It's also one of the things that perhaps drove Neanderthals to extinction.

Neanderthals didn't go extinct, at least not in the here one second gone the next, neither did the Denisovans or other hominins.  The overall species went extinct, but they interbred with homo sapiens and anyone not of purely African descent has some shred of both/either/or.

Evolution is a weird process that has a lot of intermingling and mixing between species.  

Trey the explainer has a pretty good video that partially covers this. Evolution is not some clean cut progression, but a muddy blurry mess.
[youtube]NArlXzSFt2Y[/youtube]

Sure is, I remember at one time we used to think that interbreeding was impossible within different species (to produce viable offspring) but now we know thats not true.  I wonder if some of the modern characteristics people have in certain regions have something to do with the mixture of different types.

These two were quite good

[youtube]BK09iFxUv2U[/youtube]
[youtube]5VbJyLoUy6U[/youtube]

These two were quite good

I've been quite enjoying John's new Event Horizon channel. All the interesting topics are discussed - it makes for great listening late at night or while taking a long walk.  

A-L-E-X wrote:
Humanity wont survive to go anywhere in space if it doesn't change, so the point of greed in space will be moot, if it doesn't change how it treats the planet we are on right now.

That might be the greatest of Great Filters and the main reason why we dont detect any signals from outer space.  According to the Kardashev Scale, it's the toughest transition, going to Level 1, and to do so, we need to learn how to be less wasteful.  Most civilizations may not be able to make this transition and die out without ever getting to Level 1.  After all, we are a part of the environment that we are destroying. Based on that, this may be the single most important reason why we haven't been able to detect anything out there.

Of course. I assume that it is fairly obvious that we will never have an established presence in space if we maintain our current modern economy and resource harvesting methods. It may indeed be a filter - but as you said, this is all academic unless we can actually FIND advanced alien life - most likely by their technosignatures. I myself am of the opinion that we simply haven't been looking long or hard enough yet, but that of course is my own hopelessly biased and subjective viewpoint, as we all have.

Another point to consider: if there is another type 0.7 K1 species out their on a planet like us, they might have some different problems then we do based off of biological dissimilarity. We are very much the result of species-specific, EARTH-SPECIFIC evolution. We often assume that ETI will face similar social and environmental problems as we face. That is a good theoretical rule of thumb to start with when considering things like this, but I think we will find that variety among ET will be the rule, rather then an exception. No two species will be the same if light-years and billions of years separate them biologically - especially if their planetary habitats vary.

We discussed over-population before on this forum, yes? As we discovered, it is a largely mitigated threat to our survival as a global species. Problematic, but not worryingly so. But, if an alien species that has a higher birth rate (for whichever evolutionary reason) beats a Great Filter and achieves civilization of a sub K1 type, they face a tricky problem. Do they drastically change their culture and species-specific ways to pacify a looming disaster? Let us be honest, a lot of our culture is based on sex and reproduction. Imagine if was insectoid in its important, as we see with ants and wasps. Breeding is literally their whole world. For us humans, nuclear war or environmental issues may do us in. For the high-birth-rate species, it is something different completely.

There are two sides to the coin - we may be approaching a Great Filter event that will lead to our civilization's extinction, or we might have passed it already and nothing can topple us now. Whichever the case may be, it will be different for each ET species. We all do this alone.

A-L-E-X wrote:
Humanity wont survive to go anywhere in space if it doesn't change, so the point of greed in space will be moot, if it doesn't change how it treats the planet we are on right now.

That might be the greatest of Great Filters and the main reason why we dont detect any signals from outer space.  According to the Kardashev Scale, it's the toughest transition, going to Level 1, and to do so, we need to learn how to be less wasteful.  Most civilizations may not be able to make this transition and die out without ever getting to Level 1.  After all, we are a part of the environment that we are destroying. Based on that, this may be the single most important reason why we haven't been able to detect anything out there.

Of course. I assume that it is fairly obvious that we will never have an established presence in space if we maintain our current modern economy and resource harvesting methods. It may indeed be a filter - but as you said, this is all academic unless we can actually FIND advanced alien life - most likely by their technosignatures. I myself am of the opinion that we simply haven't been looking long or hard enough yet, but that of course is my own hopelessly biased and subjective viewpoint, as we all have.

Another point to consider: if there is another type 0.7 K1 species out their on a planet like us, they might have some different problems then we do based off of biological dissimilarity. We are very much the result of species-specific, EARTH-SPECIFIC evolution. We often assume that ETI will face similar social and environmental problems as we face. That is a good theoretical rule of thumb to start with when considering things like this, but I think we will find that variety among ET will be the rule, rather then an exception. No two species will be the same if light-years and billions of years separate them biologically - especially if their planetary habitats vary.

