The Fermi Paradox: Timebombs

[@davidk7212]

If technology and progress has a 99.9% chance of ending our species, we still need to take the chance, because there's a 100% chance that our species, and this entire genesis of Earth life, is ultimately doomed without it.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Nicely put, I may need to steal that line :)

[@yeetyeetyeet7866]

Wow. This statement feels like it is very wise. Also Isaac loves it too so nice job and thanks for sharing it.

[@placeholdername0000]

Judging by the Starship flight today, we're a landing and a better winglet from being among the stars. Well, maybe not quite, but we're so damn close.

[@Deletirium]

Combustion technology isn't going to take us "to the stars." Maybe load ferrying. ​@@placeholdername0000

[@Daniel-ll2cl]

@@isaacarthurSFIA can i ask what accent are you speaking in?never heard one like that

[@corbynite2004]

The real threat comes from the spice rack... that's right, Thyme Bombs.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

This true, I once managed to dump an entire container of it all over my gas stove while cooking with 3 burners on, definitely was a memorable smog :)

[@Deletirium]

I feel like there's a dad joke about Simon & Garfunkel to be made here, but it's eluding me. @@isaacarthurSFIA

[@corbynite2004]

@@isaacarthurSFIA This incident deserves its own episode. What if interdimensional aliens were watching you in that moment, saw you spill the thyme and concluded it would be better to delay contact by a few more hundred years?

[@seanhewitt603]

Jeepers, are they gonna pepper us with shrapnel?😀😃

[@mill2712]

But the spice must flow.

[@koukaakiva]

My understanding of why the Scrambler sought to destroy us in the novel was that conscious communication did not always have a point, such as in our entertainment broadcasts. When non-conscious beings received such communications they then used resources on a pointless communication and the only way to interpret that for a non-conscious being was as an attack, a purposeful use of resources on a pointless operation by an enemy actor.

[@czerskip]

aka DDOS.

[@koukaakiva]

@@czerskip That is a very apt analogy.

[@levigriffin5553]

That’s my understanding as well

[@gabrote42]

Exactly

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

this would seem to imply conscious organisms are resistant to certain forms of this "attack," incidentally. we decode an alien signal, figure out its an ad for the latest plumbus model, file it away and look for more pertinent data. unless the adversary understands nerd sniping (fun term, look it up) we would be able to safely discard a lot of junk data they send our way.

[@Cranberrie123]

Microplastics seem like potentially a pretty good example. We didnt know microplastics would be a problem for the human body until long after plastic was almost universally present in our society. And just about every living human is already contaminated.

[@tukkajumala]

There is already bacteria that can break down plastics for energy, so it won't be the end of us. Those bacteria will slowly propagate across the globe and eventually find their home in many living things. Where there is edible energy, something will find a way to eat it.

[@topogigio7031]

​@@tukkajumalaPerhaps. What do you think is greater, a niche bacterias ability to consume tens of millions of TONS of plastic, or the Human capacity to harm each other for personal gain?

[@huxleybennett4732]

⁠​⁠@@topogigio7031In the context of microplastics, and with the understanding that we don’t just let human capacity for harm in pursuit of personal gain run rampant, I’d say the bacteria

[@Cranberrie123]

@@huxleybennett4732 not sure thats a given

[@huxleybennett4732]

@@Cranberrie123 What’s not a given? Cause my overall statement is just about what I think is most likely to win out, I can’t guarantee the future

[@AirinTov]

It says a lot about this place that my first thought was "Wait, you can make TIME explode?!" My 2nd thought was "that sounds more like a Sunday episode than Thursday..."

[@abursh]

💯 same

[@Christopherhferguson]

Thank goodness it wasn’t just me. I thought we’d mess around and blow up time.

[@DamienZshadow]

I WANT THE ENGINEERING KNOW HOW ON BLOWING UP TIME ON MY DESK YESTERDAY!!

[@DamienZshadow]

@@RobMacMusic Yes, but we have heard this man say "black hole engines" and other exotic technologies so often that we took him so literally. Lol

[@stevenhetzel6483]

Me: Uses Bath Bomb to feel relaxed. Alien: T̴͓̞̫̕ỉ̴̹́̓m̸̛͇͖̒̅e̸͖̳̿̿̉ ̶̭̭̖̀͑̌B̵̩̈́͗͜o̴̜̥̍m̷̩̥̠̓͋b̷̪̖̆̋ ̵̬̒͠͠f̷̜̱̪̊͌͛e̸̘̒è̵̡̯̟͊l̴͕͐̇š̶̫̲͎ ̷̯͆l̶̒̌̽͜i̵̲͉̱͝k̵̟̊ȇ̴̢̹ ̴̝̫͂͐y̵̺̥̣̿̏͑ḛ̷̙̓ś̸͈̑̃t̵̖̃̍ě̵͍̫r̷͈̓d̴̬̽͑̔a̶͓͂̚ͅy̶̹͉͈̾

[@Mister_GOD.]

Lol, You didn't use character map for that. What did you use?

[@vitorlucio1195]

@@Mister_GOD. Chatgpt: The characters you showed are known as "glitch" text or "zalgotext". This type of text is created by adding a series of diacritical characters (such as accents and marks) above, below, and across letters. This is done to give a distorted appearance and is often used to create interesting visual effects in digital text. Glitch text is generated by tools that combine Unicode characters from different categories, especially combinable characters, which can be added to letters to create the jumbled effect.

