The Fermi Paradox: Extinction

[@achilles6578]

I found this channel a couple of few years ago while i was in the hospital near death fighting off a super rare lung infection 2 surgeries partial lung removal and 6-8 weeks of i.v. antibiotics 18 hrs a day i couldnt do much i literally would spend all day every day listening hoping to fill my mind with as much as i could before i died. However, i luckily got better and your voice and content literally helped save my life and continues to help my mind and body recover from that tramatic event. Just wanted to thank you and for you to know how much these videos mean. Thanks Arthur for taking me to other worlds and entertaining me.

[@shadowzerg]

How are you doing now Achilles

[@vomeronasal]

Same, actually! Fucking nosocomial, multidrug resistant gram negative bacteria...

[@lonjohnson5161]

Isaac confirmed what I have long suspected; he does this (at least in part) because he wants good books to read in the future.

[@databanks]

And who doesn't want good books? Hollywood could learn something from Isaac, too

[@hubert_c]

Like atomic rockets.

[@HadzabadZa]

@@databanks Hollywood needs to be expelled 110th time

[@abcdjhffkuggf]

My brother is a popular Sci-Fi writer, and I know for a fact he draws inspiration from this channel.

[@friendlyone2706]

@@abcdjhffkuggf Which one? It is OK to name drop among friends. Too much "sci fi" now days over-borders on fantasy, OK but some of us like our sci fi heavy on the sci.

[@Fig_Bender]

Has it been 5 years already? Crazy! Thanks for half a decade of great content Sir

[@mizzshortie907]

Amen to that!

[@jackkutsch9452]

@@mizzshortie907 tt

[@jackkutsch9452]

@@mizzshortie907 tt

[@jackkutsch9452]

@@mizzshortie907 ttt

[@jackkutsch9452]

.5Tttt5t

[@ColdHawk]

Happy Birthday and happy channelversay! This channel has come so far and keeps going farther! Thanks for the hours and hours of pure enjoyment.

[@louieriver6058]

I guess it is quite randomly asking but does anyone know of a good site to stream new movies online?

[@noelenoch9108]

@Louie River Flixportal :P

[@louieriver6058]

@Noel Enoch thanks, I went there and it seems to work =) I really appreciate it !

[@noelenoch9108]

@Louie River glad I could help :)

[@myusername5]

Grabbed myself a drink and snack. Ready to watch.

[@uTubeMeltsYourBrain]

Isaac is definitely a corporate shill for big snack

[@surfside75]

Yeah, drink🍻 and snack🌿 ready -😂💙🇱🇷✝️

[@benbaselet2026]

@@uTubeMeltsYourBrain Those weight loss programs and diabetes meds make a lot of billionaires you know...

[@in6587]

Like anyone Fucking!! cares

[@seriousthree6071]

@@benbaselet2026 don't need fad diets, I have fibromyalgia, one symptom of mine is I never feel hungry. Seems alcohol goes very well with Issac Arthur's voice. Southern comfort, both rich and smooth.

[@johntalbott5653]

Grabbing the coffee and popcorn for another Arthursday.

[@bjorntorlarsson]

Corn Pop? Didn't Joe Biden take care of him when he was young during the civil war? And don't mention Caffir, that's not acceptable anymore.

[@blank6604]

I wont destroy the likes...

[@adkinsyum]

Yuck. Coffee doesn't go with popcorn 😂

[@burningsky23]

Pfft! Black Russians and sardines or gtfo.

[@Churber123]

@@adkinsyum YES IT DOES - I know a lot of people that when they are high they love coffee and popcorn, myself included.

[@robblotnicky3219]

5 years of consistently putting out some of the best and most informative series on this theoretical stuff. I stand in awe of your brain, my good sir.

[@hamentaschen]

Happy 5th Anniversary!!!! I am not sure exactly when I found you, but you only had 1.4K subscribers when I did. Its been awesome watching this channel grow. You have expanded the minds of myself and my now 15 year old daughter and I am sure many thousands more. What a gift you and your fine content have been. Thank you Mr. Arthur. This is by far my favorite subject or yours, the Fermi Paradox. On to the show.... YAY!!!!!!!

[@Retaferyr]

I wasn't far ahead of you. I was just under 500 subscribers and it grew exponentially in the few months that followed.

[@jakubtibitancl7005]

The rare intelligence hypothesis seems like the most logical explanation to me

[@alexandernorman5337]

I doubt there is only one overwhelming factor. In fact, I don't believe it is a paradox.

[@jensbrandt7207]

I think rare intelligence is somewhat of a misnomer. Rare technology seems more appropriate.

