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Extremely-Bad-Idea t1_irn7rbm wrote

An alien garbage hauling spaceship crashed into Earth. First contact. LOL

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BigBadMur t1_irolkaj wrote

Maybe that's what the Omanoma thingy was that passed us not so long ago?

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thevictater t1_irpl0gl wrote

You mean the Mahnamahna?

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asbruckman OP t1_irn3uby wrote

I found this podcast fascinating. While early search for extraterrestrial intelligent life looked for radio signals, newer work is looking for "technosignals" like signs of pollution. There are two new space telescopes being designed specifically with features to look for these technosignals. If either is launched, it will be two decades from now or longer. The challenging science problem right now is: what signals should we look for?

There was an interesting discussion of the fact that many exoplanets are covered in water. If an intelligent species evolved that was aquatic, what kinds of technologies might they develop and what would signals of their tech look like?

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[deleted] t1_irop4wb wrote

[deleted]

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novelexistence t1_irpcz8j wrote

>We will clean up 100% of existing pollution easily with technology in the future.

There is no reason to believe this. We don't know what the future holds.

If anything, it's one of the biggest hurdles we face. Apathetic people who believe technology of the future will save us from our current problems. It's a convenient way to avoid reality or responsibility.

Anyone that claims for certain they know what kind of technological progress humanity will have into the future isn't too wise.

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daniellefore t1_irpgz4e wrote

I mean basically we’re already at the tipping point where either we solve this problem or we very likely go extinct over the next couple hundred years. So yeah there’s no guarantee we fix it, but also like there’s no humans if we don’t fix it

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CriticalUnit t1_irrf2nt wrote

> either we solve this problem or we very likely go extinct over the next couple hundred years.

Extinct is a big step.

reducing habitability of earth back down to 1 billion of less people is might more of a likely reality.

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Lankuri t1_irt013j wrote

maybe it’s not apathy but hope, maybe there are people who use technology as an excuse to do nothing, maybe they shouldn’t be part of the conversation

i think technology will make pollution much easier but i also do my part, it’s just pretty nice to have something to believe in at least

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V4rial t1_irns1ew wrote

True, but this is pretty misleading. People have been looking for technosignatures for over a decade now, pollution included.

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stonebraker13 t1_irnulmw wrote

I love that they think other species are as stupid as ours...there probably are but they are long gone, like we are working for

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ItHitMeInTheNuts t1_iro53a4 wrote

we are going to be looking at an older version of their civilization anyway, as the light reaching those telescopes now left those planets hundreds or thousands of years ago

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ATR2400 t1_irpawxe wrote

Fossil fuels or something similar are likely going to be involved the development of any serious civilization at some point. It took a long time for renewables and nuclear to come along. And those advances in technology were only made because of a civilization powered by fossil fuels.

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stonebraker13 t1_irqnebp wrote

Lol ..you do know dinosaurs are Terran creatures and there are plenty of evolutionary paths that don't involve the destruction of your home planet and resources. Just like all life experiences are not the same neither would social evolution appear the same. That thinking is what caused Indian boarding schools and pogroms in Europe.

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CriticalUnit t1_irrf8cy wrote

> dinosaurs

Not all fossil fuels are dinos, most aren't in fact.

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stonebraker13 t1_irs8wzy wrote

Thanks! Interestingly, the fiction about dinosaurs was to help people think that oil was natural and safe. Just like they now want it to be seen as safe and natural so now they are telling us it's made from for real- phytoplankton and microscopic marine life cooked by pressure and sediment. They are telling us the truth NOW, because the term "fossil fuel" is now toxic. They are again trying to make us trust it better, it's safe, right?..lol.

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ATR2400 t1_irspq0v wrote

I specifically mentioned civilization. Yes if it’s just big lizards you won’t find a ton of pollutants but if they’re intelligent they’ll likely have made use of fossil fuels for at least a little while until they achieved the technological advancement needed to invent and mass manufacture clean energy tech.

