A Safe Haven for Humanity?

While it appears extremely unlikely that Proxima Centauri b has an atmosphere, and
thus unlikely there is existing life on it...

according to Wikipedia, Proxima Centauri has an expected lifespan of four
*trillion* years... and at the end of its life, it will go straight to being a
white dwarf without becoming a red giant.

Also, it's 15,000 astronomical units away from Alpha Centauri A, a star which is a
lot like our Sun. So when *that* star becomes a red giant, that might be just an
interesting celestial spectacle from Proxima Centauri, rather than a threat to
people living on Proxima Centauri b.

Thus, we may be extremely fortunate in having a long-term safe home for humanity
nearby, just as we were fortunate in having the Moon to help us take our first
steps into space.

John Savard

On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 08:29:56 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

While it appears extremely unlikely that Proxima Centauri b has an atmosphere, and
thus unlikely there is existing life on it...

according to Wikipedia, Proxima Centauri has an expected lifespan of four
*trillion* years... and at the end of its life, it will go straight to being a
white dwarf without becoming a red giant.

Also, it's 15,000 astronomical units away from Alpha Centauri A, a star which is a
lot like our Sun. So when *that* star becomes a red giant, that might be just an
interesting celestial spectacle from Proxima Centauri, rather than a threat to
people living on Proxima Centauri b.

Thus, we may be extremely fortunate in having a long-term safe home for humanity
nearby, just as we were fortunate in having the Moon to help us take our first
steps into space.

The idea that our species would survive for more than a few millions
of years at most flies in the face of everything we know about life on
Earth.

On Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 10:03:22 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

The idea that our species would survive for more than a few millions
of years at most flies in the face of everything we know about life on
Earth.

What form of life on Earth, other than humans, is capable of recognizing and
reacting to threats to its survival which are not immediate or readily apparent?
What form of life on Earth, other than humans, has technology, or speech, or
writing? What form of life on Earth, other than humans, is capable of genetic
manipulation, or space travel?

Well, I suppose you could say the odd microbe that might have made it to Mars on
dust thrown up by a meteorite impact...

But you see my point. We have a record of how species of animals die out, but we
don't have any practical experience in the limits of what an intelligent,
technological species can do.

And being succeeded by the Second Men - a new species of intelligent beings who
continue our line and culture, whether arising naturally or by our own creation
- I count as survival.

John Savard

On Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 10:52:12 AM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:

But you see my point. We have a record of how species of animals die out, but we
don't have any practical experience in the limits of what an intelligent,
technological species can do.

For our line to die out, for our achievements to be forgotten, that is the death to be struggled against to the utmost of the capabilities of our race. And those capabilities have not been plumbed; only their surface has been scratched.

May I recommend the short story "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov?

John Savard

On 02/23/2017 12:52 PM, Quadibloc wrote:
On Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 10:03:22 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

The idea that our species would survive for more than a few millions
of years at most flies in the face of everything we know about life on
Earth.

What form of life on Earth, other than humans, is capable of recognizing and
reacting to threats to its survival which are not immediate or readily apparent?
What form of life on Earth, other than humans, has technology, or speech, or
writing? What form of life on Earth, other than humans, is capable of genetic
manipulation, or space travel?

Well, I suppose you could say the odd microbe that might have made it to Mars on
dust thrown up by a meteorite impact...

But you see my point. We have a record of how species of animals die out, but we
don't have any practical experience in the limits of what an intelligent,
technological species can do.

And being succeeded by the Second Men - a new species of intelligent beings who
continue our line and culture, whether arising naturally or by our own creation
- I count as survival.

John Savard



I think the problem is that, intelligent or not, there's a good chance
that no one out there in the vastness of space has been able to conquer
space itself due to the enormous distances involved. I would have
thought that if it had been the case, maybe they should have either been
here by now or left some trace of having been here at one point in our
history.

