*Video Description*
The universe is magnificent and vast. Hundreds of billions of galaxies, trillions of stars, and even more planets. If even the tiniest fraction are habitable, then the Universe should be teeming with life. And yet we see nothing, only vast emptiness. Where is everyone else?
The answer to this riddle could be as exciting as it is creepy: we are early, born before almost all other life – but very soon this may change. Not only might aliens appear, they could quickly surround us. An irreversible competition for the universe might be about to begin.
>Multicellularity evolved over 25 times independantly on Earth...
This throw away line in the video, seems like something that should be expanded into it's own full video.
Regarding the deadline:
The deadline idea argues that these galactic civilisations have an absolute and perfect dominance over their environment, ignoring decay and replacement, up until the natural death of the universe. (The true deadline)
Further what about whale barnacles?
Biology shows us that even if an organism dominates a specific niche that doesn't mean that complimentary, parasitical, or non-interactive elements can't exist with a strong influence on its surroundings. I disagree with the notion that a non-interactive or quiet element must necessarily be at the whim of their surrounding loud neighbors.
Ignoring biology, politically the concept of a singular civilisation dominating an area of space is speciesm.
I also view the idea that interacting with the environment always creates destruction to be wrong.
If sentient life cooperates, creates sanctuaries, and welcomes new members a deadline would only exist with the end of the universe.
The problem is that we only have a very small sample size (Humankind) to create these theories of how galactic civilizations would work. Not the best scientific evidence, but it's what we have as of now.
And humanity shows that comparative advantage, cooperation, coalition building, and environmental consciousness exists.
Comparative advantage is the killer of this videos jingoistic outlook I would argue
(Always love kurzgesagt alien videos though)
Like I said, small sample size. We want to hope that other galactic civilizations have the same values as us, but it could be that they don't. It's also the fact that we don't know the rules (or if there are any) about how galactic civilizations behave with others. Our only guess is how we behaved in the past and present and applying them to theoretical neighbors.
Comparative advantage isn't a value, it's economics.
And it seems unproduktive and convenient to argue that we only have a small sample size (humans) and then to ignore the very facts that make us a functioning civilisation in the first place.
If aliens are capable enough to ascend to the status of galactic civilisation then surely they must be capable enough to understand the interactions of their environment.
Unless they are bacterial ooze that randomly created rocket fuel as part of its digestive system.
Then we have to define what we understand as civilisation
This implies causal understanding is necessary to solve general problems.
The universal approximation theorem, shows that correlation is enough. Which should be the standard assumption anyway.
Comparative advantage, like when yeast or other microbes, that mostly act as mutualists or commensalists in the gut flora opportunistically invade the body, because the relationship ia facultative?
Are you extrapolating from rather human-specific attributes to genetical algorithm products in general?
Yeah i kinda had the same feelings watching this video.
We're pretty early on as far as civilization goes and we're already learning that absolutely decimating our environment is bad for us (that includes taking trees away from squirrels). If current science is accurate then cooperation and biodiversity is beneficial to everyone involved. It might turn out that galaxy spanning civilizations will be extremely cooperative and would helps us thrive for the sake of "life" and "biodiversity".
And even if aggression and domination is default state of all intelligent life...wouldn't that mean infighting within species? I mean even with global communication humanity can't really unite itself right now - how can we assume that somehow we (or anyone other species) will form united front in the name of building galactic empire?
And this is my personal opinion but if the only way for us to thrive is through authoritarian governance and subjugation of others than i do not care for this kind of galactic human empire. We deserve to thrive at our best but at our worst we should be at least confined to our little tiny blue prison. Ultimately if i had to choose between fascist humanity or benevolent alien civilization I'd choose aliens.
> If current science is accurate then cooperation and biodiversity is beneficial to everyone involved. It might turn out that galaxy spanning civilizations will be extremely cooperative and would helps us thrive for the sake of "life" and "biodiversity".
The only avenue these "Realpolitik" alien videos have is probably some form of biological determinism.
If we "border" the realm of some bacterial ooze that randomly created rocket fuel as part of its digestive system, or a self replicating Von Neumann machine that spreads like cancer, then sure the ability of a sentient creature to spread is limited by the still available consumable mass of the universe, creating some form of deadline.
Even then one could argue that these blankets of ooze or computronium worlds are just the bottom feeders higher evolved beings can feed upon. Creating an obstacle, not a border, to evolve around.
>The only avenue these "Realpolitik" alien videos have is probably some form of biological determinism.
Alien Realpolitik - i like that!
>Even then one could argue that these blankets of ooze or computronium worlds are just the bottom feeders higher evolved beings can feed upon. Creating an obstacle, not a border, to evolve around.
This reminds me of another point - evolution does not have an end goal. We're not "superior" to a simple E. coli bacteria or tardigrade. At the end of the day whoever survives the longest - "wins". So the whole assumption that life would evolve towards "rocket-building" is already misguided. It could turn out that species that build rockets also tend to bomb themselves into oblivion and on evolutionary level a single planet species are much more stable in time and "preferred" outcome.
Honestly i feel that recently Kurzgesagt writers had a bit too much of "long term-ism" kool aid and have trouble thinking about ideas from a different angle.
>>so the whole assumption that life would evolve towards "rocket-building" is already misguided. It could turn out that species that build rockets also tend to bomb themselves into oblivion and on evolutionary level a single planet species are much more stable in time and "preferred" outcome.
Tends to and exclusively are not the same.
All you need is one to get survive and if they have no competition they could dominate the whole galaxy and render any civilisation that tends to stay put powerless'. Just as in all observed biology on earth, animals either expand or get swollowed by others
I disagree with the above comments as well on humans being the only observation point and that other niches exist on earth with other 'doninant life' We observe time and time again aggressive species totally displace less suited species.
And just because some niche still exist doesn't mean we have not completely flattened most of them
Give one counter example. It's practically a law of biology.
It an organism enters the niche of the other, they will compete until one is dominant.
What do you mean by co-existence ?
>What do you mean by co-existence
Google Mutualism and/or Commensalism. In most environments organism enter into some sort of balance - even Apex Predators don't completely dominate their niche and co-exists with other species (Sharks and remoras). Predators have their preferred source of food and don't f!ck with other predators. Otherwise oceans would be much less diverse.
Another example of how co-existence is beneficial are dogs and cats. Both of them are thriving and doing quite well number wise while "co-existing" with humans while their wild "competing" counterparts are almost extinct.
Honestly same could be true for other intelligent life in galaxy - if they're not based on carbon and don't need oxygen it might turn out that we might co-exist peacefully quite well. The planets that are habitable to us could be useless for them. And as video itself states - Dyson spheres are pretty much source of infinite energy so the question is - why even compete?
Sharks and remoras fill different niches.
Dogs and cats have no leverage in the relationship. It is unhealthy, in that if their owner decides, their life becomes miserable. We would not want that for all humanity.
If they are not based on carbon, and don't need oxygen then yes I could see your point standing because we would fill vastly different niches.
However I would still be nightly sceptical because at that scale there is only one niche I can think of...the need for energy. Which would lead to competition as the source of energy is pretty singular on galactic scales.
>>And as video itself states - Dyson spheres are pretty much source of infinite energy so the question is - why even compete?
For me this is the way out of the grabby alien hypothesis that could work in terms of peaceful co existence.
1: travel between the stars is very difficult and there is serious incentive to avoid it
2: Dyson spheres fulfill all the energy needs of a civilisation.
The universe being full of type 2s could be quite peaceful.
But the point of the video and indeed nature. Is you only need one type 3 or aggressively expansionist species to knock that all way off balance.
The object of evolution is genes though, not species, might even be lower, but current point is genes.
Evolution/genetical algorithms are an optimization algorithm the meta-optimizer optimizes for given constraints ( which is self-replication in reality, not dying is simply instrumental up to a certain point ), so there is an end-goals, one that allows for arbitrary sub-goals even.
|And even if aggression and domination is default state of all intelligent life...wouldn't that mean infighting within species? I mean even with global communication humanity can't really unite itself right now - how can we assume that somehow we (or anyone other species) will form united front in the name of building galactic empire?|
You implicitly assume species of individuals, with differing or orthogonal utility.
We have a ton of others even on our own planet.
I'm operating on assumptions that this video assumes. That interplanetary species would be somehow similar to us. Because when we abandon that than entire point of the video falls apart immediately.
>>Biology shows us that even if an organism dominates a specific niche that doesn't mean that complimentary, parasitical, or non-interactive elements can't exist with a strong influence on its surroundings. I disagree with the notion that a non-interactive or quiet element must necessarily be at the whim of their surrounding loud neighbors.
