Bold Prediction: Intelligent Alien Life Could Be Found by 2040

xavi1000

JayinAR
reply to post by game over man

 

Type 1 means you have harnesses the power of your star.
Meaning you utilize ALL of its energy output.
Which means you need something like a Dyson sphere built in order to capture that energy.
Which means that you will need to harness literally ALL of the resources available in your star system in order to do so...and even then I dunno if it is even possible, let alone feasible.

You could go interstellar (we have actually) and still not scratch the surface of a type one civ.

You are wrong, that is type 2 .

Ah, right you are. My bad.

Well, that puts us a fair bit closer than I was thinking, but still a ways off.
It amazes me that we can go to Mars but still can't get to the bottom of the Pacific

JayinAR

xavi1000

JayinAR
reply to post by game over man

 

Type 1 means you have harnesses the power of your star.
Meaning you utilize ALL of its energy output.
Which means you need something like a Dyson sphere built in order to capture that energy.
Which means that you will need to harness literally ALL of the resources available in your star system in order to do so...and even then I dunno if it is even possible, let alone feasible.

You could go interstellar (we have actually) and still not scratch the surface of a type one civ.

You are wrong, that is type 2 .

Ah, right you are. My bad.

Well, that puts us a fair bit closer than I was thinking, but still a ways off.
It amazes me that we can go to Mars but still can't get to the bottom of the Pacific

We can. It's just a matter of budget and priorities.

We're a Type 0.8 now. We're likely to be a Type 0.9 around 2040 and fully a Type 1 around 2100.

This is based on access to energy by the way, and not how that energy is applied.




We have had the power (nuclear fission power and nuclear fusion explosions) to send a slow probe to the stars since about 1960. Had we done it in 1970 we'd be perhaps be about 1/2 to 2/3rds of the way to Alpha Centauri right now.

We've not done it. Priorities....

Having access to energy makes no prediction as to what we will use that energy for. In that same period of time we (as a planet) came close to unleashing that same power three times in the (Cuban Missile Crisis, Abel Archer 83 and the Kargil War) in a nuclear conflict.

Luckily, cooler heads prevailed. And we're all still here to talk about it. That by no means, was or is guaranteed.

BTW: Nena's "99 Red Luftballoons" (aka 99 Red Balloons) was released the same year as Abel Archer 83 took place: 1983 - At the time no one knew how prophetic this song almost became.



Only after documents were declassified after the end of the Cold War in the US and Russia did we know how close to nuclear war we were then.

On the night of September 26, 1983, the Soviet orbital missile early warning system (SPRN), code-named Oko, reported a single intercontinental ballistic missile launch from the territory of the United States. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, who was on duty during the incident, correctly dismissed the warning as a computer error when ground early warning radars did not detect any launches. Part of his reasoning was that the system was new and known to malfunction before; also, a full scale nuclear attack from the United States would involve thousands of simultaneous launches, not a single missile.

Later, the system reported four more ICBM launches headed to the Soviet Union, but Petrov again dismissed the reports as false. The investigation that followed revealed that the system indeed malfunctioned and false alarms were caused by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites' orbits.

Finally, during Able Archer 83 NATO forces simulated a move through all alert phases, from DEFCON 5 to DEFCON 1. While these phases were simulated, alarmist KGB agents mistakenly reported them as actual. According to Soviet intelligence, NATO doctrine stated, "Operational readiness No 1 is declared when there are obvious indications of preparation to begin military operations. It is considered that war is inevitable and may start at any moment."

Upon learning that US nuclear activity mirrored its hypothesized first strike activity, the Moscow Centre sent its residencies a flash telegram on November 8 or 9 (Oleg Gordievsky cannot recall which), incorrectly reporting an alert on American bases and frantically asking for further information regarding an American first strike. The alert precisely coincided with the seven- to ten-day period estimated between NATO's preliminary decision and an actual strike.

This was the peak of the war scare.

The Soviet Union, believing its only chance of surviving a NATO strike was to preempt it, readied its nuclear arsenal. The CIA reported activity in the Baltic Military District, in Czechoslovakia, and it determined that nuclear-capable aircraft in Poland and East Germany were placed "on high alert status with readying of nuclear strike forces".