[@bjorntorlarsson]

Problem with that is, that if ever once a space traveling civilization occurred, it should be all over the place now. The Milky Way is only 100 000 light years across, so colonizing stars at a speed of 0.1% of the speed of light (which is roughly the speed of Parker Solar Probe as it whips around the Sun at periastron) then one can travel from one edge of the Milky Way to the opposite in 1% of the age of the universe. so, why hasn't anyone done that already, in a way we can detect? Anyway one turns this problem, there's no solution. It's horribly frustrating. Terrible. Horrible. Terrible again. As my chess teacher keeps telling me.

[@mauricioabyara4171]

@@bjorntorlarsson 300 km/s is the slow speed for a direct nuclear fusion drive. If they mastered artificial nuclear fusion and provided they had viable sites for deuterium - helium - 3 extraction then they could build colonial ships that would easily reach 2% of the speed of light with a low amount of fuel relative to the empty cargo of the spacecraft. it would include carcass, engines, and the payload capable of sustaining the colonists for long and long if necessary. At 2% the speed of light they could choose not to go far, say within a radius of 20 years - light from their home system still enough room for 100 Solar Systems and reach the furthest in 1000 years of travel located 20 years - light. Hydrogen-hydrogen fusion is artificially beyond our thinking to be controllable in an artificial fusion reactor, stars with masses of 7.5% of solar mass can do this fusion because they have enough mass to support themselves. But nothing limits a kind of achieving the fusion of deuterium - lithium, or deuterium-deuterium reproduction or combinable fusions of helium-3 or deuterium-helium-3, to use either for energy production or for long-term interstellar propulsion, because they are extremely easier to do than proton-proton fusion. And any place that has a gas giant out there is a walking gas station for helium-3 and deuterium. Deuterium exists anywhere in the Solar System that contains volatiles of hydrogen. Conservatively imagine that the average per potential civilization is on the order of 1 to 10 million stars in the galaxy. If each of them decided to explore and colonize at most 100 stars, that would still leave 9,999,900 stars of their own for every potential civilization. . It is also worth remembering that the Solar System is not the Earth, Earth is just a naturally ready world of the Solar System. If we take the Solar System as a whole not including the Sun, we have a real immeasurable reserve of resources. Some of these civilizations may decide not to colonize another star, thus staying in their own home permanently while traveling through the galaxy with their planets and their mother star, others may wish to colonize only 5 stars in order to guarantee their existence if any of the 5 Systems is destroyed by some extremely rare event. There is a video on Isaac Arthur's channel about the colonization of Jupiter and another colonizing Neptune, in which both civilization could take advantage of the vast resources of deuterium and helium-3 of these planets to feed artificial suns, could have high sufficiency comparable to an empire of fiction. indefinitely and would be an independent System within the Solar System.

[@annoyed707]

Yes, that hypothesis grabs you after elections, scanning the 'news' in the supermarket checkout line and the like.

[@logiconabstractions6596]

Isaac pulled it off - it may be the first time I hear an in-video add and think something positive (" I'll check it out") instead of "damn add...."... this is meant as a compliment!

[@zell9058]

Awful instant coffee and a destroyed vending machine pop tart... sometimes you gotta make due with what you’ve got.. the saving grace is a Fermi paradox episode!! Happy Arthursday!

[@databanks]

yuck to the pop tart, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right? Worth the torture to get a good Arthursday video

[@TheNoodlyAppendage]

McHeartattack in a sack and a milkshake.

[@englishcoach7772]

These videos are like an opiate for the future possibility loving mind. And I'm addicted.

[@jengleheimerschmitt7941]

Yep! I burned through the three years of Isaac's content in a couple months when I first discovered this here channel. Now I'm saving all my money to build a O'Niel Cylinder. Screw Planets.

[@davidrosner6267]

One of the flaws with the Fermi Paradox theory is the conclusion that high tech civilizations will build Dyson Swarms. A 'Kardashev 2 capable" civilization may never have the need for that much energy or may find an artificial source of energy more efficient than massive arrays of solar collectors.

[@ergohack]

That only lengthens the time it takes. Maybe you go super efficient, and your civilization only uses a few watts of energy per person. _(The average human uses 100 as part of resting metabolic processes.)_ As long as your population keeps growing, you still will eventually start to see full scale Dyson swarms blocking out stars. If your civilization has some clarketech or cultural norms that cause them to go intergalactic before their local population increases to the point that stars start going dark, even then, migration away from the home galaxy has to meet or exceed the local population growth rate, or you start to see stars going dark. Even in the case where the migration rate is high enough, eventually the home galaxy will become surrounded by heavily populated galaxies, to the point where stars start to become fully surrounded.

