The Fermi Paradox: Pancosmorio Theory

Reaching new worlds is a difficult task, but transplanting ecosystems and civilizations to them may be even harder.
Go to brilliant.org/IsaacArthur/ to get a 30-day free trial + the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual subscription.
Pancosmorio Paper: www.frontiersin.org/articles/...
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @isaacarthursfia
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @isaacarthursfia
Visit our Website: www.isaacarthur.net
Join Nebula: go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur
Support us on Patreon: / isaacarthur
Support us on Subscribestar: www.subscribestar.com/isaac-a...
Facebook Group: / 1583992725237264
Reddit: / isaacarthur
Twitter: / isaac_a_arthur on Twitter and RT our future content.
SFIA Discord Server: / discord
Credits:
The Fermi Paradox: Pancosmorio Theory
Episode 428; January 4, 2024
Produced, Written & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur
Editor: Briana Brownell
Graphics:
Jeremy Jozwik
Ken York
Mafic Studios
Music Courtesy of:
Epidemic Sound epidemicsound.com/creator

[@Gorzmalkin]

Comment for engagement purposes

[@conman1111]

Engages harder

[@Fluffy_production]

Engagement engaged

Further engagement!

[@thehat4244]

Engagement intensifies

[@BigZebraCom]

When's the wedding? I get to pick the table setting!

[@2013Arcturus]

Love seeing new Fermi Paradoxes, Thanks Issac!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Our pleasure!

[@leonelmateus]

9:00 "If you cant keep Earth habitable, you sure as heck can't make a dead rock like Mars work.." excellent. Arguably the homeostatic engineering requirements would be applicable to both types of environments, regardless of their state.

[@A-Milkdromeda-Laniakea-Hominid]

I always love the paperclip-crazed AI that poses an existential threat. Thanks for the humor Isaac.

[@Kira-zy2ro]

well, of all the ways we ourselves can end humanity and the endless parade of universal terrors that could happen, getting wiped out by some crazed bot turning everything into paperclips somehow seems like a decent way to go out. At least it will be funnier than some bald russian mini fossil pressing a button or some black hole spaghettifying us. I mean, if aliens have a laurel and hardy, i guess there would be an episode where they unleash the rampant AI that turns them into serving trays or something 🤣

[@digitalnomad9985]

A logical extension of the tale of the magician's apprentice. What is the most important part? The OFF SWITCH.

[@PazLeBon]

@@digitalnomad9985 or Mickey Mouses Fantasia :)

[@chemplay866]

The video was playing when I was playing universal paperclips wtf

[@claudiaarjangi4914]

Or turns everything into the bible , turning everyone onto/ into the "word"..🤦‍♀️ I can only imagine god-following people would miss the reasoning of why this isn't a good idea. 🤦‍♀️🌏☮️

[@ronaldgarrison8478]

Thani you for creating proper CC, not just auto-generated. I wish more channels followed your example.

[@MichielHollanders]

Couldn't agree more.

[@michaelpudina4158]

Man i rarely comment but its great having a place to go to explore fringe science ideas based in reality. Always at the edge of the unknown, gazing at its horizon with longing and wonder. Thats what this channel is to me.

[@EdT.-xt6yv]

Fringe science or metaphysical orbit?

[@PazLeBon]

a shame folk dont pay the same attention to their daily lives in the real world tho eh

[@epg-6]

You bring up a good point. People always seem to assume that humans will always live a maximum of 120 years, but life extension tech would render generation ships obsolete. If you live north of a thousand years, a couple 70 year round trips to Alpha Centauri wouldn't be such a big deal.

[@artemisgaming7625]

It'd still be a fairly big deal though. If you live a bit over 100 years now spending 7 of them on a single journey is quite a big chunk of your time

[@chupacabra304]

@@artemisgaming7625agreed even spending 1-2 trips is a long time until you start living tens of thousands of years

[@RandomYT05_01]

​@@chupacabra304but who's to say we won't do that via cloning and digital mind uploading. We could plausibly exist forever if technology got good enough, and by that point, every death would be either accidental or suicide.

[@EdT.-xt6yv]

BIG bang still ongoing and chaos is inevitable

[@epg-6]

@@artemisgaming7625 True. I think of it like the voyages some people took during the age of sail, some of which lasted years.

[@darthrainbows]

The problem with Pancosmorio and other late stage great filters is that they all depend on all possible alien civilizations failing to discover an end route to problems that do not seem insurmountable. IMO, if late-stage great filters exist at all, they are not what we typically think of: they are filtering our ability to _detect_ advanced civilizations, not the existence of the civilizations in the first place. For instance, if our understanding of the laws of physics has some serious holes in it that allow for things like FTL communications, or violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics, there could be millions of advanced civilizations out there, communicating in ways we do not have the capability to detect, or hiding their technosignatures. That's a big IF, I'll grant, but it is possible.

[@sevensins3584]

Fermi paradox series is my favorite on this channel!

[@atashgallagher5139]

All I can think of is that on the almost non existent chance there are aliens here watching us, they look at us talking about the fermi paradox and just can barely contain their snickering.