Effective solar panels are a whole lot more complicated to develop and manufacture than simply setting coal on fire

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stonebraker13 t1_irsw724 wrote

Exactly....they saw the destructive bend of the substance and they moved forward. We on the other hand have had technology to use solar panels to collect enough energy from the sun for satellites in space millions of miles from the sun to soak up energy to operate the satellite for over 50 years, but we can't use that tech in our homes, cause of economics? They couldn't make money from us? So we just keep using technology that destroys life...all for nothing

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thevictater t1_irpl4kj wrote

As far as species go we seem to be the smartest around so not sure what you mean by "stupid"

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stonebraker13 t1_irqn4ll wrote

Lol...Only a species as stupid as we would bring a planet to the brink of destruction and then not do anything to fix it. What's worse is we daily pump enough methane and CO2 into the environment that equal hundreds of volcanoes going of every day....and here we have people who see the facts and choose their comfort and material well being over their children's future....sounds pretty dumb to me. Purposely polluting your air and water, creating food that produces pesticides...more dumb...calling nuclear environmental when the waste has no means of disposal...nuclear weapons....all real dumb

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thevictater t1_irqsmei wrote

Dumb compared to what species??? You have an impossibly high standard for something so unpredictable. Humans aren't perfect but I'd wager we've done as respectable as any other intelligent life out there.

If you want to be negative nihilist man who hates people then go ahead but that won't fix climate change. You'll have to rely on stupid humans I guess.

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stonebraker13 t1_irs7d4t wrote

Lol...I love people, and they are capable of good things, but we don't change if we lie to ourselves.

Truth is we have been lucky. I mean imagine the different reality we would be in right now if that nuke accidentally dropped on the Carolinas in the 50's had worked. You think folks would still say that nuclear power is safe & environmentally friendly? People look at you straight and say that still. Will argue with you about it. While yes it's good on carbon emissions but there's that pesky radiated waste. You know the stuff that will be safe in 40,000 years. They will say it's environmentally friendly even though ALREADY we have tons of it sitting on sites with nowhere to go... because no community wants it near their homes. So, there are CEOs out there that believe if you bury toxic nuclear waste then it's gone. Problem solved, right? I mean the poor families who live near it and have it in their drinking water might not think so, but hey the guy who makes millions thinks so, so it must be true right? You ever notice animals in cages don't shit everywhere, but yet we don't follow that same logic. We just leave our shit everywhere including in our drinking water....is that smart?

Truth hurts, individually yeah we are smart, and on occasion we pull it off, but things are not good. We can't lie to ourselves anymore. So, truth is we are hurting ourselves, and our current way of living is creating a future where the natural environment can no longer support life. And the truth is, we are making it worse and almost impossible to change. We are, you, I, and everyone are responsible for this self destructing system making this shit happen, but we have few options for something else. Therefore, we are all complicit and we are aware of it. So, when we are confronted with the truth our actions our knee jerk reaction is to protect ourselves from exposure and judgement.

I hate that we are forced to use things that are destructive but society has been engineered BY US to work like this. We can't do better unless we know better. Truth is we are capable of greatness but we are acting like idiots.

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thevictater t1_irswns3 wrote

Most of that could be summed up by what I said earlier, "humans aren't perfect."

We didn't engineer society to work this way, it happened over thousands of years. I don't blame myself and I don't blame them either. We are victims of circumstance, and our ancestors were stumbling in the dark. The effects of climate change are only beginning to be understood in the past few dozen years, and I choose to remain hopeful for the future.

Of course, crooked people will always exist and so nuclear waste will continue to be buried and microplastics will continue to fill our lungs. Fortunately for us, there are also good, very smart people out there constantly trying to crack ways we can begin to fix these issues. Some may be fixable, some not, but all of it will only be discovered by humans. Again, I remain hopeful.

I do so because we find what we seek. If you want humans to be stupid, you're going to find plenty of examples.

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stonebraker13 t1_irsy4wl wrote

I am glad you have the privilege of staying optimistic, and being able to avoid some of the most dire consequences of human ignorance, or folly as you seem to frame it, but those of us who live on the fringes don't get that privilege.

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thevictater t1_irszc6r wrote

It's a combination of folly, ignorance, and willfull ignorance.

I feel deeply sad for people affected, but that doesn't help save them or the earth.

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stonebraker13 t1_irt07q8 wrote

Choosing to not support those who create the problem helps greatly, unfortunately most folks won't "inconvenience" themselves...our society has become selfish and overly individualized. We are our brothers & sisters keepers....

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thevictater t1_irtcd3g wrote

Many people could do better for sure, but I don't fault people as a species and presume us all stupid. I fault them and decide if they're stupid individually. Still, I think there are enough good people that it's not hopeless. It is not easy, and it will take time. In the end all we have is hope.

