A Simple Model of Grabby Aliens | Robin Hanson, George Mason University

[@aldoushuxley5953]

the copernican principle is flawed, because it assumes no special position, but us existing in a universe in which nobody else can be seen IS already a special position All life on earth comes from one abiogenesis event. Why is that? Because once the first cell existed, it was not long until life had spread everywhere. And because it was first, it had time to adapt and specialize, new, basic cells coming into existance randomly could not compete Life in the universe is similar. Some species are quiet (all life on earth, but us, aliens on waterworlds and or high gravity worlds that can not escape, aliens that live in extremely rare environments for whom escape is pointless...) Those species of course can still exist. But those are also the species that are hard to detect. Biosignals can easily be explained away. Just look to the LR experiments or ALH-84001 in our case with life on Mars. Industrial civ? No, volcanoes The same is even true, even when you visit the planet. Signs of life go away quickly (See the paper "the silurian hypothesis" by Adam Frank et al) But what about life that is not quiet, life that is like us, that seeks to expand? Well, the abiogenesis example applies here too. Only one can be first. We have existed for a tiny amount of time cosmologically, but we have already conquered the planet If you give us, which is cosmologically nothing, another 1000, maybe even 10.000 years, we will have conquered the solar system and probably have spread to other stars. If we dont destroy ourselves, it is ineviteable But once some species has spread, that removes the possibility for other civilizations to come into existance. Ressources are limited. There has to be no fear or hatred to be involved. And the already existing life will always be better adapted and with better tech So these "loud" civilizations, once they come into existance, always remove the possibility for other loud civilizations in their area. Because there are humans, there can not be intelligent mice or dolphin (or neanderthal) civilizations So yes, us existing as a "loud" civilization, means we are first. Because it IS a special position. The copernican principle simply does not apply here Sidenote: there may be the possibility of a shadow biosphere, but that is "quiet" life highly specialized and unable to spread. Similarily, other animals do exist, but there biomass is shrinking. As humans expand, the biomass of us and our domestic animals as a percentage of total biomass is approching 1. About 96% of mammal biomass today is either humans or farm animals

[@eriknelson2559]

Haven't seen anything != nothing to see. The total fraction of the sky ever investigated in any detail is

[@jasonrubik]

I've seen videos recently about "grabby aliens" but this seems to be the birth of it all. This video is a key milestone in our quest towards understanding our place in the universe ! Thanks Dr. Hanson

[@RicardoMarlowFlamenco]

After a long time, I learned that this model is based primarily on a miss understanding of Red Dwarf stars as potential real estate for life bearing worlds. Since the big issue is TIME, as in we are too early based on the potential, it turns out that Red Dwarf stars have two big issues vs. sunlike stars. The first is the solar storms are way more violent and frequent, and this would affect life negatively since the solar irradiance is weaker and the planets need to be much closer than 1 AU, and the second is the tidal locking issue is a mathematical certainty based on “Goldilocks zone” and the mass of the objects. Both of these kill the huge statistics of the potential to be TOO EARLY…he needs to massively reduce our earliness in other words.

[@aquaticape68]

Amazing presentation. Bunch of old guys clinging to the medieval idea of the veridicality of our senses. See Donald Hoffman.

[@grosey11]

What a great discussion. Easy to follow for us lay people and provides lots of food for thought. If anything else it’s excellent example of inductive reasoning.

[@beardmonster8051]

There is one assumption here that doesn't make any sense, namely: "We are equally likely to be any of the different origins of grabby civilizations". A better assumption would be that Robin Hanson is equally likely to be any of the sentient observers that will appear in the universe, meaning that for any civilization X, the larger its total population over time, the larger chance that Robin Hanson would appear in it. If e.g. a civilization ends up having 99% of the population within the observable universe and the rest takes up the remaining 1%, the chance of Robin Hanson appearing in one of those small ones is just 1%.

[@JinKee]

This is Manifest Destiny applied to aliens.

[@billross9656]

Could civilizations grab by sending spores that seed life - are we a grab?

[@jari2018]

If grabby aliens expands at speed of light then on what distance in lightyears we would see their civilisation and structures like Dyson Spheres right now 1000 lightyears ,10 000 lightyears , Andromeda ?

[@eriknelson2559]

Could be million year old civilizations in Andromeda and Triangulum and we couldn't yet see them

[@jari2018]

iq = high , i assume since i recognise the pause and laugh - 160 ?

