What Astrophysicists Think About Aliens

[@moonagedaydream-ohyeah]

Maybe Erikah should call Tyrone, and tell him c'mon, help you get yo ship🛸

[@BrahemeDays-g5r]

...but he can't use her phoooone

[@BH-wh2vo]

E.Tyrone

[@Moneymitch999]

E.T....can phone home

[@kasino7132]

😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@hershewe]

CLASSIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LMAO!!!!!

[@DarylHandsome]

There's insects that have lived out their ENTIRE existence in a person's house without ever encountering a single human. Universe big.

[@hisownfool1]

Mine is similar. As I understand the "Rare Earth Hypothesis," the proponents say that, while simple life is probably common in the universe, complex and intelligent life is much less common. I would add that the kind of life whose complexity and intelligence, however defined, manifests itself in ways that can be detected beyond its immediate environment, e.g., radio waves, is probably orders of magnitude rarer still. Throw in the immensity of the universe and the cosmic speed limit known as the speed of light, and we are effectively alone.

[@DarylHandsome]

@@hisownfool1 true. And that's not even taking into consideration the idea that we are being deliberately hidden from. Either from high intelligence/technology or from "dark forest theory".

[@DarylHandsome]

@@considerallthat3310 they could be made of gas, light, dark matter, shit we don't even know about, shit we literally biologically cannot perceive of, etc etc. bounderyless endless possibilities..and people say "we should havs seen them by now"...Fermi my ass.

[@capyossarian]

@@DarylHandsome an entire existence of a bug is short, house big, the structures of house supports life! but life adapt to it's conditions and thus the house is the problem with understanding.. compartmentalizing for size difference and analogizing for the small mind inhabiting the wood.. still, to ponder the cosmos is a splendid thing, even if forced into a convenient and dirty little box.. I defer to the universe her needs to express and thank the wandering eyes for there validation, but beg only more time, more time to wonder.

[@amehak1922]

I always wonder if the catch and released fish talk about us the way UFO abductees do and other fish just roll their eyes lol

[@robertfindley921]

Humans have been around for 200,000+ years and only passively looking for aliens in an extremely limited way for maybe 45 years. Asking why we haven't found any is like asking why your one-day-old infant hasn't developed an improved method for unifying Maxwell's Equations with General Relativity.

[@jasongarcia2140]

That's a good analogy. It really is that huge of a ratio. I'm sure you've heard this before but it is like taking a spoon full of water out of the ocean and examining it then concluding that there are likely no dolphins in the ocean.

[@adammiller2252]

This is similar to my thinking. We've only been listening and looking for Avery short time. We've only observed a thin slice of observable data. We likely need more time observing and sophisticated techniques to find something.

[@BobBobson]

Project Ozma was the start of SETI, in 1960. We've been looking for around 65 years-ish.

[@kyleshelton5734]

If you start with the presumption that aliens will seek to expand to utilize as much available energy as possible (which is a base assumption of the "paradox"), then we would eventually expect technological civilizations to start building Dyson spheres around their home star and eventually other stars. A civilization like this could swallow half the stars in a galaxy within a few million years if it was working fast, and could potentially have had billions to work.

[@danielrose5183]

We are also very lucky to be here at all. The Earth has frozen over and been a hellscape for any life lucky enough to weather the storm multiple times in it's history. I think we should at least consider how stable a planet is long term as far as considering the possibility of intelligent life.

[@popsicle8694]

lmao the “zoo hypothesis” about aliens intentionally keeping us in the dark is lowkey social anxiety, but on a universal scale. like we’re worrying that they’d wanna leave us out or smth lol

[@x26studio]

They come up with all these complex sounding ideas when it's just FOMO

[@mikeciul8599]

I miss Garegg. Why didn't he choosen me? ;)

[@philiparonson8315]

In Ian Banks’ ‘Culture’ novels, about a galactic civilization, Earth is not contacted as a control for science experiment.

[@MsSonali1980]

@@philiparonson8315 Well, I hope they other controls. Because this one got involuntarily infected and has no worth.

[@monaoconnell5650]

Dr. Fatima, I am a 77 year old woman not in the best of health and have no scientific background. I humbly tell you despite my background, keep going on the net. I never stop talking. I don't think there is a great silence. Life will keep on keeping on.

[@walkerh2745]

life will always find a way

[@micahlong2073]

I love your attitude! You are very endearing, and I wish you a lovely day

[@theovanhurtere]

hell yeah

[@Lady_Omni]

Mmmm, you're giving me that good "What we think about aliens is actually more of a reflection of our experiences with settler colonialism" stuff, which I keep trying to tell people. 11/10 as always Fatima. You are a true visionary, and I will always appreciate your insight into indigenous worldviews, and how different they are from colonial ones.

[@poisontango]

I loved that, too. I used to teach history, and it was the same thing there. People aren't talking about the past; they're using the past to talk about the present they think does/should exist. If extra terrestrials are a part of our concept of the future, it makes sense that we'd talk about it the same way we talk about the past.

[@douglasphillips5870]

Something that gives me hope is that settler colonialism and the socioeconomic systems that go with it only represent a small portion of human history. We've had other systems in the past and we'll have others in the future.

[@sdcbhtdsvbqweettfcvh]

The colonialism metaphor falls apart because space isn't occupied. It's never been alive in the first place. It also falls apart because you do not need an expansive empire conquering the (unoccupied) galaxy. You just need an ecosystem capable of surviving in space and hopping a light year between stars every 10 million years, and in one revolution of a star around the milky way every habitable star will end up inhabited. A quarter billion years to fully inhabit the milky way means life could have independently grown into it 52 times over. Fatima's reference to indigenous lifestyle misses the fact that they're living at the carrying capacity for the land they're on. They live in all the inhabitable space, just with no overarching hierarchy. Her argument and reasoning doesn't prevent every star being independently inhabited by whoever came over from next door, a slow migration driven by the chance to bring life to another star. Her argument about infinite growth doesn't matter either, since the milky way is still a very finite space. An ecosystem hopping onto every star in the milky way in a quarter billion years just follows a sigmoidal growth curve. Exponential at the start, then steeply dropping off to meet the maximum value.

[@Laotzu.Goldbug]

People say that a lot but it seems like a tired tautological cliche. Anything we think about is always going to be reflective of ourselves, it is impossible for us to do or study or conceive of anything that is not. The very way you see an object in the world is going to be just as reflective, literally of the structure of your eye and your brain as it is of the properties of the object itself. This is not a groundbreaking insight, it is merely a continual demonstration of the fallacy of neutrality. To exist is to have a point of view and to be rooted in the particular, not the universal. This is a good thing.

[@ishubetterthanyou1582]

​@@sdcbhtdsvbqweettfcvh Yes, exactly. I know where she's coming from but it's a very very limited thought, and especially from an astrophysicist. Expansion doesn't have to be aggressive as most space is dead, and technological advancement doesn't have to rely on expansion either. Humans have sent signals to space long before even sending a single thing into space. A self sustaining civilization could very easily send signals to just send signals.

[@SmartStr33t]

I call my hypothesis, the fractal life hypothesis. In my hypothesis, life exists on all levels: in the same way there's living biospheres in our guts, so too can a forest be thought of as an organism: a self-managing complex group of bio-systems which can maintain equilibrium over long periods despite external conditions. James Lovelock's famous Gaia hypothesis from 1979 argues that Earth herself can also be seen as a living organism in the same way: a self-managing complex group of bio-systems capable of maintaining equilibrium over huge time frames (salinity of ocean, ratio of carbon/hydrogen/oxygen in the air, global temperatures, etc. I think you could extrapolate this upwards AND downwards: maybe galaxies are alive, maybe galaxies are like cells in an even bigger living organism of the universe. Maybe if we could shrink down to the size thousands of times smaller than an electron we'd see another universe where life can also develop and thrive. So my theory is that, as life has developed at the same time across the universe at all fractal levels, aliens on our fractal level will be developing to our level of consciousness at the same time period. And of course this means if they are thousands of light years away, we'll not see evidence of this for thousands of years.

[@amirarosemarie1578]

This is a mind blowing idea as I often see the small living organisms, well, as living. While some others do not seem to see their inherent worth, I try to do so always. At some point I can not though. When I am killing bacteria by taking an antibiotic or washing my hands, or boiling some carrots for dinner, I am inevitably disposing of some sort of life to continue my own. At the same time, there are some forms of life that I am unknowingly killing, such as eating the wrong thing and killing bacteria in my gut. Or by doing something as simple as walking. Life, for me, has never looked at something bigger than life that I know. Now, I can imagine that I am but a mere atom in a larger picture and that for another life I am a god myself. This is an incredible idea that I’m sure people are going to grow weary of hearing me talk about lol

[@alexmerron3671]

Definitely a good shoutout to James Lovelock there! He had a very influential career, dispite the cover-ups. But yeah this idea that the universe is not mechanistic, but is instead organic and maybe even alive, similar to animism, chimes nicely. The recently passed Stephan Harding had a real skill for bringing scientific ideas like this to life. I recommend checking him out if you haven't already, he and James were good friends and share many ideas.

[@TripleRoux]

This is a healing and soothing story, I really hope it's true...

[@Sadie-Rose-H]

@@alexmerron3671 I don't think that the universe is literally alive, but the allegory is certainly interesting as a way of interrogating our assumptions about life and non-life. In undergrad I observed several debates about where exactly the line exists between life and non-life. Viruses and prions are typically considered non-living, but they are self-replicating organic systems that are impossible to disentangle from the things we do define as "alive." If we take one step out and consider them alive because they are part of the biosphere, then we run into additional problems with the many non-living organic and inorganic systems on earth which are also influenced and maintained by interactions with life, such as atmospheric oxygen and the carbon cycle. I would argue that life is kind of impossible to really define, much like intelligence which is more of a projection of our own attitudes than anything tangible. All things in existence have inherent value because of their existence, and interactions with all things should be mediated by a sense of reverence for the experiences of the system. If we colonize space, even non-living worlds, we will be inevitably violating the existence of those worlds, and perpetuating our disrespect for the universe as we perpetuate the imperialist European attitudes of the last 500 years.

[@loops8274]

When you said something along the lines of "tell me your answer to the Fermi paradox and I'll tell you your views about humanity" I thought to myself, "maybe they're just vibing." And then later you're like "maybe they're just vibing." Maybe we could reorient around longevity rather than growth. Like trees. Stay still more firmly for more time. Deep roots. Deep integration with the environment. We move fast because we are adaptable. Maybe we can adapt to slowness and stillness.

