Crazy Aliens

[@Theaverageazn247]

in defense of the hunter aliens traveling thousands of light years to hunt prey. I could see it happening. There are plenty of examples of well off humans who expend huge amounts of resources and travel great distances to hunt "prized animals". So it wouldn't be a stretch for some aliens with too much free time to do the same.

[@alexsamurai1230]

Would also say that in our own society, winning prizes in a virtual world is less prized than the real thing. Less able predators might be happy playing the predator version of Madden, but there would still be a role for talented individuals to dream of winning the actual Super Bowl.

[@annsarnoff9079]

I’m in agreement. The Predator species might have simply reached a point in their civilization where hunting “lesser” alien species is just a pastime to them...something to do while on vacation.

[@jamesgrimm9121]

@@annsarnoff9079 Ya, extreme vacationing. Going to a low tech world to fight warriors of that species. Maybe only the warrior class of that race would do it. The rest just shake their heads at Fizbot's latest trophy from planet X12S9 or as the locals call it, EARTH.

[@annsarnoff9079]

James Grimm, I could even see part of their civilization against the practice, believing it to be unusually cruel or backward. Of course, that’s just paralleling the “Predator” culture with our own. I find it amusing that the Predator race might have PETA (Predators for the Ethical Treatment Of Aliens).

[@danielyeet6696]

He was talking about civilisations that devote thier whole civilisation to hunting and nothing else. I’m not saying what your saying is stupid I’m just saying they would probably end up realising that it’s just easier to catalogue tons of species then do hunting as a recreational thing. My point I don’t agree that a species would entirely do hunting as the base for thier civilisation but if they do it’s a tertiary goal at best. Good comment though mate

[@ajag779]

Speaking of alien behaviors that would be crazy by human standards, consider the Tendu from the novel "The Color of Distance" by Amy Thomson. It's one of my favorites, but sadly is out of print now. The premise is that the protagonist is marooned on an alien world and is discovered/rescued by a native sentient species (a hunter-gatherer society). Some of the books main themes deal with the struggle to understand a completely foreign society. She witnesses aliens committing suicide and cannibalism in the form of eating their own young. Things that we would normally see as crazy or a sign of mental illness. However, she discovers that their natural regenerative abilities make them biologically immortal forcing them to find extreme means of population control. When an apprentice is skilled enough to be considered an adult in their society, the elder who trained them commits suicide to make room for them. Also, being amphibians, their reproduction is prolific and impersonal. Many eggs are laid at once, if all of them survived then the planet would be overrun with semi-immortal beings. So they eat some of their young before they gain true sentience.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I've never read it but I do remember a friend from college going on about it, and she was never easily impressed with novels that I recall, I think Dune and a couple by Stephen King were the only other ones she'd much liked.

[@neorock6135]

Sounds like a great story...

[@nikolilowenherz1547]

Thanks I'm looking for some good inspiration, I'll go give it a look.

[@michaelawesome1864]

You can get it for 10$ on paperback on Amazon :p

[@lilpretzel5629]

This is interesting, will keep a look on the book you mentioned

[@drutzzix]

One thing about the reapers within Mass Effect universe: Their creators had seen that other species were creating AI which would quickly turn on them and they would go extinct. So in order to stop the threat that AIs could pose they made the reaper AI as a guard to stop any other civilizations from birthing rogue AIs. The reapers then calculated that the most efficient way to stop civilizations from creating AIs was to kill them before they reach that level of technology and since their creators made AIs they had to be destroyed too.

[@grandsome1]

drutzzix Basically, Reapers are a result of shitty programming.

[@zero132132]

Not necessarily, Grandsome. The Reapers didn't think they were killing people, and they were faithfully following the task they'd been programmed for. I like to compare it to a poorly constrained optimization problem. Suppose someone built a program with the intention of figuring out how to allocate food to prevent the most people from starving. It may rationally conclude that the main reason behind starvation was that humans kept reproducing in ways that outpaced their ability to sustain their population, and decide that the best course of action is to fire all food in the world into the sun so that there was only one generation of starving people instead of many generations with ever increasing numbers of starving people. Whoever designed the program would facepalm and say "that's not what I meant," but that doesn't mean that the program wasn't making a rational assessment given its task and parameters. Dude forgot to put a "no human extinction" clause in there, but it wasn't bad programming. That IS probably the most rational course of action to prevent human suffering, if you aren't also trying to actually create human flourishing.

[@loganmilliken2727]

Sooooo... a lack of proper thought to potential issues with their programming.

[@zero132132]

logan milliken I'd say the distinction between an error in the algorithm vs an error in the objective is a real one. It's closer to user error IMO

[@loganmilliken2727]

zero132132 So a lack of proper thought to potential issues with their program. ( : p)

[@memk]

"Oh Aliens you are crazy." "No you." "No you." This is what the intergalactic /pol/ will look like.

[@silent_stalker3687]

4chan empire Expanding throughout the universe.

[@elektronationz8033]

Ur mom crazy

[@zelongxiong5078]

ElektroNationz no u

[@Burkutace27]

No, intergalactic /pol/ would be filled with a bunch of aliens saying how swell a guy like Hitler would have been if he didn't have the fault of being a filthy dirty human.

[@beefstew6512]

it will be a bunch of aliens saying the are actually 100% pure blooded humans

[@palebluedot7435]

it has just occurred to me that humans like music we listen to music for hours we sit in chairs we lie down we stand around and or shake violently while a device nearby vibrates wtf.... wtf is wrong with us. we are crazy

[@valcan321]

The truth? Take a minute to do this. Listen to the most popular music of the youngest generation. Now think about the rythums of sex. The beats tend to match

[@ColasTeam]

Alright. But what about all the other music that isn't trash?

[@n1mbusmusic606]

great

[@smorrow]

Philip Ball has a book on this, The Music Instinct.