They talk of dimensional shifts, anti-gravity ships, fusion ships... but
all of these, other than dimensional shifting, are probably never going
to be able to reach the necessary speeds needed to reach other star
systems. And, even if you do reach 0.5C let's say, you have to consider
what sort of shielding to use as well as how you are going to deal with
the occupants.

We just aren't there yet, but if we don't soon get a grip on our social/
political and other issues, we'll be wiping out and starting over again.
History shows that this seems to be the pattern on our planet anyway.
Chances are, it's a similar pattern for other systems as well.

Another thing to consider, that I don't often see mentioned, is what
type and level of intelligence may be out there. If they have evolved
under water, for example, they still may not even be using anything
remotely similar to radio. There's a good chance that most other
systems will either be ahead of us, or behind us. There will be plenty
of planets with algae or remnants of civilizations, but that's about it.
Being on our level of technology and similar evolution to ours maybe
half a dozen and 20,000 ly away, or 20 ly, no way to know.

Nice idea for a "haven", but we started here and chances are very good
that we will end here.

On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 09:52:10 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

On Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 10:03:22 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

The idea that our species would survive for more than a few millions
of years at most flies in the face of everything we know about life on
Earth.

What form of life on Earth, other than humans, is capable of recognizing and
reacting to threats to its survival which are not immediate or readily apparent?
What form of life on Earth, other than humans, has technology, or speech, or
writing? What form of life on Earth, other than humans, is capable of genetic
manipulation, or space travel?

I do see your point, of course, and have considered it. Nevertheless,
it seems to me more likely that the capabilities you itemize will lead
to our failure as a species (or if we're lucky, as a technological
species) rather than to its survival.

I consider the most likely resolution to the Fermi Paradox to be that
technological species are inherently unstable.

On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 13:10:06 -0500, R2D4 wrote:

I think the problem is that, intelligent or not, there's a good chance
that no one out there in the vastness of space has been able to conquer
space itself due to the enormous distances involved.

The problem with this reasoning is that the distances are not really
any problem. If we continue on our present technological course, we're
no more than a few centuries away from having arbitrarily long
individual lifetimes and of having AI robots with a great deal more
capability than we have. I would assume the same for nearly any
technological species. And given that, it takes no more than a few
million years for any species to completely fill the galaxy, to have
robots at every star, to have built on every interesting planet.

No, there's something else going on besides the distances. IMO that
something is a substantial lack of technological civilizations at any
given time, probably because they are rare to begin with, and
inherently short lived when they occur.

On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 09:56:45 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

On Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 10:52:12 AM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:

But you see my point. We have a record of how species of animals die out, but we
don't have any practical experience in the limits of what an intelligent,
technological species can do.

For our line to die out, for our achievements to be forgotten, that is the death to be struggled against to the utmost of the capabilities of our race. And those capabilities have not been plumbed; only their surface has been scratched.

In my view, species come and species go, and ours is but another. Our
line will die out, our achievements will be forgotten. This is
inevitable beyond reasonable doubt. I don't welcome our extinction, I
will certainly invest effort in postponing it, but I don't fear it or
see it as any tragedy.

On Thursday, 23 February 2017 19:29:21 UTC+1, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 09:56:45 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

On Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 10:52:12 AM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:

But you see my point. We have a record of how species of animals die out, but we
don't have any practical experience in the limits of what an intelligent,
technological species can do.

For our line to die out, for our achievements to be forgotten, that is the death to be struggled against to the utmost of the capabilities of our race. And those capabilities have not been plumbed; only their surface has been scratched.

In my view, species come and species go, and ours is but another. Our
line will die out, our achievements will be forgotten. This is
inevitable beyond reasonable doubt. I don't welcome our extinction, I
will certainly invest effort in postponing it, but I don't fear it or
see it as any tragedy.

As a race man-kind is hell bent on becoming too lazy to survive.
Laziness is what our "royals and upper classes" used to do.
They employed slave-like servants of all ranks and call their service "duty."

