more than 150 million years old, and possibly as young as 75 million, according to
skywatching site Constellation Guide
nwRnUEaELuneFsNgbF7vKM-650-80.jpg.webp
Pleiades is one of my favorite astronomical features.

Agreed, we can rule out blue and red gas supergiants as oasis of life
 
An estimated 75 to 80 percent of the stars in the Milky Way are M-class red dwarfs, and if they are highly unlikely to support planets with life, that rules out a huge proportion of star systems that could possibly host advanced intelligent alien life, or any life at all.



A new study of red dwarf stars has revealed that even the quietest examples of this stellar class are more active and wild than the sun.

Red dwarfs, officially known as "M dwarfs" by astronomers, are the most common stars in the Milky Way and can remain placid for long periods of time before erupting with huge "superflares." These flares have previously been measured to be 100 to 1,000 times more powerful than similar flares from the sun, with young red dwarfs particularly tumultuous.

These outbursts, as well as eruptions of scorching-hot plasma known as coronal mass ejections (CMES), can be incredibly destructive to planets orbiting red dwarfs, stripping their atmospheres and emitting enough radiation to boil away liquid water even in the so-called habitable zone around them  — the region around a star in which liquid water can exist on a world's surface.

Such high activity might therefore make it tough for life to take root around red dwarfs, some scientists say.

Because astronomers have struggled to study individual red dwarfs in detail, the next best thing is looking at a lot of these stars over a long time period. A long view is needed to really get a clear picture of red dwarf variability,


why do masons always pretend there's nothing outside our sphere of knowledge?
 
Agreed that fiction stories primed us to be a little too optimistic about alien civilizations. OTOH, even scientists from 200 years ago were speculating about life on Venus or Mars.

The Drake Equation was just an estimate albeit a little more scientific than the ones I've been making. 50 years of research has altered the variables in the equation such as stated in your OP and greatly reduced the number of possible civilizations.
Yes, agree. I wrote earlier in the thread that I don't consider all this to be pointless speculation, because we can derive better estimates as we acquire more knowledge of stellar and planetary dynamics.
 
An estimated 75 to 80 percent of the stars in the Milky Way are M-class red dwarfs, and if they are highly unlikely to support planets with life, that rules out a huge proportion of star systems that could possibly host advanced intelligent alien life, or any life at all.



A new study of red dwarf stars has revealed that even the quietest examples of this stellar class are more active and wild than the sun.

Red dwarfs, officially known as "M dwarfs" by astronomers, are the most common stars in the Milky Way and can remain placid for long periods of time before erupting with huge "superflares." These flares have previously been measured to be 100 to 1,000 times more powerful than similar flares from the sun, with young red dwarfs particularly tumultuous.

These outbursts, as well as eruptions of scorching-hot plasma known as coronal mass ejections (CMES), can be incredibly destructive to planets orbiting red dwarfs, stripping their atmospheres and emitting enough radiation to boil away liquid water even in the so-called habitable zone around them  — the region around a star in which liquid water can exist on a world's surface.

Such high activity might therefore make it tough for life to take root around red dwarfs, some scientists say.

Because astronomers have struggled to study individual red dwarfs in detail, the next best thing is looking at a lot of these stars over a long time period. A long view is needed to really get a clear picture of red dwarf variability,



Interesting. Thanks, Cypress. Gives me a great idea for a blockbuster sci-fi franchise. The scientists of Labama, an Earth-like planet circling its red dwarf star, MAGAT3, warn the populace of signs of coming upheavels and severe flares from their star. Panic ensures and t hen subsides. The Libsmartz begin to make evacuation preparations and build underground shelters for those who choose to stay. Meanwhile, the Drumptilians call the whole notion a hoax and refuse to make plans for their future safety
 
I personally think it's utterly pointless to speculate about something we will never (in this life anyway) know the truth about.

Not a sci-fi fan? I've always loved pondering about life elsewhere, with and without the aid of THC. I also like fantasy fiction about elves, fairies, dragons, etc. But life elsewhere seems far more likely, plausible, and real than unicorns and vampires.
 
Not a sci-fi fan? I've always loved pondering about life elsewhere, with and without the aid of THC. I also like fantasy fiction about elves, fairies, dragons, etc. But life elsewhere seems far more likely, plausible, and real than unicorns and vampires.

