A fairly obvious solution to the Fermi paradox is to assume that longevity factor in the Drake equation is a very small number. Then examine the idea that extraterrestrial beings may be the authors of their own inevitable destruction. 1 .-
War During the Cold War, many scientists were sure that sooner or later end up CETs discovering the power of uranium and annihilated in a nuclear holocaust, as it seemed on the verge of the human race.
Although a nuclear war could wipe out our entire species, is no less true that the opposite may also occur, ie, there may still be survivors. In the novel by Walter M. Miller "A Canticle for Leibowitz " is narrated that monks are the custodians of knowledge and human knowledge after a nuclear war that has decimated the planet. A few millennia later, humans have rediscovered science and have managed to overcome. Only a few thousand years seem so few cosmic scale as to think that war is the solution to the paradox.
could imagine other kinds of wars: bacteriological, chemical, etc., But they could apply the same arguments that a nuclear war. It is virtually impossible to eliminate all life on a planet and, as discussed below, can be that intelligent life will inevitably arise again in a few million years.
2 .- Overpopulation
One of the hallmarks of life on Earth is playing. The reproductive mechanisms are exotic alien races, unknown, but surely will play each other or themselves. Therefore be their populations under the same mathematical laws of growth than ours.
Until humans developed agriculture, hard life expectancy exceeded 30 years. Birth rates and mortality were very similar to each other and the world population remained constant at about 10 million individuals. In the mid-seventeenth century reached $ 500 million, in 1800, that figure had doubled, doubled again in 1930, by 1975 it reached 4,000 million. Currently around 7,000 million. Obviously, this growth rate can not be maintained indefinitely.
In the coming decades probably the rate of deaths increasingly resembles that of births and the human population reaches a new zero growth (between 11,000 and 13,000 million). We do not know if the standard of living can be comfortable for all and how we behave with each other or our environment. In fact, half the truth is that unless we have transformed and devastated huge areas of our planet, we have increased the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we have wasted much of the available fresh water and thousands of other atrocities that will not list.
Overcrowding seems to be a serious problem, but is it reasonable to believe that all have failed to CETs when facing such a crisis?
3 .- Gray Plague
Nanotechnology seems to be the destination where naturally converge advances in many scientific disciplines. The same term nanotechnology refers to engineering carried out at a scale of order of nanometers (billionths of a meter).
One of the possible elements of any future nanotech nanobot is a nano-sized robot, perhaps self-replicator. And precisely here lies the potential danger of these devices. What if one of these machines outside the control of scientists the laboratory? To replicate, if the nanobot was made of some carbon-rich material, for example, need to find the raw material and the most logical and could be very abundant in the Earth's surface biosphere, ie plants, animals and themselves humans. Soon, our planet would be reduced to a sea of \u200b\u200bvoracious nanobots surrounded by a kind of organic waste sludge: a gray goo.
There are estimates that say that Earth would be devastated in just 3 hours! And although it is proposed an event like this as a solution to the Fermi paradox of suffers from the same old problem: it seems unlikely that all CETs have been quite a gray goo. Furthermore it seems reasonable that the same scientists that creates the naobots had not arranged a series of preventive measures. A horde of nanobots playing quickly generate a standard amount of heat, easily detectable.
4 .- Particle Physics
We have all read in the press in recent months alarming news about the possibility of destroying the Earth with the dark and sinister experiments carried out in large accelerators particle as the LHC.
The issue is not new. In fact, Edward Teller in 1942 and wondered if the high temperatures generated in a thermonuclear explosion could cause a fire self-sustaining Earth's atmosphere. The calculations (including Fermi himself participated in them) the results were clear: the fireball will cool too fast to cause any danger.
Currently, apocalyptic fears are addressed in line with the microholes blacks, already tried before here, in the event of these terrible monsters, their existence would be so ephemeral that it would not have time to devour so even a proton.
has also been suggested that in large accelerators could reach occur "strangelets " pieces of matter containing strange quarks. The whole earth could become a sphere of foreign matter. Until today have never seen such entities, and it seems very unlikely that exist or may occur in the centers of particle physics.
Another possibility is even more exotic that has to do with the collapse of the quantum vacuum . What if the universe was not in a stable quantum vacuum and a kind of "energy shock" (Caused by experiments conducted in accelerators) causes the transition from the alleged false vacuum in which we find to true? 5 .- The argument "delta t"
There are many ways that could destroy humanity. Besides those mentioned above can be added others such as genetic erosion, epidemics, asteroid impacts, solar variability, flashes of gamma rays and many more.
In 1969, while still a student, J. Richard Gott while on vacation in Europe, visited, among other places, Stonehenge and Berlin. A question arose in his mind: will stand the Berlin Wall as long as the stones of Stonehenge? He reasoned that there was a 50% chance that at that precise moment in history was watching the wall at some arbitrary point fall in the two central rooms of their existence (lifetime divided the event into four equal parts.) If he were, by chance, just at the beginning of this interval, then the wall should have been there a quarter of his life and still would take away three quarters. In other words, should remain in place a time three times greater than the time elapsed since their uprising. On the other hand, if Gott were found by chance at the end central interval, then they would have passed three-quarters of its existence and subtract only the last quarter, ie, the wall would stand even a third of the time since its creation. Having been raised in 1961 (eight years before the visit of Gott) concluded that there was a 50% chance that lasted from 8 / 3 = 2.66 8 * 3 = 24 years. The wall fell in 1989, only 20 years later and within the expected range.
Gott's argument should, in principle, be applicable to any situation where we did not have information at our disposal relevant and / or privileged. If you attended a meeting and there know someone who has been married for 4 years, there will be a 50% chance that your marriage lasts between 4 / 3 = 1.33 and 4 * 3 = 12 years. If we want to extend the possibilities to 95%, the above numbers would be 4 / 39 = 0.1 and 4 * 39 = 156.
The same argument could be used to estimate the longevity of Homo sapiens . If we assume that our species takes about 175,000 years on Earth, then there is a 95% chance to survive even between 4,500 and 6,800,000 years. This estimate does not say how we will die, in fact it could be for any of the reasons set out above or otherwise. Lets just say only that it is highly probable that the human race disappear and some point between these values.
In principle, the idea may seem a nonsense Gott. Now, where it fails? In the final analysis, the argument "delta t" is an extension of the Copernican principle , which states that we are not located in any special or privileged point of space. Gott said the same thing for the time and uses the same kind of probabilistic reasoning to derive a variety of galactic intelligence features, some of them relevant to the paradox Fermi. All depends on the idea that we are each a random intelligent observer, without a special place or time.
First, the colonization of the galaxy may have taken place on a large scale, because otherwise every one of us would, in all likelihood, a member of these civilizations colonizing. Second, saying "delta t" and the Drake equation , Gott found (95% confidence) that the number of civilizations capable of transmitting radio signals is less than 121 (and possibly even lower, depending on parameters used in the Drake equation). Probably there is no civilization K2 type in our galaxy and not a K3 type in the entire observable universe.
Although tempting and difficult to refute, the argument "delta t" seems, at least, uncomfortable. Why intelligent species must necessarily have a finite longevity? Recent observations suggest that the universe may expand indefinitely, in which case the CETs could survive forever. So what is the definition of human race? When do you think, exactly, Gott which came into existence? And, indeed, if our species evolve into "something different, you would have this as the end of humanity?
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