We only invented women to cater to all men's needs.
We dressed it up as religion or some other transparent pretence.
Anything to hide their importance in avoiding most vital activities.
Nurse, cook, partner, typist, cleaner and bottle washer. The perfect slave!
Women's rights? Oh, dear! We'd better invent something to replace them!

Now we all emulate royals by being constantly served.
We now can all avoid having to think about our fitness and diet.
We call it a health service and pharmaceutical industry.

Machinery destroyed literally millennia of very hard physical work.
Soon agriculture needed only a bigger tractor and bigger implements.
Picks, shovels and wheelbarrows became museum pieces.
Mini-excavators were suddenly vital for the tiniest scratch in the ground.

Computers made life far easier for many of us.
Countless drawing offices closed and calculators replaced vast office blocks full of busy designers.
We no longer need libraries and books and papers and magazines.
Even our browsers now guess what we want to look up and corrects our spelling.
I just wish they'd put the search box near the bottom of the screen.
It's such hard work pushing the cursor right up to the middle every time!

Then CNC emptied the dark satanic mills and we all became service workers.
We now have robotic factories delivering stuff by the container ship full.
It's so much easier than having to do it right next door.
An easy life is a lazy life. Both physical and mental.

Apps and mobile phones avoid effort.
It is now easier to sit with a bent neck than cross the room to converse.
Typing is reduced to two agile thumbs and predictive choices.

Amazon and eBay now do all our shopping for us.
One click and the parcel arrives.
No walking required between mall and the car park.
Train the dog to fetch the endless parcels?
Nah, send one of the kids.
The very young ones still like that sort of thing.

Drones avoid lots of effort. Takeaways have never been easier!
Drones now put us in places which would require physical and mental agility.
Universal robots are just the next stage on the road to ending all human activity.
Self driving cars are already here. [Thank god?]
Robots start to design and build robot factories and make themselves.
No human intervention required.

Then comes AI fed UVR.
We become fully immersive in a semi-comatose, chemically augmented, completely secondhand experience.
Broken only at intervals by the arrival of virtual parcels and virtual partners.

Soon we became too lazy to breathe and chew our food.
So we immersed ourselves in a Matrix of pods in the safety of sterile, underground chambers.
When our "nearest neighbours" arrived they found a perfect Garden of Eden.
But could find absolutely no sign of intelligent life. ;-)

On 23/02/2017 18:21, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 09:52:10 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

On Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 10:03:22 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

The idea that our species would survive for more than a few millions
of years at most flies in the face of everything we know about life on
Earth.

What form of life on Earth, other than humans, is capable of recognizing and
reacting to threats to its survival which are not immediate or readily apparent?

Only a small minority of humans are capable of that these days. Just
look at the prevalence of climate change deniers and for that matter all
inconvenient facts deniers like President Trump in the USA.

The US election and also Brexit was manipulated by a botnet powered by
Cambridge Analytica's AI to get out the ignorant poor racist vote and
have Trump elected. The singularity has arrived by stealth.

Humans who rely mostly on social media for news and would not pass the
Turing test can now be manipulated by AI's to vote for anything.

Democracy is broken by a very smart AI Facebook botnet

http://uk.businessinsider.com/leave-...17-2?r=US&IR=T

There are deeper technical articles too but that basic premise is that
democracy is broken because the ignorati are now malleable putty in the
hands of sophisticated AI systems designed to exploit their inner fears.

What form of life on Earth, other than humans, has technology, or speech, or
writing? What form of life on Earth, other than humans, is capable of genetic
manipulation, or space travel?

I do see your point, of course, and have considered it. Nevertheless,
it seems to me more likely that the capabilities you itemize will lead
to our failure as a species (or if we're lucky, as a technological
species) rather than to its survival.

I consider the most likely resolution to the Fermi Paradox to be that
technological species are inherently unstable.

Or that making suitable kit to explore the galaxy as proposed by Fermi
is rather harder to get right than a simple analysis would suggest.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown