Why We May Be Surrounded by Older Alien Civilizations

Are alien civilizations likely to be younger or older than us in age? A basic question that seems insurmountable until we start detecting them. But even before that, we can use some logical deduction using lifetime distribution statistics to determine the most plausible answer to this question. Join us today for an explanation of our new research paper on this topic.

Thank-you to Kevin Clark, Tom Widdowson, Denny Smith, Stephanie Hackley, Mark Sloan, Laura Sanborn, Kolos Kantor, Patrick Herman, Abel Aganbegyan, Claudio Bottaccini, Daniel Brunk, Douglas Daughaday, Scott Fincher, James Kindred, Andrew Jones, Jason Allen, Steven Baldwin, Jason Black, Stuart Brownlee, Shivam Chaturvedi, David Denholm, Tim Dorais, Glen Downton, Eneko Xabier, Elizondo Urrestarazu, Gordon Fulton, Sean Griffiths, Peter Halloran, John Jurcevic, Niklas Kildal, Jack Kobernick, Wes Kobernick, Valeri Kremer, Marc Lijoi, Sheri Loftin, Branden Loizides, Anatoliy Maslyanchuk, Blair Matson, Ocean Mcintyre, Laini Mitchell, Jeffrey Needle, André Pelletier, Juan Rivillas, Bret Robinson, Zenith Star, Lauren Steely, Ernest Stefan-Matyus, Mark Steven, Elena West, Barrett York, Tristan Zajonc, Preetumsingh Gowd, Shaun Kelsey, Chuck Wolfred, David Vennel, Emre Dessoi, Fahid Naeem, Francisco Rebolledo, Hauke Laging, James Falls, Jon Adams, Michael Gremillion, Pierce Rutherford, Trev Kline, Tristan Leger, Lasse Skov, Takashi Hanai, Drew Roberts, Erynn Wilson, Ian Baskerville, Jacob Bassnett, John Shackleford, Marcus Undin, Martin Kroebel, Ian Johnstone, Geoff Suter, Ian Hopcraft, James Valdes, Phil Akrill-Misso, William Robertson, Elizabeth Orman & Giles Ingham.

::References used::
► Benton, M. J., 1993, “The Fossil Record”, Vol 2 (Chapman & Hall, London, 1993)
► Civilization lifetimes figure from BBC Future/Nigel Hawtin:

::Movies clips used::
► Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) 20th Century Fox
► Noah (2014) Paramount Pictures
► Avatar (2009) 20th Century Fox
► Contact (1997) Warnos Bros. Pictures
► GI Joe Retaliation (2013) Paramount Pictures
► Terminator 3 (2003) Warners Bros. Pictures
► The House (2017) Warners Bros. Pictures
► X2 (2003) 20th Century Fox
► The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) Sony Pictures Releasing
► Into The Wild (2007) Paramount Vantage
► 300 (2006) Warner Bros. Pictures
► Cleopatra (1963) 20th Century Fox
► Gladiator (2000) Dreamworks Pictures

::TV clips used::
► Andrew Marr's History of the World - BBC
► Star Trek the Next Generation - Paramount Television

::Other video footage used::

::Music::
► "Fable" by Stephen Keech licensed via SS
► "Painted Deserts" by Shimmer licensed via SS
► "It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn" by Hill licensed via SS
► "Waking Up" by Atlas licensed via SS
► "Ticking" by Alternative Endings licensed via SS

0:00 Prologue
1:22 Technological Lockstep
6:57 Distribution of Civilization Lifetimes
19:17 Bayes vs The Cosmos
23:39 Temporal Bias
32:20 Credits

#CivilizationLongevity #AncientAliens #CoolWorlds

[CoolWorldsLab]

Very common question I’m seeing here, and indeed honestly a very common question students have in my classes about statistics, is what if one of the oldest civilizations applied this reasoning - wouldn’t they get a totally different and wrong answer? Yes they would, but that’s how statistics works! Not everyone is guaranteed to be right every time. The oldest civilizations in this scenario would be the rarest and thus although they would arrive at the wrong answer, the majority of the sample would arrive at the correct answer. Think of it like this - if you state there’s a 90% chance of an event occurring, you will predict the wrong answer 10% of the time. That’s not a failure of statistics, it’s intrinsic to how it works as everything has uncertainty. All we can do in statistics is make *probabilistic* statements e.g. this is the most likely outcome, or this happens 90% of the time. Challenging to explain this in a single comment, it takes students a long time to grasp this concept usually but I hope that helps!

[SuperLibertarianMan]

Since I was a kid, I've found astronomy and the possibility of life outside of our solar system to be fascinating. From an auto mechanic in southern Indiana, I thank you for your content. I am making my way through your library, and just cannot get enough, it keeps my dreams of the stars alive.

[EVILJAMARR]

He said, “grab a cup of tea” so I paused the video and did just that! This channel is vital for great ideas.

[roberthogue]

Among all the crappy channels, you stand out as something very different. no ufos, and ancient alien
nonsense. Thank you for intelligent content

[FatCat]

This channel is amazing. I randomly found this channel one day ago and I am hooked. Your ability to merge the technical aspect of science with the romance and beauty of the universe. Well done!

[kennarajora]

Legend has it he's still out there liking comments.

[runalongnowhoney]

"Hunter-gatherer society floating a message to us down the river on a piece of wood" Isn't that similar to what we attemped to do with the Voyager probe?

[icarus]

I'm working my way through your library. This was amazing, and has started conversations with people around me that have not even considered these questions. Thank you for your time and effort.

[stonksmcmeme]

This content is truly amazing. Having a professor/researcher making videos explaining the incredible complexities of our universe is truly astounding. Whenever he speaks, it's like a cascade of knowledge so well-worded and passionately delivered which is admirably poetic.

Honestly, this is an honor. I'm quite passionate for astronomy and this is incredible to me. Probably the greatest channel on YouTube.

[fullmetaltheorist]

Aliens probably lock their doors when they fly near Earth.

[jmmahony]

The effect of time causing older civilizations to be more common could be even more extreme when you phrase the question specifically as "which type of civilization are we most likely to find" because older civilizations also are most likely to have spread out among the stars to multiple planets and star systems. Obviously, if they have more territory, we're more likely to run across them (or vice-versa).

[Alister]

A bit of an odd consequence of this approach, is that the older we get, the older we should assume other civilizations should be on average. I guess that makes sense, since if we are observing our own civilization survive for longer and longer periods, it would be the safest bet (but of course, only a bet) to guess that other civilizations would be tend to survive for that kind of timespan. Here's hoping for a long-lived humanity, so other aliens out there can enjoy similarly long lives!

[LeDank]

This is extremely smart content that you’ve put into easy to understand terms. You have a talent for explaining this stuff. That’s a good sign that you really know what you are talking about. Thanks for making these videos!

[smeer]

I know that Cool Worlds would rather be studying a catalog of discovered exo-moons, but the time being put into this channel is a great gift to all of us viewers. Thanks for the awesome content.

[highwayix]

Narrator : Sit back, have A cup of tea with me.
Me : LETS DO THIS... *While having a beer & smoking a joint*

[danielm]

At first I thought that you are one of those people that like to hear themselves speak. But then I actually watched your videos about aliens. I think you are inspiring a lot of people, like me, that look up and wonder “how the hell are we alone?”. Thank you sir.

[ThanosElohim]

I haven’t read the paper yet, but a couple of comments:

1. Your model seems to assume that interplanetary/interstellar colonization can’t happen. If it does happen sometimes, then the civilizations that spread out can be expected to live longer since certain types of disasters (eg asteroid impact) would no longer wipe out the whole civ.

2. If you’re right that the average radio-using civ. only lasts 200 years, then this would imply they probably wouldn’t have time to visit us before they ended, and this could explain the Fermi paradox!

It’s an interesting model, in any event!

[alexjeffries]

The most obvious reason we haven’t contacted another civilization should be obvious - the universe is unimaginably large, and our understanding of physics only allows us to reach a fraction of a fraction of our cosmic neighbors let alone the Milky Way let alone the rest of the universe

[ryanhampson]

The "Dark Forest" theory could be a reason we haven't heard from anyone...Maybe everyone stays quite because they fear the other "hunters in the forest"...It's safe to say in order to become the dominate species on a planet one would have to be a super predator like us. I'm not saying aliens will be the war mongering invaders we see in movies, but they might also not be like the trope of the highly evolved above using violence type either. They may be just like us, an interesting mix of beautiful dreams and horrible nightmares.

[xXx_Regulus_xXx]

worth mentioning regarding the lifetime of civilizations on Earth: the end of a civilization didn't always mean the death of a group of people; sometimes it just meant the same group of people scattered or were under new management. Maybe the data ought to be revised to account for actual extinctions of groups of people