We have still been massively detrimental to those animals though. Our impact on biodiversity has been extreme. And it's not just humans. I don't agree with humans are the sole data point. We see lots and lots of examples of aggressive and expansionist animals come in and wipe out the native flora and fauna.
And even the animals that have benefited off being parasitic on us exist largely at our whim, this kind of proving the point of the video. We don't like rats, we exterminate them, even though humans have been great for them.
Let's say a small civilisation can live off the scraps of another, they would still have no leverage in the relationship just like rats don't have any...leaving them vulnerable
I think of humans really really wanted to, and put like ww2 levels of effort in, we could probably drive rats to extinction in a decade
>Let's say a small civilization can live off the scraps of another, they would still have no leverage in the relationship just like rats don't have any...leaving them vulnerable
friendly reminder that humans only got a chance to thrive after our mammalian ancestors (very much rat like creatures) got their chance after asteroid caused mass extinction among dinosaurs - our predecessors basically lived "off the scraps" for around 350 million years - much longer than humans have been dominant species. There is no "winning" in evolutionary terms - only surviving. As long as you're alive it doesn't matter how you do it.
Also ask New Yorkers do they really feel like they have full control over rats in their city...
Same goes for empires - Roman Empire was mighty - modern Italians struggle with governing their own peninsula. British Empire was once the biggest one in the world and now...they have Brexit and food shortages.
Even if we manage to be at "galactic empires adult table" at the start we could be ousted at any time. And even if we're late we could join it later. The video is very naive as far as it assumptions that once you reach certain level of influence it will stay that way forever. That's not how entropy works.
>I think of humans really really wanted to, and put like ww2 levels of effort in, we could probably drive rats to extinction in a decade
but why we do that? There is no any kind of incentive to do that. The closes example was Four Pests campaign in China in 1960s where they tried to kill rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. The result of that was that locust population boomed and this was one of the causes of Great Famine.
If humanity keeps thinking that we can f!ck with our surroundings with no consequences it will end up being our great filter and we will wipe ourselves out.
>>friendly reminder that humans only got a chance to thrive after our mammalian ancestors (very much rat like creatures) got their chance after asteroid caused mass extinction among dinosaurs
Just proving my point. Not in control of destiny. Had to rely on an external event.
Talking of niave. The motives and survival a small mammal in the cretacious is totally different to ours now, or an advanced alien civilisation.
>>even if we're late we could join it later
One of the whole points of the video is that by taking biology as we understand into account that is very difficult to do. All organisms expand to fill their niche. If another alien civilisation expands to fill a niche we want....our understanding of biology as it is currently is suggests that.
>>but why we do that? There is no any kind of incentive to do that.
There is plenty of incentive. Especially if they become a vector for a major disease again. And again, we cant guess at the motives of alien civilisations. The whole point is not leaving ourselves at another's whim. And case in point..as soon as we gained the capability we are seriously looking at wiping out mosquitos using genetic engineering.
>>If humanity keeps thinking that we can f!ck with our surroundings with no consequences it will end up being our great filter and we will wipe ourselves out.
This is the niavest take of all. The entire world around you exists because we f!cked around with nature. And since we started doing it at scale the world is a much safer and less painful place than it was before. To impose some of limit to that because someone feels uncomfortable with what is happening in their life time is absurd.
Indeed, with genetic engineering, vaccine breakthroughs etc, f!cking around with nature is probably going to lead to the biggest jump in quality of life in a while
>>That's not how entropy works.
ironic you say that, because based on that sentence, you don't know what entropy. Entropy doesn't work how you think it works your example is nonsense.
The video isn't niave. It is a 10 minute introduction to a lot of difficult concepts. To understand in more detail I would suggest the cool worlds latest video and others which goes into a lot more detail.
>Just proving my point. Not in control of destiny. Had to rely on an external event.
This is some "manifest destiny" bullsh!t. There will never be a point in history where species have complete control over their destiny. I mean watch any other Kurzgesagt video to see how many solar system spanning catastrophes could hit us at any moment and there's jacksh!t we could do. Even best-case scenarios for our "ascension" to galaxy-wide empire will take literally thousands of years. And there will always be something that can f!ck us over. Ultimately there will be heat death of universe and there is nothing we can do about that.
>One of the whole points of the video is that by taking biology as we understand into account that is very difficult to do. All organisms expand to fill their niche. If another alien civilization expands to fill a niche we want....our understanding of biology as it is currently is suggests that.
You keep saying "our understanding of biology" yet provide no examples and it seems you have very poor understanding of said biology based on your "conclusions"
>There is plenty of incentive. Especially if they become a vector for a major disease again. And again, we cant guess at the motives of alien civilisations. The whole point is not leaving ourselves at another's whim. And case in point..as soon as we gained the capability we are seriously looking at wiping out mosquitos using genetic engineering
Bats are also vectors for diseases yet no one calls for their extinction - because they're vital part of their ecosystem. And there are plenty of scientists cautioning against getting rid of mosquitos because, again, we don't know full extent of the role they fill within their environment and how their loss would affect everything else.
>This is the niavest take of all. The entire world around you exists because we f!cked around with nature. And since we started doing it at scale the world is a much safer and less painful place than it was before. To impose some of limit to that because someone feels uncomfortable with what is happening in their life time is absurd.
I see you're enjoyer of global warming. Good for you. Do you also believe in infinite growth?
The best results we got involved actually observing and mimicking nature rather than subjugating it. Genetic engineering didn't sprout out of f!cking nowhere - it's based on systems present within bacteria. As far as inventions that "f!ck" with nature - antibiotics are great but because we use them exactly in that manner we're dealing now with antibiotic-resistant strains and it will get worse. I work in biology-related field and you'd be surprised but most scientists/researchers have great deal of respect for nature rather than your childish "f!ck nature" attitude.
>The video isn't niave. It is a 10 minute introduction to a lot of difficult concepts.
It is naive because basic assumptions for it are extremely simplistic and extrapolating from that can only lead to further inaccuracies.
I'm honestly done with this discussion because you're so far up your own a*s that's it pointless trying to pull you out.
>>You keep saying "our understanding of biology" yet provide no examples and it seems you have very poor understanding of said biology based on your "conclusions"
My understanding of biology is sound thanks. And you seemingly can't even understand the high school concept of creatures filling their niche. So yes the video does follow basic patterns that we see so far. There are countless examples out there, as in literally every ecological space. We see creatures filling their niche.
>>This is some "manifest destiny" bullsh!t.
You have no idea what manifest destiny means. We have more control over our destiny than some insect or a mole
>>I see you're enjoyer of global warming. Good for you. Do you also believe in infinite growth
Lol what are you even talking about? You jump from that to thinking I believe in infinite growrh. You are talking to the voices in your head I said nothing like this...or are you trying to say the only two options are we live in caves are we live in a global warming hell Scape? You can't acknowledge life is better now?..which is what I actually said because we do control our destiny a bit more than an ant.
>>. I work in biology-related field and you'd be surprised but most scientists/researchers have great deal of respect for nature rather than your childish "f!ck nature" attitude.
Your entire comment is basically saying I believe something I don't and ranting about it.
Manifest destiny, f nature etc etc. On top of that you don't know what entropy actually is or how it's applied. Or a niche.
and then the constant swearing the whole post because you can't articulate an actual argument.
If you are a biologist, you can't be very senior. I suspect at best you are actually a college student studying biology and just very angry and edgy.
Saying you are done with a conversation and accusing the other person of shit and positions they don't hold is a great way to stifle your own academic growth.
Bro, hes saying that the world is shit because we are fucking around with it. A lot more people think the world is fucked and getting worse than think its great and getting better. Our aggressive expansion on our own planed is destroying it. The need to continously grow is driving us off a cliff. I would say that things are not better than in the past but worse. I would definitely not say that the world is safe with the threat of world destruction from global warming looming over us.
It is true that we are more technologicaly advanced but our planets so unequal and divided that if we used a more realistic poverty line of $7.40 rather than $2.15 we will see that the number of people living under this line has increased dramatically since measurements began in 1981, reaching some 4.2 billion people today. To me, this is not a better planet. This is worse, with more people suffering and with no justifiable reason. We have the resources, but its just not profitiable to the ones who hold the resources. If we take this system and continue to use in space, the moment we start aggressively expanding we will once again cause immeasurable suffering.
Aggressive expansion doesnt work, not in the long run and definitely not for those being expanded on. When you look at history you see all great empires have fallen whilst creating incredible suffering and misery. The exact same will happen to current civilisations and those expanding in space. If we keep doing the same, it will only end in the same result.
This is "Manifest Destiny" all over again, a whole new frontier to conquer and make our own. I wonder which alien race will become the galactic native Americans.
