I think I agree (somewhat in contrast to what I said in the post) that I would expect vNM probes to take major action on finding a habitable planet. The fact that they are not taking action seems like the most damning critique of the theory.
It does seem like there are plenty of reasons they wouldn’t do something noticeable though. E.g. curiosity about a non-threatening species, ethics, etc. Granted this seems extra unlikely if there are vNM probes from many different civilizations present.
As far as degradations I have no idea… Haven’t though much about it. Seems like redundancy would be very helpful and that it’s a maybe solvable problem but could also imagine it being hard to solve given e.g. lot’s of radiation, many generations, etc.
And there would be vNM probes from many different civilizations present, unless somehow they could coordinate to block others from their territory… all while remaining in hiding...
Relatedly, even if they do await further instructions, why haven’t we been terraformed yet? If awaiting further instructions takes only a thousand years, this theory still predicts with high confidence that either they haven’t arrived yet or they have already terraformed us (and thus, updating on our observed lack of terraforming, they probably haven’t arrived yet.) If it takes a billion years to get further instructions, then OK, but that’s pretty darn implausible for reasons mentioned above.
Also they’d have to await further instructions not just in this star system but in the entire light-cone; they can’t convert Alpha Centauri into a Dyson swarm either because then Earthly astonomers would notice.
I generally agree. Though for what it’s worth it seems like it wouldn’t be hard to block others from the territory while remaining in hiding. Presumably any blocking could take place by intercepting ships well before they reach earth. We would have a very hard time noticing something like that.
Apparently there’s something like 7-8 million stars within 1000 light years so yeah, seems like there could have been some instructions sent. That said maybe life is super rare and only exists in 1 in a billion stars or 1 in a trillion. Then maybe any vNM probe would be coming from 10s of thousands of light years away or something.
Another possibility is that something about technological maturity tends to make species less interested in massive and aggressive expansion and/or species capable of making vNM probes tend to die off or become totally inward facing and/or there’s some intergalactic governance system preventing certain actions by vNM probes.
Overall I agree with it lowering probability for vNM probes on earth but I don’t think this reasoning invalidates the theory
I think I agree (somewhat in contrast to what I said in the post) that I would expect vNM probes to take major action on finding a habitable planet. The fact that they are not taking action seems like the most damning critique of the theory.
It does seem like there are plenty of reasons they wouldn’t do something noticeable though. E.g. curiosity about a non-threatening species, ethics, etc. Granted this seems extra unlikely if there are vNM probes from many different civilizations present.
As far as degradations I have no idea… Haven’t though much about it. Seems like redundancy would be very helpful and that it’s a maybe solvable problem but could also imagine it being hard to solve given e.g. lot’s of radiation, many generations, etc.
And there would be vNM probes from many different civilizations present, unless somehow they could coordinate to block others from their territory… all while remaining in hiding...
Relatedly, even if they do await further instructions, why haven’t we been terraformed yet? If awaiting further instructions takes only a thousand years, this theory still predicts with high confidence that either they haven’t arrived yet or they have already terraformed us (and thus, updating on our observed lack of terraforming, they probably haven’t arrived yet.) If it takes a billion years to get further instructions, then OK, but that’s pretty darn implausible for reasons mentioned above.
Also they’d have to await further instructions not just in this star system but in the entire light-cone; they can’t convert Alpha Centauri into a Dyson swarm either because then Earthly astonomers would notice.
I generally agree. Though for what it’s worth it seems like it wouldn’t be hard to block others from the territory while remaining in hiding. Presumably any blocking could take place by intercepting ships well before they reach earth. We would have a very hard time noticing something like that.
Apparently there’s something like 7-8 million stars within 1000 light years so yeah, seems like there could have been some instructions sent. That said maybe life is super rare and only exists in 1 in a billion stars or 1 in a trillion. Then maybe any vNM probe would be coming from 10s of thousands of light years away or something.
Another possibility is that something about technological maturity tends to make species less interested in massive and aggressive expansion and/or species capable of making vNM probes tend to die off or become totally inward facing and/or there’s some intergalactic governance system preventing certain actions by vNM probes.
Overall I agree with it lowering probability for vNM probes on earth but I don’t think this reasoning invalidates the theory