[@dominicbrady1539]

I know what I would grab on to 🤩🤩🤩

[@unleasheth]

Oh my God it's all a lie sheesh. Wake up

[@simonelaird846]

10 hours of witnessing sad men holding on to their egos for dear life with self sabotaging forever available on KZbin

[@4Nanook]

One assumption your theory makes that I find unlikely, that the universe is finite.

[@Fgiijjjjjdrtfh48880]

He doesnt make that assumption. The graphic at the beginning is a sphere for simplicity. But the whole thing still works if the universe is infinite and GCs pop up across infinite space

[@simonelaird846]

These dudes are totally amazing and the best entertainment available on KZbin. Headphones guy is listening to a police scanner in between his questioning

[@eriknelson2559]

Not seeing != not looking at

[@scfu]

Thanks!

[@Trippa23]

I’m wondering if the law of power is also applied to time, wouldn’t that keep complete separation regards?

[@simonelaird846]

The aliens might already be among us

[@jari2018]

i assume the same

[@shaun906]

this is my favourite theory, it makes the most sense to me!

[@jemmrich]

The common argument that there is too much radiation for long distance travel, to me isn't much of an argument because that would mean a number of things. First, panspermia definitely could not be a theory used to jump start civilization because radiation levels should kill all organisms between galaxies and two, also says that even after tens of thousands (if not millions of years ) of technical advancement, a civilization cannot figure a solution to protection from radiation sounds unrealistic.

[@OptimalOwl]

Simple organisms can be much more resilient than complex organisms, so maybe you could have extremophile microbial life surviving the panspermia trip even if their life-sized distant descendants are too squishy to make the return journey. Your second point seems completely right though. Surely there exists _some_ amount of shielding - water, concrete, magnetic fields or whatever else - that could see a monkey through a trip through the cosmic background radiation? Or even if there somehow isn't, then couldn't they send something less squishy? Computers (mechanical ones if need be - remember, the scale is millions of years, we're not in a hurry here)? Or artificial microbial life that can survive the journey and then assemble incubators and embryos (or computers) when it gets where it's going?

[@punkypinko2965]

Which episode of Star Trek is this?

[@jari2018]

this is pre star trek episode

[@xit1254]

Amazing stuff. I love the tough questions that are so much a part of science. Science requires no holds barred questioning.

[@deathtrapbynapalm7861]

The aliens of earth have contorted the grabbity as we know it

[@Leipaa]

What if there are quite a few more hard steps left before we become grabby and the probability of us reaching grabby status is very low? Would that mean that the most common observers are those like us who are not yet grabby and wonder about the empty universe?

[@grosey11]

We have 1% chance to become grabby aliens ourselves, but we have passed 0.00001% to get this far.

[@Leipaa]

​@@grosey11that sounds about right. If so, 99% of sentient civilizations are, were, or will be also going "hmm why are we alone?" I'd like to think we make the cut but I wouldn't bet on it!

[@grosey11]

@@Leipaa knowledge is power

[@functionalfrank]

> quiet aliens like in Star Trek Plenty grabby ones in Star Trek. Borg being the good example

[@simonelaird846]

Scifi author pretending to be an astrophysicist and carrying the burden of solving all questions about the universe

[@robertdiggins7578]

Oh, speaking of Los Alamos, do you remember the plasma physicist and namesake of the Peratt Instability, Anthony Peratt? You, know, the guy who was shown pictures of the classified plasma discharge formations he had seen in the lab... Except the pictures were of PETROGLYPHS! Wow, right?!!! 🤔

[@sulljoh1]

It's amazing how influential this fun, quirky group of nerds turn out to be

[@simonelaird846]

Influential to who exactly? These guys are so afraid of new ideas that they can't hear properly

[@sulljoh1]

@@simonelaird846 The idea of the great filter has worked into the minds of people like Elon Musk - and is one of the reasons he's pushing to make life on Mars possible. It's a pretty influential idea if you ask me.