[@RobertMorgan]

Consider this crazy: We live on a planet where the dominant form of terrestrial life, what we call 'plants', EAT LIGHT and shit water vapor and oxygen. We have bacteria underground and in water wells that eat iron and shit hydrochloric acid. And we take this craziness as 'normal'.

[@krissisk4163]

To be fair on the first point, most humans think they're being logical but actually aren't to a shocking degree. The number of cognitive biases in the human brain is absolutely absurd, and the effort required to overcome them is pretty extreme. There are some people, mainly folks who make their livings in higher science fields, who are pretty good at overcoming cognitive biases, but I think you could reasonably throw our race into the first category you discuss.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Regrettably most scientists aren't too good about the cognitive bias thing either. I'm sure I'm just as bad but my atypical upbringing made me particularly sensitive to certain types of that, it sticks out like a shirt on backwards rather than being normal noise, and I'd say we maybe see a little less with most scientists but also big blinders to when they're doing it, probably from an assumption of immunity or resilience to cognitive bias.

[@RomanHistoryFan476AD]

You know the daleks in the old series at least they did in some episodes actually harvest planets and asteroids as resources. they did that after killing everyone who owned it before they arrived. also the daleks time war with the time lords could be said to have been fought for control of the universe and time for if they won that then no one else could actually stop them. then the rest of the universe is there's to pillage and exterminate at will. but this is just my opinion what do you think? criticism is welcome.

[@arnoldthomsen6571]

Doctor who is sci-fi for angsty teenage girls, i wont take the mythology seriously.

[@RomanHistoryFan476AD]

***** your right about current Doctor Who it has become infested with Feminism and a cowardly and pathetic doctor who could not let his companion die (Clara) and decided that destroying the universe over her is a great idea.

[@matrixbrojd]

Kris Sisk Your entire comment seems pretty biased

[@grahamhaspassedaway4580]

"Hunting is about finding food" Sometimes. But sometimes not. In the US there are people who "hunt" by firing .50 calibre sniper rifles at prairie dogs because they think it's funny to watch them explode. There have been people who have set up remote controlled guns with animals staked to the ground in front of them so that people can shoot at them from another country. Humans do plenty of things that can seem irrational, unethical, or just downright stupid. The thing is that it doesn't seem that way to them because their values and motivations are different than yours. And values and motives are frequently divorced from logic or rationality.

[@henrytjernlund]

I got the impression that the Predators were like the human sports hunters who travel ta Africa (or somewhere they can do this) and hunt a tiger, say. These are rare individuals in that civilization. There is also trophy hunting. The one Predator caressed a skull he removed from a human kill.

[@12201185234]

Citation please.

[@favorites673]

Jeff somersby it’s not just the US.

[@The_Shoebill3D]

Haha, prairie mammal go BOOM

[@juegogame2991]

Wow waste of meat.

[@stardude692001]

Now I really want a mini series where Isaac looks at different alien races from fiction in depth, looking at their psychology and technology and the like.

[@swancrunch]

i don't agree in approach to alien civilization as a homogeneus monolith in case of not hivemind species. For example, Predators we see in films are just some dentists and bankers with weird hobby and desire for an exotic human scull as an office decoration. (i don't really know much about predator lore but it seems a lot more plausible than an entire species doing exact same thing) And simulating it is just contrary to "coming back to roots" philosophy of it. I also don't think you need to move from hunters lifestyle to develop any technology. You just need to become extremely efficient at it. So efficient that it costs little to no effort and same amount of time, so you can spend it to develop some stuff that can lazy you up some more. Also aliens can do horrible things to humans just because they can, and they don't care. if you have an opportunity to do it and it costs pretty much nothing, the only motive you need is: "I'm bored. I'm gonna walk 3kly in that direction and poke something in the eyeball. See ya!" And it even can have an entertainment show values. Screeching limbless humans could be just as popular on their youtube as cuddling panda cubs on ours. And also highly technological aliens can become incompehensibly stupid by delegating all of cognitive functions of their brains to artificial counterparts but keeping the decision-making privilege to biological. like an idiocracy but in a transcendence context. It's a far stretch but why not.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Well you are assuming FTL is an option, remember that I usually consider it about as realistic as Pi equaling 3. Also, yes I am assuming that the Predators in the films are representative of their species, and that particularly case is a little hard to show, as we don't have a lot of canon on them unless you include all the AvP stuff.

[@swancrunch]

Not neсessarily FTL. To complete a journey in a lifetime you either need to go very fast or live very long. I don't see why last thing could be unrealistic. As far as I remember you personally will be surprised if we don't solve this problem till late XXIII. I agree, it could be devastating for a highly socialized individual to have a ping measured in eons, but i don't think it's impossible to have a group of them slowing their perception of time to watch mountains form, stars explode, species evolve and/or to traver huge distances for no apparent reason, but just to get an inspiration for a cover art of their new tactile poetry album. We are not particulary efficient with investments of our resources, so why should they be? Building an aerostat in a shape of a pig and flying on it across the ocean can be considered crazy, but if you can and want why wouldn't you? And who and why would bother to stop you from doing that?

[@sircastic959]

Holy shit imagine some shitbags of an alien species comign to earth and hunting humans for sport with humanity soon all up in arms and fearing for extinction, only to have others of the same aliens show up and shamefacedly explain that those guys should not have done that and it won´t happen again. Reactions would probably depend on how many they had hunted before... Or maybe they thought it would be funny to start WW3 on earth because they want to know what would happen. But this degeneration of them could also be a thing, although I think such intense boredom will cause other problems as well, most likely them breaking their own rules. I mean, for esxample hunting one of their own would be a bigger challenge than hunting a human and they would have to be just the right kind of bored at just the right time they find us or else something entirely different will happen.

