Space, the Final Frontier: It Gazed Into My Open Refractor

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Space, the Final Frontier: It Gazed Into My Open Refractor

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Raenir Salazar posted:

There are several existence threats beyond the sun exploding. Such as an asteroid hitting us, a gamma ray burst, hostile von neumann probes, and so on or threats we can't even contemplate right now.

Asteriods and gamma ray bursts are very unlikely threats, especially the latter. It's probably safe to say that hostile probes are even less probable. They are way down the list of major threats - everything is a rounding error compared to anthrogenic threats, which would follow us everywhere.

Rappaport posted:

Sorry about a post about sci-fi, but the plot to a Stanislaw Lem novel

pro-read

# ¿ Jan 18, 2022 17:15

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 07:02

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

mediaphage posted:

yeah iirc haven't we suspected getting hit by cosmic ray bursts in the past? definite issues but not necessarily fatal.

there is a lot of latitude in terms of how much energy one might throw at us

It's entirely possible - it gets brought up as a possible cause of the Permian-Triassic extinction. However, by far the more parsimonious expanation are the massive flood basalt eruptions of the Siberian and Deccan traps - possibly combined with that igniting the tremendous amounts of near-surface coal that would have been around back then.

That's neither really here nor there though - to see this, look at the relative time scales of human civilization and geologic history. We can definitely say that cataclysmic gamma ray bursts or close-by supernovas have recurrence intervals of on the order of hundreds of millions of years - certainly less often than planet-killer asteroids.

If we are massively generous, and say that GRBs hit on average of once every 100 million years, then the chance of being hit by one in the next 10,000 years - so like a Dune timescale - is 0.01%. The real recurrence interval is probably more in the billions of years, so probably more like 0.001%.

As a sidenote, supernovas are why there is probably little or no complex life in the galactic center. The density of stars is such that everything is getting blasted by supernova radiation on a semi-regular basis.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2022 18:43

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

There isn't really any inherent reason things couldn't evolve around radiation. It being fairly rare on earth is why we deal so poorly with it.

Good point, but there's still going to be big fitness tradeoffs to that. There's still going be long periods of time in between blasts as well, so adaptations that occur during die-offs in supernovas start immediately getting selected against afterwards. There's also another problem of stars being close enough that planetary orbits would get perturbed - so planets with long-term stable climates are going to be a lot more rare.

I'm sure there's still microbial life, but multicellular life would be a lot more difficult. Not saying it doesn't happen though.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2022 20:09

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

DrSunshine posted:

Hopefully this turns out to be true!

https://www.sciencealert.com/new-model-suggests-that-europa-has-an-oxygen-rich-ocean-very-similar-to-earth

Free oxygen would actually be bad news for life getting started in the first place, because its much harder to develop complex molecules when everything is getting oxidized. Life on earth evolved without oxygen. The advent of photosynthesis actually triggered what is called the "oxygen catastrophe." Mars is seen to be a good candidate for (at least past) life in part because its early atmosphere was reducing, and not oxidizing, like Earth's.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2022 16:08

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Right, but life needs oxygen or photosynthesis as far as a method to move energy around. No oxygen as well as no light almost assuredly means no life. Chemosynthesis requires oxygen, so it would be a requirement.

Not true. Early life evolved without free oxygen for billions of years before photosynthesis, with a methane-rich atmosphere. All life was anaerobic, and used fermentation as an energy source. The oxygen was necessary for complex life to evolve, however.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2022 16:20

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Maybe.

I am not aware of any theories that support chemosynthetic life as a starting point, but it may be possible.

Almost as if you don�t know much about this topic. The standard models of abiogenesis on earth are all anoxice. Earth didn�t have free oxygen, so aerobic life could not have existed. Hell, there�s plenty of anaerobic bacteria still around. Botulinum is one of them, which is why it grows in anoxic canned food.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2022 18:39

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

DrSunshine posted:

Quoting myself from a GBS thread.

It got me thinking about the Speculative Biology genre on Youtube. It's pretty interesting stuff out there, and fun for listening to while working or commuting. Curious Archive is one of my favorite channels. Definitely a Spacethread adjacent recommend!

Another possibility is that many of them will have gone full Kurzweil by the time they've got serious intersteller travel, so you could get something more like (actual) AI distributed over various machines.