[@simonelaird846]

@@sulljoh1 these "nerds" are not responsible for the influence of anything or anyone. They are so tied up in there own outdated incomplete theories that they learned about at university. They are only slowing down the process of solving the mysterious universe with there closed minds surrounding the ego

[@simonelaird846]

@@sulljoh1 i like your positive comment tho. I just thought it sucked to hear everyone's questions opportunity for there own idea or something to attempt the deconstruction of his. I like the grabby alien concept. Its rooted in a fun mathematical exercise with thought provoking answers

[@simonelaird846]

@@sulljoh1 I'm disheartened by these academic minds that are incapable of creating concepts of their own or considering the ideas of others. If this is the kind of people who are behind our search for answers of what is still unknown we may never know what it's all about.

[@robertdiggins7578]

Speaking of filaments and larger scales, how familiar are you with Berkeland Currents? #CosmicWeb ⚡

[@WSUShocker30]

2 questions I don’t quite understand: 1) How does a Grabby civilization expand at the speed of light? 2) Why would we see expanding spheres in the sky, i.e. why would it be visually obvious to us?

[@OptimalOwl]

1: The model doesn't require that they expand at exactly the speed of light, just at something kinda close to it, e.g. 50% of the speed of light. This comes from a sort of triangulation between the Hard Steps model and its implications, the anthropic principle, and the fact that we don't currently see them. If they were much slower, then either we would already be seeing their progress across the sky, or else the universe has a longer window during which sapient life can have independent origins (in which case we're back to having to explain why we're so improbably early.) I can't explain 2 quite as well, but I'll try anyway: The model attempts to describe only one kind of alien, which is the loud grabby kind that expands out into the universe and assumes control over vast reaches of space. It's hard to know what a mature intergalactic diaspora would choose to do with all those resources, but it's gonna be _something_ or other since they went to the trouble, and in any case they'll have to disassemble stars and other stellar bodies to get at them.

[@JimiLoko0822]

I Hope you all get huge grants for all your contributions to humanity.....

[@karlnordenstorm8816]

Starts at 01:01

[@Chris.Davies]

Fascinating. May I ask why you neglected to include speeds not only faster than light, but at 10C, 100C, 1,000C, 10,000C, 100,000C, 1-MegaC, 10-MegaC, 100-MegaC, 1-GigaC. Using these numbers you could work solutions for the entire universe, and then some! It may be that Grabby aliens do expand at a fairly rapid 0.5C, but in order to do that, and maintain a cohesive civilisation, you need to be able to travel much much faster than light. Now, I am certain it is impossible to accelerate craft to lightspeed, but I am also certain there are ways to violate causality with faster than light travel. Yes, we're early, but as you say - we must be, because there are no late arrivals to this universal grabby-party! And pleasingly early we appear to be, and so I'm inclined towards the ultra-strong anthropic principle even more. This means we not only live in a universe which allows our existence, but the properties of the universe we inhabit are the best possible ones for consciousness to expand and fill it. Please note I did not say "life". Meatsacks are simply a tool used by evolution to create the next paradigm of directed evolution in hardware-based entities: uploaded human minds. Human minds, freed from the restraints of biology will snatch the sputtering flame of evolution from human hands, and fan the flame into a roaring bonfire, as the evolution rate crosses the "1" boundary line on evolution's continuing exponential. Once evolution becomes directed, purposeful, and rapid (rather than random, sexually selected, and slow) the rate of progress must approach vertical, and that's when shit will start to get real. I hope to watch it all unfold as it happens, and if the universe is as interesting as I think it probably is, I may even send an agent back in 2 billion years to watch the sun's corona evaporate the Earth's last remains. :) Thanks for The Great Filter. One of my favourite topics of consideration.

[@lukemills237]

Being grabby doesn't require being unified.

[@PoliticalJohn]

because those values would give no meaning.

[@OptimalOwl]

I think we would have noticed by now if our universe had time travel in it. It would be a lot more crowded, for a start.

[@simonelaird846]

These guys and there medical advice.

[@maicolx7776]

Real info: The Spiritist Doctrine.

[@fmn2628]

According to a known access Hollywood tape there is already an orange Grabby alien on earth

[@quantumcat7673]

True. He was ejected from his own planet because he's a grabby sucker.

[@simonelaird846]

Oh and the sky is fake... wtf

[@JimiLoko0822]

Somebody tell me why we need to Contact or have e.t.'s Contact US , please...

[@tennesseejam1980]

We don't NEED to, but it's inevitable if any lifeforms discover how to do it. Might be 5 million or 5 billion years from now.