[@davidrosner6267]

@@ergohack you have a well thought out and detailed argument and I won't argue the fine details. However, the underlying assumption is that alien civilizations last a really, really long time. All of recorded human history is barely 10,000 years and there have been many calamities in that short time frame that have caused civilizations to rise and fall and populations to plummet. We have only had a really fast growing population for about two centuries and its unclear that current rates will continue indefinitely even with continued technological advances. Its hard to imagine a civilization lasting for 10,000 years let alone a million years. Many of the colonies of a space-faring civilization may fail and the others will lose cohesion before forming a Type 3 Kardashev Civilization or even forming Type 2 Civilizations around their stars. Building a Dyson Swarm requires a civilization to survive for timescales that dwarf anything we've ever seen on Earth.

[@LuizAlexPhoenix]

@@davidrosner6267 If we achieve technological levels allowing pratically immortality from natural death and access to the nearly infinite resources of space, the main reasons that agrarian societies fell would be mitigated. That is the big thing, it would be such a drastic change that we couldn't use anything else as serious guidance.

[@davidrosner6267]

@@LuizAlexPhoenix your argument assumes scarcity is the only factor limiting population growth. People in a post scarcity society can still fight and kill each other over arrogance and pride as humans have found reason to do throughout history even without considering competition over limited resources. A high tech post scarcity society will unbelievably powerful weapons of mass destruction capable of reducing populations by orders of magnitude. Catastrophic natural disasters in space such as exploding supernovae, gamma ray bursts or even stray comets and meteors can achieve the same population reducing effect. There is also the question of whether people who have overcome physical aging and achieved centuries long lifespans would still feel the same incentive to produce offspring to pass on their genes. Even in most modern first world countries, reproduction has fallen below replacement levels among the wealthy. In a post-scarcity society, people may be even less focused on traditional family building. There may be a lot of stay at home post scarcity civilizations since they will have everything they need right at home.

[@i_kill_for_zardoz]

David Rosner totally agree. Dyson spheres and swarms and whatever are just some goofy ideas people came up with. We have no real way of knowing what ultra advanced intelligence and alien minds would think up, or how they would approach things. It's like asking a caveman how modern man would wage war. He'd have no fucking clue, and assume it must be based on sweet next gen sticks and rocks.

[@eclipsenow5431]

Oh my goodness, I went back and watched that original Megastructures intro and the production values of the show have risen as exponentially as some of SFIA's scenarios! Congratulations on 5 years!

[@_general_error]

Happy birthday, Isaac! I hope people like you never get extinct!

[@gregorykrajeski6255]

Congrats on 5 years. Here's to many more. Have you ever considering turning your various series into books?

[@DavidRexGlenn]

I got to get a better class of friends. Would give anything to have conversations about the Fermi Paradox with others

[@manneostling9207]

same buddy

[@Leester-70]

I'm almost 50 and have been "like this" my whole life. Unfortunately it's rare to find people, even intelligent professional ones, who take an interest in topics like the Fermi Paradox. It's not a question of better or worse, they're good people who have a lot of knowledge and expertise in the things they do take an interest in. It's just that we're a little out on the fringes. At first this felt kind of socially isolating. But as I've aged and learned how to broach topics like these with the uninitiated, people began to find me interesting if maybe a bit eccentric. As a result I get invited to lots of social events because they know the conversation is almost certain to take some unexpected twist that everyone ends up enjoying. Sometimes having this kind of "oddball" personality has worked well for me. My tendency to get temporarily fascinated (obsessed?) with a subject has turned to nutrition and fitness. I have no control over this, for whatever reason a subject grabs my attention and I begin to voraciously consume every bit of info I can find on it until I'm satisfied - autism? Maybe a touch... Anyway, as a result I look like a freakish picture of fitness compared to my peer group of middle aged American men which is, unfortunately, filled with spindly arms and pot bellies. Box jumping onto a picnic table is like a magic trick at this age haha! As usual, I've begun to ramble. My point is I never did find more than just a few friends to sit around and have deep discussions about the multiverse with, but I did find a group of friends that loves me for the fact I'll throw a few key concepts of the multiverse into a conversation and completely derail it lol.

[@LuizAlexPhoenix]

I can't talk about history, climate change or late stage capitalist without being labelled a commie. And those are everyday subjects that people ought to know. Imagine talking about Kardashev 3 civilizations and how we expected at least one to be visible to us by now.

[@tuttifruity1130]

@@LuizAlexPhoenix IT IS THE KARDASHIAN AND GORBACHEV INVISIBLE EXO-TICS OF CITOPLASMA THAT OPERATE WITH OLEP THAT ORIGINATED IN THE EXOPOLETICS TACTICAL R.A.M. ARMS LINKED TO MARS

[@robertwokosin1293]

Try local gaming clubs. They are the subculture seen in the big bang. I've seen many a 40k battle take up half a gym.

[@dronillon2578]

Happy Birthday, happy channelversary and happy Arthursday! I have been a fan for almost 4 years now. Binge watched all your videos, many of them multiple times and still hungry for more. You dear Isaac and whole SFIA community have been such an inspiration over those years. Thank you so very much for the amazing ride!

