The Fermi Paradox: Absent Megastructures

The great mystery of where all the aliens are in our vast Universe contemplates ancient interstellar civilizations building enormous megastructures that rival worlds or even stars in the immensity... and asks why we can't see these giant alien artifacts.

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Credits:
The Fermi Paradox: Absent Megastructures
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
Episode 352, July 21, 2022
Written, Produced & Narrated by Isaac Arthur

Editors:
Alex Civitello
Darius Said
David McFarlane

Cover Art:

Graphics by:
Jarred Eagley
Jeremy Jozwik
Ken York
Sergio Botero
Udo Schroeter

[specialagentdustyponcho]

The more I learn about the fermi paradox the more I'm convinced the solution is that we must be among the first in our observable space and there's something preventing time travel. We can't see any megastructures because they haven't been built yet. We are babies in a world of babies, and nobody's stacked their blocks high enough to see.

[JohnSmith-lhht]

As someone who recently watched it, I salute you for being able to sit through Moonfall and manage to not fit a single complaint about it into the episode. That's strength right there.

[Agreatdayneverends]

Decades from now Isaac will be viewed as a legendary youtuber....the quality and volume of his work is mind blowing...

[codechaosmobile]

I like the plot of "pushing ice" where life was just rare enough throughout the universe to not overlap, so some really ancient aliens build a device to get everyone together but waaaay in the future

[littlegravitas]

Never find me absent on a SFIA Thursday release

[DanielGenis]

Lots of books about finding ancient celestial artifacts, but none of them that great. Listening to Isaac is more interesting than some of the space opera plods….

[shoujahatsumetsu]

I love the new video smell when you get it straight out of the box

[AltimeterAlligator]

I wonder how many distant galaxies we observe at low resolution are unintentionally camouflaged, because some oddball civilization prefers to build galaxy-shaped megastructures. If we ever meet these dudes they'll say, "What? You build stuff that _doesn't_ resemble your surroundings? Unfathomable."

[tamasmihaly]

Neil Tyson and Michio Kaku love to talk endlessly about how insignificant we are and that aliens wouldn't care to interact with such primitive creatures. I always felt like this is more a reflection of their own emotional minds than a result of critical thinking. Everyone seems to love those two so much, but personally, I think they love the camera more than anything. I much prefer the realistic approach Isaac takes. Intelligence without curiosity would be sad and boring.

[shawnjohnson]

Instead of Clarktech, what if we're a product of Ricktech and our universe was created to power someone's car?

[colinsmith]

I would love to see a realistic breakdown of the timeline in this supposed Fermi Paradox, and I've only done bits of it myself. Fermi said the universe was ancient, why aren't there aliens (VERY abridged)? But, for life to form, how 'ancient' is our universe really?

What I mean is, for a 13.8 billion year old universe, how much of that timeframe could we feasibly expect life as we know it to form? Could there be aliens 13 billion years ago? VERY unlikely. From what I understand, it's unlikely that there were even rocky planets at all back then, much less carbon-rich planets with tons of heavy metals. But, really, how long does that actually take? How long did it take for the first stars that produced the REALLY heavy elements (Uranium and the like) to go super-nova and distribute those elements? Heck, I think Uranium may have needed neutron star collisions, right? How long did it take for that debris to form into planets around a new, younger start? Now, the other question, how common were those back then? Let's not assume that a planet with the right mix of elements formed in the Goldilox zone in one of the first 3 stars that it could have, and that life then formed on that first planet it was possible on. Let's assume there's some odds here, so odds go up as 'heavy metal rocky planets' become more common.

Now what about star type? We orbit a relatively calm, large, warm star. Are those more common now than 8 billion years ago?

Ultimately, my question is, should we be asking 'where are all the aliens in such an ancient universe' at all, but rather 'how'd we get here so early' or 'yeah, looks about right'? I've watched most of your episodes, but I don't recall one like this. Have you done one?

[mineown]

It's very human to imagine that every other species would evolve to have the same expectations or goals . Maybe that's the first hurdle to overcome .

[Bob-lrxp]

I'd like to see Isaac do an episode about Planck Energy, and how a civilization could use it to literally rewrite physics.

[jefferywise]

It’s interesting that in almost all SciFi movies and TV shows all empires are essentially K1 civilization with FTL capabilities. All there colonies are same just planet civilizations on K1 levels at most.
Yes a dead Dyson Sphere was found in STNG but that’s about it.
Hollywood is stuck in a limited 1960’s view of the possible.

[barryon]

My solution to the Fermi Paradox: All civilizations advance to the point where they discover qlerb, and then someone with access to a college chemistry and physics lab can destroy the solar system they're in. Qlerb is a lot easier than interstellar travel or megastructures; I'm surprised we haven't discovered it yet, since we already have the baking soda and mimes.

[hamentaschen]

Fermi... My favorite of the Paradoxes! Thank you I.A. and Happy Arthursday everyone!!!

[mikepowell]

Why do people keep thinking the Universe is old? Its practically brand new! Earth only formed 4.5 billion years ago and its didn't have life on it for most of that time. The whole universe is only 15 billion years old. It will have a lifespan of 100 trillion years.

[Gauldame]

"why didn't the other aliens build mega structures..."
You see, they never developed microtransactions in video games and are contently playing their video games on renewable resources.
Truly alien psychology.

[EnPriBri]

One thing I always like to point out in Fermi discussions is the in-built assumption that intelligent life might use chemical or electric power, rocketry, and extrasolar travel. A lot of our steps along that ladder were rather precarious and for most of our history unthinkable. Given that it took eons for us to do those things and we need to use the remnants of eons of dead things on our own planet to get them running (and we're close to using them up after only a few centuries), I think we often take for granted that techs to get to space, find much use in it, and be able to do things with it are immensely huge filters in and of themselves.

[BigZebraCom]

Issac covers all the bases. He writes about mega structures we might build in the future...to the mega structures aliens have not built yet.