Charlie StrossNov 1

Random Fermi Paradox solution of the day:

Nobody goes into space and colonizes the galaxy because only Moon Nazis want to do that, and after experiencing a few dozen genocides all sapient species learn the safest thing to do when you see a Moon Nazi is to murder them immediately, it's the only way to avoid the genocides.

Show threadSteve LeachNov 1

@cstross Then again, I don't think humans could ever colonize - but I'm horrified by the idea of *what if* there is no other life out there? What if we are "it"? Our sun's gone in a few billion years.

I'm horrified by the idea that there could be trillions of years to the heat death of the universe and nothing to see it or experience it at all.

So if we could get some microbes on probes to nearby red-dwarfs to infest any sterile warm wet rock, then all of human history was worth it.

Show threadMortenNov 1
@stevenaleach @cstross Our sun may last billions of years but multicellular life on Earth only has about 100-300 millions years left.
With regard to your concern about whether there is even microbial life other places in the galaxy I have to say yes. We have evidence of life on Earth 3.8 billion years ago. It showed up as soon as it could. I bet there was life on Mars and Venus too. Earth is just much more stable. Life has existed on Earth for ~28% of the existence of the universe.
Show threadSteinar Bang
@drgroftehauge Out of curiosity: where does the 100-300 million years number come from?
Nov 1 at 10:04pmWeb
Show threadMortenNov 2
@steinarb Sun gets too hot in about 300 million years. But I'm also pretty sure that slow carbon cycle is moving more carbon into the geosphere than out - however with human intervention the time horizon on that one is obviously uncertain.
Show threadSteinar BangNov 2

300 million years is not the number I have heard for the sun becoming too hot for life (multicellular or otherwise).

Around the 1.5 billion years is the number I've heard (and also the number a few web searches gives me).