[@tanin34]

The first rule of warfare: Never forget your drinks and snacks

[@simontmn]

IME the First Rule of Warfare is: always bring a good supply of Snickers bars.

[@morningnapalm9963]

^Deserves to be added in Murphy's list

[@brainwashingdetergent4128]

Actually its never underestimate your enemy but close enough!

[@simontmn]

@@brainwashingdetergent4128 Without a good supply of Snickers you may never last long enough to see the enemy!

[@brainwashingdetergent4128]

@@simontmn while theyre loading up on snickers ill be busting heads and taking those snickers and dose sneakers 😂😂

[@goliathsteinbeisser3547]

I just want to take the ooportunity to express my enormous gratitude for your work and the joy it has brought to my life in so many ways. I love watching your videos with my brother and I can not thank you enough for those moments. You are an inspiration and represent the bright side of humanity. Thank you so very much. :)

[@zsoltsz2323]

Always listening in bed. Mostly mit miss the last 5 minutes, but love the positive, optimistic tone.

[@shaunbrennan5281]

Mr Arthur , this show is one of the few shining lights of KZbin , and brightly it shines. Congratulations and happy birthday , keep up the enlightening work .

[@matthewpatrick5972]

Great episode Isaac! I’m really looking forward to next week’s episode on Aloof Aliens. It’s important for us to remember that the “laws of physics” are a human invention to explain the universe and while I believe we’ve got it down pretty well at this point, there’s still quite a bit that we likely don’t understand and the options for our potential neighbors may be difficult for us to see or consider.

[@paulpolito2001]

Happy birthday, man! Love your work, it isn’t easy to find material that’s a consistent intellectual challenge, yet you do so weekly. May it continue for many, many weeks to come!

[@ZanzatheDivine]

Isaac's birthday is the same day as the Area 51 raid. Coincidence?! Yeah. Probably

[@Retaferyr]

It's crazy that I've been listening to you for 5 years straight... I remember back when I first subscribed to a channel with just under 500 people. Congrats on the success!

[@austin824]

I love your channel and have watched nearly every episode! I have a suggestion for a future episode that I just thought of while listening to this one. You often talk about civilizations with complete Dyson swarms. I'm curious what effect that seemingly endless energy supply would have on a developing civilation such as ours. What things would we do differently? How much would that help us expedite our advancements? Thank you Isaac, keep up the great content!

[@mjk9388]

Happy Birthday Isaac! Long-time fan and Patreon supporter. It's always impressive that you and your team continue to outdo themselves with the quality visuals and content. Kudos!

[@Uveryahi]

Looong episode!! Yay! Also, happy bday in advance! You the man!

[@mattjj72089]

I want to congratulate you on improving your lisp. I listened to some of your earlier videos, and in this video you can clearly hear a difference in your pronunciation. Your videos are intellectual and informative. I am definitely a fan.

[@Tohob]

man i'm already hyped for the winter on venus episode. the "terraforming/colonizing [planet name]" episodes tend to be my favorites and venus sounds like a really cool one to cover

[@alexandernorman5337]

I'll watch it, but I don't see Venus to be a good prospect for heavy development. The sun gets hotter as it ages. It is estimated that in 1 billion years it will begin to boil Earth's oceans. Venus being closer... Mars is a much better candidate to try to turn into Earth 2.0. And then supplement it with rotating habitats.

[@theghostofpatrickhenry4516]

I love talking with people about these ideas and getting responses like, "that is impossible" or "fanciful thinking", at least there will be plenty of candidates for cognitive augmentation. Another classic, keep it going.

[@soumyajitmallik3854]

Never been so early. Keep up the good work Isaac!

[@osmium6832]

Happy Birthday Isaac Arthur! May you have many more to continue to share with us the first rules of warfare, fermi paradox videos, and superstructure ideas!

[@claxvii177th6]

Downloading for a short flight. I am in for a treat

[@mikedrop4421]

Man I'm so happy. You hit 5yrs, are closing in on half a million subs and this video is 40 min long! I am very grateful that Cody's Lab suggested your channel several years ago. I think you had less than 20k subs or so then. I've literally watched/listened every single episode at least once and some of them many many times (compendium episodes and the longest ones) and will continue doing the same. I remember when you retired the Elmer Fudd disclaimer and proved that you were wrong initially, we did want your narration even with the speech impediment. You've even overcome that. Thank you Mr Arthur.

[@charlied1420]

Just discovered this channel. Such fantastic videos! Thanks!