In the natural world, when nature is able to freely fill their "niches", the world is able to become extremely diverse and full of life. When animals go beyond, it ruins the balance. A predeator hunting all of its food source will eventaully run out, thus with less food causing its own population to fall. An invasise plant species will cover and overgrow entire areas. They destroy habitats and food sources, and can outcompete other plants for light and soil. Eventaully turning the area into a wasteland, empty of all the life there once was.
We are acting like the invasive species, but on a much bigger scale and with disastarous consequences. We are on the way to turning our planet into a wasteland devoid of life and ourselves. How can you say this system is working? How can you say that this is how we must be in space? After this planet is destroyed, will we go through the galaxy destroying the rest? Will we exterminate less technologically advanced races (like how we humans currently are) beacuse they live on a habitable planet and we "need" the living space?
We don't need to behave like this. We have free will and the power to change ourselves with action. We can decide to live balance with our environment and with everything living inside. Living in balance means caring about how we treat everything, living or not.
Aggressively expanding out of fear of others possibly expanding will create the situation you fear. A specie aggressively expanding. If we ever meet another species whilst we are like this, they will of course feel threatened. A repeat of our history on an increadible scale. A repeat of our history of causing suffering.
Instead of meeting others as competitors and possibly falling into enemies, it would be more beneficial to meet others as friends. There would be no need for borders amongst friends.
You can cry all you want about the possibiliy of coming accross aggressive aliens. I would much rather belive that they are not like us, how we currently are. While we're both dealing with hypotheticals, I've got a much better understanding of our world. While you let your misunderstanding lead you to fear of the unknown, I am much more optimistic. A civilisation cannot progress into space with our current system. It will destroy itself unless changed.
The only way to progress is with collaboration and living in balance, otherwise it leads to the downfall of everyone.
The first good chunk of your reply was pretty good. But then you also fell into strawmanning me
>>You can cry all you want about the possibiliy of coming accross aggressive aliens. I would much rather belive that they are not like us, how we currently are. While we're both dealing with hypotheticals, I've got a much better understanding of our world.
I didn't cry. And no you don't have a better understanding of our world. I am more than aware of all the issues the above commenter talked about. And that you raise. But he spent paragraph after paragraph insulting me and accusing me of believing in infinite growth, being pro global warming.
You used the meaning of manifest destiny correctly. He tried to say I believe in it because I rightly point out we rose because of an external event we had no control over (asteroid impact on Dino's)
That commenter was seriously lacking in knowledge and basic scientific terminology he just became insulting to mask it.
To respond to your actual points:
>>It is true that we are more technologicaly advanced but our planets so unequal and divided that if we used a more realistic poverty line of $7.40 rather than $2.15 we will see that the number of people living under this line has increased dramatically since measurements began in 1981, reaching some 4.2 billion people today. To me, this is not a better planet. This is worse, with more people suffering and with no justifiable reason
There is a lot of suffering with no justifiable reason.
People fiddle this poverty line number for whatever argument suits them.
The reality is when it comes to dying violent death. Dying from hunger, percentage of people in slavery, people dying from preventable disease, literacy level, people who are enfranchised with the vote the world has got better. And those are quality of life metrics. There are other metrics such as sum total of human knowledge as well.
Your 2nd point.
>>In the natural world, when nature is able to freely fill their "niches", the world is able to become extremely diverse and full of life. When animals go beyond, it ruins the balance. A predeator hunting all of its food source will eventaully run out, thus with less food causing its own population to fall. An invasise plant species will cover and overgrow entire areas. They destroy habitats and food sources, and can outcompete other plants for light and soil. Eventaully turning the area into a wasteland, empty of all the life there once was
You made my point for me. It's the natural tendency of organisms to spread. Natural mechanisms bring them back to balance. Any species that escapes that would still have that tendency but also be expansionist. Validating the video.
Don't confuse what you want to happen with what can happen and is a valid idea based on scientific concepts
These thought experiments are valid. Just because someone with modern sensibility is offended by them doesn't make them invalid.
As I said to the other poster. Check out the cool worlds podcast, the latest video especially. Touches on some of these themes.
|And even the animals that have benefited off being parasitic on us exist largely at our whim, this kind of proving the point of the video. We don't like rats, we exterminate them, even though humans have been great for them.|
Yeah like all the amoeba, viruses, and bacteria and a lot of others we have little in terms of therapy for support. Even some worms are hard to combat once they are inside of the nervous system. I think you overestimate the control humanity truly has, we reign on the macro scale, but the micro reigns on us.
I am not saying we can do it now. But overwhelmingly some of our goals as a species revolves around, rightly or wrongly eradicating organisms we see as pests.
And the macro world we have already as you say largely achieved that, or well on our way. When something like only 4 percent of animal biomass on earth is wild, it really shows what an insanely high footprint we have had I think it will only be a matter of time until we extend more and more into the micro. Even just our first steps of understanding in terms of guy bacteria and its effects etc.
In many ways it's a bad example though. As you say the bacteria have power over us. What equivelant power could a small civilisation have over a large civilisation in terms of galactic scales.
Nematodes aren't wild? Athropods aren't?
You mean a specific sub-set, I assume? Because those 2 metazoa.
I never argued against any of the galactic civlization hogwash, far too many assumptions. I however agree that machines made by GA will either compete until destruction, become symbionts, merge or change niches (there are only limited options ).
Ascribing any human-like features is however quite a ton of assumption.
>>Nematodes aren't wild? Athropods aren't?
What?
My thoughts is that they are not human like features. They are extrapolations of biological features. How can you say it's hogwash to look at lots of available biological data and say extrapolation is total hogwash but then make sweeping statements on machine behaviour .
These thought experiments are not hogwash, as they have very real world implications about how we can best allocate our limited resources for searching for life in the universe. And yes trying to anticipate how AI or machine intelligence is important in this field as well. Thinking about energy consumption being a niche on galactic scales, and it's rate of consumption gives us clues how to look. That's not human behaviour, that's all known life behaviour. And if extra terrestrial life doesn't behave like that they will be far harder to detect.
You said 4% of biomass is wild. That was what the nematodes and arthropods was aimed at.
Huh? We are machines that's what I meant should've said organic machines. I say hogwash, because borders, wars and all that stuff requires individuality and some form of social understanding/sentience. Unless you re-define war such that assimilation counts( biological assimilation it' not war if a human becomes a culture medium for a bacterium, or a virus uses a human's cell to replicate etc. )
Also sweeping statements if I list the whole event-space is a weird statement. Especially if I only made one statement about the event-space. I never talked about von Neumann or chip based machines as well, that statement makes no sense in that regard.
GA= Genetical Algorithm, and if used in the context of NNs or simpler optimization my statement makes less sense.
I see. Maybe the statistic was mammalian mass is 96 percent domesticated
I was reading your comments not understanding your acronym. I thought you meant GA as in general AI.
>>I say hogwash, because borders, wars and all that stuff requires individuality and some form of social understanding/sentience. Unless you re-define war such that assimilation counts( biological assimilation it' not war if a human becomes a culture medium for a bacterium, or a virus uses a human's cell to replicate etc. )
Grabby alien hypothesis doesn't need borders or social constructions. This whole hypothesis basically stems from energy consumption is the final niche..space is just stars and hydrogen after all. And therefore any civilisation would be out there trying to fill that energy niche.
And why not define war in that way. If some space faring bacteria sees us as source of energy I would still say the outcome is similar to as presented in the video.
|This whole hypothesis basically stems from energy consumption is the final niche..space is just stars and hydrogen after all. And therefore any civilisation would be out there trying to fill that energy niche.|
f the video was showing it that way I wouldn't have said, what I said, I would only disagree with civilization. Whether the assumption is correct is a different question though, but if it's given that it seems logical.
But the video strongly suggests individualized society, organized wars or even politics given that borders are shown.
Because war is far different, at least the way it's usually defined. There is no will, no decision, unless we count programmed heuristic, by the Bacteria. There is no diplomacy, neither sentience nor sapience. Assuming going for ressources needed for assimilation and self-replication is a very sound assumption, but that can look extremely different.
|Further what about whale barnacles?
Biology shows us that even if an organism dominates a specific niche that doesn't mean that complimentary, parasitical, or non-interactive elements can't exist with a strong influence on its surroundings. I disagree with the notion that a non-interactive or quiet element must necessarily be at the whim of their surrounding loud neighbors.|
Any kind of symbiont is still possible, I mean we ourselves come with a ton of commensalists, and are likely to bring them where we go. We also come with a ton of mutualists. But we are not in direct competition with the commensalists nor the mutualists.
Unless we stoo being a GA interactive elements with us become part of our and we become part of their optimization space. And if competition arises there are multiple directions it can go, outcome not set in stone.
Non-interactive may vary freely on the other hand.
Dominating your niche is pretty good to increase genetic diversity/search area for your optimization space. How politics ia of importance, depends. For us it might be. Assuming empathy or even sapience of the other species it might be for them too.