We discussed over-population before on this forum, yes? As we discovered, it is a largely mitigated threat to our survival as a global species. Problematic, but not worryingly so. But, if an alien species that has a higher birth rate (for whichever evolutionary reason) beats a Great Filter and achieves civilization of a sub K1 type, they face a tricky problem. Do they drastically change their culture and species-specific ways to pacify a looming disaster? Let us be honest, a lot of our culture is based on sex and reproduction. Imagine if was insectoid in its important, as we see with ants and wasps. Breeding is literally their whole world. For us humans, nuclear war or environmental issues may do us in. For the high-birth-rate species, it is something different completely.

There are two sides to the coin - we may be approaching a Great Filter event that will lead to our civilization's extinction, or we might have passed it already and nothing can topple us now. Whichever the case may be, it will be different for each ET species. We all do this alone.

I'm hopeful we will find something within our lifetimes (even if its simple life- which may give us a key to how to refine our methods and look for more advanced life later.)  
Something I find fascinating is that, what if there is a habitable system with more than one planet in the habitable zone.  Could more than one species develop technological capabilities or would one necessarily destroy the other?  If they worked together perhaps they would both be better off?  I was thinking of the Trappist-1 system where there could be more than one habitable planet and the planets could even have shared genetic material if indeed life did develop there.  Life may be as varied as all the different types of solar systems we have found.
Insect intelligence is very interesting- I wonder if they would necessarily have a hive mentality like they do on Earth?  If they do, wouldn't many of their kind be self-programmed to be sterile while only the top level ones mate?  Less degree of freedom, but perhaps a better pathway towards managing the future.  In our societies we value individuality and freedom much more, this may not be the case in an ETI.  Each has its pros and cons of course, while they may not pollute the oceans with plastics like we do, they may have their whole lives laid out for them before they were ever born, without room for much variance.

I'm hopeful we will find something within our lifetimes (even if its simple life- which may give us a key to how to refine our methods and look for more advanced life later.)

Yes! Me too . I mean, with TESS, the James Webb telescope and planned missions to Titan and Europa, I would be very much surprised if we don't discover something by 2050. NASA themselves stated that they hope to solve the Fermi Paradox with these types of missions by the 2030s. When that happens, it will be the most momentous event in scientific biological history.

I know lots of people have become jaded by our lack of progress in this field, but to them I say: we have never had space telescopes and the sophisticated instruments to go with them ever before. HUBBLE was the first - and it's discoveries were amazing.  Then came Kepler and it's proof of the widespread presence of exoplanets. I call that progress, whether or not we can detect ET or not.

Something I find fascinating...

It depends what the species are like in psychological development and at what point they meet in their relative personal histories. They might even be related if one or the other's biological existence on their planet is due to panspermian seeding (as might have been the case between Mars and Earth, or even Venus). Although the presence of two species developing intelligence on two separate planets in the same solar-system would be highly unlikely (remember the Great Filters), I could see it actually working out quite well unless one or both alien species were hyper-aggressive. 

If one developed high technology first and visited the other, a 'Columbia meets the Indians' scenario would be unlikely. If the more advanced civilization IS still petty in that regard, they probably don't have enough technology to do very much, for the reasons we already went over.  If one species DOES have the required technology to actually establish a meaningful presence on the other planet, and still maintains outdated ideas about subjugation, it is similarly unlikely that exterminating or enslaving their neighbors would serve much purpose beyond pure ideology.

Although I cannot speak for the ETI themselves of course, such despotic activities would be seen as an absurd waste of energy if AI make better servants and there are plenty of resources elsewhere. Whether or not the aliens follow such logical conclusions is up to debate - but a far more sinister course of action they could follow is to 'downshift' their neighbor's overall intelligence back to more manageable standards. If they want to hoard everything for themselves. No need to exterminate the savages, just push them into national parks (or upload them into simulations if you are REALLY advanced) and strip-mine their planet for your Dyson Shell .

Seriously though, if the two species were roughly congruent in their development and had a gradual introduction (first ancient astronomers discover lights on the other planets, then radio is discovered and contact is made etc.) then a no doubt tense but overall cool political climate would form between them, much like our current international relations.

Or, the one species may uncover the ruins of the other species when they explore their neighbor's planet, a testament to their failure...

wouldn't many of their kind be self-programmed to be sterile while only the top level ones mate?