Well, first of all, no I'm not a fan of the sci fi genre in books, movies and TV shows, with the exception of CE3K, which is one of my all time favorite anythings. But stuff like Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, etc, etc, holds no appeal for me.

I do enjoy IDLE speculation about the universe and the great unknown, though.

I just think it's pointless to engage in SERIOUS speculation about it. As in trying to use what we know to extrapolate theories as to what might be.

The wilder and more unlikely, the more fun it is for me.

I think it's possible that there's a world out there somewhere in which everyone has two heads. People with only one head are pitied and regarded as freaks who must be kept away from society to hide their shame.

And I think there's another world comprised of cat people. They walk upright, have opposable thumbs (with claws of course), are covered with soft fur, live in cat condos they build themselves (licensed contractor cat people actually) and lick themselves a lot. On a nearby world are the mice people who they are constantly at war with.

marsie.jpg


😸
 
Well, first of all, no I'm not a fan of the sci fi genre in books, movies and TV shows, with the exception of CE3K, which is one of my all time favorite anythings. But stuff like Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, etc, etc, holds no appeal for me.

I do enjoy IDLE speculation about the universe and the great unknown, though.

I just think it's pointless to engage in SERIOUS speculation about it. As in trying to use what we know to extrapolate theories as to what might be.

The wilder and more unlikely, the more fun it is for me.

I think it's possible that there's a world out there somewhere in which everyone has two heads. People with only one head are pitied and regarded as freaks who must be kept away from society to hide their shame.

And I think there's another world comprised of cat people. They walk upright, have opposable thumbs (with claws of course), are covered with soft fur, live in cat condos they build themselves (licensed contractor cat people actually) and lick themselves a lot. On a nearby world are the mice people who they are constantly at war with.



😸

Maybe you might want to rethink your aversion to Star Trek. Where else could you find a cat-woman with three boobs? :laugh:

0hFTso7.jpg
 
Interesting. Thanks, Cypress. Gives me a great idea for a blockbuster sci-fi franchise. The scientists of Labama, an Earth-like planet circling its red dwarf star, MAGAT3, warn the populace of signs of coming upheavels and severe flares from their star. Panic ensures and t hen subsides. The Libsmartz begin to make evacuation preparations and build underground shelters for those who choose to stay. Meanwhile, the Drumptilians call the whole notion a hoax and refuse to make plans for their future safety
Ha!
Surely mass coronal ejections are a Chinese hoax!
 
"Intelligent life forms" may all develop along the lines in which we homo sapiens developed...which means most will self-destruct as soon as they become technically able to do so...ya know, at about at the age we humans currently are. It may be close to impossible to evolve philosophically to the point where a developing life-form will definitely not do so...if technologically able to do it.

We humans may be THE most advanced life form anywhere in our galaxy...or in any galaxy. At this point, we (as well as all other evolving life) self-annihilate.

Getting any further along than we are right now...might be THE most prohibitive force that must be overcome in order for further progress to continue.

Maybe nobody makes it.

We certainly do not look as though we will.
 
"Intelligent life forms" may all develop along the lines in which we homo sapiens developed...which means most will self-destruct as soon as they become technically able to do so...ya know, at about at the age we humans currently are. It may be close to impossible to evolve philosophically to the point where a developing life-form will definitely not do so...if technologically able to do it.

We humans may be THE most advanced life form anywhere in our galaxy...or in any galaxy. At this point, we (as well as all other evolving life) self-annihilate.

Getting any further along than we are right now...might be THE most prohibitive force that must be overcome in order for further progress to continue.

Maybe nobody makes it.

We certainly do not look as though we will.

(puts on Pollyanna hat) OTOH we have had the ability to destroy ourselves with nukes for nearly 80 years now, yet we haven't. Climate change is and will make human life more difficult, but even so I expect that we clever monkeys will figure out how to survive even that.
 
Not a sci-fi fan? I've always loved pondering about life elsewhere, with and without the aid of THC. I also like fantasy fiction about elves, fairies, dragons, etc. But life elsewhere seems far more likely, plausible, and real than unicorns and vampires.
My childhood is hard to imagine without Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek.
 
"Intelligent life forms" may all develop along the lines in which we homo sapiens developed...which means most will self-destruct as soon as they become technically able to do so...ya know, at about at the age we humans currently are. It may be close to impossible to evolve philosophically to the point where a developing life-form will definitely not do so...if technologically able to do it.