[@poisontango]

Ooh, I love this. Excellent idea and phrasing!

[@benedita167]

I love this.

[@JasminUwU]

I want a society oriented around Sloth instead of Greed

[@NicholasWilliams-uk9xu]

Acceleration is dangerous, but acceleration is needed (computing) to combat climate change. Except by increasing compute, you increase the complexity of the system, which amplifies competition (the competition recedes to more covert strategy, where the exploiters will come with smiles). It ultimately derails because of the feedback loops increase in complexity, where competition can hide (big power competition drives the derailment).

[@Shakespeare563]

I like this idea, but (and i mean this in the spirit of thinking through the metaphor, not trying to needlessly argue) aren't trees also fighting and trying to expand? They only seem chill to us because it happens so slowly, but trees do fight with each other (and other organisms). Even the defining aspect of trees, their height, is a result of an evolutionary arms race to grab more sunlight for themselves (and block out their neighbors). This is even a wasteful process, as all the trees would save energy and resources if they could all collectively agree to be short. But of course they can't (and even if they could, as soon as one tree broke the truce and decided to be tall, it would have an advantage over all the short trees). Maybe intelligence/culture/communication is the secret sauce that will let humans in the aggregate (and intelligent aliens) break that tragic logic where a desire for peaceful coexistence is punished and a desire for conquest is rewarded? I'd really like to hope so

[@titi53221]

I am so ready to get paid to watch a 50 minute long video at my job

[@schitzoflink8612]

Join UPS! You'll rarely see your family during the week but we've been unionized for long enough that we still make a little over what minimum wage would have been if it kept up with "productivity" AND it's mindless work so you can listen to stuff all day long. Like folding laundry for 13 hours in 100°+ temps!

[@jejetube7667]

Ngl this is a great sell​@@schitzoflink8612

[@dannysmith9882]

Im watching at work too :)

[@DreamItCraftIt]

I wouldn't brag about that

[@birdwaveracing9]

@@DreamItCraftIt I would. Sounds positively aspirational.

[@Lambda_Ovine]

I so hope that, if one day we manage to make any sort of respond it be "hi, we're just vibing, you?" and we can confidently reply "just vibing too"

[@AndPennyThought]

"We seem to be modeling aliens off a very particular slice of humanity." This is so true.

[@JulianDanzerHAL9001]

to be fair, IF we ever encoutner aliens its more likely to be the colonialist oens than those that stay at home because well those might exist they may be wiser but they're not gonna suddenly show up here

[@birdwave]

It's honestly one of the more depressing thoughts that cross me occasionally. Somewhere out there is a civilization who can't even comprehend what it's like to pay for the right to shelter and comfort, or race against time to provide a good foundation for their children in spite of overwhelming structural forces eroding that foundation. Why did we have to get born on the silly planet?

[@sean748]

I guess the thing about the Fermi paradox is that it can't just explain the common case - e.g. generally civilizations reach a point of homeostasis before generating technosignatures. It has to explain _every_ case, because it would only take a few outliers to generate easily perceivable signatures. The only way I can see that is if there is some fundamental entropic limit to civilization, some inability to reduce your local entropy enough to reach out to the stars and make a mark on them.

[@JulianDanzerHAL9001]

@@sean748 either that or some technological advancement that makes it so obvious to go in another direction that everyone does no matter how self interested

[@Laotzu.Goldbug]

​@@birdwaveit's only depressing if you allow yourself to be ennervated by fantasy. There is nothing else out there, and it may very well be the case that it is impossible for anything else to be out there and if it was it would be exactly as things are now because this is a response to natural laws. If you want change, go do something.

[@pandabang]

As Carl Sagan put it, we exist on the cosmic calendar in the last minute, of the last day, of the last month. The question isn't "where" are the aliens, but when. I simply believe that time is the most overlooked monster in the room, and intelligent life is just a sparkle here and there.

[@mikesaler1038]

Or, ..now and then.

[@KraniDude]

considering that time isn't even constant and is affected by gravity i could be way mutch slower or faster in our perception in these suposed planets with intelligent life, wich means our entire civilization can be just few minutes form them, or even whose, they can emerge and go in wich we can pecript as minutes. Im not atrophysic and these numbers may be exagerated, but you get the point.

[@dabluflcn]

What we’ve learned in the last 30 years regarding galaxy formation I also wonder if we aren’t among the first. At the very least I agree that we are separated by time in addition to distance.

[@GrandTourVideos]

​@@KraniDudeYou're right. You're no astrophysicist 😅

[@bocagelandscape]

​@@GrandTourVideos*atrophysic

[@amaristudios8573]

One interesting question is how will human philosophy change if we find an extinct civilization? If we find remnants of a civilization that destroyed itself on the quest for energy, if we found a civilization that lived in equilibrium and went extinct due to a cosmic catastrophe, if we find a civilization that fell apart for other reasons that our human minds and social understands can barely comprehend, how would this change how we think about the nature of life?

[@Just_some_guy_1]

Finding dead alien civilization would be the best thing that could happen for humanity. We would finally have an other that we can rally behind as a species (besides mosquitoes).

[@bishal_dey95]

​@@Just_some_guy_1there's plenty of dead intelligent societies that have been wiped out by settler intelligence. our first task is to learn from them before leaving the earth to look.

[@msadventurecomedy]

I think it's a fascinating question. I want to look to anything similar in human history. Discovery of heliocentric solar system, dinosaurs, evolution, quantum mechanics, relativity... So many things have reshaped our understanding of how the world works. My thinking is distorted and colored by despair over colonial capitalism, though. If we discovered a unified field theory tomorrow that combined quantum mechanics and gravity, we'd still have colonial nations exploiting other nations. We'd still have wealth inequality. Science feels so detached from culture. It's almost interesting trivia. Even the knowledge of global warming has not been enough to alter our course - we need to vigorously fight against our own extinction at the hands of uncaring actors. Yet at the same time, particle physics research led to the Internet, and the internet has enabled revolutions due to democratized access to information. So many of us are only aware of the truth of the genocide in Gaza because of the Internet. I would hope a discovery of an extinct civilization would be a sobering challenge in perspective that humanity must necessarily exist forever by nature of existing now. I fear that the information would have no impact on current problematic power structures.

[@Arithryka]

My solution to the Fermi Paradox is that I think they're just too dang far away and there's too much stuff in the way and any signals we'd get are too weak and incomprehensible, and what this says about me is that my best friends moved away for college and I still haven't gotten over it. And yes, I do need a hug 😆

[@FunctionallyLiteratePerson]

Yeah I've also thought about signal degradation being a part of it. Additionally, supposedly the universe is (for the most part) always expanding everywhere, and our observable universe is (probably) an extremely small portion of that, meaning even more things in our way including physical limitations of light and signals!

[@scottsherman5262]

Thank you!! The reason we haven't detected space aliens is time/distance. Our expanding universe is just too immense...so immense that distance really equates to time. We're seeing deep deep deep (that's 3-deeps) into the past when we look up at the night's sky...even the speed of light is feeble vs. the staggering distances involved, & it's likely that even hyper-"advanced" civilizations could only possibly achieve some fraction of the speed of light. The thing is, even if they could triple the speed of light (which is definitionally impossible as it would break causality), it wouldn't be close to fast enough to overcome the vast distances, unless they happened to be on a planet that is very close to us already, which is statistically extremely unlikely.

[@calebr7199]

This I think is the true answer. There are almost certainly alien civilizations out there but they are probably 1000 galaxies away.

[@cyberspacekosmonaut]

This is so obviously correct that it makes me wonder why anyone calls it a paradox at all.

[@yurivincentweber]

@@cyberspacekosmonaut To be fair you can plug in reasonable numbers to the Drake Equation which will give you a staggering number of civilizations within this single galaxy, so it's not that farfetched to think of it as a paradox. On that scale the expansion of the universe is negligible since gravity hold the galaxy together (sorry if I butchered that, not an astrophysicist). The milky way is less than 100.000 light years across, we're not looking *that* far into the past that civilizations shouldn't be visible. Maybe we haven't paid for access to the galactic wifi yet so they're jamming the signals that are coming our way?

[@carlsanderson1882]

Dr Fatima - stumbled upon your video today and was so inspired! I teach a class of super bright primary school students in Western Australia and I am constantly trying to encourage them to 'think big' and ask really deep questions. You presented your video is such an engaging, clever way that was a perfect mix of hard science and accessible stuff for the rest of us! I hope the girls in my class go on to be as amazing as you - thanks!

[@point-xn4tu]

I'm happy for you that you were inspired. Unfortunately, you were also mislead. Here's a deep question for your Aussie friends: What kind of secret work is being done at Pine Gap? If you want to learn anything about extraterrestrial life, don't absorb the views from inside the echo chamber of academia. It's an issue of military intel and exopolitics, not mainstream science. Good luck with your studies.

[@jaynemccabe8701]

I’ve been in a “learning rut” lately and this video absolutely pulled me out of it and inspired me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

[@maavi4192]

As a political theory grad I did not expect the Mark Fisher argument to be applied to the Fermi Paradox when I clicked on the video, very well done!

[@maavi4192]

As this is my first video I’ve seen from this channel I didn’t realize when I made this comment that this might have been to be expected from this channel! These are awesome philosophical questions and I love the emphasis you put on how sociocultural norms affect the way we think about the Fermi Paradox. It’s right up my alley. Definitely subbin’

[@standowner6979]

The only Mark Fisher I know taught about Hauntology and das Capita realism. How was it applied to this video?

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

@@standowner6979 the capitalist realism one. She uses it with something else other than capitalism though (don't quite remember what right now)

[@maavi4192]

@@standowner6979 19:00 is a riff on Mark Fisher's capitalist realism: "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."

[@yurivincentweber]

Hey so all I know about political theory comes from the Dictator's Handbook and from Why Nations Fail. Do you have any other stuff you could recommend for further learning? Coming from STEM I find all of this fascinating and would love to explore more political theory.

[@MystiqMiu]

"You be good. I love you." is DEVASTATING. I mean, a lot of this video is but this truly boils it down. The empathy and transparency laid bare in 6 words is enormous.

[@Curry-tan-]

That hit me hard. I dearly hope that better knowledge and translation of animal communication makes most people better neighbors.