Former CIA analyst Peter Vincent Pry goes further, saying he suspects that the aircraft were merely the tip of the iceberg. He hypothesizes that—in accordance with Soviet military procedure and history—ICBM silos, easily readied and difficult for the United States to detect, were also prepared for a launch.

Which brings to "L" in the Drake Equation. How long will we survive? How long does the average civilization survive?

This is a HUGE factor in how likely we will be to find ET.

It's been said if we survive the next 100 years we likely will survive the next 100,000 years or more and that the transition from Type 0 to Type 1 is the most difficult transition a civilization is likely to make.

Let us hope we make it and work toward that end.

reply to post by JayinAR



do the aliens know about this type 1, 2, 3 etc. idea of civilisation and do they comply with it?

taoistguy
reply to post by JayinAR

 

do the aliens know about this type 1, 2, 3 etc. idea of civilisation and do they comply with it?

I don't understand your question

reply to post by JayinAR


l6ts of people are talking about us trying to reach being a type 1 civ and aliens being type 2 or 3...do the aliens know this and follow this rule?

taoistguy
reply to post by JayinAR

 

l6ts of people are talking about us trying to reach being a type 1 civ and aliens being type 2 or 3...do the aliens know this and follow this rule?

There isn't a "rule" to follow. It is just how we classify these hypothetical civilizations.

If there are advanced civs out there who don't follow these "guidelines" nothing is lost. They just wouldn't classify as we know it.

taoistguy
reply to post by JayinAR

 

l6ts of people are talking about us trying to reach being a type 1 civ and aliens being type 2 or 3...do the aliens know this and follow this rule?

I'd suspect the aliens would have a similar type of classification system of civilizations, based on access to energy and the convenience of celestial bodies like planets, stars and galaxies as a form of scale. Those bodies and the energy output of them would be natural to both them and us and we'd have that in common.

While their classification system might be subdivided differently, they likely would have hard breaks between planetary civilization, star system civilization and galactic civilization.

Or maybe they don't classify us at all....

Maybe they don't start classifying until what we consider Type II.

Its a great question which I hope we find an answer to eventually.

JadeStar

JayinAR

xavi1000

JayinAR
reply to post by game over man

 

Type 1 means you have harnesses the power of your star.
Meaning you utilize ALL of its energy output.
Which means you need something like a Dyson sphere built in order to capture that energy.
Which means that you will need to harness literally ALL of the resources available in your star system in order to do so...and even then I dunno if it is even possible, let alone feasible.

You could go interstellar (we have actually) and still not scratch the surface of a type one civ.

You are wrong, that is type 2 .

Ah, right you are. My bad.

Well, that puts us a fair bit closer than I was thinking, but still a ways off.
It amazes me that we can go to Mars but still can't get to the bottom of the Pacific

We can. It's just a matter of budget and priorities.

We're a Type 0.8 now. We're likely to be a Type 0.9 around 2040 and fully a Type 1 around 2100.

This is based on access to energy by the way, and not how that energy is applied.

We have had the (nuclear fission power and nuclear fusion explosions) power to send a slow probe to the stars since about 1960. Had we done it in 1970 we'd be more 2/3rds of the way to Alpha Centuari right now.

We've not done it.

Having access to energy makes no prediction as to what we will use that energy for. In that same period of time we (as a planet) came close to unleashing that same power three times in the (Cuban Missile Crisis, Abel Archer 83 and the Kargil War) in a nuclear conflict.

Luckily, cooler heads prevailed. And we're all still here to talk about it. That by no means, was or is guaranteed.

BTW: Nena's "99 Red Luftballoons (aka 99 Balloons)" was released the same year as Abel Archer 83 took place: 1983 - At the time no one knew how prophetic that song almost became.

Only after documents were declassified after the end of the Cold War in the US and Russia did we know how close to nuclear war we were then.

edit on 11-2-2014 by JadeStar because: (no reason given)

I'm a little concerned about using all of our planetary resources anyways.
Would this include thermal energy?


That didn't work out too well for the people of Krypton. Haha

I read it in a comic book. Which means it could happen FOR REALS

JayinAR
I'm a little concerned about using all of our planetary resources anyways.
Would this include thermal energy?