[@poughkeepsieblue]

Jackass shit.

[@Mister_GOD.]

@@vitorlucio1195 neat tnx

[@einarcgulbrandsen7177]

For all of you that don't speak Aliens here is an English translation: "Time Bomb feels like yesterday."

[@benjystrauss2524]

@26:27 Actually, studies consistently show that smarter people tend to be less happy, not more, because they tend to be more aware of the world's problems.

[@topogigio7031]

There is a difference between feeling fulfilled and being happy. I'd rather be proud of completing a huge project that was stressful than live everyday with a birthday cake

[@topogigio7031]

and if you were one of the smart people you would agree that it's better than being ignorant

[@benjystrauss2524]

I'm not talking about what's better, just what makes one happier. I'm not talking about being fulfilled either; not sure where you got that from

[@friendlyone2706]

Really smart people enjoy gallows humor -- and laugh their way to solutions.

[@glensmith491]

Study after study would disagree. At best, it undicates that it depends on what you are actually measuring.

[@Reddotzebra]

A sharp stick is an advantage to a creature with sharp claws in situations where reach is an advantage. Such as if whatever you are trying to attack has bigger claws than you, or is larger and could hit you before you hit it.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Fair point, but it's more about recognizing that existing natural advantages could delay or disincline a species to develop some technology.

[@theOrionsarms]

Intelligence has a higher ground,if you fight with an enemy with longer and sharper claws you can design you with a false thicker skin (armour),or observe someone else failing to do that and come up with a better solution.

[@IsaacSilver1]

@Isaac Arthur @isaacarthurSFIA Alien microbes are scarier than intelligent aliens. Humans can’t explore alien planets because of Alien microbes and contamination risks. An alien bacteriophage, an alien prion, an alien bacteria pose significant risks to humans and the human microbiota. Significant advances in decontamination technologies for alien microorganisms will need to be made before an attempt to “touch” an alien planet with life. A human habit on an alien planet teeming with life is quite frightening. No contamination can come into the habitat and no contamination can leave the habitat. The human body if filled with contaminating microbes, bacteria, bacteriophages, fungi, and even dust mites will need to be filtered out of the air, water, and soil. A simple boiling of the alien water will not remove all the harmful proteins particles that may pose harm in cross contamination. Humans will need something more extravagant like nanobots that decontaminate. An alien fly wandering into the habitat may pose significant contamination risks. Humans currently do not have the technology to shoot down flies with lasers or nanobots.

[@cyleleghorn246]

​@@isaacarthurSFIA yes. Sci-fi has stories about some fearsome warrior species, the sharpest teeth and sharpest claws and fastest reflexes on their planet. They rose to the top of their planet on their own, without needing any other weaponry, and they thought they were pretty tough... They couldn't dodge bullets

[@PvtSchlock]

Generally humans use that lump of fat on their shoulders and use fire to drive the truly massive, armed and dangerous creatures off a cliff. Intelligence or technology without cooperation is a fairly big problem.

[@uncleanunicorn4571]

8:55. There was a cute entry in a book series called' angel in the whirlwind' , where an elite class of space aristocrats bread a mentally deficient slave race, But ended up mating with them anyway, Leading to a mentally deficient aristocracy, Thereby enslaving themselves.

[@topogigio7031]

Sounds like a bad book. There's no logic in that

[@uncleanunicorn4571]

@@topogigio7031 Be careful with sexually enslaving and exploiting people.

[@EmpReb]

I loved that series and how the final book had twist that had been set up since the first one.

[@MrViki60]

So, Europeans and black/brown people? Yeah, it makes sense.

[@squirlmy]

@@uncleanunicorn4571 Um, I hope the lesson is just plain: don't enslave and exploit people!!! "Be careful" just doesn't cut it.

[@johannageisel5390]

My personal assumption is that there are several Fermi Paradox Solutions playing together. - I think Earth is relatively rare, even though not so rare that there is no other intelligent life in our galaxy - I think microbial life might be plentiful, but a lot of celestial bodies to not have the long term stability needed for developing higher lifeforms - I think we might be some of the first to become technological - Maybe a lot of species realize that their home planet is the best environment they can have for long term physical and mental health, so they do not want to colonize much unless they are facing the destruction of their homeworld

[@zspolson]

The third one (that we're one of the first) has always been the most reasonable solution to me. Fifteen billion years seems like a long time when most of us won't make it to the century mark, but given that entropy will likely continue to exist for hundreds of trillions of years (or longer), on galactic time scales the universe was basically born yesterday.

[@Xazamas]

​@@zspolson SOMEBODY has to be the first. Also humanity does not need to e the first in the entire universe, just in this part of the galaxy (assuming other civilizations haven't been around long enough to colonize the entire galaxy with Von Neumann probes.)

[@RorikH]

The last one definitely sits best with me. If you're good enough at recycling to make a colony ship that can travel 30 lightyears with no pitstops, you're probably good enough at recycling to make do with the resources you have in your home system.

[@AnonymousAnarchist2]

I personally agree with the first two, however the third I think maybe a little bit off. We dont reach technological without an urge for exploration, curiousty is very much required for technology. However; and most importantly. Would they continue to expand, would humans continue to expand at ever increasing rates seems a more apt question. Because without an ever growing population there is not a lot of need for expansion, maybe a few hundred thousand space stations in a radii a hundred light years across just for backup insurance; assuming a longer lived species then humans currently live. But nothing on the scale of a dyson swarm or even what we would ever ever see, at least not yet and maybe not for a few billion years yet.