Although a while back I read Golem XIV by Stanislaw Lem, where instead hyperintelligences draw inward and pretty much become catatonic.

https://rtraba.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/golem-xiv.pdf

# ¿ Sep 13, 2022 01:55

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Left handed best handed

# ¿ Dec 7, 2022 01:56

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Raenir Salazar posted:

I mean looking at military history this is pretty trivially incorrect; nation-states have generally have been able to adapt to lessons from the past to formulate successful policies for the present.

Uhh, gonna have to disagree with you there. Repeating the mistakes of the past has very much been a running theme with nation states and human decision-making in general. As one example, compare the fall of Saigon to the fall of Kabul.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2023 04:21

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Raenir Salazar posted:

I think we can fairly look at the argument made and conclude that I in no way suggested that nation-states act perfectly at all times in accordance to the past. Only that they generally can do so (i.e. tax data, census data, treaties, and so on), this doesn't mean that they can't have failures! The point is that there are plenty of example we can name, of entities, in this case trivially nation-states, using historical data in some form to derive certain conclusions or inferences about the future.

"Generally" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. The big mistakes nation states continue to make seem very similar to mistakes they have made throughout history, modulo technical advancements, specific culture, etc.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2023 04:54

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

This Las Vegas thing should be taken seriously, given that multiple cameras caught it, including with sound from the ring camera, as well as eye witnesses. It was not a meteor. The 8 foot tall beings were witnessed my multiple family members, and are a possibility, but not as well supported. Still, given that the reported sightings were right where this crash happened makes it more plausible.

Also Avi Loeb has gone off the deep end ever since the interstellar asteroid thing.

Edit: upon further consideration and metabolization of alcohol, yeah this was totally just a meteor

cat botherer fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Jun 9, 2023

# ¿ Jun 9, 2023 04:36

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

I AM GRANDO posted:

Loeb smelled money and jumped at it. I can�t be too mad that a scientist is raking in millions from dumb rich people who want to meet et after decades of begging for scraps from the nsf or w/e.

As someone who used to beg for scraps from the NSF, I completely sympathize and would probably do the same.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2023 04:48

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Rappaport posted:

In a land of pure hypotheticals, if we did find a set of promising atmospheres on a smattering of exoplanets, it could direct a long-term research plan for sending out probes into those systems and try and get some images back. Of course this'd be way beyond current tech, and it'd be a few generations before humanity would hear anything back, but it'd be something. Whether this is rational or not is a matter of taste, I suppose.

I have a hard time imagining being someone involved in a program like that, sending out a fragile little gizmo that might or might not beam some data back centuries from launch. And of course these things would be expensive as all hell.

Fast interstellar travel (like a few percent of c) is actually possible with near-current tech, using fission-fragment propulsion. Of course that�s still several generations at minimum before hearing back, and it could only do a flyby without deceleration. Nonetheless, that still gives days of travel through the target system.

The big problems probably revolve around communication and the many tons of plutonium you�d need.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission-fragment_rocket

# ¿ Jun 9, 2023 17:56

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Rappaport posted:

I think we could figure out the travel part, I was more concerned about the probe needing to be entirely autonomous for the entire mission in the other star system. I don't think ChatGPT can manage a space mission, sadly.

That part's easy. There needn't even be any "AI" involved. It's just simple physics of accelerating towards the destination (maybe with additional star sighting navigation like ICBMs have done for decades), then spooling up the instruments on flyby. The travel part is the hardest, just because of how goddamn fast that is. Collisions with dust or whatever might also be a problem.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2023 18:22

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

eXXon posted:

The power requirements would be rather prohibitive, I think. It would be useful to get bonus parallax from putting an upgraded Gaia around, say, Neptune, but then you have to wait 80 years for maximum parallax. Saying screw it to stable orbits and flinging it directly up (or down) and out of the solar system to get away from zodiacal light would be best, but again, power requirements. Solar panels would become useless fairly quickly.

That's what reactors are for, although then you've just replaced a technical problem with a political one.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2023 18:57

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Bug Squash posted:

Like, I don't think I've ever seen a person into the stuff admit even the smallest mistake.

I'm into it, and I've admitted to mistakes I made doing UFO drunk-posting last night.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2023 20:04

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 07:02

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

DrSunshine posted:

You can be our UFO guy. ^~^

Thanks! Here's a video of a shocking alien encounter I found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZERfeh7n4Q

# ¿ Jun 9, 2023 20:44

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Space, the Final Frontier: It Gazed Into My Open Refractor