[@jari2018]

So are we assumimg grabby Aliens never stops being grabby and dont evolve internally or are like species deadlocked in a nieche (grabby)

[@placeholdername0000]

The issue is that species don't evolve all at the same time. If one planet stops being grabby, the one next to it will still be grabby, and will thus continue to move forwards. Those at the edge will be strongly selected for maximum grabbiness. If interplanetary travel becomes possible and the average human has a 1% chance of wanting to move to another planet, you would expect that Mars would be made up, mostly, of that 1%. Now the descendants of those who moved to Mars might not all be wanting to move again, but there will likely be a bias towards a higher number than 1%. Let's say 2%. If Mars has a population of 1 billion when travel to Jupiter becomes possible and Earth has a population of 10 billion, that means that 20 million Martians will move there, along with 100 billion Earthers. Similarly, a bias will occur, but the average of humanity will be 1,09% being willing to travel interplanetary journeys. But those moving to Jupiter will be selected from that with a bias, thus their baseline will be 1,16%. But again, only those who actually chose to move are going to be at jupiter, so if we assume a doubling of it again, we will be at 2,32% willing to go to the next step. Add Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, the Kuiper belt, the Oort cloud and so on and you have a civilization that becomes grabby, even if only 1% of the starting population wanted to go.

[@grosey11]

Others might slip into a higher dimension becoming invisible in this 3D one, but yet many others would still remain seen?

[@thijsjong]

Interesting. For the yooyuub gods. This is a very good recomendation.

[@VideographerExperience]

*yub yub* ~every Ewok, ever

[@youlemur]

51:05 ahahahahahaaa, made my day!!

[@danielm5161]

I like Robin's insight on the parameters he sets around evolution, we could be a relatively early life form in this universe. Regarding grabby aliens though, It may be traveling and communicating across star systems is just too much of a hassle no matter how advanced or how much time you have. There aren't many obvious incentive's to spending tons of resources and energy trying to inhabit all the local stars and it isn't obvious that it happens naturally (life free riding on comets etc.).

[@xyhmo]

If there aren't (or perhaps couldn't even be) grabby aliens in this universe, the question is why we are so early. That may seem like a strange question, but it's a key part of the theory. With no grabby aliens at any point, we could have appeared at any time (well, not too early or too late - but that still leaves a lot of room), but *with* grabby aliens we have to appear before the universe is colonized (ie, early), if we are to appear at all. In other words, with no grabby aliens, it's very unlikely to appear this early (making us very special), but with grabby aliens, we're are (or could be) just average. And that is points in favor of the theory, and coversely it's always suspicious when a theory or an idea posits that we are Very Special, unless we have clear evidence that's the case. Everything else equal, we should assume we're average, and with this theory we can. (Not saying I'm onboard or not with all of this, just saying what I think the idea is… it's all at least very interesting.)

[@rolodexter]

What about the expansion of the universe. Dark energy.

[@OptimalOwl]

To my mind, the resource constraint seems like the least important consideration. The only item you really have to build from the resources in your own inhabited system is the first set of grabbers. All the rest could be built from the expanding frontier of space being grabbed. You could even send resources back to your home system if you wanted to. The tradeoff that I think would be more important is the one between different risks. If you choose not to expand, then you increase the risk of being grabbed by aliens, which is potentially really bad. OTOH, if you do expand, you increase the risk of being grabbed (or at least of getting into some form of destructive competition with) offshoots of your own civilization, which could potentially also be really bad.

[@danielm5161]

@@xyhmo I am not convinced by the "Lets make statistical deductions from the assumption that we are typical observers" class of reasoning. Using that reasoning I should assume that I am a chicken. After all, there is over 10 billion chickens being born every year against 140 million humans born every year. Using criteria of typicality I should assume I am a chicken since most typical observers alive right now are chickens. But the fact is I am a human that exists 14 billion years into the universe and thats that.

[@danielm5161]

​@@OptimalOwl We tend to categorize alien expansion in two categories, expansionist and non-expansionist. As if the expansionist category is a continuum between colonizing your neighboring planet, to your neighboring star and on to the neighboring galaxy. But there is no reason to assume that is a continuum. Maybe we see a reason to expand to Mars but see no reason to expand to Alpha Centauri. Traveling to a local planet is a completely different risk/reward/resource calculation than traveling to a neighboring star let alone galaxy.

[@username-jc2tp]

Love me some Robin.

