A new NASA-funded study backs the ‘Great Filter’ theory as a solution to the Fermi paradox that, even though alien civilizations are highly probable, we’ve never heard from them. The off-world radio silence is because other civilizations kill themselves off with climate change, racism, inequity, political division, nuclear weapons and such, before they develop a way to contact us.
Is this a scientific paper, or a political prescription to save our own planet from existential threats?
Read the NASA-funded ‘Great Filter’ paper.
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Read the NASA Funded Paper
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20 replies on “NASA Solves Fermi Paradox: No Alien Contact Yet Due to Climate Change, Nukes, Racism, Inequity”
Moons are quite common Bill, almost all of our solar system planets sport them. And then how about the UFO (Oops, I mean UAP) revelations from the Pentagon last year?
I didn’t realize that Bill was an Atheist…we evolved from mud-skippers?? The earth is 10’s of millions of years old??
Ah, discussion of the “population problem”. Klaus Schwab had a hand in this theory paper. I like Bill’s explanation, which is very thoughtful and interesting. Shouldn’t we concentrate on our immediate problems, like Klaus and the elites trying to wipe us out? I have never been fascinated, or even particularly interested in “aliens from space”. How about the aliens invading over the border?
PS: What did you guys think of “Died Suddenly”?
I think some advanced civilization has monitored us and put a quarantine around our solar system quarantining us.
Climate change, really? When will someone with enough of an audience tell the climate emergency alarmists to go pound sand? The earth’s climate has always been changing, and it always will. That is, until we annihilate the planet in a nuclear war and exterminate ourselves.
This whole global manmade climate crisis is a fucking lie. It’s just an excuse for those in power to have even more control over our way of life, while having zero impact on any of their lives.
Obama was one of the biggest hypocrites to ever be in the White House. If sea levels are going to suddenly rise and wreak havoc on the coastline, then why the hell did he spend millions on his own compound on Martha’s Vineyard?
Al Gore and John Kerry, what are they doing to stop our inevitable demise? Not a fucking thing, it’s all bullshit.
And now NASA has joined the circus? We are all doomed.
I think the search for extraterrestrial life is a boondoggle perpetrated by people who think that finding life of any sort off Earth will somehow magically disprove the existence of God.
What is the real point in looking for microbes on Mars? If they’re there and we’re there we are going to find them eventually anyway. So why is this sort of thing an issue worth spending billions of dollars looking for something that really makes no difference if it exists or not?
There are good, useful things out there to look for, microbial bugs are not among them.
I’m not saying “don’t explore space” at all. I’m 100% for space exploration that will benefit human beings. There is lots of stuff out there that can infuse enough wealth into the global economy to lift human kind to the next sociological and technical leve. Something like the Industrial Revolution or the Information Age has done in the past waits out there just beyond our fingertips.
For all intents and purposes extraterrestrial life that does not come knocking at our door is irrelevant. It makes no difference to us. If it’s there, we’ll run into it eventually and if it’s not there’s no loss to humanity either.
Out of a population of nearly 350 million people, we’ve put in charge Biden, Harris, Pelosi and Schumer, pretty much telling the universe, :”There is NO intelligent life here.”
WE destroyed our civilization when we allowed the likes of lame-stream-media, aol, yahoo, twitter, facebook, et al to take over our lives and freedom to express ourselves.
If we are alone in the universe, it’s not terrifying – it’s a universe of opportunity.
The authors start with a false premise: They argue that the probability of extraterrestrial life is large. Based on the laws of physics and chemistry, the probability of extraterrestrial life is vanishingly small.
The probability is actually incalculable because there is no complete theory to explain how life can arise from non-life (without a miracle.)
At this point and time (linear time) there are no other ” civilizations” in the universe let alone in the galaxy. According to probability mathematicians calculating the protein sequence required for life, let alone intelligent life, requires a universe that is more than 100x older than ours; even greater. In short no one is out there to respond.
So the real question is…what’s with the UFOs? Are they real? To travel the galaxy/universe requires the “bending” of space-time. Early “folding” of space-time will be used to transport to other solar systems and settle other worlds. In other words our visitors are us from another space another time. So why visit us because they are curious; they want to witness events…I don’t know. Why would the Creater let us loose in the universe now…we mutilate our children and are cruel to the innocent. We are not ready for forever.
There are lots of very intelligent theories about this should you decide to do the topic again. Professor Mike Strauss of the Univ of Oklahoma talks about the “rare earth” theory and it is very compelling. Bill’s discussion of the moon fits right into that. It basically makes the case, as hard as it is to believe, that God created this massive universe just for we little earthlings. All that universe for us. At least it is theoretically possible. Strauss’ argument is based completely on physics and cosmology, not on biology.