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stonebraker13 t1_irtwblu wrote

I have hope, but again and here is more ugly truth, people do not act unless there is a threat. Now, interesting enough it seems that we only act to make change when profits are at threat, not health and safety....look at Flint, Michigan and what happened there....and it will likely happen again because there have been little to no consequences for these GOP politicians who CONSCIOUSLY CHOSE TO POISON CHILDREN....and people still can't drink water there.

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Ender16 t1_irpuk90 wrote

It's foolish to believe that any technological civilization doesn't have "pollution". If their home planet has non currently that simply means they moved it into space.

This fantasy that technological civilizations could both have advanced technology and stunning architecture but no byproducts is ridiculous. What did they do WILL steel beams into existence?

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stonebraker13 t1_irqmk8c wrote

I am sure, but I think that for civilizations to expand on an interplanetary level I imagine that they would move beyond self destructiveness that we seem unable, actually I think it's more like unwilling, to leave behind. We are on a path to self-destruction...sadly most mammals will go with us...

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daniellefore t1_irpgoxi wrote

This seems like a great way to find extinct civilizations on dead planets maybe? But it seems pretty silly to look for something that would necessarily only occur for like less than 500 years in an intelligent life form’s history.

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FuturologyBot t1_irn7tjw wrote

The following submission statement was provided by /u/asbruckman:

I found this podcast fascinating. While early search for extraterrestrial intelligent life looked for radio signals, newer work is looking for "technosignals" like signs of pollution. There are two new space telescopes being designed specifically with features to look for these technosignals. If either is launched, it will be two decades from now or longer. The challenging science problem right now is: what signals should we look for?

There was an interesting discussion of the fact that many exoplanets are covered in water. If an intelligent species evolved that was aquatic, what kinds of technologies might they develop and what would signals of their tech look like?

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/xznoru/podcast_the_search_for_extraterrestrial/irn3uby/

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iiJokerzace t1_irnu3de wrote

What if what we are seeing are the reminisce of a past civilization? All of it just some random byproduct, including us?

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saiko1993 t1_iro462j wrote

That's exciting and somehow morose at the same time.

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extracensorypower t1_irskn39 wrote

I bet this is assuming that there are large hydrocarbon stores on whatever planet has intelligent technological life - a questionable assumption at best.

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vengeful_toaster t1_iro0kv7 wrote

Sometimes I wonder of that's where we come from, alien pollution. But then again, I guess life is ill-defined so can probably occur in most places, given enough time.

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BigBadMur t1_iroldqo wrote

That's a great thing to focus on after all you'd think pollution would be common in all outworld societies.

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Environmental_Cake97 t1_irpxnx9 wrote

The more intelligent Alien life is, the less pollution you’ll find. What are we doing here, looking for the dumbest possible aliens?

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LemurofDamger t1_iroko2x wrote

How can we assume other life forms will be primarily motivated by greed as we higher primates are? How can we make the next assumption that these life forms devastated their environment in the pursuit of satisfying that greed?

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durezzz t1_irpqpep wrote

It's about energy usage, not greed.

Intelligent life as we know it wants to reproduce, expand its territory and live comfortably.

We got to where we are by learning about better ways to do so, which led to new forms of energy usage.

It doesn't matter if there are cavemen living on another planet, we won't be able tell that they're there unless we go there, so there's no point in looking for anything unless we can detect it right now. We can't detect cavemen. We can detect pollutants.

It's not greedy for intelligent life to improve its technological capabilities and energy consumption techniques.....that's just what it does.

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Ender16 t1_irpvdhl wrote

Greed?

How about, "we can assume that technological civilizations will have noticeable byproducts of producing technology"?

Sure there could be a non ambitious primative civilization out there. But A, they probably wouldn't have evolved intelligence if they weren't going to benefit from it and B, we couldn't detect them then.

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StarChild413 t1_irqmkn7 wrote

And also pollution doesn't mean pollution to the level we're doing it even if it were in the same form

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S-Markt t1_irnnwjf wrote

so we dont care for advanced civilisations that may be able to help us and only search for beings that are as limited and greedy as we are???

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WhovianForever t1_irnsj8z wrote

Where does it say that's all we're looking for? That's one thing out of many that we're using to look for alien civilizations.

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sexytokeburgerz t1_iro6n94 wrote

Don’t forget that dualistic thinking is a large factor towards the societal constructs that caused our pollution problem in the first place.

We aren’t “only” looking for beings that are as limited and greedy as we are just because we use pollution as a single qualifier. Things don’t have to be so black and white.

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