[@tomhrio]

i was told to come here for evidence on why the sky is fake

[@tuckergary1516]

doesn't matter it's already fallen.

[@danewarner]

very distinctly explained mumbo jumbo. 99.9% theoretical

[@jjharvathh]

Isn't it a basic assumption that aliens must find out how to travel faster than the speed of light, must faster, to meet and interact with other aliens? What if we are just too far apart to ever meet each other?

[@rolodexter]

And wasn’t about the rate of expansion of the universe

[@xyhmo]

Not faster than the speed of light, but certainly very fast, maybe half of speed of light or so (the theory allows for some variation, I think 1/10 of the speed of light works too, but that would change other parameters correspondingly).

[@Electronic424]

Robin is quite literally 'the smartest guy in the room'.

[@TheSoldierHun]

If I was able to ask questions here, I would've asked this. What if we are not early, it's just much easier to get to a point where some civilization can detect a grabby civ, but actually becoming a grabby civilization is much much harder? Let's say we had 100 hard steps so far, but it takes a million more to become grabby. How would that effect this model?

[@danielm5161]

That is a good question.

[@danielm5161]

I like Robin's insight on the parameters he sets around evolution, we could be a relatively early life form in this universe. Regarding grabby aliens though, It may be traveling and communicating across star systems is just too much of a hassle no matter how advanced or how much time you have. There aren't many obvious incentive's to spending tons of resources and energy trying to inhabit all the local stars and it isn't obvious that it happens naturally (life free riding on comets etc.).

[@sentientflower7891]

Don't ever pay attention to science fiction written by an economist. that is called doubling down on nonsense.

[@zhess4096]

why

[@zhess4096]

All economic models are simplified

[@sentientflower7891]

@@zhess4096 because economists are notoriously wrong about everything, especially the economy.

[@sentientflower7891]

@@zhess4096 all economist models are predicated upon a misunderstanding of the human animal.

[@zhess4096]

@@sentientflower7891 This is why I am hoping for behavioral economics to become more mainstream

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

Never ever take for granted or assume that an unbroken line of humans breeding and raising children will continue.

[@henrilemoine3953]

Are you implying that he does?

[@Chris.Davies]

You are right. Human biology is ultimately doomed. But human consciousness will survive in the only form which will allow us to conquer the galaxies; virtual human entities; Electro sapiens sapiens. But the future for corporeal humans is good, and long. Don't worry about it.

[@lukemills237]

@@Chris.Davies Even post-uploading I bet a lot of people would want physical bodies. Just better ones.

[@carlhopkinson]

just here for the german babeage.

[@elnoumriful]

My compliments! What happens when the 'grabby-ness' changes over time? Will the 'loudest' not only compete with the 'quiet' ones but also with the other loud and grabby aliens? The 'loudest' grabby aliens just might show up late to the party. Also, being grabby might not be a fixed property.

[@sentientflower7891]

There are no aliens, grabby or otherwise.

[@kentneumann5209]

@@sentientflower7891 - Unless they are from earth, remnants of a previous civilization that achieved advanced tech, that due to a previous extinction event were forced to go deep underground, deep under water, deep under polar pole ice, or to the moon, or other planet or moon to survive. In which case they wouldn't really be aliens. That is IF they exist... That's the more likely places they come from. I suspect the modern encounters since the 40's, are with Nikolai Tesla tech, stolen by the Nazis and highly developed over the last 70 years.

[@ianmeade7441]

The assumption is that a GC's spacefaring capabilities do not exceed the speed of light, so expanding to a volume of even just a few tens of lightyears would make it extremely difficult for a GC to remain as one homogenous collective of thoughts, behaviors and actions. It could very easily have hundreds of millions of sovereign entities comprised of staggeringly enormous populations, all before the GC's expansion sphere covers even a hundred lightyears (beyond-which the situation only compounds in scope). Given the all-encompassing cacophony of mixed intentions and capabilities, it should be a statistical guarantee that, at any given time, there exists some part of a GC with both a will and a way to continue expansion.

[@JamesHawkeYouTube]

What bad kind of joke is this?