[@Cinderbloom]

It absolutely broke me. Never has the idea that people, inherently, must be violent and in conflict sat right with me. We have this idea that animals are inherently prone to violence, that they are incapable of compassion - and yet we see it in a ton of species. Compassion and cooperation not just towards their own close kin, but towards strangers. Creatures can be violent, but they need not be. And it's ultimately destructive towards all of us. Teamwork makes the dream work.

[@ancomscicomm]

It felt very like a parent sending their child out into the world, and in that way it was both heart-wrenching and inspiring. I agree with the parrot - humanity has greatness, but greatness is a tool, like any other, that can be used to harm or to help. I also think that humanity is not the only species on this world with this quality. To harm the potential greatness in the life around us to pursue our own would be a truly terrible use, and one I'd much rather avoid in favor of finding ways our collective greatness could be harnessed for the benefit of all.

[@Slechy_Lesh]

@ancomscicomm Your profile icon made me realise that, aswell as portraying a post-intolerant Earth society, Star Trek's crew have badges which look like the anarchist symbol. In your graphic at least. Was that intentional?

[@ancomscicomm]

@@Slechy_Lesh In the case of my icon, yes. The original Starfleet Delta was created back in the 60's by a costume designer, and has been iterated upon throughout Star Trek's history. The reason for the particular shape is unknown. Someone on FB created the image I use, though the account I had is long gone, and I can't remember their name. It was intentionally made to look like an anarchist redesign of the Starfleet insignia, and I've been using it ever since. It represents both my current philosophy and my aspirations for the future.

[@dj13095]

I love how smart she is yet still has so much personality and style, I have worked in a medical research lab as a phlebotomist/lab assistant so I could draw blood and make culture swabs I just couldn't read the results (even though i knew how) for years and doctors/scientists like her are so rare.

[@khashayarr]

"and so they decided to chill instead" is my favourite suffix to any fermi paradox solution. My personal favourite formulations are the ones that go something like this: forever colonizing is so hard that you either give up and chill or die way before you detectably colonize space. Not because of energy, resource, and sustainability of growth - but because colonization itself is an unreasonably fragile pursuit. One example is the pancosmorio theory. In essence, it posits that any “advanced” life developed on a planet is uniquely developed to survive that planet - therefore by definition, the environment of space is hostile (to varying extents) to all life forms because they did not evolve to survive it. Now since space is hostile, any space colonizer will need to avoid death using technology and will need to somewhat use technology to simulate the environment it was evolved to inhabit (let's call this Earth). Because of this dependance on home-world realities and their dependency on technology, as colonizers put time and distance between themselves and their Earth, the risk, severity, and likelihood of a catastrophic cascading failure of their technologies-of-survival expands exponentially since their ability to get resupplied, repaired, returned, reinvent, or innovate in time decreases as time/distance away from home increases. Now I like to imagine that all colonizers just get tired of failing so miserably at some point and give up. I like to imagine a "generation ship" crashing into a star because of a cascading failure triggered when someone sharpened a pencil too sharp or something dumb like that. As the colonizing enterprise grows more ambitious, so does its fragility to the dumbest comedy of errors, wasting unimaginable (and growing) expenditures of time and resources each time. I like to imagine that after failing to colonize jack shit for thousands of years, any wise alien would just chill out before throwing the last of their people into the death pit of space in pursuit of an existence they are inherently incompatible with.

[@JaredEMitchell]

Come to think of it, weren't the aliens in War of the Worlds defeated by viruses on Earth? I like this theory! An interesting parallel with anti-colonial wars as well, since imperialist infrastructure is usually one of the primary targets.

[@sdcbhtdsvbqweettfcvh]

Every 10 million years a star gets within one light year of another star. As long as whatever ecosystem that exists in one star system can transplant itself over that light year during that window, the milky way would be able to be completely inhabited in about 250 million years, or one revolution around it. The pancosmorio theory falls flat because 10 million years is absolutely enough time for evolution to start working, especially if biotech enters the picture as it inevitably will. It also makes the weird assumption that it's impossible to adapt to space at all, on any level. Ultimately, you do not need any appeal to empire at all for the fermi paradox to be applicable, you just need the slow implacability of life to fill every possible niche it can. As long as space native life can maintain itself you don't even need intelligence at all for the fermi paradox to still be a problem.

[@nickallbritton3796]

lmao the pencil

[@jamesphillips2285]

That is more eloquent than I was going to post. It is possible that inter-solar travel is just inherently difficult/impossible. For example: rockets no longer allow you to reach escape velocity once the planet reaches about twice the mass of Earth.

[@Rells2coolpeoplehavebadtastes.]

@@jamesphillips2285 Which is sad but probably for the better. Because the act of inhabiting other planets that can have life an facilitate it then we might ruin the future of it's native life.

[@randomgenretalk8151]

I think the solution to the fermi Paradox is a more simple and boring answer: Based on how old the universe is, for a civilization of type 3 or higher to form, they have to develop at avery early stage of the universe which was more chaotic. And even if in the early universe there were habitable zones as we know today with the location of our earth as a reference point. Because of the expansion of the universe, i think those civilizations are outside of the observeable universe, if there are any. Also the expansion makes it harder anyway to find some and time dialation is also a factor, but also how much shit is there to observe. I mean even with advanced technology, to find something while the universe is constantly growing, time is different in different places and the sheer amount of things to look at. It's pretty unlikely for us to find anything, the odds are to wild. Would be still cool though to find some aliens but Orcas are also very cool because they are intelligent enough to hate rich people and that is based.

[@nos9784]

Finally, intelligent life on earth! 😊 The "observable" part and the ripping apart of the universe are interesting points... I guess the future will be increasingly lonely. But that's another reason to make our civilization the best it can possibly be! We may be all we've got.

[@poisontango]

@@nos9784 I like both of these points. I'm not sure there's anything out there, but if there is right now, we won't know for millions of years, and if we do see something now, what we'll see will be a relic of millions of years ago. It's a fun question, but I agree that we should brace for loneliness, or better, make the company we've got the best it can be.

[@interestedperson7073]

I’m with you!

[@FunctionallyLiteratePerson]

I think the orcas thing was because of kids being bored or something, but I definitely agree that it just seems statistically unlikely given how long the observable universe has existed, and the portion of that time that we have existed

[@Bubblegob]

No simpler and no more boring than most of the solutions. Orcas are based indeed.

[@JDNboy12]

well written and researched, witty, with a classic comment engagement section, AND an Adam Neely reference!? sold

[@OriginalAndroidPhone]

Really appreciated the super-linear growth having shorter and shorter time periods to find a life saving solution vs homeostasis contrast. An amazing smart observation we can see to be true.

[@VapidVulpes]

Heck yeah! Agreed! I always love a great graph that can get very elegantly to the heart of an idea :)!

[@dannysmith9882]

eh, Malthus was wrong.

[@sdcbhtdsvbqweettfcvh]

That doesn't affect the fact that setting up a community in a dead star system is outside of homeostatic theory. it's only when you don't have any dead star systems left that homeostatic theory actually starts applying, because you don't have a disequilibrium between opportunity for life to inhabit another niche and that niche being unfilled.

[@DavidLindes]

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is man’s inability to understand the exponential function.” - the late Professor Albert A. Bartlett

[@TrabberShir]

The logical fallacy spanning that entire section of the video is treating a singularity as physical rather than an artifact of an incomplete mathematical model. The claim that "collapse" happens at "the singularity" is a hand wave of not knowing the dynamics at the boundary condition of the model. Lots of things have happened when resources have been insufficient to support a population in the past. Most of them we would count as "bad" but only a tiny fraction of them count as "collapse" in any commonly understood meaning of the word and it is very rare for the population to cease to exist which seems to be the implication being made. A long period of uncomfortable stagnation does not prevent a future change that restarts the super-linear growth. The shorter time lines are not time until opportunity is lost, it is time until their model breaks down.

[@mr.__.knight]

W articulation & annunciation! W research, W Presentation! W presenter! W lighting & background! W nails - W eye makeup - W earrings - W hair - W legwear! W channel~!! Massive W~!! Subbed~!!

[@OutOnEarthPod]

Wow. What a fantastic video.. thank you so much for making it.

[@poisontango]

I love the insights about music at the end. I recently recommended the KZbinr Farya Faraji to a friend as "the Dr. Fatima of musical theory," and he talks in his video "Orientalism: Desert Level Music vs Actual Middle-Eastern Music" about how this colonial mindset of "correct" music and tones has not only limited westerners' exposure to new, creative ideas, but has also simplified othered cultures into one or two stereotypes, ignoring all the other diverse and non-Western creations they could contribute to, say, desert music. Kinda like how we might limit our ideas of alien civilizations or simplify all they could be and could value into one or two things that resonate with us! Which makes me wonder if extra-terrestrials might prioritize creation over survival. This might be a bit more projection of my values onto the nebulous hypothetical of a new civilization, but I do like the idea that we work, sleep, eat, and otherwise sustain life in order to...do something with it? Anything. My parents worked their asses off so I could have an education that would let me work a little less than them, and create a little more. Right now, I'm getting my MA in Medieval Studies. My dissertation is a deep dive into a pair of Latin poems almost no one's studied in decades, written by a nobody hundreds of years ago about a saint who I thought was huge, but who actually had a small impact in the broad scheme of medieval Christianity, except to her local cult. I'm pouring hundreds of hours into something almost no one will read about a thing that doesn't "matter" to some people, but I love that. I've found my cute, little corner of academia where I feel I can fit, contributing something, filling in one more hole so someone somewhere might have an answer if they dive into my rabbit hole. Maybe, Earth be some extra-terrestrial's hole of academia, and they'll care about translating the Anthropocene like I care about translating these poems. I don't know an end-goal to life beyond the creative endeavors that fill us along the way.

[@natebookout811]

I was actually thinking about commenting about Farya's video, it was really informative and I learned a lot about ethnomusicography. I feel like there's a whole lot of potential for my growth as a musician, immersing in different cultures of music theory rather than just western music like I've mostly done my whole life.