Yes. But those that can mate would still have thousands of young. As civilization developed and child (err, larva) mortality rates dropped, more young would survive, which means more breeding adults, which means more births etc etc. Even if the aliens in question were not hive-minded and just had insectoid-levels of fecundity, this would still pose a major problem.

In our societies we value individuality and freedom much more,

Often at our own peril!

they may have their whole lives laid out for them before they were ever born, without room for much variance.

Even without considering the neurological and psychological effects of growing up in this environment, I can think of quite a few homo sapiens sapiens that would love to live like this .

I'm hopeful we will find something within our lifetimes (even if its simple life- which may give us a key to how to refine our methods and look for more advanced life later.)

Yes! Me too . I mean, with TESS, the James Webb telescope and planned missions to Titan and Europa, I would be very much surprised if we don't discover something by 2050. NASA themselves stated that they hope to solve the Fermi Paradox with these types of missions by the 2030s. When that happens, it will be the most momentous event in scientific biological history.

I know lots of people have become jaded by our lack of progress in this field, but to them I say: we have never had space telescopes and the sophisticated instruments to go with them ever before. HUBBLE was the first - and it's discoveries were amazing.  Then came Kepler and it's proof of the widespread presence of exoplanets. I call that progress, whether or not we can detect ET or not.

Something I find fascinating...

It depends what the species are like in psychological development and at what point they meet in their relative personal histories. They might even be related if one or the other's biological existence on their planet is due to panspermian seeding (as might have been the case between Mars and Earth, or even Venus). Although the presence of two species developing intelligence on two separate planets in the same solar-system would be highly unlikely (remember the Great Filters), I could see it actually working out quite well unless one or both alien species were hyper-aggressive. 

If one developed high technology first and visited the other, a 'Columbia meets the Indians' scenario would be unlikely. If the more advanced civilization IS still petty in that regard, they probably don't have enough technology to do very much, for the reasons we already went over.  If one species DOES have the required technology to actually establish a meaningful presence on the other planet, and still maintains outdated ideas about subjugation, it is similarly unlikely that exterminating or enslaving their neighbors would serve much purpose beyond pure ideology.

Although I cannot speak for the ETI themselves of course, such despotic activities would be seen as an absurd waste of energy if AI make better servants and there are plenty of resources elsewhere. Whether or not the aliens follow such logical conclusions is up to debate - but a far more sinister course of action they could follow is to 'downshift' their neighbor's overall intelligence back to more manageable standards. If they want to hoard everything for themselves. No need to exterminate the savages, just push them into national parks (or upload them into simulations if you are REALLY advanced) and strip-mine their planet for your Dyson Shell .

Seriously though, if the two species were roughly congruent in their development and had a gradual introduction (first ancient astronomers discover lights on the other planets, then radio is discovered and contact is made etc.) then a no doubt tense but overall cool political climate would form between them, much like our current international relations.

Or, the one species may uncover the ruins of the other species when they explore their neighbor's planet, a testament to their failure...

wouldn't many of their kind be self-programmed to be sterile while only the top level ones mate?

Yes. But those that can mate would still have thousands of young. As civilization developed and child (err, larva) mortality rates dropped, more young would survive, which means more breeding adults, which means more births etc etc. Even if the aliens in question were not hive-minded and just had insectoid-levels of fecundity, this would still pose a major problem.

In our societies we value individuality and freedom much more,

Often at our own peril!

they may have their whole lives laid out for them before they were ever born, without room for much variance.

Even without considering the neurological and psychological effects of growing up in this environment, I can think of quite a few homo sapiens sapiens that would love to live like this .

