Alien status: OWNED

Hot take: There’s no such thing as the Fermi Paradox, the day I learned anything about radio emissions is the day that theory became bunk to me, the radio bubble surrounding earth is only 75-light-years wide, and the furthest signals are weak and undetectable even with sensitive equipment
The theory rests on the assumption that radio is a universal technology and not a short-lived transitional technology, most of this planet already communicates primarily thru microwaves and fiber optics, even if radio is a common “transitional” technology the magnitudes of time implied in trying to find it at the right time in space makes detection nearly impossible
At a certain distance we can’t distinguish between natural and artificial radio signals, the debates over the WOW! Signal and BLC1 show even if you detect “something” it doesn’t mean much to the wider scientific community
We JUST started looking for techno-signatures in an organized fashion during the last four years, and even that method suffers from similar problems to the radio method (debate over Taby’s Star for instance)
We’re a blind, deaf person in the middle of the woods who occasionally whispers Marco Polo every ten years and then wonders where everyone is
- Also thinking that civilization has to conform to human norms. Besides there could be hundreds of alien biospheres relatively close, yet a xeno tree or xeno fish can’t really send back a signal now, could it?
- I think the Fermi paradox is anthropomorphic.
  There’s an assumption built into it that “civilization” is the end point of life, the “highest” or “most advanced” form of life. But biology doesn’t work that way.
  I’m absolutely certain that the universe is filled with organic chemistry and life but the idea that civilization is inevitable or stable seems anthropomorphic. Civilization has barely existed on earth for 5 or 10 thousand years, and it has only been doing stuff that would be detectable from far away for maybe 1 or 2 centuries.
  From a sample size or 1 we can already see that is an uncommon state for life to exist in, and it already seems like an unstable niche to occupy.
  Life has existed on earth for what 4 billion years, complex life for 500 to 1000 million, and civilization for 10,000 at most. There’s every reason to suppose that life is inevitable when the planet permits that kind of chemistry but practically no basis to assume civilization is inevitable when life exists.
  
  Doesn’t detract from your point, but I think you’re meaning “anthropocentric” lol.
- Yeah, the whole thing assumes that the aliens would be using a communications technology that:
  we can actually detect it with our current technology.
  would still be identifiable as communications by completely different alien species.
  wouldn't just become a garbled mess by the time it reaches its destination.
  We've had radio technology for about a century, vs the 10,000 years or so of human societies existing. Even as recently as 200 years ago, we'd probably be expecting the aliens to show up on horseback with a handwritten missive to be read to us. We make a lot of assumptions that they would use radio waves to communicate, and would beam radio waves at us, when we could very well be using technology that these aliens abandoned for more advanced communications technology centuries or even millennia ago.
- Yeah, my position as a biologist is that, from everything we know, it looks like proto-life started pretty much as soon as conditions on earth made it possible. The chance that there's no other life in the universe is pretty much just the chance that there are no planets substantially similar to earth (gravity not too crazy, has liquid water, atmosphere, magnetosphere etc) and that's obviously bunk.

I think people underestimate just how much resources would be required even for our own planet to be fully space faring.
The fuel for our current ships, for example, is in short supply. There is only so much rocket fuel on Earth and each time we send something up requires a LOT. Remember that next time Tesla sends some burger or CEO to space for a PR stunt.
People treat technology and science like it's some magic thing that will keep getting more advanced to the point it can do any magical thing. But sometimes the answer science gives you is "there is literally not enough matter and energy on our planet to ever do this." But of course we have these weird infinite growth brainwarms that see technology like a progression line in a video game instead of the result of observing and studying the material world.
- Don’t listen to this alien propaganda
  
  The absolute idiot. If we don't have enough matter, we will simply create more
  
  Aliens pay me good money to post here you better not fuck up my gig.
- Bitcoin fixes this.
  
  Fuck I forgot to consider doge
  
  Only to the moon though.
- People treat technology and science like it's some magic thing that will keep getting more advanced to the point it can do any magical thing. But sometimes the answer science gives you is "there is literally not enough matter and energy on our planet to ever do this."
  I blame the Civilization games
  Liberal capitalism too, but also the Civilization games
  Incidentally, this is one thing I love about Shadow Empire. It's a 4X game that takes place on a randomly generated planet, all resource deposits are finite, and you have to tailor your economic and military strategy to the planetary conditions and resources available. If the planet's a lifeless rock, it won't have any oil reserves, so your motorized and mechanized forces will have to rely on biodiesel or electric engines. No atmosphere but lots of rare earth metals? Get your power from solar panels. Bone-dry desert world? You will fight all-out wars for an underground lake.
  
  This mindset existed long before Civ though.
- A space elevator would fix this.
  