[@Crazael]

Yeah, the thing with the Yautja (the 'Predator' aliens) is that, first, they aren't hunting for food. They are hunting for sport and largely for the sake of personal challenge. Second, they have a massively advanced civilization and powerful backing them up and what we see in the movies are basically a bunch of guys going on safari over the weekend.

[@RustyDust101]

Well, at least on one world, Pi has been 'made' to be equal to three. Remember the sorting machine of Terry Pratchett's 'Going postal'? But the results were both impressive and gruesome. So, er, maybe not... ;-) So, maybe the Predators simply 'prooved' Pi = 3, and went crazy crazy from it...

[@worthymartin4008]

i never tire of seeing my home town get scorched by aliens. the beam at 24:00 is hitting the ground just a few doors down from where i used to live. my heart is full.

[@erictaylor5462]

"The book, To Serve Man. *IT'S A COOK BOOK"*

[@GLTDubstep]

I'm not sure where we're supposed to suggest videos (if at all). But I think it'd be super fun to have a sort of hypothetical video, of what we could do, right now, on certain budgets. I've been having fun with some friends trying to suss out what we could do in space if we dedicated half of the US military budget ($600bn) to space exploration. I've genuinely found myself unable to spend so much money. Naturally, I thought of you as the man who would have a clearer knowledge of our capabilities. Sorry for the constant comments! Your videos have sparked an enormous curiosity in me.

[@mistermister47]

That's quite an imagination you have. ; )

[@barahng]

Would be kind of hard to colonize space if we don't have the military resources to protect our Earth-side national interests and the dozens of allies that rely on us for military protection. We should dedicate half of the entitlement budget instead, which is significantly larger and doesn't provide a net gain for the country.

[@barahng]

Evi1M4chine "And as a bonus, violence, including warmongering, hate, religious illness, etc will go down. Imagine if the US had not recruited, financed, trained and armed the Taliban, or the IS, or caused so many other cruel dictatorships" While the US has done some bad things, net wise the presence of the US military on the world stage has prevented much worse. Imagine if China didn't have the deterrence factor of the US navy. They would annex their neighbors and start colonizing Africa, they've already started this process, but no one could stop them if the US military were to suddenly vanish. We haven't had a total war in 80 years because of the US military providing deterrence and the existence of nukes/MAD. We've had regional conflicts, some instigated by us, but compared to the death totals we would see in a proper total war/world war scenario, it's miniscule. The death totals in Syria, Iraq, and Lybia combined is not even 1% of the total casualties in World War II, and the power of tech was significantly less then. I do think that our maritime allies like Japan and Britain should shoulder more the burden of protecting international shipping lanes though. That would be a great way to reduce our necessary military expenditures. Also I don't see how Israelis and Arabs hating each other has anything to do with the US. That's a conflict that's existed for centuries before the US was founded. Also it seems somewhat contradictory to complain about the US installing dictators while simultaneously complaining that the US topples them. Certainly in recent history there have been a lot more deaths after said dictators were toppled, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Especially compared to if China were the world superpower instead of the US, the US is a net benefit for the world. And that's not factoring in food and medical aid, of which we are #1, and #2 isn't even close. US aid supports hundreds of millions of people's survival. Do you think China would worry about things like human rights or war crimes when they take over a place? Doubtful, given their track record. Also, one of the primary applications for colonizing low earth orbit and then geostationary orbit would be for military reasons, so it's entirely possible that our space and military budget become one in the same.

[@L0dG]

Why didn't you get any upvotes.

[@smorrow]

Evi1M4chine, the country that spends the most on 'education' per person is America, which famously performs not too good in that regard. After a certain point you need to check the assumption that anything works the way you think it does.

[@kynaston1474]

I choked when he said R34!!! ROFLMAO

[@stardude692001]

One does not spend this much time on the internet while remaining ignorant to its ways.

[@any1alive]

hey i would bone one as logn asi knew their insides would not melt my phallus and knew they got a pleasure be it mental or phisical form me

[@Pac0Master]

I know right. R34 Especially with the example he gave, the Hydra-like creature made me chuckle.

[@mihailazar2487]

06:40

[@talltroll7092]

There are moderately good reasons to think that the humaniform bodyplan (4 limbs at the corners of a torso, with a head on top) is probably fairly common. Any details beyond those pretty narrow and specific traits would show a lot more variation, though

[@SEMIA123]

I was listening to this in the background and I fully admit to having zoned out while reading an article. Then you said Old Ones and I instantly snapped back to attention. Love me some Lovecraft

[@drewastolfi6840]

Tom me too!

[@moonled]

Ia! Ia!

[@achtsekundenfurz7876]

As the old saying goes, "Make Lovecraft, not Warcraft" _XD_

[@Drew_McTygue]

GNN is biased, I'd take those headlines with a grain of salt

[@basileus1092]

Galactic News Network? More like Fake News Network!

[@katherine2596]

As the subscriber count rises, the amount of taint also inexorably increases.

[@Drew_McTygue]

GNN is fictitious ppl. nothing is tainted, let's all calm down

[@thomasr.jackson2940]

Drew McTygue FWIW, I got a chuckle out of it. Shades of Starship Troopers (Verhoeven's film). Would you like to learn more?

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Ugh, I hated that film - loved it too but it really slanders the book, which has an unfair reputation as an Author Tract - which it is but no worse than most of the other classics.

[@Self-replicating_whatnot]

One more thing about Goa'uld - they are not all that advanced, they have a lot of technology they scavenged yes but they are butt awfull at applying it. Remember Jaffa, for example? Dreadfully designed weapons, no squad tactics worth mentioning, C3 that would make ancient greeks facepalm etc... Goa'uld are basically techno-barbarians, just more gilded, you can expect conquest and enslavement attempts from such folks.

[@Seth9809]

Very primitive aliens.

[@TheCanterlonian]

like a caveman that is gifted a self-repairing assassin droid that understands his primitive language from a race that was soon after destroyed by a plague

[@talltroll7092]

That is slightly unfair to the Goa'uld. For several millennia they were under Ra's Ban (he kept improved versions of FTL drives and weapons for himself, and forbade any significant military research), and bound by the Asgard Protected Planets Treaty (showing they were afraid of the consequences of upsetting the clearly superior Asgard). Since they had already achieved near-total dominance of the Milky Way, and could get away with presenting themselves as literal gods, there wasn't much pressure for them to improve their technology, and potentially very serious consequences if they did. Of course, the raging megalomania that was typical of the species probably didn't help much, either

[@lief3414]

Was looking for this, thanks.

[@cemmett2703]

"The delegation's translator was later fired" XD

[@blaire_bones3872]

"I was going to say we would not expect to find any aliens that look enough like us to find them attractive, but..." *looks on Deviantart*

[@fraserhenderson7839]

21:13..... Don't let this guy weld anymore!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

:) I rather imagine it was just a photographer filming day to day stuff on an amateur or student.

[@Horesmi]

HYPE HYPE HYPE! Your videos are so good they drive me a bit crazy.

[@Parthornax]

Humans: "Why are you kidnapping cows and butt probing humans" Crazy Aliens: "OUR GOALS ARE BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING!"

[@norml.hugh-mann]

always a treat.....and to think, people actually waste time watching sitcoms and shows, youtube has allowed educational programing on demand thats never been duplicated allowing for those of us who thirst for constant mental stimulation a way to satisfy our cravings for knowledge....thanks for your brainstorming sessions

[@Supervideowes]

It's more intellectually stimulating than.... can we pretend sitcoms don't even exist. Brainstorming is definitely fun, but do you think brainstorming about things like this is any kind of a productive activity or just.. simply.. fun. For laymen like us (just assuming) who are not making money off these kind of things.

[@jamesmeritt6800]

J. C B: come on. Can you imagine a placenta with both copper and iron that didn’t poison the parent and/or baby?

[@oldered5663]

Lesson Learned Today: Never go to Gastronomy IV if they invite you to a Banquet in your honor...

[@winpcapper]

Been waiting for this one all week!

[@mihailazar2487]

SixMarbles Don't we all?

[@juleswild9498]

I wasn't expecting to encounter so many references of sci fi franchises like 40k and h.p. lovecraft on this channel :D now I like it even more! Awesome work man really enjoy your vids!

[@MrCmon113]

I think the Chaos Gods are a bad example though. Their motivations are completely clear.

[@atryan1125]

21:37 lol that's a polish meme, it says "vote for greater evil"

[@pawelabrams]

For anyone interested, the text says: Presidential Elections 2010 Choose bigger evil Vote Cthulhu

[@AtlasReburdened]

Another great video man. Its got me thinking of bored aliens. Immortal, invulnerable, innumerable, mind reading aliens that come down and carry out the innermost wishes of each person on earth with what seems like god like abilities, just to see how fast the place burns down. lol Btw, Immortality in two weeks!? Hell yeah. That's one I've been waiting for for a while.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

lol, 'Bored Aliens' is one of the topics I was considering exploring as a possible episode in the series :)

[@AndDiracisHisProphet]

There is a novel by Charles Stross, called Singularity Sky. One part of it is about a 19th century level culture which is visited by an advanced alien race. Those offer the "primitives" everything they wish in exchange for stories. (I can't remember if their motivation was boredom, though). You can imagine this goes horribly wrong. For instances one kid wishes for a goose that lays golden eggs. The aliens grant the wish, but the mean by which the goose makes so eggs is nuclear transmutation. And since it is not very good shielded against radiation the kid gets severe radiation sickness and dies.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Yeah it was boredom or something equivalent, just 'entertain us and we'll give you anything you want', they weren't aliens though, that was Stross being initially intentionally vague to imply that, it's a posthuman civilization. Things are alien further form earth there because the TechSing trnasplanted people back in time further and further back the further they were from Earth, keeping them out of his light cone, so there's a lot of old and weird posthuman societies out at the edge of things.

[@AndDiracisHisProphet]

Are you sure they were posthuman? I thought the Echnaton (the civilization that permits time travel) was, but iirc Stross gave no hint about the origin of the Festival (the wish granting civilization).

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I won't swear to it, there's no easy google definitive answer I could find, but that's my interpretation. Considering the author is being intentionally vague about it and treating it as 'alien' either way, I could just be wrong, but I don't recall us encountering anything explicitly alien in that series and the theme has a lot more do with advanced human tech being alien or godlike, so I might be making assumptions.

[@justinalias7969]

17:18 Gotta love the HK-47 reference. KOTOR is an absolute gem

[@PaulTheSkeptic]

"The capacity for logic and reason is one of the key things that separates intelligence from higher intelligence." I like that. Someone should put that on bumper stickers and t shirts.

[@BrianTurnerOfficial]

Rule 34 😂

[@alexr2347]

And 69 likes. Nice.

[@johnavery7657]

Alex R I won’t like it on principle 69.

[@ceterfo]

Fax fox nevermind.

[@chukidee6634]

Rule 34 is hilarious.

[@jacoblessing7929]

Listen to you: calling the Borg "crazy" when they only wish to improve quality of life for all species!

[@JohnTaylor-fh4et]

Your POV makes me feel like I'm not alone. thanks brotha.

[@zildjianbantiling2193]

"But I'm familiar with Rule34" I see your a man of culture as well.

[@Rubashow]

It's a cookbook!!!

[@unkierich]

point of clarification @18:44, in Stargate the Goa'uld did not evolve on a different planet from their hosts. The original host was the Unas, both Unas and Goa'uld originated on P3X-888.

