james_nicoll ([info]james_nicoll) wrote,
@ 2008-05-16 12:09:00
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Since I indirectly referred to it
Charlie's Diary discusses recent speculations about the Fermi Paradox, including Milan M. Ćirković's idea that advanced civilizations might be inward-focused city-states (Like Singapore) rather than ruthlessly expansionistic empires (like China).

Whatever the Hypotheticals are/were like, it doesn't seem to have involved exploiting Earth in any way that we recognize. This could be because using planets (especially ones with native biology) is a mug's game or because they never got to our stellar system but it could also be because the Earth is an active planet and if the Hypotheticals showed up two or three billion years ago, all of the evidence might have been subducted into oblivion.

I wouldn't advocate funding purely SETI-focused planetary science but at the same time it might be an idea to keep an eye out for evidence of ETI on bodies in the solar system that have remained relatively unchanged over long periods of time that are at the same time interesting objects someone or something else might once have looked at.

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[info]carloshasanax
2008-05-16 04:50 pm UTC (link)
Cirkovic's paper reminds me that these sorts of speculations are usually more about the writer than about the future. I don't mean this as a sneer. Just as military strategists plan for the last war, and economists see the world in terms of their case studies, futurists see the world through the prism of their recent experiences.

So. This guy Cirkovic is still in Belgrade, writing "Against The Empire" as an explanation for the Fermi paradox? This tells me that educated Serbs are still in hunker-down mode, the same way that Bostrom's speculations tell me that Sweden still produces mystics.

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[info]autopope
2008-05-16 05:52 pm UTC (link)
You're completely correct here. But I felt the need to highlight it because it demonstrates very clearly the the space cadet galactic-empire fantasy that provides a subtext for so much discussion of SETI and the Fermi paradox elsewhere, at least in the English-speaking world, is itself rooted in the proponents' cultural background. Just as educated Serbs are in hunker-down mode, so too (it seems to me) are educated Americans in manifest-destiny/final-frontier mode -- and this influences their prognostications significantly.

Edited at 2008-05-16 05:53 pm UTC

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[info]carloshasanax
2008-05-16 06:05 pm UTC (link)
The educated Americans who respond to your blog. There's a strong selection effect, you know. (Wasn't your space cadet article linked to by the far-right technology activist Glenn Reynolds? The prototype warblogger, now in deep decline.)

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[info]carloshasanax
2008-05-16 06:23 pm UTC (link)
Keep in mind, the audience for science fiction with the trappings of scientific rigor has shifted to be significantly older and far more politically to the right than the American norm.

(And, as I've mentioned before, this is *very* odd since the number of Americans who can be classified as scientists has exploded in the past few decades, and whose political views on the whole tend to be similar to those of European social democrats.)

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[info]autopope
2008-05-16 06:34 pm UTC (link)
Mmm, all true. I suspect it might be a side-effect of the aerospace-engineering-is-the-road-to-the-future crowd being replaced by the biotech/infotech/other stuff folks -- somewhat inevitable since aerospace ran into a developmental brick (or sponge) wall around 1970, and had in any case drawn much of its funding from the military sector, but ... yes, I really need to get a different crowd of blog responders, damn it!

(Why are the wingnuts all over my blog? Seriously, I want to know ...)

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[info]james_nicoll
2008-05-16 06:38 pm UTC (link)
Short version: because you tolerate them.

Blogs have to steer a path between the Lewis of letting even willfully destructive people have their say and the Martin of turning off comments entirely.

(Names selected at random because I overuse Scylla and Charybdis)

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[info]carloshasanax
2008-05-16 07:26 pm UTC (link)
... dude, they're not at your blog out of good will. They're there because you let them. This isn't some mysterious new emergent phenomenon. They've been taking advantage of your good nature.

You want my advice? Put the metaphorical shotgun in their face. Choose the ones that will be the hardest for you to remove, emotionally. They're the enablers for the rest. Don't be afraid to ban people wholesale in the aftermath.

Now, if you know any way of getting an entirely different crowd of blog responders -- rather in the Brechtian sense of dissolving the people and electing another -- please let me know! because while I enjoyed the lawyers and ex-girlfriends who posted on my blog, I wanted to beat the socially maladroit fanboys senseless with a crowbar. Even more than I usually do.

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(no subject) - [info]j_larson, 2008-05-18 12:29 pm UTC (Expand)

[info]j_larson
2008-05-16 07:28 pm UTC (link)
Why are the wingnuts all over my blog?

Because you're a science fiction author. The whole fan community seems to skew sharply right-libertatrian.

A more interesting question, I think, is what you could do to drive them away. Can you do a passable Le Guin impression?

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(no subject) - [info]martin_wisse, 2008-05-16 07:39 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]heron61, 2008-05-17 06:32 am UTC (Expand)

[info]anzhalyumitethe
2008-05-16 09:53 pm UTC (link)
Ah, engineers.

They're so special in a special kind of way because of their specialty.

Wasn't there a study stating their mind-set predisposed them towards goofiness? Such as terrorism.