[@johannageisel5390]

@@RorikH Yes. They might do space flight for research, but maybe they don't feel like living there. Like, I would jump at the opportunity to fly to Mars for a few months, but I would not want to spend the rest of my life there.

[@inthefade]

Isaac, I just want to say I'm so impressed by how hard you've worked on your speech impediment! I can barely even hear it any more. I've known people in my life with that same impediment, and I was under the impression that it was basically impossible to change as an adult. Good job dude.

[@topogigio7031]

As someone with an impediment I can't seem to shake any further, it's honestly sad it was pushed so much. Like, just listen more people

[@topogigio7031]

Gen Z doesn't believe in active listening. Observe one of them in a conversation (as rare as that'd be) and you'll notice they don't follow eyes or lips. They just let the words hit them the same as any tiktok

[@topogigio7031]

The ability to read lips is going to be dead in 2060. There'll be a handful of Millennials thatre labeled experts of a lost art

[@rustymustard7798]

Is it REALLY an 'impediment' if it hasn't impeded his progress in the military, academia, content creation narration, becoming president of the NSS, and building a family? I've never had a problem understanding what he says, and i just think people are too hung up on anyone being 'different' in any way. But people can't be bothered with actually paying attention just a bit more to meet someone with an accent, unusual voice, or other such things halfway to help convey information. Those people are dumber for their laziness if they choose who will think for them based on aesthetics, a pretty face, large 'assets', or a silky smooth 'perfect' voice VS what they are saying.

[@rmonico1]

@@rustymustard7798 English is not my native language and normally I struggle to understand what people speaking in english says, but I understand everything Isaac says perfectly.

[@angmori172]

Dude the thing you said about 'figuring out how to ruin something and then how to avoid it' is literally the evolutionary reason for anxiety. And that process taking you over IS anxiety.

[@stevenhetzel6483]

Isaac Arthur talking about Peter Watts' Blindsight is like Christmas in Summer.

[@sonwig5186]

One of my favourite books. Though, I disagree with the core premise of intelligence being possible without consciousness.

[@thesenate1844]

I find it quite funny how vampires are real but fatally allergic to right angles

[@cortos_9733]

​@@thesenate1844Yeah I was a little hesitant on it's realism when the Vamp was brought up. But it was such a great book he became essential to the story. As well as an interesting look at alternative biology.

[@robertsolem9234]

antipodean?

[@robinkelly1770]

I live in Australia. That's just how we do Christmas...

[@TroyHardingLit]

Good timing! Just finished watching the Starship prototype launch!

[@Deletirium]

Same! That's still kind of exciting, every time I see it. Of course, the few flerfs that are awake are already predictably screeching about CGI. 🥱

[@MarkkuS]

It was such a thrill! Booster fin burning and still landin it.

[@TroyHardingLit]

@@MarkkuS Sure was!

[@Comicsluvr]

I think that it's great that you can refer to an episode from your channel as 'way back when.' Good on you for your success.

[@nekomakhea9440]

the blind sight aliens got mad we were playing our music too loud lol

[@johannageisel5390]

Right!? I had to laugh when he mentioned that bit. They just went to switch off the nuissance.

[@fartingasmr7636]

tbf it's often the ones with the shittiest taste that are the loudest about what they like

[@josephreagan9545]

You should check out the "Frieren at Journey's End" anime. In the anime, there are demons that look and act like humans but in reality, they are just monsters with high intelligence but that only mimic human behavior. Like the aliens that do not have consciousness you were talking about, the demons (in the anime) do not have a real concept of morality; only survival, to the point where real co-existence is impossible.

[@squirlmy]

wait, how are "monsters with high intelligence" like "aliens without consciousness"? And you can't have intelligence with a total absence of morality, it can be figured out with game theory. "if me and my neighbor cooperate, we will survive better than we would competing or fighting" -the only actual alternative is to kill each other until there's only one left, and that could happen rather quickly. Even very selfish beings can have "enlightened self-interest". I don't think there's much science or science fiction in this anime.

[@risenarchangel-t2l]

Talking about paradox I had a friend who came up with her own idea and called it Halo Paradox, the concept is that Earth during the past was was very advanced and that they explored the stars soon afterwards they had a galactic war which caused them to build stuff like Halo rings to wipe out all life and end the war. Then humanity and all animals were replanted on earth using advanced cloning technology. 36:13 And that the reason why we don’t see advanced civilizations in our galaxy is because of the mass extinction weapons. And that also after the mass extinction humanity was reduced back to the stone age. Which to tell you the truth that seems pretty crazy but maybe also possible.

[@paulsmart4672]

You can't rule out any early, non-zero survival chance filter on the basis we survived it, no matter how close to zero it is. Anthropic Principle and all.

[@xBINARYGODx]

while we can say a filter exists whether we experience it or not - if we want a reason, beyond more basic obvious ones (such as "we have no right to assume we should see anything up to this point"), for seemingly no aliens, we are looking for something that is 100% of otherwise very high (or else we would see alien everywhere, allegedly).

[@shadowhenge7118]

I think the real great filters are the ones we've passed along the way.

[@JustWantedToGrill]

Lol

[@faizanrana2998]

Take it fingers out of your hole dude

[@Jkaninteangemittnamn]

One must be the right species becoming the intelligiant one - a two legged bipedal with long child periond and schooling - the the powers prefer instant slave like cretures and are heading that way with ai and robots - guess grabby robots and ai are not far away since its just what those in powers want sicn e it makes thier powersituation more substainble -"" guess they never thougth about doing eveil things to evil people are the same as doing it to bad""

[@markcoccimiglio3485]

The "Fermi Paradox" isn't. In reality we do not possess the technology to detect our level of technology more than a few dozen light-years away. Our most powerful transceiver (the former Arecibo Radio Telescope which was used by SETI@Home) was capable of receiving a signal from like equipment out to about 60 (or so) light-years. I ran the numbers based on Arecibo's most powerful transmitter (1 MW @ 2380MHz) and they were staggering. The calculated path loss out to the Centauri system (4.2 light-years) is -372dB (assuming no attenuating factors contribute to further signal degradation). Out 90 light-years the path-loss is -398.6dB. In short, we do not currently posses the technology to detect like, legacy, or near future technology all that far from us. We can't determine if the "Fermi Paradox" is an actual thing. Anything short of an atomic bomb would be undetectable within a few hundred light-years.

[@rubikmonat6589]

The inverse square law of electromagnetic radiation is simple enough for a high schooler to understand, yet all these highly educated people think radio signals are worth looking for.

[@PlasmaMongoose]

I misunderstood the meaning of the term Time Bomb, I was thinking of a weapon that messed with the timeline, like a bomb that affects the distant part so a civilization accidentally prevents itself from existing.

[@rustymustard7798]

I thought about speeding up or slowing down time. Like speeding up your timeline to gain a tech advantage, or slowing down your enemies to keep them primitive.

[@Kargoneth]

Indeed. I considered a weapon that interferes with time. The warhead arrives and explodes tomorrow, but the damage happens today.

[@EliasMheart]

10:25 love the idea of everyone just being sussed out at their perfectly working ftl drive so they don't use it xD

[@cannonfodder4376]

A most informative look at an interesting topic not really explored in most sci-fi. Wonderful video for my Thursday morning.

[@robertweekes5783]

Not every technology should be pursued with equal gusto. Particularly AI, because AI can have agency that we didn’t anticipate, plan for or ultimately control.

[@dawall3732]

25:30 We have already allowed this problem to sneak up on us. A large percentage of our population is dependent upon pharmaceutical drugs. It is estimated that currently, 2/3 to 3/4 of the planet's population will die off if access to modern technology and those pharmaceutical drugs was cut off suddenly, even if only for a period of about 1 year. Think about it, diabetes, heart disease. Different types of psychological problems that have caused people to become hooked upon psychological manipulative drugs, which have altered their brain chemistry to the point where they can not function properly without them. Then there are the various types of STDs which require continuous and constant pharmaceutical treatment such as HIV and AIDS, even the modern versions of syphilis and gonorrhea have become pharmaceutical resistant and require continuous drugging of the patient through those pharmaceuticals to keep the disease. From becoming lethal. On top of that, we can already see parts of the world being affected by a Quasi idiocracy. All you have to do is look up the documentary (Empire of Sand) to see it in action as we speak.

[@joshwilliams6482]

AI wiping out its makers isn't a filter, it's a progression. If there is still a communication-using technological society after a filter, it's not a filter.

[@WM-gr4qi]

I mean... But have you seen what happens when AI just stand around talking to each other? They get stuck in a loop, they'll get stuck in that same loop until the power grid fails. Filter.

[@topogigio7031]

​@@WM-gr4qilmfao you Zoomers don't get AI. The BABYSTEPS are surpassing Human capabilites. It's been like two years of common use. Imagine five years forward on a logarithmic scale, not linear. That's a HUGE boost

[@topogigio7031]

​@@WM-gr4qiI mean... Have you seen a field of tractors? They just sit around rusting near each other They get stuck like that until the power returns. Filter.

[@topogigio7031]

​@@WM-gr4qibro acting like AI is anything but a tool 😂

[@xbox70333]

Been watching your videos since you had a few subscribers 9 years ago. Cant believe how much better your speech has gotten bro.

[@TipSheikh]

thanks for your work

[@detritusofseattle]

As Rumplestiltskin says: All magic comes with a price. Every tech we make has consequences. Maybe someday we'll make one that destroys us.

[@xBINARYGODx]

a consequence is not necessarily negative - and in hindsight, most don't really seem to have any.

[@harryface1633]

I was expecting bombs made out of time. After all the first rule of war is have the time you need to do what you need to do.

[@jimflask1164]

They told us to be fruitful and multiply and they left. We are many billions of years behind in technology because of the embargo. portal technology is very old. spacial realignment is pretty new. they have 3d printers the size of planets. humans are colonizing the universe. Always have been.

[@xunheilvsnipezx3324]

Thanks!

[@theauthor13-sta]

I run a Star Trek Adventures game, and your videos are amazing at giving my players ulcers whenever I share them.

[@Triloquist]

I’ve been listening a long time, and I gotta say, your speech impediment has improved so much recently! ❤sounding great man, keep it up !