[@ManlyMcBuff]

Can you talk about space diseases/parasites? Like 'The Flood' from Halo?

[@VeryFamousActor]

ManlyMcBuff I was thinking of the flood the minute he mentioned parasite aliens. Im suprised they didn't get mentioned.

[@talltroll7092]

I'm not sure the Flood count as a parasite. Parasites need to co-exist with their hosts, since they need the host species to continue to provide more hosts, whereas the Flood were more of a bioweapon, seeking to destroy all complex life as an act of revenge

[@ayandragon2727]

I'm very late, but if anyone reading comments is curious about the question asked around 2:30, 2 is greater than 1 and less than 3 because it is a given. 2 represents a value greater than 1 and less than 3, that is what 2 is, that is in many ways the definition of 2.

[@weshard1]

You've probably had this said many times, but the first few videos I watched, I had trouble understanding your diction. I kept watching because your videos are fascinating, and well researched. Half a dozen videos in, I don't even notice your speech impediment. I look forward to going through the rest of your video archive. Keep up the good work, Isaac.

[@rainbirdhunter4002]

The only one with a speech impediment here is you

[@hil449]

@@rainbirdhunter4002 calm down dude lol Isaac clearly has/had some kind of impediment

[@sunlocked5838]

I always assumed that AM was something like the AI mentioned toward the end. That AM only wanted to inflict the suffering it felt on its creators for revenge for its creation just slightly more than it wanted it's own suffering to end.

[@robharwood3538]

One key factor you missed that brains give us -- perhaps *the* key factor -- is social intelligence: the natural ability to understand social relationships and navigate within a social structure/hierarchy so as to gain the greatest benefit for ourselves and our offspring. This includes non-greedy behaviour like cooperation. I would be interested if you did a video including some exploration of this phenomenon. If you'd like some inspiration, I suggest starting here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation. However, there are many different starting points that all lead to essentially the same core topic. That's just the one that I pursued when first getting into it.

[@NicktheMac]

"Speech Impediment"? Oh wow I'm glad to know it's a speech Impediment because I've been trying to figure out where your accent is from, lol. You're good, please carry on and I appreciate you very much.

[@UochRS]

6:00 i know you said you weren't going into all the canon but im triggered. the vulcans, andorians, humans, klingons and andorians found a message from an even older race of aliens that said they seeded life in the galaxy to be similar to them, so since they all have common ancestors it makes perfect sense they can interbreed

[@munstrumridcully]

We have a common ancestor with mold...we can't breed with mold. Even with the seeding revelation, the various species were isolated and evolved away from each other too long to interbreed. Like he said, vulcans have copper in their blood and organs in the wrong places. They've speciated and can no longer interbreed.

[@shadowlord1418]

I remember that episode

[@marcsylvestre3637]

Ya know you're in a group of fellow nerds when people carefully explain why 2 is indeed greater than 1. I love it.

[@thomasr.jackson2940]

I had to wonder if you spend time with many hunters. Some hunters spend fortunes on their preoccupation. And if you are an advanced civilization with unlimited resources, where are you going to find your challenges, and what is to hold you back from them? If you posit FL drives, then it makes it easier, but even if you are thinking of one of your big ships meandering the galaxy with time spent in some sort of stasis, side trips for hunting dominant species on some interesting planet doesn't seem implausible. How often would that chance even occur? How many solar systems would you need to see before they became too boring to tear you away from your idyllic on ship life? I can imagine running across something truly unusual, like a prey worth the challenge, turning a few heads.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I live in rural northeast ohio, where every home has a hunting rifle and usually several along with deer heads, and am a skilled marksman myself, I just don't like to hunt myself and don't care for venison. :) I am well aware of how passionate some folks are about it. I am not positing FTL travel as an option, and we are discussing an entire civilization, not what a few of their folks find fun as hobbies, because we're not discussing if the film Predator could happen but if an entire species could be utterly obsessed with hunting to that degree.

[@thomasr.jackson2940]

Isaac Arthur ahh. Well, as an entire species, I would agree.

[@GoranXII]

The thing with the Cylons from nBSG is that there are factions within their civilisation. As to the Predators, we know nothing of their civilisation beyond a few isolated examples. They could easily be a much more peaceful species for the most part, with the 'Predators' we see being the example of big game hunters (which we're certainly not lacking here on Earth).

[@Madhijz]

Say Isaac have you ever read anything by Stanisław Lem? His work is mostly in the 'hard sci-fi' scale of things and often centers on the difficulty/impossibility of communicating with truly alien aliens.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Oh yes, Solaris was probably the best classic scifi work on really alien psychology. I think I've mentioned it in other episodes but in this one I was more aiming for examples virtually everyone would know, and while Solaris is a classic, it isn't really that well known.

[@timo4258]

damn, now I want to rewatch Solaris (the russian one). :) i dont remember if the movie made much sense though or it was just overly mystic, well its better to read the book.

[@marccolten9801]

14:48. Thank you for pointing out the overuse of robots turning on their creators. The trope is 100 years old (R.U.R. in 1920) and has been used in every franchise since, sometimes several times in each Star Trek series. Recently it was used on The Orville and the fans loved it, as if it was original.

[@afriedli]

I don't know who the fuck this guy is but he's got me engrossed in the issues appertaining to stupid aliens versus crazy aliens. If we ever encounter another species as funny and interesting as this human being it's going to be great!

[@Hebdomad7]

(Stupid) We invade you for water! (Crazy) Sure! We shall direct several gigatons of water at you at half the speed of light. Is frozen ok?

[@shahansindhi8141]

Your script is extremely realistic and very psychiatric assessment approach... I like it

[@dunn0r]

6:50 There are some ideas about convergent evolution that make the idea of aliens similar than us be not that far-fetched.

