Why do pop-sci physicists keep feeding the public with retarded ideas about alien life?

[Anonymous No.10786758]

I'm talking about things like the kardashev scale, drake "equation" or dyson swarms/spheres.

Why do they do it? I know they can't really believe any of these insane ideas are reasonable, so what's the point of convincing the public that it is?

[Anonymous No.10786782]

>>10786758

Because if they never have to explain WHY C development didn't work as they explained, or if they just keep pushing for things materially impossible, then they never have to update the powerpoint of their sponsored TED tour or field any new questions during the Q and A.

Why scrape and scrap to get world accalades by making something novel, when you can get those accalades by just TALKING about something novel, maybe, in the future?

[Anonymous No.10786795]

the fact aliens probably exist is pretty trivial and the fact retards suck the dick of that concept so hard is why they constantly push it because they want to interest people for money, science money, and science "iNfOrmAtiON"
frankly it is really close to why we took a lewd photo of a black hole, because astronomers think they do science.
it is pretty easy to manipulate retards to give other retards money b/c of "muh mars colony" "we duh aliens"
really only retard engineers are into this shit.
they are like man children.

[Anonymous No.10787066]

>>10786758
media calls
>hey professor-man what can you tell the public about alien life?
professor
>fucking nothing, we don't have anything on this
media
>okay, nevermind

media calls
>hey professor-man what can you tell the public about alien life
professor
>well, we got this drake "equation"
media
>great, come on the show and get money for talking about it

[Anonymous No.10787069]

>>10786758
>what is this, I can't even
Keep seething, libtard

[Anonymous No.10787071]

>>10786758
>Why do they do it? I know they can't really believe any of these insane ideas are reasonable, so what's the point of convincing the public that it is?

[Anonymous No.10787078]

>>10786758
Those ideas are not insane, they are a logical extrapolation of our rapid technological development and very long timescales on which any alien civilization would operate. Questionable, sure.

[Anonymous No.10787171]

>>10787078
>logical extrapolation of our rapid technological development and very long timescales on which any alien civilization would operate

drop the "logical"

just because we had a period of rapid tech development, doesn't mean that it is logical to extrapolate this thousands of years into the future

actually I think we are witnessing the decline in progress for decades now

apart from the internet, the world is not wildly different compared to 1919 - hundred years ago.

-Cars
-Planes
-Phones
-Electricity

[Anonymous No.10787175]

>>10786758
>they can't really believe
>>10787171
>actually I think
>apart from the internet, the world is not wildly different compared to 1919
lol go away you fucking imbecile

[Anonymous No.10787183]

>>10787175
>lol go away you fucking imbecile

great argument

[Anonymous No.10787190]

>>10786758
>>10787171
just stop.

[Anonymous No.10787193]

>>10787171
>apart from the internet, the world is not wildly different compared to 1919 - hundred years ago.

LMAO, this is bait, right guys?

[Anonymous No.10787209]

>>10787183
you don't get arguments for the kind of horseshit you're peddling here, just ridicule

[Anonymous No.10787210]

>>10787175
>lol go away you fucking imbecile
>>10787193
>LMAO, this is bait, right guys?

You faggots have no concept of history whatsoever.

For thousands of years humans rode horses for transportation and communicated over large distances by sending people or birds or some shit to the destination.

Fucking everything that separates our world from the "ancient" world is thanks to oil and electricity. We have been using oil and electicity already by 1919. Everything else is just minor details.

[Anonymous No.10787216]

>>10787210

and to expand on that: If you transported a person from the year 1500 to our time he would barely understand anything tech-wise. The only thing he would be familiar with are clocks.
So he wouldn't be much different from an ancient egyptian from 2000 BC or a citizen of the roman empire.

While a person from 1919 would be basically fine. He would know about banks, cars, gas stations, phones, radio, movies ...

