An argument for creationism from an atheist

[Thumpalumpacus]

Civilizations that arise closer to the galactic core may find star-hopping much more practical where stellar distances are less. They would find colonizing much easier and the chances of two such civilizations running into each other much greater.

Given the irradiation of such a central sector of a galaxy, I'm left to wonder if galaxies too don't have their own "Goldilocks zones"? You'd need one hell of a Van Allen belt to shelter protolife molecules from the rads raining down, I think.

Perhaps there's an inverse relationship between the evolution of life, and indeed intelligent life, and distance from galactic centers?

Fun thread and thoughts. Perhaps our notions of life are so limited that we cannot imagine life forms that can not only tolerate those higher levels of radiation, but thrive in them.
When life was discovered around black smokers deep in the ocean, scientists did not immediately leap to those being the source of all life. The intense pressures and temperatures seemed insurmountable.

Radiation at high levels has a nasty habit of breaking molecules.

[skyking]

?
So, life across the universe is built on molecules?
I can think of many fun energy creatures in science fiction.

[vulcanlogician]

Said vehicles should have been able to achieve upto .33% the speed of light. (Note. Look up "Project Valkyrie" for an even faster antimatter powered rocket.        )

So, you launch it and roughly 150 odd years later you get information back. Look at how long people waited patiently for the Pluto Express to get out that distance.

So, with enough time spent pretty much any distance can be coevered at a low light speed crawl.

That leads into the limiters of course. Maybe societys simply don't stablily last over those scales? Maybe the distance between 'habitable' spots is so vast that it's thousands of years at low 'C' speeds between watering holes?

The likelihood of finding a habitable planet is astronomical. But that doesn't mean we can't set up a Dyson swarm around another star. Our star won't last forever.

We could make it to Wolf 359 in around 25 years. Actually a bit longer, as that assumes 1/3 the speed of light the whole way. The vessel will take quite a bit of time to accelerate to that speed. Additionally, it will need to flip around and begin decelerating long before it arrives.

We'd want to send out an unmanned vessel first, though. Our "small city" of travellers will want to have a few generations of provisions once they get there.

Another concern is dust particles. At very high speeds a single particle of dust will strike the hull with the force of many atomic bombs. Luckily, a "brute force" vessel ought to be able to withstand such a shock. The problem is that such a strike will send the ship turning end over end and careening off in the wrong direction. The rockets that adjust the vessel's trajectory would take quite some time to set things right. Just a single dust particle could end up adding twenty years to the journey. Aside from that, the passengers inside the ship will likely be flattened against the wall, unless secured when the ship strikes the dust particle.

So, plenty of challenges when crossing interstellar distances.

[Cubeology]

While I can see that interstellar travel for biological life includes huge hurdles to overcome, I see no great technological leaps necessary to send machines out into the universe, perhaps intelligent self-replicating machines. Just like we currently send rovers and helicopters to Mars even though I think it unlikely that we find a way to safely send humans there anytime soon. 

But I do think we underestimate the vastness of space and the effort it takes to go from star to star even if some technology is developed. Civilizations that arise closer to the galactic core may find star-hopping much more practical where stellar distances are less. They would find colonizing much easier and the chances of two such civilizations running into each other much greater.

Hello.

While space is, indeed, big (Douglas Adam's quote here) the distance isn't quite surmountable.

So.. back in the 50's they gave some of the Atomic Scientists things to do to keep thier knowledge in the States.

Freeman Dyson and others came up with a 'Brute force' atomic powered rocket.

At the extreme upper scale? They were postulating a machine weighing in at 8 million tonns. Basically a small city powering itself through space.

Said vehicles should have been able to achieve upto .33% the speed of light. (Note. Look up "Project Valkyrie" for an even faster antimatter powered rocket.        )

So, you launch it and roughly 150 odd years later you get information back. Look at how long people waited patiently for the Pluto Express to get out that distance.

So, with enough time spent pretty much any distance can be coevered at a low light speed crawl.