[@dramos0805]

So boring sorry..I tried but kept falling asleep

[@BryanChance]

"...Grabby Aliens" The title got me. Had to check out this video LOL :;/) EDIT: hmmmm..not what I expected at all. lmao

[@tedhoward2606]

Enjoyed watching. The one counter thesis that I didn't see explored, is that by the time a species gets to a level of complexity that is capable of interstellar flight, then they have to be sufficiently cooperative to sustain that level of technological complexity. Any civilisation that is not fundamentally cooperative will necessarily self terminate for a variety of reasons, one being the incentives of competition are to cut the corners on testing of high risk technology, and at some point that will very probably destroy some necessary set of boundaries for the continuation of that level of form and complexity. So unless a species is capable of appreciating the evolutionary reality that all new levels of complexity are predicated for their emergence and survival on new levels of cooperation and new levels of cheat detection and mitigation systems - then they necessarily self terminate. Accepting that, and accepting that travel between stars is very resource hungry, it seems very probable to me that any civilisation sufficiently cooperative to survive creating technologies capable of interstellar travel will decide that doing so is not an efficient use of those resources and instead direct them to maintenance of the local system. And as we have accepted previously, Aumann's agreement theorem only works when individuals share predicates. It is perfectly possible to agree to differ if there is no agreement about the basics. And I suspect the "great filter" resides in a failure to create the required level of cooperation to survive technology. The evolutionary pressures selecting for simplistic models (which are advantageous when urgency applies) will tend to select against the general acceptance of models/understandings that are of sufficient complexity to be able to appreciate the overwhelming necessity of cooperation to survival. Technology gives so much leverage to cheats that it is extremely dangerous (all levels). It is a seriously complex suite of issues, in an open exaptive context.

[@melekhine]

@Ted Howard, I think your scenario can be ruled out by what we know about the scope of possible existential threats and by the known possibility for cheap interstellar travel. Only a nonnegligible portion of intelligent civilizations must decide to send relatively small interstellar probes with the potential to progenerate the civilization. Upon reaching interstellar scales beyond which cooperation would be impossible, existential threats would likely drop off to zero probability, let alone sub-100. The possibility that they wouldn't was discussed at 55:35. Funnily enough, that scenario led to the same if not better explanatory power on earliness and qualities of Earth civilization.

[@tedhoward2606]

@@melekhine Hi Bill, We are not communicating at present, though we are exchanging words. Robin and I have argued many times over the years. We have fundamentally different understandings about the nature of reality (which means that while we both accept Aumann's Agreement theorem, we are yet to agree a set of acceptable sets of assumptions about the nature of reality). Biochemistry was my "first love", then I started to look at the logic of evolutionary biology, and the sorts of contexts that allow for the emergence and survival of new levels of complexity. Complexity and freedom cannot survive in competitive contexts - systems will be driven to some set of minima on the available complexity landscape. It is only in fundamentally cooperative systems that any real expression of freedom has any real chance of living a very long time. The higher the levels of abstraction one pushes that to the more complex it gets, as at every level, to survive, each level of cooperation requires attendant sets of strategies to detect and remove cheating strategies, and they rapidly become evolving ecosystems within themselves. So nothing simple. It is in this deepest sense of the evolution of levels of complexity, that I am clear - beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt, that cooperation is essential for survival. Without that level of cooperation at some point, unless it really is the first, and the fastest, then it does meet something to which it is a threat which needs to be mitigated. Are you really willing to bet everything in being both the first and the fastest and the strongest? Or do you see greater probability of survival and freedom in building real trust across multiple dimensions of relationships (recurs as far as you are capable)?

[@tedhoward2606]