[@Hectonkhyres]

You only need to worry if one of the alien ships decides to rename itself 'The Fermi Paradox'.

[@marcomoreno6748]

​@@Hectonkhyres😂

[@thetobi583]

"Dude look at this... These monkeys can barely sustain themselves and they think they're alone! Lololol"

[@Matthew.E.Kelly.]

They're probably laughing & crying & terrified but pitying of us.

[@abdullahalrasheed394]

Not really. They will actually admire us because we remind them of their earlier days when they themselves were pondering these ideas.

[@UrdnotChuckles]

Aurora was a really good read. Really felt like a cautionary tale about the problems of using a generation ship in specific. Sleeper ships would likely make more sense to start with, especially if we don't figure out how to realistically get a crew to their destination within an acceptable amount of time.

[@destinationEuropa]

Bruh, an acceptable amount of time? That's the wrong attitude. Generation ships would basically be O'Neil cylinders with drives on the back. Living on one of those wouldn't be like being cramped in some dank bunker for centuries. The quality of life would probably be superior to modern 1st world living. I find it very implausible for a fleet of those to encounter some conflict that would result in total mission failure, even due to cultural drift. Change is driven by conflict, and what conflict are you encountering in a handcrafted post-scarcity utopia?

[@Zonkotron]

@@destinationEuropa Probably the same conflict we are currently seeing in the west. Minor changes in prosperity causing significant voting for politically extreme and objectively crazy positions? Like climate change denial....

[@UrdnotChuckles]

@@destinationEuropa Yeah if we were talking about a mobile O'Neil cylinder or equivalent, I could see that working just fine. :) I was thinking more about much smaller initial expeditions, should they even be attempted at that scale. Going big makes way more sense.

[@BologneyT]

​@@destinationEuropa Dude. The number of ways that a thing can go wrong always exceeds the number of things that a person can imagine can go wrong. It's like that in engineering, programming, politics, general human behavior and just about everything else. Also, it might actually be a bit like Star Trek Voyager or something, as in, there may be stops during that long trip, where who knows what could happen. If people are living on a ship- even if the ship was as big as a province- for 10,000 years they will find SOMETHING to be unhappy with at some point, and the number of things that can go wrong is beyond imagination. Not saying a hacker stealing our personal data is the literal end of civilization, but a person living in 7000 B.C. would not be able to imagine hackers stealing personal data from our cell phones and the problems that could cause today. Our ability to see what will go wrong 9000 years into a 10,000 year journey is as limited as their ability to see what's going wrong in our world now: they couldn't see modern problems, but they could still see the human elements. I'm pretty sure there are SciFi books exploring a fleet of colony ships going somewhere and something happens during their long voyage that causes the fleet to divide up and start attacking each other.

[@higgledypiggledycubledy8899]

I hated that book, worst one I've read from KSR. Pessimistic nonsense, who wants to read the story of the brave explorers who got sick on their expedition and decided to go home and never explore again? Preposterous.

[@omgmoreheals]

Missed this drop, saw the short and now I'm here. Love your work!

[@MarcoLandin]

Another awesome video! Happy new year!

[@durianaleria7919]

Love your stuff, helps work go quicker. Much appreciated!

[@xXHerrZockXx]

Having an eternal emperor, with an eternal will, and the heart to step into the warp, conquer it and lead humanity to eternal power and glory seems to be the obvious solution to this.

[@arcadiaberger9204]

Only in a leftist parody of right-wing power fantasies which is so over the top that no-one could possibly take it at face value.

[@pablonicolasnaso2567]

Try to avoid having his children/genétic copy lieutenants be assholes.

[@chupacabra304]

Make sure he’s not a jerk wad to his sons 😂

[@alfredotto7525]

In order to accomplish this you almost need a sociopath to get it done. People are lazy, we would have drifted back to the stone age if it wasn't up to a few people in history.

[@xXHerrZockXx]

@@chupacabra304 😁👍

[@user-kv6lw4cp4u]

في المستقبل البعيد وبفضل التكنولوجيا المتقدمة سوف يتساوى الخيال مع الواقع ويمتلك الإنسان قوى الآلهة ليحول الكون والأكوان المتعددة إلى جنة خالدة ❤

[@lordphullautosear]

For that to happen, people need to be significantly more enlightened than they are now.

[@nicholasferris59]

Another great video!

[@AnimeShinigami13]

One form of pessimism I've maintained for years is humanity's commitment to protecting our ecosystem. That self destruction as a filter is not a matter of "will we" but a matter of "do we have the will?" Looking at the world today, its very hard to see how smaller more dedicated groups of people could possibly make themselves heard against big companies and the government in general. Then again, when I play fallout 4 and Jack Cabot asks "do you believe there's other intelligent life in the universe?" the only answer I ever pick is "I don't believe there's ANY intelligent life in the universe" implying that Earth is included in that! Though time is still the most likely answer to the Fermi paradox, I can't help being cynically tongue in cheek. My favorite answer along those lines is "The aliens all invent social media and lose their grip on reality, then when the asteroid or whatever shows up, they decide its fake news and don't do anything about it. Boom, paradox solved." Honestly I wish I could be as optimistic as Isaac. But I have a hard time being that optimistic.