  Imagine getting in the spave elevator and some jerk presses all the buttons 😩😡
  
  What do you mean? Is there even enough steel on earth to build something that tall? How would such a structure be possible when we can't even keep our ground level structures properly maintained?
- Me if they send me to space
- Hydro-LOx (read: water) is one of the most efficient conventional fuels, and it's in use in NASA's Space Launch System powering the Artemis program.
  Even if you assume somehow all the fresh water has disappeared, there's still solar-powered electrolysis to create hydrolox from sea water.
  
  Even if you assume somehow all the fresh water has disappeared
  https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170412-is-the-world-running-out-of-fresh-water
  there's still solar-powered electrolysis to create hydrolox from sea water.
  Hasen't that been abandoned for being too expensive/resource consuming?
- China’s single thorium reactor will take us there
- Yeah you're doing the spaceflight equivalent of the great horse manure crisis. Earth-to-space technology begins with rockets.
  
  What else would possibly produce enough energy? Some imaginary technology we haven't made yet? Something that defies the laws of matter and energy? We just assume we will find or create something before that fuel runs out, even though there isn't a solid reason for us to make these assumptions other that "Sci-fi movies told me so."
  Expecting something that we have no reason to assume exists to save us isn't any different from believing in the second coming.
- There are more resources in the solar system though
  
  How do you extract them? How much energy would you be expending by extracting them?

Humiliating. Yet another massive W for Earth, the best planet in the universe.
- I bet their planet doesnt even have beans
  How will aliens ever recover
- The moment I found out that other planets, even with moons, don't have proper total solar eclipses I felt very privileged to be an Earthling.
- PLA-NET EARTH
  PLA-NET EARTH

This doesn't mean there isn't life there, they basically just detected fart gas, at no point were they suggesting intelligent life
- That's true, but even if it's xeno algae farting, the fact it's a measly 124 light years away basically confirms the Universe is teeming with life
  Which gives us an incredibly high numerical value for the f1 factor of the Drake Equation, which then gives us a foundation for the next factor which deals with intelligence emerging
  The distance is the most interesting potential aspect of this discovery
- I think this is an important point that gets glossed over. Alien life does inlcude stuff such as micro organisms and that is mostly what its going to be when talking about life . Folks just think of stuff like highly advanced civilizations.

This is something I've been thinking about. My gut feeling is that life or some life equivalent has independently evolved near countless times, but the whole "why have we not detected signs of some advance alien civilization yet" paradox is explained by memes like these. Just because you have life and even intelligent life doesn't mean they would be starfaring. People focus on stuff like the habitable zone, but what about the conditions needed for natural furnaces to form or conditions needed to build an artificial furnace? My guess is that a planet that could support a furnace would need:
Oxygen. Combustion is needed for oxygen.
Organic substance as fuel. This could be in the form of hydrocarbons or things like wood.
Dry land. This is to actually build the furnace. Plus, it's a lot harder to ignite wet things.
Not being cold as fuck. I guess I'm just listing the fire triangle at this point lol
From here, it would then come down to whether the planet has anything worth putting into the furnace to smelt.

Doesn't the Fermi "Paradox" involve plugging in a lot of purely vibes-based values into the Drake Equation?
- I thought it was essentially: the universe is really fucking big so there must be life, so why haven't we seen it yet?
  
  I think the answer is "The universe is really fucking huge and we haven't explored even a fraction of it yet." And "Alien animals do not want to make themselves known or are incapable of making themselves known." Some alien species that resembles a microscopic sessile sponge colony isn't going to be obvious to us, for example.
  
  BECAUSE the universe is really fucking big.
- Yes. I can't find the original lecture, but here are the lecture notes and the paper that makes the argument that the Drake Equation isn't necessarily a great argument for or against alien civilizations.
  Not only are the assumptions in the Drake equation vibes, but if you tune them to get answers that (a) we are alone in the entire galaxy or (b) we are alone in the entire visible universe. There is also the assumptions that we could easily detect a signal for aliens. There's also a compelling argument that we simply do not have enough information to clamp down on the parameters.
- It really wasn't his best work, his discovery of the number of piano tuners in Chicago was much better.
- The Drake equation works exactly because there are many parameters. If you are off on one or all of the values, in most likelihood, the errors cancel out and you have a reasonable estimate for the odds of alien life. At least that’s the idea.
  
  Except they are already vibes based so there is no reason to think the initial approximation is accurate. They could all be massive overestimates. There is no reason they need to regress to the mean.

