Keliso is a donation-based system where, once the creator is paid in full, the production
is released to everyone; not just to the people that contributed, but
everyone. This raises an obvious question: why donate? Why not wait for
other people to donate first, or donate more? As someone asked
within a forum debating recommendations for the new Canadian copyright
laws, "How can one buyer PAY MORE, while another PAYS LESS, and yet they
have the same 'product'?"
Excellent question. The
answer is that people aren't paying for digital content, they are paying
for something else, something tacked onto the content. People won't
pay for something they can get for free; after all, that's a pretty
silly thing to do. So, whenever people pay for what amounts to the
common good, they are actually paying for something else. This is what
Keliso does.
I have no intention of "releasing" the mechanism behind Keliso,
not without being paid first, but I can show how several other existing
value-added systems work. Let's take a limited edition print for
example. The photographer signs and sells only 100 of them for a high
price but, to gain interest, basically gives the actual print away on
the net. Anyone can download the print and enjoy it for free, but if
they want something more, the exclusivity of the signed limited-edition
print, they have to pay for it. Take the limited-edition print and copy
it, and it's worth exactly what the free print is worth - nothing.
It's not about selling the print, the photographer is selling something
else... the "limited" part.
The iTunes Store is another
value-added system. Apple's not really selling the music, they're
selling a convenient hassle-free download service. Apple then just
tosses some money to the original artists so they can continue using the
content, to sell the service. People will pay a dollar for
ease-of-use, even if they can get the content elsewhere for free. This
is the reason iTunes works.
Neither of these
value-added mechanisms are how Keliso operates, but they are crude
analogies. On Keliso, the people donating money aren't really paying
for the content, they are paying for something else. Funding the
content is just a byproduct of the system. Keliso needs content to
operate; without content, Keliso is devoid of purpose. But, by tying
the unique nature of Keliso communities to the work of
content-producers, a lot of great things can happen. The communities
can be self-moderating, without the need for oversight, people can deal
with the inevitable troublemakers and trolls
by themselves. Communities can operate anonymously while still making
these anonymous accounts valuable, so that people will act responsibly
with them. It's the way human communities are suppose to work.
A
vibrant and healthy Keliso community will be a great place to be a part
of. It offers all of the standard forum-based activities, yet offers
mechanisms to deal with the troublemakers. And, as a byproduct of a
functioning community, productions get funded, artists earn a living,
and the creative commons, the sum-total of all freely-available content,
gains in value.
This is what Keliso has to offer.
What is Keliso?
2009-07-31
The Staggering Accomplishment of Simple Pirates
One is, of course, Wikipedia. Who'd have thought that a bunch of people could get together and build something that amazing. Criticised from the start; with calls of being hopeless, bound toward total inaccuracy, and an impossible goal; it has grown into the most complete and up-to-date repository of knowledge the world has ever seen. Excluding the obvious joke-entries that are bound to come up with such a system, it is on average likely to be the most accurate as well.
Another is Open Street Map. Who'd have thought that a bunch of people running around with their personal GPS devices could build the most comprehensive street-map that has ever existed. They did; over 160Gb of XML data, and counting. I say "over" because I don't want this article to be dated next week. Open Street Map now covers most of the developed nations on Earth, and a good part of the undeveloped ones too.
The third Web 2.0 project is something that most people don't think about, at least not in a positive way. It is the distributed data warehouse of content archived in the P2P networks. Most people think of piracy when the term P2P comes up, and they're right. The vast majority of content within the store is copyrighted and being used without permission. But, if you step back and look at it, the results really are stupendous.