[Anonymous No.10787220]

>>10787210
based retard
your minor details are transforming the world so fast, people can't even keep up with it
stuff that improves quality of live in general, or just plain leisure and pleasure shit is now getting pumped out on a conveyor belt and doesn't even have the time to make headlines for long enough for people to give a shit, before even better version comes out

I don't really feel like typing out a litany on the quiet tech revolution here, because you're literally using a device that gives you means to educate your faggot self on the matter - by yourself and I'm currently consumed by contempt for your smug ignorance

[Anonymous No.10787240]

>>10787220

I like that you ignore everything I said about the person from 1919 being familiar with most things in today's world. Tells a lot.

[Anonymous No.10787308]

>>10787210
>>10787216
wow, i guess that's why old people have totally no problem adapting to modern technology. I mean, cars, banks n shit was already around when they were born.

you fucking retard, if you teleported someone from 1919 into our time he wouldn't know what the fuck's going and would probably get a panic attack. even some shitty first gen smartphone would be incomprehensible to his brain

[Anonymous No.10787313]

>mfw this entire thread is just one brainlet arguing against everyone else

it's interesting that everyone who's not you is wrong

[Anonymous No.10787329]

>>10787216
>banks, gas stations...
desks, shoes, cows, ducks...
You really make me think here.
Cars and phones from today are hardly comparable to 1919 cars and phones from a technological perspective and besides that you need transportation and communication.
You can't do without these things and the concepts of cars and phones work very well here. What else would you expect? Teleportation and mind reading?
Modern cars have wheels. A normal carriage form 1000 years ago has wheels. Similar concept and both used for transportation. => clearly same thing
The guy from 1500 surely knows what "talking" is. How is talking through VoIP or copper wire much different? => clearly same thing.
Just because there's a continuum between A and B doesn't mean that A and B are the same things. You just make a arbitrary decision on when something is different and when it is not.

[Anonymous No.10787347]

>>10787329

>le philosophy major

[Anonymous No.10787357]

>>10787347
Nah. A philosophy major would at least be aware of the sorites paradox and the fact that it doesn't prove everything is always, like, the same, man.

[Anonymous No.10787367]

>>10787240
a person from 1990 would be completely floored by today's world
they just didn't notice

[Anonymous No.10787373]

I think it's more likely advanced ET would realize galaxy colonization and mass-engineering is simply not worth the resources. It's more plausible to just refine your materials science, energy production, societal structure, etc. I think virtual realities could be common as well for ET.

Though I also think it's plausible for von neumann probes or other AI probes to be used by other species. There could very well be one here in the solar system and the chance of detecting it without knowing what/where to look is effectively nil.

Overall the possibility of megastructures is quite slim IMO. it's already going to be fucking rare for two species to be within any sort of contactable vicinity of spacetime. So even rarer that we'd be able to detect a dyson sphere or something.

I do like this paper that talks about the possibility of using geometric shaped solar sails as a way to signal intelligence. The transit lightcurve is different from a spherical planetoid shape and would be easily distinguished. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0503580

[Anonymous No.10787376]

>>10787367
agreed. the rate of tech development and its' effects on society/people in the last 10 years have been immense. I think it's just that it has happened so fast we cannot really process it, we are just within.

[Anonymous No.10787392]

>>10787367

are you literally retarded?

what part of our world would "completely floor" somebody from 1990?

aside from the importance of the internet and wireless communication - which I admit are kinda big, but there are plenty of old people who are getting by just fine without using the internet even today

[Anonymous No.10787396]

>>10787367

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvJIbvm596w

Just look at that.
A completely different world.

[Anonymous No.10787399]

>>10787392
the 2001 film The Fast and the Furious involves a street racing crew that hijacks big rig trucks and steals DVD players and other audio/video equipment.

Imagine that being made today.

[Anonymous No.10787408]

>>10787399

what the fuck?
are you baiting or do you really think that's an argument? So the shitty story premise of a movie is sign of changing times?

You don't think there are new movies with retarded storylines that have nothing to do with reality? Or are you under the impression that 2001 was a time of lawless street gangs that freely roamed the streets?

seriously are you 12?

[Anonymous No.10787411]

>>10787408
no I'm simply saying that a movie in 2001 was written with the current consumer market in mind. DVD players.

Who gives a fuck about bluray players right now? Streaming is everywhere. Who knows what could come in 5, 10 years.

[Anonymous No.10787416]

>>10787399

This 1980s tv series tells the story of a tough deputy U.S. Marshal who randomly shoots people just because.

Imagine this being made recently ... oh wait.

[Anonymous No.10787418]

>>10787416
>some stories/themes will stay the same despite tech advancement

too stupid to understand this?

I'm pointing out that the technology and how that tech relates or is used in the story is often very dated when you watch older films.

For example I saw some film from 2005 or something and there was a shot of an office and all of the screens were those big, thick LED monitors before they were refined. Shit like that looks very dated.

Say smartphones suddenly become implanted somehow in your person. Now any film of someone holding a phone is going to look dated... same thing and I don't think its hard to understand

[Anonymous No.10787421]

>>10787347
>le complete fucking retard

[Anonymous No.10787423]

>>10787421
not the guy you're replying to but what an incredibly profound and irrefutable argument /s

[Anonymous No.10787429]

>>10787411

so the jump from DVD to blu ray to streaming is significant tech progress to you?

well then we have nothing further to discuss I guess

my original point still stands: take away the internet and we might as well be in the early 1990s

[Anonymous No.10787438]

>>10787429
not "significant" in the real sense but noticeable yes...

I don't see why you're so argumentative lol

[Anonymous No.10787440]

>>10787392
>there are plenty of old people who are getting by just fine without using the internet even today
there are entire tribes that haven't reached utilization of fucking fire yet getting by "just fine"
you have zero authority on calling anyone else retarded, you absolute retard

[Anonymous No.10787446]

Sure is samefag in here.

[Anonymous No.10787451]

>>10787429
>take away the internet and we might as well be in the early 1990s
you have either absolute zero bearings on how much has tech evolved over the past 30 years, or you're deliberately pretending to be retarded

[Anonymous No.10787480]

>>10787451
>you have either absolute zero bearings on how much has tech evolved over the past 30 years, or you're deliberately pretending to be retarded

meaningful progress, you idiot
Yeah, I'm well aware that my first PC in 1998 had 2 GB of storage space. Yes storage, not RAM. It had 64 MB RAM if I remember correctly.

I'm talking about significant changes like fusion power or actual genetic engineering. But I guess you children need to live to my age to realize that we haven't seen fundamental changes in tech in the last 50 years (again apart from the internet).

Report back in 10 years after you realized that we still not on Mars (and nowhere near), we still not reaching for the stars but dealing with some third world bullshit instead.

[Anonymous No.10787492]

>>10787480
>old man expects fusion power to just "be invented" with no prior tech leading up to it

[Anonymous No.10787504]

>>10787480
what it boils down to is the fact that energy is more powerful than... not energy. In that if you have no energy, your freedom of action will be more severely limited than a starving Mexican in a river.

[Anonymous No.10787535]

>>10787492

>Just give us 20 years
ever since 1957

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fusion_experiments

[Anonymous No.10787546]

>>10787535
why should it be expected to take that relative short amount of time?

[Anonymous No.10787573]

>>10787546

Well, it took them 40 years total from the discovery of the atom to using atomic bombs to level two cities in Japan.

That kinda builds up expectations, wouldn't you think? But I guess that wasn't threatening oil profits, like nuclear fusion would.

[Anonymous No.10787588]

>>10787573
so prior development timelines give an indication of how a different technology should evolve?

what?? that's ridiculous

we should not hold any preconceived notion of "oh it should be here by now"

[Anonymous No.10787611]

>>10787573
>That kinda builds up expectations, wouldn't you think?
only if you have no fucking clue about the difference of processes involved between splitting atoms and fusing them
fission bomb, fission nuclear reactor and also fusion bomb are utterly low tech compared to conditions you have to create for sustained net-positive fusion
simplest fission bombs are balls of radioactive heavy metal squashed by high explosives to become supercritical and start runaway chain reaction
fusion bomb is a fission bomb that goes off and provides enough kick for another lump of fuel to start a fusion reaction instead
fusion reactor needs that pressure and/or temperature to be provided continuously
this is hard
very, very hard

[Anonymous No.10787629]

>>10787611
>this is hard
>very, very hard

I think we all get that ... now.
After decades of magazine articles telling us that fusion is just around the corner, apparently now it kinda became obvious that it's not that easy.