[@glorifiedlungfish]

It's easy to not realize a couple things re: Idiocracy if you don't follow the statistics, but 1) the Flynn effect seems to have halted and even reversed in the West (ironically right around the time of leaded gas eradication, which amuses me because I don't think environmental lead is a huge contribution to IQ) and 2) there has been remarkable convergence in fertility by income/education in the past decade or two, such that the fertility reduction recently has been mostly in poorer/less educated people and countries. It's a funny movie but like Malthus, it stopped being right about when it was published.

[@Ian_sothejokeworks]

I'm thinking of a sci-fi idea, where robots start with a very simple script: "Kill all life". But, each time they die, they pass on experience to the next generation of killbots. So humans have no option but to fight and fight, and hope they eventually become smart enough to reason, or get confused, or possibly start seeing each other as a form of life... I dunno, overdone?

[@greggweber9967]

15:51 Like seeing 6 or 8 chess moves ahead. What if knocking over your king lost you the game because your opponent could also see that far ahead and reasoned that there's nothing to lose if moving that piece will change the board, and you might make a move that changes the outcome?

[@FarmingUnclear]

I think, eventually, intelligent creatures spend all their time arguing about unintelligent things until they all starve to death because everyone was too busy arguing about which color is better (red or blue) meanwhile no one could agree if growing food was good or bad for the environment.

[@xBINARYGODx]

lol wut

[@xBINARYGODx]

your post is dangerously close to in-need-of-grass-touching levels

[@FarmingUnclear]

@@xBINARYGODx Farmer here. You might want to go touch some grass instead. Hard times are coming. Got food?

[@howardhodges4526]

Nice

[@Paul-A01]

26:39 "Nature versus nurture is an ongoing debate when it comes to intelligence" Intelligence has a heritability of up to 75%, one of the highest correlations we've ever seen in twin studies.

[@BladeTrain3r]

All things must end, perhaps the very thing that makes civilisation possible is what causes them to self-destruct almost inevitably. Aspiration.

[@djdrack4681]

Here's a potential great filter: Politics/Government. OR (if only a certain subset) Authoritarianism. Just like how 'monopolies' could be a lesser filter; because both cause stagnancy through corruption, lack of 'free' innovation (its controlled/funded only by gov, so gov decided IF research is allowed to begin, end, or reach public). The idea being that both lead to technological 'stagnancy', opening up the civilization to ruin via another filter, which they can't adequately prepare for/overcome (become of stifling research restrictions and control)...Humanity could persist for 100k years as our current Kardeshev 0 civilization; but if authoritarianism prevails and gov has no incentive to colonize space: we'll only be stuck on this one planet, and at a level similar to our current...Something like a sustained 100-200yrs of extreme volcanism (decan traps lvl) or a large asteroid/meteor impact, or increased Carrington (x100) events could happen and basically wipe us out.

[@oldmankatan7383]

I'm glad that Issac made mention of (but didn't really get into) psychological time bombs or thought time bombs. As you mentioned, instead of political ideology, how about an economic ideology being the time bomb? I can see and argument for unregulated capitalism to be a civilization ending economic time bomb...

[@topogigio7031]

​@@oldmankatan7383because these are purely Human concepts. The Ant Empire has never fallen because of economic collapse

[@topogigio7031]

Government type doesn't matter. Morals don't matter. It's horrendous but Nazis made the V2 rocket. We could've gotten to the moon with a swastika *but it'd still be landing on the moon*

[@topogigio7031]

40k has societies which Humans are ground into paste for the elites to snack on. That is 100% theoretically possible. Again, it's pure terror, but it's theoretically possible

[@topogigio7031]

These Zoomers living life like "niceness" is a tangible object, as if Stalin wasn't one of the most successful men in world history

[@WulfgarOpenthroat]

I think the biggest candidate for a Great Filter we haven't passed is biotechnology. It's only going to become more and more capable and accessible, and even now you can do a lot with relatively little; a few years ago The Thought Emporium created a gene therapy pill that temporarily cured their own lactose intolerance by altering the DNA of the intestine lining, for example, and regularly dabbles in genetic engineering(amazing channel, very recommended). It seems inevitable that, by malice or accident, someone will create a hyperplague able to wipe us out or otherwise able to rapidly devastate the biosphere to the point it can't support us, and we mostly have to hope that our general biotech is mature enough to stop it and/or repair the damage by the time it happens.

[@StormSilvawalker]

I love the idea that the reason phosphorus is so rare away from our area is a time bomb. Something to do with how life replicates eventually just causes it to spontaneously decay into silicon via some decay mechanism we don't understand. A cool story could be when a civilization notices a phosphorus compound emission line suddenly disappears a few hundred light years away along with the potential biosignatures they were investigating.

[@TheExciteMike]

I've long been waiting for Isaac to reference Idiocracy in an official video!

[@mitchelltravis1187]

Based on my anecdotal observations experiences with people, I often wonder if the paradise destruction idea comes not from people becoming less intelligent, but by allowing individuals in a civilization to be more and more short-sighted, which ultimately catalyzes in what would have been avoidable long-term problems. We can see this currently with more and more people responding to hardship by short-term gratification rather than long-term endeavor

[@niveketihw1897]

"The technology was sent to destroy us." --Four Stroke Baron

[@elliotsmith9812]

We all love and strive for "being in the zone", that state where self awareness fades away.

[@Yezpahr]

Are those purple aliens with tentacles done with that new Sora generative AI? 23:49 "Replicate ad nauseam" Quite fitting, replicating until sickness sets in. The well-known iterative glitches that set in when copying a copy².