Any casual browsing of torrent listings will show a staggering array of content. Basically, it contains pretty much everything that anyone has ever found interesting. Virtually every song, every application, every movie... TV shows, sporting events, scanned magazines and books, photos... the conglomeration of culture is astounding, and growing by the day. I wouldn't even hazard a guess at how many terabytes of data are available, searchable, and downloadable with a few mouse clicks. Any number offered would only be a guess, and even if accurate it would be obsolete within days. It is the single greatest aggregation of culture that humanity has ever created; the greatest libraries in the world are insignificant-nothings in comparison. In a day, a person could download more books that could be read in a lifetime, in a few weeks (only because data rates are often throttled by ISPs) more movies than could be watched in a lifetime, more applications than could be installed, more content that any human could ever consume. Not bad for a bunch of pirates.
Of course most of this content is there illegally, against the wishes of the rights-holders. But, how could this be any other way? There is no way such content could be legally collected, not without huge sums of money involved. For it to be done by people in their spare time, like Wikipedia and Open Street Map, it has to be free. Yes, the content isn't suppose to be free, but it will be.
Eventually, all the content in the P2P datastore will be legally free, either because the rights-holders have monetised those rights through a system like Keliso, or the copyright has expired. It won't be long before all new content will be released under pay-for-production systems, rather than the failed pay-for-consumption system we have now. Thus, eventually, it will all be legally free and waiting for us in the P2P datastore. Web 2.0 at its best. Who'd have thought a bunch of - insert your chosen expletive here - pirates could do such a thing.
What is Keliso?
2009-07-27
Living In Denial
I am neither qualified nor have any interest in representing "the file-sharing community." Nor will I waste any effort on ethical arguments, because they're all pointless. They don't matter.
They don't matter because there are millions, if not hundreds of millions of people (and if not hundreds of millions yet, there soon will be) sharing files over the Internet. These people either don't believe or simply don't care that there is anything ethically wrong with what they're doing. The most perfectly-crafted and philosophically sound arguments will not change this. We're talking about millions and millions and millions of people.
The reality of the situation is that pretty well all available digital content will be freely copied, no matter the ethical arguments, no matter the digital rights management, no matter the laws built to prevent it. That's reality. The amount of content that is freely available now is staggering, and growing by the day. The peer-to-peer networks, built by millions of people sharing digital content, now amount to a massive decentralised data warehouse. It is the largest repository of culture that humanity has ever known.
Millions and millions and millions of people are using the peer-to-peer networks every day. They are not going to stop because of proclamations, laws, or technical blockades. These people are your future, a rising tide. They're not bullying you, stealing from you, they're just moving on by while you're failing to keep up.
The creators of digital content will realise, sooner or later, that selling copies of something that can be copied for free is a really, really dumb idea. They need a new business model. It's not hard to do, even I've come up with a viable model. It won't be long before artists can make money alongside the file sharing community; if people want the content that artists create, there will be a way.
It's not an ethical or legal argument, it's just reality. There's no point living in denial.
2009-04-21
What is Keliso
Keliso is a system of multiple websites that form communities of people. These communities mimic the best parts of natural communities while still allowing anonymous access. These communities can be closed or open to new members, depending on how they are created. Members can move between communities or form new communities of their own. These communities have unique features that make them self-moderating. From creation onwards, they can run themselves without interference. Keliso supports self-creating, self-maintaining, and self-funding online communities of people.
Keliso is open, flexible, and distributed. Artists can join communities or build their own, website operators can host communities, and artists can be their own website operators if they wish. Website operators and the Keliso system as a whole have an immediate and self-sustaining revenue stream. Keliso communities pay their way, right from the start.
What is a Production
If there is something that would benefit lots of people if it were done/released/created, then a Keliso production can bring people together to fund it.
What is Keliso?
2009-03-06
Sharing Is Human
Imagine, if you will, a small tribe of hunter-gathers hole up in a
winter cave in some long-ago time. The storyteller entrances his
audience, sitting around the fire, with an inspiring tale of a fair
maiden beset by an angry god and the hero that came to her rescue. Then,
after he finishes, he tells them that he owns the story and if they
want to repeat it to other people, they have to give him a banana each
time they do.
What?
Doesn't that sound stupid? How do you think the storyteller's audience would react to something that silly? I doubt they would even know how to react, the entire concept would be so out-there that they would probably think the storyteller was just possessed by demons or something. He was nuts. He certainly wouldn't be getting any bananas.
Welcome to the world of residuals, copyright law, and intellectual property. Where the hell did we go so horribly wrong? Why did we end up with such a nutty system?
Well, everything was just fine for a very, very long time. We were probably sharing information, freely, even before the time of Homo Habilis, certainly long before we became the humans we are today. For roughly 40,000 years after the first humans, like us, walked the earth, we shared information and culture. We traded stuff, but we shared information. Then came writing, and sharing information got much easier. Still, we shared. Then, along came the Industrial Revolution, and things changed. Suddenly, we could mass-produce items for sale; we traded lots more stuff. With the printing press, we could even package stories into neat bundles and trade them. Things started to get complicated.
First off, it took effort to design these thing for mass production. Inventions needed to be invented; books needed to be written. Mass production was actually the easy part. This caused problems because it was cheaper to just mass-produce someone else's idea than put the effort into making your own. So, to fix this, we started making laws. We made patent laws to protect innovative designs and we made copyright laws to protect artistic works, like the story part of a book. Both patent and copyright laws worked fairly well in protecting one corporation from another, which was all that was necessary at the time. After all, individuals couldn't mass-produce these things, and mass production made things far cheaper than any individual could make by hand. But, that changed too, at least for artistic works.
Along came the Information Revolution, and it became quite easy for individuals to make copies and share, just like in the old days when they repeated stories they had heard. In a very short period of time, the whole copyright system fell apart. They've tried to patch the laws, to enforce them in every way possible, but it just doesn't work. The laws try to prevent people from being human, from sharing stories, and songs, and ideas. Sharing these is what we've done, basically, forever. It was only during a tiny fraction of human history that we found ourselves in a position where ideas could be canned and sold like a product. This isn't normal, it was just a temporary artifact of the Industrial Age. But, that age is over, we're in the Information Age now. No amout of copyright law can change that; you can't pass laws against being human and expect them to be obeyed.
The Industrial Age is over, this is the Information Age, try to keep up.
What is Keliso?
What?
Doesn't that sound stupid? How do you think the storyteller's audience would react to something that silly? I doubt they would even know how to react, the entire concept would be so out-there that they would probably think the storyteller was just possessed by demons or something. He was nuts. He certainly wouldn't be getting any bananas.
Welcome to the world of residuals, copyright law, and intellectual property. Where the hell did we go so horribly wrong? Why did we end up with such a nutty system?
Well, everything was just fine for a very, very long time. We were probably sharing information, freely, even before the time of Homo Habilis, certainly long before we became the humans we are today. For roughly 40,000 years after the first humans, like us, walked the earth, we shared information and culture. We traded stuff, but we shared information. Then came writing, and sharing information got much easier. Still, we shared. Then, along came the Industrial Revolution, and things changed. Suddenly, we could mass-produce items for sale; we traded lots more stuff. With the printing press, we could even package stories into neat bundles and trade them. Things started to get complicated.
First off, it took effort to design these thing for mass production. Inventions needed to be invented; books needed to be written. Mass production was actually the easy part. This caused problems because it was cheaper to just mass-produce someone else's idea than put the effort into making your own. So, to fix this, we started making laws. We made patent laws to protect innovative designs and we made copyright laws to protect artistic works, like the story part of a book. Both patent and copyright laws worked fairly well in protecting one corporation from another, which was all that was necessary at the time. After all, individuals couldn't mass-produce these things, and mass production made things far cheaper than any individual could make by hand. But, that changed too, at least for artistic works.
Along came the Information Revolution, and it became quite easy for individuals to make copies and share, just like in the old days when they repeated stories they had heard. In a very short period of time, the whole copyright system fell apart. They've tried to patch the laws, to enforce them in every way possible, but it just doesn't work. The laws try to prevent people from being human, from sharing stories, and songs, and ideas. Sharing these is what we've done, basically, forever. It was only during a tiny fraction of human history that we found ourselves in a position where ideas could be canned and sold like a product. This isn't normal, it was just a temporary artifact of the Industrial Age. But, that age is over, we're in the Information Age now. No amout of copyright law can change that; you can't pass laws against being human and expect them to be obeyed.
The Industrial Age is over, this is the Information Age, try to keep up.
What is Keliso?
Silly Laws
We need these laws to protect us, says RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) HBAA (Horse Breeders Association of America). If we allow these
pirates automobiles to continue, it will destroy our industry. If that happens, how will the artists stable boys earn a living?
Thesepirates drivers are a menace to society and we need these laws to protect us. These people flaunted our laws by providing a space where people could share copyrighted material not taking their cars apart and hiding them in the bushes when a horse
and buggy wanted to pass. As such, they deserve jail time and a hefty
fine, such that other pirates drivers will know to heed the law.
... you can fill in the rest.
In 50 to 100 years from now, people are going to be looking back at our copyright laws, laughing their guts out. What kind of idiots would pass laws making it illegal to copy digital information that's already being distributed? How stupid is that?
On the scale of all humanity, for a brief flicker of time it became possible to package ideas in a manufacturable product and sell it. It started with the invention of the printing press and ended with the invention of the photocopier and magnetic tape. It is not normal to package and sell ideas, it is not something that humans do. Just because it became possible, and profitable, for a little while does not make it right and proper.
In fact, it should be clear by now that attempting to sell copies of information when anyone can make their own copies for free is an absurd thing to do. Trying to enforce a legal system to prevent sharing of these free copies is even more absurd.
The entire book, recorded music, and movie industry is a product of the Industrial Age. It worked when it cost a lot of money to produce copies of things that contained these ideas, when copyright law could be used to make sure other manufacturers were playing fair. But, this is the Information Age now, the packaging for information is virtual, and nearly free. Anyone can copy it with little effort. The book, recorded music, and movie industries must adapt to this new reality. After all, there's not a lot of work these days for stable boys.
The Industrial Age is over, this is the Information Age, try to keep up.
What is Keliso?
These
... you can fill in the rest.
In 50 to 100 years from now, people are going to be looking back at our copyright laws, laughing their guts out. What kind of idiots would pass laws making it illegal to copy digital information that's already being distributed? How stupid is that?
On the scale of all humanity, for a brief flicker of time it became possible to package ideas in a manufacturable product and sell it. It started with the invention of the printing press and ended with the invention of the photocopier and magnetic tape. It is not normal to package and sell ideas, it is not something that humans do. Just because it became possible, and profitable, for a little while does not make it right and proper.
In fact, it should be clear by now that attempting to sell copies of information when anyone can make their own copies for free is an absurd thing to do. Trying to enforce a legal system to prevent sharing of these free copies is even more absurd.
The entire book, recorded music, and movie industry is a product of the Industrial Age. It worked when it cost a lot of money to produce copies of things that contained these ideas, when copyright law could be used to make sure other manufacturers were playing fair. But, this is the Information Age now, the packaging for information is virtual, and nearly free. Anyone can copy it with little effort. The book, recorded music, and movie industries must adapt to this new reality. After all, there's not a lot of work these days for stable boys.
The Industrial Age is over, this is the Information Age, try to keep up.
What is Keliso?
2009-02-02
Canada's Military - The Right Choice
I often hear people lament the "dark years" of the Canadian military, the '80s and '90s where the budgets were slashed. The budgets were actually slashed around 27% in order to eliminate the federal budget deficit and even pay down the balance. The military budgets were slashed far in excess of most other government programs. The Conservatives slashed, the Liberals slashed, and the NDP would have slashed too, had they been given the chance.
This was really, really hard on the military. Manpower was cut significantly and procurement was put off, as was infrastructure upkeep. Even the pay was kept from growing, up until the government was embarrassed by reports of active soldiers using food-banks to get by. Even worse, the military was reduced from staunch defender of freedom, as a committed partner in NATO, to Blue-Beret Peace-keepers that could only meet NATO requirements on paper. Military institutions run on reputation, and the Canadian reputation was taking a beating among soldiers.
Among Canadian civilians, there was still much pride to be had in the UN Peace-keeping operations, but even that took a kicking with the Somalia cover-up. It got so bad that the battle with Croatian forces in the Medak Pocket, a battle all Canadians should rightly feel proud of, was buried lest Canadians be reminded that they still had a military. Dark times indeed.
Times have changed, and the Canadian military is once again taking its rightful place as an honoured institution. Canadians generally feel proud of their soldiers; the fallen are rightfully remembered. While none envy the casualties it represents, the "Highway of Heroes" is often commended by other nation's soldiers wondering why their citizens don't show the same respect. Most politicians agree that military spending should be increased and that long-delayed projects should go ahead. The Canadian military has come a long way back; the times are not so dark now.
However, just because politicians are re-funding the Canadian military, it does not follow that slashing the budget originally was the wrong choice. The military may be a storied institution with a rich history and important tasks, but it is still a political tool. The military serves the needs of the times, and in the '80s, the times had changed. The mighty Soviet Union had collapsed, and the threat of European invasion along with it. People were talking about "Peace Dividends" and politicians were happy to oblige, especially the Canadians. The politicians in Canada were fearful of running up huge and unmanageable deficits, not the Soviets, and they were looking to cut anywhere they could get away with. In the late '80s, it looked like they could get away with a lot. The Canadian military reputation went from "meaningful deterrent" to "well trained and good at making do."
Many people, military and civilian alike, made quite some noise about Canada not being able to meet our NATO obligations, about not being able to support our allies in times of need. However, those times of need didn't happen. The Canadian politicians gambled that they would not need a strong and capable military, that they could get away with horribly slashing military spending, and they were right. Canada got away with it; we survived the "dark years" without a strong military. Instead, we put our financial house in order and are now the envy of the industrialised world, the most capable of weathering the current financial storm. It was a risky move, and it could have turned out bad, but it didn't. Be it luck or foresight, the Canadian politicians picked the right battle, and they won.
Times have changed again. We are approaching a period of instability brought on from a host of factors including climate change, food scarcity, energy depletion, and American aggression. Most Canadian politicians acknowledge this and are supporting a more-robust military. Budgets are up and this is starting to repair the damage from the dark years. The Canadian military has participated in Afghanistan, combat-hardening its soldiers, and will stand ready to deal with the potential troubles ahead. Who knows, maybe in another decade or two, the politicians will be able to declare another Peace Dividend and slash military spending again. It's just not something I'd bet on right now.
This was really, really hard on the military. Manpower was cut significantly and procurement was put off, as was infrastructure upkeep. Even the pay was kept from growing, up until the government was embarrassed by reports of active soldiers using food-banks to get by. Even worse, the military was reduced from staunch defender of freedom, as a committed partner in NATO, to Blue-Beret Peace-keepers that could only meet NATO requirements on paper. Military institutions run on reputation, and the Canadian reputation was taking a beating among soldiers.
Among Canadian civilians, there was still much pride to be had in the UN Peace-keeping operations, but even that took a kicking with the Somalia cover-up. It got so bad that the battle with Croatian forces in the Medak Pocket, a battle all Canadians should rightly feel proud of, was buried lest Canadians be reminded that they still had a military. Dark times indeed.
Times have changed, and the Canadian military is once again taking its rightful place as an honoured institution. Canadians generally feel proud of their soldiers; the fallen are rightfully remembered. While none envy the casualties it represents, the "Highway of Heroes" is often commended by other nation's soldiers wondering why their citizens don't show the same respect. Most politicians agree that military spending should be increased and that long-delayed projects should go ahead. The Canadian military has come a long way back; the times are not so dark now.
However, just because politicians are re-funding the Canadian military, it does not follow that slashing the budget originally was the wrong choice. The military may be a storied institution with a rich history and important tasks, but it is still a political tool. The military serves the needs of the times, and in the '80s, the times had changed. The mighty Soviet Union had collapsed, and the threat of European invasion along with it. People were talking about "Peace Dividends" and politicians were happy to oblige, especially the Canadians. The politicians in Canada were fearful of running up huge and unmanageable deficits, not the Soviets, and they were looking to cut anywhere they could get away with. In the late '80s, it looked like they could get away with a lot. The Canadian military reputation went from "meaningful deterrent" to "well trained and good at making do."
Many people, military and civilian alike, made quite some noise about Canada not being able to meet our NATO obligations, about not being able to support our allies in times of need. However, those times of need didn't happen. The Canadian politicians gambled that they would not need a strong and capable military, that they could get away with horribly slashing military spending, and they were right. Canada got away with it; we survived the "dark years" without a strong military. Instead, we put our financial house in order and are now the envy of the industrialised world, the most capable of weathering the current financial storm. It was a risky move, and it could have turned out bad, but it didn't. Be it luck or foresight, the Canadian politicians picked the right battle, and they won.
Times have changed again. We are approaching a period of instability brought on from a host of factors including climate change, food scarcity, energy depletion, and American aggression. Most Canadian politicians acknowledge this and are supporting a more-robust military. Budgets are up and this is starting to repair the damage from the dark years. The Canadian military has participated in Afghanistan, combat-hardening its soldiers, and will stand ready to deal with the potential troubles ahead. Who knows, maybe in another decade or two, the politicians will be able to declare another Peace Dividend and slash military spending again. It's just not something I'd bet on right now.
2008-12-18
We Are Alone
Update: It appears that this argument is, in actuality, a subset of the Fermi Paradox. I just came up with it on my own from a different direction. I'll leave it here, with a few modifications, for posterity.
----
SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is a neat idea, except that it's pointless. If you think about it, then it becomes pretty obvious that we're the first to actually look for intelligent life, anywhere, and we're not going to find it.
There is something called the Drake Equation that shows how likely intelligent life in the universe is, but I'm going to present the argument in a slightly different form. The basic gist of it is that if intelligent life other than humans exists in our universe, it would already be here, and we would not. It's pretty obvious when you look at it.
If faster than light travel is actually possible, then, eventually, some species with expansionist attitudes will start settling the galaxy. How long would they take to settle everywhere? Well, if you look at how far we've come technologically in the last while, then you realise that the time between "evolved for basic tool use to settle the entire galaxy" is not that long. If there were another intelligent species out there that did have faster than light capabilities, then they would have been here and settled the place long before we started bashing rocks together. If we're the first, then we'll invent the faster than light drive and we'll be everywhere before any other species gets to the "bash the rocks" phase. The odds of the very first species evolving intelligence and interstellar travel did so at nearly exactly the same time as another species is too low to consider, unless you go one step further and buy into the whole "we were seeded by an advanced civilisation and we have long-lost cousins out there" story.
If you agree that faster than light is out of the question, then the whole thing just gets slowed down a little, but not really enough to make a difference. We will eventually either make ourselves immortal or replace ourselves with intelligent self-replicating machines. We, or these machines will then be capable of interstellar travel because they aren't going to care if it takes 50,000 years to get anywhere. It's still within their 'lifetime'. In other words, eventually, some species will evolve to the point where they will eventually go everywhere in the galaxy. If it has already happened, then they would already be here. Even with transit times that exceed tens of thousands of years, the odds of them existing, but not being here yet, isn't even worth considering. If they are here, then we get into a whole other story about them not being particularly concerned about intelligent pond-scum like us. Unless, of course, they are studying us as "machine evolution" in action. But, that's pretty unlikely too.
So, by the basic argument of "they're not here and we are," it seems pretty likely that we're the first, at least in our galaxy. So, you should feel special. It may turn out that our descendants, either flesh or mechanical, may happen upon some species, flesh or mechanical, that does not have any desire to expand into the galaxy. That is a possibility, but we're still first to expand, and I suppose we'll crush them into non-existence fairly quickly. We are, after all, quite expansionist by nature, must be all that rat ancestry. If this argument seems a little harsh, you just have to realise that we're the only intelligent habitual tool users on earth because we evolved to use tools first. We won the evolutionary race to this niche. If whales or monkeys started using tools enough to compete with us, we would eat them. Any environment will only have one species in the "intelligent" niche. If you think about it, given sufficient time, the galaxy is one environment. Only one species, flesh or mechanical, will win the race. We exist, so we're in the lead, so long as we don't blow it.
You may think that the galaxy is such a large place that two intelligent species would have lots of time to evolve and begin expanding. Thus, we may run into other species out there. But, you have to factor in exponential expansion. If we settled two extra-solar planets, as we or our descendants eventually will, then those planets will eventually each settle two planets, and each of those settle two planets... Well, it doesn't take long to settle trillions of planets when they're being settled on an exponential curve. Even if it took a few million years from the first colony ship to the last - which is more than long enough to settle the entire galaxy, even without faster than light drive - you have to factor in that we've only been human for 40,000 years. A blink of an eye on the 14.5 billion year galactic time-scale. What are the odds that the first two species are evolving at the exact same time? If they evolved a million years or so before us, they would already be here. If they evolve a million years from now, we will already be there.
The Drake equation, with commonly accepted guesses for various factors, suggests that at least a couple of species exist in the "interstellar communication" stage at any given time. Thus, SETI. The problem with this is that the equation assumes interstellar travel doesn't happen, that species destroy themselves before they start. Maybe, but it doesn't seem likely. If we ignore world-destroying solar flares and the like, then it seems most likely that man-made destruction would encourage, rather than restrict, interstellar travel. After all, if we destroyed the earth, that's a good reason to start sending colony ships to other planets. It would be highly unlikely that something we did actually killed every human being, that destroyed our ability to breed. Total war, nuclear winter, even biological contamination, any imaginable man-made destruction, will still leave some people in protected places. Humanity will continue; we will colonise other planets. The same goes for other species on the same technological curve.
When you look at the reality of the situation, there are some pretty long odds on SETI finding anything out there. If we are the first to evolve past the point of bashing rocks together, then there is no one else to talk to. If we are not the first, then that species is already here and watching us, and they clearly don't want to talk. No, SETI makes the assumption that interstellar travel is not possible, and we know that's not true. Even if it takes 20,000 years to travel to the next star, we'll be there within 25,000 years, and then the next star, and the next, until there are no stars left unexplored in our galaxy.
----
SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is a neat idea, except that it's pointless. If you think about it, then it becomes pretty obvious that we're the first to actually look for intelligent life, anywhere, and we're not going to find it.
There is something called the Drake Equation that shows how likely intelligent life in the universe is, but I'm going to present the argument in a slightly different form. The basic gist of it is that if intelligent life other than humans exists in our universe, it would already be here, and we would not. It's pretty obvious when you look at it.
If faster than light travel is actually possible, then, eventually, some species with expansionist attitudes will start settling the galaxy. How long would they take to settle everywhere? Well, if you look at how far we've come technologically in the last while, then you realise that the time between "evolved for basic tool use to settle the entire galaxy" is not that long. If there were another intelligent species out there that did have faster than light capabilities, then they would have been here and settled the place long before we started bashing rocks together. If we're the first, then we'll invent the faster than light drive and we'll be everywhere before any other species gets to the "bash the rocks" phase. The odds of the very first species evolving intelligence and interstellar travel did so at nearly exactly the same time as another species is too low to consider, unless you go one step further and buy into the whole "we were seeded by an advanced civilisation and we have long-lost cousins out there" story.
