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Why Life On Mars May Foretell Our Doom

technologyreview.com — People got very excited in 2004 when NASA's rover Opportunity discovered evidence that Mars had once been wet. Where there is water, there may be life.

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  • BigManOnCampus, on 05/01/2008, -5/+69People should come to grips with humanity's many possible "doom" scenarios and live their life with a correct perspective on their place in the universe.

    NAMELY, that you are tinier than the smallest ant on the smallest, most mundane anthill on the planet when compared to the universe. Our total destruction as a species is as common and normal as rain washing out an entire anthill in subtropics, or a forest fire burying all of us in ash. As a species we should consider how tiny and insignificant we are and always look forward and outward, make our tiny anthill of humans grow to many anthills, and hopefully cover an entire mountain or even a state, that way our survival is not wholly threatened by the most common galactic/intergalactic events.
    • Baylow, on 05/01/2008, -3/+25Lets hope people never come to that realization. People's sanity depends on the illusion that they're important in some way.
      • BigManOnCampus, on 05/01/2008, -4/+15Then I submit that most of humanity is insane.
        • Corvidae, on 05/01/2008, -2/+12If you're only coming to realize that now, you haven't been paying attention.
          • BigManOnCampus, on 05/01/2008, -1/+5Or I just had the wrong perspective on our species' intellectual capabilities.
      • YawehsDead, on 05/01/2008, -2/+12Importance, like everything else, is relative. I don't see the tragedy in not being "important" on a universal scale. We exist on our scale, and here we are important to ourselves. That's all that should matter to us.

        One other thing: It's rather silly to look at the size of a thing to decide it's importance. If something is as large as a galaxy, but is unaware of itself, it's less important than a speck the size of a proton that is self aware.
        • BigManOnCampus, on 05/01/2008, -2/+2If preservation of the species is something worth valuing, then size does matter.
          • YawehsDead, on 05/01/2008, -2/+2I consider that something worth valuing. But only because we appear to be the most self aware entity. Not because we are well built, or have a propensity for happiness. We have neither. In any case it appears most animals are much happier than us.
          • BigManOnCampus, on 05/01/2008, -3/+2Ignorance is bliss.
      • Borgcube, on 05/01/2008, -0/+5And that is how the Total Perspective Vortex drives the man insane
    • joblessManiac, on 05/01/2008, -8/+1... but God still loves you, no ??
      • KhanneaNL, on 05/01/2008, -1/+4No but he does have sweet jesus's penis several inches up our collective rectums.
    • kipmartin, on 05/01/2008, -1/+11we're just ants? that sucks!

      better make more anthills. quick!
      • BigManOnCampus, on 05/01/2008, -1/+4We could be termites. Or an aphid colony. what would you prefer?
        • surKaz, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1"Yeah, I'd like some fries with that."
        • SteeleJK, on 05/01/2008, -1/+5I think we are more like cockroaches, scuttling around on this planet trying to get our peace of the crumbs instead of thinking about our species as a whole.
    • joblessManiac, on 05/01/2008, -9/+1... but God still loves you, no ??
    • AlexM, on 05/01/2008, -6/+4Most of mankind exists in a current slave-mentality. They're sheep and as such, require herding. Without being told what is what - they would literally be lost. They are mentally incapable of handling anything more than the slave-mentality (and unfortunately, one gets born with the slave-mentality so it's not something one can fix). It would be great if people came to grips with a lot of things...but it simply will not happen.

      The root of this problem lies in the fact that man has stopped his own evolution. By gaining compassion, we aid the weak - which reverses natural selection. We're an ever-growing race of weaklings. Of course, compassion isn't necessarily a bad thing (or that's just my brain-washed self saying that).
      • cerejota, on 05/01/2008, -1/+9You have no idea what natural selection is.

        Compassion, cooperation, etc have been integral part of Darwinian natural selection theories from the beginning. You are making the typical social-darwinian, pseudoscientific mistake of conflating "survival of the fittest" with "survival of the strongest". This is not what natural selection is about. Natural selection is about survival of a species in a given ecosystem, and this survival includes many many different things. Sheep are fit to survive, because the sole fact they exist. If they weren't, they wouldn't be around.



        If only the strong survived, the world would be populated only by Archaeobacteria, probably of a single species, as they are by any definition, the "strongest" of all living things.
        • surKaz, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3Thanks for teaching me about Archaeobacteria.... They are an interesting group(?) of species.. or species.. hard to discern.
        • BigManOnCampus, on 05/01/2008, -2/+1Herd animals survive because they reproduce the fastest, not necessarily because they are the best adapted to their environment. Reproductive speed trumps nearly all other environmental requirements. For a funny reference, see the movie "Idiocracy"
        • cerejota, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1BigMan: thats not true for natural selection, either. If it where true, there would be no significant variation in reproductive speed. In evolution and natural selection, existence is the only criteria of truth: if it exists, it is successful. If it doesn't exist, it was not, even if it existed for a billion years.
          • BigManOnCampus, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1I think you misunderstand what I mean, I'm not saying reproductive speed is the only factor, only that it *IS* a factor, and it is a strategy for survival that is distinct from environmental adaptation.
          • cerejota, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1Oh, no, I understood.

            Thing is, it is not a specific factor of anything. If it where, there would be a generalized reproductive speed for all life, and there isn't. Reproductive speed is certainly selected, but so is everything in any living organism.

            And environmental - or more correctly ecosystemic - adaptation is the only evolutionary mechanism or "factor". Reproductive speed is a result of natural selection, not a direct factor in that selection.
          • BigManOnCampus, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1o.k...
            So, two animals, given equal adaptation to the environment, are under no pressure to reproduce more?
            Somehow that seems like the most obvious factor, all other things being equal.
          • eir574, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2@BigManOnCampus,

            "All other things being equal" would have to include whether or not the offspring survive long enough to reproduce as well. One strategy we see in some species is to have a ton of offspring, and even if only a small number survive to reproduce themselves, the parent's genes have been passed on. Another strategy is to have far fewer offspring, but to nurture them for a longer period of time to help ensure their survival and eventual reproductive success.
          • BigManOnCampus, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2That's fair, let's assume reproduction includes everything up to healthy reproductive maturity.
      • starmanjones, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1>Most of mankind exists in a current slave-mentality. They're
        >sheep Without being told what is what - they would literally be
        >lost. They are mentally incapable of anything more than the
        >slave-mentality... one gets born with the slave-mentality so it's
        >not something one can fix.