The implication is that they can't explore the universe because the gravitational pull of their planet is to big to escape?
- We managed to escape our gravity well with technology from the 20th century.
  K2-18bians could be at our technological level and still not escape their gravity well. I think a planet twice as big as ours would require rockets as heavy as the pyramids of Giza just to reach orbit, never-mind exiting their planet's orbit into deeper space.
  
  wiki it says the gravity is 12.43 m/s2
  Apparently much less dense
  
  Yeah if Earth’s gravity is 9.8 m/s², I think that would mean a planet twice the mass would have a gravity of ~96m/s². Correct me if I’m wrong physicist hexbears.
  Edit: upon cursory reading it seems much more complicated than this. Basically the force needed to leave the gravitational pull doesn’t necessarily directly correlate to the gravity exerted by the object, size and distance are involved too
  
  I think a planet twice as big as ours would require rockets as heavy as the pyramids of Giza just to reach orbit, never-mind exiting their planet's orbit into deeper space.
  Aw hell, this is how we get Stargates
- it's gravity, yes, but also that this is almost definitely an ocean planet with no land. Good luck developing metallurgy underwater, to say nothing of fossil fuels etc
  
  Super soaker spaceship
  
  But also if it's an ocean planet and doesn't have a dense iron core, it's gravity won't necessarily be greater than the Earth's
  
  Its likely a hycean world, so closer to neptune than a really really deep ocean world.

The meme makes a great point actually. Though I feel it should also be pointed out that there would be many small planets, earth size and smaller, that we struggle to detect. Our detection method works by measuring the dip in starlight as a planet eclipses the star, and it is much easier to detect a large planet with a short orbit. This one orbits in about 30 days, so lots of transits.

What if they just build a really big staircase
- I think Led Zeppelin tried this back in the 70s

thick atmosphere makes spaceplanes easy
- You play KSP too?
- Relevant xkcd

Why leave a perfect planet when you can create remote devices to explore the cosmos for you and do more important things like summon the
aww day and such and spend the time thinking of how you will avoid things like the death of your star, heat death of the universe and other 'threats'.

Serious question: Can some science person here give me the more realistic answer on the possibility of life on K2-18b? Because the media always assumes the coolest possibility.
- The paper says it has a 3 sigma chance of life given the compounds assuming their methodology is good, scientific proof requires 5 sigma. Its a difference between 99.7% accuracy and near 100% accuracy, kind of important though when we're talking about shit we have no clue about and can't observe by conventional means.
  It should be noted that the majority of the citations on the paper are the same guy citing himself. I'd take it with a grain of salt until other people can corroborate it. Most other papers say the planet is a hot, small mini-Neptune gas planet with rings probably, maybe a warm enough atmosphere for life. The compounds measured are basically related to farts and decaying plant matter in a hot environment, should smell like mexican food a bit. In a comparison, the planet should have about 20-1000x more plant-fart compounds than we do, some people argue this is evidence of early algal/bacterial growth like on earth's oceans.
  If the other papers are right about the pressure of the atmosphere the water on the planet would behave quite differently than here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercritical_fluid
  
  what is a sigma
- There's a strong clue but it will take more investigation before we know one way or the other.
  It could be decades before we are fully confident in either direction (could be less than that), but it's an exciting prospect.
  
  It's ultimately going to take multiple lines of evidence. Yes, there are compounds that we think are strong indicators of life; we don't know how to explain them except for life. However, we can never rule out some other abiotic origin for that compound exists that we simply haven't discovered yet. We don't know what we don't know. Abundant life however is likely to cause all sorts of these biosignature compounds to be present in an atmosphere. If we find a planet with many of these compounds, we'll have many independent lines of evidence pointing at life being present there. That is how we are likely to finally accept that life has indeed been detected.
  Another pathway that may result in the acceptance of a detection of life is us learning more about the origins of life. It's possible as we learn more about how life started on Earth, we will discover that mechanisms to get it going make it a near inevitability where the necessary conditions exist. That would make its detection much easier to accept.
- They used telescopes to infer that this planet has a specific molecule on it that is known to be made by life on earth and not en masse by any other process.
  IMO this is a stretch because life on another planet probably has somewhat different chemistry. There is a massive unfounded bias in all pop exobiology that finding other life means finding stuff just like life on earth.
  Which is not to say it isn't neat but it is literally another planet light years away. We know almost nothing about it.
  
  It makes sense to me why they'd look at stuff that indicates life on earth though, because we don't yet know what causes life to form, all we have is Earth life. We know life can form on planets like Earth because, well, it has.
  
  it's a bias sure but the more similar the life is to us the easier it would be to recognize in the spectrum shit
- Recent takes are more sceptic. Besides its not a confirmation of life, just a 3 sigma detection of DMS.
- This is one of the legit, actually promising announcements. But still only at the “follow up for more clues” stage.

They probably use stargates

Relevant xkcd