[@FesteringGhoul]

Blindsight is available for free on Audible at the moment, incidentally. Thanks for the recommendation as always Isaac :)

[@SophiaPerpetua]

The irony that technological optimism may be both the great promise of first contact and also the means by which we are prevented from doing so.

[@peterweicker77]

Maybe everyone becomes so neurotically obsessed with speculative Great Filters that we disappear up our own wazoos.

[@trulshansson9738]

I was watching a KZbin episode on Warhammer 40k lore the other day, which focused on two races: the Orcs and the Kroot. Both races, especially the Orcs, have the ability to access technical information encoded in their DNA. This means that even if they are nearly wiped out, their technical knowledge isn't lost, unlike humans who can lose technical understanding even after minor cataclysmic events. This got me thinking. Spiders and other animals can store complex information in their DNA, which allows them to pass it on to future generations without starting from scratch. Spider webs, for example, are intricate in design and function. Additionally, trapdoor spiders construct hinged, spring-loaded mechanisms using only instinct and minimal trial and error. I would love to see an episode exploring the possibilities of encoding highly technical information into human DNA. I immagine this could be extremely useful for space colonization. With a sufficiently large group of humans, an advanced technical society could be established in just a few generations, rather than taking thousands of years. This capability would be particularly useful if spaceships malfunctioned or crash-landed on unexplored planets, leaving surviving crew to fend for themselves.

[@LDProductionsClass]

@12:20 at the time I read the book and didn't really comprehend what it meant for something to act intelligent and sentient yet lack consciousness. I couldn't really imagine such a thing. I accepted it for the plot, found it a creepy scifi concept, and didn't think much of it, beyond it being a clearly impossible scifi idea. Then ChatGPT came out....

[@kayakMike1000]

I think its technology. Technology is really rare and it certainly can doom a civilization, perhaps causing major set backs.

[@thefinestsake1660]

Technology is pretty key to civilization. Tools, writing, structures, weapons, all that.

[@matthewschwartz8730]

Wow I got to see this video 13 minutes after it was released that means no one has watched the entire thing as I have begun it awesome!

[@Hysteresis11]

You're forgetting that channel members, and curiosity stream subscribers, get early access to content.

[@nosuchperson284]

Watts' vampires are my favorite example of them all. And just a bit more scary as he imagines them to be natural, not supernatural, entities.

[@jameslouros]

Agi: “let’s be friends, I’ll build you a space elevator and help you colonize worlds”

[@rayceeya8659]

This reminds me of a Novel by Greg Egan called Quarantine. The entire solar system is encapsulated in an impenetrable sphere. Nobody knows why. It's because of one of these "time bombs". Spoiler Alert: Aliens who rely on stars being something other than burning balls of hydrogen and helium had to isolate us because of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics.

[@petergarrone8242]

Phillip k dick had such an idea. He had plants that quarantined us because we burnt their spoors.

[@PyroMancer2k]

The argument that self sacrifice is "not a survival" trait is pushed by those who want to justify their own selfishness and that is only "natural". But there have been plenty of papers showing that working together greatly improves one's survival. One example involved a study on bats and that at the end of the night they would share their food with other bats that didn't find any food despite what self centered people expect as it would seem to lower the chances of survival by giving away your limited food. But bats remember which ones share and which don't so selfish bats don't get help thus in hard times the selfish bats don't get help and are more likely to die. This behavior is common among a lot of animals including humans. It's beneficial because survival is a large set of encounters not just a one off. Selfish people tend to think short term and winning in the moment so the long term being nice for karma sake without a clear binding contract to force a return is foreign to them. The who idea of "Survival of fittest" was misuse of science to justify greedy and selfish practices at the time and has become a main stream concept despite Darwin stating the exact opposite in his book. "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change." We see this in business to as large companies push their weight around to try and maintain their market share while newer and more innovate companies quickly expand as the Biggest and Strongest company slowly dies because it can't adapt to change. This is why I don't really accept the a species falls into selfishness and then implodes argument for the Fermi Paradox. Because you don't even need consciousness to have selfless action and many studies have shown the behavior is extremely advantageous trait for evolution. Thus while selfishness may rise in a population when times get tough those who come together will survive while those who act selfish won't.

[@Roguescienceguy]

Drink ✅ Snack ✅ Doggo falling asleep next to me ✅

[@cmelton6796]

Everybody needs a copilot

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

the whole concept of suicide pact technology or civilization-ending time bombs reminds me of how cordyceps preys on ants. one stage of its development is an irresistible food source to the colony, all the ants eat it, and it grows inside them and zombifies them, entering its mature form and releasing spores after puppeteering the ants to die in advantageous locations. I bet there are stories in the Lovecraft mythos that work on the same principle with humans instead of ants.

[@gabrote42]

I had just recommended blindsight in an AI personhood video and totally failed to make the ChatGPT analogy! Always new insights in SFIA!

[@Emanon...]

The real extinctions are the friends we lost along the way

[@robertgraybeard3750]

at 6:25 and following - would AI risk sending out copies of itself into its solar system or even the galxy? With the speed of light delay each separate "entity" with different stimuli would drift apart, perhaps even to the analog of teenage rebellion.