        >The root of this problem lies in the fact that man has stopped
        >his own evolution. By gaining compassion, we aid the weak - which
        >reverses natural selection. We're an ever-growing race of
        >weaklings. Of course, compassion isn't necessarily a bad thing
        >(or that's just my brain-washed self saying that).

        truth is i think you don't understand evolution. thats ok. the scarier part is the victorian attitude about superiority and inferiority. we should do what we can to extinct you i think. :D no hostility intended.
        • avaugha4, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3Mistaking survival of an individual with survival of a species is classic social Darwinist thinking, and scary thinking at that.
          • starmanjones, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1ya. a lot of it going around these days too. i've got close relatives that are insulted by the title social darwinist but the concepts make sense to them.
      • AlexM, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1You guys are taking what I said a bit far.

        Indeed, I know what natural selection is and how it works. What I wrote, however, is not my own philosophy...it's that of (arguably) the world's greatest existentialist philosopher (and definitely most well known), Friedrich Nietzche:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche

        Regardless of whether or not you agree with what he has to say - you must admit that man would be (evolutionarily speaking) in a very different place than he is now had he of not developed (or maintained) compassion for the weaker. Nietzsche called this further-evolved man the "overman"...it's all very interesting but obviously we have absolutely no way of verifying anything...ever.
        • starmanjones, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1>You guys are taking what I said a bit far.

          i guess we figured you were taking it a bit too far. i believe you and recognized nietzche. i don't think evolution creates an overman. there may be outstanding individuals i.e. variation. it would take many generations of overman to create an overman in the context
          of evolution...

          i guess i would ask whats weaker? thats a value judgement and i bet there are as many answers as people. i wonder if we got here because we were ill adapted... but were able to survive because there is power in numbers and the ability to change the environment. compassion might be an artifact of power in numbers.

          i think all that is contrary to nietzche. i think we thought you were making a case for the idea that we have polluted the gene pool and going backwards and will become extinct as the result. my feeling is that nietzche's overman wouldn't invent nanotubes.

          anyway...
    • alanflores, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2smart linking to a printer friendly article.. we should all do that on digg..
    • RevFredSanford, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2Reflections on a Mote of Dust
      -- Carl Sagan
      http://obs.nineplanets.org/psc/pbd.html
    • paradox2222, on 05/01/2008, -1/+0You really like ants huh?
    • EmperorAwesome, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2So would you say that we're a godawful small affair?
    • Burrito, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2Live long and prosper, little ants.
    • DestroyFascism, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2And the Queen ant looked at the king ant and said we have to go to war or there will be no more ants.....
  • leerayIG88, on 05/01/2008, -6/+23yeah...I've seen the records of "DOOM". Hell might attack us, we must prepare ourselves for war.
    • surKaz, on 05/01/2008, -6/+2Where's the Marine?.. With his buzzcut.. and his small top.. whatever that was... who wears that stuff anyway?
    • h4mx0r, on 05/01/2008, -0/+7We're screwed if the Rock is in charge.
    • SuperVepr308, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3Phobos and Deimos, here we come!
      • Avaseal, on 05/01/2008, -1/+0As long as there are no Bunny deaths I think we're in the clear
    • KhanneaNL, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3Do wiki "cosmicism". The truth may be far worse.
    • tmyprod, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2I wonder if we could colonize Hell?
      • Sinnic, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1Depends on how much recoverable sweet crude they've got down there. Someone phone dick cheney and tell him to talk to his boss about a potential merger.
      • MiserDD, on 05/08/2008, -0/+0The DNC already did!
  • LazyTurtle, on 05/01/2008, -12/+4The biggest threat to the world is pokemon.
  • kanvas, on 05/01/2008, -2/+9Maybe, but we also possess the ingenuity to do something about it. Our ability to innovate is potentially limitless, if only we would direct it at medicine and science, and not war and destruction.
    • CrazedLeper, on 05/01/2008, -4/+1Sorry, Neverlution requires that it's adherents destroy life because if you kill something you can eat it's food. How all these things came to be in the first place, is a question that, apparently does not have require an answer.
      • nitsuj, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3"Sorry, Neverlution requires that it's adherents destroy life because if you kill something you can eat it's food."

        There is no such word as "Neverlution" and you just look like a moron every time you use it.

        Also, running with your naive statement, killing another animal more than often represents an expenditure of energy and risk and is therefore not always worthwhile unless necessary for survival.

        "How all these things came to be in the first place, is a question that, apparently does not have require an answer."

        Oh, it requires an answer alright. But an honest answer - not some fictional make-belief.
    • KhanneaNL, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2The only conclusion logic and speculation leads me to believe is that we only become something significant after we have experienced a singularity. Explain what that means to the average john and jill in the street and boy you will see them scream hysterically.
    • MiserDD, on 05/08/2008, -0/+0War and destruction, or shall I say the fear of being on the receiving end of such, is what leads to technological innovation.

      Were it not for these two things, we’d all still be content living in harmony in caves and eating barriers. (Yes, many think we’d be better off that way, and the vast majority of those people have never tried to live off the land... and I don’t mean camping with all your groceries in the car!)
  • h4mx0r, on 05/01/2008, -3/+18Fortell our Doom indeed.

    Because we will figure out a way to open a gateway to hell, and we will be overrun unless a lone space marine can stop it.
    • surKaz, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1Hopefully is dress sense causes him to cover all his body.. and not leave his belly (or hard abs) exposed..
  • HookmasterCH47, on 05/01/2008, -11/+3We should take over the galaxy, it's god's will.....

    /sarcasm
    • Jsmuli2, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2Trust me, that's not far from what will most probably happen...

