Boyajian's star (alien megastructure star) is dimming again right now

[A True Kaniggit]

11 minutes ago, House Balstroko said:

Not necessarily, 1000 years is a short amount of time in evolutionary terms. Unless there was a major cataclysmic event it is likely they are still around.

In evolutionary terms yes. But if said species was in any way warlike then the higher the odds that over the course of a thousand  years since they started building a Dyson Sphere they pounded themselves back to the Stone Age with increasingly destructive weaponry. 

[A True Kaniggit]

7 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

And more to the point, if they have the technology for a Dyson Sphere, they have the technology to turn the Earth into goo. Hunting for extra-terrestrial life never struck me as a particularly smart move.

I just chalk this up to that the galaxy is a big place, and if they are still around with FTL, then they have better things to do then mess around with primitive species. 

[The Marquis de Leech]

2 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

I just chalk this up to that the galaxy is a big place, and if they are still around with FTL, then they have better things to do then mess around with primitive species. 

*We* mess around with animals all the time.

Gambling on these critters being nice does not seem worth the risk.

[A True Kaniggit]

21 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Gambling on these critters being nice does not seem worth the risk.

Depends on what odds you'll give me. 

Edit: But really, any spacefaring race with FTL technology should have plenty of worlds to choose from. Trying to colonize a planet with an already sentient species either means 1) life bearing worlds for that species biology are extremely rare. Or 2) That species is a complete dick. 

[The Marquis de Leech]

31 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Depends on what odds you'll give me. 

Edit: But really, any spacefaring race with FTL technology should have plenty of worlds to choose from. Trying to colonize a planet with an already sentient species either means 1) life bearing worlds for that species biology are extremely rare. Or 2) That species is a complete dick. 

It's not a matter of them choosing worlds for colonising. They might decide to destroy the Earth so we don't become a threat. Or perhaps they want slaves. Or perhaps they regard any life other than their own as an affront. Or perhaps we inconvenience them somehow. There are a million possibilities.

[A True Kaniggit]

5 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

It's not a matter of them choosing worlds for colonising. They might decide to destroy the Earth so we don't become a threat. Or perhaps they want slaves. Or perhaps they regard any life other than their own as an affront. Or perhaps they we inconvenience them somehow. There are a million possibilities.

Doesn't every reason you give fall under my option number 2?

Edit: To expand on this.

If an alien species discovered us right now and believed we could become a threat sometime in the future, they wouldn't have to destroy us. We are still too primitive to be a threat to anything outside of our solar system. All they'd have to do is monitor us until we obtained the means of extra-solar travel. If they still thought we were a threat at that time, they could destroy us then.

If they want us for slaves, I'd classify that species as a complete dick.

If they regarded all other life than their own as an affront, then I'd classify that species as a complete dick.

If they wanted to exterminate us because we inconvenienced them somehow, then I'd classify that species as a complete dick. 

[Lordsteve666]

I prefer to think that any race who have developed to the stage that they can build a Dyson Sphere or have FTL travel is probably beyond such primitive ideas as slavery of other species, or just all the things we humans think of as bad in general.

They've probably developed beyond petty things like resource based conflicts, prejudice against others, resource overuse, habitat destruction. They'd possibly have no need or reason to go about blowing up other planets or wiping out species.

We tend to think that there's a chance any aliens will come and wipe us out, because that's literally all we as a species know. It's been the end game of a large proportion of our development, kill the outsider, steal his land, destroy our way to success. 
But if we had unlimited power sources like a Dyson Sphere and the ability to travel beyond our star system i'd like to think we'd developed as a species a bit better by that stage too.

[House Balstroko]

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

And more to the point, if they have the technology for a Dyson Sphere, they have the technology to turn the Earth into goo. Hunting for extra-terrestrial life never struck me as a particularly smart move.

That is a possibility, but we'll never know until we reach that stage. In many ways I believe it's worth the risk as it could turn into something positive .

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

17 minutes ago, Lordsteve666 said:

I prefer to think that any race who have developed to the stage that they can build a Dyson Sphere or have FTL travel is probably beyond such primitive ideas as slavery of other species, or just all the things we humans think of as bad in general.

They've probably developed beyond petty things like resource based conflicts, prejudice against others, resource overuse, habitat destruction. They'd possibly have no need or reason to go about blowing up other planets or wiping out species.

