I wonder more why nobody has visited than why we don’t see obvious signs of anyone; as you say, that’s easy enough to explain away.
Most of your explanations would also imply that those aliens don’t care to help fledgling civilizations. If they’re post-singular, they could do that fairly easily by sending out probes that could share information and technology. I guess the neighbors being selfish is better than some great filter taking everyone out.
I take some comfort in misaligned AGI not being a good candidate great filter. A misaligned maximizer would be sweeping out from that light cone and we’d be dead, not observing an empty universe.
You’re probably familiar with the dark forest explanation; advanced civilizations don’t like to give evidence of their existence, because it could get them killed by others. I find it somewhat possible that there are probes watching us to ensure we don’t spawn a misaligned AGI, but not acting to help lest other watchers detect them. If I were running a technologically advanced civilization that didn’t care too much about maximum expansion, I’d send probes to detect potentially hostile civilizations or AGIs.
It’s also quite plausible that we’re the first in our galaxy. Our position on the spiral arm of the galaxy makes us much less vulnerable to sterilizing nova events. I’ve heard one astrophysicist present this as her favorite solution, but I don’t remember her name.
Regarding whether more advanced civilizations “don’t care to help”… I’m not sure if I would frame my argument that way. I would rather say that it seems plausible that much more advanced civilizations might have divergent goal structures or priorities. It’s also entirely possible that their temporal experience of reality is very different if they have gone digital. So it’s less about being selfish and more about a lack of practicality for making contact. I tried to cover this point to a detailed degree in the post.
It also seems plausible to me that significantly more advanced civilizations might rationally conclude there is very little upside for them to contact less sophisticated societies and at least some potential downside. Not really dark forest theory, but more like a good Bayesian approach to risk management.
I’d also point out that the hypotheses out there offered as solutions to the FP are not mutually exclusive. It could be that intelligent civilizations are fairly rare, that quite a few self-destruct, and that quite a few just evolve quickly through a detection window. Reality is often messier than our theories.
I wonder more why nobody has visited than why we don’t see obvious signs of anyone; as you say, that’s easy enough to explain away.
Most of your explanations would also imply that those aliens don’t care to help fledgling civilizations. If they’re post-singular, they could do that fairly easily by sending out probes that could share information and technology. I guess the neighbors being selfish is better than some great filter taking everyone out.
I take some comfort in misaligned AGI not being a good candidate great filter. A misaligned maximizer would be sweeping out from that light cone and we’d be dead, not observing an empty universe.
You’re probably familiar with the dark forest explanation; advanced civilizations don’t like to give evidence of their existence, because it could get them killed by others. I find it somewhat possible that there are probes watching us to ensure we don’t spawn a misaligned AGI, but not acting to help lest other watchers detect them. If I were running a technologically advanced civilization that didn’t care too much about maximum expansion, I’d send probes to detect potentially hostile civilizations or AGIs.
It’s also quite plausible that we’re the first in our galaxy. Our position on the spiral arm of the galaxy makes us much less vulnerable to sterilizing nova events. I’ve heard one astrophysicist present this as her favorite solution, but I don’t remember her name.
See also The Fermi Paradox: What did Sandberg, Drexler and Ord Really Dissolve? on an important recent paper claiming that there’s really no paradox; we’re overestimating some probability in the Drake equation, we just don’t know which and why.
Thanks for the feedback!
Regarding whether more advanced civilizations “don’t care to help”… I’m not sure if I would frame my argument that way. I would rather say that it seems plausible that much more advanced civilizations might have divergent goal structures or priorities. It’s also entirely possible that their temporal experience of reality is very different if they have gone digital. So it’s less about being selfish and more about a lack of practicality for making contact. I tried to cover this point to a detailed degree in the post.
It also seems plausible to me that significantly more advanced civilizations might rationally conclude there is very little upside for them to contact less sophisticated societies and at least some potential downside. Not really dark forest theory, but more like a good Bayesian approach to risk management.
I’d also point out that the hypotheses out there offered as solutions to the FP are not mutually exclusive. It could be that intelligent civilizations are fairly rare, that quite a few self-destruct, and that quite a few just evolve quickly through a detection window. Reality is often messier than our theories.