[@supershenron9162]

This is BY FAR my favorite channel. Im a physics student and putting on some good ol Isaac Arthur really gets me in the mood for studying, doing homework and furthering my education/knowledge base. Hell my favorite hobby is the pursuit of general knowledge just for the sake of knowledge. This channel helps with that too O:

[@benmathews2762]

Have you read The Fifth Science by Exurb1a? It's a series of short stories that follow the rise and fall of the Galactic Human Empire, and it touches on the same concept you brought up.. the empire collapses, but two worlds survive independent of each other. They have evolved different cultures and even slightly different anatomy. From these worlds, humanity expands again. The original group died off, but humanity, as "a" species, survived.

[@michaelking9818]

There a load of crap

[@NickPoeschek]

Happy anniversary, I don’t think anything has been as influential on my thinking over the past few years as SFIA. When I was a kid, the original Cosmos expanded my horizons and now as an adult, I have Isaac to make me rethink the boundaries of what is possible. Here’s to many more successful episodes!

[@Roxor128]

Evolution is like Missile Command: There's no victory and the game only ends with extinction.

[@MrTrenttness]

Congrats on 5 great years! I discovered your channel on a road trip when I needed something to make the drive easier. Ya' know...something to take my mind off the road.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

:) I tend to listen to audiobooks while driving myself, for much the same reason, and for a given value of 'mind off the road' of course

[@MrTrenttness]

@@isaacarthurSFIA My comment kinda comes off has though your channel is just passively enjoyable. I actually look forward to you video's and my first discovery of them let to a road trip binge that lasted well passed the road trip. Probably about time I buy a mug huh? Take care♥️

[@veejayroth]

Cool background music this time, Isaac!

[@sap509]

I see these comment all the time but this has very quickly become my favorite channel, I've almost exhausted the back catalog of videos and i can't get enough. Sir Isaac your a savage.

[@anthonyhargis6855]

"For advanced civilizations -- even at our level -- genetic mutation is no longer a big factor. We could, if we wished to, keep our basic gene template for billions of years, since DNA printing allows you to store that genetic data digitally and avoid the equivalent of copy fatigue." Issac, why is it that no one ever explained this simple fact to Samantha Carter and the Asgard? LOL

[@MarsStarcruiser]

Anthony Hargis If you watched Stargate Atlantis, there is “young” Asgard serving in the human fleet, so I can assume between the predecessor’s body that was found and the research done by Loki’s illegal experiments, they did in fact find an answer to their genetic problem by the end of the series. Asgardians survive.

[@anthonyhargis6855]

@@MarsStarcruiser Sooo what video are YOU watching? Samantha Carter, herself, explained it as "making a copy of a copy of a copy," which goes AGAINST what Issac said here. AND Thor, Heimdall and Freyer each explained it the same way. As I recall, the Asgard in the Pegasus galaxy SEPARATED from the Asgard in the Ida galaxy because of disagreements on the way to handle their situation. And I don't recall the Asgard in the Pegasus galaxy being quite as "nice" as the Asgard in the Ida galaxy. So, looking at what was ACTUALLY SAID in Star Gate SG1 AND by what Issac said above, just WHAT conversation are you taking part in? My question was LEGIT; the Asgard of SG1 seemed to not know ANYTHING of what Issac said that WE are capable of, even NOW, much less in the future, OR when we are as advanced as the Asgard were SUPPOSED to be. So, the writers of SG1 . . . got it completely wrong. JUST because they were tired of the Asgard and wanted to write them out of the show. Which seems to have ended the show.

[@BlackuLaLa]

I've got to tell you, Mr. Arthur, yours is, by an astounding margin, the best channel on KZbin! It's been a long, long time since I've found anything so interesting, thought-provoking, and exciting! Keep up the awesome work!

[@Wortnik]

Happy Birthday Isaac, in case you weren't aware it's also International Talk Like a Pirate Day as well! Yarrrrr! :)

[@Jameson1776]

Shiver me timbers such a day gives me a mental splinter.

[@talos_the_automaton2329]

Yarrrr! It is also the day me plunder Area 51.

[@Matt-nx6uu]

NIVEN!!!!??? I was so ready to yell at you for excluding Iain (M) Banks, then you immediately brought him up yourself. Always a step ahead, and I love this channel. Thank you for all of the great content :)

[@zappa7509]

I see u are a Foundation fan, have u read the newer books, Greg Bear wrote one as well, a tribute to Asimov. Great videos Isaac, just great.

[@ravener96]

Heard the first three as audio books and found them a letdown. The first two very good, but the third essentially retconned the first two to be bad. The entire concept was cheapened by the second foundation. It just became platos republic but in space.

[@jasonhare8540]

This channel is excellent for my tension headaches . Facts discussed in a scientific way . No screaming or name calling . No over emotional dramatic statements to appeal for likes . Just good solid information or proposals of solutions. It's like a massage for my brain 🤔🤣

[@pineapplepenumbra]

Wow, I've never been this early before!

