JoshuaZ

Astronomy, space exploration and the Great Filter

Astronomical research has what may be an under-appreciated role in helping us understand and possibly avoiding the Great Filter. This post will examine how astronomy may be helpful for identifying potential future filters. The primary upshot is that we may have an advantage due to our somewhat late arrival: if we can observe what other civilizations have done wrong, we can get a leg up. This post is not arguing that colonization is a route to remove some existential risks. There is no question that colonization will reduce the risk of many forms of Filters, but the vast majority of astronomical work has no substantial connection to colonization. Moreover, the case for colonization has been made strongly by many others already, such as Robert Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars" or this essay by Nick Bostrom. Note: those already familiar with the Great Filter and proposed explanations may wish to skip to the section "How can we substantially improve astronomy in the short to medium term?" What is the Great Filter? There is a worrying lack of signs of intelligent life in the universe. The only intelligent life we have detected has been that on Earth. While planets are apparently numerous, there have been no signs of other life. There are three possible lines of evidence we would expect to see if civilizations were common in the universe: radio signals, direct contact, and large-scale constructions. The first two of these issues are well-known, but the most serious problem arises from the lack of large-scale constructions: as far as we can tell the universe look natural. The vast majority of matter and energy in the universe appears to be unused. The Great Filter is one possible explanation for this lack of life, namely that some phenomenon prevents intelligent life from passing into the interstellar, large-scale phase. Variants of the idea have been floating around for a long time; the term was first coined by Robin Hanson in this essay. There are two fundamental

37Apr 19, 2015

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Astronomy, space exploration and the Great Filter

Apr 19, 201537

Tachyon neutrinos (again)

In 2012, a large amount of attention was given to the OPERA experiment's apparent sighting of faster than light neutrinos. This turned out to be erroneous due to a faulty cable, and similar experiments confirmed the same results. However, while this was occurring, a distinct point was made: some attempts...

Dec 27, 201413

Dealing with trolling and the signal to noise ratio

The recent implementation of a -5 karma penalty for replying to comments that are at -3 or below has clearly met with some disagreement and controversy. See http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/eb9/meta_karma_for_last_30_days/7aon . However, at the same time, it seems that Eliezer's observation that trolling and related problems have over time gotten worse here...

Aug 31, 201233

Large scale problems, cognitive biases, and existential risk

There's a recent paper(PDF) which finds that people who don't know much about a problem are more inclined to not find out more about that problem. Moreover, the larger scale and more complex a problem looked like, the more likely people were to try to avoid learning more about it,...

Nov 28, 201119

[link]s Recent developments in life-extension

Progeria is a very rare disease which causes children to undergo symptoms extremely similar to rapid aging, and generally dying before the age of 20. Recent results suggest that a fairly cheap drug may help reduce the aging systems, and it is possible it may have similar effects on normal...

Nov 2, 201117

Curiosity, Adam Savage, and Life-Extension

Tonight the Discovery Channel had on their Curiosity series a program hosted by Adam Savage (of Mythbusters) on whether or not we could live indefinitely. The program probably did have some substantial impact on some people who have not been exposed to that sort of idea before, and may have...

Oct 17, 201112

Planets in the habitable zone, the Drake Equation, and the Great Filter

One serious issue for evaluating existential risk is working out whether most of the Great Filter is behind us or in front of us. This relates to the Drake Equation and similar attempts to estimate the frequency of life in an obvious way. Over the last few years, it has...

Oct 1, 201116

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JoshuaZ

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Astronomy, space exploration and the Great Filter

Dealing with trolling and the signal to noise ratio

Is Less Wrong discouraging less nerdy people from participating?

Edward Nelson claims proof of inconsistency in Peano Arithmetic

JoshuaZ

Astronomy, space exploration and the Great Filter

Tachyon neutrinos (again)

Dealing with trolling and the signal to noise ratio

Large scale problems, cognitive biases, and existential risk

[link]s Recent developments in life-extension

Curiosity, Adam Savage, and Life-Extension

Planets in the habitable zone, the Drake Equation, and the Great Filter

Astronomy, space exploration and the Great Filter

Dealing with trolling and the signal to noise ratio

Is Less Wrong discouraging less nerdy people from participating?

Edward Nelson claims proof of inconsistency in Peano Arithmetic

Astronomy, space exploration and the Great Filter

Tachyon neutrinos (again)

Dealing with trolling and the signal to noise ratio

Large scale problems, cognitive biases, and existential risk

[link]s Recent developments in life-extension

Curiosity, Adam Savage, and Life-Extension

Planets in the habitable zone, the Drake Equation, and the Great Filter