Moontanman

I have a feeling we will have to agree to disagree on religion, from my perspective religion takes advantage of and promotes want and ignorance... Again the assertion is not it doesn't exist, the question is why can't we see it. I have my doubts about any aliens wanting to visit gravity wells, no need for it to happen...

Well, by my usage of the word paradox the fact that we know stars and planets are common and that earth like planets are common the paradox lies in why were don't see other civilizations. Of course this is based on the idea that aliens would be as detectable as we think we would be. Recent studies have suggested that we would not be be detectable even to the nearest star due to interference of interstellar gas and dust. The idea that we could detect aliens anyplace in the universe is based on the idea that aliens want to be detected...

Very true, but forces of religious domination continue to strive for rule. 500 years ago it was more difficult to completely control the population now with modern technology the possibility of a religious 1984 is a real threat. Between religious violence and rule of law being challenged by religion as well as theistic pressure to give religion equal standing with science in schools could be a return to the religious dominance of 500 years ago and a far worse out look to throw off the yoke of religion. A rant by any other name... Evidence of what exactly? This part? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirahã http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/disbelieve-it-or-not-ancient-history-suggests-that-atheism-is-as-natural-to-humans-as-religion Or this part? The only part I can see a contest with is "in recent months" this unholy union of conservative politics and religion really started with Reagan if not before. As for the last sentence I give you Our Current PPGOTUS... not to mention his cronies...

It would seem blindingly obviously that you are obviously blinded by your religious beliefs, that blindingly obvious advantage you think you have will disappear when you step over the unseen precipice of the knowledge you lack... What do you want to bet this guy is a one hit wonder?

I would be glad to. Those are some possibilities but the possibilities are not limited to those few. I'm not sure how you could say there is not a paradox, possibly we have a different usage for the word paradox. The fact there is no evidence of intelligent life other than our own is the paradox. We have no reason to think we are somehow special, we have less and less reason to think this every year yet no other species has been detected. That is the paradox. The connection with religion is easily explained. Religion denies reality and postulates that this life is nothing but a test for the real thing after death. By approaching reality in this manner religion tends to and can be shown to stifle progress, education, and technology. Religion causes huge amounts of conflict between believers in different imaginary beings that often result in conflict and war. thousands of people die everyday for no reason other than someone believing they worship the wrong god or in the wrong way. The possibility that all or most thinking beings use religion to control the masses seems high and this could be the answer to why no one is there. They all eventually destroy themselves over whose imaginary friend has the most power. The Fermi Paradox does not state that intelligent life cannot exist because it has not been detected. The Fermi Paradox asks the question "If life is common in the universe why can we not see them" So your criticism directs back to the top paper? Please see my first answer....

Not a rant, just an observation that religion and dishonesty it requires with others or with one's self coupled with denying reality is a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox. If all or even most intelligent beings embrace fantasy over reality what chance is there for civilization? It is true that many of them really believe, to me that is worse. Denying reality in favor of belief is simply stupid. I am 62 years old, things are not getting better and lying to further your religion, a religion that makes the claim that lying is wrong, is stunningly selfish and short sighted. People do not naturally need to believe in a higher power, people are indoctrinated into needing a higher power. In recent months here in the US we have seen what the unholy union of religion and conservative politics brings. The scum of the earth take advantage of the religious belief that everyone who claims to be on their side is and you get criminals in office being defended by religious believers...

This is not the end, it is the beginning of the beginning of the end... Fermi's paradox starts with the whimpering of stupid people who just can't figure out why combining religion and politics will not work. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely... When you are so delusional and ignorant you don't understand why god's people are lying sacks of steaming monkey shit that doesn't taste like chocolate the way religious conservatives said it would if you only had enough faith and too stupid to stop eating the monkey shit because faith and belief is the most powerful things in the universe because the people feeding you the monkey shit said they were... That's Amore'

Thanks for the link, if we found liquid oxygen on Titan that would be unexpected to say the least. With so much methane liquid oxygen wouldn't be stable unless it was being produced by some process faster than it would be consumed or react with the methane and ethane..

It doesn't get cold enough on Titan to liquefy oxygen...

Actually being primarily Nitrogen Titan's atmosphere is quite similar to Earth's but around 50% denser. Cold is indeed at least part of the reason Titan has a dense atmosphere. The altitude I am talking about is well above the sulfuric acid clouds.

Saturn's moon Titan has a denser atmosphere than the Earth and it's gravity is only tiny bit more than Luna... Venus is a special case, if you measure the incoming sunlight intensity it shouldn't really be much hotter than the Earth. But coincidentally at or near the altitude where Venus' deep atmosphere is about the same as Earth the temperature is also comfortable. We could colonise Venus with cities built around giant balloons. The gas mixture we breath is lighter that the CO2 atmosphere of Venus so we could build lighter than "air" cities in the clouds. You could lower a turkey down to the hot depths and cook it, pull it back up and Free cooking of a turkey! Venus has been largely ignored by the colonise off earth crowd but it might be the easiest and ultimately best choice. Mars is cold, colder than Antarctica, the low gravity wouldn't allow Mars to hold on to gasses long term and the greenhouse gas levels to keep it warm would be a problem since CO2 would be the primary greenhouse gas we couldn't breath it even if it was warm, wet and full of oxygen...

