Why Aliens Might Already Be On Their Way To Us

Why Aliens Might Already Be On Their Way To Us

the universe is magnificent and vast

hundreds of billions of galaxies

trillions of stars and even more planets

if even the tiniest fraction are

habitable then the universe should be

teeming with life and yet we see nothing

only vast emptiness

where is everyone else

the answer to this riddle could be as

exciting as it is creepy

we are early born before almost all

other life but very soon this may change

not only might aliens appear they could

quickly surround us an irreversible

competition for the universe might be

about to begin

while this video is based on scientific

papers we're presenting interesting

ideas based on little data and lots of

extrapolation so take them with a grain

of salt

okay we need to look at three essential

questions to understand the galactic

competition

one how fast can bacteria build

spaceships to become a star-faring

civilization Life as we know it needs to

master a number of very hard steps it

starts with dead stuff turning into the

building blocks of life

then it needs to organize into

self-contained cells those cells have to

learn to work together to form

multicellular organisms

this keeps going until complex creatures

with big brains learn to use tools and

language the civilization has to be

formed from cultures that value progress

and technological development and then

they need to actually venture out beyond

their home planet

on Earth life appeared basically as soon

as the oceans fought but then it took

two billion years to make the step from

single cells to multicellular organisms

and 2 billion more for us to appear

culture civilization and space travel

developed super quickly though do things

always take that long or was this

actually exceptionally fast also passing

One Step does not mean the next one is

guaranteed

multicellularity evolved over 25 times

independently on Earth but there's only

one species that builds spaceships

we don't know how many steps life needs

to pass and how long they take to give

rise to a technological civilization but

there are probably many and it's likely

that on trillions of planets life has

been trying for billions of years

since we don't see any other

technological civilizations out there it

might well be that we are a rare

exception we might be among the first or

even the first technological

civilization in the Milky Way

but this is just one piece of the puzzle

on top of that we may have just hit the

perfect time window why does Humanity

exist now

the universe is already 13.8 billion

years old but it's unlikely that many

other technological civilizations had a

chance to appear before us

because in the earlier universe life

would have had a pretty hard time to

emerge let alone Thrive because it was

such a hostile environment

early Stars constantly blew up galaxies

crashed into each other and supermassive

black holes vomited massive amounts of

radiation enough to sterilize galaxies

over and over again

our son was born right at the end of

this Cosmic death show the universe has

never been more welcoming to life than

it is now

so Humanity has arrived at a very

convenient spot in time maybe the

earliest reasonably possible for life to

thrive

what about the future the sun burns

brighter than 90 percent of the stars in

our galaxy and will keep getting

brighter in about a billion years it

will boil all of Earth's oceans and then

become a giant that swallows it whole

so in the galactic context the sun is

very short-lived most stars are red

dwarfs that can sustain habitable

planets for tens of trillions of years

life on these planets has an incredibly

long time window to appear and pass the

heart steps

even knowing nothing about how rare or

common life is this makes it way more

likely for technological civilizations

to appear sometime in the future than in

the past

because if civilizations appear at

random in the Milky Way within a Time

window of a trillion years then very few

if any would appear before today

then a couple more arrive in this period

of a billion years that we're in before

all starfaring civilizations that could

ever exist emerge altogether

this weird tsunami-like distribution is

the result of both the hard steps model

and something else

a sort of deadline for any space-faring

civilization

any civilization coming after will find

it hard to have room to survive so all

potential life has to cram in before it

Humanity exists now because otherwise we

might have missed this deadline what or

who creates this deadline

why aren't aliens already on Earth

humans are curious expansionist and

hungry for energy

we've spread over the world and made it

our own our technology has been

improving over time first slowly then

breathtakingly fast

if these things don't change drastically

and our descendants want to prosper they

will expand into space

we could construct a Dyson swarm for

Endless energy and transform planets

into new homes we could cross

Interstellar distances allowing us to

reach for planets around distant Stars

if we have the motivation we can become

a Galactic Civilization

a civilization that does this sort of

stuff can be called Loud because its

activity creates noise signs that can be

detected from far away imagine someone

in a forest cutting down trees starting

fires and laying down roads the more

intense their work the easier they are

to notice an expanding technological

civilization would probably be hard to

miss our telescopes would pick up all

that energy and we would clearly

identify artificial interference with

stars and planets

another consequence of this business is

that it's very disruptive to the

environment

clearing a forest means the end of its

Wildlife human activity has left no

chance for a squirrel civilization to

appear

not because we hated squirrels it's

something that the thought that they

might want to do that at some point

never crossed our minds and we needed

wood

similarly if loud civilizations were

running around the galaxy in the past

terraforming planets or harvesting the

energy of stars they may have prevented

our existence had aliens started

colonizing Earth while we were still

sludging the oceans that sludge would

never have turned into humans

this is how loud aliens create a

deadline for new civilizations appearing

the Galaxy may have trillions of years

to create life but there may only be a

short window for it to spread and thrive

even if a loud civilization respects

planets with naturally occurring life

and expands around them like humans do

with Wildlife reserves any civilization

on such a planet would not be able to

expand ever

trapped Forever on a tiny Island

but here we are so loud aliens will

probably never hear

what about aliens that don't expand they

would be quiet aliens they're probably

limited to one star system and don't

have a noticeable impact on their Cosmic

surroundings humanity is like this right

now we wouldn't be able to detect

ourselves from the other side of the

Milky Way

if they stay quiet forever maybe because

of their culture or abilities then they

are not really a concern for us

we only have one sample to draw from

humanity and right now we are on the

path to becoming loud

if we're not special lands succeed

anyway then any other civilization with

the motivation and resources to would

eventually expand Beyond its planet of

origin

okay what are the consequences of all

these assumptions and ideas

grave consequences race to the Stars

if we are really early then eventually

others will catch up with us

civilizations will emerge all over the

place and these new aliens will look at

space see no signs of life and come to

the same conclusion they exist because

loud civilizations have not yet taken

over everything but it only takes one

loud civilization to crowd them out of

the entire galaxy

they like us will face an important

decision do they stay quiet take it easy

and turn to their planet for as long as

possible or do they start expanding to

take a chunk of the Galaxy before

someone else arrives

meeting others does not necessarily mean

War or conflict but it means that new

borders will arise limits that may

persist forever

in the worst case a civilization could

be completely enveloped by the empires

of others

eternally doomed to be a galactic

Backwater without control over their

fate

so if we want a seat at the galactic

adults table we best get to work if we

really are early we have an incredible

opportunity to mold thousands or even

millions of planets according to our

vision and dreams

and one day when we meet others we can

greet them and meet them as equals

wouldn't that be nice

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