That leads into the limiters of course. Maybe societys simply don't stablily last over those scales? Maybe the distance between 'habitable' spots is so vast that it's thousands of years at low 'C' speeds between watering holes?

However, as has been acknowledged. IF there's a species that's stable enough and commited enough to keep sending even 'Simple' brute force Orion type ships out and keep doing it and keep on expanding?

Then given the age of our galaxy we migh have been able to see their firefly atomic flckerings in the dark between the stars by now.

Sorry, enough of my ramblings. Hopfully something of worth was conveighed.  

Cheers.

Not at work.

I mostly agree with you, but as I said there are huge hurdles to overcome. You make it sound easier than I believe it is. Even if we managed to design and build a generation ship capable of reaching nearby stars, there is nowhere to go. This isn't sci-fi, the odds of finding a habitable planet are essentially zero. We would have to develop terraforming technology and be lucky enough to find a good candidate planet suitable for our use. We are having enough problems keeping Earth habitable much less starting from scratch. I'm not saying terraforming is impossible, but it is certainly a long-term project that would have to be at least partially completed before humans arrived. Robust nanotechnology would be necessary to build necessary equipment on-site and require a very flexible AI to coordinate everything without any human oversight. Even if we develop this technology in the near future we would have to have the political climate necessary and something would have to radically change for these conditions to be right. I would estimate that it will take at least another millennium for both the technology and political will to all line up for an attempt as we will try to terraform Mars before we even think about trying to do so elsewhere. It could even be many millennia before we try to do any of this. I think it is inevitable that will we spread out to the stars, assuming we survive long enough and civilization doesn't collapse, but it will not be easy.

[SYZ]

I see no  "argument for creationism".    Nor do I see any proposition for a "credible creation story".

—Colour me confused.     

[Thumpalumpacus]

?
So, life across the universe is built on molecules?
I can think of many fun energy creatures in science fiction.

Would we know the difference between energy-beings and ephemera?

[Reltzik]

So what happens if we survive through the next couple millennia and spread out through the stars and become less vulnerable to extinction. We might continue on for a long time developing a better understanding of the universe, developing greater technologies, and probably evolving ourselves by biological and technological means into something we would not consider to even be human anymore. What if our present 10,000-year-old civilization goes on for billions of years. What will we become and what will be able to do? It is simply unimaginable. But given all that time it can be presumed that we will be able to duplicate anything in nature artificially, including the big bang. As our galaxy dies of old age and with progress toward the heat death of the universe we would be highly motivated to do so. 

With this in mind, the possibility that our own universe started this way must be considered. Unfortunately, this is currently an untestable hypothesis as we are completely unable to explore even nearby space much less the vastness of the universe for any ancient civilizations responsible. Heck, much of the universe is outside the observable and impossible by our understanding to even see it. The probability is impossible to calculate but it is a possibility that requires nothing supernatural. It is possible that nature spawns enough new universes on its own and that a billion-year-old civilization would be able to navigate them making artificial universes entirely unnecessary. 

While these beings would appear godlike I doubt any of them would be even aware of our insignificant existence in the vastness of space and if they are I doubt we warrant any attention from them at all. They certainly aren't dictating books to tell us who we can have sex with and the other silly stuff. So while I do propose a credible creation story I doubt any of the many religions would find it very acceptable.

Less an argument for creationism, and more an argument for the possibility of creationism.  And the implications of this being true or false don't really have a measurable affect on our lives, so far as I can see.

You said this hypothesis is currently untestable.  What changes do you anticipate in the future that might make this possible to test?

[Cubeology]

Less an argument for creationism, and more an argument for the possibility of creationism.  And the implications of this being true or false don't really have a measurable affect on our lives, so far as I can see.

You said this hypothesis is currently untestable.  What changes do you anticipate in the future that might make this possible to test?

I agree, we are only talking about possibilities that have no effect on our lives unless advanced being decided to mess with us for some reason and I don't think they would have a motive to. I also made a mistake implying that this as stated is a testable proposition, I should have said that we are not able to currently investigate it.