[@No_Tutorial]

I have had Faraya’s video in my watch later queue for a little bit and I’m so happy to have found your comment. I can’t wait to watch their video! Also your discussion of finding joy in publishing something you know is unlikely to be read really moved me. I’m also in grad school and feel the constant tug to publish in trendy spaces, but I’m so inspired by your commitment to creating for you. I would love to read your work once it’s published. Let me know if you’d like to get in touch! :)

[@khashayarr]

Your point on creating being the end in itself reminded me of David Graeber's essay What's the Point If We Can't Have Fun? which basically shows that "play" is the most universal reward for survival amongst all studied animals - and the more animals we study, the more instances of non-utilitarian play we find. I also like to imagine that if aliens were to solve survival, they'd just play/create for its own sake instead

[@lolahatter0912]

I made a similar point about creation for the sake of creation in my answer. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge. We could even expand this into a science AS a type of art. Developing knowledge simply to see what we can learn, just to know or understand something a little bit more, and finding artistic and creative merit in that act of exploration.

[@JordanSullivanadventures]

I like Farya's videos too! Though I often find he seems almost deliberately to avoid mentioning colonialism by name, even though it's the structural explanation for many of the issues he describes on his channel. He also seems to default to a sort of "both sides-ism" whenever he does explicitly talk politics. Again, I really enjoy his videos, I've learned and laughed a lot, just something odd I've noticed.

[@louzander]

I wanted, for years, to be a particle physicist. I taught myself a lot of the basic principles. Then I flunked out of Physics 102, and I do think that part of that was because my type of learning runs counter to the professor I had at the time. Once I asked him to help me understand the red shift and, try as he might, he couldn't find a way to explain it that I could understand. The way that Dr. Fatima explained it here made SO MUCH sense to me. She has a truly remarkable ability to explain incredibly complex concepts in ways that really make the topic approachable! You've got a real gift for communication and education, Doc!

[@msadventurecomedy]

Physics education is in pretty rough shape! I made it to PhD candidate in particle physics before dropping out, and nothing was worse than the first two years of undergrad. It's rarely set up in a way that's conducive to curiosity and learning. It's something the physics community is trying to research, and it's definitely a bigger problem than most physicists think it is! I'm also glad for the existence of channels like Dr. Fatima that allow us to explore our passions outside of academia!

[@TheLeftistCooks]

This is less a proposed "solution" to the Fermi Paradox as it is a thought ... with thinky parts and words and why-nots in it. But it seems as if human thought is very fast and simian; very thoughts-thoughts-thoughts and conceptually impatient and preoccupied with short term gratification and answers. Whereas the thoughts of the Universe - the Dad of the Dad of history- seem to be very slow and long and methodical and patient and ineffable. In the same way that colonialism, conquest and power are very culturally specific and eurocentric concepts, perhaps the Great Silence is merely a pause between clauses; a hesitation between very important interactions. All of which is just to have something of worth to add to this lovely lovely thought provoking video. Thank you for your impeccable work - N

[@galois6569]

Interesting idea. So maybe aliens are communicating at a much slower rate, so we haven't been able to detect them. Given how long it would take to reach any alien planet there would not be much lost with a slow talking speed. Perhaps the aliens that have not wiped themselves out have learned to slow down, or perhaps they are simply focusing on optimizing something else in their communication.

[@poisontango]

We are living in a semi-colon. Interesting... I like it because it gives a heart-warming explanation for the Great Silence. I don't like it because now I feel trapped in a semi-colon-shaped prison and that's a new kind of anxiety I'm not sure how to adjust to.

[@jclive2860]

The thoughts of the universe? What are you saying? Is that verifiable with the scientific method? Or is it just regurgitated spiritual consciousness jargon?

[@grandsome1]

Like the idea that we're too fast to understand the Aliens the same way a fly is living in Cinematic slow motion all the time. JRR Tolkien might have been onto something with the Treant. Slowness is an effective optimization of energy, and if your goal is not only to survive but also observe the universe that might be a common strategy.

[@ajbiffl4695]

Homie saw the "terrify people with the scale of the universe" challenge and said "hold my beer"

[@stxrdusted]

As someone with a special interest in astrophysics and politics, finding your page has been like a gift from the heavens

[@mandatoryreporter4468]

Hope you realize she is a radical anti isreali

[@Purple001-eh6zo]

The green nails are an amazing touch

[@PassportPowell]

Ugly touch Quality of her information is top tier though🎉

[@anteep4900]

she goin for the alien look

[@lukeantal6333]

Ugly? What happened to the sexual part of your imagination? Or maybe you're gay.

[@LoyaltotheNightsky]

​@@PassportPowellWas the insult really necessary? You could have just said the last part and been wholesome.

[@NaderNabilart]

Now I focus more on interdisciplinary studies because of your amazing work. All love from Cairo, Egypt!

[@davidodonoghue3628]

Now this is the high quality content KZbin needs! Great video!

[@TheLeksilijum]

I might start celebrating a day I discovered your channel as a holiday. You are an antidote to the algorithm. All of your videos are so uplifting, and I am in awe of your capacity to emotionally understand the reality you are trained to analyze as a scientist. You have a wholesome and humbling (in the best of ways) dimension of hermeneutics that I miss in works of other scientific communicators here on KZbin.

[@pedropikapika]

Agreed, Dr Fatima is a scientist who understood science lol

[@lastkingssaint4609]

I'm a simple person, when Dr.Fatima posts a video, I like the video instantly. Excited for this information!

[@jemportal4166]

Same 😂

[@duosable]

It sounds bias/prejudice to me 😅.

[@duosable]

But do I believe in it. I saw their shit twice.

[@point-xn4tu]

Yep. You're a simple person.

[@gabrielesibiril699]

Thanx u reminded me of dropping the instant like

[@CloudRaine]

This video weirdly made me wanna write an in depth sci Fi existential crisis book- yeah, I need a hug

[@RoYaL3796]

That’s one thing that bugs me so much, we could be so great, we could do so much if we walked among each other like brothers and sisters, also respecting and valuing Earth and all life in it. We could create heaven on Earth but we seem to choose hell instead and I just don’t get it.

[@cosmologism3958]

It's not so much that humans are choosing hell collectively, as it is that the ones at the tops of hierarchies are choosing it for us. Humans are a varied group, with many different motivations. Humans also have the construct of hierarchy, in many different ways, and occupy many different positions within it. We have no reason to expect hierarchy among extraterrestrial societies, just as it doesn't exist among any other species on Earth. We also have no reason to assume the same motivations across the society.

[@dannysmith9882]

@@cosmologism3958 The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theories is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in the conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy, or the grey aliens, or the twelve-foot reptiloids from another dimension that are in control, the truth is far more frightening; no-one is in control, the world is rudderless.” ― Alan Moore Consider how languages develop.

[@ajbiffl4695]

@@cosmologism3958 I disagree that the top of the hierarchy is solely to blame. The entire structure of society is resistant to radical change, particularly to changes that interrupt the flow of resources. Almost everyone on Earth has vested interest in maintaining the status quo because right now the status quo is how everyone on Earth gets fed and clothed and blah blah... not to say many people aren't willing to risk their current stations in the name of change, but most people are still placed in comfortable positions by the current system, and don't want to get rid of that. Also not to say that many people at the top of the hierarchy aren't purposefully misinforming or misleading about how viable change is - they most certainly are, but even if they weren't there's a certain inertia to established structures. They resist change as a whole.

[@kevinhengehold4387]

Marx described ideology as "They do not know it, but they do it." A lot of the answers to the Fermi paradox & the idea of the social construction of knowledge are oozing with ideology. Specifically, the idea of knowledge and colonization/exploitation going together is something I didn't realize was everywhere, but now I can't stop seeing it. The end of this video covers how we interpret cell behaviors through the lens of sexism, the last video on Telescopes talked about how the scientists who were pro-TMT never questioned whether it was their right to build the telescope on stolen indigenous land - the question was how to achieve it, because Knowledge, right? There's even a weird vibe in social sciences where people bemoan ethical constraints and they imagine what they could learn if they could just run with it (nodding a bit too approvingly at n*zi shit, mk ultra, Zimbardo's prison experiment, the Milgram experiment, etc.), when 1. most of them didn't return any useful data (there's not much to learn from drugging strangers with lsd and then fucking with them except maybe you're a sociopath?), and most importantly, 2. why does a researcher's curious trump someone / several someones' well-being? So - settler colonialism, capitalism, racism, patriarchy - all those are so deeply embedded in the culture / zeitgeist that it's just common sense that the world should be as it is. Unfortunately, that means that in addition to addressing the material conditions causing the current disparities, we also need to attack the ideologies that cause so many people to accept them. So, not easy, but start small and work out from there.

[@bluester7177]

​@@ajbiffl4695I don't think as many people as you think are invested in the status quo, outside of the imperial core most people are not doing that great, everyone is certainly not even close to getting fed, a lot of the world is incredibly poor and exploited still. 3+ billion people in the world get less than 5 USD a day, thats less than my monthly electricity bill and I'm in the global south.

[@sadago2690]

I do. I do need a hug.

[@le-ore]

(hug)

[@nickallbritton3796]

(hug)

[@ajbiffl4695]

(hug)

[@khizzard_069]

*sends a virtual hug*

[@sadago2690]

[@adrianturner5803]

It worries me that particularly Americans see all possible visitors as invaders. The first ting to do is to welcome them as guests.

[@BABILA.]

most people believe i'm an alien when they meet me irl

[@ruinaS2]

same! people keep making assumptions about me that reveal more about them and how they think then they ever say about me so i might as well be an alien :p

[@milamila1123]

Omg same. I live for it, though.

[@jennyanthonia7553]

same!! plus i feel like an alien 95% of the time. like i’m really here among the humans 😅

[@JerehmiaBoaz]

You know you're supposed to be undercover, right? The men in black are gonna bust us all if you don't shut up.

[@ronanodonovan3673]

Still better than me, people just wonder why I haven't contacted them

[@AmonTheWitch]

tbh my theory is just that we barely looked? like we can just barely tell what a planet's atmosphere is made of, we can't check if there's a civilization, it might be *implied* but there's usually a natural solution for every chemical composition we could find only thing that could prove an alien civilization is a MASSIVE megastructure and the question with that is if that even makes sense?

[@ErinAmanda-h2n]

It's been a while since I've found a channel as engaging as yours. Thank you for doing what you do.

[@gabrielladias420]

Aliens, after homeostatic awakening, would focus on whatever their "art" equivalent is. Maybe that's just art, too

[@AnarchistArtificer]

I think I agree. A friend of mine was frustrated at visible class divide issues at university the other day, in particular the fact that privileged rich kids have the ability to spend a heckton of money (and time, because money also affords them breathing space on that front) to make mediocre art, whereas my friend and many of their peers can barely make any art when they're struggling with basic living essentials. You don't need fancy materials to make good art, but you do need energy. They were venting to me about the unfairness of opportunity, but then they stopped to remark on how actually, they shouldn't be angry at the rich kids for having the opportunity to make art, even bad art, because actually the high prevalence of rich kids who are not Artists(TM) making art probably says something significant about human instincts when we're freed from struggling to survive. They concluded they were still reasonable to be angry at the unfairness, but that they should redirect their thoughts away from the rich kids and their mediocre art somewhat, because "everyone should be able to make shitty art".

[@aenamii]

it was art all along!!!

[@lodragan]

I think it would be a whole host of things that are not destructive, including art, building more efficient technology that reverses the curve even more, but also things like exploration which isn't colonialism if the objective is mutual respect rather than conquest. I think aliens, or ourselves for that matter, could (should and hopefully would) choose to do essentially what we do now, only guided by self awareness, moral integrity, and intentional goodness (both in terms of the 'right thing' - avoiding unintended consequences along the way, coupled with a commitment to repair whatever damages we cannot avoid after the fact - responsibility). Of course, this would change the nature of what we do, and obviate the need to do others. So, this homeostatic alien society would look a lot different as a whole, and yet the vast majority of individual activities might look the same since the whole is more than simply the sum of its parts. Now to really blow your mind: think of all those activities as art. Whenever I think about my best self - I think of being in such a flow state that whatever I build, draw, play, code, dig, plant, observe, dance, sing, and so on is really art when taken to this higher qualitative vibration.

[@KwizzyDaAwesome]

Surprise! What we consider/don't consider "art" and who does/doesn't get to do it and what is/isn't "good/worthwhile" art is influenced by settler-colonialism and empire, too!

[@kf8113]

fermi paradox explanation: we are the embarrassing secret fetish-creation of a hyper-powerful being hidden away from all the other beings to save it from embarrassment

[@Etchacritic]

At the Galactic Federation of Planets Meeting: Oh, you're human? From Earth? Cringe.

[@Rells2coolpeoplehavebadtastes.]

A what?

[@kevinhengehold4387]

Like in South Park? Earth is a reality show that's the universe's guilty pleasure to watch?

[@notahumanbeing6892]

@@kevinhengehold4387the fact someone reading “secret fetish creation” and the first example they think of being south park is absolutely sending me rn

[@Emilio1985]

My mom once repeated a joke to me that human life was a school project for an alien student who ended up getting a C on the assignment.

[@shakugan73]

People like you genuinely give me new hope for this platform , and the video essay format 😅 thank you!!

[@michael1567]

I just recently read a book I very much enjoyed; Children of Time a book about the hypothetical accelerated development of a civilization of Portia Labiata spiders. The book emphasizes how an alien society might be vastly different from ours in many ways while still being something we can recognize as like. The spiders end up (for story reasons) taking a much more holistic approach and I like to think that if a homeostatic awakening takes place we would do something similar. I love engineering and I like to hope that a homeostatic version of earth will not necessarily leave behind large scale projects, but will endeavor to create them in ways that take pains to integrate them into the environment and ecosystem. I have heard (grain of salt) that in pre-colonial America there were cultures that tended to nature as a whole to create almost wild gardens. I could imagine something like that being nice :)

[@nos9784]

There existed many different lists of "the world wonders" The most common one has one huge infrastructure project on it- The hanging gardens of semiramis. If i interpret that as a large irrigation project, and note all the other civilizations that grew and revolved around such systems, that gives me hope. It shows that sustainable developement and civilization are common as partners, and common in the stories we used to tell each other about our greatest achievements. We should embrace and create that- prove all those "economic growth" cultists wrong, or at least grow the alternatives to encourage people joining an other why of life.

[@FunctionallyLiteratePerson]

I do hope that we can have some sort of sustainable technology. I absolutely love programming and hope there is a way to continue that type of work without chasing the infinite growth trap and find a way that doesn't burn through our natural resources or that exploits miners in the global south (etc)

[@nos9784]

@@FunctionallyLiteratePerson We need beacon projects. We already have more than enough know- how for sustainable technologies. What we lack is wide understanding how some of those natural laws or geometry are quite convenient, when you follow them instead of what someone wants to sell you at a profit. It's a political, cultural problem, not a scientific or technological one. We still need to find the best, most efficient ways to implement a lot of them- that's what engineers are for, to figure out the real world numbers- And we need to practice implementing them, and we need to educate at least.... one in ten? One in five? People well enough they can confront naysayers. And, most of all, we need to implement that tech in visibly and obviously awesome and successful beacon projects, to show people it works. Create good alternatives first, And then maybe outlaw and reduce destructive tech to a sustainable level if we still need to. (it's ok to run coal power plants for a few months in the winter, if the sum per capita is below ~2.5t/a. ( europe need to get emissions down from 11t/a, america, australia and canada get from 20t/a to that, and i'm not even sure we need to pressure china thah much. They make all our stuff, so their planned 5t/capita doesnt really count.) I think more than half the world population can actually increase their consumption without getting over their "fair share" of 3 tons. Maybe personal emissions trade could help- Everyobody gets a budget of 3 tons, if you are above, you need to buy that from someone. Now comes the beautiful part: all the people who are below 3 tons can sell their excess budget at whatever price they want, to the rich. So this, implemented well, might actually end poverty! Dunno if i'm too optimistic, but the market could do something good for a change. (also, i'd love a reaction on my first comment from yesterday, concerning what the goal of life itself should be- infinite diversity. I't be kind if you could take a look at that via clicking my name to see my other comments on this cannel.)

[@willfenwick1621]

Recently read an excellent Scifi novel with a focus on life called In Acension, beautiful and haunting discussion of life with views on growth and sustaining the growth of another living thing that will feed you and you will in turn feed, really has me looking at plants and smiling more

[@michael1567]

@@willfenwick1621 added to my reading list :)

[@syndicatius]

I think the issue with homeostasis is that it still asks, why not still call out into the universe? I'd hope that if humanity reaches an equilibrium that we'd still go out and explore the stars. That we'd tell those extra-terrestrial people who look at the stars, "You are not alone and one day we'll be able to meet." Of course we don't know what that equilibrium might look like, so maybe they've focused internally and turned away from the stars. That option hurts my soul though. This brings us back to the paradox just with a better understanding of why civilization's might go caput and that their technosignatures would be less obvious. I might be missing something though. Ps. I prefer the early-born hypothesis

[@sneakylemon8513]

I was wondering about that. Like if we one day get to a point on earth where we respect each other's soverenty and actually have peace, wouldn't we still visit eachother and share technologies and want to experience each other's cultures. Like I love showing my friends from other places around my town and going to visit other countries. I haven't been in years because of finances but I yearn to go again some day. But I think like most people I have no desire to go out and conquer. Man.. I'm so sad that there's still so much war and suffering in the world... I feel like a child saying "can't we just get along?"

[@sonorioftrill]

Especially since if you come to the conclusion that every civilization stagnates power wise at about your level and before reaching widespread interstellar travel than you don’t have any reason to try and hide, and one would think you would likely be interested in other civilizations art and culture. You even have a cynical reason to try and talk other civilizations around to your own view, as it decreases the chances that a civilization maintains sustainable growth for longer and reaches the point where it could bridge the gap. PS I definitely agree that it seems more likely that the universe simply hasn’t been amenable to intelligent life for very long, though tend to suspect that’s owed to a combination of the rare earth and rare intelligence hypothesis.

[@FunctionallyLiteratePerson]

I would love if we, as a people, could visit the stars. I want us to find a place where we can achieve that balance as well

[@purple-flowers]

This is my exact thought process and applies to modern day. If we do the work of decolonizing the globe and moving beyond capitalism, we will still wish to learn and explore are solve problems. Part of that, I hope, is the drive to find beings like us that live and learn and explore. Basically star trek with it's fully automated luxury space communism

[@vcostello712]

Surely, eventually, we will have to leave for the stars anyway -- even if we manage not to kill the Earth with global warming ourselves, the Sun is gonna do it for us anyway in a billion years or so. We can't stay here forever.

[@MartynaLipiec]

Omg I just stumbled upon your chanel and I am obsessed! The colonial and sociology of knowledge angles are so interesting and I’ve never thought about ‚aliens’ through these lenses.

[@kristianminkov9631]

I think civilizations that forsake the idea of infinite growth and survive for longer in the cosmos are focused on mastering sustainability and finding ways to prolong the habitability of their planet. That's quite a task with all the treats that endanger life on any planet.

[@AileTheAlien]

🤔 Depending on their personal views, they could genetically engineer themselves to be more efficient or less wasteful with food, require fewer doctors, etc. Like, that stuff's effectively banned or so taboo that progress is minimal, but still has options for us. Junk food tricks our brains from a few signals that were individually rare - maybe humans could just not have that specific glitch in their brain. (Salt + fat + starch or protein = mega-tasty 🍪) Slightly different enzymes, maybe some crops that are a little better with photosynthesis, but still not weeds. There's possibilities, but they need to be explored for the good of humanity, not just more greedy CEOs. 💸

[@sonorioftrill]

The problem is that if your civilization is really focusing on prolonging the life of their planet for the long haul, then the focus would be on keeping their star from burning out by gathering new fuel for it. Known physics provides several pathways for this, but they involve going out and disassembling the stars around them that no one’s useing and which are burning to nothing, and slowly bringing the hydrogen back home to keep your inhabited planet warm. This would let you keep your home star kindled for millions of times its natural lifespan at the cost of light for some dead rocks, but it would be pretty obvious to even modern technology that someone was doing it. If you really, really want to sustain your world for as long as possible, your sending automated probes out to disassemble and ship back distant galaxies before the expansion of the universe tears them away forever. Stars are a finite resource after all, wasting them warming lifeless rocks is going to be a hard sell to a civilization interested in mastering sustainability.

[@ajbiffl4695]

Related to @sonorioftrill's response, on Earth we've seen that one of the most effective survival strategies is expanding and growing as much as possible, so might those civilizations end up venturing out into the stars anyway, after reaching the conclusion their odds of survival are better if they cast a wider net of places to live?

[@Thed538dhsk]

But any type 2 civilization could easily achieve this?