Yes scientific progress can be relatively slow, especially compared to how quickly political changes can happen, I think we have become quite spoiled in some ways.  But slow and steady wins the race   A solid groundwork must be laid down first before there can be a sustained rate of progress, and I've found that in the beginning, it's usually a two steps forward, one step back kind of deal, until that solid framework has been created, and thereafter there can be sustained progress, because a new plateau is reached in terms of what we can achieve.  Think of the 80s and how back then we just had ideas of what exoplanets might be like, and then we started discovering them, at first slowly, and then in droves and now we can even directly image them!  Once we can resolve landscapes and seascapes and detect the presence of water and oxygen, it will be exciting times indeed!
The idea of panspermia in our own solar system is pretty interesting.  We've found tektites in Antarctica that came all the way from Mars!  Perhaps Mars developed some sort of microbial life first and it made it here on one or more of these?  Eventually Mars became hostile to life, but Earth evolved into being THE place to be for life.  In addition to solving the Fermi Paradox perhaps we'll also finally solve the Drake Equation?
I'm also optimistic that the kind of bad behavior we have been discussing is something sentient beings would evolve beyond as they make it into space- perhaps getting to space being so difficult is actually a good thing?  If it was easier than there would be much more of a chance for less evolved and more violent species to be out there.  So these Great Filters actually are a positive.
It would be pretty cool to have a second intelligent species in the same solar system, although perhaps a little tense at first.  Once you get used to it and establish interplanetary relations and realize how much you have in common, then it becomes a big positive going forward, as you can reinforce each others' positive tendencies and cancel out the negatives.  When you mentioned downshifting other sentient species you reminded me of a famous Star Trek episode where there is one race that lives in cities in the sky and another race that does the mining on the surface and the people in the sky cities are the rulers and they know the race in the mines is getting dulled by exposure to chemicals in the mines, but since it serves their purposes, they allow it to happen.  Until Captain Kirk and his crew get there of course!
Ironic thing about insect intelligence is, insects are the most successful type of animal on our planet by sheer numbers alone.  Imagine if they had sentience lol, I could see them being analogous to a plague of locusts going from planet to planet to planet.  I can see some humans also like having their whole lives laid out for them- that can be very addictive.  Basically they would live by instincts alone and thus little or no stress.

If it was easier than there would be much more of a chance for less evolved and more violent species to be out there.

We can't really say. There are so many variables (hence the Drake Equation) that it could cut either way. It's probably a fair mix of characters out there. Even ones that we would consider hostile to us might have such different world-views and agendas it would be impossible to even agree go to war, not considering the immense hurdles of interstellar warfare (light-lag, anyone ?).

Until Captain Kirk and his crew get there of course!

So help us if Capt. Kirk ever exists. He does more harm then good in my opinion, but without his shenanigans, there would be no story arc. If only in real life there was a storyarc .  

If it was easier than there would be much more of a chance for less evolved and more violent species to be out there.

We can't really say. There are so many variables (hence the Drake Equation) that it could cut either way. It's probably a fair mix of characters out there. Even ones that we would consider hostile to us might have such different world-views and agendas it would be impossible to even agree go to war, not considering the immense hurdles of interstellar warfare (light-lag, anyone ?).

Until Captain Kirk and his crew get there of course!

So help us if Capt. Kirk ever exists. He does more harm then good in my opinion, but without his shenanigans, there would be no story arc. If only in real life there was a storyarc .  

Yes he never abided by the Prime Directive (which I think we should also apply to international interactions, the more we meddle, the more problems we cause.) I think Spock tried to reel him in, without Spock he would have run amok lol.
Stephen Hawking was pretty paranoid about us finding alien intelligence and its possible risks.  I always thought that was overblown because the chances are slim that they would have anything we want or vice versa to even want to go to war.

Stephen Hawking was pretty paranoid about us finding alien intelligence and its possible risks.  I always thought that was overblown because the chances are slim that they would have anything we want or vice versa to even want to go to war.

I have the utmost respect for Hawking as a physicist. His passing for me was the same as Sagan's. The world truly lost a brilliant mind when he died. 

That being said, I have little respect for Hawking as the sociologist and exobiologist he tried to be when warning us about aliens or AI. No doubt he was a very smart man, smarter by far then me. But with the new increased sophistication and specialization in different scientific fields resulting from recent progress - it makes it difficult for unaffiliated scientists to make sound theories or arguments. They may have learned opinions and advice certainly,  but I do not take their word as absolute truth.

With AI dangers, I take Elon Musk more seriously (even if he says the same things as Hawking) since social engineering is his field. As for any alien threats, I cannot think of many psychologists or biologists who warn against ET-human contact. 

I cannot think of many psychologists or biologists who warn against ET-human contact.

Let's put it this way: If the aliens are just a little like us, then that's reason enough to fear them!
But I think so: if the aliens are like us, then they will destroy themselves before they become a danger.
As we probably will.
I think, that's the big filter that still lies ahead: Intelligent races inevitably destroy themselves before they can advance into space to any great extent.

Well there are different types of humans sociologically so it depends, some are more sustainable than others.  If they are like Native Americans, then they probably are sustainable.  If they are like Saudi Arabia and committing genocide in Yemen and destroying hospitals, schools and funeral homes to kill hundreds of thousands of children and getting away with it just because they have a lot of money then HECK NO.  Or us, who provide them with the weapons or the UN that looks the other way because of their big money donations.

Stellator- earlier you mentioned, TESS, what is that?  I also saw it mentioned in the new Starry Night release, as the basis for its new 3D modeling of exoplanets.  Is it better than what we had before?  Better than Kepler? What does it do?