[skyking]

?
So, life across the universe is built on molecules?
I can think of many fun energy creatures in science fiction.

Would we know the difference between energy-beings and ephemera?

you would if they twisted your nipple.

[trdsf]

Civilizations that arise closer to the galactic core may find star-hopping much more practical where stellar distances are less. They would find colonizing much easier and the chances of two such civilizations running into each other much greater.

Given the irradiation of such a central sector of a galaxy, I'm left to wonder if galaxies too don't have their own "Goldilocks zones"? You'd need one hell of a Van Allen belt to shelter protolife molecules from the rads raining down, I think.

Perhaps there's an inverse relationship between the evolution of life, and indeed intelligent life, and distance from galactic centers?

There is indeed thought to be a galactic Goldilocks zone, as well as the ones associated with individual stars.  Get too close to the core and not only are you dealing with radiation from the core, but a much more crowded local stellar neighborhood, with a much higher chance of relatively close approaches with other stars and having your system's equivalent Oort cloud disturbed and sending icy death balls towards the center of your system, or tugging planets just slightly out of their orbits, or being too close to a supernova, or all sorts of other unpleasantnesses that mess with the long term stability that life needs to get on past microbes.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Civilizations that arise closer to the galactic core may find star-hopping much more practical where stellar distances are less. They would find colonizing much easier and the chances of two such civilizations running into each other much greater.

Given the irradiation of such a central sector of a galaxy, I'm left to wonder if galaxies too don't have their own "Goldilocks zones"? You'd need one hell of a Van Allen belt to shelter protolife molecules from the rads raining down, I think.

Perhaps there's an inverse relationship between the evolution of life, and indeed intelligent life, and distance from galactic centers?

There is indeed thought to be a galactic Goldilocks zone, as well as the ones associated with individual stars.  Get too close to the core and not only are you dealing with radiation from the core, but a much more crowded local stellar neighborhood, with a much higher chance of relatively close approaches with other stars and having your system's equivalent Oort cloud disturbed and sending icy death balls towards the center of your system, or tugging planets just slightly out of their orbits, or being too close to a supernova, or all sorts of other unpleasantnesses that mess with the long term stability that life needs to get on past microbes.

Yeah, I hadn't even considered the risks of collision and whatnot, but that stands to reason: being closer to the center of gravity means incoming selection pressures.

Just the radiation alone seems like a big strike, to me.

[Thumpalumpacus]

?
So, life across the universe is built on molecules?
I can think of many fun energy creatures in science fiction.

Would we know the difference between energy-beings and ephemera?

you would if they twisted your nipple.

When you meet her again, give her my phone number.

[SYZ]

I agree, we are only talking about possibilities that have no effect on our lives unless advanced being decided to mess with us for some reason and I don't think they would have a motive to. I also made a mistake implying that this as stated is a testable proposition, I should have said that we are not able to currently investigate it.

Well, to be honest, I have no idea of where you were hoping to go with this.

You started this thread with "An argument for creationism..." which implied there is  one—when in
actuality there is none.   You then said  "so while I do propose a credible creation story..." when again,
no such proposition can be realistically or logically articulated.

[Cubeology]

I agree, we are only talking about possibilities that have no effect on our lives unless advanced being decided to mess with us for some reason and I don't think they would have a motive to. I also made a mistake implying that this as stated is a testable proposition, I should have said that we are not able to currently investigate it.

Well, to be honest, I have no idea of where you were hoping to go with this.

You started this thread with "An argument for creationism..." which implied there is  one—when in
actuality there is none.   You then said  "so while I do propose a credible creation story..." when again,
no such proposition can be realistically or logically articulated.

I do not think that most people would read my original post and think that I was trying to prove creation conclusively instead of my intent to show that an argument can be made that there is a not unreasonable scenario that could lead to an artificially created universe. Not sure why you want to argue semantics over how I laid out my idea rather than discuss the substance of it. It is an argument whether you want to call it one or not, if you think it is a poor argument or that it is not credible then discuss that.

