7 replies to this topic

[futurebird]

The "ant farm earth" fermi paradox solution is mostly treated as a joke but it's shockingly complete ... explaining the isolation, the mysteriously good conditions for life, even the alien abductions...

My ants would have tons of alien abduction stories if they were capable of thinking of such things...

 

"Well the other day when that dead spider fell from above I was near the top of the outside and I could feel air currents ... so I rushed to see what was beyond ... well ... beyond outside. For days I was in the strangest landscape, no sand just vast flat surfaces. I could smell our colony and... others... but I could not find a way in to any no matter how hard I tried. Then something started chasing me! It was silver tube in the sky and then ... it sucked me up into ... this strange little chamber. And I tried to put up a good fight but soon I realised that it was getting cold... and then I couldn't move... and BAM I wake up here right outside the nest! Aliens are real my sisters!"

Edited by futurebird, August 12 2021 - 6:06 PM.

[Skwiggledork]

I've spent way too much time thinking about the Fermi paradox. lol. I've come to a strange opinion that the reason we don't see alien life is that all species "advanced" enough to start thinking about interstellar travel develop a level of compassion that prevents them from destroying their home planet enough to make/use that level of tech. We are already at a point where we are starting to get serious about things like recycling and preserving nature and we've made an insignificant amount of progress towards interstellar travel. The kind of resources and energy you would need would destroy your home planet. Beyond just mining every little usable part of the planet you start on, you would probably kill off neighboring planets if not creating a Dyson sphere around your sun and taking all the energy for the entire solar system. At some point the logical part of your/their brains would say we've gone too far already and need to scale back and just live peacefully where we are.

There is also the dark forest theory which holds a lot of weight in my opinion. Ever species just wants to survive and reaching out and announcing yourself could invite less than friendly answers. Human history hasn't shown explorers to be the best of friends with those they find.

As far as ants go, I think our interactions are more like humans seeing the elder gods. Technology/power and scale beyond anything they can describe to the point where if they understood it for a minute it would drive them to insanity. Just babbling to whoever will listen about communication over billions of ant-miles in a language that their "ears" can't even decipher as a language. Can you imagine an ant trying to describe anything we use in our daily lives?  The ability to destroy whole colonies in seconds if their existence bothers us or just plain snuffing out lives without even knowing we did it by us just walking along not looking because in most people's eyes they are so insignificant we don't even notice them. "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."

[ANTdrew]

You guys should read the novel, Empire of the Ants.

[Domagoj]

The one by H. G. Wells or Bernard Werber?

[ANTdrew]

The one by H. G. Wells or Bernard Werber?

The Werber one you told me about.

[Domagoj]

Oh, you remember that! I asked because I haven't read H.G.W. one yet.

You've read Werber? What do you think?

[ANTdrew]

Oh, you remember that! I asked because I haven't read H.G.W. one yet.
You've read Werber? What do you think?

I loved it, keeping in mind that it is FICTION.

[Domagoj]

Yeah, it shouldn't be taken as a source of accurate scientific data, but works as entertainment.

Maybe it's time for me to read it again.