      ...or we will be the victims of that

      /***** Halo mother *****!
    • coachmcguirk, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1Why "/sarcasm"? And why stop with the galaxy?
      You are either with us, or against us HookMasterCH47... and believe me, I'm fine with either...
  • myshl0ng, on 05/01/2008, -6/+2Damn, I was so hoping the article is about hell opening its portals and demons killing us all. Once again, I`m left with utter disgust towards the submitter.
  • ROFLance, on 05/01/2008, -6/+1Prepare to meet your doom!
    • ROFLance, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2I guess nobody got the Altered Beast reference? :(
  • sap959, on 05/01/2008, -6/+5i totally thought this was a 'life on mars*' reference :P

    *UK tv show - America get your hand off! you already have 'the office' and 'the it crowd' (i think or is it still on hold? or something) so back off
    • AbsurdParadox, on 05/01/2008, -4/+4Well if you guys wouldn't use such ridiculous language and idioms, we wouldn't have to remake all these potentially good shows!
      • boldfire, on 05/01/2008, -0/+6Yes, damn us English for using the English language. How dare we be so English as to presume the English language wasn't ridiculous. You're 100% correct. We should stop producing this award winning entertainment immediately because your culture doesn't approve.
        And yes, I thought it might have been about the programme.
        • matriculated, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1Programme?
          • boldfire, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1Yes, programme - "a broadcast on radio or television" in British English, the language I speak.
      • sap959, on 05/01/2008, -4/+2so Americas getting everything dumbed down? - so ya'l can understand

        im off for a tea, a jam buttie and have a skip round the maypole :P
        • surKaz, on 05/01/2008, -2/+2what did you say?... Nobody insults me like that.
      • AbsurdParadox, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1LOL to all who replied, I was obviously joking, but I do have something interesting for ya.

        I used to play a lot of Eve Online, which is one of the most global MMO's out there. So, we'd be on TeamSpeak with people from all over the place... we had germans, serbians, scotts, aussies, americans, even one dude who was an Indian living in Qatar. Out of ALL of them, who most were speaking english as a second language, consistently the hardest people to understand were the Brits. Thicker accents and the word choice could often be so far off that things didn't make sense until you got the hang of it.

        All who-started-english jokes aside, it really is pretty interesting to see it from that perspective first hand.
    • surKaz, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3Hmm Life on Mars sounds like a good show... and it seems the remake of the IT crowd is on hold..
    • mavranos, on 05/01/2008, -0/+5Saw it BBC America- good show, too bad its over. I miss it.
      • boldfire, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2The continuing spin-off (of sorts) "Ashes to Ashes" is a worthy watch and is equally as good as "Life on Mars" with much of the same cast, minus John Simm (Sam Tyler).
    • scottnash, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3Too late: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars_(U.S._TV ...
  • smakaho2daflo, on 05/01/2008, -14/+8Mars is gay
    • NoCt1, on 05/01/2008, -2/+2So are you so its even. only difference people want to see mars and not you.
      • smakaho2daflo, on 05/01/2008, -1/+2if i am gay then i want to see uranus. what now?
    • AYork, on 05/01/2008, -0/+0Don't tell Aphrodite. It'll crush her.
  • TheChunt, on 05/01/2008, -5/+3Why a story yesterday on Slashdot may fortell the frontpage of our Digg.
  • kipmartin, on 05/01/2008, -3/+34Martian right-wingers probably told everyone that global warming was a myth while Martian ex-Imperial Vice Emperor Al-Gore warned the populace of impending dry canals, receding polar ice, and the eventual death of all Martian life.

    Even as Al-gore received the Order of the Cydonian No-Bel Award, the Martian populace maintained an apathetic stance as they were assurred by Corporate Mars that things were 'under control'.
    • WarMachineWCLH, on 05/01/2008, -0/+4And then he put his only son Jor El on the last remaining rocket and sent him to earth?
    • dbirling, on 05/01/2008, -3/+1That was funny...
    • MiserDD, on 05/08/2008, -0/+0Mars is Cold you idiot, not HOT.
  • Watley, on 05/01/2008, -5/+0Welcome to you're "DOOM"
  • chrissku, on 05/01/2008, -8/+5Why are we so obsessed with death? If we spent more time living instead of trying to figure out ways to prolong our lives we may actually live longer happier lives.
    • wizzroom, on 05/01/2008, -0/+6this is the same ignorant, careless attitude that will have your children wondering why you and people of this time left them with such a ***** up and damaged planet.
    • KhanneaNL, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2What a disgustingly vegetative attitude.
  • farkis, on 05/01/2008, -9/+2Why is it assumed that water is needed to sustain life?
    • kipmartin, on 05/01/2008, -1/+14have you ever tried to wash down a pizza with methane?
      • jsauter, on 05/01/2008, -0/+7Yah, it gave me gas...

        Lame... I know.
  • Phlex330, on 05/01/2008, -2/+20"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special. " S.Hawking
  • suzywang3000, on 05/01/2008, -8/+6and where there is life... there may be pussy.
    • kipmartin, on 05/01/2008, -0/+7beetle/crustacean methane-based pussy with sharp teeth. no thanks.
  • fluidfoundation, on 05/01/2008, -2/+9"Get your ass to Mars. Get your ass to Mars. Get your ass to Mars."
    • ColonelJessup, on 05/01/2008, -0/+5"Come on Cohagen, you got what you wanted........ GIVE DIS PEEPLE AIR!"
  • plizard, on 05/01/2008, -1/+9i can has bfg 9000?
  • smakaho2daflo, on 05/01/2008, -4/+1I heard uranus is nice this time of year.
  • arjie, on 05/01/2008, -5/+2I tried to read the article but the author started meandering and going off on tangents half way through so I never reached the conclusion. Anyone kind enough to share if this anything more than a "Aliens will attack us!" doomsday scenario?
    • surKaz, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3it's not really an "Aliens will attack us!" scenario.. more of a "Will we kill ourselves or die in someway soon relative to universe time?/ What could finding different life forms on Mars mean about how our society will end or meet other Aliens./ Are we alone in this universe, why hasn't anyone called me?" kinda thing..

