![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Extraterrestrial Life and Radio Signals
May. 8th, 2007 06:37 pmSo I won't recap the whole "whee! a planet that's vaguely similar to Earth (possibly)" bit, except for how I just did. Anyway, there was somewhat of an argument about if there was life or not, both there and in general, and after a number of good points involving probability, someone brought up the Forge of God explanation: any other intelligent life out there has done the intelligent thing and stopped broadcasting, as broadcasting tells the rest of the universe "Hi! I'm here on a happy, livable world and am far below your level of development. Please come kill me."
I actually read the Forge of God (good idea, not really worth reading the whole book) and thought it was actually a really good point. I reread said really good point, which was phrased really well to say that other species are probably just not broadcasting, and realized it wasn't true.
Why? Because just above it had been a discussion about how there might not be signals because life existed but hadn't got to the point of broadcasting, or was broadcasting but the signals hadn't reacted us. Juxtapose the two, and you realize something.
We've had radio for about a hundred years before figuring out that other things could listen in, and I have no idea how much longer it would take before that awareness would reach the point we decide to stop broadcasting. Assuming other life figures this out in half that time (since I'm tired of the sci-fi cliche of aliens being slower to develop), and assuming they immediately cut off all broadcasts the next day, there are fifty years worth of radio broadcasts going out. Stopping present broadcasts is pretty pointless because the moment any broadcast is detected, the hypothetical death aliens will come and destroy the planet. There may be some advantage if you assume there's a limit to the number of planets that can be monitored - if the hypothetical alien's monitor system cycling through planets takes longer than fifty years to return to start, it's possible that they might miss it, but unless it takes them more than a hundred, odds are still in favor of them noticing, and if they're going to come destroy your civilization, you're better off developing a kickass military and/or spaceships to get to another planet before they arrive, rather than spending time shifting off radio and other broadcasts.
The only benefit to cutting broadcasts would be if the hypothetical listening aliens hadn't yet developed radio technology, or had but hadn't yet started monitoring stars, by the time your initial broadcasts got there.
This seems like it'd matter until you realize that those aliens would be significantly behind you in development. Not only would there be the gap between you, having figured out that other things would be listening, and them, who had just figured out to listen, but the huge signal delay means they'd have to be even further behind, since it'll take 20/300/7000 years to reach them. If they don't have radio monitoring by the time fifty years worth of radio signals have traveled god knows how many light years, your civilization's technology can kick their civilization's technology's ass.
Whether or not the model of aliens hunting down broadcasting civilizations is true, it wouldn't apply to any aliens stopping their broadcasts, because by the time you stop, a more developed alien species will still be able to kill you, and a less developed one would be so far behind they're probably not any danger. And this is all assuming that spaceships are even possible, which it may turn out they aren't, meaning the basic civilization-crushing premise isn't possible either.
In other words, no extraterrestrial civilization has a good motivation to stop broadcasting, so a lack of broadcasts probably does mean a lack of potential broadcasters.
That, or the other intelligent life is actually pretty stupid and couldn't come to this conclusion.
I actually read the Forge of God (good idea, not really worth reading the whole book) and thought it was actually a really good point. I reread said really good point, which was phrased really well to say that other species are probably just not broadcasting, and realized it wasn't true.
Why? Because just above it had been a discussion about how there might not be signals because life existed but hadn't got to the point of broadcasting, or was broadcasting but the signals hadn't reacted us. Juxtapose the two, and you realize something.
We've had radio for about a hundred years before figuring out that other things could listen in, and I have no idea how much longer it would take before that awareness would reach the point we decide to stop broadcasting. Assuming other life figures this out in half that time (since I'm tired of the sci-fi cliche of aliens being slower to develop), and assuming they immediately cut off all broadcasts the next day, there are fifty years worth of radio broadcasts going out. Stopping present broadcasts is pretty pointless because the moment any broadcast is detected, the hypothetical death aliens will come and destroy the planet. There may be some advantage if you assume there's a limit to the number of planets that can be monitored - if the hypothetical alien's monitor system cycling through planets takes longer than fifty years to return to start, it's possible that they might miss it, but unless it takes them more than a hundred, odds are still in favor of them noticing, and if they're going to come destroy your civilization, you're better off developing a kickass military and/or spaceships to get to another planet before they arrive, rather than spending time shifting off radio and other broadcasts.
The only benefit to cutting broadcasts would be if the hypothetical listening aliens hadn't yet developed radio technology, or had but hadn't yet started monitoring stars, by the time your initial broadcasts got there.
This seems like it'd matter until you realize that those aliens would be significantly behind you in development. Not only would there be the gap between you, having figured out that other things would be listening, and them, who had just figured out to listen, but the huge signal delay means they'd have to be even further behind, since it'll take 20/300/7000 years to reach them. If they don't have radio monitoring by the time fifty years worth of radio signals have traveled god knows how many light years, your civilization's technology can kick their civilization's technology's ass.
Whether or not the model of aliens hunting down broadcasting civilizations is true, it wouldn't apply to any aliens stopping their broadcasts, because by the time you stop, a more developed alien species will still be able to kill you, and a less developed one would be so far behind they're probably not any danger. And this is all assuming that spaceships are even possible, which it may turn out they aren't, meaning the basic civilization-crushing premise isn't possible either.
In other words, no extraterrestrial civilization has a good motivation to stop broadcasting, so a lack of broadcasts probably does mean a lack of potential broadcasters.
That, or the other intelligent life is actually pretty stupid and couldn't come to this conclusion.