[@DG-iw3yw]

Be the change. Go solarpunk, or anything you want really...

[@robertgraybeard3750]

@AnimeShinigami13 I'm even more optimistic than Isaac. I believe we will eventually understand everything about our environment and use closed loop recycling in large space habitats rotating for artificial gravity. Ever hear of the Dyson Swarm idea? A Dyson Sphere cannot be a solid construct around a star, it is inherently unstable. How about Kardashev Type Two? All the power of the Sun and all the resources of the solar system await us.

[@federicogiana7430]

While I tend to share your doubts, on this I can reassure you that climate change, even being a dramatic and terrible issue we should take as quick as we can, is not an existential threat to humanity nor to civilization (I'm speaking about civilization in general, not our current civilization, that may well collapse due to it). The issue with the Fermi question, which is not a paradox at all, is that it assumes that any alien civilization would ever be dumb enough to waste titanic amounts of resources into sublight interstellar travel (let alone space colonization) for no gain at all instead of putting them to useful purposes. I really can't understand why KZbin video makers and professional "futurists" can't see this. Or maybe I can.

[@robertgraybeard3750]

@@federicogiana7430 the problem with your answer is that it might apply to a few of the occurrences of intelligent life. Granted there are several "Great Filters" in addition to your favorite but there are an astronomical number of planets with the potential for abiogenesis and the evolutionary drift to intelligence. But every instance has to be blocked for us to be the only one. Let me take another slant - I disagree with your labeling the instinct to try new things and go to new places as "dumb". There are always a few adventurers. All the power of the Sun and all the resources of the solar system await us.

[@abdullahalrasheed394]

You are highly overcomplicating things. A single technology, fusion power, can solve the absolute majority of environmental issues. The entire global farming industry for example will be outcompeted by indoor farming using artificial lighting powered by fusion. For example, research proved that a single 1 hectare hydroponic system with 20 layers can produce up to 500 times more wheat than a traditional farm, and the system can be placed anywhere on Earth and is not restricted to farming land. The cost of power is the limiting factor here.

[@UpliftedCapybara]

You’re kicking off 2024 with a banger of a video 🎉

[@joshuawilliams9247]

Thank you for the video! Just what I was looking for this morning

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

You're very welcome!

[@CaptainBanjo-fw4fq]

22:26 As an Australian, for whom European colonisation began via the First Fleet, your comment about fleets rather than individual ships makes perfect sense. Imagine if the Mayflower had been just one of a dozen ships. Of course, it does beg the question of how you coordinate let alone avoid collisions within such a fleet when travelling at 5% of light speed? Presumably semaphore and signal lamps aren’t up to the task.

[@CountryLifestyle2023]

Even 3-4 ships increases success. If 1 ship runs into problems the others can help.

[@jackdbur]

The speed of the ships relative to each other should be near zero !😊 fleets have operated on the water for centuries with minimal collisions! Laser communication would work well.

[@CaptainBanjo-fw4fq]

@@jackdbur That does make sense, but how fast a fraction of the speed of light do you need to be going before you encountered issues with communication lasers?

[@damfadd]

It's all relative ​@@CaptainBanjo-fw4fq

[@thepsychicspoon5984]

​@CaptainBanjo-fw4fq The lazer itself is light, so there is that. It's really going to depend on how fast the ships computers can process the information. The real issue is going to be is what happens when it breaks.

[@smucka1]

Keep up the amazing work.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thanks, will do!

[@varer]

Thank you for your work!

[@isaacchristensen659]

Very excited for another Uplifting episode!

[@blastypowpow]

I don’t understand how I haven’t come across your channel before tonight. This is *exactly* the type of content I like to consume. This is so mentally stimulating. I will definitely be watching more of your videos! This is also entertaining and relaxing. I want to ask you something related to a conversation I had the other day. I had someone, whose channel I occasionally watched, who has a physics masters and was previously an F16 pilot, tell me not to pursue a physics degree while chatting on a livestream. He kept telling me AI was going to take all the jobs in the field soon(he also told me he doesn’t believe ADHD exists after I told him I have ASD and ADHD which was incredibly rude and easy to say when you don’t have it.) He even kind of laughed when I said the income would be better than a $15 minimum wage job. I’m 44, and because of my ASD and ADHD, have never been able to get it together enough to get a degree. High school did not go well for me because I never got any early intervention. I didn’t even get a diploma. I’m getting ready to take my high school equivalency because I’ve been working on my self confidence and self esteem. I’m great at math and science and I’ve loved both subjects since I was very young. You could call space science a hyperfocus for me. I’ve also been told I have a high IQ. My gut says that anyone trying to pursue a degree at my age shouldn’t be persuaded not to try to do it. My gut also says that AI is not going to take every job in the field in my lifetime. I could be wrong about both, though. I’m an introvert and science/math nerd who feels like I’d be right at home in a STEM field. What advice would you give me? Thanks! Edited for grammar

[@_Omega_Weapon]

I'm no genius or popular content creator but imho I think you should pursue your passions no matter what anyone says. I'm the same age as you and I've had similar interests, though not good at math, one of my biggest regrets is never completing college and earning a degree of any kind. I'm now in a situation where doing that is no longer pragmatic or even feasible. People can be rude, cynical and dismissive and hold fallacious and unfounded positions. Don't let the prevalence of that in humanity dissuade you from your goals. Peace and long life 🖖

[@NathanBuschau]

Always enjoy your content, especially the Fermi Paradox stuff.