      Yes... it's THAT kinda thing.. ALL of it.
    • KhanneaNL, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3Its like this:

      Project humanity thousand years in the future using understanding of technological progress we have today. If we do that we end up with a picture of humanity very very unalike star wars, star trek, babylon V and battlestar galactica - in a thousand years humanity wont even have the same shape we currently have. We conclude that a percentage of humanity, no matter how small, may survive and expand and conquer space. Those who don't choose to travel wide and far are left plowing dust like amish - those who expand build big things, space shuttles, skyscrapers, satellites, etc. and bigger all the time. There is no reason to conclude we wont settle the moon, mars, all planets and asteroids in the very solar system, grow on and on and on. If you think about it, this is even possible with 20th century technology. We can settle mars with 1950s technology - it would only be pretty hard and deadly, but that never stopped humans in the past. So we can continue, and have not merely billions, tens of billions but literally trillions of humans and posthuman thingies in a few centuries, swarming the entire solar system, expanding and pushing ever outward.
      The same would be true of intelligent aliens. Some of them would be losers, staring at their navels or doing ***** stuff some humans do. But at least a small amount of technological smart, tool using, communicationg, selfaware, imaginative aliens would do, logically, what humans do, and probably a lot of unique ***** we havent even thought off.
      Now that creates something of a paradox. If only one of the probably many many aliens would be expanding across the galaxy, flooding from star to star in massive starships equipped with clouds of intelligent robots and nanoids, each member of the alien species long since immortal through advances in technology and unmeasurably more smart than all of humanity ever since, why havent they arrived yet? Why don't we see their pretty damn impressive lightshows in the heavens? Why don't we hear any radio hiss of their communication? Why do we ONLY see stuff that is pretty much plausible in terms of natural phenomenon?
      If I were one of those nutjob christians I'd be saying "AHHAAA!!! That is a clue God created Us and Us alone, in his image -and left the rest of the universe barren for us to conquer". But I aint a skydaddy delusionalist so I have to explain odd ***** somewhat different. To me the seemingly empty (so far) universe, the fact there aren't millions years old artifacts bleeping all over the solar system, I have to explain that. It takes just one race of smart, expanding aliens to have soured the party for us humans and left us wanabees tracing their footsteps.
      But so far, zip. Why?
      Well there is a lot of explantions you cant disprove OR prove, the god hypothesis being one. This is discussed as "the great silence" or "the fermi paradox" and it is a nasty riddle. Wy arent they here yet, in somewhat more obvious guise than little green men wrapped in tinfoil?
      There are three possibilities:
      (1) We are first. That is pretty arrogant and pretty damn unlikely.
      (2) It is extremely unlikely tool-using aliens develop, statisticly so unlikely it happens once every many many galaxies. In other words, we ARE the first, we just lucked out so far. Amazing!
      (3) All tool-using smart aliens , for some reason die. Not just a whole lot of them, nay *all of them*.
      If the last is the case, then we have a certified guarantee that humanity is expanding into some kind of pretty damn lethal Danger, with a capital D, something that just doesn't kill us, but does so completely, leaving ZERO survivors to pick up pieces and try again. And this Danger is so goddamn efficient absolutely zero aliens in our galaxy made it so far, in over ten billion years.

      Needless to say I prefer the assumption we are literally the first (someone has to be) intelligent, tool using civilization to have a chance at interstellar expansion. If we survive the coming century it's very likely some humans will be travelling to other stars. If we don't, some humans in a fewthousand years may pick up where we ***** up and try again. And if they fail, again and again and again.

      However, if there is some kind of "Great Filter" that selectively weeds out intelligent civilizations, Oh Boy the ***** is pretty efficient.

      Here is the worst case scenario: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.ht ...
      • starmanjones, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2>There are three possibilities:

        maybe a few more possibilities. i think it is very likely that in a place so big that we just haven't run across any communications yet. its also likely that we just don't know what we are looking for. physics is turning awful wierd these days. it might be that assuming we are looking for radio which we acknowledge really isn't practical for distances so large... is just not looking in the right place.

        if i was an advanced human and immortal why would i be so careless as to just broadcast my presence to the klingons or something. death is 100% accidental or at the hands of bad luck... how safe would we play it... to me that is the biggest danger we face is playing it too safe so as to never die.
    • arjie, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3Thank you, you two.

      @Khannea: I don't get it though. There's another possibility: Intelligent life is rare, and so sparsely scattered across the universe that contact is simply impossible. What if there's a SETI somewhere on a planet somewhere in a starsystem somewhere in IOK-1, it still wouldn't make a difference, they wouldn't know us today unless we'd been broadcasting a strong signal for the last few billion years.

      And a combination of (2) and (3) is very possible. What if interstellar is never worthwhile (too few inhabitable stars in too much space), then the civilisation would die with its star always and would be very rare to start with.

      @surKaz: Thanks loads for that summary. Interesting. I'm glad I didn't finish the article, doesn't seem like it would be worth it.
      • KhanneaNL, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1Assume you have a really really big garden, a million miles by a millon miles. Huge, way bigger than earth. To walk it would take centuries. Throw in a handful of rabbits on one end. How long would it take for the rabbits to procreate, spread and reach the far end?

        Space is like that. Once humanity (or posthumanity) is capable to survive and sustain an industrial civilization in space, we will be spreading and multiplying like rabbits. Faster once we implement some sort of (any sort ) of artificial intelligence, intelligence amplification, robotics, nanotech, genetic manipulation or the like.

        Walking one million miles takes just under two years at a steady walking speed. If you'd camp and live off the land maybe 4 years at a walking pace. Like wise moving through space with 2000AD technology can be done at a speed of one thousandt the speed of light. It will be hard, people will die along the way, there will be wars and setbacks and criseses and stellar systems will die - but humanity can spread. Travelling the galaxy and spreading to every single stellar system would take no more than several tens of millions of years. And bear in mind every system colonized would be sending out colonies themselves in little under a few centuries.

        Thats humanity, and we have to assume humanity is average. Some alien species will be a lot better at this and will do it faster. Those that dont are not a consideration, those that do, well we may face competition. However since we do not see their industrial projects blazing away in telltale radiation (and it will - construction a dysonsphere is a NOISY endeavor) across the night sky, it's kinda paradoxical. Logically you'd have to see *something* happening far off.

        And yes there are plenty of explanations - my favorite is that technology will allow us to move sideways - into alternate dimensions and alternate space environents. If we can travel to adjacent plush space time continuums many of those may outcompete the harsh challenges of interstellar travel.