There is another angle, I have forgotten the source, but it goes like this.
1) The universe is now 15 billion years old.
2) The first 5 billion, life was impossible because the universe was too hot and too filled with deadly radiation.
3) The second 5 billion, life was very possible and could have evolved. Note that we earthlings are currently living in the third 5 billion.
4) Some scientists – not Christians, mind you — believe that earth is unique in the entire universe because we would have seen some sign from the second 5 billion period of time. Even if a civilization had died out already. A nearby galaxy might have had 50, 500, or 5,000 civilizations evolve out of a galaxy of a billion stars; if even half were eventually intelligent enough to be like us, and sent out signals, we would have seen them with all our SETI collections. We haven’t.
5) Hence, there might be some merit to the rare earth theory.
Good luck with this!
Well…I figure those space folks are just waiting on us; we’re not “ripe” yet.
AND…since some of us here on Earth seem to think that if we screw things up TOO much, there is “probably” somebody “out there” who will come save us from ourselves. Were we knowing with an absolute certainty that we’re “alone” in all the Universe might make us take a moment to reflect on how we treat this place, the only place we have to stand on, and begin to apply some well-pondered logic to the destructive activities that some of us (like Little Rocket Man) are so fond of engaging in, and stop what could be the very last, absolutely final, positively negative sort of foolishness to turn this place into a cinder, for everyone and every thing that walks, crawls, swims or flies here, making of us all a “once was” that nobody is left to remember it. What a waste of potential and beauty and fabulous genius. We war at our own absolute peril. What goes around comes around. Surely we can find a way to make other choices. We are, all of us, The Gardeners, left here to pass or fail, Green Thumbs or Brown Thumbs. Kind of a heavy lift but we have the potential to achieve a brilliant survival, if we want it enough.
Or, we’re it. Nobody else. The Finely Tuned Universe. Most astronomers/cosmologists are believing in God or are facing the problem of explaining our existence in face of infinite odds.
It’s interesting that the brain boxes at NASA seem to think we need to be united and at peace in order to explore and colonise space. Certainly, avoiding nuclear annihilation is essential (as it is for everything), but the history of exploration on our own planet hardly bears out the idea that peace is pre-requisite. During the period of European exploration and colonisation, the late 1400s to the 1800s the European nations taking the lead exploring the world (Spain, Portugal, England, the Netherlands, and France) were hardly a united European Union of peace-loving sandal wearing muesli munchers.
Spain was able to send Mr Columbus on his trip due to the reconquest of Granada in 1492 and the ending of Moslem rule in Spain, but peace didn’t last long. The Spanish crown was involved in wars in Italy three times from1494-1504, Morocco 1497, a rebellion in Spain 1499-1501, against the Ottomans in the Mediterranean 1499-1503, North Africa 1505-10, the War of the League of Cambrai 1508-15, North Africa 1518, revolts in Spain 1519-23 and 1520-21, Italy 1521-26, the War of the League of Cognac 1526-30, they had troops defending Vienna at the first Ottoman siege in 1526, you get the picture.
All this in first few decades of the 1500s when Spain was rapidly exploring, settling, and conquering the New World, including the conquest of Haiti, Cuba, Yucatan, Guatemala, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, and of course the empire of some very religious chaps called the Aztecs.
I could say the same of all of the countries involved. Indeed, Spain was involved in the protracted and vicious struggle called the 80 Years War (1568-1648) with what became the United Provinces of the Netherlands, with France and England dipping into that war from time to time. All four of the nations involved were also busy getting out into the world. Indeed, rivalry in Europe was one of the biggest spurs to expansion outside Europe. Many conquests were made not because country A especially wanted the new territory, but because they REALLY didn’t want country B to have it.
Maybe the stepping up of the PRC’s space programme is just what we need to really put some ginger into space exploration.
But look how THAT turned out…. 😉
Well, a lot of the world is pants, but then those places were mostly pretty pants to start with. I like the English-speaking parts of the world though, they’re pretty good. 🙂
Bill talks about the miracle of our moon. If you read Erik Metaxas “Is Atheism Dead?” you would learn a countless number of other miracles that had to happen for life as we know it to exist. The most unbelievable to me is that the weight of the universe had to be perfect within the parameter of one dime to not expand too fast or contract too fast after (God’s) Big Bang initiated it all.
Watch Univ of Oklahoma Professor Mike Strauss’ videos about the “rare earth” theory.