If you agree that faster than light is out of the question, then the whole thing just gets slowed down a little, but not really enough to make a difference. We will eventually either make ourselves immortal or replace ourselves with intelligent self-replicating machines. We, or these machines will then be capable of interstellar travel because they aren't going to care if it takes 50,000 years to get anywhere. It's still within their 'lifetime'. In other words, eventually, some species will evolve to the point where they will eventually go everywhere in the galaxy. If it has already happened, then they would already be here. Even with transit times that exceed tens of thousands of years, the odds of them existing, but not being here yet, isn't even worth considering. If they are here, then we get into a whole other story about them not being particularly concerned about intelligent pond-scum like us. Unless, of course, they are studying us as "machine evolution" in action. But, that's pretty unlikely too.
So, by the basic argument of "they're not here and we are," it seems pretty likely that we're the first, at least in our galaxy. So, you should feel special. It may turn out that our descendants, either flesh or mechanical, may happen upon some species, flesh or mechanical, that does not have any desire to expand into the galaxy. That is a possibility, but we're still first to expand, and I suppose we'll crush them into non-existence fairly quickly. We are, after all, quite expansionist by nature, must be all that rat ancestry. If this argument seems a little harsh, you just have to realise that we're the only intelligent habitual tool users on earth because we evolved to use tools first. We won the evolutionary race to this niche. If whales or monkeys started using tools enough to compete with us, we would eat them. Any environment will only have one species in the "intelligent" niche. If you think about it, given sufficient time, the galaxy is one environment. Only one species, flesh or mechanical, will win the race. We exist, so we're in the lead, so long as we don't blow it.
You may think that the galaxy is such a large place that two intelligent species would have lots of time to evolve and begin expanding. Thus, we may run into other species out there. But, you have to factor in exponential expansion. If we settled two extra-solar planets, as we or our descendants eventually will, then those planets will eventually each settle two planets, and each of those settle two planets... Well, it doesn't take long to settle trillions of planets when they're being settled on an exponential curve. Even if it took a few million years from the first colony ship to the last - which is more than long enough to settle the entire galaxy, even without faster than light drive - you have to factor in that we've only been human for 40,000 years. A blink of an eye on the 14.5 billion year galactic time-scale. What are the odds that the first two species are evolving at the exact same time? If they evolved a million years or so before us, they would already be here. If they evolve a million years from now, we will already be there.
The Drake equation, with commonly accepted guesses for various factors, suggests that at least a couple of species exist in the "interstellar communication" stage at any given time. Thus, SETI. The problem with this is that the equation assumes interstellar travel doesn't happen, that species destroy themselves before they start. Maybe, but it doesn't seem likely. If we ignore world-destroying solar flares and the like, then it seems most likely that man-made destruction would encourage, rather than restrict, interstellar travel. After all, if we destroyed the earth, that's a good reason to start sending colony ships to other planets. It would be highly unlikely that something we did actually killed every human being, that destroyed our ability to breed. Total war, nuclear winter, even biological contamination, any imaginable man-made destruction, will still leave some people in protected places. Humanity will continue; we will colonise other planets. The same goes for other species on the same technological curve.
When you look at the reality of the situation, there are some pretty long odds on SETI finding anything out there. If we are the first to evolve past the point of bashing rocks together, then there is no one else to talk to. If we are not the first, then that species is already here and watching us, and they clearly don't want to talk. No, SETI makes the assumption that interstellar travel is not possible, and we know that's not true. Even if it takes 20,000 years to travel to the next star, we'll be there within 25,000 years, and then the next star, and the next, until there are no stars left unexplored in our galaxy.
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