[@tely5]

Banks is one of my favorite, perhaps the favorite, sci fi authors. There are facebook and reddit groups still actively discussing his works. It was so sad when he passed. Totally recommend his works, both Culture and non-Culture.

[@KellyStarks]

"...every civilization invents a cool tech that destroys them.." Krell machines? ;)

[@complex314i]

I can't even remember the last time I heard someone reference the Krell. Seeing your comment will enhance my happiness level for several days.

[@KellyStarks]

FP is still my fav movie. ;)

[@iambiggus]

Grats on the milestone for the channel! And congratulations, Jason and Christina!

[@AlecMuller]

How does immortality and investment work as a solution to the Fermi paradox and also dark matter? If there's value in dismantling stars to save the resources for later, and intelligent beings alive and capable of doing it, then someone will go around doing it. If they store matter at very low temperatures (i.e. they're not actively using it to build their civilization), then we'll see its gravitational effects, but it will just look like microwave background radiation. Does the known distribution of dark matter kill this idea? (i.e. if dark matter appears to be uniformly distributed instead of clustered, the way you'd expect it to be if life expands in all directions from its origins).

[@Jameson1776]

Happy early Birthday Isaac been watching you for around 4 years time flies. To many more years of intriguing thoughts and success on the channel and in your life.

[@Jameson1776]

Awesome episode I’m the most intrigued by your Fermi paradox episodes followed closely by the outward bound episodes.

[@mynameisal7]

You need to get on the Joe Rogan Experience!

[@LuizAlexPhoenix]

@NEAR TERM EXTINCTION - HUMAN No social ladder if you redistribute wealth in post scarcity.

[@Deridus]

I think Mr. Isaac Arthur should be very, very proud of himself. I rewatched some of his older vids, and my oh my, he started out with a rather thick impediment, but now, it's hardly there at all. Couple his progress with the awesome coverage of these topics, 5 years of it and the prospect of so much more, and we arrive at what rightly belongs on everyone's favorites list. Hurrah for Isaac Arthur!

[@friendlyone2706]

Someone has to be first, or at least the most clever. A galactic joke: What if it is us?

[@annoyed707]

Congrats. It's yours. Enjoy the maintenance, sucker.

[@Ag3nt0fCha0s]

God has a nasty sense of humour eh?

[@ColdHawk]

Ag3nt0fCha0s - I had the exact same thought! God is a wicked practical joker!

[@Ag3nt0fCha0s]

@@ColdHawk come to think of it, that explains the mosquito...

[@friendlyone2706]

@Cool Breeze Someone has, don't know who.

[@GarfieldRex]

13:24 actually we don't know if they indeed reached the level of an advanced civilization, because all structures eventually fall into layers of dirt deepening into the Earth, turned into molten rock , and emerging later to continue the cycle. The planet recycles everything. The fact that we have some fossils is actually extremely lucky, because is matter that didn't follow the cycle. Perhaps dinosaurs had a nuclear apocalypsis and the remaining ones lived as savages, and those are which we found.

[@hypersonicmonkeybrains3418]

Attempting to listen to this whilst working on 3D models in Blender.

[@KevinCullen]

Best SFIA book of the month ever! My favorite author...

[@petersmythe6462]

"Birthdays and calendar changes." *the world ended in 2012 change my mind*

[@Lilith_TheDireGay]

My preferred possible solution to the Fermi Paradox is Galactic Habitability periods,the idea being that a galaxy has both habitable times and regions, requiring life to evolve at the right places and times to reach a point of technology that we'd be able to see them

[@J9_j3]

57seconds into video published. that's fastest one for me yet.

[@hoggif]

I love the subject of Fermi paradox. Your old videos about it got me hooked on the channel initially. I watched the old (non-combined) videos about it several times and never got tired or them. Of all the themes you choose this is surely my favourite.

[@ummdustry5718]

Futurism Shower thought: Assuming FTL tech was possible the Dyson dilemma could become a non-Issue. - First let's keep in mind the anthropic principle, if you're dead, you can't observe. - Next let us assume that any civilisation to be capable of expanding super-luminal travel would probably be advanced enough to also colonise new world at a rate far exceeding the cosmic time-lines of light-lag. - Next let us assume that over time any civilisation capable of expanding super-liminally will eventually do so, because of the inherent drive to expand evolution creates. - Next up, "space is big", possibly arbitrarily big! Assuming that the universe is far, far larger than the observable universe then even if each planet had a 99% chance of having had produced an interstellar civilisation by now you would still expect entire galaxies (or even galactic super-clusters) without life. (This concept also works using Many-worlds-quantum mechanics.) The conclusion is obvious, you cannot observe a civilisation that has colonised your dirt-ball and turned it into dyson-spheres. You also cannot observe a FTL civilisation mega-parsecs away because they are expanding faster than light and you cannot observe a civilisation that has already expanded into you because you would be dead. There is no state in which you would see the growing darkness of a dyson swarm, your only options are dead or oblivious and since in the vastness of the universe someone is bound to have evolved far enough away from anyone else to be oblivious thoose are the only refernce frames that say "Where are all the aliens!" Now we just ignore the myriad of problems with this theory and put aside our existential dread.