        For inspiration google "orion's arm", not 100% realistic as far as we know (they are making a few assumptions, like wormholes) but as close as we "can" know in 2008.
    • starmanjones, on 05/01/2008, -1/+2>I tried to read the article but the author started meandering and
      >going off on tangents half way through so I never reached the
      >conclusion. Anyone kind enough to share if this anything more
      >than a "Aliens will attack us!" doomsday scenario?

      i agree. i had trouble with it. i finally decided that his brain is just old school and that he is just not up to the cut. by that i mean...

      i know people who don't have a religious perspective on things that will argue that we should not extend life and we should definitely not attempt immortality. they have no reason... other than its not right. even though they have no religious tendencies really... their brains formed in that psychosocial place. dying even when unnecessary makes sense to them.

      all his arguments and conclusions seemed to be based on some left over brain structures that i'm glad i don't have. :D
      • KhanneaNL, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1You are *so* wrong. You are basicly 180 degrees, 100% diametrically mistaken. I know nick and know his work for years and he is thinking far far far outside the box. In fact this article is pop-sci compared to his normal speculations.
  • Owwmykneecap, on 05/01/2008, -0/+4I dunno, I thought was actually a good show.

    "you are surrounded by armed bastards"
  • scarysnow, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1sigh. this site ought to add a section called "apocalypse" so I can filter it out. not the most pleasant stuff to see when looking for OM NOM NOM pictures, eh?
  • darny, on 05/01/2008, -3/+4JESUS GET TO THE POINT
  • butyoulied, on 05/01/2008, -1/+3Let's all sing the doom song!
  • outsid3rNo17, on 05/01/2008, -0/+13We should have ***** Mars while it was wet.
  • futureisours, on 05/01/2008, -1/+1I come in peace!
  • lohphat, on 05/01/2008, -1/+2Doom on Mars?

    That's not what the Cacodemon told me as I was hanging out at the portal...
  • surKaz, on 05/01/2008, -1/+10that was a good article. Yes, I read all of it.. All 6 pages.

    Even though the author might seem to drift off every now and then, it was one of the most interesting articles I've read on Digg..

    They author might not be discussing the scientific probability, but it's great to just think hard about the implications Life on Mars could have.
    It might seem a lot like semi-philosophical thinking, but it's good to see someone exercise their mind like that. Even though it may come off as semi-crazy sometimes when you over think it or are stuck in some argument or corner..

    The Great Filter theory is an interesting and intriguing one.. and It's hard to discern whether we've passed it or not...
    • tradwolley, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3Agreed, it was actually worth 6 pages, unlike articles on Cracked.
    • starmanjones, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3i read it too. i was tempted to stop. but didn't. the filter thing i think anyone who has thought about it has figured out. i don't see how it can be generalized much. things are just too variable. a species gets the urge and has the technology. that is us in the last few years. i can remember people thinking i was just nuts talking about space and colonies and eggs in the same basket. its only been the last few years that its practical. rockets are not practical. elevators are. so... i think humans have arrived at the filter we just need to squeeze through. i am greatly encouraged by the number of people arguing that its mandatory we move out.
  • tmc1, on 05/01/2008, -1/+5We should all just rock out to Alice in Chains. together
    • aenima987, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2damn right alice in chains rule(d)
    • tmyprod, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2That's just good advice no matter what the situation.
  • slsashrk, on 05/01/2008, -1/+3Mars will live again so that the mighty buggalo may roam free on the vast martian plains.
  • RobotLeAwesome, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3See, what most of you don't know is that once I die, you'll all cease to exist anyway; so none of this matters.
  • biggiantmat, on 05/01/2008, -0/+6The guy makes a good point - if life is a common enough to form twice in the same solar system, then it looks as though practically all lifeforms go extinct before they can colonize space. But i think that if this "great filter" still lies ahead of us, then it is probable that there would be other species that have reached a similar level of intelligence and technology that have also yet to reach this filter. If this was true, we would surely be able to detect signals from them (as they are likely to be similarly advanced). As we haven't, I'm guessing we have already passed the filter, and so its unlikely that we will be wiped out before we colonize space.

    I hope I'm right :)
    • prometheanspark, on 05/01/2008, -0/+4We've been producing radio waves for only 50 odd years now. If we hit the great filter in another 50, then our period of detectability was only 100 years. That's a nanosecond in galactic time. Millions of civilizations could do the same thing and never exist at right time such that the signal from one civilization can be received by another.

      Within 50 years we'll have telescopes capable of analyzing the spectra, and thus the chemical composition, of exo-planet's atmospheres. If primitive life is common, this will find it quickly.

      Considering it took 3.5 billion years to get from the first life to us, it doesn't seem as though intelligent life developing is very likely. Most likely there are several 'great filters'. Or one of the many caveats that the author uses to explain why we don't see aliens that are there may apply too. We'll probably learn more in our lifetimes though, it should be an interesting ride.
  • master_of_fm, on 05/01/2008, -1/+2I'm gonna sing the Doom Song now. doom doom doom... doom doom doom doom doomie doomie do! the end.
    • andyd273, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1remembering that song makes me smile..
  • AYork, on 05/01/2008, -0/+14Yeah, yeah, yeah. "If there are intelligent races out there, why can't we see them?"
    Inverse square law, that's why. Take the biggest nuke we've ever made, the Tsar. 50MT. About 2e17 Joules. Now, spread that out to Pluto's perihelion, about 4.4e12 meters. Make a sphere with a radius of 4.4e12 meters and spread 2e17 Joules around it's surface area (which is ~2.5e26 square meters). You get about 8.4e-10 Joules/square meter.

    At 1 light year, it's 2e-16 J/m2.
    At the closest star, it's 1e-17 J/m2.

    We can "talk" to a spacecraft that far out because we don't just broadcast the signal; it's specifically aimed so it doesn't follow the inverse square law. So, the only way we'd "hear" another race is if they aimed the signal directly at us. Which would mean they would have had to detect us first which, as we see, is unlikely.
    • KhanneaNL, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1They might travel. They would eventually travel to us, given enough time. And how much time is enough to travel everywhere? A million years? Ten million years? Holy *****, the galaxy has been mostly in the current shape for 5 billion years. How much time do you need?