We tend to think that there's a chance any aliens will come and wipe us out, because that's literally all we as a species know. It's been the end game of a large proportion of our development, kill the outsider, steal his land, destroy our way to success. 
But if we had unlimited power sources like a Dyson Sphere and the ability to travel beyond our star system i'd like to think we'd developed as a species a bit better by that stage too.

Possible, not probable. We have no experiences with either alien life or extremely technologically advanced civilizations, so we have no way of estimating any probabilities for how they would behave. You can make up all sorts of scenarios for why they could be either friendly or hostile. 

We are also far more technologically advanced right now than humans have ever been, yet I don't think we have progressed beyond either prejudice against others or resource based conflicts. I think many people would agree that the main reason we haven't had a world war three yet is because of the mutually assured destruction through nuclear weapons, more than any moral development on our part.  

[A True Kaniggit]

17 minutes ago, Lordsteve666 said:

I prefer to think that any race who have developed to the stage that they can build a Dyson Sphere or have FTL travel is probably beyond such primitive ideas as slavery of other species, or just all the things we humans think of as bad in general.

They've probably developed beyond petty things like resource based conflicts, prejudice against others, resource overuse, habitat destruction. They'd possibly have no need or reason to go about blowing up other planets or wiping out species.

We tend to think that there's a chance any aliens will come and wipe us out, because that's literally all we as a species know. It's been the end game of a large proportion of our development, kill the outsider, steal his land, destroy our way to success. 
But if we had unlimited power sources like a Dyson Sphere and the ability to travel beyond our star system i'd like to think we'd developed as a species a bit better by that stage too.

I think it would all depend on the overall availability of life bearing planets within easy reach. If you have an overpopulated planet of several billion and find a dozen livable worlds with one that has a primitive sentient species of a few million, you'd probably settle the free ones. If you have an overpopulated planet of several billion and find only one livable world that has a sentient species on it of a few million, you'd probably settle it and SAYL to the native species.

[House Balstroko]

11 minutes ago, Lordsteve666 said:

I prefer to think that any race who have developed to the stage that they can build a Dyson Sphere or have FTL travel is probably beyond such primitive ideas as slavery of other species, or just all the things we humans think of as bad in general.

They've probably developed beyond petty things like resource based conflicts, prejudice against others, resource overuse, habitat destruction. They'd possibly have no need or reason to go about blowing up other planets or wiping out species.

We tend to think that there's a chance any aliens will come and wipe us out, because that's literally all we as a species know. It's been the end game of a large proportion of our development, kill the outsider, steal his land, destroy our way to success. 
But if we had unlimited power sources like a Dyson Sphere and the ability to travel beyond our star system i'd like to think we'd developed as a species a bit better by that stage too.

I think the first statement  is somewhat a fallacy. Technological advancement does not always correlate well with morality, despite what we may think. Using our species as an example, despite going through change since the beginning we still experience conflicts and that is likely to endure.

As to FTL travel, that doesn't seem plausible under our current model. The universe obeys the same laws of physics regardless of whether we are in a different system or galaxy. The speed of light is the maximum at which information or matter could travel. There would have to be a major revamp of physics to even consider FTL. 

I agree that there is no guarantee that hostility will occur in the event of an encounter and we can hope any contact works out for all parties involved. 

[A True Kaniggit]

3 minutes ago, House Balstroko said:

The speed of light is the maximum at which information or matter could travel. There would have to be a major revamp of physics to even consider FTL.

Way off topic, but a thought that has always bothered me.

Let's say there is a pole, and the pole is more than one light year long. At one end of the pole is a bell, and someone waiting for the bell to ring. At the other end is someone holding the pole, wanting to communicate using the ringing of the bell. The person holding the pole shakes it and the bell rings. Does this not count as information traveling at FTL speeds?

[drawkcabi]

2 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

And more to the point, if they have the technology for a Dyson Sphere, they have the technology to turn the Earth into goo. Hunting for extra-terrestrial life never struck me as a particularly smart move.

 

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

*We* mess around with animals all the time.

Gambling on these critters being nice does not seem worth the risk.