[@bentoth4324]

If this is true we're back to "where are the aliens?" instead of "where are the dark spots in the sky?"

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Still a dyson dilemma issue in that you'd probably get frontier cherry picking near you as folks race ahead to grab the juicest systems first, but no globe of expanding darkness. It doesn't really contradict the DD though, like all FTL it just exacerbates it because you now have to contemplate that any civilization anywher ein the Universe that got to our level even in the last million years would probably have gotten the whole universe colonized by now, so you need to explain why nobody was around 2 million years ago, let alone 2 billion.

[@vandabo]

Every time Iain M. Banks is brought up I get a little teary-eyed. That man still had so much imagination to share with us... gone too soon. Great vid as always.

[@DANKIUS1994]

New video from elmer fudd thanks

[@AInfrEEzebr]

It's very hard to absorb anything he's saying. Its a pity, the titles of the videos are so damn good but the actual content is hard to listen to

[@YadraVoat]

@@AInfrEEzebr My mother feels the same way. It's odd because I have excellent hearing and am usually very bothered by mispronunciations, but somehow I am very comfortable listening to Issac Arthur's speech impediments. :-)

[@iainballas]

I'd love to see you and XKCD do a collaboration of some kind. His tendency to approach from a weird angle, and your ability to crank it up to 12.

[@512TheWolf512]

that final bit about cultural replacement and birthrates is EXACTLY what's happening right now in europe and america

[@simontmn]

The Mormons may Inherit the Earth.

[@awlkdural5396]

The 2 factions who will inherit the earth are the Haredi ultra Orthodox Jews, and the Super conservative Anabaptist Mennonites/Amish. Do your research before you subscribe to irrational thoughts, any immigrants to Europe/America will have low fertility rates within a generation or 2, while these groups have had consistently high birth rates for hundreds of years and are Just now numbering in the hundreds of thousands/soon to be millions

[@mystummyhurt2115]

Grabbed myself a coffee and a blunt. Can’t wait to watch this, your Fermi paradox series is my favorite thing on KZbin

[@pawenowicki3871]

Advanced civilization may be immune to natual disaters, but what about more primitive one?

[@gkar909]

More primitive always winning. Because of survival high levels of quality.

[@pawenowicki3871]

@@gkar909 "survival high levels of quality"? If you mean they are "fitter" them you don't know how evolution works. It's all about adapted to specific enviroment and certain ecological niche. When this enviroment is drastically changing the strongest mostly aren't the one with the biggest chances of survival.

[@gkar909]

@@pawenowicki3871 For example spiders. They are everywhere. Travel in air without wings. Going under water within breathing apparatus. In Arctic conditions within dress. And eat each other with ease. Or that moss bear travelling in space within equipment.

[@pawenowicki3871]

@@gkar909 I was writting about technologically primitive civilization not primitive organisms.

[@gkar909]

@@pawenowicki3871 O yes those ones. Borders. Wars. Spying. Lying. And technologies. Sources. Intellectual intelligence. Against stone axes. Disasters. It's depending on the sort of thing. Global warming against Biblical floods, Ice era. Nobody knows what kind of disaster coming next, because clock is ticking nearer centre of galaxy very speedy and not away from it. Earth rotation get slower. Were to go to. Mars. Just first steps. Only quantity of human beings make sense. Maybe someone survive. It's depends on the place untouched by disaster. And many factors after.

[@TheDreamRiver]

Wow i haven’t realised that it’s been 5 years! I must have joined around the 1st channeversary and have been listening to every episode since then; yet I haven’t realised how far this channel has gone. Way to go SFIA!

[@mboiko]

I close my eyes...and hear Barry Kripkie from The Big Bang theory talking...

[@jgr7487]

Happy Anniversary! from a fan who's here for, at least, 3 years!

[@forcivilizaton5021]

Everyone's gonna celebrate your birthday by Raiding Area 51 Isaac!

[@cluckeryduckery261]

Trevor Kirtland thankfully, that got called off. I'm glad, i wouldn't want to see anyone get hurt or arrested.

[@forcivilizaton5021]

@@cluckeryduckery261 Thank you FBI agent.

[@cluckeryduckery261]

Trevor Kirtland yeah. You got me. FBI agent over here. Definitely not just a normal person that recognizes it might be a really bad idea to storm a restricted military base...

[@vahangood5999]

I think that's for the Darwin winners. ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️

[@alexandernorman5337]

Issac is on record for saying that a hidden government conspiracy is not a credible solution for the Fermi Paradox.