      Plus, the industrial activity of those RRrrreallly advanced civilizions might be pretty damn stunningly impressive. For example, the noise caused by construction of a Dyson Sphere might be pretty noticeable.
      • AYork, on 05/01/2008, -1/+0If they travel conventionally, according to the laws of physics as we know them, a pretty damn long time.
        The Milky Way is about 100000 LY in diameter and 1000 LY deep. That's about 3e13 cubic light years; something we are incapable of imagining. OK, so we have 3e13 cubic light years. For us to see it, their ship would have to come in the cubic light year surrounding Earth and pop off a teraton class nuke. The odds of that happening at any moment would be roughly 1 in 1e13. Oh, but they have a million ships. OK, 1 in 1e7.
        Even at half the speed of light, they aren't going to be just exploring randomly, looking for backwards populations to contact. Even if they do, they would have to have a probe that happened to go by this particular point in a huge volume of space at the tiny bit of time that there has been that we could detect them. Oh, and they would have to be setting of teraton class nukes the whole way. They wouldn't detect our radio transmissions. Sure, they go on forever, but if a 50MT nuke is barely noticeable by Pluto, what do you think a TV transmission does?
        OK, what about hyperspace? Say they can make wormholes or something. Odds drop even further. They'd have no reason to ever be outside a planetary system, the closest of which must be at least 4 LY away. And again, we're back to teraton class nukes for us to have a chance of detecting them.
        But what about their transmissions? Well, you can be sure they aren't broadcasting them. They're going point to point, and they sure aren't going to route the signal through a point in space occupied by a star (our star), even we know better than to try that one.
        • KhanneaNL, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1You have a serious lack of imagination bordering on the autistic

          I am talking 1950 technology. Ok, bussard ramjets are out, but a mix of solar sails, fusion and fission is still a go. Let's visualise this will you, and yes, I am talking mature technologies. If we started today and *really had to for some reason* the US, working with its major allies could do it. If we needed to hard enough we could launch from the surface of the planet using a nuclear "put-put" launch system. I have the book right here at my left, written in the 1980s.

          The vessel would be huge, probably hundreds meters in size, and travel times to the nearest star system would be several decades to more than a century. So basicly one century after the horseless carriage humanity has the technology and economy to move one starsystem. Now fast forward to advancing fabrication, extracting minerals from asteroids, O neil style space colonies. These are all doable and plausible and they would allow us to create a spacebased infrastructure. Interstellar travel to a solar empire is a waste of money and resources; you send a hugely expensive ship out into the galaxy and it will take aeons to get information. But fast probes launched by a combination of lasers and sails could make it well within ten years per lightyear. And nowhere here I am talking fantasy stuff like hyperspace or wormholes.

          Thing is ONLY ONE out of many, many civilisations needs to have the arguments. Humanity, being a scarcity-evolved competive primate might have arguments not to go out on a limb to do interstallar travel, but many aliens would. Can you imagine one such probe, a system colonized, and in a century or so the new system sends out another probe? If this were anything but a statistical analomy, the amount of travel would be visible as a fine X-ray hum in space. We would be seeing these vessels in interstellar space as telltale pulses of light. And yes, they would come here already, left traces, maybe moved on.

          Try and visualise a simulation on a computer. Create a 3D model of a galaxy. Program in equivalent positions of stars. Program in the most modest, pessimistic values for emergence of cellular life. Estimate the most sombre scenario for the emergence of organic and eventually intelligent life. Even if you assume the odds are at the far miniscule end of the drake equasion, then in millions of years you will see emergence of intelligent, tool using and space faring civilizations. Now assume only a small percentage of those makes it to interstellar travel in thousands of years -

          ...we are talking FIVE THOUSAND MILLION YEARS since stars had the metallicity to be able to produce planets with the chemistry to cultivate statistically plausible biospheres. We have had earth like planets in abundance for more than five thousand million years. And you are suggestion that never ever in that timespan in our galaxy no civilization started on this road to explosive expansionism?

          Do the math. Run your simulation of a galaxy. Assume the odds of interstellar travel are near insurmountable. Assume that faster than light travel is pie in the sky. I guarantee you, even at the most dismally miserable technological challenges you will have a galaxy teeming with asteroid-devouring high technological civilisations within half a billion years.

          So - where are they?
          • AYork, on 05/05/2008, -0/+0No need to resort to meager attempts at insults. I can go elsewhere for much more entertaining uncivil discussions.

            You did not address my point of geometric volume except at some kind of gut instinct level, which is useless at this kind of scale. All those odds equations for the appearance of life, etc are absolutely meaningless. Even the most pessimistic or optimistic guess is worse than useless due to scale. We don't even know for sure how life arose here, or how common Earthlike planets are, or if life can arise in other ways; so how could we possibly assign any kind of odds? Our imaginations cannot even grasp the size of the solar system, much less interstellar distances. Our brains are simply not geared to take that many orders of magnitude into account. So do not rely on your gut feeling or imagination. You must depend on math for the analysis; we simply did not evolve to deal with anything approaching this kind of scale. There are people that have trouble visualizing a kilometer. Few people can visualize themselves in a 100sqkm area. No one can visualize the scale of Earth in relation to themselves. If Earth was a ball 50m in diameter, your house would be smaller than a cell. There are no two things you can visualize that you can use to compare the size. And Earth is tiny even on just the solar system scale. How are you going to use your gut and imagination to think through interstellar distances? The distances are so big that we don't even write out the full number; I'm using scientific notation just so I can write them down.
            Do the math. Or, look at my math. Look back over the energy dissipation calculations above. That tells us that even insane amounts of energy are not observable at light year distances because of the inverse square law.
            Let's say that a million alien races have been zipping around the galaxy in a million Bussard ramjets *each* for the last 10 million years. The galaxy is 3e13 cubic light years in volume. If you spread those ramjets around evenly, you'd get 1 ship every 10 cubic light years. Even if one of those ships passed right by us, within a light year of Earth, we wouldn't see it unless the exhaust was pointed right at us, perhaps not even then. Even if it was pointed at us, and we did see it, what would we think it was? It's not ordered. There's no signal. It's the exhaust from a fusion reactor, and it would be present as a bright point, unchanged, in our sky for centuries as it traveled from star to star.
            What test would you use to distinguish it from a plain ol' redshifted star?
  • StevieG, on 05/01/2008, -2/+2I, for one, welcome our new Martian overlords.
  • edru, on 05/01/2008, -1/+2GET YOUR ASS TO MAAARS! GET YOUR ASS TO MAAARS! GET YOUR ASS TO MAAARS! GET YOUR ASS TO MAAARS!
  • DeQuinceysDiet, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1It's a godawful small affair.
  • fzammetti, on 05/01/2008, -0/+7This was a well-written and thought-provoking article. I'm personally a big believer in the "Jodie Foster's Dad's Theory" (i.e., if we're the only ones around, then that's an awful waste of space), but I appreciate someone making some reasoned, well thought-out arguments the other way. Anyone so assured of their own correctness, especially about something that we currently have ZERO way to know the answer to... and anyone that doesn't admit that's the case on EITHER side of the debate is nuts... has become closed-minded and unable to be reasoned with. Enjoy your stay in religious zealotry land. I appreciate my world view being challenged, I appreciate when it's done in a respectful, rational manner. This article is just that.