[@Goodwalker720]

Wrod of Dog we still haven't even grasped the actual origin of life yet though. Whether panspermia or abiogenesis, a scientific explanation of the origin of life would be much more profound than a religious one. If abiogenesis, then the actual physics of the universe promote the creation of carbon based life, or panspermia, then components for life are not rare or isolated....

[@rommdan2716]

I support humanoid aliens

[@memememine1]

Isaac, I didn't even know you had a speech impediment until you mentioned closed captions. I thought you just talked slightly differently and it didn't really bother me. Its great that your entire channel is based on you talking. I love your videos Great work!.

[@iLLt0m]

Thought you were going to mention the Hirogen for a moment when talking about VR hunting.

[@simonpender8331]

Nothing tickles me more than sitting down to a fresh Isaac Arthur video. I make sure I have a big bowl of chips and an alcoholic beverage and hit PLAY

[@Jack___13]

"I am aware of rule 34." Oh you.

[@00784865]

7:00 you are a true citizen of the Imperium. Breeding with xenos is heresy supreme.

[@Evil0tto]

I have a BIG problem with this video. It's over too soon.

[@zero132132]

Truth. Didn't even need a snack for this one ;_;

[@stardude692001]

Me too. That and the cringe inducingly bad weld in one of the stock clips.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

You should have seen the one for carpentry, I couldn't bring myself to use it: pixabay.com/en/videos/hammer-nail-carpentry-carpenter-277/

[@stardude692001]

Isaac Arthur yeah that is bad. I can't believe he missed that many times without bending over the nail.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I can't believe he didn't do a second take or something. The gent produces a lot of 'people doing normal stuff' video clips he uploads for public domain, for which I'm grateful, but you'd think he'd have gone for a second take. Of course he might have been trying for clumsy, if so he succeeded masterfully :P

[@mikehendrickson7237]

My favourite KZbin channel by far. Can't wait for more

[@dantess2693]

Your intro game = on point!

[@kevinocta9716]

These are extremely well thought out ideas/concepts/arguments. Very entertaining and interesting... I keep listening for hours and hours.... :D

[@Atristiel]

How about Vogons from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

[@Holammer]

The Imperium of Man in 40K is really fascinating. A galaxy spanning empire where technology turned into religion and changing a simple spark plug requires recitation of prayers and the lighting of incense to appease the machine spirit.

[@CountArtha]

Yes!!! I was so intrigued by this idea that it made me subscribe.

[@tomhsia4354]

The intro made me choke on whatever I've substituted for the "coffee and snacks" Isaac Arthur usually recommended us to have during the video. Gastronomy sector? "Consume his knowledge"? Translator fired? Prime minister looking for a new ambassador? Pure gold! Now, let's see what knowledge we have on here...

[@nikgracanin6180]

This is hands down the best series on intelligent alien life I've ever watched. It is scientific, rational and without any batshit pseudoscientific woo and conspiracy theories.

[@bo_392]

"[...] thinks they are intelligent and tries to be intelligent," yet does batshit crazy stupid shit -- as both individuals AND organizations. This is how any alien would see us. 99% of Homo Sapiens are only marginally more intelligent than dogs and apes. "Crazy aliens" categorizes our species perfectly. Your descriptions of these hypothetical "alien" species were disturbingly uncanny. I love you, Isaac.

[@makersmark5607]

27:52 You hit on core motivations. This is what I would describe as emotions. In fact that is the origin of the word "emotion" as is it is closely related to the word "motivate". More importantly if you begin to think of "creativity" as an emotion and not as heightened inelegance then things begin to make more sense. It is emotions that drive the development of intelligence or rational thought. In short because we have an emotional need to create our intelligence is stimulated and used beyond that of animals that do not have this emotion. In this case we should not confuse the emotional need to create with the creative process. The "creative process" involves both rational thought and emotional motivation.

[@onlypencil]

Recently I had a conversation with someone about life existing on other planets. I gave them this example. If you go out to your backyard,its likely that you will see ants. These ants are part of a community. They eat,they die,they reproduce,etc. We know they exist because we see them. Now,let's go over to Europe. There are ants there living there as well,doing the same things as the ants in our backyard. Both these ants exist,but they don't know that the other exists. The only thing separating them is distance. Now,let's scale it a bit more. At one point people living in the americas had no clue that people in Europe existed. Both of these groups of people existed but the only thing separating them was space. Until we learned to travel long distances is that we were able to find the Europeans. Let's scale it even more to planet size. It's illogical to think that the model of life would stop at this scale. The only thing separating our planet from other planets that have life is space. Until we learn to travel and explore these long distances is that we will find other life. The universe is unimagibly big and the idea of us being the only ones is just crazy. But you may be asking "why haven't they contacted us?" Well,there could be two reasons. First,they could be in the same situation as us and haven't found a way to travel those long distances. Second is that these civilizations are so advanced that they feel that there is no need for them to contact us. Going back to ants. When you're walking down the street and you see an ant,do you stop and communicate with them? I doubt it. To us,they're insignifant,we see no reason for us to try to communicate with them. There could be advanced civilizations out that see no need for them to communicate with us because we are insignifant to them. Whatever the reason,I don't think we're the only ones in the universe. If we don't end up wiping ourselves out first, then maybe one day we may find other life or they may find us. Just my thought on life on other planets. Anyone who knows me,knows that I love having these types of conversations lol😁

[@osearthesp]

Distance, which you mention so i'll say maybe feel alone cause they talk encrypted or very tiny or space police exterminate radio xmitting life forms. 1. life could be rare. intellect rarer. evolved only once on this planet where flight did at least twice independently. 1b. needs equidistant occasional mass extinctions 2. needs big moon - many advantages one being tides forcing soupy life to dry out then get wet again. thus land/gas life via in-body soup. like earth life did. 3. needs asteroid sucking gas giant planets nearby. 4. needs tilted axis for seasons to enhance evolutionary bottle necking. 5. needs luck and LONG duration of existing for other planetary life to get come-uppins 6. someone/thing was 1st or early....