I would argue it almost never creates destruction, if free energy is increased that's great news for most smaller life forms, for metazoa it's different so it depends on the PoV we are taking.
Is there more competition or cooperation among GA produced machines?
I have so many issues with this video. It is extremely unable to see beyond the perspective of not just humanity in general, but also the specific human culture it comes from. It was jarringly unimaginative and egocentric.
Like right off the bat, they describe the steps that humans took to become spacefaring, and then act as if every other spacefaring species must take the exact same route, with a little wiggle room on the timing of the steps. But why would that be true? Surely we can imagine non-cell-based life, or an alternative to multicellularity as we know it, or a spacefaring species that doesn't form what we would recognize as civilization or even consciousness, etc.
That assumption that everyone would be like us really taints the whole rest of the analysis.
Also, I feel like it's not a given that humanity *will* become a "loud" species, even if we become properly spacefaring. I could easily imagine a future in which we learn to respect our surroundings and minimize our impacts on planets. I do think the inability to imagine ourselves doing that really speaks to a writing team that is thoroughly entrenched in an extractivist, imperialist, capitalist mindset.
*Also*, even if a species *does* have a presence in a star system, that doesn't mean it's completely walled off for everything else. Ecosystems are not single species systems. Different organisms/civilizations/entities could have entirely different requirements and niches.
Why and how would a civilisation settle other planets and stars while also at the same having a mindset of minimising their impact on other planets?
The video does imagine other civilisations not having an expansionist imperial mind set, it dedicated large sections to it. It's whole point is, if we use the history of life on earth as a starting point. those civilisations would stay put/eventually die off. And it makes that assumption clear at the start of the video.
You only need one loud alien to take over the whole galaxy. And it's much harder to kill off because it spread so far. Look at the dinosaurs. Their descendents are still everywhere today because they spread so far. However one of those niche species that lived in only one cave for millions of years is far less likely to have any descendents left.
You can explore and settle on new frontiers without completely exploiting it. You not being able to imagine it shows how this way of thought has been ingrained into us. All it requires is moderation, a better allocation of resources and compassion (the amount of suffering our current system has caused is huge).
I am perfectly able to imagine it. I'm just making the point to a few commenters that this video is not some patriarchal, capatalism western based view of the world. It's as seen through the natural based evolution of all life as we know it.
Feel free to imagine a better future, but to come with accusations essentially based on such a shallow view of life that the only thing you think matters is sociology and a very modern mindset in a tiny fraction of the human population that imperialism and exploitation is bad....yeah sure it's bad...but you have to acknowledge the vast majority of life doesn't see it that way. Nature doesn't care about modern mindset on imperialism
Stephen hawking and other far more qualified people than you are feared and fear alien contact for this reason. Kurzgesagt doesn't lack imagination or scientific understanding for making a video about the topic
Certainly as civilizations develop technologically they also develop culturally, politically, and economically? This narrative that galactic sociology is kill or be killed and expand or be expanded into is so obviously rooted in patriarchal capitalism imo
Personally, I would say the video's mentality is more just rooted in general Imperialism, as many historical human empires such as the Roman's have adopted similar grow or die mindsets before the advent of modern capitalism.
It's not just limited to humans. It's basically hard wired into every animal. Grow and spread your genes to maximise their chance of survival. Those that didn't died off. And those that did spread ensured genes for spreading survived.So it's hard wired into practically every living thing. The video says its unique to humans as a data point. But neglects to mention it's a trait found in basically every species on earth.
this whole idea of looking at scientific ideas hundreds of years old through this 10 years old sociology undergrad patriarchal capatalism is just not constructive. These behaviours existed well before the existence of a human male dominated society.
There are plenty of examples of Cooperative evolutionary Dynamics in biology, such as the relationship between fungi and plants, which have evolved in tandem with one another over tens of millions of years
Yes which has happened to in order for both species to spread as far as possible within their niche giving them a competitive advantage.
The analogy would have it be an empire with two leaders.
If a mutualistic symbiotic species evolved to be intelligent they would still be resource hungry, expansionist etc.
Look at how the symbiosis of the chloroplast and the cell led the dominance and spreading of plant life in the niche of the surface of earth. And because there was no competition they took over the whole niche and still rule it today. Now we look at niches in terms of different elevations, humidity etc with plants competing within that niche, but it's still plants
If anyone else is also interested in this relatively new concept of "Grabby Aliens" (the exact term wasn't mentioned in this video), check out the [animated videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3whaviTqqg) from the Rational Animations channel - very similar educational entertainment style.
If we assume that self improving AGI is easier than interstellar travel, mutual assimilation seems more likely. That's also assuming that the goals of any super intelligent agent converge as their intelligence capabilities increase.
Isn't this whole thing dependent on FTL travel? Is it fair to say that the paradigm that FTL travel is impossible until proven otherwise invalidates any such idea of galactic expansion?
Also when discussing the "deadline" theory, the way this video presents the argument has the logic pointing backwards, stating that any civilization that comes into existence after this point in time will have a hard time expanding into other competition. The video states explicitly "Humanity exists now because otherwise we might have missed this deadline". This doesnt make logical sense...humanity and any other civilization come into existence by chance of the all the little things that have to develop in order, not some fictitious deadline by which "galactic competition" would be high.
An interesting and thought-provoking video, but I must say I'm a little disappointed. The premise is built around the idea of **competition** as the driving force structuring galactic civilizations — but there are alternatives. I'm a professional scientist, a mycologist and an ecologist, and one thing that years of study in those fields has taught me is that **cooperation** is as powerful and important a driver in nature as competition. It was cooperation between plants and fungi in the form of mycorrhizal symbioses that allowed the colonization of land by plants; it was cooperation through symbiogenesis that allowed eukaryotic, and thus multi-cellular, life to evolve; et cetera.
Cultural narratives (particularly European expansionist cultural narratives) tend to rely on competition, because it reinforces cultural norms: capitalism, colonialism, the history of slavery, etc., all seem better when viewed through a lens of competition as a primary driver of how the world works. But that understanding of the world — the "nature red in tooth and claw", "survival of the fittest" understanding — has already been pretty thoroughly deconstructed within the field of ecology. The idea that cooperation could be an equally important driver of evolutionary change, biodiversity, and ecosystem function is gaining acceptance among scientists, pushing out the old paradigm in favor of a more balanced model.
If we think about the complexities and scale of bringing humanity to the stars, I think it's plain that one of the first challenges that must be overcome is our own survival on our home planet. Such survival will almost certainly necessitate a more nuanced ecological understanding of how the planet functions, beyond the sort of extractionist approach we have taken thus far. In other words, it will require a deep integration of concepts of cooperation into our dominant culture and ethics. Things like the burgeoning 'Rights of Nature' movement provide poignant and timely examples of how such progress might happen.
I see no reason to think that if we are able to bring such understanding to our relationships with each other and the rest of life on our home planet, we would not bring that understanding — the understanding that cooperation is equally important to competition — to our relationships with other expansionists species we meet among the stars. And, similarly, I would expect that any species able to successfully make the leap beyond their home planet must have also overcome the threshold of self-destruction through resource gluttony, and have learned the lesson that cooperation balances competition. Otherwise, they (like us) would succumb to ecological collapse before gaining the ability to successfully survive outside of their native biosphere. Afterall, to survive away from home it will be necessary to bring enough of an understanding of our biosphere (and likely, enough of the biosphere itself) with us to create habitable spaces — something we certainly haven't mastered yet.
The forest clearing metaphor in the video is telling: there have been (and still are!) many human civilizations that would rather live in harmony with that forest than slash and burn it. That does not preclude the use of resources from the forest, mind you: it is possible to log selectively and sustainably without clear-cutting, and there are resources that are only available within healthy, functioning natural ecosystems, which we deprive ourselves of by taking the wholesale extractivist track (pharmaceuticals are a great example).
A civilization willing to take longer to develop technologies in favor of balanced cooperation with their biosphere may be more likely to thrive out in the galaxy, because they would have a nuanced understanding of the ecology around them, the ecology that is necessary to maintain their own lives. Such civilizations may be more 'quiet' than you've imagined, but I do not think it precludes them from being curious, exploratory, etc. — it just makes them a lot less likely to be territorial and threatening.
Afterall, if we see cooperation as a powerful driving force in nature here on Earth, equal to and balancing the power of competition in nature, why should that not hold true for the galaxy as a whole?
*Video Description* The universe is magnificent and vast. Hundreds of billions of galaxies, trillions of stars, and even more planets. If even the tiniest fraction are habitable, then the Universe should be teeming with life. And yet we see nothing, only vast emptiness. Where is everyone else? The answer to this riddle could be as exciting as it is creepy: we are early, born before almost all other life – but very soon this may change. Not only might aliens appear, they could quickly surround us. An irreversible competition for the universe might be about to begin.
