• TheModerateTankie [any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Intelligent alien life almost certainly exists, but the ftl travel required to visit each other is likely impossible, and our bubble of radio signals hasn't traveled all that far.

    It also seems far fetched that they could master that kind of travel only to eat shit and crash on earth, but maybe these alien programs are led by the equivalent of the sub ceo guy.

    • iie [they/them, he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      but maybe these alien programs are led by the equivalent of the sub ceo guy.

      lmao

      the ftl travel required to visit each other is likely impossible

      related to this, I was under the impression ftl does not actually permit backwards time travel, although I get that there are other objections. for years my go-to reason to dismiss ftl was always that it allowed backwards time travel and grandfather paradoxes

      • naom3 [she/her]
        ·
        1 year ago

        I was under the impression ftl does not actually permit backwards time travel

        Do you have more information on this? My understanding was that, from the perspective of relativity, traveling faster than light was actually identical to traveling backwards in time.

        • iie [they/them, he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          I’m on my phone and don’t have a link off the top of my head but tldr events can appear backwards in some reference frames but you yourself can’t actually go back and interact with your own past.

          *I think Sabine Hossenfelder has a vid about it

      • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        related to this, I was under the impression ftl does not actually permit backwards time travel

        Depends. Accelerating yourself faster than light is impossible. But folding/bending space and then travelling at below-FTL speeds in that warped space is completely possible. Thus - warp drive.

    • Farman [any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Your point only applys to other galaxies.

      Even with current drive tech we could colonize the galaxy in under 2 million years. So if there are aliens in our galaxy they should be younger than that.

      Given the timescales involved it seems too much of a coincidence that we apered so close to each other. So its posible we are first.