[jerry mcmasters]

I agree, we are only talking about possibilities that have no effect on our lives unless advanced being decided to mess with us for some reason and I don't think they would have a motive to. I also made a mistake implying that this as stated is a testable proposition, I should have said that we are not able to currently investigate it.

Well, to be honest, I have no idea of where you were hoping to go with this.

You started this thread with "An argument for creationism..." which implied there is  one—when in
actuality there is none.   You then said  "so while I do propose a credible creation story..." when again,
no such proposition can be realistically or logically articulated.

You're letting yourself get triggered by a word.  It's a thought experiment, an interesting speculation is all.

[mordant]

Also, wasn't there a theory or something than any civilisation that is technologically advanced "usually goes extinct after attaining technological knowledge"?

That's one solution to the Fermi paradox. The Fermi Paradox asks: if intelligent life exists, why isn't it all over the galaxy by now? Why haven't we seen it yet?

There are tons of proposed answers. One of them being intelligent life cannot survive its own technological advancement; it always wipes itself out. If that's true, it doesn't bode well for us...

It would be sufficient if such civilizations even "usually" wiped themselves out. It might reduce the number of sentient races from potentially hundreds of thousands, to two or three, in any one galaxy. And it would be highly unlikely for any two of those to be close enough together to encounter or detect each other.

I think the term of art here is "evolutionary hard stop" such as nuclear or environmental extinction because those technologies were deployed far in advance of the development of the self-control / restraint / wisdom to not misuse them.

[mordant]

I agree, we are only talking about possibilities that have no effect on our lives unless advanced being decided to mess with us for some reason and I don't think they would have a motive to. I also made a mistake implying that this as stated is a testable proposition, I should have said that we are not able to currently investigate it.

Well, to be honest, I have no idea of where you were hoping to go with this.

You started this thread with "An argument for creationism..." which implied there is  one—when in
actuality there is none.   You then said  "so while I do propose a credible creation story..." when again,
no such proposition can be realistically or logically articulated.

It may be that "creationism" was a poor choice of loaded terminology. I would have said that there might be an argument for a created universe. But not for creationism, which is generally understood to be evangelical Christian young earth creationism or perhaps some of the more dilute forms that involve a creative deity as a first cause, such as theistic evolution. Since Cubeology clearly was not arguing for THAT, I'd argue that particular term should have been avoided. Even then, some people would tend to assume more than a term like "created universe" actually has to mean, because young earth creationism has become so ubiquitous at least in the US.

Of course, that might be needlessly and unintentionally carping: the Abrahamic faiths could, after all, simply be a corruption of the actual origin story, as perceived by bronze age goatherds who would have had no framing to accurately describe an ancient advanced technologist seeding reality with universes of which ours is but one.

[trdsf]

There is indeed thought to be a galactic Goldilocks zone, as well as the ones associated with individual stars.  Get too close to the core and not only are you dealing with radiation from the core, but a much more crowded local stellar neighborhood, with a much higher chance of relatively close approaches with other stars and having your system's equivalent Oort cloud disturbed and sending icy death balls towards the center of your system, or tugging planets just slightly out of their orbits, or being too close to a supernova, or all sorts of other unpleasantnesses that mess with the long term stability that life needs to get on past microbes.

Yeah, I hadn't even considered the risks of collision and whatnot, but that stands to reason: being closer to the center of gravity means incoming selection pressures.

Just the radiation alone seems like a big strike, to me.

What surprised me was the idea that being too far from the core makes life less likely -- but then, out there the supernovae are too far apart for the heavy elements they create to concentrate easily.  You have to be just close enough for mild and infrequent interstellar mayhem: too close and it's too crazy with radiation, collisions and explosions, and too far out and it's too tame to build anything.