@@melekhine Hi Bill, I'll try from a different set of perspectives. As I see it, the major existential threat to any civilization is competition. If any "civilization" manages to survive the transition to technology using a competitive model of governance, or using a scarcity modality of value, without coming to the systemic understanding of complex evolutionary systems that lets them see that all new levels of complexity require a cooperative basis for survival; then that "civilization" will necessarily self destruct from internal "pressures". In the ages before nuclear weapons and biotechnology, that wasn't a necessarily self termination for all potentially civilizing agents; but post a certain level of technology the existential risk to the very concept of civilization goes up exponentially. Existing economic and political dogma is that competitive systems may be stabilized. That is arguably true in a very narrow set of contexts, but one does not have to look very closely to see that such a set of contexts cannot be maintained in any way that preserves anything even remotely approaching freedom - and thus is fundamentally and eternally unstable. One needs to be able to appreciate that in open systems, with fundamental uncertainty, the only option with any real long term probability of survival is one of cooperation, between all levels of self aware agents. Thus the term "Grabby" is only survivable if it is fundamentally cooperative. Thus such a "Grabby" or more accurately "expansive" "civilization" is unlikely to be a threat to any other self aware entities it encounters, because unless it was fundamentally cooperative in such a way, it is unlikely to have survived developing the technology to allow space travel. My thesis is that any "civilization" that does manage to survive long term, must be cooperative in a non-naïve fashion, such that it would develop technology within its own solar system that would allow it to intercept and isolate any incoming probe from other civilizations until such a visitor could be proven to be fundamentally cooperative (sort of like a quarantine service. Having the full resources of the local solar system behind such a quarantine it is likely to be very effective, whatever the state of technology of the newcomer. So I think Robin is missing the biggest and most important part of the picture - the real strategic nature of evolution in advanced complex adaptive systems. Competitive systems are only survivable if built on fundamentally cooperative principles. Think of the game of golf. It is fundamentally cooperative. If any player intentionally damages any other player in the game, then they are out of the game - permanently. It is against the rules to tamper with any player or any part of their equipment. Players compete against the course, rather than against each other directly, and such a competitive environment on a cooperative base can be a lot of fun. There wouldn't be too many players if everyone had to keep alert to someone else taking an intentional swing at their head with a driver. This is what I am talking about. The game space of self aware languaging entities has to be fundamentally cooperative (ie respectful of the lives and liberties of all other classes of such agents) or it necessarily self terminates (sooner or later). I am confident of that, beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt, but have not be able to communicate to Robin in a way that he has been able to appreciate the levels of abstraction that I am pointing to. I like Robin. We are both active in the Foresight community, but he is not looking deeply enough, abstractly enough, into how evolution actually works on complex open systems.

[@simonelaird846]

Yawn

[@simonelaird846]

This is not a probability based on observational data available its a mathematical model and it's not so damn serious. Academic arrogance is the behaviour manifested due to the complete insecurity

[@robertdiggins7578]

That was fun! Now, can you make one or more with the following assumptions? (They seem more likely, to those who have considered them, in my experience.) 1. Intrinsic Redshift - See Halton Arp's books for the evidence he found of connected galaxies with vastly different redshifts. In fact, he found quantization in redshift, which pointed to parent-child relationships. If this assumption is accepted, the Expanding Universe goes out the window. 2. The Herouni Antenna - this Soviet era antenna might be the only one that looked for the Cosmic Microwave Background and was also designed to be shielded from the microwaves coming from the Earth's oceans. It did NOT find the CMB. No more Big Bang! 3. If light takes 8+ minutes to reach Earth from the Sun, which itself is moving, there can't be a speed limit of C, otherwise, the solar system would not stay intact, but the planets would ostensibly be flung out of orbit. Also, wasn't C adjusted, until it was tied to the meter? 4. It's likely that life would develop on planets orbiting in the glow of brown dwarf stars, which can't be reached by radio wave signals and would be basking in the stars radiation constantly. So, they would never see the stars in their skies, since there would be no night. Maybe they would be less grabby. 5. I personally think they're here already. Australia is a police state and the USA's FBI is has just been ordered to monitor parents who get upset at school board meetings. Meanwhile, we're enriching a virus using young healthy people and a non-sterilizing "vaccine". I'm guessing the humans who are driven crazy soon will be locked up or maybe lab rats. The Grabby Happened Here. Right now. I think this changes everything. Thanks and🤞 Good luck!

[@simonelaird846]

How sad to think you already know everything

[@fraser372]