[@kristianminkov9631]

@@Thed538dhsk Yes, what is your point? You are wondering what happens after this is achieved?

[@jdsmith02115]

I love that you're able speak statements without "upspeaking" !

[@LeoMilano]

First of your videos I watch, not at all what I was expecting when I clicked. I actually believe I could write the script of the video I was expecting, as blend and mediocre as most of youtube's video essays go. Awesome video, great work, fantastic research. All around an incredible job. I dont have anything to add or know how to answer your question, not as smart as you or your audience, just glad I found your channel. My main purpuse in this comment is to engage and congratulate. More than a decade in this platform and this is one of the best videos I've watched in all this time.

[@edridgedsouza1170]

Omg thank you for the shout out!! Just to clarify, my name is pronounced like “Ed-ridge”. It’s so cool to see how the exact same cultural attitudes about gendered social roles affect biology at both the molecular and organismic/societal level. I wonder how many other ideas we learned in school that are taken for granted as scientifically “objective” are in fact just reflections of the cultural context that produced them. And relatedly, I wonder how have PAST instances of such narratives in science changed when the cultural context that produced them ceased to exist

[@MotherShipMedia]

We may be seeing just such a shift in Anthropology/archaeology right now. Until quite recently, the study of human development has been VERY tinged with colonial attitudes that tend to downplay the cultures that Euro colonialism took over (like North America, India, etc) while highlighting the achievements of the colonizers. This was commonly represented with the attitude that history and the development of human culture has been a path from "barbarism" as represented by colonized cultures through civilization as represented by entities like the British Empire. That also ties into the brown/white dynamic in the same ways. Lately though, a lot of archaeology is challenging the "science" those assumptions were based on. And the prevailing view in anthropology and human development now is far more willing to recognize the contributions of cultures that didn't tend to be part of the conversation in the past.

[@fj103]

❤

[@АнастасияГержевич]

this is gonna be so good, i can just tell from the title. excited to hear dr. Fatima talk abt extraterrestrial life!!!

[@Odeeyu]

This speaks to my attitude. Most discussions about how "paradoxical" it is that we've not seen alien life yet dont even begin to touch on the unimaginably different ways intelligent life could arise and function. When I got into this debate in my undergrad years, my favorite examples were to say they could be intelligent but not as dexterous (something elephant-like), and thus applied their intelligence more towards art or spirituality. Or not have been as geographically dispersed and divided and thus more unified and less prone to war which could severely slow technological progress compared to us. They could be an aquatic species, and for them just exploring their own planet's surface was as significant scientifically as us getting to the moon and mars. They could be just like us in every un-vibbing way except arbitrarily just not care as much about space for who knows what reason. Maybe their atmosphere is cloudier so they never had many starry nights to inspire that sense of awe and curiosity. Also what is "rare"? One intelligent species per galaxy would make it unlikely we'd have seen any signs yet, and might seem rare in terms of spatial separation....but that would still mean hundreds of billions of civilizations out there overall, which doesnt seem at all rare to me personally.

[@Jobe385]

I definitely appreciate the Homeostatic theory, and while I hope that is true, I would also suspect that there is a high chance that our understanding of communications is woefully inadequate for receiving, let alone interpreting, communications from extra-terrestrial life. It took entirely too long to confirm that certain species communicate in measurable non-verbal ways or that other species vocalizations can be used to communicate complex ideas in ways we do not understand. Additionally we still are unsure how certain aquatic species, in particular cephalopods, communicate, but we are fairly certain that they do, or at least can. Such broad approaches to communication may exist outside of earth, and may have applications that our technology is decades or more away from processing.

[@nos9784]

I think decades is remarkable optimism. We've got 60 billion years ahead of us (correct me if i'm wrong), we can afford to be patient if we don't wipe ourselves out. Edit: We should hurry becoming multiplanetary, though. We shouldn't leave that to the whims of billionaires- it should be communal, democratic effort. Maybe a global, crowdfunded lottery, that buys tech off the shelf and invests in further developement, for example a launch loop to replace rockets, or venus baloon or asteroid habitats. Not everyone will be able to go anytime soon, so choosing people by random chance (solo or in small groups like families) is fairer than letting "everyone" just buy their ticket or indentured servitude, as the musk suggested. We'd need enough specialists, i guess, but training is possible and a wide diversity of skills and experiences more resilient. Space should be democratic, not capitalist.

[@poisontango]

I agree to a point, but... we did learn about the things you listed, and there are people looking to expand the field of our understanding. I'm not convinced there is some kind of communication in space we could detect and decipher, but I do think humans are getting better at listening. Your list here, Ted Chiang's short story, and Dr. Fatima's video are all evidences of that.

[@Rhadgar]

True. I think there's a kind of scourge of anthropocentrism when it comes to human-nonhuman relations which colors where we do and don't look for intelligence. Compare how much time and money went into trying to prove that chimps could communicate in sign language (often in studies carried out be people who treated sign language as a one to one equivalence with English, rather than a distinct language with a different grammar as it is) vs. how much attention is given to communicating with other species which we know to be both intelligent and social such as cephalopods as you mentioned, or other species like corvids. Perhaps homeostatic awakening should go hand-in-hand with overcoming this anthropocentrism: if other species are at least as intelligent as we are, then the human superiority card which is so often played in support of environmentally destructive super-linear growth is no longer valid.

[@Shakespeare563]

I also agree with this. You can set up a slime mold in such a way that it's growth can be interpreted as "solving" calculus problems, if we were to come across communications from a species of super intelligent slime molds, we should probably have very low confidence in our ability to recognize them as communication (or maybe even "communication" is too anthroprocentric a concept for how slime mold knowledge would be cultivated)

[@AnarchistArtificer]

@@poisontango It feels like there's a risk of a paradox of sorts, when it comes to assessing our own progress in listening and learning. I think that humans are worst at listening when we focus on how well we're listening - that's when we start overly projecting ourselves onto what we're trying to listen to, without sufficiently acknowledging that that's what we're doing; I don't think it's possible to interpret things without bias and that understanding and accounting for our bias is the best strategy. Bioacoustics is one of the fields that studies non-human communication and I sometimes see papers that really feel like progress in learning how to actually listen... and then there are papers that feel steeped in white colonialism. The big communication challenge is filtering the signal from the noise, but how are we to know the difference between the two if we haven't yet deciphered the signal? How do we avoid our limited understanding and biased perspectives from causing us to erroneously discard important data as unimportant noise ()? I think the only real answer to that is "with persistence and great humbleness". We are getting better at listening, and we need to ensure we don't get complacent,

[@nyralee8172]

AHHHH your videoessays are always so bloody satisfying to watch!! from the ideas to the presentation and execution of the material it's like literally divine haha. I always felt clueless when people would ask who really inspires me to think in certain dimensions or be so obsessed with interdisciplinary studies and philosophical inquiry, but after finding your content I can sufficiently answer that question :) thank you so much for the time and effort you put into this work

[@DelvingDeeper]

Gotta say... Love your video and will definitely watch the rest. Kinda inspired me to get back on my feet and continue on my own video essay journey... So, thank you.

[@northliu1196]

I came across the “Asymptotic burnout and homeostatic awakening” paper not long ago, while researching about Fermi Paradox and possible solution under Buddhist philosophy. I think that Fermi Paradox is only a paradox under the capitalist and imperialist world view (which, in my opinion, are deeply rooted in Christian philosophy). Under the Buddhist world view, our continuous conquest for technology advancement and our lust for infinite growth are in essence the source of our continuous suffering. Therefore any sufficiently intelligent and wise species would abandon that path and instead choose to live in contentment with all the beauties and imperfections of universe (aka vibing).

[@FunctionallyLiteratePerson]

I definitely agree that it's only a paradox under a certain worldview. I think the "question" is a bit silly to ask in the first place as it assumes a lot about an alien species

[@willfenwick1621]

This !!!! I have been thinking a lot about how growth and innovation comes from a presupposition that there is something wrong with the current state. Don't get me wrong, I do not think the mass of suffering in this world that is easily avoidable is something to just accept, and the run on global warming now necessitates drastic immediate innovation. However, how would quality of life been had we just, idk, stopped innovating at some point? I am not knowledgable enough to understand when that point would have been, but are we an example of a doomed civilisation, enjoying our brief time in the sun of the age of information and mass communication before we walk into extinction and the surviving post homeostatic awakening civilisations out there never got there because, they didn't need to? maybe after they figured out how to feed everyone they just stopped? maybe the awakening is the happiness with the current state and focus on uplifting those around us so they can enjoy that too. or maybe it was, and we missed it

[@ambatuBUHSURK]

Stop portraying technological and scientific achievements as "lust" or something demonic or evil. Buddhism is a lazy excuse for laziness. Wanting to actually understand the universe is far more interesting and enlightening.

[@ambatuBUHSURK]

​@@willfenwick1621we aren't even at a point to be asking that question lol. We aren't a doomed civilisation either. Problems doesn't mean doomed.

[@brookejohnson9914]

So much fiction about aliens is about alien invasions. Whether that's H. G. Wells fault or just because the culture likes stories about fighting, I do not know.

[@lolahatter0912]

Alien invasion stories are often considered to be extensions of invasion narratives popular in Imperial Britain because of anxieties about “what if other people do to us, what we did to them”. (Dracula is another example of this invasion narrative). These stories aren’t just inherently colonial, but are deeply rooted in the colonizer’s fears of being colonized.

[@vcostello712]

I feel like from a practical standpoint I don't know why anyone would go through the trouble of invading us... surely we don't have anything that an interstellar civilization would need, right? if they can go to any planet in the galaxy for resources and land, maybe pick a place where you don't have to deal with the native carnivorous-nuclear-warhead-monkeys

[@explosivemodesonicmauricet1597]

WoTW is a friggin satire of British Empire

[@explosivemodesonicmauricet1597]

@@vcostello712 Resource-speaking, it makes sense. But in terms of culture ethos? Maybe. Isn't stupid to try a landfall? Well, let me tell you accelerating asteroids into near lightspeed works if they wanted to exterminate.