[Thumpalumpacus]

There is indeed thought to be a galactic Goldilocks zone, as well as the ones associated with individual stars.  Get too close to the core and not only are you dealing with radiation from the core, but a much more crowded local stellar neighborhood, with a much higher chance of relatively close approaches with other stars and having your system's equivalent Oort cloud disturbed and sending icy death balls towards the center of your system, or tugging planets just slightly out of their orbits, or being too close to a supernova, or all sorts of other unpleasantnesses that mess with the long term stability that life needs to get on past microbes.

Yeah, I hadn't even considered the risks of collision and whatnot, but that stands to reason: being closer to the center of gravity means incoming selection pressures.

Just the radiation alone seems like a big strike, to me.

What surprised me was the idea that being too far from the core makes life less likely -- but then, out there the supernovae are too far apart for the heavy elements they create to concentrate easily.  You have to be just close enough for mild and infrequent interstellar mayhem: too close and it's too crazy with radiation, collisions and explosions, and too far out and it's too tame to build anything.

Exactly, hence a Goldilocks zone.

[Cubeology]

There is indeed thought to be a galactic Goldilocks zone, as well as the ones associated with individual stars.  Get too close to the core and not only are you dealing with radiation from the core, but a much more crowded local stellar neighborhood, with a much higher chance of relatively close approaches with other stars and having your system's equivalent Oort cloud disturbed and sending icy death balls towards the center of your system, or tugging planets just slightly out of their orbits, or being too close to a supernova, or all sorts of other unpleasantnesses that mess with the long term stability that life needs to get on past microbes.

Yeah, I hadn't even considered the risks of collision and whatnot, but that stands to reason: being closer to the center of gravity means incoming selection pressures.

Just the radiation alone seems like a big strike, to me.

What surprised me was the idea that being too far from the core makes life less likely -- but then, out there the supernovae are too far apart for the heavy elements they create to concentrate easily.  You have to be just close enough for mild and infrequent interstellar mayhem: too close and it's too crazy with radiation, collisions and explosions, and too far out and it's too tame to build anything.

The idea of a galactic goldilocks zone is probably true, limiting the number of candidate stellar systems for life. While life started on Earth almost immediately, it took billions of years to develop into multicellular life and this is also probably a huge hurdle for life. I also think technological civilizations are probably really rare. Most think we developed tech because we were special and had special abilities but in truth, it was because we were bad at everything else. Technology building was an adaptive trait because we were comparatively feeble and ill-suited for our environment. There are many creatures that have impressive brain development but are so well suited for their environment that primitive technologies do not confer any immediate survival advantage. So beings that are strong enough to survive but weak enough that primitive technology is a necessary adaption are probably few and far between. Also in any region of space one civilization is going to arise first and going to completely dominate any later lesser civilizations. So as far as the Fermi paradox goes, we are either first and there isn't anyone else around. Or there is one dominant culture and they have just chosen not to reveal themselves to us for unknown motivations. It's not likely to be like most sci-fi where there are tons of equal cultures running around all over the place. So not really much of a paradox at all.

[Inkubus]

I agree, we are only talking about possibilities that have no effect on our lives unless advanced being decided to mess with us for some reason and I don't think they would have a motive to. I also made a mistake implying that this as stated is a testable proposition, I should have said that we are not able to currently investigate it.

Well, to be honest, I have no idea of where you were hoping to go with this.

You started this thread with "An argument for creationism..." which implied there is  one—when in
actuality there is none.   You then said  "so while I do propose a credible creation story..." when again,
no such proposition can be realistically or logically articulated.

I do not think that most people would read my original post and think that I was trying to prove creation conclusively instead of my intent to show that an argument can be made that there is a not unreasonable scenario that could lead to an artificially created universe. Not sure why you want to argue semantics over how I laid out my idea rather than discuss the substance of it. It is an argument whether you want to call it one or not, if you think it is a poor argument or that it is not credible then discuss that.