While starship troopers isn't exactly what I had in mind, the movie was more or less, mostly less, what I am talking about. If a superorganism can achieve a level of technology that is on a par with human agrarian society what to stop them from exceeding our own?

Another this is that on the Earth pseudo intelligence has evolved many times in many types of animals. Maybe we are the outlier and on most planets of of the hive organisms eventually dominates the planet. On Earth even a species of vertebrate appears to be going down the path of a queen that controls the rest of the Naked Mole Rats via hormonal suppression of mating and having babies. The "sterile" sisters forage for food and take care of the queens young. For this behavior to arise in vertebrates is suggestive that super organisms may rule the cosmos...

I'm going to be the devil's advocate here, some birds, quite possibly a great many, are very intelligent, some actually talk, others even use tools. Fish called mormyrids have a bigger brain to body mass than humans and they use electrical fields as a form of echolocation and at least appear to be quite intelligent. I think that the human body plan contributed at least much as large brains to our exceptional use of tools. Not sure if any arthropods show much in the way of intelligence but certain spiders can be shown to plan ahead and change their plans in mid execution if the prey they are trying to catch change the circumstances. This is especially impressive considering they can lose sight of their prey, in this case other spiders, yet they remember the plan with almost no real brain... I think that soon what constitutes intelligence will be seen as human centric as a IQ test that caters to only a certain group. We humans are definitely not the only species can have a negative impact on the environment but we seem to be the only one who knows it and still does it anyway...

I remember a few years back my grandfather, 83 years old, took a trek into the back country of WV. He was planning to live for a few days in an old log cabin he grew up in. He got there and found the cabin had fallen down due to disrepair. A ice storm followed by heavy snow had started just after he left. He started back home but the snow and ice became too deep to travel. He backed up a against a cliff face, built a huge fire and survived five days with him and his dogs in what was later called a blizzard. He was surprised anyone had been worried, just a little snow was his off hand remark. Modern people are tougher than we think, I am confident that under similar conditions I could have survived as well. His dogs killed and brought a couple rabbits rabbits into camp which he cooked before the fire and shared with his dogs. They kept warm in a pile against the cliff and in front of the fire. Attitude has a lot to do with survival, being prepared at least minimally is a bit of an obsession to me and many of my relatives. Nearly all of us carry, fire, a decent knife, and an attitude of being will to make a decision that allows us to do what is necessary rather than what everyone else thinks you should. Of course where he was at lacked ay dangerous animals but the presence of fire and dogs would have helped with that.

I think this phenomena could be the next step in super colonies becoming mega super colonies. http://ants.com/5-ant-supercolonies-worlds-largest-ant-colonies/ Eventually such colonies could take over planet paving the way for further advancement in the face of competition. The point at which biological evolution would be capable of extending past what we would consider it's limits is debatable even for it's existence but it still mirrors human civilization, technology and domination...

Another thought I have on this. Social animals would only be limited by what biological evolution can accomplish, in my fire example above i can see how mindless processes could bring about this. It's almost as natural as the gardens, livestock, complex above and below ground cities, but a natural yet mindless path to other technology is difficult to see. Possibly such organisms wouldn't recognise our path to technology either assuming they would eventually get the ability to ponder this. An outrageous assertion: Possibly AI could evolve this way, AI in this case being an actual mind being built by either the biological components of the superorganism or technology developed by the superorganism. The more I think about this the less certain I am that super organisms could not develop technology... Imagine a civilization of ant like creatures exploiting the resources of outer planetary system and interstellar space to build and or grow habitats but we would be unaware of each other...

if it was quite large, several kilometers across it might not be too strange but a torus would be easier to support as an endless suspension bridge type deal..

Try to walk under deck on an old sailing ship, those guys were short! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height

Height in modern humans compared to humans from a few hundred years ago is nothing more than nutrition. Ancient hominids, Homo erectus, I think, were on average taller than modern humans, averaging something like 6 feet.

Looks like it might be more than a bit weird!

While I agree with you you must admit that chimps do not grow crops or domesticate animals. Nor do they keep slaves or build massive structures, all of which super organisms do quite well... I think it's plausible to think of ants or termites using the equivalent of fire as well, we have never seen it but I can see how a termite species might use a slow smoldering fire to heat their towers during a winter. Such a fire could possibly spring into being spontaneously deep in a mound and the natural ventilation methods used by these insects could be used to control the smoldering reaction. Difficult to imagine where they could go from there with it... Have you ever read "West of Eden" ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_of_Eden

I keep coming back to the fermi paradox and I wonder if beings we could understand simply do not exist due to evolution not having a goal and the direction toward intelligence as we see it is simply so rare as to have an almost zero chance of existing. I use the term hive mind to suggest civilizations like insects not a real hive mind. Such hives or cooperatives are not unusual on Earth, they mimic quite a bit of what we seem to do as thinking beings. Across the universe such "hives" could be the standard and none of them would be interested in us as anything but a possible threat or a source of raw materials. But could a mindless collective Hive develop technology? We see intelligence in places like our oceans but no matter how smart them become certain technologies would simply not be possible for them. Is there any reason to assume the save about super organisms like crustacean, insect, other non thinking beings "hives"?