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Thread: Aliens

  1. #1
    Senior Member -james-'s Avatar
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    Aliens

    Kindly assign a probability to each of the following being true (0-100%):

    Intelligent extra-terrestrials have at some point visited earth - []

    Intelligent extra-terrestrial life exists on earth - []

    Intelligent extra-terrestrial life exists in the universe - []

    Any extra-terrestrial life exists in the universe - []

    Humans will discover concrete evidence of extra-terrestrial life this century - []

    Humans will discover concrete evidence of intelligent extra-terrestrial life this century - []

  2. #2
    Senior Member niko_cee's Avatar
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    Intelligent extra-terrestrials have at some point visited earth - [<1%]

    Intelligent extra-terrestrial life exists on earth - [<1%]

    Intelligent extra-terrestrial life exists in the universe - [>50%]

    Any extra-terrestrial life exists in the universe - [>90%]

    Humans will discover concrete evidence of extra-terrestrial life this century - [<5%]

    Humans will discover concrete evidence of intelligent extra-terrestrial life this century - [<1%]

  3. #3
    Senior Member Jimmy Floyd's Avatar
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    Intelligent extra-terrestrials have at some point visited earth - ~zero

    Intelligent extra-terrestrial life exists on earth - zero

    Intelligent extra-terrestrial life exists in the universe - Probably less than you'd think. 10%

    Any extra-terrestrial life exists in the universe - 95%

    Humans will discover concrete evidence of extra-terrestrial life this century - 1%

    Humans will discover concrete evidence of intelligent extra-terrestrial life this century - ~zero

  4. #4
    Senior Member -james-'s Avatar
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    Intelligent extra-terrestrials have at some point visited earth - [0.00001%]

    Intelligent extra-terrestrial life exists on earth - [0.0000001%]

    Intelligent extra-terrestrial life exists in the universe - [40%] I think the following would suggest a decent chance of this. Depends on the definition I suppose.

    Any extra-terrestrial life exists in the universe - [80%]

    Humans will discover concrete evidence of extra-terrestrial life this century - [5%]

    Humans will discover concrete evidence of intelligent extra-terrestrial life this century - [0.5%]

  5. #5
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    Intelligent extra-terrestrials have at some point visited earth - 0

    Intelligent extra-terrestrial life exists on earth - 0

    Intelligent extra-terrestrial life exists in the universe - 100

    Any extra-terrestrial life exists in the universe - 100

    Humans will discover concrete evidence of extra-terrestrial life this century - 0

    Humans will discover concrete evidence of intelligent extra-terrestrial life this century - 0

  6. #6
    Senior Member Spikey M's Avatar
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    What Jim said.

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    Senior Member Lofty's Avatar
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    My dad reckons he saw a UFO in the lakes after he took LSD at a stone circle so that's concrete evidence for me.

    Just wish he hadn't told the local paper about his 'findings'.

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    Senior Member Offshore Toon's Avatar
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    This is the most pointless predictions thread of all time. At least give some questions for people to argue over.

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    Senior Member Adramelch's Avatar
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    Aliens?

  10. #10
    Bookie Sir Andy Mahowry's Avatar
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    I think Jim has nailed it.

  11. #11
    Senior Member Jimmy Floyd's Avatar
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    Reading back, I'm not so sure about the last two questions. At the moment I don't think we're putting much effort at all into space and less still into finding extraterrestrial life. If for whatever reason we started to put a large amount of resources into that, and if technology continued to develop, I guess we might find some algae within a few decades.

    The key in my layman brain has always been how many favourable coincidences does it take for 'life' to kick off even when given the most favourable circumstances. The favourable circumstances will almost never come up.

  12. #12
    Senior Member -james-'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Offshore Toon View Post
    This is the most pointless predictions thread of all time. At least give some questions for people to argue over.
    I couldn't be arsed coming up with an actual post so I thought this might incite some debate. Didn't realise Jimmy would solve it so quickly.

  13. #13
    Senior Member -james-'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd View Post
    Reading back, I'm not so sure about the last two questions. At the moment I don't think we're putting much effort at all into space and less still into finding extraterrestrial life. If for whatever reason we started to put a large amount of resources into that, and if technology continued to develop, I guess we might find some algae within a few decades.

    The key in my layman brain has always been how many favourable coincidences does it take for 'life' to kick off even when given the most favourable circumstances. The favourable circumstances will almost never come up.
    I guess the problem is that algae surely exists, it's just really far away and really small. The chance of there being some on mars is still non-zero iirc so that's probably the best shot.