OK lets discuss that. First: the curved ball in your OP. "Creationism."
And what a beauty, it has everybody fucked and the reason being:

Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with

This is what the word means and nothing else. This has been pointed out a number of times and you've had plenty of opportunity to clarify why you insist on using it and yet, still nothing.

Would you please give us your understanding of the word "Creationism."

[Cubeology]

This is what the word means and nothing else. This has been pointed out a number of times and you've had plenty of opportunity to clarify why you insist on using it and yet, still nothing.

Would you please give us your understanding of the word "Creationism."

I thought someone answered this satisfactorily for me, but honestly, until this moment I was unaware that the specific word "creationism" was what had everyone upset. Without giving much thought to it I just thought creationism was the idea that the universe was created artificially rather than by some unknown natural process. 

You seem to have cut off whatever quote you were giving for a definition, but I googled it, and the definition does in fact include the word "divine" and a reference to the biblical account. The divine part doesn't really cause problems because beings capable of creating universes would be considered gods compared to us and therefore could be divine. The definition also says, "as in the biblical account" but not specifically the biblical account. So while my use of the word stretches the definition to the widest interpretation it is not technically incorrect by the specific definition provided by Google. 

After review though I see that with people in the atheism vs creation debate the word creationism is assumed to be tied to the biblical account and it wasn't my intention to confuse or trigger anyone. While I was Catholic and became atheist, I came by disbelief on my own many years ago and until very recently never consumed any atheist vs deist debates or propaganda. Honestly once I decided I was atheist I threw the whole topic aside as being unworthy of further thought and didn't give it any more of my time. Only very recently did it cross my mind to seek out others who think as I do. All I am trying to say is that my inexperience with the conversation among atheists and between them and deists may leave me not fully aware of the common usage of certain terms. All that aside, the context with which I used the word should have been clear and no one could reasonably conclude that my usage had anything to do with the bibilical account.

[Inkubus]

...All I am trying to say is that my inexperience with the conversation among atheists and between them and deists may leave me not fully aware of the common usage of certain terms. All that aside, the context with which I used the word should have been clear and no one could reasonably conclude that my usage had anything to do with the bibilical account.

Fine, now using as fewer words as possible do you believe the universe was created Ex nihilo by some sort of entity or has it always existed.

[jerry mcmasters]

This is what the word means and nothing else. This has been pointed out a number of times and you've had plenty of opportunity to clarify why you insist on using it and yet, still nothing.

Would you please give us your understanding of the word "Creationism."

I thought someone answered this satisfactorily for me, but honestly, until this moment I was unaware that the specific word "creationism" was what had everyone upset. Without giving much thought to it I just thought creationism was the idea that the universe was created artificially rather than by some unknown natural process. 

You seem to have cut off whatever quote you were giving for a definition, but I googled it, and the definition does in fact include the word "divine" and a reference to the biblical account. The divine part doesn't really cause problems because beings capable of creating universes would be considered gods compared to us and therefore could be divine. The definition also says, "as in the biblical account" but not specifically the biblical account. So while my use of the word stretches the definition to the widest interpretation it is not technically incorrect by the specific definition provided by Google. 

After review though I see that with people in the atheism vs creation debate the word creationism is assumed to be tied to the biblical account and it wasn't my intention to confuse or trigger anyone. While I was Catholic and became atheist, I came by disbelief on my own many years ago and until very recently never consumed any atheist vs deist debates or propaganda. Honestly once I decided I was atheist I threw the whole topic aside as being unworthy of further thought and didn't give it any more of my time. Only very recently did it cross my mind to seek out others who think as I do. All I am trying to say is that my inexperience with the conversation among atheists and between them and deists may leave me not fully aware of the common usage of certain terms. All that aside, the context with which I used the word should have been clear and no one could reasonably conclude that my usage had anything to do with the bibilical account.

I only count two people in the discussion that seem to be stunned and baffled by your use of the term "creationism."  Weird how they fixate on that while ignoring the "by an Atheist" part.  Maybe they think you're a Christian sent on a secret mission by the Pope to infiltrate our atheist ranks and destroy us from the inside?