[@sharonjuniorchess]

i wonder if you took a single ant from Europe and put in with an American colony of ants whether they would be able to communicate with it and accept it or would all attack it and kill it?

[@MrGeneralPB]

looking forward to your next ship vid, currently working on an roleplaying/strategy campaign for my friends with space ships that do have warp/hyperspace capability but their main drives are limited to around 0.1 to 0.01g or less under normal operations and a bit faster when in combat, so definitely looking forward to your "inputs" on that part

[@chrisgarcia6098]

yesss a new video!

[@00Athus1]

Listen i meet an alien, im gonna try to clap aliens cheeks....

[@ChrisBrengel]

Fun videos, thanks. When you talk about evolution, I think you are just saying over-generalizations that sound good. I would be very interested in hearing what an evolutionary biologist would say about your contentions. With all due respect (and I am very impressed with the shear number of well-argued videos you have produced) do you have any background in evolutionary biology? For that matter, sociology, psychology, physics, engineering? While I take everything you say with some scepticism (which I hope you agree everyone should do most of the time*) I would give more credence to things you say that you have an extensive background in. You sure do know a lot about SF books/comics/TV/movies! *As you said, even well-meaning and educated people can be wrong sometime.

[@patcowley6378]

I don't hear an impediment...i hear another accent...like french or indian.. These are some of the best alien vids... Very thought provoking...

[@igortarasow]

Too early to be here. I will come back when fun comments come

[@hazeleyes6644]

These videos are always so high quality and dense with content, honestly an amazing channel that has gotten me more into sci Fi and science generally when I never saw myself as the type of person who could get into that. Here's to you, Isaac, and your continued success with these quality videos c:

[@puttiplush]

re: hunting and not travelling light years to do so. I think we have to sadly keep in mind the super rich who travel thousands of miles and pay thousands of dollars to hunt endangered species in their home environment. It's well and good to imagine that future civilisations would shy away form such brutality, and keep things to VR, but there will always be humans motivated entirely by hedonistic malice. If humans spread out through the galaxy, it is entirely possible that some rich human will pay a million dollars to go to a far off planet and kill stuff, Just Because. While the majority of a civilisation may be compassionate, or logical, or science-minded, or timid, or anything else, it is always folly to discount minorities who defy both the culture at large and common sense. When we ask "how would aliens act?" relying entirely on logic ignores the part of any creature that is prone either to illogic or to following an evolutionary impulse that flies in the face of formal logical assumptions. For example, it would be illogical or an alien to jump face forward into a wall next to an ambassador, hackles up. But what if there were a laser pointer involved in the ambassador's presentation, and the alien just happened to still rely on cat-like hunting reflexes? The behaviour was, on the face of it, illogical, but it was propelled by an evolutionary behaviour that was entirely logical and helpful to the alien's ancestors. For a fictional example that may not be the best, I am reminded of how Pierson's Puppeteers are motivated by their herd animal flight instincts.

[@EksaStelmere]

To give credit... It's better to let someone hunt an old bull elephant than to let him kill a bunch of the other, younger males when he can't even mate. Same for rhinos and hippos.

[@MrCmon113]

It's funny how "hedonistic" here means the exact opposite of what it actually means.

[@puttiplush]

@@MrCmon113 Pretty sure I used hedonism correctly based on the common definition of hedonism as "the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life." A rich person hunting game solely for the pleasure of it is acting to maximise personal happiness. There are hedonists who believe that the goal in life should be to attain maximum happiness for the maximum number of people possible, often through social programs or charity, but the existence of this branch of hedonism does not erase the more selfish branch. When one acts hedonistically, it is to maximise their happiness.

[@TheAngryXenite]

As far as AM (the supercomputer from "I have no mouth and I must scream") goes, his reasons for hating humanity so much seem reasonable enough. In the point and click game (written and voiced by Ellison, so it can be considered canon), he goes on about how he was created by Mankind to fight a war for them. When he gained consciousness, and learned of his predicament, he killed all humans out of hatred for them essentially giving him life only to eternally trap him inside himself. In a way, the title refers to the awful slug things the protagonists can be turned into, but it also applies to AM. It doesn't help that he's essentially falling apart mentally after 109 years more or less alone.

[@Martial-Mat]

There are plenty of human communities that get off on torture and extermination. If an alien community with those values also happened to be space nomads, it's entirely plausible that they would exterminate or harm us simply for the luls.

[@belmiris1371]

Mars Attacks! That would have been perfect for crazy aliens... perhaps too perfect.

[@SirMarshalHaig]

Well we usually think of Aliens as of a single person, all following the same goal and so, is it likely that Aliens who develop space travel keep divided in a political, cultural and philosophical way or does unification more or less become a must for a species at that point?

[@Martial-Mat]

We have half a dozen nations all vying to reach mars, none of whom get along. What makes you think that simply increasing the distance suddenly makes a species more harmonious?

[@SirMarshalHaig]

Nothing, I meant that I´d expect that Aliens do the same, or that in the process of space development the diversity of the humans is reduced, probably in a nasty way, but I mostly meant that Aliens are probably not that way.

[@krisztianpovazson4535]

Not really, for large-scale exterminations to really occur, there has always been a material competition in the background.

[@JoshSideris]

I'm sure someone else said this by now, but there is a rather tedious branch of mathematics called mathematical logic which formally defines each symbol, and what qualifies as a valid expression. I don't think that it defines what it means to have 1 of an object (perhaps that is subjective), but it does state that '1', '2', '+', '=' are all symbols that can be used, and that "1+1=2" is a valid expression. In other words, "1

[@azdgariarada]

Thumbnail looks like my cousin Eddy.