Also on CrapsAlot, ahem, /. a lawyer commented on the Reiser case stating lawyers hate engineers on juries not for their brains, but for their innate specialness that gives the the ability to apply "logic" without any inkling of common sense.

Yep, engineers. Gotta love em.

Note, most of my friends are engineers, computer geeks, or scientists. I vaguely fit into those categories, myself. Many of them are a little too...focused.

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(no subject) - [info]j_larson, 2008-05-16 11:00 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]anzhalyumitethe, 2008-05-16 11:22 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]j_larson, 2008-05-16 11:56 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]tsm_in_toronto, 2008-05-16 11:01 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]anzhalyumitethe, 2008-05-16 11:23 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]tsm_in_toronto, 2008-05-16 11:36 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]anzhalyumitethe, 2008-05-16 11:57 pm UTC (Expand)

(Deleted post)
(no subject) - [info]anzhalyumitethe, 2008-05-16 11:25 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]carloshasanax, 2008-05-16 11:37 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]carloshasanax, 2008-05-16 11:48 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]anzhalyumitethe, 2008-05-16 11:54 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]carloshasanax, 2008-05-16 11:25 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]kingwalters, 2008-05-17 01:34 am UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]armb, 2008-05-17 04:34 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2008-05-18 01:50 am UTC (Expand)

[info]mjlayman
2008-05-17 01:21 am UTC (link)
We like you!

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[info]nebogipfel
2008-05-17 10:48 am UTC (link)
Actually, on a normal day it is not that bad - just the usual suspect(s). Could be much worser,
like John Birminghams blog.

Andreas Morlok

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Seriously?
(Anonymous)
2008-05-17 08:49 pm UTC (link)

Because you let them be.

You are... let's say, too nice. You ban only for truly gross violations, you hardly ever stomp on commenters or use your position to speak _de haut en bas_, and you're generally polite and avoid offending people. This makes sense in a lot of different social contexts, but I'm not sure it's the best possible strategy in this one.

Note that this is never going to get better without someone taking action. Wingnuts create a wingnut-friendly environment, and they invite their friends to come play. The resulting drop in tone and signal-noise ratio is nonlinear in detail, but perfectly predictable in broad outline. And it doesn't get better unless someone breaks out the bug spray.

If you're uncomfortable swinging the hammer -- and there's nothing wrong with that -- consider picking a moderator. There are people (not me!)who'd volunteer, and people who would be good at it, and the two groups might overlap.

Possibly this solution would pain you more than just rolling your eyes and letting the status keep on with the quo. That's entirely up to you. It's your blog.

But really: I've been lurking on your blog on and off since very early days indeed, and they're there because you let them be. No offense. But it's not some strange weird thing.


Doug M.

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[info]carloshasanax
2008-05-17 10:03 pm UTC (link)
Let me use a cruder metaphor, since I know you're going to try to nice-nice your way out.

You keep on complaining about the clap, but you still sleep with the infected.

Learned helplessness is no way to go through life, Charlie.

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[info]heron61
2008-05-17 06:24 am UTC (link)
But I felt the need to highlight it because it demonstrates very clearly the the space cadet galactic-empire fantasy that provides a subtext for so much discussion of SETI and the Fermi paradox elsewhere, at least in the English-speaking world, is itself rooted in the proponents' cultural background.

Most definitely, I've had similar discussions of the Fermi Paradox many times, and the stronger proponents of the space cadet ideology all have remarkably similar political and social views that is also (unsurprisingly) one of the larger ideology & belief clusters found in hardcore US SF fandom.

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[info]mckitterick
2008-05-16 04:51 pm UTC (link)
I very much like your idea about examining un-eroded surfaces in our Solar System. Hm! Perhaps we'll find something as dramatic as Clarke's pyramid on the Moon, but just a footprint would be awe-inspiring.

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(Anonymous)
2008-05-16 05:03 pm UTC (link)
Essentially the argument is about the economic/social impacts of the lightspeed limit - the more sophisticated and technologically advanced a socity is the greater the advantages of being part of it,
- or at least being close enough to trade with it - are.

So basically the argument is simply that any society capable of building a starship in the first place is inherently so rich, and so desirable a place to live that noone rational* is willing to go spend the effort it would take to leave only to be wastly poorer and more bored elsewhere, unfettered access to a new solar systems raw materials being simply worth (wastly) less than access to the technological/industrial base of the home system.

The sky is full of babylons, ancient, vicked, and unmoving cities of light, night, and unimaginable delights ;)

hmm.. actually, even if establishing interstellar colonies is provably economic lunacy because moving more than a lightweek from the central stockexchanges bankrupts you... entire civilisations could potentially move.

*irrational hypotecticals can be written off as inevitable selfdestructors.

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(Anonymous)
2008-05-16 05:07 pm UTC (link)
also, if this is so - I would actually expect the solar system to be more or less littered with scientific surveillance gear... In working condition, or recently selfdestructed.