[Peebothuhlu]

While I can see that interstellar travel for biological life includes huge hurdles to overcome, I see no great technological leaps necessary to send machines out into the universe, perhaps intelligent self-replicating machines. Just like we currently send rovers and helicopters to Mars even though I think it unlikely that we find a way to safely send humans there anytime soon. 

But I do think we underestimate the vastness of space and the effort it takes to go from star to star even if some technology is developed. Civilizations that arise closer to the galactic core may find star-hopping much more practical where stellar distances are less. They would find colonizing much easier and the chances of two such civilizations running into each other much greater.

Hello.

While space is, indeed, big (Douglas Adam's quote here) the distance isn't quite surmountable.

So.. back in the 50's they gave some of the Atomic Scientists things to do to keep thier knowledge in the States.

Freeman Dyson and others came up with a 'Brute force' atomic powered rocket.

At the extreme upper scale? They were postulating a machine weighing in at 8 million tonns. Basically a small city powering itself through space.

Said vehicles should have been able to achieve upto .33% the speed of light. (Note. Look up "Project Valkyrie" for an even faster antimatter powered rocket.        )

So, you launch it and roughly 150 odd years later you get information back. Look at how long people waited patiently for the Pluto Express to get out that distance.

So, with enough time spent pretty much any distance can be coevered at a low light speed crawl.

That leads into the limiters of course. Maybe societys simply don't stablily last over those scales? Maybe the distance between 'habitable' spots is so vast that it's thousands of years at low 'C' speeds between watering holes?

However, as has been acknowledged. IF there's a species that's stable enough and commited enough to keep sending even 'Simple' brute force Orion type ships out and keep doing it and keep on expanding?

Then given the age of our galaxy we migh have been able to see their firefly atomic flckerings in the dark between the stars by now.

Sorry, enough of my ramblings. Hopfully something of worth was conveighed.  

Cheers.

Not at work.

I mostly agree with you, but as I said there are huge hurdles to overcome. You make it sound easier than I believe it is. Even if we managed to design and build a generation ship capable of reaching nearby stars, there is nowhere to go. This isn't sci-fi, the odds of finding a habitable planet are essentially zero. We would have to develop terraforming technology and be lucky enough to find a good candidate planet suitable for our use. We are having enough problems keeping Earth habitable much less starting from scratch. I'm not saying terraforming is impossible, but it is certainly a long-term project that would have to be at least partially completed before humans arrived. Robust nanotechnology would be necessary to build necessary equipment on-site and require a very flexible AI to coordinate everything without any human oversight. Even if we develop this technology in the near future we would have to have the political climate necessary and something would have to radically change for these conditions to be right. I would estimate that it will take at least another millennium for both the technology and political will to all line up for an attempt as we will try to terraform Mars before we even think about trying to do so elsewhere. It could even be many millennia before we try to do any of this. I think it is inevitable that will we spread out to the stars, assuming we survive long enough and civilization doesn't collapse, but it will not be easy.

Oh. Sorry.

I dind't mean 'Throw a generation ship'.

I did mention 'probe first'.

I was just pointing out that even with 50's tech nearby stars are, technically, within our reach.

Given another sophont's veiw of reality it's not a stretch to propose some other inteligence putting in the ffort to 'Creep' across the cosmos.

It's one of the stickyer points of the Fermi issue.

That's why I acknowledged that maybe the reason we don't se such stellar creep is what you mention with societal apathy simply causing such endeavours to not be undertaken.

As for 'There's nothing there' ? Every where else has raw material that, eventually, you'll want to process and bring home to keep your life style going.

Earth running low/out of fossil fuels? Siphon off the oceans of Titan to tide you over till your other energy producers are on line.

Running low of basic metals/minerals/'Rare Earths? Render a type 'M' Asteroid (16 Physce) down and reforest some of thoe terrestrial mineing sites.

 

Cheers.

Not at work.