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UFOs have been in the news a lot recently. This is not the first time this has happened — the period immediately after World War II featured quite a bit of excitement about UFOs with some describing it as full on “mania”. But while this is not the first time UFOs have been in the news it is probably the first time reported sightings have been treated so sympathetically. The Washington Post recently announced, “UFOs exist and everyone needs to adjust to that fact”, and Vox.com declared “It’s time to take UFOs seriously. Seriously.”
Of course, the existence of UFOs does not necessarily imply the existence of aliens, but that’s the connection everyone wants to make. In many respects this is a hopeful connection. It would mean that we’re not alone. As it becomes increasingly obvious how badly humanity bungled 2020, the idea that there are superior beings out there is no longer a source of dread but of comfort.
I’m very doubtful that the UFOs are aliens. First for reasons of natural skepticism, second, it isn’t too difficult to find reasonable, mundane explanations for the videos and finally for many subtle reasons I don’t have time to get into, but which boil down to the suspiciously convenient timing of the craft’s discovery and their all too human behavior. They’re not alien enough.
Accordingly, I would contend that the videos are probably not evidence of aliens. They don’t answer the question of whether we’re alone or not. But that doesn’t mean the question is not tremendously important. But if the videos don’t answer the question is there some other way of approaching it?
In 1950, during the last big UFO mania, Enrico Fermi decided to approach it using the Copernican Principle. Copernicus showed that the Earth is not the center of the universe. That our position is not special. Later astronomers built on this and showed that nothing about the Earth is special. That it’s an average planet, orbiting an average star in an average galaxy. Fermi assumed this also applies to intelligent life. If the Earth is also average in this respect then there should not only be other intelligent life in the universe, i.e. aliens, but some of these aliens should be vastly more advanced than we are. The fact that we haven’t encountered any such aliens presents a paradox, Fermi’s Paradox.
In the decades since Fermi first formulated the paradox it has only become more paradoxical. We now know that practically all stars have planets. That there are billions of earthlike planets in our galaxy, some of which are billions of years older than Earth. And that life can survive even very extreme conditions. So why haven’t we encountered other intelligent life? Numerous explanations have been suggested, from a Star Trek-like Prime Directive which prevents aliens from contacting us, to the idea that advanced aliens never leave their planet because they can create perfect virtual worlds.
Out of all of the many potential explanations, Robin Hanson, a polymath professor at George Mason University, noticed that many could be boiled down to something which prevents the development of intelligent life or which prevents it from surviving long enough to be noticable. He lumped all these together under the heading of Great Filter. One possibility for this filter is that intelligent life inevitably destroys itself. Certainly when we gaze at the modern world this idea doesn’t seem far-fetched.
Accordingly, Fermi’s Paradox has profound eschatological implications — ramifications for the final destiny of humanity. If the Great Filter is ahead of us, then our doom approaches, sometime between now and when we develop the technology to make our presence known to the rest of the galaxy. In other words, soon. On the other hand, if the Great Filter is behind us then we are alone, but also incredibly special and unique. The only intelligent life in the galaxy and possibly beyond.
Consequently, whatever your own opinions on the recent videos, they touch on one of the most profound questions we face: does humanity have a future? Because when we look up into the night sky at its countless stars we’re seeing that future, in the billions of Earths far older than our own. And as long as they’re silent, then, after a brief moment of light and civilization, our own future is likely to be just as silent.
I think some people would like it if I were silent, but if you’re reading this I assume you’re not one of them. If your feelings go beyond that and you actually like what I say, consider donating.
My thinking on the paradox is:
1. It is a lot harder to move off planet than people think (Common Sense Skeptic has a series of Elon Musk skeptical videos but they apply to the general theme. For example, just look at the videos on feeding a Martian colony and even simple ideas like bringing chickens there to raise https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgKWj1pn3_7hRSFIypunYog).
2. Serious offworld colonization will take a long time and will require essentially expanding our microbiome beyond the home world. Even something as simple as dirt is more complicated than most of us realize. Matt Damon’s poo potatos are not going to cut it.
3. As we observed in the last two posts, our individual energy consumption requirements level off and even trend downwards after we hit a satiation point. We didn’t discuss this there but if you straight line even modest energy growth, you get an absurd result such as each person consuming the equilivant of a massive nuclear reactor’s worth of energy every day which would generate so much waste heat that the planet’s surface would melt. That would push life into space colonization but as energy consumption levels off that need is cut down a lot.
4. I wouldn’t say a retreat into a virtual world is what happens. I would say production shifts from increasing energy consumption to sustainability. The analogy here would be food. Starving people might imagine a paradise of feasting every day. Well today in the US many people can eat all day long if they wanted but we don’t. We try to balance eating’s benefits against the harm from overeating. Sustainable production, though, decreases energy demand and impact on the environment. It cuts against the push to expand offworld. Your cell phone is smaller and takes less power than your desktop computer from 20 years ago. AND it let’s you discover more stuff than your desktop did….for example tracking your steps every day.
I think then the ‘great filter’ is probably more like a ‘great mellowing’. Civilizations take a really extended time even just filling up their solar system. If they leave their home star, they take an even longer time filling up whatever their next star is. The cost of going there is super high and the incentive to do so is usually super low.
I think all of those points are fairly reasonable, but none overcome the “What about Van Neumann Probes?!?” objection.
Whose to say a half billion van Neumann probes the size of an iPhone haven’t already blown through our solar system?
I think another way of phrasing this is will a mellow civilization not have curiousity and if curiousity is larger than their comfort level (and they are very good at maintaining comfort), wouldn’t that break them out of their funk and get them off the couch?
But it’s pretty easy to scratch the curiousity itch with a pretty passive effort. Massive telescopes can give you a lot of information very fast. Probes, well you gotta wait a really long time.
But wouldn’t contact with another intelligence be a really, really big curiousity? I think so but here’s the thing, if going from star to star is a really, really slow event and the natural equilibrium of advanced societies is towards sustainability rather than increased energy use, then the odds are the first intelligent aliens you detect will not be the next star over but hundreds to thousands of light years away. If you already have been too 99.9% of the stars in the galaxy, no problem just add that star to the list. If you’re hoping one star to the next taking a few million year breaks inbetween each, a jump of hundreds of light years is probably going to be out of your ability. Imagine there was no Americas and Columbus really had a clear path to China, but twice as much ocean. He’d likely be dead.