[@feyindecay912]

Thanks for coming back to my population question in the video! :) you're awesome

[@constructivist6]

My guess is that eukaryotes are almost completely unique to Earth.

[@mallowisnotatadpole286]

Happy birthday, Mr. Arthur! Many happy returns!

[@IvelLeCog]

Having friends that enjoy talking about the Fermi Paradox and other interesting brain fodder is one the greatest things ever. If anybody here doesn't have somebody close to them to talk to about this stuff, I suggest finding them or getting them interested if you can. It is always a great time and gives a nice break from talking about current affairs or work-related stuff.

[@trevormartin1944]

Thank you Isaac for these videos. I believe that they, among the other surrogates of science fiction and speculative thinking, will allow people from all walks of life to be more cognizant towards and curious about humanity's future and place in the universe.

[@zse4cft6bhu8mko0]

Happy birthday Isaac, and thank you for being one of the most prolific hard science thinkers out there on the interwebs. Keep up the good work!

[@YoSomePerson]

This episode is one whole ad for the channel :D. So many references to other episodes.

[@DamianLoved]

Favorite content on KZbin without 1 doubt.

[@ezbreezygaming8656]

Happy early birthday Isaac!!! You and my son share 9-20! Never apologize for long episodes, we love them.

[@dennycrane6253]

I just discovered your videos! I love them. Right up my alley. I like listening to these sort of things. So interesting. Love it. Keep up the good work. Double thumbs up!

[@michaelskywalker3089]

Congratulations Isaac Arthur, this is one of the best produced youtube videos to date. Informative as well.

[@vovacat1797]

This is the case where the simplest solution feels like the closest to the truth. And the simplest idea is that the whole "non-living matter suddenly becomes living" event is so rare that it only happens once per a million of universes. And I know that 4 billions of years ago the ocean on the Earth was that soup that allowed for that event to happen, but, I mean... So many things had to come together perfectly. The solution MOST likely is that the onservable universe is simply not big enough for life to form. The multiverse (whatever multiverse there is, maybe it's a kind of repeating time, maybe the one with infinitely distant bubbles of observability) however is big enough, so here we are, asking the question,and there are millions of other universes that don't have anyone to ask the question.

[@coltonlong2223]

I list to the fermi paradox playlist every night while I sleep. Thanks for a new episode! I cant wait to fight for a spot in the field of Astrobiology! I'm gonna search for the knowledge the future requires! FOR SCIENCE!

[@volcryndarkstar]

Oh my god, this channel is amazing. I've been subbed about three years now. Best channel on youtube by far

[@123-p1n4i]

the idea that a civilization will unavoidably build a dyson swardm/sphere its a HUGE logic leap, there are countless other possibilities that don't involve extinction.

[@cjcj7387]

such as?

[@Witnessmoo]

Hey Isaac - I’m a big fan and long term subscriber. My answer to the Fermi paradox is Idiocracy - a decline in intelligence resulting from technological development which blunts natural selection of intelligence... We could easily end up in a viscous cycle of developing enough technology to blunt natural selection of intelligence traits, expand our numbers but become dumber... So future generations will really struggle to produce anything novel in tech and we stagnate permanently. If we collapse due to too many dummies, natural selection pressure for intelligence restarts but we then have to grow our numbers again, and again we end up with technology negating our selection pressure for intelligence, so the cycle starts again. Life never becomes intelligent enough to colonise the universe due to that factor.

[@Haan_P]

Happy birthday! Grabbed a drink, but in the end was too busy listening to even open it. :'D

[@petersmythe6462]

Some routes around galactic colonization do not slow it down at all. They speed it up. If you have developed a machine that spews free energy out of nowhere and don't care about stars or available matter, the logical thing to do is use this to expand your available space at ultrarelaticistic speed so you have room to grow as close as possible to exponentially without creating a black hole around your civilization.

[@Chunkhead]

Happy b-day, Isaac, and thanks for another great Fermi Paradox vid. They are all awesome.

[@denniss3980]

It is hard to believe I found this channel a week before topping 10K Subs , 1 million by end of next year, that is my prediction

[@magic76767676]

Digitizing minds and sending them to nearby stars as the explorers is a key theme of the "Adrift on a Sea of Stars" series.

[@coastalumbra2682]

not even extinction could stop me from watching more Fermi Paradox. Happy Arthursday!

[@julianwalde4810]

Why do we assume that waste heat needs to be radiated in a spherical omnidirectional manner? If you have enough energy to tank the inefficiency you could use some kind of heat pump and cool all your surfaces and reject the heat in a beam (heat exchanger and parabolic ir mirror). Now if want to stay mostly invisible you just aim at the great voids or simply where you can't see any stars right?