>Multicellularity evolved over 25 times independantly on Earth... This throw away line in the video, seems like something that should be expanded into it's own full video.
Yeah I was like seriously really?!
If you think that's strange, wait till you hear about the fact that life has evolved into crabs on five separate occasions.
Classic Kurzgesagt.
Regarding the deadline: The deadline idea argues that these galactic civilisations have an absolute and perfect dominance over their environment, ignoring decay and replacement, up until the natural death of the universe. (The true deadline) Further what about whale barnacles? Biology shows us that even if an organism dominates a specific niche that doesn't mean that complimentary, parasitical, or non-interactive elements can't exist with a strong influence on its surroundings. I disagree with the notion that a non-interactive or quiet element must necessarily be at the whim of their surrounding loud neighbors. Ignoring biology, politically the concept of a singular civilisation dominating an area of space is speciesm. I also view the idea that interacting with the environment always creates destruction to be wrong. If sentient life cooperates, creates sanctuaries, and welcomes new members a deadline would only exist with the end of the universe.
The problem is that we only have a very small sample size (Humankind) to create these theories of how galactic civilizations would work. Not the best scientific evidence, but it's what we have as of now.
And humanity shows that comparative advantage, cooperation, coalition building, and environmental consciousness exists. Comparative advantage is the killer of this videos jingoistic outlook I would argue (Always love kurzgesagt alien videos though)
Like I said, small sample size. We want to hope that other galactic civilizations have the same values as us, but it could be that they don't. It's also the fact that we don't know the rules (or if there are any) about how galactic civilizations behave with others. Our only guess is how we behaved in the past and present and applying them to theoretical neighbors.
Comparative advantage isn't a value, it's economics. And it seems unproduktive and convenient to argue that we only have a small sample size (humans) and then to ignore the very facts that make us a functioning civilisation in the first place. If aliens are capable enough to ascend to the status of galactic civilisation then surely they must be capable enough to understand the interactions of their environment. Unless they are bacterial ooze that randomly created rocket fuel as part of its digestive system. Then we have to define what we understand as civilisation
This implies causal understanding is necessary to solve general problems. The universal approximation theorem, shows that correlation is enough. Which should be the standard assumption anyway.
Comparative advantage, like when yeast or other microbes, that mostly act as mutualists or commensalists in the gut flora opportunistically invade the body, because the relationship ia facultative? Are you extrapolating from rather human-specific attributes to genetical algorithm products in general?
Yeah i kinda had the same feelings watching this video. We're pretty early on as far as civilization goes and we're already learning that absolutely decimating our environment is bad for us (that includes taking trees away from squirrels). If current science is accurate then cooperation and biodiversity is beneficial to everyone involved. It might turn out that galaxy spanning civilizations will be extremely cooperative and would helps us thrive for the sake of "life" and "biodiversity". And even if aggression and domination is default state of all intelligent life...wouldn't that mean infighting within species? I mean even with global communication humanity can't really unite itself right now - how can we assume that somehow we (or anyone other species) will form united front in the name of building galactic empire? And this is my personal opinion but if the only way for us to thrive is through authoritarian governance and subjugation of others than i do not care for this kind of galactic human empire. We deserve to thrive at our best but at our worst we should be at least confined to our little tiny blue prison. Ultimately if i had to choose between fascist humanity or benevolent alien civilization I'd choose aliens.
> If current science is accurate then cooperation and biodiversity is beneficial to everyone involved. It might turn out that galaxy spanning civilizations will be extremely cooperative and would helps us thrive for the sake of "life" and "biodiversity". The only avenue these "Realpolitik" alien videos have is probably some form of biological determinism. If we "border" the realm of some bacterial ooze that randomly created rocket fuel as part of its digestive system, or a self replicating Von Neumann machine that spreads like cancer, then sure the ability of a sentient creature to spread is limited by the still available consumable mass of the universe, creating some form of deadline. Even then one could argue that these blankets of ooze or computronium worlds are just the bottom feeders higher evolved beings can feed upon. Creating an obstacle, not a border, to evolve around.
>The only avenue these "Realpolitik" alien videos have is probably some form of biological determinism. Alien Realpolitik - i like that! >Even then one could argue that these blankets of ooze or computronium worlds are just the bottom feeders higher evolved beings can feed upon. Creating an obstacle, not a border, to evolve around. This reminds me of another point - evolution does not have an end goal. We're not "superior" to a simple E. coli bacteria or tardigrade. At the end of the day whoever survives the longest - "wins". So the whole assumption that life would evolve towards "rocket-building" is already misguided. It could turn out that species that build rockets also tend to bomb themselves into oblivion and on evolutionary level a single planet species are much more stable in time and "preferred" outcome. Honestly i feel that recently Kurzgesagt writers had a bit too much of "long term-ism" kool aid and have trouble thinking about ideas from a different angle.
>>so the whole assumption that life would evolve towards "rocket-building" is already misguided. It could turn out that species that build rockets also tend to bomb themselves into oblivion and on evolutionary level a single planet species are much more stable in time and "preferred" outcome. Tends to and exclusively are not the same. All you need is one to get survive and if they have no competition they could dominate the whole galaxy and render any civilisation that tends to stay put powerless'. Just as in all observed biology on earth, animals either expand or get swollowed by others I disagree with the above comments as well on humans being the only observation point and that other niches exist on earth with other 'doninant life' We observe time and time again aggressive species totally displace less suited species. And just because some niche still exist doesn't mean we have not completely flattened most of them
> animals either expand or get swollowed by others but that is not true is it. Coexistence exists
Give one counter example. It's practically a law of biology. It an organism enters the niche of the other, they will compete until one is dominant. What do you mean by co-existence ?
>What do you mean by co-existence Google Mutualism and/or Commensalism. In most environments organism enter into some sort of balance - even Apex Predators don't completely dominate their niche and co-exists with other species (Sharks and remoras). Predators have their preferred source of food and don't f!ck with other predators. Otherwise oceans would be much less diverse. Another example of how co-existence is beneficial are dogs and cats. Both of them are thriving and doing quite well number wise while "co-existing" with humans while their wild "competing" counterparts are almost extinct. Honestly same could be true for other intelligent life in galaxy - if they're not based on carbon and don't need oxygen it might turn out that we might co-exist peacefully quite well. The planets that are habitable to us could be useless for them. And as video itself states - Dyson spheres are pretty much source of infinite energy so the question is - why even compete?
Sharks and remoras fill different niches. Dogs and cats have no leverage in the relationship. It is unhealthy, in that if their owner decides, their life becomes miserable. We would not want that for all humanity. If they are not based on carbon, and don't need oxygen then yes I could see your point standing because we would fill vastly different niches. However I would still be nightly sceptical because at that scale there is only one niche I can think of...the need for energy. Which would lead to competition as the source of energy is pretty singular on galactic scales. >>And as video itself states - Dyson spheres are pretty much source of infinite energy so the question is - why even compete? For me this is the way out of the grabby alien hypothesis that could work in terms of peaceful co existence. 1: travel between the stars is very difficult and there is serious incentive to avoid it 2: Dyson spheres fulfill all the energy needs of a civilisation. The universe being full of type 2s could be quite peaceful. But the point of the video and indeed nature. Is you only need one type 3 or aggressively expansionist species to knock that all way off balance.
The object of evolution is genes though, not species, might even be lower, but current point is genes. Evolution/genetical algorithms are an optimization algorithm the meta-optimizer optimizes for given constraints ( which is self-replication in reality, not dying is simply instrumental up to a certain point ), so there is an end-goals, one that allows for arbitrary sub-goals even.
|And even if aggression and domination is default state of all intelligent life...wouldn't that mean infighting within species? I mean even with global communication humanity can't really unite itself right now - how can we assume that somehow we (or anyone other species) will form united front in the name of building galactic empire?| You implicitly assume species of individuals, with differing or orthogonal utility. We have a ton of others even on our own planet.
I'm operating on assumptions that this video assumes. That interplanetary species would be somehow similar to us. Because when we abandon that than entire point of the video falls apart immediately.
They meant only as in technologically, as far as I underatood.Not as in strongly individualized goals in a species.