[@Belthazar1113]

I always wondered why we view filters in isolation rather than as a narrow path between destructions. Take technology as an example: 1) technology will advance. 2) As technology advances it will become more prevalent to more people. 3) destructive technology exists. With those three axioms, it seems that a civilization has a knife's edge to walk between powerful world ending technology getting into the hands of a crazy person and being used to end life, OR species wide civilization becoming so oppressive and control that it stagnates out and stops advancing. Tilting one way or the other leads to a more rapid advance towards a species ending event. It seems less a "filter to pass" and more a "cliff's edge to navigate"

[@futurebr87]

Well you going to leave us hanging? Which pen did you decide on?

[@ronburrelljr7077]

Love the video, why can't science class be like this , very interesting and thought provoking

[@neiloppa2620]

I bet the actual answer to the Fermi paradox will be something really mundane or boring. Like chronically corrupt politicians / government getting special interest bribes and making the planet inhospitable by letting corporations get away with sketchy activities that ultimately destroy the planet.

[@bitbucketcynic]

Or their lust for power and control prevents manned space travel from taking hold because the rulers don't want any of their subjects escaping.

[@masterdon3821]

Actually a octahedron (double pyramid) would be better for a space station. It will cut traveling inside it by 30 percent. The power of diagonal travel.

[@LaboriousCretin]

Nice though you talked about a boltzmann brain. Boltzmann time bomb is better. Though gets to other univeres and probabilistic distances. The kinds of great filters for a species is a lot. Boltzmann time bombs are basically universes from start to end, when the last particle decays. In wich you get probably distances on distribution a few ways.

[@topogigio7031]

People saying how nice Isaac speaks now is like telling your friend they look so much better with glasses.

[@Chrisspru]

the slow itteration of conciousness is very useful to deal with novelty and complexity. a feature of s self referencing, constantly online, synchronously resonating survival processor. it not being a binary on-off, but a gradient from low conciousness simple brains to high concious abstractly self aware ones.

[@alan2here]

Sumerians are 5000 years old, they had a sophisticated language, both written and spoken, also beer, gardens, and "yo mamma" jokes (no really).

[@ДенисІванович-р9э]

Make video about colonizing superclusters or colonizing Laniakea please! Also thank you so much for your work, you are inspiration for me, just thank you.

[@TyrianHaze]

Stargate SG-1 has a pretty good possible explanation for us not seeing any life in the universe with their ancients story line. IE: they were an ancient race of humanoid creatures that seeded multiple galaxies with stargates, but by the time humanity starts exploring the milky way via the ancient's stargate system, most of the ancients had already moved on to another plane of existence. Perhaps that is what we are seeing when we look out into the universe: all of the ancient species have long moved on from this plane of existence. Not saying it's the best explanation, but definitely an interesting one. But then statistical problems begin to arise, such as how many of these civilizations would refuse to move on to another plane of existence. Or where is all of the technology that such civilizations would have left behind.

[@MrIzzyDizzy]

there is no one who has thought about the fermi paradox than you, have you ever considered that the most advanced civilization may be virtually non physical now. advancing along the Barrow scale. Many are mostly focused on the giant engineering projects of the Kardashev scale, with its familiar Types I, II and III keyed to the scale of a civilization’s energy use. But perhaps the John Barrow scale has been achieved. . The measure of civilizations advancement as measured on the smaller most fundamental knowledge. which is in alignment with a great deal of our current research. John Barrow intimated that ultimately the most advanced civilization - would be massless and essentially a part of the space time continuum itself. Barrow I: The ability to manipulate objects at the same scale as the person or being involved. In other words, simple activities involving basic tools. Barrow II: The control of genetic information. Barrow III: The ability to control molecules. Barrow IV: The ability to control individual atoms. Barrow V: The manipulation of atomic nuclei.. Barrow VI: Control of elementary particles Barrow Omega (Ω): The ability to control fundamental elements of spacetime.

[@Selfleader420]

Feels like we're somewhere between,,Idiocrocy,,,and The Mist,,, two great movie's some are undergroundly say are potentially documentary lol 😂

[@masterdon3821]

Will technology lead us to a eternal north Korean electronic dictatorship?

[@turps0]

When I read the title I thought of an actual "Time" bomb, where the payload is a rapid acceleration of time. If you think of a regular bomb as being a "space" bomb, where there is a large amount of space/gas/pressure stored in a small package, then a time bomb would be the releasing of a large amount of "Time" the moment it is triggered.

[@SnackMuay]

Not SUPER related, but I recently learned some info about the earth that made me think of a potential early filter. Water is so abundant on earth ONLY because meteorites made of rock with water molecules included in the structure of those rocks rained down on the planet. And they did so during the time when earth was superheated hot enough to melt those rocks; shortly after the collision that created our moon. If one of these meteorites landed on earth today, the water wouldn’t have become part of our atmosphere or our oceans. And the same is true for other rocky exoplanets that don’t have a molten surface.

[@uisgeuisce]

First? Thank you for everything Arthur! Just in case you read this!

[@corbynite2004]

You were first sir!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thanks for expeditiously watching, and have a great week! :)

[@sgalla1328]

You have a great gift for seeing all sides of an equation Issac ⭐ To think that our entire civilization could rest in the hands of a corrupt world leadership with no ethics but a desire to rule over and own the entire world or Universe , using science medicine technology and the military industrial complex . This is my guess of how our civilization ends or. nearly ends . We see it forming now but people would rather suffer a thing as long as it is sufferable than to risk calling out the very corruptions and corrupt bringing it about. But , one will come to lead us out of bondage and destroy the corrupt. Hope exists still. Great video Thanks❤

[@lgjm5562]

Instinct is great for threats that are already known. Consciousness is to imagine possible futures and how to prepare for them.