We humans may be THE most advanced life form anywhere in our galaxy...or in any galaxy. At this point, we (as well as all other evolving life) self-annihilate.

Getting any further along than we are right now...might be THE most prohibitive force that must be overcome in order for further progress to continue.

Maybe nobody makes it.

We certainly do not look as though we will.
I haven't decided whether intelligence like ours is an inevitable consequence of biological evolution, or whether human intelligence was a fluke.

Abstract thought, sentient consciousness, higher rationality was a unique one-time event in four billion years of earth history. Is it something that was inevitable? I don't know. For three billion years Earth was perfectly happy to host only single celled microbial life, until something initiated a sudden and abrupt explosion of complex multicellular life.
 
(puts on Pollyanna hat) OTOH we have had the ability to destroy ourselves with nukes for nearly 80 years now, yet we haven't. Climate change is and will make human life more difficult, but even so I expect that we clever monkeys will figure out how to survive even that.
We've come too close in the past and are still at risk of a nuclear exchange today. Maybe not a full Thermonuclear War, but enough to fuck up the environment and kill millions of people.

Agreed, if civilization continues to exist, we should be able to figure out solutions be it the maxim "necessity is the mother of invention" or something out of left field a 'la the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894.

 
"Intelligent life forms" may all develop along the lines in which we homo sapiens developed...which means most will self-destruct as soon as they become technically able to do so...ya know, at about at the age we humans currently are. It may be close to impossible to evolve philosophically to the point where a developing life-form will definitely not do so...if technologically able to do it.

We humans may be THE most advanced life form anywhere in our galaxy...or in any galaxy. At this point, we (as well as all other evolving life) self-annihilate.

Getting any further along than we are right now...might be THE most prohibitive force that must be overcome in order for further progress to continue.

Maybe nobody makes it.

We certainly do not look as though we will.
That's the general idea behind resolving Fermi's Paradox: that advanced civilizations either self-destruct or are taken out by natural events such as impact events or super volcanoes.

Disagreed that humans are the likely the most advance intelligence in our galaxy. There's over 100B, and up to 400B, stars in our galaxy. While life may be rare due to a "perfect storm" of events, when life does take hold, the basic tenets of evolution seem to follow the Red Queen hypothesis which postulates that, in the contest between predator and prey, eventually one will become intelligent enough to dominate the other.

In the case of the fangless, clawless, puny naked ape, it was a combination of higher intelligence and bipedalism which gave humans the edge to dominate lions, tigers and bears...oh my!

Recently I rewatched an old Liam Neeson movie, "The Grey", which is about Alaskan winter plane crash survivors being hunted by a pack of wolves. Unlikely to be rescued, they trek to safety with the wolf pack taking them down one-by-one. While they do use fire to help fend off the wolves, they don't have any firearms or other weapons. As the movie progressed, I kept asking myself "Where the fuck are the sharpened sticks?"

Even if they didn't have time to attach stone spearpoints on the sticks, five men clustered together each with 5 to 7 foot wooden poles with fire-hardened sharpened points would have given them a major edge.

4a29450a8ced380df6e001aeca81c49e.jpg


A group of early-human hunters, covered in furs with spears in hand, set to take down a wooly mammoth or fight off a saber tooth tiger, is a favorite trope when imagining the Stone Age. Of all the stone constructions employed by humans throughout this period, the stone-tipped spear is one of the most iconic, but also one of the most recent. New evidence, however, says The New York Times, is pushing back the age of the classic spear by 200,000 years, giving its term a 500,000 year run.

 
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"Intelligent life forms" may all develop along the lines in which we homo sapiens developed...which means most will self-destruct as soon as they become technically able to do so...ya know, at about at the age we humans currently are. It may be close to impossible to evolve philosophically to the point where a developing life-form will definitely not do so...if technologically able to do it.

I think the flaw in that logic is that, who/what the human race is today (here on Earth) is a product of the things that happened centuries and millennia ago, much of which was just due to random chance.

Certain leaders who turned out to violent despots might have never came along had fate merely taken a slightly different turn.

Would someone just as bad or worse come along anyway and taken their place? Maybe. Maybe not.

But just because it worked out that way on Earth over the centuries does not mean it's inevitable everywhere.

Plus, the competitive, war-like nature of humans might not exist in some other race on another planet. There could possibly be civilizations out there that are actually civilized.

So I don't think we can really say that technological advancement goes hand in hand with the propensity for self destruction.
 
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