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    Senior Member Spikey M's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd View Post
    Reading back, I'm not so sure about the last two questions. At the moment I don't think we're putting much effort at all into space and less still into finding extraterrestrial life. If for whatever reason we started to put a large amount of resources into that, and if technology continued to develop, I guess we might find some algae within a few decades.

    The key in my layman brain has always been how many favourable coincidences does it take for 'life' to kick off even when given the most favourable circumstances. The favourable circumstances will almost never come up.
    That would rely on said planet being one of our nearest neighbours, which is incredibly unlikely. Said Algae-like life forms could exist billions of lightyears away and probably do, but there's no chance we're ever going to find them.

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    With the size of the Universe being what it is and the nature of time being what it is (in that we'd need to get to the right place at the right time to fid life or the remains of it), future humans could be far more advanced than we are and still not find anything.

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    Senior Member Spikey M's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yevrah View Post
    With the size of the Universe being what it is and the nature of time being what it is (in that we'd need to get to the right place at the right time to fid life or the remains of it), future humans could be far more advanced than we are and still not find anything.
    This is it. Even if we saw the algae through some super-tech-scope, if it's 160 million lightyears away then we're seeing what was knocking about when the dinosaurs were stomping around. It would still tell us nothing of what's there now (if anything).

  17. #17
    Senior Member Jimmy Floyd's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by -james- View Post
    I guess the problem is that algae surely exists, it's just really far away and really small. The chance of there being some on mars is still non-zero iirc so that's probably the best shot.
    I know but I'm thinking if we can AI some micro-robots out there at the speed of light, using technology that's as 50 years away as ChatGPT was 50 years ago.

  18. #18
    Custom User Title phonics's Avatar
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    I've long held the opinion that space and the various things that accompany it might be the most boring chat a group can have. The sea is more interesting than space. Space chat can, in fact, get in the sea.

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    Senior Member Offshore Toon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by phonics View Post
    I've long held the opinion that space and the various things that accompany it might be the most boring chat a group can have. The sea is more interesting than space. Space chat can, in fact, get in the sea.
    At work a couple of weeks ago, two girls on my team were having a chat about which animal they'd be if they had the choice. I was laughing/exhaling at most of the things they were saying, then they asked what I'd pick. I said it'd be pretty fun to be a bird, which was met with "I used to say bird a lot." Turns out its been an ongoing conversation since childhood. I'd have killed for some hypothetical space shit over 'what animal would you be?'

  20. #20
    Bookie Sir Andy Mahowry's Avatar
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    They've been having the same conversation with each other since childhood?

    How much can the conversation change?

  21. #21
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    I think people underestimate just how quickly us humans have evolved.

    My guess is that alien lifeform exists, but likely way less intelligent and evolved as ourselves.

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by John Arne View Post
    I think people underestimate just how quickly us humans have evolved.

    My guess is that alien lifeform exists, but likely way less intelligent and evolved as ourselves.
    On the flipside, one could say that humans will think they're at the Apex of life because we're a) arrogant and b) it's all we know.

  23. #23
    DEATH TO THE WEIRD Raoul Duke's Avatar
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    There's a great What But Why on this.

    I think people underestimate a) the vastness and b) the timing required for us to come across something else out there. There could have been a huge civilisation around 3bn years ago or 1bn years later but we're such a new thing we might just miss it

  24. #24
    Senior Member Spikey M's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Raoul Duke View Post
    There's a great What But Why on this.

    I think people underestimate a) the vastness and b) the timing required for us to come across something else out there. There could have been a huge civilisation around 3bn years ago or 1bn years later but we're such a new thing we might just miss it
    The problem is that we just have no idea how rare life is. It could be extremely common and able to spawn into existence on one in a thousand planets. Or, maybe it's just a complete freak occurance and you'd need a quadrifucktriilion earth-like planets before anything like the life on this planet happened again.

  25. #25
    Senior Member Offshore Toon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Andy Mahowry View Post
    They've been having the same conversation with each other since childhood?

    How much can the conversation change?
    I think its just a girl/'talking for the sake of talking' thing and one of them has been using that as a topic for decades. Bit like when we bring up Spikey's pinheed.

  26. #26
    Senior Member Spikey M's Avatar
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    Change everything to 100%

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/66448453

  27. #27
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    Maybe we're in one big Truman show, created by an advanced civilization and one of them is trying to let us know. Bet the set ends behind that question mark.

  28. #28
    Senior Member Spikey M's Avatar
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    I'll take them seriously when they draw us a celestial cock and balls.

  29. #29
    Webly Ian's Avatar
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    Maybe the Plough was their attempt at that.

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