That didn't work out too well for the people of Krypton. Haha

Actually your concern is valid. Simply having access to more power can be dangerous if we don't learn to be more efficient with it so that it doesn't turn into waste heat. Otherwise we're going to heat the planet with the waste heat and suffer heat death in a few centuries.

This video talks a bit about it before going into how we might detect other civilizations through their waste heat.

Fast forward to 9 minutes in:

JadeStar

JayinAR
I'm a little concerned about using all of our planetary resources anyways.
Would this include thermal energy?


That didn't work out too well for the people of Krypton. Haha

Actually your concern is valid. Simply having access to more power can be dangerous if we don't learn to be more efficient with it so that it doesn't turn into waste heat. Otherwise we're going to heat the planet with the waste heat and suffer heat death in a few centuries.

This video talks a bit about it before going into how we might detect other civilizations through their waste heat.

Fast forward to 9 minutes in:

edit on 11-2-2014 by JadeStar because: (no reason given)

Yeah, I remember you spoke at length about this before
So what is the solution? I know this is different than global warming, but is this something that can be fixed with weather modification?

Also, I love how they name their telescopes and arrays. "The very large array". "Colossus". Lmao

Do you guys think that our priorities will change any once we DO detect another civilization?

I remember in another thread someone, maybe Jade, was talking about how the CIA had recently given some of their equipment away to science because they had better telescopes now. The astronomers were super stoked about it.

Anyways, it got me thinking how crappy that is. We spend SO much money on paranoia and "defense" and our scientists are left fighting for the scraps.
So once we detect another civilization do you guys expect that to change or will it be more of the same?

JayinAR
Yeah, I remember you spoke at length about this before
So what is the solution? I know this is different than global warming, but is this something that can be fixed with weather modification?

You're correct, this has nothing to do with global warming. This would be waste heat from our technology. How your tower PC heats up a room by a few degrees, etc.

And no, weather modification or geoengineering would have no effect at all on this. No more than opening the refrigerator door in the summer helps cool your house.

Also, I love how they name their telescopes and arrays. "The very large array". "Colossus". Lmao

edit on 11-2-2014 by JayinAR because: (no reason given)

The English have this expression: "Does what it says on the tin."

Which amounts to, it is what it is. No need for flowery language for an instrument of that size.

If we make a big freaking eye then it's the "Big Freaking Eye (BFE) Telescope".

BTW: If you think I am exaggerating google "Big Ear Telescope". You'll say "Wow!"

JayinAR
Do you guys think that our priorities will change any once we DO detect another civilization?

I think there would be a push to change from a significant portion of the population however the pushback against that might be too strong to overcome at least in the short term.

In the longer term I think you'd see an easing of the current system in much the way that old Soviet system withered away when a new aspect of reality (glasnost) was introduced. It wouldn't be over night, but perhaps over a generation.

Perhaps after then a new service or branch of government in the US or another country or maybe even the UN would be created to explore this and other new civilizations remotely through the building of scientific instruments such as space telescopes and/or even a probe in the future.

Imagine an agency with the budget of the US Navy or Air Force. It could do a lot to learn a lot more about that civilization.

I remember in another thread someone, maybe Jade, was talking about how the CIA had recently given some of their equipment away to science because they had better telescopes now. The astronomers were super stoked about it.

I think you're referring to the Hubble sized NRO telescopes that were going to be pointed at the Earth (because that basically is what a spy satellite is, a huge telescope looking down).

Here's an article on them: NASA Mulls Missions for Donated Spy Satellite Telescopes

You know what the saddest thing is? NASA's meager budget only allows them to use one of those Telescopes. They don't have enough to use both, at least right now.

Anyways, it got me thinking how crappy that is. We spend SO much money on paranoia and "defense" and our scientists are left fighting for the scraps.

Exactly.

So once we detect another civilization do you guys expect that to change or will it be more of the same?

It would change but not without a lot of public pressure to learn every possible thing we could about that civilization.

If all we detected was a radar signal, with no informational content, there would be a danger that much of the public would grow disinterested after a few weeks.

reply to post by JadeStar


" BTW: If you think I am exaggerating google "Big Ear Telescope". You'll say "Wow!""

Haha! That reminds me of Farnsworth's smelloscope on Futurama.