As a mathematical projection this is interesting I would suggest you look at evolution and the rate of species extinction and speciation . Mammalian species according to the archeological evidence have an average species lifespan of approximately 300,000 years which distressingly enough is about the length of time that humanity has been upon the face of our planet. So to talk about millions of years as being a parameter is to talk in speculative modelling that is not supported by empirical observations. Let’s presume we can say double that time , just to further indulge a growth pattern , look at our world as it is with our dependency upon fossil fuels and our physical requirement food and other material goods to sustain our present level of complexity. It’s clear now that our climate is as it is because humanity has developed a level of complexity whose supply to sustain that level of complexity has overshot the carrying capacity of our earth. The anthropogenic changes to our climate means that our climate and weathers resulting means that humanity will lose most of its food production. Also presuming we could sustain some degree of food production we also face challenges in distribution with a replacement technology to fossil fuels as yet is not even close to humanities energy needs. Then we have the pollution issues from fossil fuels namely plastics and dangerous pollutants that result with chemical manufacturing to keep our civilisations complexity afloat. We also have numerous nuclear power stations which by its demand for coolant have been build close to sea level and as our oceans will rise with global warming most of these will end up inundated by rising sea water. The take the time required to decommission a nuclear power station takes an enormous amount of both time and resources and a side note averaging out such costs one wonders if nuclear reactors were even feasible over the length of functioning and decommission . Fukushima and Russia,s ( name escapes me momentarily) detail the devastation that results with a cataclysmic failure multiply that by the number of existing nuclear power stations and we have a real issue on that alone. One feature of climate collapse is a loss of civility during which who will maintain the integrity of these power stations ? Plastic we already eat approximately a credit card size off plastics each week , I’m talking micro plastics of degraded plastics which have infiltrated our food and water systems but more evidently certain plastics are sticky to organophosphates which are part of the molecule of many of our pesticides and other long lived chemicals humanity has simply dumped into our ecosystem. I won’t speak at length on the effects of this save to point out that world wide spermatozoa counts are dropping and dropping exponentially it appears so that by itself is something we have not addressed . Our portable water is becoming increasingly scarce as many countries are in a crisis of water supply we have a need to remove carbon out of our atmosphere and oceans as well as find water resources that can only be met by technology these are world wide applications of technology not considered. The energy to fuel these technologies not considered either, I’ve raised several issues and I know I haven’t explored them at the depth required and more than that other issue are present I have;t covered either so to finish entropy is the easiest way to consider humanities fate that humanities degree of complexity is requiring increasing resources to sustain it and that we have rescued that supply overshoot. Also humanity is incapable of agreeing to anything long enough before elements within humanity itself will result in a collapse and to that I mean empires which upon the rise for those to while it includes life is great generally speaking but the collapse of all civilisations is far quicker and catastrophic which is where we are now. The grabby aliens are definitely us and our universe is land locked as it is to be upon our planet too which we have finite resources which doesn’t support an infinite growth paradigm. We are definitely “grabby” but as a species too disorganised to reach beyond our planets capacity.

[@simonelaird846]

Nobody cares about your suggestion

[@caseymay5449]

We gave seen space ships the size of moons since the 50s.

[@simonelaird846]

We look at a spaceship moon every night

[@VideographerExperience]

*Ale in* bidens

[@robertdiggins7578]

Question: What if consensus science is a contradiction in terms, since consensus is rarely falsifiable? Oh, and what if the Sun has more of an effect on the Earth's climate than people caused plant food?

[@stephenendean799]

We have seen their ships,they are here already.Some of us have met them,talked to them and listened to them.They have confirmed that the biggest threat to human civilisation is the destructive anger held in form by our military nuclear weopons,resulting in our own extinction,and all the other life forms on earth/Gaia,forever,they strongly suggest the immediate deactivation/dismantling/safe disposal of all extant warheads.ASAP.

[@circlingoverland4364]

And once we're completely defenseless they come eat us.

[@berwynofgreyhawk5525]

Another model…. Nonsense

[@andypeutherer4218]

Oh dear.

[@SuperTonyony]

Looking at the brutality with which humans treat one another and our fellow Earth species, I would estimate that Homo sapiens is more grabby/brutal/vicious than 90% of the technological species in the universe.

[@drjthornley]

What have you been smoking?

[@simonelaird846]

You don't have to assume something is nonsense just because you're not able to understand it

[@henriquereisjr6771]

The problem I see is that the universe expand and no civilization will be able to can control more than a few hundred galaxies even if expand at the speed of light.

[@inhabitantwaps3qs803]

IKR his theory is complete nonsense really he doesnt know how theyd be able to control space or rlly anything.

[@henriquereisjr6771]

There is the phosphorus problem also. Phosphorus is necessary for lufe as we know it, and is extremally rare in the universe

[@ericmathis7498]

Bro wtf this is horrible lol he thought he was doing something. This idea went right in the trash

[@philosophe5319]

Which specific points do you disagree with and what would you supplant those ideas with.

[@thijsjong]

Bro do you even model bro?

[@danielm5161]

@@philosophe5319 He wanted to hear some ex pilot talk about how the government is storing aliens in the fridge.

[@simonelaird846]

Your wrong