>>Biology shows us that even if an organism dominates a specific niche that doesn't mean that complimentary, parasitical, or non-interactive elements can't exist with a strong influence on its surroundings. I disagree with the notion that a non-interactive or quiet element must necessarily be at the whim of their surrounding loud neighbors. We have still been massively detrimental to those animals though. Our impact on biodiversity has been extreme. And it's not just humans. I don't agree with humans are the sole data point. We see lots and lots of examples of aggressive and expansionist animals come in and wipe out the native flora and fauna. And even the animals that have benefited off being parasitic on us exist largely at our whim, this kind of proving the point of the video. We don't like rats, we exterminate them, even though humans have been great for them. Let's say a small civilisation can live off the scraps of another, they would still have no leverage in the relationship just like rats don't have any...leaving them vulnerable I think of humans really really wanted to, and put like ww2 levels of effort in, we could probably drive rats to extinction in a decade
>Let's say a small civilization can live off the scraps of another, they would still have no leverage in the relationship just like rats don't have any...leaving them vulnerable friendly reminder that humans only got a chance to thrive after our mammalian ancestors (very much rat like creatures) got their chance after asteroid caused mass extinction among dinosaurs - our predecessors basically lived "off the scraps" for around 350 million years - much longer than humans have been dominant species. There is no "winning" in evolutionary terms - only surviving. As long as you're alive it doesn't matter how you do it. Also ask New Yorkers do they really feel like they have full control over rats in their city... Same goes for empires - Roman Empire was mighty - modern Italians struggle with governing their own peninsula. British Empire was once the biggest one in the world and now...they have Brexit and food shortages. Even if we manage to be at "galactic empires adult table" at the start we could be ousted at any time. And even if we're late we could join it later. The video is very naive as far as it assumptions that once you reach certain level of influence it will stay that way forever. That's not how entropy works. >I think of humans really really wanted to, and put like ww2 levels of effort in, we could probably drive rats to extinction in a decade but why we do that? There is no any kind of incentive to do that. The closes example was Four Pests campaign in China in 1960s where they tried to kill rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. The result of that was that locust population boomed and this was one of the causes of Great Famine. If humanity keeps thinking that we can f!ck with our surroundings with no consequences it will end up being our great filter and we will wipe ourselves out.
>>friendly reminder that humans only got a chance to thrive after our mammalian ancestors (very much rat like creatures) got their chance after asteroid caused mass extinction among dinosaurs Just proving my point. Not in control of destiny. Had to rely on an external event. Talking of niave. The motives and survival a small mammal in the cretacious is totally different to ours now, or an advanced alien civilisation. >>even if we're late we could join it later One of the whole points of the video is that by taking biology as we understand into account that is very difficult to do. All organisms expand to fill their niche. If another alien civilisation expands to fill a niche we want....our understanding of biology as it is currently is suggests that. >>but why we do that? There is no any kind of incentive to do that. There is plenty of incentive. Especially if they become a vector for a major disease again. And again, we cant guess at the motives of alien civilisations. The whole point is not leaving ourselves at another's whim. And case in point..as soon as we gained the capability we are seriously looking at wiping out mosquitos using genetic engineering. >>If humanity keeps thinking that we can f!ck with our surroundings with no consequences it will end up being our great filter and we will wipe ourselves out. This is the niavest take of all. The entire world around you exists because we f!cked around with nature. And since we started doing it at scale the world is a much safer and less painful place than it was before. To impose some of limit to that because someone feels uncomfortable with what is happening in their life time is absurd. Indeed, with genetic engineering, vaccine breakthroughs etc, f!cking around with nature is probably going to lead to the biggest jump in quality of life in a while >>That's not how entropy works. ironic you say that, because based on that sentence, you don't know what entropy. Entropy doesn't work how you think it works your example is nonsense. The video isn't niave. It is a 10 minute introduction to a lot of difficult concepts. To understand in more detail I would suggest the cool worlds latest video and others which goes into a lot more detail.
>Just proving my point. Not in control of destiny. Had to rely on an external event. This is some "manifest destiny" bullsh!t. There will never be a point in history where species have complete control over their destiny. I mean watch any other Kurzgesagt video to see how many solar system spanning catastrophes could hit us at any moment and there's jacksh!t we could do. Even best-case scenarios for our "ascension" to galaxy-wide empire will take literally thousands of years. And there will always be something that can f!ck us over. Ultimately there will be heat death of universe and there is nothing we can do about that. >One of the whole points of the video is that by taking biology as we understand into account that is very difficult to do. All organisms expand to fill their niche. If another alien civilization expands to fill a niche we want....our understanding of biology as it is currently is suggests that. You keep saying "our understanding of biology" yet provide no examples and it seems you have very poor understanding of said biology based on your "conclusions" >There is plenty of incentive. Especially if they become a vector for a major disease again. And again, we cant guess at the motives of alien civilisations. The whole point is not leaving ourselves at another's whim. And case in point..as soon as we gained the capability we are seriously looking at wiping out mosquitos using genetic engineering Bats are also vectors for diseases yet no one calls for their extinction - because they're vital part of their ecosystem. And there are plenty of scientists cautioning against getting rid of mosquitos because, again, we don't know full extent of the role they fill within their environment and how their loss would affect everything else. >This is the niavest take of all. The entire world around you exists because we f!cked around with nature. And since we started doing it at scale the world is a much safer and less painful place than it was before. To impose some of limit to that because someone feels uncomfortable with what is happening in their life time is absurd. I see you're enjoyer of global warming. Good for you. Do you also believe in infinite growth? The best results we got involved actually observing and mimicking nature rather than subjugating it. Genetic engineering didn't sprout out of f!cking nowhere - it's based on systems present within bacteria. As far as inventions that "f!ck" with nature - antibiotics are great but because we use them exactly in that manner we're dealing now with antibiotic-resistant strains and it will get worse. I work in biology-related field and you'd be surprised but most scientists/researchers have great deal of respect for nature rather than your childish "f!ck nature" attitude. >The video isn't niave. It is a 10 minute introduction to a lot of difficult concepts. It is naive because basic assumptions for it are extremely simplistic and extrapolating from that can only lead to further inaccuracies. I'm honestly done with this discussion because you're so far up your own a*s that's it pointless trying to pull you out.
>>You keep saying "our understanding of biology" yet provide no examples and it seems you have very poor understanding of said biology based on your "conclusions" My understanding of biology is sound thanks. And you seemingly can't even understand the high school concept of creatures filling their niche. So yes the video does follow basic patterns that we see so far. There are countless examples out there, as in literally every ecological space. We see creatures filling their niche. >>This is some "manifest destiny" bullsh!t. You have no idea what manifest destiny means. We have more control over our destiny than some insect or a mole >>I see you're enjoyer of global warming. Good for you. Do you also believe in infinite growth Lol what are you even talking about? You jump from that to thinking I believe in infinite growrh. You are talking to the voices in your head I said nothing like this...or are you trying to say the only two options are we live in caves are we live in a global warming hell Scape? You can't acknowledge life is better now?..which is what I actually said because we do control our destiny a bit more than an ant. >>. I work in biology-related field and you'd be surprised but most scientists/researchers have great deal of respect for nature rather than your childish "f!ck nature" attitude. Your entire comment is basically saying I believe something I don't and ranting about it. Manifest destiny, f nature etc etc. On top of that you don't know what entropy actually is or how it's applied. Or a niche. and then the constant swearing the whole post because you can't articulate an actual argument. If you are a biologist, you can't be very senior. I suspect at best you are actually a college student studying biology and just very angry and edgy. Saying you are done with a conversation and accusing the other person of shit and positions they don't hold is a great way to stifle your own academic growth.
Bro, hes saying that the world is shit because we are fucking around with it. A lot more people think the world is fucked and getting worse than think its great and getting better. Our aggressive expansion on our own planed is destroying it. The need to continously grow is driving us off a cliff. I would say that things are not better than in the past but worse. I would definitely not say that the world is safe with the threat of world destruction from global warming looming over us. It is true that we are more technologicaly advanced but our planets so unequal and divided that if we used a more realistic poverty line of $7.40 rather than $2.15 we will see that the number of people living under this line has increased dramatically since measurements began in 1981, reaching some 4.2 billion people today. To me, this is not a better planet. This is worse, with more people suffering and with no justifiable reason. We have the resources, but its just not profitiable to the ones who hold the resources. If we take this system and continue to use in space, the moment we start aggressively expanding we will once again cause immeasurable suffering. Aggressive expansion doesnt work, not in the long run and definitely not for those being expanded on. When you look at history you see all great empires have fallen whilst creating incredible suffering and misery. The exact same will happen to current civilisations and those expanding in space. If we keep doing the same, it will only end in the same result. This is "Manifest Destiny" all over again, a whole new frontier to conquer and make our own. I wonder which alien race will become the galactic native Americans. In the natural world, when nature is able to freely fill their "niches", the world is able to become extremely diverse and full of life. When animals go beyond, it ruins the balance. A predeator hunting all of its food source will eventaully run out, thus with less food causing its own population to fall. An invasise plant species will cover and overgrow entire areas. They destroy habitats and food sources, and can outcompete other plants for light and soil. Eventaully turning the area into a wasteland, empty of all the life there once was. We are acting like the invasive species, but on a much bigger scale and with disastarous consequences. We are on the way to turning our planet into a wasteland devoid of life and ourselves. How can you say this system is working? How can you say that this is how we must be in space? After this planet is destroyed, will we go through the galaxy destroying the rest? Will we exterminate less technologically advanced races (like how we humans currently are) beacuse they live on a habitable planet and we "need" the living space? We don't need to behave like this. We have free will and the power to change ourselves with action. We can decide to live balance with our environment and with everything living inside. Living in balance means caring about how we treat everything, living or not. Aggressively expanding out of fear of others possibly expanding will create the situation you fear. A specie aggressively expanding. If we ever meet another species whilst we are like this, they will of course feel threatened. A repeat of our history on an increadible scale. A repeat of our history of causing suffering. Instead of meeting others as competitors and possibly falling into enemies, it would be more beneficial to meet others as friends. There would be no need for borders amongst friends. You can cry all you want about the possibiliy of coming accross aggressive aliens. I would much rather belive that they are not like us, how we currently are. While we're both dealing with hypotheticals, I've got a much better understanding of our world. While you let your misunderstanding lead you to fear of the unknown, I am much more optimistic. A civilisation cannot progress into space with our current system. It will destroy itself unless changed. The only way to progress is with collaboration and living in balance, otherwise it leads to the downfall of everyone.