[@joaoamaro3070]

Great video as always

[@sayrebonifield4663]

Once an intelligence has adapted to living in space, what reason would there be to even attempt going back to living on planets? Seems like a rather dubious assumption lurks behind the premise of the paradox “solution” in question.

[@jamesgrimm9121]

Yes, this. Would we be able to live on other planets without heavy terraforming? Would it not be more economical and efficient to set up space colonies around other stars and then mine the system's resources? We could keep adding new space colonies to the system if it were to grow. Eventually, we could move to the terraformed planets, but would we put industry on the planet or just make it for agriculture, recreation, and living. So would the atmospheres of those distant planets actually change much if the population was no more than a billion and mostly residential/agricultural/light industry? I mean, heavy industry and research could be done in space where the pollutants or escaping viruses would be less lethal to the entire system. Of course, communications would probably be well-evolved past radio if we could reach other stars too..

[@scotttaylor9133]

@@jamesgrimm9121 This is my exact line of thinking (informed a lot by this channel) around this whole colony on mars stuff. Why would you without an orbiting space station for colonial support? Then if you have a pretty beefy and capable space station close by (which you absolutely need if you're being remotely realistic, imo), why would you care about setting up on the planet ? Seems like a great plot for a story, but also like the path of greater resistance. Seems more like we'd use the planet with it's existing ecosystem to support something that we need but would have a more difficult time producing elsewhere (for instance a very low oxygen planet with lots of heat and water as a farm planet, or something like that which works with what's there instead of changing what's there to fit our needs).

[@jamesgrimm9121]

@@scotttaylor9133 Yes, going down a planet's gravity well would be less economical. Of course, you could have a few space elevators too. In fact, I would propose underground cities if anything. They could double as system shelters in case of a system-wide emergency. Especially if there was an efficient enclosed loop geothermal system using the planet's internal heat to power the geothermal plant. Free energy without the standard geothermal issues of mineral fouling.

[@sidgar1]

Yet you yourself are making an assumption in your own statement, which could be just as dubious as the one you're questioning. How can you call it any more dubious than your own, without any observable evidence in favor of either?

[@squidward5110]

To communicate wealth and status of course

[@projectarduino2295]

If there exists the possibility to make a self sufficient environment capable of harboring life for a sufficient period of time, then it should be possible to make some approximation of colonization and habitation of other worlds, even if it is in domes and rockets. To me, the existence of our planet harboring life, and the ability for the species to generate growth lights that mimic sun light, are proof enough that extra-planetary colonization is possible. Doesn’t matter if it is stupidly difficult, just that it is possible.

[@robertgraybeard3750]

@projectarduino2295 - much less stupidly difficult, assuming we will ever be able to reproduce our environment - closed loop recycling - will be to build large space habitats rotating for artificial gravity. No reason to go through the astronomical effort of terraforming a planet, just do part of it with paraterraforming or send robots to the surface and export raw material to space to build space habitats. Alternatively, use asteroids and comets as material sources.

[@BigZebraCom]

@09:32 Somebody tell these goddamn aliens to put on some goddamn clothing already.

[@Deridus]

... *No.*

[@jackdbur]

Do they actually look like that or are they wearing some kind of costume? 😊

[@BigZebraCom]

@@jackdbur I hope it's not a costume? If it is that means aliens have terrible taste

[@maartengalle]

Awesome video as always

[@Nike-nm8jc]

I love your videos Isaac!!!! You are the best!

[@richarddemeter860]

Great video as always!/

[@jakeuren8688]

Great vid!

[@dylang1090]

Amazing as always

[@off-gridsurvivalmike8120]

I have put some thought into this enigma and thought what if all life came into existence simultaneously and have not been in existence long enough to reach each other at least in our case. So from that perspective it could still be thousands of years before we contact each other.

[@zico739]

Good stuff as usual.

[@briankorneff5604]

Another masterful video

[@roberthofmann8403]

Great first episode of 2024!

[@ichiikiraa]

Still enjoying all these years later

[@georgejones3526]

I would like to see someone talk about the Great Filter of Sociopathy which is the one I feel is going to stop us. I’ve not heard anyone else mention it.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

That's piques my interest, what do you see as the filter there?

[@SkorjOlafsen]

@@isaacarthurSFIA I see it as an extension of (or corollary to) Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy. Not only do large organizations become corrupt over time, but the selection bias for leadership changes from competence to sociopathy. The management equivalent of "I don't have to run faster than the lion". If sabotaging my competition is easier/better rewarded than doing well in an organization, then leadership over time will be those who choose that option, and the organization will lose the ability to make real progress. At first glance, this filter (like so many) seems to run afoul of assuming all aliens have the same psychology. I'm not so sure. Just like it would be surprising to find a species that made it to technology without being competitive, I think the same Darwinian principle applies to behavior within organizations. IMO, the more interesting question is: do the rare outliers that make real progress despite this effect amount to enough to reach K2, or does the problem only grow as population grows, and progress asymptotically approaches some hard limit. I don't think the answer is obvious. There are some academic papers on "stack ranking" that make interesting reading here.