    The one thing that I don't agree with in the conclusions is this underlying bias that the laws of reality as we know them today are all there is. It seems to me that many people, scientists very much included, often get into this "it can't be because it would violate this or that law". Look through the history of discovery and you'll see that nearly every great discovery was at the expense of some seemingly unbreakable "law" of nature. I'm NOT saying you shouldn't be guided by what we believe to be true. I'm NOT saying we should just say anything possible to account for all the things we don't yet know about.

    If you say the "evidence" suggests we're the only intelligent life in the galaxy because if we weren't then some other civilization would have colonized the whole galaxy already, and the numbers bear that out, all I'm saying is that yeah, it's a reasonable conclusion, and yes, the numbers support it, but that DOES NOT make it the truth. There may well be factors we simply cannot conceive of yet, and to draw a conclusion about something we don't technically have the ability to test yet isn't smart IMO. Have your beliefs. Back your beliefs up with as much "evidence" as you can. But I put "evidence" in quotes because while there's "evidence" that Jesus exists, there's no EVIDENCE. There's no absolute, irrefutable PROOF. That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't believe in Jesus, it just means that you should realize it's a belief and not an unassailable reality. We should have the same feeling about these scientific conclusions that we can't yet test.

    Hell, most of us who have done any reading on particle physics believe the Higgs Boson is there, but until it's found it's just a belief. We're just about at the point where we can test for it's existence though, which we can't yet do for other life in the galaxy (save in our own backyard, or a chance finding of some alien signal, the absence of which in both cases doesn't disprove anything, it just means we probably don't yet have the ability to conduct the right tests).

    Likewise, while I can't personally fathom a universe as large as what we can see where we're the only intelligent life, I realize this too is a belief and not something I know to be true. It may well be that we ARE the only ones out there. I strongly doubt it, but it could be, and I admit that. It sounds like the author of the article is willing to accept both possibilities, but he has his bias, and that's fine, and that's why it's a good article: it's not trying to convince you of which possibility is right, it's trying to convince you to keep an open mind and not be ruled by your beliefs. Explore things critically, examine the "evidence" as it's found, and decide. Being able to do that is the mark of an intelligent person, and we need as many of those as we can get!
    • NoobSaibot, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1I love Digg for insightful comments like this!
    • starmanjones, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1>This was a well-written and thought-provoking article. I'm
      >personally a big believer in the "Jodie Foster's Dad's Theory"...
      >Explore things critically, examine the
      >"evidence" as it's found, and decide. Being able to do that is
      >the mark of an intelligent person, and we need as many of those
      >as we can get!

      yes.
  • wesniles, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1very insightful
  • RajAtWork, on 05/01/2008, -2/+1I personally think that the key is how evolution seems to go against the thermodynamics. The thermodynamics tells us that everything is "evolving" from more complex to less complex, from hotter to colder, etc. This is certainly not the case with evolution of living beings. So I suppose there is a yet-to-be-formulated universal law, something like law of preservation of entropy vs. conscience. So the more advanced we become, the harder it gets to fight entropy. Then it gets to the point that no more discoveries or tech advances take place, etc. Some kind of disaster strikes and pendulum swings back.
    • RennyB, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3You fail at thermodynamics.
    • TurdWax, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2Evolution does not violate the the 3rd law of thermodynamics. Evolution is not prone to entropy (yet) because life is supplied with a constant source of energy via the sun (either directly or indirectly).

      Evolutionary traits are selected because they promote the fecundity of a species. Intelligence seems to do the trick for us. But I believe the question is whether or not this a short term or long term survival trait?
      • RennyB, on 05/01/2008, -0/+0Beat me to it. Should have written a better first response :)
    • RennyB, on 05/01/2008, -0/+3Sorry Raj, my last comment was a bit harsh. It just upsets me to see the evolution of species evaluated against the second law of thermodynamics. This is a tactic dishonestly used by ID'ers to spread FUD. The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy will increase in a closed system. The Earth is not a closed system. Because the earth receives constant energy input from the sun, systems are able to increase in complexity.
      • nitsuj, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1Another way of framing this is that the universe itself is a closed system. Despite apparent localized pockets of organization like we find on the Earth, the net overall entropy of the universe always increases. The vast majority of energy output by our sun is lost to entropy whilst just a miniscule fraction of it fuels life on Earth.
  • dschrute, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2Non of this will matter after the rise of the machines.....
  • da_bradler, on 05/01/2008, -2/+1NOBODY(humans at least) CAN LIVE ON MARS ANYWAY, humans can't even get past the moon to tell the truth. Mars has no magnetic field at all, without a magnetic field you would be killed by the suns radiation(hell they would most likely already be dead by the time they got there on the ship). Humans can barely get to the moon without getting radiation poisoning. We are bound to this planet more then you know.
    • TurdWax, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1Oh crap! Have you told the people that live in the International Space Station this?
      • Warptaco, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1There are these things called radiation shields.. :D
    • sc0rpi0n, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1Ever heard of Faraday cage? Someday, somebody will discover how to construct a new type of shield with stronger protection. We're not bound to this planet.
  • KhanneaNL, on 05/01/2008, -0/+4Its like this:

