Whistle blower says non-human bodies recovered from crash

[UngainlyTitan]

Engineered bacteria isn't going away from the sort of thing I'm talking about - it is that thing. Engineering lifeforms to become your industrial process.

Not every product of biology has to go inside a living being. Cars don't care about the chirality of the petrochemicals that fuel them, or the rubber that cushions their wheels. Humans would still find wool or cotton perfectly wearable even if it were produced by creatures or plants with opposing chirality.

Artificial synthesis is one way to solve those issues. Tailored biology is another. Again, technological advancement doesn't necessarily mean advancement away from biological solutions.

I agree that technological advancement does not mean advancement away from biological solutions (or biochemical ones) but I do think that is makes the utility of plundering alien biomes moot.

 

[MarkB]

I agree that technological advancement does not mean advancement away from biological solutions (or biochemical ones) but I do think that is makes the utility of plundering alien biomes moot.

I think you underestimate the utility of an entire alien ecosystem. It's far larger, more varied and more complex than anything you're easily going to be able to build artificially. It's not that it allows you to do anything major that you couldn't already do, it's that it allows you to operate on far greater scales than you could anywhere else, beyond your own native ecosystem - and you probably prefer not to mess with that one too much.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think you underestimate the utility of an entire alien ecosystem. It's far larger, more varied and more complex than anything you're easily going to be able to build artificially. It's not that it allows you to do anything major that you couldn't already do, it's that it allows you to operate on far greater scales than you could anywhere else, beyond your own native ecosystem - and you probably prefer not to mess with that one too much.

I am not underestimating anything but I think you are underestimating the logistics of an interstellar expedition. By the time we are able to study alien biochemistry up close and personal it will be for scientific interest. We may incorporate that knowledge to our existing knowledge and creating some useful novel materials. But those materials will be built from materials closer to hand and more materially accessible.
There is not going to be the equivalent of sugar plantations on Proxima Centauri.

 

[Dausuul]

This is very silly. We have effectively not looked at all given how we have searched. We couldn't detect our own civilization with the technology we have currently, and we don't even know what to look for in a galactic scale civilization. Mathematical models saying that it would only take 100 million years to visit every star in the galaxy (I think that's the number; I did not look it up) doesn't account for how we would even know. The Oort cloud could be absolutely teeming with von Neuman probes. How would we know?

If the Oort Cloud had been teeming with VN probes for (presumably) a couple million years, we would know because they would long ago have expanded into the inner Solar System. We would see them swarming in the asteroid belt, the rings of Saturn, in orbit around Earth itself.

The whole point of the Fermi Paradox is that if spacefaring alien life behaves as life does on Earth -- expanding into every habitat it can, transforming those habitats in the process -- then we should not have to go looking for it. It should have colonized us already. There are three solutions:

1) Spacefaring alien life does not behave like life on Earth.
2) Spacefaring alien life doesn't exist.
3) It has colonized us already, and we just can't comprehend what's right in front of us.

 

[Reynard]

If the Oort Cloud had been teeming with VN probes for (presumably) a couple million years, we would know because they would long ago have expanded into the inner Solar System. We would see them swarming in the asteroid belt, the rings of Saturn, in orbit around Earth itself.

Why do we insist on believing that the point of the exploration would be to fill every cubic meter of space with themselves? There is no compelling reason to believe that they would need to be ever present. they could have came this way a hundred million years ago, decided dinosaurs weren't that interesting, made contact with whatever lives below the ice on Europa, and scooted off to hopefully more useful systems full of dilithium or whatever.

 

[Morrus]

I think you underestimate the utility of an entire alien ecosystem. It's far larger, more varied and more complex than anything you're easily going to be able to build artificially. It's not that it allows you to do anything major that you couldn't already do, it's that it allows you to operate on far greater scales than you could anywhere else, beyond your own native ecosystem - and you probably prefer not to mess with that one too much.

You keep saying this super-vague word salad stuff but without actually saying anything.

Give us some examples? Because right now I’m still at harvesting poop. Which is ridiculous.

I don’t know right now if you’re much cleverer than me and I just can’t follow you, or you’re just spouting word salad. It’s really hard to tell the difference!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

3) It has colonized us already, and we just can't comprehend what's right in front of us.

Panspermia! A word that sounds really dirty, but isn't!

 

[UngainlyTitan]

If the Oort Cloud had been teeming with VN probes for (presumably) a couple million years, we would know because they would long ago have expanded into the inner Solar System. We would see them swarming in the asteroid belt, the rings of Saturn, in orbit around Earth itself.

The whole point of the Fermi Paradox is that if spacefaring alien life behaves as life does on Earth -- expanding into every habitat it can, transforming those habitats in the process -- then we should not have to go looking for it. It should have colonized us already. There are three solutions:

1) Spacefaring alien life does not behave like life on Earth.
2) Spacefaring alien life doesn't exist.
3) It has colonized us already, and we just can't comprehend what's right in front of us.

Von Neumann probes are not life, but an agent created by a civilization with a mission and purpose. They are not mindless replicators and I agree there is no evidence of mindless replicators in space. That does not rule out other monitoring probes being out there. I think it is highly likely that 1 above is true. Life if it becomes space faring as a civilization does not behave like life on earth.

2 is perfectly possible and the most likely explanation.

3 is also possible.

 

[Reynard]

2 is perfectly possible and the most likely explanation.

A lot of the current science strongly suggests that interstellar travel is exceedingly difficult. Even without the Fermi paradox or the Dark Forest, it is just hard as hell to get a vehicle full of meatbags across the Void alive.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

A lot of the current science strongly suggests that interstellar travel is exceedingly difficult. Even without the Fermi paradox or the Dark Forest, it is just hard as hell to get a vehicle full of meatbags across the Void alive.

I mostly agree where I think it breaks down is if; it is possible to live in space habitats by extracting base materials and energy requirements from the easily available materials in asteroids and cometary cores. While I agree that this is a big if, I am also not aware of any real showstoppers in the current science.
And if (also a big if) this solar civilization is stable on galactic time scales.
And thirdly (also a pretty big if) this civilization can spread to the star systems Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, then on galactic time scales that civilization should spread throughout the habitable zone of the galaxy.

I leave as an exercise for the reader, if they were tooling around in the Oort Cloud would we notice them? I really have my doubts.