I also remember the media buzz about decoding the human genome. But once they did it ... oh nevermind, we can't actually do shit with that. It's more complicated than we thought.

It seems we live in the
>it's very complicated stage
of tech development

[Anonymous No.10787638]

>>10787629
basically I think an overall trend in science/tech is that we generally increase our capabilities of analysis and understanding of concepts not yet harnessed/engineered.

But that comes at the cost of actually realizing said concepts or harnessing something that only exists in an extreme state naturally. Those things will always be very difficult problems.

[Anonymous No.10787670]

>>10787629
>After decades of magazine articles telling us that fusion is just around the corner, apparently now it kinda became obvious that it's not that easy.
They were trying to hype it up to get funding for it. ITER is one of the most expensive engineering projects ever and it barely gets any money despite being bankrolled by most economically powerful nations on earth and entire EU.

[Anonymous No.10787915]

>>10787209
You don't have arguments to counter it.
Get over it, the lack of evidence of alien civilizations is extreme falsification that technology allows for space travel at the civilization level.

[Anonymous No.10787981]

>>10787915
apparent lack of evidence in THIS galaxy

[Anonymous No.10788046]

>>10787981
In ANYgalaxy
There are 4 possibilities:
1) Humans are the only intelligent life in the universe (utterly retarded and impossible)
2) Humans are the most advanced life in the universe (Utterly retarded and impossible)
3) EVERY SINGLE SPECIES EVER has had a "great filter" that stops them from developing into space faring civilizations (utterly retarded and statistically impossible)
4) The upper limits of technology are lower than what is required to become a space faring civilization, and all species get to the upper bound in their life and that's it.

The last possibility is actually requires the LEAST amount of assumptions, and converges with everything we know about limits of computability and technological progress. The other "options" are just anthropocentric bullshit that is predicated on the objectively false notion of "accelerating returns of technological development" which isn't actually true and in fact, all evidence indicates the opposite of. Techology grows LOGARITHMICALLY with a fast initial start, then slows down to a halt, forever, once it hits a limit. This is true for all technology in all field for all time.

Get the fuck over it you crybabies.

[Anonymous No.10788074]

No. Dyson swarms/spheres are materially impossible and the drake equation is just a bunch of arbitrary factors put together for "determining" the amount of alien civilizations. both are solely to give public figures something to talk about when it comes to aliens

[Anonymous No.10788076]

>>10788074
was directing that towards >>10787078

[Anonymous No.10788434]

>>10787171
>apart from the internet, the world is not different compared to 20019 bce
>walking
>light
>living in an interior

You can't be that stupid not to see your own faulty reasoning here.

[Anonymous No.10788442]

>>10788074
>Dyson swarms/spheres are materially impossible
I will give you that spheres are unnecessary.
swarms? materially impossible? are you high?

[Anonymous No.10788444]

>>10788074
Dyson swarms are possible, they're just not energy efficient.
It's better to just do computing in the coldest, darkest places in space than to gather around stars like cavemen.
You dont need huge energy gathering schemes, you can simulate an entire civilization off the energy it takes to run a modern day house if you're computing in near absolute zero.

[Orbulon, The Intellectual No.10788504]

>>10788442
Spheres are materially impossible, swarms are physically impractical (for reasons mentioned below)

>>10788444
Swarms aren't possible though, because the satellites would inevitably begin colliding into each other, probably resulting in an ablation cascade around that star. Spheres might be slightly better in terms of stability, but still not sufficient. It would be better to just do computing in the coldest parts of space like you said/