[@nicolasolton]

How to keep sociopaths out of politics?

[@justinokraski3796]

@@isaacarthurSFIAindividuals benefit more from sociopathy than altruism, until society reaches a threshold with an unsustainable number of sociopaths and causes societal decline/collapse

[@georgejones3526]

@@isaacarthurSFIA That the actions of those who are in power are strictly for their own benefit, no matter what the consequences of those actions may be. The goal of a corporation is to make as great a profit as possible regardless of the damage that is caused in doing so. Tobacco companies denying that cigarettes cause cancer and other health deficits, big Pharma claiming that opioids were not addictive, the fear campaigns against atomic energy run by the petrochemical industries starting back in the sixties, this is just to name a few examples. The fact that people are still claiming that our climate is not getting warmer or that we are not the cause is to me, simply astonishing. It was already being talkied about at the end of the 19th century, it’s even mentioned in the 1956 movie “Rodan”, yet there is still controversy. It’s estimated that up to nine million people die each year due to pollution but coal power plants are still being built, especially in China. I’m having difficulty organizing my thoughts but the examples I’ve listed hopefully give you an idea of what I’m trying to convey. And finally, something that has always annoyed me: why does a corporation need a lobby group? You can be sure it’s not for our benefit.

[@bruceschindler9505]

The Viking experience colonizing Greenland and Vinland might be good case studies of interplanetary or interstellar colonization attempts.

[@charlesblithfield6182]

I highly recommend the novel Aurora. It still has me pondering many things years after reading it (twice) especially concerning AI. KS Robinson has a great imagination. I also recommend his other novels particularly 2312. That one has many scenes that are awe inspiring.

[@theshimario253]

I still think the main reason we haven't seen or heard from aliens is that space is just so big that we can't see or hear them with current technology. I doubt there is an alien civilization anywhere within 1k-5k light years of us. At least not an advanced one, maybe one like in the movie Avatar where they're still primitive. This makes the most sense.

[@TheTrueAdept]

To be honest, the reality is less fantastical. Basically, the galaxy has stopped being a gamma ray burst shooting gallery recently (in galactic timescales), allowing for life to show up for longer than a (relative) few seconds.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

well the main reason it's a paradox is realizing the sheer scale of space as well as time. Sure lets say the closest alien civilization is 10,000 ly away. You'd think we'd have no way of detecting it, but the thing is is that if it was also at least 10,000 years old (at least since they invented radio technology), then it might as well be right next to us in terms of difficulty to detect it. Thus the true nature of the paradox is that despite there being billions of stars in our galaxy with potentially millions if not billions of habitable planets to some form of life, and the galaxy being billions of years old... we still aren't detecting anything. A common statement is that even without any kind of FTL technology or really anything beyond what we have right now, a civilization could theoretically colonize the entire galaxy inside of a million or two years. Which sounds like a long time, but again when our star alone is billions of years old, let alone the whole galaxy, there surely have been countless opportunities for such a civilization to develop. Which also leads to the more horrifying conclusion. Because really at the end of the day, distance isn't the relevant factor here. As long as a civilization can last long enough to stick around for a while so that their signals can propagate throughout the stars. So the real problem seems to be how long a civilization sticks around....

[@DG-iw3yw]

It seems like expecting aliens to be using the exact methods as us to communicate over space may be far fetched...

[@PazLeBon]

@@DG-iw3yw or indeed aliens themselves :) theres not a single reason to think theyde exist really, just our struggle to understnd certain concepts. there are trillionsof things happen every moment that will never ever happen again so i dont see why life itself ;should'

[@joeshmo8267]

​@@DG-iw3yw why? How do you think they would be communicating?

[@joelmulder]

Another entry to my favorite series!

[@ZMacZ]

22:48 -loves this. Printing in place. A laser can weld/fixate the metal.

[@derrickross2761]

I always enjoy your videos 😎 thank you

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Glad you like them!

[@thefrub]

I love this theory, because it basically boils down to "space is too hard, man" and that's something I resonate with

[@brockgrace7470]

We could just about be post-scarcity now,if 1% of the population were not hoarding 95% of the world's wealth.

[@AlbertaGeek]

"The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor." - Victor Hugo

[@erichherman2753]

Now Fermi paradox video with SFWIA? Yes please

[@elmastero1]

The Pancosmorio theory offers a very compelling explanation for the Fermi Paradox. Dismissing this theory by banking on speculative future technologies overlook the uncertainty of predicting advancements. While technology has progressed significantly, assuming that unforeseen challenges can be overcome with future tech ventures into speculative science fiction. These theories, like Kardashev's scale, provide frameworks but remain theoretical, underscoring the need to acknowledge our limitations in understanding and the vast unknowns in the cosmos when exploring the Fermi Paradox and possibilities of extraterrestrial life.

[@LoLaSn]

Personally I believe that life is not only rare - at least currently - but also incapable of seeding the universe in a reasonable time span since FTL travel seems impossible to achieve

[@federicogiana7430]

@@LoLaSn It's refreshing to read someone else getting the easiest solution. The reason Fermi's observation is treated as a paradox is that so many people assume that any alien civilization would ever be dumb enough to waste titanic amounts of resources into sublight interstellar travel (let alone space colonization) for no gain at all instead of putting them to useful purposes. They explain that "interstellar travel is possible" instead of asking themselves "Does interstellar travel make any sense?" I really can't understand why KZbin video makers and professional "futurists" can't see this. Or maybe I can.

[@LoLaSn]

@@federicogiana7430 To be fair, in a very distant future you might have to leave your solar system for others as you could simply run out of raw material Although if you're able to tap into the power of the sun, I imagine you would be able to simply recycle everything But that's pretty much the only other reason I can think of for trying to colonize other systems, other than curiosity

[@ellenmcgowen]

Technological optimism on the scale of this channel is indistinguishable from science fiction.

[@LoLaSn]

@@ellenmcgowen Well, everything is science fiction until it becomes factual But yes, it's not a channel that presents objective facts about how the future will look, but rather a form of science fiction grounded in reality

[@rixvillarreal]

Great video

[@psilynt1]

Weird editing ask. Can you add a 1-2 second intro to your videos before the quote? On desktop, the mouseover starts playing the video (but muted) and when clicked it starts the video from the autoplay timestamp, so everyone always misses the first couple words of the quote.

[@tristanbrigham2386]

Makes me think of the old saying: “the second mouse gets the cheese”.

[@AccessUnknown]

This provides a compelling explanation for the Fermi Paradox and the absence of widespread space colonization.

[@js70371]

Excited to learn the definition of that word 💫🙏

[@birbeyboop]

feeling notified atm

[@themaskedhobo]

The benefit of attempting to terraform Mars before Earth, is that it becomes a low risk test bed. We cant live on Mars outside sealed environments, if we mess up the atmosphere trying to set it up, we still wont be able to live on Mars outside sealed environments. On Earth, well we'd need to be much more careful. The tech we would need to edit Earth would have to be invented and tested while trying to rewrite Mars.

[@whee38]

As far as the Fermi Paradox goes I would say that all that's needed to solve it is that none of our current technologies can actual detect any theoretical alien civilizations. Not much of a paradox if you assume improved technological development makes our current methods look as primitive as binoculars compared to a radar array

[@jeremypace249]

There have been soooo many scif-fi stories, even short stories, about un-terraformable worlds at the end of a starship journey, generational ship journey, etc. Larry Niven, even Issac Asimov (by other author's sequel), etc.

[@chupacabra304]

Please Isaac do a video on recommended reading and media! :)

[@Ussurin]

I don't think planet colonization will be the answer. It's quite clear that it's easier to keep artificial habitat stable than whole planetary ecosystem. So we probably won't be colonizing any planets anytime before we actually get to colonize the empty space in between them first. That's why I don't get the idea we must colonize Mars as quick as possible. For me it always seemed that the route forward is building Earth orbit self-sustaining space habitat first. Close enough to interact if something goes wrong, easier or at least as difficult to construct as anything on Mars or Venus with their extreme weather and the technology is then perfectly moveable to planet colonization. If we come up with foolproof way to grow food and oxygen in low artificial gravity, then we can then just land that habitat on a planet. Like, okay, not land, cause ofc moving through atmosphere at such distance isn't that easy, but let's say rebuilt it on Mars. So at the point we will be moving between solar systems, I'm fully expecting we will be sending full self-sustaining habitats and colonization will be more about access to new raw materials than places to live on. I assume at some point we will figure terraforming, but it will be way into our galactic empire.

[@Ussurin]

And yes, I fully except we will have self-sustaining Kuper belt colonies before we colonize Mars in any real manner. We will be mining the belt for additional materials for habitats for more and more humans, nearly all working in services.

[@hugedabs5827]

Outstanding

[@ovhek1]

21:22 Thanks for the shoutout.

[@EliasMheart]

Happy New Year (: Isaac, I have a question: Do you think that the observation of the fermi paradox (weakly) implies that a SuperAI doomsday scenario is less likely? One of the last Fermi Paradox videos triggered the idea - you usually say that being wiped out by something that then can leave techno signatures is no solution to the Fermi Paradox. Getting to our current tech level seems possible, and if another civilization got here, and also pursued AI and got wiped out by something willing to expand/be loud or grabby... I suspect we might see that. Of course, it's in principle possible that we are Firstborn in our observable universe, but to be honest it even seems improbable (with improbable->

[@kiwibonsai2355]

We travelled to the moon yet in my 50 years I've seen no live mission, it's heart breaking, frustrating. Its made me ask big questions about our stupidity.

[@smasherblues5322]

great channel

[@thelastdruidofscotland]

on our scale, the Universe is old, yet on the scale of time, its incredibly young, just a few cycles into its trillions of years of expected lifetime, our star is only a 3rd generation star, we maybe, and quite possibly, be the FIRST within our locality to develop.

[@dustyhendrix1218]

About 95% of all stars to ever exist have already been born. The refined anthropic principle tells us that we should expect to be somewhere in the middle, with about half of all conscious observers living before us and the other half after us.

[@notprovided1131]

Perhaps the most feasible option is to create city planets like Coruscant and have artificial systems planet wide to control air composition and lab-grown food to avoid the need for fragile ecosystems and it will be more failsafe. Creating artificial "city planets" like Coruscant from Star Wars could be a more feasible option for long-term space colonization than trying to establish fragile natural ecosystems. Some advantages of the city planet model include: - Reliability and redundancy: Critical systems like life support, food production, energy generation could be distributed planet-wide rather than concentrated in isolated habitats or biomes. This decreases single points of failure. - Controllability: With artificial controls over the entire environment, atmospheric composition, temperature, resource cycling, etc. can be precisely regulated to human standards without relying on natural processes. - Density and specialization: High population density could allow for hyper-specialization of industry, agriculture, living/working areas. Economies of scale improve efficiency and redundancy of utilities. - Failsafe design: Redundant critical infrastructure, distributed power/life support, stockpiles of resources could ensure the system is resilient to local failures and disasters in a way fragile natural ecosystems may not be. - Simpler logistics: A single controlled biosphere is easier to sustain long-term without external inputs compared to multiple isolated habitats or mini-biospheres. Fewer failure points in transport/resupply networks. The city planet model could effectively solve many of the challenges proposed by theories like Pancosmorio regarding the fragility and resilience of off-Earth biospheres. Reliance on artificial life support infrastructure rather than natural ecosystems may enable stable, self-sustaining colonies to be established more feasibly.

[@nulled7888]

Thanks :)

[@MrPokerblot]

Very good point 🤔

[@pjd1634]

Great content as usual. Think we should vote Issac as king or something.

[@besticudcumupwith202]

..."the early bird gets the worm. But the second mouse gets the cheese." The Mandarin

[@Vastin]

One note, the economic system of market capitalism actively *prevents* the development of post-scarcity societies. They are inimical to each other as by definition in a market system, something with an unlimited supply also has no value, so no one will attempt to distribute or sell it. You can see this actively today in the form of digital goods - pretty much all digital goods are functionally 'post-scarcity' goods. They can be duplicated and delivered for essentially *no* cost. But in practice all companies that control digital goods will work very hard to throttle the supply of that good and ensure that there is in fact a price, even though the cost to them to duplicate it is functionally zero. The most obnoxious of these are probably the in-game stores for many games, where you're literally being sold 'goods' for the game that are very heavily and artificially throttled so that players are required to buy them. So yeah, anyone actually interested in a post-scarcity society is going to have to replace Market Capitalism first, or it will literally never happen.

[@dunmwarupreachan4567]

Preferred colonization method is portal tech. Im down for the Eldar Webway Gate method.

[@dickyboi4956]

I recognize a lot of these starfield landscapes you are using for background footage. Makes me wanna resubscribe to gamepass but im waiting for the full game to go on sale

[@BabyMakR]

The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese was a saying my uncle taught me that when I was a kid and it was coached as be sure you're ready to do the thing before you do it.

[@innerstrengthcheck]

More Fermi Paradoxes! More!

[@jc96818]

9:01 The argument that a civilzation can't terraform another planet because they couldn't stop from wrecking their own might not always be true. On a new planet, you don't have to fight local government and businesses to stop adding more destruction to the mix. The civilzation might have the technology, but not the cooperation of its citizens.

[@GhostOfSnuffles]

I always felt like the question's of the paradox are also the answers. If there's so many stars in the sky that life on one of them is inevitable then finding that life among the countless number of planets would be nearly impossible. And if 13 billions years is more then enough time for life to arise then it's also enough time for that life to go extinct. The second statement also answers why we can't detect them, even if they transmitted signals for millions of years if we missed them by a few thousand years then their signals would have already gone past out world and are well on their way into the galactic void and so weak we'd probably miss them anyways among the infinite chatter of the CMBR. It's not just a matter of finding life in the right place but at the right time in a universe that has trillions of trillions of stars and trillions of trillions of years to hide that same life from us.

[@Midwinter2]

Oh my God, the narrator's accent is absolutely unique and intriguing! I have never heard English spoken like this!! Will some one please put me out of my misery and tell me what part of the world this accent is from????

[@matthewmason5878]

The most obvious explanation for the fermin in paradox is simply that when we look at stars with optics, we are looking back in time. So if civilizations start at even an early time in our cosmic history, we would still not be able to see them until much later in ours. It will be travled there with translate speed or some kinda quantom telascopes.

[@joelmulder]

You forget that our Milky Way is “only” about 100,00 light years across. Sure, that sounds like a lot, and it is on Human time scales, but it’s a blink of an eye on a cosmic and evolutionary timescale. The chances of 2 advanced civilizations emerging that close to each other in time are astronomically small. That is exactly why the Fermi paradox is (currently) a paradox. Because our universe is so old that if intelligent life is remotely likely to occur, it should’ve already sprung up all over the place long before we came about.

[@picturesalbum4532]

Super Earths are theoretically best for life but very difficult to get off of ( Rocket Equation ) to colonize your solar system let alone the galaxy this means that the best places to move in the short run may also be traps you could not get out of.

[@jackdbur]

Simples don't live at the bottom of a gravity well! Planets are just large resource piles waiting to be turned into space habits. 😊

[@PerfectAlibi1]

26:50 Where is the giant space monsters episode on January 1st?

[@saramolet3614]

Fermi parodox's never get old

[@wagon9082]

Good video

[@zombiemanjosh]

Likes for the Algodrithm, Comments for the Engagement Throne!

[@petrz5474]

First time I heard about percolation theory. Haven't found a video on it on it. Unless it is with regards to math. Isaac Mansions it at around timestamp 9:26

[@yeager1957]

Pancosmorio sounds like the name of a indie syfy civilization building game. That’s the engagement boosting comment for the video.

[@witchdoctor1394]

"It's a me, PanCos-Mario!"

[@PazLeBon]

If i throw a handfull of sand over Niagra falls, what are the odds of finding those exact same grains of sand, throwing them again off Niagra falls a and each grain following exactly the same path as the first throw? That seems to be the chances of life on other planets.some say ferni paradox, i say "aint gonna happen' one offs are common when you look at it in that sense

[@BigZebraCom]

I'm leaving this comment to feed the 'Al Gore Rhythm'.

[@mafianoodles]

does anyone know here if Isaac's still has a link for audiobooks?

[@FrancisFjordCupola]

One should also consider that our knowledge is slightly twisted into expediency. Take for example habitable zones around stars. Generally that is established by looking at the energy output of the star and the distance at which water would stay in its liquid form. But that doesn't take into account the atmosphere. And atmospheric physics make a huge difference. Colonization of space is also hard. We humans might be close to be able to do that, but then again, in reality we are still far off. Also, I would not look at Aurora as pure doom. But if we assume that life will take shape wherever it can, then simpler life is likely to be more abundant that complex (multicellular) life. The book should remind people of colonization such as when Europeans came to the America's. The local inhabitants did not have immunity to whatever Europeans brought along with them. With all the likely consequences. Personally, I think the best chances are space stations, as big as possible with artificial gravity (perhaps just through rotation) and then resource acquisition from the rest of the star system. If we can do that; run a space station without constant supply from earth, then space colonization is possible. I like to think it is. But I agree with Fermi that it's a hard, very hard problem to solve.

[@delivanov252]

This is one of the episodes that makes me wonder if we are the VonNeuman machines? It's easy to make a small nanobot out of carbon.

[@CapitanGreenhat]

Personally i think 4 solutions are good. 1. Its all a simulation. 2. We are one of the first species to evolve technology and intelligence, and it just takes this long for life to get to this point. 3. Intelligent life is rare enough that we are spread out sufficiently so as to not be able to hear each other yet. And 4, my favorite... radio signals are dangerous and most species develop quantum communcation networks or otherwise sufficiently advanced technology so as to make radios not a prefered tech by sufficiently evolved civilization.

[@hypergraphic]

Excellent point about exporting human nature. It's kind of dystopian, but I could totally imagine some expeditions voluntarily adding tech that would diminish their free will so as to avoid any potential self sabotage or civil strife. Of course, the scary thing is how easy that would be to abuse, and I'm sure there are some people in power who wish they had that tech right now. But if you are crazy enough to go on such a long trip and submit to the laws of the colony, who knows what else you might submit to in order to go?

[@Matthew.E.Kelly.]

Human nature changes according to the material conditions in which humanity finds itself. If you build a cage you have the power to bind together with violent coercion, & deny all on the outside of it the means to feed, clothe, or shelter themselves on the threat of violence or death, everyone without the power to oppose you will step inside. Subsequent generations born inside will never have known any other way of life. It doesn't mean that everything that happens inside that cage is human nature. It means someone else created a state which is considered "natural" to those who have no control over it.

[@anvos658]

This one just seems so implausible, since in a worst case scenario you just prefabricate/terraform via drones and VI, and most early stage colonization would likely follow the naval tradition of everything critical has a back up.

[@partciudgam8478]

The trick could be then, pack a big O'Neil cylinder with a full ecosystem, and turn it into a cycler when in destination, trading biologicals between different colonies in system, letting the life adapt/modify to the environment. The task then is learning how to make resilient ecosystems in a bottle... Off to make terrariums like Life in jars channel

[@jackdbur]

😮Why would you want to live at the bottom of a gravity well on some mud/ice/desert ball with bugs/critters/other nasty annoying things.😊 You live in O'Neil cylinders where if the temperature/ weather/ gravity/ people annoy you,you can move to a different cylinder or build/ buy your own. Planets are the last things to be deconstructed for their resources, because gravity is an annoying fact of reality. 😅

[@nightwishlover8913]

As usual, paradoxes occurring mainly due to asking the wrong question....Fermi should have asked not "where are they, but WHEN were they, or WHEN will they be...

[@populuxe1]

There are so many different solutions to the Fermi Paradox that it's not really that much of a paradox.