    Project humanity thousand years in the future using understanding of technological progress we have today. If we do that we end up with a picture of humanity very very unalike star wars, star trek, babylon V and battlestar galactica - in a thousand years humanity wont even have the same shape we currently have. We conclude that a percentage of humanity, no matter how small, may survive and expand and conquer space. Those who don't choose to travel wide and far are left plowing dust like amish - those who expand build big things, space shuttles, skyscrapers, satellites, etc. and bigger all the time. There is no reason to conclude we wont settle the moon, mars, all planets and asteroids in the very solar system, grow on and on and on. If you think about it, this is even possible with 20th century technology. We can settle mars with 1950s technology - it would only be pretty hard and deadly, but that never stopped humans in the past. So we can continue, and have not merely billions, tens of billions but literally trillions of humans and posthuman thingies in a few centuries, swarming the entire solar system, expanding and pushing ever outward.
    The same would be true of intelligent aliens. Some of them would be losers, staring at their navels or doing ***** stuff some humans do. But at least a small amount of technological smart, tool using, communicationg, selfaware, imaginative aliens would do, logically, what humans do, and probably a lot of unique ***** we havent even thought off.
    Now that creates something of a paradox. If only one of the probably many many aliens would be expanding across the galaxy, flooding from star to star in massive starships equipped with clouds of intelligent robots and nanoids, each member of the alien species long since immortal through advances in technology and unmeasurably more smart than all of humanity ever since, why havent they arrived yet? Why don't we see their pretty damn impressive lightshows in the heavens? Why don't we hear any radio hiss of their communication? Why do we ONLY see stuff that is pretty much plausible in terms of natural phenomenon?
    If I were one of those nutjob christians I'd be saying "AHHAAA!!! That is a clue God created Us and Us alone, in his image -and left the rest of the universe barren for us to conquer". But I aint a skydaddy delusionalist so I have to explain odd ***** somewhat different. To me the seemingly empty (so far) universe, the fact there aren't millions years old artifacts bleeping all over the solar system, I have to explain that. It takes just one race of smart, expanding aliens to have soured the party for us humans and left us wanabees tracing their footsteps.
    But so far, zip. Why?
    Well there is a lot of explantions you cant disprove OR prove, the god hypothesis being one. This is discussed as "the great silence" or "the fermi paradox" and it is a nasty riddle. Wy arent they here yet, in somewhat more obvious guise than little green men wrapped in tinfoil?
    There are three possibilities:
    (1) We are first. That is pretty arrogant and pretty damn unlikely.
    (2) It is extremely unlikely tool-using aliens develop, statisticly so unlikely it happens once every many many galaxies. In other words, we ARE the first, we just lucked out so far. Amazing!
    (3) All tool-using smart aliens , for some reason die. Not just a whole lot of them, nay *all of them*.
    If the last is the case, then we have a certified guarantee that humanity is expanding into some kind of pretty damn lethal Danger, with a capital D, something that just doesn't kill us, but does so completely, leaving ZERO survivors to pick up pieces and try again. And this Danger is so goddamn efficient absolutely zero aliens in our galaxy made it so far, in over ten billion years.

    Needless to say I prefer the assumption we are literally the first (someone has to be) intelligent, tool using civilization to have a chance at interstellar expansion. If we survive the coming century it's very likely some humans will be travelling to other stars. If we don't, some humans in a fewthousand years may pick up where we ***** up and try again. And if they fail, again and again and again.

    However, if there is some kind of "Great Filter" that selectively weeds out intelligent civilizations, Oh Boy the ***** is pretty efficient.

    Here is the worst case scenario: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.ht ...
    • Marrach, on 05/02/2008, -0/+3 Even if there is some Great Danger with a Capital 'D', it's beyond anything we can do about it. Either an armada of killer nanobots is heading our way-- or NOT. I mean it's like worrying whether the Sun might suddenly go Nova on us. Either it happens or it Don't.
      All that matters is that we keep doing what we're doing and move onward-- step by step, planet by planet and hopefully Star by Star. Either something is out there and God Hates us- or nothing is out there and God doesn't Care.
      I'd rather "Go and See" instead of "Sit and ***** in my pants"
      Sometimes, professors and academic doomsayers should "Sit down, Shut Up" and just watch the rest of us GO. . .
      • KhanneaNL, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1I am not worried, I agree there is nothing we can do about it... except be on the alert. Hell I am all for getting up and doing something for humanity has been sitting on its collective ass since we ended the apollo program.

        As for "god", to hell with that theory.
  • SeriousMite, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1What if species who send out signals and make themselves known to the rest of the universe are shortly after preyed upon by other intelligent life? What if there are aliens/robots/borg out there that watch for signals from other life and use them as a means to find likely habitable planets to conquer and colonize? There could be a kind of natural selection going on where the only technologically advanced species that survive for a long time are the ones that choose to remain hidden. We've only been sending out signals for a very short time. For all we know there could be an armada of alien ships on their way here now to take our planet from us.

  • nubious, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1mirror: http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F% ...
  • clord, on 05/01/2008, -0/+2Everyone assumes we'll keep getting smarter. This is not guaranteed. Perhaps the great filter is evolution itself. It tries out intelligent creatures and finds that they nuke the planet and loft all the carbon into the atmosphere. So evolution pushes them back to stupidity by making sure the smartest ones don't get to breed as often.

    Perhaps it directs some of the smartest creatures to build networks and communications channels that can be used to dumb down the population. Then they invent drugs and machines that keep people alive no matter how stupid they are. The end result -- Intelligent creatures keep bouncing off a glass ceiling.
  • zantos420, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1damn seems everyone is an expert
  • Kenzan, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1"Yet most people reading about the discovery would be thrilled. They would not understand the implications. For if the Great Filter is not behind us, it is ahead of us. And that's a terrifying prospect."

    The problem with the author is that he fears death and clings to the illusion of permanence, which is counter to the way the Universe actually behaves. Things come into existence, they have a certain cycle, they go out of existence.
    We, and human civilization are no different.
  • klco, on 05/01/2008, -0/+1One thing I always wondered about is perhaps if the amount of radiation in the average solarsystem and galaxy is great enough to 'drown out' any terrestrial broadcasts on a galactic or universal level That really combined with the fact that we have only been observing the universe for 'signs' (think SETI) for ~50 years and the size/age of the universe leaves me with hope. Plus you never know, the Great Filter might be more of a delay than an end. It could very well be that other species/civilizations are only just reaching the same cultural/evolutional spot we are at (approximately) the same time. Given the huge time & space of the universe I just think throwing in the towel this soon is premature.
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