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[info]maruad
2008-05-16 05:12 pm UTC (link)
Could an advanced civilization learn to clean up after it self... no littering to preserve the primitives in their natural state?

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[info]james_nicoll
2008-05-16 05:16 pm UTC (link)
That assumes primitives finding relics is bad for some reason.

That also implies that either primitives are common, that the hypotheticals can predict where primitives will occur or that they are very fussy even when there's no real need for it.

What's more careful about their leavings: autotrophs, things that feed on autotrophs or things that feed on things that feed on autotrophs?

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[info]scentofviolets
2008-05-16 08:50 pm UTC (link)
If you don't know where it is, how easy would it be to detect Voyager I? After 10,000 years, would it be possible to find any traces of, say, Sojourner? Any sort of tracks, fragments of metal, that sort of thing. After 100,000 years, would the Mars Odyssey still be in orbit?

There seems to be this unconscious trope that alien artifacts would be immensely durable (or not-so-unconscious in fiction: How many thousands of stories are out with alien machinery still in perfect working condition and still functioning after 10^x years?) In fact, aliens would probably be just as materials-limited as Humans, the laws of physics being what they are. And even the 'ageless' footprints left on the Moon by visiting astronauts will be gone in a few million years.

So I don't think the concern for Green Aliens meticulously cleaning up after themselves is really warranted.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)(Expand)
(no subject) - [info]traviswells, 2008-05-17 06:20 am UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]autopope, 2008-05-17 09:05 am UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2008-05-17 05:45 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]scentofviolets, 2008-05-17 09:15 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]traviswells, 2008-05-17 07:31 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2008-05-18 02:51 pm UTC (Expand)
Interstellar Tor? - [info]fridgepunk, 2008-05-18 05:23 pm UTC (Expand)
Re: Interstellar Tor? - [info]james_nicoll, 2008-05-18 08:01 pm UTC (Expand)
Re: Interstellar Tor? - [info]james_nicoll, 2008-05-18 08:16 pm UTC (Expand)
Re: Interstellar Tor? - [info]mindstalk, 2008-05-19 08:44 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]mindstalk, 2008-05-19 08:43 pm UTC (Expand)

[info]tsm_in_toronto
2008-05-16 11:13 pm UTC (link)
What's more careful about their leavings: autotrophs, things that feed on autotrophs or things that feed on things that feed on autotrophs?

I'm not sure if that was a serious question, but I'll give a serious biology reply -- It's not things you eat (down to 'energy' for the autotrophs) to make your organic carbon, that decides whether you'll be persnickety about what sort of garbage you leave lying around. It's not the things you eat, it's the things that eat you.

This is why, for example, this time of year in southern Ontario you will see robin's egg's eggshells in places where they couldn't fall from nests -- all kinds of predators sniff around looking for the garbage left by potential prey, because it's a pretty good marker for where the predator will find the prey.

OTOH, traces of predators will repel prey, which is why predators tend to be selected, for not-leaving-traces of whatever kind their particular prey's umwelt [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umwelt] allows the prey to detect. This is why dogs like rolling around in putrid stuff -- it's so they won't smell so much like dogs when approaching prey with good noses.

And so on.

So: If Uber-Ur-Civilization X thought it had predatorish enemies (cf. Saberhangen's Berserkers), then it might actively conceal whatever those-who-hunt use to track it down. And if Uber-Ur-Civilization X was itself predatorial (I'm thinking Niven's Kzin here), then it might do what it could to avoid leaving traces of what its habitual prey used, to clue in to the fact the hunt is on.

Or something like that.

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[info]heron61
2008-05-17 06:37 am UTC (link)
So basically the argument is simply that any society capable of building a starship in the first place is inherently so rich, and so desirable a place to live that noone rational* is willing to go spend the effort it would take to leave only to be wastly poorer and more bored elsewhere, unfettered access to a new solar systems raw materials being simply worth (wastly) less than access to the technological/industrial base of the home system.

That makes a truly vast amount of sense and also goes along with the idea that as civilizations get sufficiently networked, no one is going to want to be out of fast communication range, which could end up being everything from 0.1 seconds to (at most) an hour or so.

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[info]stephenshevlin
2008-05-17 12:27 pm UTC (link)
I guess a good analogy for that is the global trend to move from rural areas to urban areas.

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[info]mindstalk
2008-05-19 08:22 pm UTC (link)
Except there's always individuals moving in the other direction, either temporarily or (intended, if not actual) permanently.

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[info]mindstalk
2008-05-19 08:20 pm UTC (link)
But then, people who want to stay in close would be willing to pay others more and more to go out and do something for them, whether exploration or gathering raw materials and energy. Assuming reasonable diversity of preferences -- which in humans include some people who actively want to get away from others, up to some limit of material discomfort -- then some people can be bribed to go do expansionist stuff. Factor in longevity by whatever means (so long-term payoffs make sense, for both parties) or artificial intelligence (so the stay-at-home can just *make* something to go off -- good old von Neumann probes or miners) and there's multiple paths for even a compacting civ to have expansionist impact.

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