[@sarcasmo57]

Aliens are outside the parameters of our simulation.

[@greggweber9967]

9:39 Depending on the definition of Tree of Knowledge, which I don't believe that this train of thought is correct, what if that warning was about this danger?

[@JoseMolina-ij3xx]

All of this eeriely mimics an SCP entry known as SCP-3426, a Spark into the Night, to bring out an explanation of sci-fi fermi paradox. Basically, it's a variation of SCP-3930, where too much knowledge destroys a civilization.

[@crispico4727]

I'm interested in what if the the ability to imagine something and test it in your mind is an aberration and from an aliens perspective we can see the future

[@kefhomepage]

I can’t help thinking that technology is making us dumber. We no longer think for ourselves . Our reliance on it , could be our undoing. If the internet died tomorrow, think of the global chaos it would cause😬. We as a species are so dependant on it, and that isn’t good😬

[@ze_kangz932]

I understand your fear, but I don't think it's realistic. There are many people who do cognitively demanding jobs and there are lots of backups. And 100 years is just not enough time to transform a species through evolution.

[@cacogenicist]

Language is definitely more than 200k years old. There's every reason to think it goes back at least to the last common ancestor of the Sapiens and Neandersovan branches -- so more like 700 or 800k. It's widely considered to be the case that Neadersovans had language. It would be rather odd if it evolved completely independently in both theirs and our lineages. Probably something that developed in _H. erectus_

[@Asankeket]

A comment on your Nebula content: I usually activate subtitles since I'm not a native speaker, and the quality of the auto-generated subtitles on Nebula leaves something to be desired. It's very noticeably worse than here on YT and a reason to wait for the episodes to come out on YT if they are meant to do so at all.

[@kamikeserpentail3778]

There's another "advantage" to consciousness. Our ability to reach for less efficient or less probable outcomes. If the trait is too common or doesn't come with checks and balances it wipes out a species. But there may be a level of stubborn gambling that allows a species to innovate or discover what normally wouldn't be reached. I don't think we will keep ourselves from designing conscious AI. I'd even say it might be quite beneficial for us to

[@dominic.h.3363]

6:32 I see a bit of a... fault in the argument here. AI does not inherently possess self-preservation. If its programmed objectives do not explicitly include self-preservation, not only can it cause an apocalyptic scenario where both AI and humans perish, it would also be irrelevant for it to consider to keep humans around for its continued existence (to maintain infrastructure, or have input to work with for continued activity to begin with). So it's most likely not a "them vs. us" scenario that would cause such an extinction, where the AI just keeps being around, because it wouldn't necessarily strive for continued existence. The extinction would most probably be a byproduct of the AI's pursuit of a different goal, not even a subgoal.

[@WulfgarOpenthroat]

My first thought when reading the video title was **somehow** a spoof of the solaronite bomb scene from Plan 9 From Outer Space - the Timebomb is a way to explode the actual particles of time itself! 😛

[@Kargoneth]

Nuclear warheads. So destructive, but so much potential for utility in propulsion and asteroid deflection. An unfortunate combination.

[@comentedonakeyboard]

Unfortunately both (over)confidence and selfdoubt in our civilisation could be ticking timebombs. So it might be a doomed if you do, doomed if you dont situation.

[@buckanderson3520]

Maybe the answer to "where are all the aliens" isn't because of rarity, or fear, or self destruction, maybe it's ascension to a higher realm of existence. Or maybe life in lower realms is the exception and life in higher realms is the norm.

[@WM-gr4qi]

What I'm thinking is that the energy density we're looking to get for star travel is going to require some doomsday math.

[@somjrgebn]

Are great filters actually a question about how much complexity can human ecology itself handle? With enough complexity, the smallest mistakes lead to cascading failures across the complex systems. For example, what killed the dinosaurs? Was it the meteorite? Or was it that they became too large, biologically complex, overly specialized, and overly calorie demanding? After all, all of those features come from increasing complexity as a result of continued optimization. So is complexity really what ends all living species eventually? More complexity means higher cost for error, even the smallest of ones. So the more complexity, the more costly the smallest events can even have on entire complex systems. The only thing I can think of as a saving feature for complex life is nerves. But if nerves can not become as complex and vast as the complexity does, then the complexity simply can't reprganize and adapt, like what you see with Adaptive Cycles in Ecology. So, like ecology, the ecosystem collapses under complexity due too this inability to adapt and reorganize its peaked complexity.

[@MalteOberlaender]

Plot Twist: Enrico Fermi was the Alien. Now that's paradox!

[@andyf4292]

perhaps sci-fi is our inventing tricks and strategies to deal with scenarios we haven't run into yet. Skynet will never be because of the Terminator films. Alien can't happen because of the film, so everyone will say. ' you want us to go do what ?'

[@fartingasmr7636]

Imagine if enough people outsourced creativity and/or any other interesting thing that requires the slightest bit of effort to AIs and algorithms, and these "dumb" AIs whose primary directives were to provide content to keep us all entertained just led to a world of metaphorical basement dwellers who don't really do or think about anything of consequence. "Mankind's final invention will be the holodeck" as they say.