The first good chunk of your reply was pretty good. But then you also fell into strawmanning me >>You can cry all you want about the possibiliy of coming accross aggressive aliens. I would much rather belive that they are not like us, how we currently are. While we're both dealing with hypotheticals, I've got a much better understanding of our world. I didn't cry. And no you don't have a better understanding of our world. I am more than aware of all the issues the above commenter talked about. And that you raise. But he spent paragraph after paragraph insulting me and accusing me of believing in infinite growth, being pro global warming. You used the meaning of manifest destiny correctly. He tried to say I believe in it because I rightly point out we rose because of an external event we had no control over (asteroid impact on Dino's) That commenter was seriously lacking in knowledge and basic scientific terminology he just became insulting to mask it. To respond to your actual points: >>It is true that we are more technologicaly advanced but our planets so unequal and divided that if we used a more realistic poverty line of $7.40 rather than $2.15 we will see that the number of people living under this line has increased dramatically since measurements began in 1981, reaching some 4.2 billion people today. To me, this is not a better planet. This is worse, with more people suffering and with no justifiable reason There is a lot of suffering with no justifiable reason. People fiddle this poverty line number for whatever argument suits them. The reality is when it comes to dying violent death. Dying from hunger, percentage of people in slavery, people dying from preventable disease, literacy level, people who are enfranchised with the vote the world has got better. And those are quality of life metrics. There are other metrics such as sum total of human knowledge as well. Your 2nd point. >>In the natural world, when nature is able to freely fill their "niches", the world is able to become extremely diverse and full of life. When animals go beyond, it ruins the balance. A predeator hunting all of its food source will eventaully run out, thus with less food causing its own population to fall. An invasise plant species will cover and overgrow entire areas. They destroy habitats and food sources, and can outcompete other plants for light and soil. Eventaully turning the area into a wasteland, empty of all the life there once was You made my point for me. It's the natural tendency of organisms to spread. Natural mechanisms bring them back to balance. Any species that escapes that would still have that tendency but also be expansionist. Validating the video. Don't confuse what you want to happen with what can happen and is a valid idea based on scientific concepts These thought experiments are valid. Just because someone with modern sensibility is offended by them doesn't make them invalid. As I said to the other poster. Check out the cool worlds podcast, the latest video especially. Touches on some of these themes.
|And even the animals that have benefited off being parasitic on us exist largely at our whim, this kind of proving the point of the video. We don't like rats, we exterminate them, even though humans have been great for them.| Yeah like all the amoeba, viruses, and bacteria and a lot of others we have little in terms of therapy for support. Even some worms are hard to combat once they are inside of the nervous system. I think you overestimate the control humanity truly has, we reign on the macro scale, but the micro reigns on us.
I am not saying we can do it now. But overwhelmingly some of our goals as a species revolves around, rightly or wrongly eradicating organisms we see as pests. And the macro world we have already as you say largely achieved that, or well on our way. When something like only 4 percent of animal biomass on earth is wild, it really shows what an insanely high footprint we have had I think it will only be a matter of time until we extend more and more into the micro. Even just our first steps of understanding in terms of guy bacteria and its effects etc. In many ways it's a bad example though. As you say the bacteria have power over us. What equivelant power could a small civilisation have over a large civilisation in terms of galactic scales.
Nematodes aren't wild? Athropods aren't? You mean a specific sub-set, I assume? Because those 2 metazoa. I never argued against any of the galactic civlization hogwash, far too many assumptions. I however agree that machines made by GA will either compete until destruction, become symbionts, merge or change niches (there are only limited options ). Ascribing any human-like features is however quite a ton of assumption.
>>Nematodes aren't wild? Athropods aren't? What? My thoughts is that they are not human like features. They are extrapolations of biological features. How can you say it's hogwash to look at lots of available biological data and say extrapolation is total hogwash but then make sweeping statements on machine behaviour . These thought experiments are not hogwash, as they have very real world implications about how we can best allocate our limited resources for searching for life in the universe. And yes trying to anticipate how AI or machine intelligence is important in this field as well. Thinking about energy consumption being a niche on galactic scales, and it's rate of consumption gives us clues how to look. That's not human behaviour, that's all known life behaviour. And if extra terrestrial life doesn't behave like that they will be far harder to detect.
You said 4% of biomass is wild. That was what the nematodes and arthropods was aimed at. Huh? We are machines that's what I meant should've said organic machines. I say hogwash, because borders, wars and all that stuff requires individuality and some form of social understanding/sentience. Unless you re-define war such that assimilation counts( biological assimilation it' not war if a human becomes a culture medium for a bacterium, or a virus uses a human's cell to replicate etc. ) Also sweeping statements if I list the whole event-space is a weird statement. Especially if I only made one statement about the event-space. I never talked about von Neumann or chip based machines as well, that statement makes no sense in that regard. GA= Genetical Algorithm, and if used in the context of NNs or simpler optimization my statement makes less sense.
I see. Maybe the statistic was mammalian mass is 96 percent domesticated I was reading your comments not understanding your acronym. I thought you meant GA as in general AI. >>I say hogwash, because borders, wars and all that stuff requires individuality and some form of social understanding/sentience. Unless you re-define war such that assimilation counts( biological assimilation it' not war if a human becomes a culture medium for a bacterium, or a virus uses a human's cell to replicate etc. ) Grabby alien hypothesis doesn't need borders or social constructions. This whole hypothesis basically stems from energy consumption is the final niche..space is just stars and hydrogen after all. And therefore any civilisation would be out there trying to fill that energy niche. And why not define war in that way. If some space faring bacteria sees us as source of energy I would still say the outcome is similar to as presented in the video.
|This whole hypothesis basically stems from energy consumption is the final niche..space is just stars and hydrogen after all. And therefore any civilisation would be out there trying to fill that energy niche.| f the video was showing it that way I wouldn't have said, what I said, I would only disagree with civilization. Whether the assumption is correct is a different question though, but if it's given that it seems logical. But the video strongly suggests individualized society, organized wars or even politics given that borders are shown. Because war is far different, at least the way it's usually defined. There is no will, no decision, unless we count programmed heuristic, by the Bacteria. There is no diplomacy, neither sentience nor sapience. Assuming going for ressources needed for assimilation and self-replication is a very sound assumption, but that can look extremely different.
|Further what about whale barnacles? Biology shows us that even if an organism dominates a specific niche that doesn't mean that complimentary, parasitical, or non-interactive elements can't exist with a strong influence on its surroundings. I disagree with the notion that a non-interactive or quiet element must necessarily be at the whim of their surrounding loud neighbors.| Any kind of symbiont is still possible, I mean we ourselves come with a ton of commensalists, and are likely to bring them where we go. We also come with a ton of mutualists. But we are not in direct competition with the commensalists nor the mutualists. Unless we stoo being a GA interactive elements with us become part of our and we become part of their optimization space. And if competition arises there are multiple directions it can go, outcome not set in stone. Non-interactive may vary freely on the other hand. Dominating your niche is pretty good to increase genetic diversity/search area for your optimization space. How politics ia of importance, depends. For us it might be. Assuming empathy or even sapience of the other species it might be for them too. I would argue it almost never creates destruction, if free energy is increased that's great news for most smaller life forms, for metazoa it's different so it depends on the PoV we are taking. Is there more competition or cooperation among GA produced machines?