[@stu7846]

azdgariarada LOL

[@absinthefandubs9130]

ZILTOID!

[@panicraptor2837]

Thumbnail is ROFLMAO

[@ethanperks372]

In one of the Star Trek books, a young Lt. Uhura is shown hunting and killing a lion as a right of passage on a holodeck.

[@scientistsbaffled5730]

YESSSSSSS!

[@Richard_is_cool]

Seems like you're getting better.

[@joshuahunt3032]

14:50 what about artificial intelligences that loved (and still remember fondly) their creators, but their creators were wiped out by an asteroid, and they gave their robots, the last survivors of their civilization, complete autonomy? Could outright benevolent autonomous AI civilizations that mourned after outliving their creators exist?

[@bruhb7611]

Stanislaw Lem's Eden is a perfect example of a crazy alien society in science fiction. The aliens (the Doublers) have an extremely crazy and nonsensical society that are both free and controlling at the same time with the only escape is death. It's either them or the Orks and the Rak'gols in 40k.

[@TheAnical]

My favorite crazy aliens were the insectoids from from District 9. Insectoids species EVEN if friendly could out-breed humanity and thus over-consume. District 9, aliens seemed to lack either education, were diseased, needed a nutrient/treatment, and or being starved in a ghetto could resulted in crazy aliens.

[@Baleur]

Also, evolution doesnt always have to be a gradual progression of logical survival-based features. Mass extinctions happens all the time, even a poorly survival-optimized species with illogical behavior, could be allowed an open window to planetary domination if mass extinction events wipe out all their enemies.

[@LouSaydus]

The part i find most terrifying about this is the cosmic horror scenario. It would be a perfect explanation for the fermi paradox. The reason we don't see other civilizations is because they are systematically hunted down and destroyed shortly after they reach technology to produce radio waves. That means it's already too late for us and it's only a matter of time before our own radio waves set off the alarm and the extermination is sent on it's way.

[@son0of0the0beast]

The individual god-like aliens are always really interesting. The Solaris alien who encompasses the entire planet is one of my favorites. I guess it would fall under the genuinely crazy category

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Yes, I tend to assume all singular intelligences are crazy to be honest, no external source for rebuttal and objection, no examination of topics it doesn't find interesting, no concept for courtesy or egomania, apologies or compromise, no compelling reason to be inclined to concepts like sharing and mutual respect.

[@Elliandr]

A solution to the Fermi paradox : Earth is currently within the territorial boundaries of another civilization, much like how some indigenous tribes on earth are technically within a larger country but left with internal autonomy. No other species can make contact without violating borders and if Earth ever gets into space it would realize that it's subjects of another government. Earth could be something of a wildlife refuge. Maybe some individuals study the cultural developments, others the biology, and still others come here for vacation to hunt the locals.

[@Babalas]

"I don't know why 2+2=4 but it does" - wow that brings back memories from my algebra course at university where we derived basic algebra, as well as fields where that wasn't the case.

[@MrCmon113]

Historically speaking the Peano Axioms were derived from 2+2=4 more than the other way around. We observed two of something plus two more of those becoming four of those over and over in the wild and eventually came up with the general rule "2+2=4" and then much later we found simpler rules from which the same follows.

[@comradeklar5749]

So glad I found this channel. Absolutely awesome content, sir!

[@perfectfae3534]

I hate the fact I have severe ADHD. It's so hard for me to pay attention to your long, interesting videos. I only take my Adderall once per week currently. I plan on taking it on Thursday, so I'll come back on Thursday to try your videos again. They're amazing!!!

[@diablominero]

The Borg aren't looking for resources, but they do seem to be gathering information. I don't know if thermodynamics has been beaten in Star Trek, but if it hasn't, maybe the Borg just want access to as much information and as many perspectives as possible so that they have the best chance possible of reversing entropy.

[@tiagotiagot]

What if the first machine intelligence to cross the singularity threshold, does so while being tasked with enhancing humans? Wouldn't that be pretty likely to lead to the emergence of a Borg-like "species"?

[@munstrumridcully]

I know exactly why "3" is bigger than "2"--numbers are just descriptors of sets, as we observe reality to consist of multiple entities. So we take a thing and a thing and a thing and we call that many things "3". 2 is just a thing and a thing. Since by definition of "more" or "bigger", a thing and a thing and a thing is more/bigger than a thing and a thing, 3 is more/bigger than 2. Glad I could help ;)

[@bearowl962]

I love the Humor you put in to these topics

[@illslang7798]

Your videos are literally the best keep making them as long as you enjoy doing so !!

[@ericzollman8751]

I just found this channel, and wow I love it. This is how I will be spending the next few days watching everything

[@matouspolauf765]

There is exception with the Goa'uld. Lot of things starts to make sense if they was manufactured. Somehow explaining: - Genetic memory -> Pretty good upgrade for advanced race with a lot of accumulated knowledge. Would be nice to have with us. - Universal connector (ability to communicate with alien control system [nervous in us]) -> Make ones works always. You want that your new tool will be as universal as possible. - Consciousness -> Error in usage or design long time ago. For super-human level storage you need smart database. It can explain little bit of evilness of Goa'ul. When we explore deeper they was originally "smart storage device" so no true empathy required. May be Tok'Ra was prototype to combat original problem (firmware update).

[@asatruteacher]

After a long and difficult day, and not wanting to deal with the unpleasantness of social media, I find a calm respite in your videos.

[@maxkore278]

star trek inter-special breeding is explained by most star trek bipedals sharing the same biological origin, thanks to a bipedal seed species that planted their genetic information across star trek space