First of all, the Earth has been around for a very very long time. Even slowly expanding aliens should have hit us by now. The galaxy isn’t that big relative to the vast amounts of time they have probably been around. I don’t feel like this explains the fermi paradox.
If aliens wanted to prevent us from fleeing, this is a terribly convoluted way of doing it. Just shoot a self replicating nanobot at us near the speed of light, and we would be dealt with. We would never see it coming. They could have done this thousands of years ago, if not millions. And it would be vastly more effective at snuffing out competition than this weird strategy. No need to even figure out which planets might evolve intelligent life. Just shoot all of them, it’s cheap.
You could time them so they all hit their targets at the same time and give no warning. Or have them just do the minimal amount of destruction necessary so they aren’t visible from space.
First of all, the Earth has been around for a very very long time. Even slowly expanding aliens should have hit us by now.
Yes, this explains it only if we are in the very small window between the yellow and red fronts.
We would never see it coming. [...] Or have them just do the minimal amount of destruction necessary so they aren’t visible from space.
Us seeing it coming is not the problem; it’s the next civilization along not seeing our destruction that’s important. And it’s not clear at all that you can easily do “the minimal amount of destruction necessary”, especially since we have nuclear weapons that are likely visible if fired en mass. More to the point “just shoot them all, it’s cheap” is true if you don’t care about being observed (you can Dyson suns for the energy, and have visible shielding mechanisms for probes that shoot through the very dusty interstellar—not intergalactic—space). I’m not yet convinced that it’s easy or cheap to do it a c-comparable speeds and discreetly.
we have nuclear weapons that are likely visible if fired en mass.
Would we be able to detect nuclear weapons detonated light years away? We have trouble detecting detonations on our own planet! And even if we did observe them, how would we recognize it as an alien invasion vs local conflict, or god knows what else.
The time slice between us being able to observe the stars, and post singularity, is incredibly tiny. It’s very unlikely two different worlds will overlap so that one world is able to see the other destroyed and rush a singularity. I’m not even sure if we would rush a singularity if we observed aliens, or if it would make any difference.
First of all, the Earth has been around for a very very long time. Even slowly expanding aliens should have hit us by now. The galaxy isn’t that big relative to the vast amounts of time they have probably been around. I don’t feel like this explains the fermi paradox.
If aliens wanted to prevent us from fleeing, this is a terribly convoluted way of doing it. Just shoot a self replicating nanobot at us near the speed of light, and we would be dealt with. We would never see it coming. They could have done this thousands of years ago, if not millions. And it would be vastly more effective at snuffing out competition than this weird strategy. No need to even figure out which planets might evolve intelligent life. Just shoot all of them, it’s cheap.
You could time them so they all hit their targets at the same time and give no warning. Or have them just do the minimal amount of destruction necessary so they aren’t visible from space.
Yes, this explains it only if we are in the very small window between the yellow and red fronts.
Us seeing it coming is not the problem; it’s the next civilization along not seeing our destruction that’s important. And it’s not clear at all that you can easily do “the minimal amount of destruction necessary”, especially since we have nuclear weapons that are likely visible if fired en mass. More to the point “just shoot them all, it’s cheap” is true if you don’t care about being observed (you can Dyson suns for the energy, and have visible shielding mechanisms for probes that shoot through the very dusty interstellar—not intergalactic—space). I’m not yet convinced that it’s easy or cheap to do it a c-comparable speeds and discreetly.
Would we be able to detect nuclear weapons detonated light years away? We have trouble detecting detonations on our own planet! And even if we did observe them, how would we recognize it as an alien invasion vs local conflict, or god knows what else.
The time slice between us being able to observe the stars, and post singularity, is incredibly tiny. It’s very unlikely two different worlds will overlap so that one world is able to see the other destroyed and rush a singularity. I’m not even sure if we would rush a singularity if we observed aliens, or if it would make any difference.