If they are like Native Americans, then they probably are sustainable.

This is sadly untrue. It would be unrealistically passe of us to make such sweeping statements about the entire Native American race, and assume hegemony between the thousands of tribes they maintained through N. America.  Many had widely differing customs and ways of life. Although Western impacts like disease and genocide was the principle cause of a large majority of tribe extinction or reduction and decrease in quality of life, current archeological evidence suggests that some tribes were already in decline - particularly in places like Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Maine. This could be seen as Western elitism among academia and justification for Western colonization, but the truth is far more interesting:

As the Native peoples spread across the Americas, they encountered many different environments. Many of these contained bacterium and diseases that the originally Asiatic natives could not cope with. Those that remained died, and those that returned to their homelands spread the new contagions further. Waves of disease occurred when native settlers returned to the forsaken lands or sought new ones out. The overall effect was of course much milder then during Colonial times with European diseases.

Furthermore, lots of Native American Cultures showed evidence of creating highly advanced civilizations rivaling that of their European or Asian contemporaries, particularly in the SW states, Mexico and of course in Mesoamerica. The most famous of the N. American civilizations were the Anasazi. They were every bit as technologically-fixated and 'unsustainable' as their European contemporaries. Obviously something went very wrong, because their civilization disappeared shortly before the Europeans landed in the Caribbean. 

TESS, what is that?

TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) is seen as the successor to Kepler. This makes it a very important and special mission for future exoplanetary discoveries. There is a full review of how it works and it's objectives HERE on it's NASA website. It is a space telescope that like Kepler monitors a star's given brightness and looks for dips signifying a exoplanet transition. Unlike Kepler, whose FOV only monitored a relatively small patch of stars 110 square degrees in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, TESS will cover a whooping 85% of the sky in it's survey, encompassing millions of nearby stars. It s truly epic. It's goal is to identify as many exoplanets as possible, then follow up observations with other instruments like the James Webb, or ground-based telescopes. On 18 Apr 2018, TESS launched from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon-9 rocket. It is undergoing mission testing as we speak.

If they are like Native Americans, then they probably are sustainable.

This is sadly untrue. It would be unrealistically passe of us to make such sweeping statements about the entire Native American race, and assume hegemony between the thousands of tribes they maintained through N. America.  Many had widely differing customs and ways of life. Although Western impacts like disease and genocide was the principle cause of a large majority of tribe extinction or reduction and decrease in quality of life, current archeological evidence suggests that some tribes were already in decline - particularly in places like Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Maine. This could be seen as Western elitism among academia and justification for Western colonization, but the truth is far more interesting:

As the Native peoples spread across the Americas, they encountered many different environments. Many of these contained bacterium and diseases that the originally Asiatic natives could not cope with. Those that remained died, and those that returned to their homelands spread the new contagions further. Waves of disease occurred when native settlers returned to the forsaken lands or sought new ones out. The overall effect was of course much milder then during Colonial times with European diseases.

Furthermore, lots of Native American Cultures showed evidence of creating highly advanced civilizations rivaling that of their European or Asian contemporaries, particularly in the SW states, Mexico and of course in Mesoamerica. The most famous of the N. American civilizations were the Anasazi. They were every bit as technologically-fixated and 'unsustainable' as their European contemporaries. Obviously something went very wrong, because their civilization disappeared shortly before the Europeans landed in the Caribbean. 

TESS, what is that?

TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) is seen as the successor to Kepler. This makes it a very important and special mission for future exoplanetary discoveries. There is a full review of how it works and it's objectives HERE on it's NASA website. It is a space telescope that like Kepler monitors a star's given brightness and looks for dips signifying a exoplanet transition. Unlike Kepler, whose FOV only monitored a relatively small patch of stars 110 square degrees in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, TESS will cover a whooping 85% of the sky in it's survey, encompassing millions of nearby stars. It s truly epic. It's goal is to identify as many exoplanets as possible, then follow up observations with other instruments like the James Webb, or ground-based telescopes. On 18 Apr 2018, TESS launched from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon-9 rocket. It is undergoing mission testing as we speak.

Thanks, when is it due to send back enough data to build 3D models of exoplanets with?  It sounds like it will be able to discover millions of exoplanets!
Yes, there were many different types of Native Americans, some much more sustainable than others (the Aztec and Sioux are examples of those who were more warlike), it's interesting about the Anasazi, what drove them to extinction?  Is that the same one that disappeared from Clovis, New Mexico? I found that the Iroquois Seven Nations we had in NY (now on reservations sadly) were much more in tune with their environment.  And the Cherokee ("Trail of Tears")