[@ChristianDoretti]

That’s because the depiction of aggressive aliens developed in Cold War US and after WW2, the American public and media was very accepting of war and the perception of aliens is very much how people back then pictured the foreign and unknown, I would call it hysteria

[@DrewGems]

As a conspiracy theorist............ I can absolutely, undeniably say that without a single doubt in my mind, with no argument capable of being formed against it... and with complete certainty, confidence, certitude, and validity... that there is irrefutably a sure bet of a foregone conclusion with conviction and definiteness... I believe with a firm faith... that when I look out into the stars and see all that is within the universe and even just within our planet alone... there is unquestionably and categorically an extremely apparent incontestable way that I can prove with a single sentence that we have absolutely no reason to believe that there isn't a viable basis to conclude within rational consideration of everything that we know and ever will know... there is analytical evidence of somebody who read this entire comment and is in complete shock at the very small amount of time they wasted. Oh......... and I've seen a UFO. Thank you for coming to my T.E.D. Talk!

[@tylerstoltzfus3456]

I need a dr fatima/fd signifier collab

[@grief_hammer]

Backed.

[@Dkvizu]

Like yesterday.

[@loglorn]

So backed

[@PxsDD]

Oh my gawd!

[@nickallbritton3796]

Yessss a lot of potential to talk about resistance and liberation through music if it's something she cares about but I get the vibe she does

[@8Robba]

This is superb! I am so glad I joined :) I leave the discussion to others today ^^

[@nohbdy1122]

Before watching the video, I had already convinced myself of the idea that alien civilizations (and also our own) always destroy themselves either due to climate change or some other doomsday scenario, but you've really convinced me of the idea of homeostatic awakening! I'll try to be less of a doomer towards the future of humanity lol. As for what I think a civilization that has undergone homeostatic awakening should seek to maximize, I think the simplest answer is harmony with our natural environment, but that requires a lot of clarification. I think a civilization should try to maximize the happiness of its citizens while minimizing its energy and resource consumption, but beyond that I think we need to fundamentally reorient our relationship with our natural environment beyond just using less energy and resources. I think we need to not only "reduce" but also "reuse" and "recycle," as they say, in such a way that our entire economic system exists as a "circular economy."

[@cornellearl1871]

This is the first of your videos I've seen. I subscribe immediately. Can I say that I'm happy to hear someone as optimistic for the future as I am. You're awesome!

[@Milo-lr5qj]

so glad i found your channel, helps me widen my perspective on astronomy so much as I've been interested in it for quite some time

[@williammoore3279]

OR - for those who are Star Trek: TNG fans the episode "Where No One Has Gone Before" gave an explanation. When Riker asked the Traveler why they had never run into the Traveler's species, he replied (paraphrasing from memory) "up until this point, you all have never been interesting enough for us to approach". We tend to think of ourselves collectively as a species the center of the universe when we might just be boring clods and the universe is filled with so many interesting things to be explored, we're just not worth the time.

[@Baptized_in_Fire.]

Plus we're dangerous apex predators that like to kill stuff

[@williammoore3279]

@@Baptized_in_Fire. Well written. We're definitely dangerous big fish in our itty-bitty pond - but avoidance is probably the logical choice.

[@jedinightstalker]

Hey Fatima, just wanted you to know that Carl Sagan and the algorithm brought me here. That’s good company to be in👍🏻

[@l0_0l]

finished remembrance of earth’s past a few days ago-and restarting the truth of the divine-and still ruminating on fermi’s paradox so this feels kismet for me.

[@eshna2012]

I look forward to your videos - thank you for working so hard on them

[@dinau8901]

Wow! Love this video! I can't wait to see the rest of your videos and what you do next

[@rulercamelot3687]

I like to think that people that ask "Where are the aliens?" In an attempt to discredit the existence of aliens, only view the universe as our immediate surroundings in our galaxy, and maybe a few near us. But like, if say only 1% of galaxies had just one planet with life, that's still a stupidly large amount of aliens. I feel like a lot of people just don't grasp the actual size of the universe.

[@joeshadows]

My issue with the "dark forest" theory has always basically been a variation of the "how do Klingons have warp drives" problem: considering the amount of collective effort that would presumably be necessary for developing interstellar travel technology, and the number of civilization-ending technologies that would be available to great-filter themselves along the way, any species that is able to reach that level of technology would presumably have to have stronger instincts for cooperation than existential competition. I love the homeostasis theory, which I think also incorporates something that scifi authors and many regular people never seem to accept: space is really big and really hard, actually, and there might be no feasible technology that makes it easy and fast (or even possible, if staying within the confines of homeostasis).

[@drkenata5807]

This argument makes a couple of big assumptions. Firstly, that an apex predator civilization would lack an internal collectiveness. Imagine space ants. Secondly, that all of an alien species would need to be an apex predator civilization. Imagine Space East India Company.

[@sdcbhtdsvbqweettfcvh]

The dark forest theory is particularly stupid because every tree is lit by a giant nuclear flood lamp 24/7 for billions of years. You can't hide in space, exactly because everything uninteresting is so dark. It's missing the trees for the forest. As for homeostasis, that doesn't apply as long as life isn't inhabiting free real estate. It wants to go wherever it can survive, no empire building required. As long as there's empty space to survive that isn't being used, the universe can't do the static part of homeostasis. There's not going to be a random dead spot in the middle of a field unless that spot's been made actively uninhabitable, the grass and wildflowers and mice and bees want to grow there. As for space travel, stars get within one light year of each other every 10 million years, and 250 million yeas gets you an orbit of the milky way and enough time to fully inhabit the milky way 52 times over. As long as an ecosystem can make that hop every 10 million years the fermi paradox is still very much in effect.

[@ajbiffl4695]

That's a super cool idea. If you're not going to play nice, you've probably already killed yourself off. I'm sort of in doubt that that sort of filter is complete enough though - whether some just might happen to survive, or even if existential competition might motivate them to develop those technologies in a sort of arms race to escape their planet. That said, though, you make some great points - if Earth is anything to go by, it's a lot easier to build bombs than starships.

[@johnnytacos5529]

That's fun to think about, civilizations that decide the cost of answering the questions of the cosmos was too great to risk. For lack of a better term, it would be pretty galaxy brain to be intelligent enough to stop asking questions and be happy with what you know

[@Thed538dhsk]

I disagree. Much like with Klingons, the tech can still be developed but they are busy fighting some space war and hiding. If even some violent aliens did exist why would they want to be detected? So if Klingons did have warp drives likely they would have their shields up until they reach a new alien they can conquer and then hide what they conquered. Even Klingons have cloaking tech

[@jforozco12]

This was a great video, loved hearing about all the different theories, hope theres more like this in the future!

[@blixer8384]

I like the telegraph explanation of the Fermi paradox. We’re trying to communicate with aliens using technology they don’t use.

[@AndrewKieran]

This reminds me of a comic of two ants on a kitchen floor discussing how the lack of alien pheromone trails is definitive proof of a lack of intelligent life in this region of the house

[@satorified1612]

Don't tell SETI that. It implies they're irrelevant.

[@Milo-lr5qj]

I love the way you phrase things! Also the way your videos are structured is great! Best way to spend my breakfast

[@xNEBUKADNEZARx]

Great Video! And thanks putting Al Massrieen on my radar

[@jonathan99399]

Wow! I didn’t expect to love this as much as I do. SUBSCRIBED!!!!

[@nguyentuition1092]

Girl you literally got a tear out of me with that "you be good" shit 😭

[@nerfornada-]

This was such a great breakdown im so happy the algorithm brought back your videos to my feed after my yt hiatus

[@clementineshetheyfae8312]

A truly believe that it is as simple as this: There is is life because it only happening to us or being the first seems incredibly unlikely and we haven’t contacted anyone else because space is big. That’s it. Space is just really big

[@christopher8530]

Yeah, other life in the universe most likely just exists in galaxies far far away from us, we're unlikely to ever confirm their existence ourselves.

[@NEENOB]

It is improbable for us to have contact with an alien race because all the galaxies in the universe are racing away from each other, and this acceleration is being propelled by dark energy. Eventually, a trillion years from now, the observable universe will be cold and dark.

[@angrydoggy9170]

@@NEENOBAny aliens capable of observing us would most likely shy away because we are acting like a bunch of wankers. I’m not putting my hand in a pit of vipers.

[@lorenrealname1326]

@@NEENOB If some pocket of life wanted to round up the nearby galaxies to they could master their gardening late into the cosmic night, it seems plausible they could... and I'm not sure I'd consider it necessarily expansionist. You're all obviously right though, even noisy expansionist life seems rare. My money's on the moon. Having a huge collision that forms a two-body system is a weird thing, isn't it?

[@Just_some_guy_1]

Life? Almost guaranteed. Intelligent life though? We might be the only ones.

[@teh_vasraf2445]

All I could think about during your video was the kids' book "Le petit Prince". It is a story that often gets me all teary. Once we were all like the little prince. Curious to discover the world, unable to understand the fixations of grownups to do (seemingly) pointless and Sisyphean tasks just because they are "what one does". As somebody that wishes to work in education, it deeply pains me how we infest children's imaginative brains with our "reasonable" world.

[@blueclevername4900]

Isnt doing "what one does" simply teaching them to live harmoniously in their society and helping them achieve enough success to end up ultimately happier than the alternative? most people who just do what they want may have more short term happiness but do not achieve lasting success. What would be an example of happy and healthy adults whos minds were not infested with our "reasonable" world as children?

[@changsangma1915]

​​@@blueclevername4900......you go take a good look around you and come back what would you really see anything "reasonable" to begin with. If you can't see a cacophony of rat race where only the few get the cheese and the rest to fight over tiny slice of offers....my dear you are not mentally there yet to see where your naiveness is. It doesn't take a load of brain cell to deduce your cliche of success is determined by the digits of a bank account.

[@velvethunder]

i have to say; i love the format of your videos. i love how you foster conversation and further education. Like, this IS how it should work -the video maker should be in active dialogue with the viewers/commenters, and yet, this is not the approach that most utubers take. Most of the time it feels like a monologue that i, as a viewer/commenter, can only react to and NOT interact directly with or even participate in. thank you!

[@jakeharris3248]

Love every bit of your content I’ve seen so far , no doubt I’ll eventually catch up on your work and of course I smashed the subscribe button !!!!

[@scienceexplains302]

*Simpler Fermi Resolution* Advanced societies are so rare that they are likely very far away. Their radio signals (Fermi doesn’t require life to travel, just signals from it) would either 1) not overcome the speed of the expansion of the universe or 2) the signal degradation would render the signal as indistinguishable from random quasars or whatever, or a combination of the two.

