Happy Hour [19/6/20]

19/6/20 Hannibal 20

You don’t have to drink alone.

We are probably less alone than we thought. The Astrophysical Journal has calculated that there may be as many as 211 alien civilizations with the ability to communicate, although co-author of the study Christopher Conselice, believes number to be 36 . They arrived at this figure by examining the presence of a metal-rich environment, and the likelihood that other stars may have Earth-like planets in their orbits.  

I’m less interested in the science than the science fiction tropes. Who are they, what do they look like, what do they want? Are they peaceful, friendly, or will they harvest us for food?

Probe you? I hardly know you!

Are they technologically and emotionally advanced or just as stupid, bumbling, and petty as we are?

Do they have a profound message for us, is that message let all the children boogie?

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20 Comments

  1. this ones to go with the theme


    anyhoo…. im on a mission to support the locals….wich is to say ive been digging through piles of crappy dutch music…found some gems tho… like these guys

    who’ve apparently been a thing for at least 6 years but ive only just heard of them….im clearly slipping in me old age

  2. I think if they can find us and come to meet us then they already got us beat no matter how many nutty Randy Quaids get vengeance for being anal probed.

    They won’t eat us because our physiology will be different. We’ll either taste bad or make them sick.

    I would hope that any alien civilization will be better and wiser, but who knows?

    • Since any speeds faster than light, or even close to light, are impossible (according to Einstein), they can’t even come to meet us. More’s the pity. As bad as we’re fucking things up, we could use a positive example. Or even a negative example. God knows, we’ve set the bar pretty low. Time for alcohol!

  6. I tend to be a buzzkill on this topic…

    The Drake Equation, while an interesting thought exercise, is pretty much bullshit. Too many variables with too many orders of magnitude that we can do nothing but guess at.

    And then, even if there is an abundance of intelligent, technological life out there, interstellar travel has so many hurdles as to make it effectively impossible. Space is fucking big. It’s so fucking big, no normal distance measurement is sufficient, so we have to measure it in units based on how far light will travel in a calendar year. That’s fucking absurd.

    So, on top of everything being really fucking far apart, the only known way of propulsion through outer space is by throwing shit behind you. And you first have to carry that shit with you before you can throw it behind you. And then you need to carry more shit for changing direction and slowing down. Soon, your craft is carrying so much fuel that it can’t carry enough fuel to get it to move.

    Plus, traveling even a small fraction of the speed of light makes even tiny collisions with bits of space dust, or even stray hydrogen atoms, really high-energy events. So you need some sort of shielding or armor or something to keep your craft from just abrading away. And that adds more mass to your craft, that needs more fuel, etc.

    And, even if work-arounds were found for those obstacles, space is a really damned hostile environment. Radiation. Vacuum. No heat/light.

    I just really get irritated about this topic, because people love to compare it to the “Age of Sail” and the two couldn’t be further apart than calculus and Ancient Hebrew.

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