I think it's worth the risk. A hostile intelligent species is a probability, but for reasons given by posters above I don't think it's a likely one. I think it more likely it would be a positive step in our progression as a species. It would answer questions we have, settle age old arguments, create new arguments - but they could allow for philosophical growth and enlightenment,  instigate new technological discoveries, and change our culture (chances are this may be where the most strife and negative consequences occur from the discovery intelligent alien life).

Sure there's risk, but I think the possible benefits outweigh it.

Of course I think the behavior of boyajians is much more likely to be explained by a natural but possibly atypical cause rather than due to intelligent alien life, but it's nice to think "what if...?"

[Loge]

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Way off topic, but a thought that has always bothered me.

Let's say there is a pole, and the pole is more than one light year long. At one end of the pole is a bell, and someone waiting for the bell to ring. At the other end is someone holding the pole, wanting to communicate using the ringing of the bell. The person holding the pole shakes it and the bell rings. Does this not count as information traveling at FTL speeds?

No, because the whole pole wouldn't move instantaneously. The person "holding the pole" is holding only one end of it. As they start shaking it a wave starts to propagate along the pole and eventually the other end with the bell starts to move. It will take more than a year for that to happen, though. 

[House Balstroko]

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Way off topic, but a thought that has always bothered me.

Let's say there is a pole, and the pole is more than one light year long. At one end of the pole is a bell, and someone waiting for the bell to ring. At the other end is someone holding the pole, wanting to communicate using the ringing of the bell. The person holding the pole shakes it and the bell rings. Does this not count as information traveling at FTL speeds?

I only brought the topic up because a lot of people were discussing FTL.

I'm not entirely sure, but I believe it would take a year for the information to reach the person at a distance of one light year. 

The only way to break the speed of light limit under current models is to "cheat". One way to do it is by using a wormhole (theoretically possible) to find a shortcut through space-time. 

[A True Kaniggit]

14 minutes ago, Loge said:

No, because the whole pole wouldn't move instantaneously. The person "holding the pole" is holding only one end of it. As they start shaking it a wave starts to propagate along the pole and eventually the other end with the bell starts to move. It will take more than a year for that to happen, though. 

Okay, so not shake but push. Person holding the poll pushes it forward a few inches, the end  moves so many inches. It's not like the poll is going to change its own length. 

[Loge]

29 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Okay, so not shake but push. Person holding the poll pushes it forward a few inches, the end  moves so many inches. It's not like the poll is going to change its own length. 

Yes, it it will. It has to. There's no way that the whole pole move instantaneously no matter how you push or pull one end.

ETA: Your signal will probably travel with the speed of sound. If the material the pole is made of is really stiff that would be a few km/s.

[A True Kaniggit]

30 minutes ago, Loge said:

Yes, it it will. It has to. There's no way that the whole pole move instantaneously no matter how you push or pull one end.

ETA: Your signal will probably travel with the speed of sound. If the material the pole is made of is really stiff that would be a few km/s.

In this hypothetical the pole is made out of an exotic material that is super lightweight and super stiff to the point that it refuses to change its shape no matter what pressure is applied to it. So why wouldn't one end move simultaneously with the other end, whatever the distance between the two points? 

[Loge]

4 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

In this hypothetical the pole is made out of an exotic material that is super lightweight and super stiff to the point that it refuses to change it shape no matter what pressure is applied to it. So why wouldn't one end move simultaneously with the other end, no matter the distance between the two points? 

Not sure if special relativity provides a solution to that case. But such a material would require forces of infinite strength to keep it together. (Maybe those cause trouble with general relativity). All real matter is held together by molecular forces and those are only so strong. You can try to find clever alloys or carbon compounds to push the limits a bit but in the end it's all down to the electromagnetic force.

[Lordsteve666]

19 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

In this hypothetical the pole is made out of an exotic material that is super lightweight and super stiff to the point that it refuses to change its shape no matter what pressure is applied to it. So why wouldn't one end move simultaneously with the other end, whatever the distance between the two points? 

I think the general idea of such an experiment is that as you push on one end, before it even moves the atoms in the structure would compress closer together as strain is placed on their atomic bonds. Once you've compressed those bonds enough the pole would move. But with this long pole that "wave" of compression would need to move along the whole length before the other end moved. In this pole that "wave" could not travel faster than light.
It's a bit like an engine pushing a train load of carriages, it has to cause them to compress together first, remove all that slack so to speak, before the whole thing moves, even if it's in a straight line.

I hope that makes sense to someone!