[@FerociousPaul]

This was my first video of yours and not at all what I was expecting, but very thought provoking!

[@wiilover07]

Two possibilities exist. Either we're are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying. - Arthur C. Clark

[@nancercize]

This video made me weep. I've quite recently come to similar realizations of the urgency of achieving our full human potentiality, I suppose based on readings and videos (Nate Hagens and Daniel Schmachtenberger in particular), and the short story mentioned. That parrot quote has stayed with me ever since discovering it in the Arrival anthology. So beautiful and wistful. I hope we get there, but for sure not in my lifetime; maybe I'll live long enough to see us turn a corner, though. Discovering this notion in more than one place (and learning there is a name for it!) gives me hope. We contain multitudes. (Thank you, algorithm. Thank you, Fatima.)

[@JeffBurn-b1i]

My instincts and as I said to my little boy the other day coincidentally, is that hostile aliens would have arrived before we advanced way beyond musket rifles and wouldn't be likely that desperate for Earth's resources. By the way you i think you have a gift for teaching and could influence others who might not know their own ability 😊

[@coyoteblue4027]

I was literally waiting from the beginning for you to bring up the colonial mentalities underlying most solutions to the fermi paradox. Like I knew it had to be coming. I set a notification yesterday for this video's release, (joyfully)expecting this point. I've added it to my writing resources playlist for the scifi epic I'm doing my worldbuilding for. You've made my wednesday, basically, is what I'm saying.

[@thekage100]

Fascinating..never thought of it this way! Definately need to watch it, when it comes out ❤❤

[@shakeyhorse]

This was so thought provoking. Brilliant outline of the ideas and exceptional narration. You are an outstanding teacher

[@elpocakoca120]

This is exactly what I need.

[@alabamapilot244]

Here is what I think happens. Life is ubiquitous. Intelligent life is more rare, but fairly common. Biosignatues will be everywhere, but rarely if ever will anyone find technosignatures early on. Intelligence either kills itself otf or it analyzes itself until it assesses its own nature well enough to persist itself in other mediums. It moves to the spaces between the starrs where control and isolation are easiest, and its efficiency builds to the point where it is effectively extremely stealthy. They don't need to harvest great quantities of evergy or build megastructures. Sometimes the intelligences meet, but this is rare. They live in virtualization and watch the universe from deep within their dewars through cold, passively sensing eyes. They understand the nature of the game called "reality", and they persist as long as they choose to, silently, in the cold between the stars.

[@critical.intelligence]

This is the first time I’ve come across your content, and I was enthralled. I didn’t even know there was a leaning towards more decolonization-minded thought in academia, not in science, anyway. In so far as sociology and psychology, yes - but not on this scale that I’ve come to hear about, here. You’ve definitely got another subscriber!

[@H3rmon861]

My problem with every discussion we have about aliens is this underlying assumption that aliens basically will have the same path we humans have had. Like they all had a space middle age, a space modern era and some sort of space scifi where then they would be able to contact us. While I think it is definitely likely that there are others lifeforms with intelligence, we need to question how plausible it is their culture evolved in a somewhat human-like direction instead of going in a direction we are literally incapable of thinking because our anthropocentrism prevents us from doing so. I think it underline one major question about science and knowledge in general. Is there one big universal path of truth any species will fundamentally take no matter the culture or circumstances or is it something more fuzzy and nebulous? Personally, I’m more in the second camp but I can see why some ppl believe in the former

[@alistairshiels7654]

On one level I understand why humans have this bias to think of alien being "humans-plus-a-little-extra". Like in Doctor who where most of the aliens species are humanoids. It is our main point of reference for "intelligent life". But yeah, I don't understand people's lack of imagination (to put it bluntly) on how life may not exist as we know it, but it could take a different form! Even if it did look like ours, they'd probably have way different environments, tools, individual values than what our own are.

[@InforSpirit]

@@alistairshiels7654 Imagination is directly bind to energy and other resources. Doctor Who has humanoid aliens because you cannot produce tentacle miracles with tight weekly tv-production budget. Same reason why Daleks are rolling tin-cans (imagination from limitation). Same goes for every other old tv-scifi like Stargate. I bet there was some fun and quirky ideas on table, but those was just too expensive to realize. It's boils down to this: most people has no resources (cumulation of knowledge is one) to be imaginative in level of exploring infinite posibilities of Alien forms.

[@InforSpirit]

There is some parameters that will increase intelligent in evolutive process: You more likely are not aquatic creature: Because you cannot exercise chemistry in pool of water. Octopuses are clever, but there is no explosion of innovations. You have some accurate way to manipulate enviroment: Energy limitation is one reason why we have two arms. Four legs are first stable configuration for terrestial movement. You are more likely a hunter: Solar energy cumulation of hunted animal releases time to think non survival related things. Hunter of animals, seeds, fruits, etc. Model and pattern seeking, perdiction cognition. You are more likely social creature: You need bigger and accurate cognitive models to regognise fellow kids, partners and remember those. I think there is no universal tech tree. In mountain terrain there is no point to invent a wheel carirage, and this happened in here earth. if there is no beast of burden, then you won't slave those for your benefit and pull that carriage. Many starting parameters, highly chaotic.

[@friend_trilobot]

This is very close to what I believe, only I think the drive to create what we would call "technology" ( advanced tool making) is not something an intelligent lifeform is likely to automatically do. Even if they do it to survive, there may be no need for that technology to become more complex after a certain point. But i think if a species did do that they would resemble us in some way. Probably not in a way we would imagine though. But I think people under-estimate how much humans can do what they do for reasons beyond generic intelligence levels, a lot is likely up to chance or highly specific psychology. We are not, however, the end goal of evolution, evolution has no goal. And humans are specialized in a weird way - its a successful strategy for survival but not one most species are likely to reach without specific driving forces. And then it will only be the creature, if they are self aware, who will recognize that they are so successful, not nature itself. Nature isn't taking notes and isn't going to apply what they learned from us to another species bc it worked so effectively. It has to occur randomly each time.

[@ChristianDoretti]

Just like fish, birds and humans have eyes and breathing mechanisms. There could be converged evolution, if we discover bacteria in other bodies in this solar system, that means is it more than likely any type of life could arise in this galaxy, let alone the universe

[@grief_hammer]

OK here's my solution. The Mundanity spectrum and the Fermi paradox: Any beings sufficiently advanced enough to be able to locate and communicate with intelligent life on other worlds eventually become bored with the myriad near-identical alien cultures they encounter. This includes us. These hypothetcial advanced beings would be about as interested in studying us, as I am in studying the slugs in the garden. The true filter here is: how far along the fascinated - bored timeline do they discover us. Given that the 'fascinated' portion is finite, and the 'bored' portion thereafter spans eternity, it is inherently more likely that all alien intelligences are already aware of Humans. And aren't particularly interested.

[@annodomini2012]

Maybe aliens are already here and among us, but we aren’t advanced enough yet to notice

[@grief_hammer]

@@annodomini2012 impossible to rule out as a possibility, SOME planet has to be discovered by alien intelligences still in the FASCINATED phase of exploration. The odds are against it, though.

[@gorimbaud]

this is pretty much where i've always come down. even if other life is sufficiently advanced to know about everything in the universe, there's nothing necessarily special about us that would make them want to come down here.

[@caileancampbell7498]

First time viewer here. In reference to the Fermi Paradox, I am firmly in the camp of Time and Distance. Assuming that the nearest planet conducive to life, has life, and assuming that that life life is intelligent, to further the assumptions, advanced intelligence, it is hundreds of light years away. So assuming that they sent a signal when they started exploring their solar system, we would not have received that signal yet. To further that assumption, what's to say that since they didn't hear back from us, they thought we didn't exist? Yeah, I know, a lot assumptions in there.

[@jointhearumanati8574]

I like the Zoo Hypothesis i like the thought of Aliens eating snacks laughing and calling us silly humans like they're watching a soap opera making documentaries and temporarily taking humans for science and putting them back safely

[@Goji938]

Wasn’t at all prepared for the final words of the video and that shit got me crying in the walk-in cooler at my job

[@goncalomoura8156]

Came here from the allien’s side of things… But you gave us so much more!!!! Yeah, along the away you admited that you see your self more as a phylosopher than as astrophysicist, but still, It was so surprising to see someone presenting herself as a scientist delving so deep into what really pushes us as a civilization into some directions, touching on so many so deep and fundamentally important and decisive matters and goals. Colective and individual! Thank you! That was beautifull. It is essential for the world that people like you and with your ability to think and communicate exist and have the courage to come forward! Again! Thank you! Like and subscribe!!!!

[@JoshsBookishVoyage]

Great discussion! In terms of why we haven't been contacted, I think it can easily be explained with the rare earth hypothesis and the vastness of space. The most liberal limit on when evidence of our intelligence was emitted to space (i.e., radio, tv, etc.) might be put at 1900. Assuming they are looking and see our signal, that puts the limit to who could see us within 125 ly. A return signal or trip would be limited to ~65 ly. That is not that large of a space. How many worlds exist within it, and would even the most liberal estimates of the drake equation expect there to be another form of advanced life? The lack of observations by us is harder to explain IMO. That said, there is context we can give by asking 1) how many suns have we searched for signs of advanced civilizations (e.g., dyson sphere), and 2) how many of those are *known* to be habitable? We should be able to see how our limited observations fit into the larger Drake equation predictions as an assumed random sampling of possible worlds. Are our observations abundant enough to feasibly assume signs of intelligent life would show up in our most liberal estimates of the Drake equation? To answer my own question, a new paper (out just this month, Suazo et al 2024) studied 5 million stars in our galaxy for dyson spheres. It found 7 candidates. Given the high estimate of Drake equation at 15 million, plus the 200 billion stars in our galaxy, thats a 7.5 10^-5 probability of a star hosting advanced life. That P * 5 million, gives 375. thats about 50 times higher than the number of candidates. I know this kind of analysis can only say so much, but I think it at least establishes that our current findings are simply not enough to say there aren't other advanced civilizations. Matías Suazo, Erik Zackrisson, Priyatam K Mahto, Fabian Lundell, Carl Nettelblad, Andreas J Korn, Jason T Wright, Suman Majumdar, Project Hephaistos - II. Dyson sphere candidates from Gaia DR3, 2MASS, and WISE, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 531, Issue 1, June 2024, Pages 695-707