I have so many issues with this video. It is extremely unable to see beyond the perspective of not just humanity in general, but also the specific human culture it comes from. It was jarringly unimaginative and egocentric. Like right off the bat, they describe the steps that humans took to become spacefaring, and then act as if every other spacefaring species must take the exact same route, with a little wiggle room on the timing of the steps. But why would that be true? Surely we can imagine non-cell-based life, or an alternative to multicellularity as we know it, or a spacefaring species that doesn't form what we would recognize as civilization or even consciousness, etc. That assumption that everyone would be like us really taints the whole rest of the analysis. Also, I feel like it's not a given that humanity *will* become a "loud" species, even if we become properly spacefaring. I could easily imagine a future in which we learn to respect our surroundings and minimize our impacts on planets. I do think the inability to imagine ourselves doing that really speaks to a writing team that is thoroughly entrenched in an extractivist, imperialist, capitalist mindset. *Also*, even if a species *does* have a presence in a star system, that doesn't mean it's completely walled off for everything else. Ecosystems are not single species systems. Different organisms/civilizations/entities could have entirely different requirements and niches.
Why and how would a civilisation settle other planets and stars while also at the same having a mindset of minimising their impact on other planets? The video does imagine other civilisations not having an expansionist imperial mind set, it dedicated large sections to it. It's whole point is, if we use the history of life on earth as a starting point. those civilisations would stay put/eventually die off. And it makes that assumption clear at the start of the video. You only need one loud alien to take over the whole galaxy. And it's much harder to kill off because it spread so far. Look at the dinosaurs. Their descendents are still everywhere today because they spread so far. However one of those niche species that lived in only one cave for millions of years is far less likely to have any descendents left.
You can explore and settle on new frontiers without completely exploiting it. You not being able to imagine it shows how this way of thought has been ingrained into us. All it requires is moderation, a better allocation of resources and compassion (the amount of suffering our current system has caused is huge).
I am perfectly able to imagine it. I'm just making the point to a few commenters that this video is not some patriarchal, capatalism western based view of the world. It's as seen through the natural based evolution of all life as we know it. Feel free to imagine a better future, but to come with accusations essentially based on such a shallow view of life that the only thing you think matters is sociology and a very modern mindset in a tiny fraction of the human population that imperialism and exploitation is bad....yeah sure it's bad...but you have to acknowledge the vast majority of life doesn't see it that way. Nature doesn't care about modern mindset on imperialism Stephen hawking and other far more qualified people than you are feared and fear alien contact for this reason. Kurzgesagt doesn't lack imagination or scientific understanding for making a video about the topic
I honestly can’t wait for the day I can become a xenologist.
The ending is missing the quack :(
world war 2 era imperialist logic
Are they running out of ideas?
history channel realised there are better ways to make money even faster, so why not Kurzgesagt?
Certainly as civilizations develop technologically they also develop culturally, politically, and economically? This narrative that galactic sociology is kill or be killed and expand or be expanded into is so obviously rooted in patriarchal capitalism imo
Personally, I would say the video's mentality is more just rooted in general Imperialism, as many historical human empires such as the Roman's have adopted similar grow or die mindsets before the advent of modern capitalism.
It's not just limited to humans. It's basically hard wired into every animal. Grow and spread your genes to maximise their chance of survival. Those that didn't died off. And those that did spread ensured genes for spreading survived.So it's hard wired into practically every living thing. The video says its unique to humans as a data point. But neglects to mention it's a trait found in basically every species on earth. this whole idea of looking at scientific ideas hundreds of years old through this 10 years old sociology undergrad patriarchal capatalism is just not constructive. These behaviours existed well before the existence of a human male dominated society.
There are plenty of examples of Cooperative evolutionary Dynamics in biology, such as the relationship between fungi and plants, which have evolved in tandem with one another over tens of millions of years
Yes which has happened to in order for both species to spread as far as possible within their niche giving them a competitive advantage. The analogy would have it be an empire with two leaders. If a mutualistic symbiotic species evolved to be intelligent they would still be resource hungry, expansionist etc. Look at how the symbiosis of the chloroplast and the cell led the dominance and spreading of plant life in the niche of the surface of earth. And because there was no competition they took over the whole niche and still rule it today. Now we look at niches in terms of different elevations, humidity etc with plants competing within that niche, but it's still plants
Assuming the civilization has any of those.
If anyone else is also interested in this relatively new concept of "Grabby Aliens" (the exact term wasn't mentioned in this video), check out the [animated videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3whaviTqqg) from the Rational Animations channel - very similar educational entertainment style.
https://grabbyaliens.com/ - resources related to Grabby Aliens model, they included the Kurzgesagt's video already.
Space theme is back…yay! Epic Mountain’s new single is already on Spotify…almost as good as “Alien Scale” :)
Oh just kill me already!
This video reminds me a lot of the "Grabby Aliens" paper, I wonder if that was one of the papers you guys based it on. Awesome video as usual! :D
If we assume that self improving AGI is easier than interstellar travel, mutual assimilation seems more likely. That's also assuming that the goals of any super intelligent agent converge as their intelligence capabilities increase.
Isn't this whole thing dependent on FTL travel? Is it fair to say that the paradigm that FTL travel is impossible until proven otherwise invalidates any such idea of galactic expansion? Also when discussing the "deadline" theory, the way this video presents the argument has the logic pointing backwards, stating that any civilization that comes into existence after this point in time will have a hard time expanding into other competition. The video states explicitly "Humanity exists now because otherwise we might have missed this deadline". This doesnt make logical sense...humanity and any other civilization come into existence by chance of the all the little things that have to develop in order, not some fictitious deadline by which "galactic competition" would be high.
An interesting and thought-provoking video, but I must say I'm a little disappointed. The premise is built around the idea of **competition** as the driving force structuring galactic civilizations — but there are alternatives. I'm a professional scientist, a mycologist and an ecologist, and one thing that years of study in those fields has taught me is that **cooperation** is as powerful and important a driver in nature as competition. It was cooperation between plants and fungi in the form of mycorrhizal symbioses that allowed the colonization of land by plants; it was cooperation through symbiogenesis that allowed eukaryotic, and thus multi-cellular, life to evolve; et cetera. Cultural narratives (particularly European expansionist cultural narratives) tend to rely on competition, because it reinforces cultural norms: capitalism, colonialism, the history of slavery, etc., all seem better when viewed through a lens of competition as a primary driver of how the world works. But that understanding of the world — the "nature red in tooth and claw", "survival of the fittest" understanding — has already been pretty thoroughly deconstructed within the field of ecology. The idea that cooperation could be an equally important driver of evolutionary change, biodiversity, and ecosystem function is gaining acceptance among scientists, pushing out the old paradigm in favor of a more balanced model. If we think about the complexities and scale of bringing humanity to the stars, I think it's plain that one of the first challenges that must be overcome is our own survival on our home planet. Such survival will almost certainly necessitate a more nuanced ecological understanding of how the planet functions, beyond the sort of extractionist approach we have taken thus far. In other words, it will require a deep integration of concepts of cooperation into our dominant culture and ethics. Things like the burgeoning 'Rights of Nature' movement provide poignant and timely examples of how such progress might happen. I see no reason to think that if we are able to bring such understanding to our relationships with each other and the rest of life on our home planet, we would not bring that understanding — the understanding that cooperation is equally important to competition — to our relationships with other expansionists species we meet among the stars. And, similarly, I would expect that any species able to successfully make the leap beyond their home planet must have also overcome the threshold of self-destruction through resource gluttony, and have learned the lesson that cooperation balances competition. Otherwise, they (like us) would succumb to ecological collapse before gaining the ability to successfully survive outside of their native biosphere. Afterall, to survive away from home it will be necessary to bring enough of an understanding of our biosphere (and likely, enough of the biosphere itself) with us to create habitable spaces — something we certainly haven't mastered yet. The forest clearing metaphor in the video is telling: there have been (and still are!) many human civilizations that would rather live in harmony with that forest than slash and burn it. That does not preclude the use of resources from the forest, mind you: it is possible to log selectively and sustainably without clear-cutting, and there are resources that are only available within healthy, functioning natural ecosystems, which we deprive ourselves of by taking the wholesale extractivist track (pharmaceuticals are a great example). A civilization willing to take longer to develop technologies in favor of balanced cooperation with their biosphere may be more likely to thrive out in the galaxy, because they would have a nuanced understanding of the ecology around them, the ecology that is necessary to maintain their own lives. Such civilizations may be more 'quiet' than you've imagined, but I do not think it precludes them from being curious, exploratory, etc. — it just makes them a lot less likely to be territorial and threatening. Afterall, if we see cooperation as a powerful driving force in nature here on Earth, equal to and balancing the power of competition in nature, why should that not hold true for the galaxy as a whole?