The Fermi Paradox: Interdiction

We often look out into the galaxy and wonder where all the civilizations are, but could it be that we don't see them because they have all chosen to exist in fortress star systems, surrounded by despoiled deserts of their own making?

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Credits:
The Fermi Paradox: Interdiction
Episode 446; May 9, 2024
Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur
Written by: Isaac Arthur & Mark Warburton

Graphics:
LegionTech Studios
Sergio Botero
Udo Schroeter
YD Visual
Music Courtesy of:
Stellardrone, "Red Giant". "Ultra Deep Field"
Sergey Cheremisinov, "Labyrinth", "Forgotten Stars"

[Yezpahr]

Scariest words ever spoken in the history and future of speech: "In a no-FTL universe..."

**shivers**

[illusiveguy]

I really love space fortresses. Space fortresses surrounded by wastelands is such a good sci fi setting

[cannonfodder]

20:10 I can confirm that SFIA has done a number on my immersion with Sci-Fi. I can enjoy them but always have that knowledge that the scale and logic could often be better.

A most wonderful and informative video to listen to while working. Makes the work enjoyable and time fly by.

Great work, Isaac.

[PointyHairedJedi]

It amuses me no end that it might legitimately be that an alien civilisation looks at us and goes "Nuh uh, waaay too horny, you just stay over there. We've seen your internet..."

[Kallistos]

Interdiction and Cronus hypothesis reminds me of the actual solution arrived at by Asturias and Byzantium. Asturias depopulated the Duoro valley, making a "desert" between them and Al Andalus, to remove raiding targets and a scorched earth buffer raiders had difficulty finding resources to cross. This was maintained for centuries.

Byzantium and the Caliphate had a mostly depopulated buffer zone between the Taurus mountains for a similar reason.

An interesting consideration.

Also hot headed frontiersmen starting wars wit neighbors, dragging in the Metropole, also happened fairly often on the US frontier.

[kurtswanson]

I am reminded of a short story I have ready: an astronomer gets a coded message from an alien source. He decodes it, and it says "BE QUIET OR THEY WILL HEAR YOU."

[nekomakhea]

Rare Earths is definitely the most plausible Fermi Paradox solution. Thought Emporium tried growing mouse tissue in various sports drinks, and Vitamin Water was absolutely lethal, while a Japanese drink called Green Dakara worked nearly as well as professional biotech cell growth media, despite the two differing only slightly in the ratio of various ingredients. This shows how sensitive life is to minute differences in environmental conditions.

[ArawnOfAnnwn]

The portion around 16 mins reminds me of the online short story Three Worlds Collide, which is precisely about the confrontation between 3 alien cultures with utterly incompatible value systems. The author even doesn't bother giving them a real-sounding name, instead just naming the other two cultures by way of said contrasting values. As you'd expect the only solution found for the situation is effectively disengagement. The alternative - the 'bad' ending - is basically complete assimilation by the most powerful species.

[cyanyde]

Wow, I can't believe how good you sound here! You've come a LONG way.. You have almost no impediment. Congrats on all your hard work. YOU SOUND GREAT!!! :D Thanks for yet another awesome video.

[casnimot]

I also favor the rare complexity explanation, in tandem with time and the speed of light.

We haven't been broadcasting two centuries yet, and haven't yet been writing for 10k years, by most accounts. Even 25kly radius is just this quadrant of the galaxy. If a galaxy of this middling size were only expected to see 1 or 2 such as us, spread out over 100k years, we could miss them for millennia to come. Worse, our nearest galactic neighbor is only visible as it was a couple million years ago. Might completely miss them too.

It could be much more a 'needle/haystack' situation than people think.

[tomfuller]

I once lived in Arizona next to some very unfriendly neighbors and our properties were separated by a 10 wide strip owned by a third party. While there was a split rail fence on my side there wasn’t on the other’s. Not for lack of trying, they put up all manner of fences and barriers midway down the strip, which the previous owners and myself referred to as the Neutral Zone. Those barriers seemed to always be removed when I was at work. The neighbor would have a cow and scream and yell at me and mine so finally an eight foot chainlink fence went up on that property line and I never saw or heard from that neighbor again.

[dariustiapula]

Social distancing at an interstellar level. As humans lets screw that up. Gotta make friends and get soft tacos later.

[murderedcarrot]

Buffer zone full of smuggler bases where hammerheads smuggle rum into Lithgowian space.

[jackalope]

Good fences make good neigbors is from a poem about how much the author enjoys spending a day per year fixing a rather shoddy fence with his neigbor. Just saying.

[stvenseagal]

The Algebraist is one of my favorite Iain M Banks novels, might even be one of my favorite scifi novels itself.

[Dinismo]

Part of what i love about this channel is the animations and imagery. Been subbed for a long time!

[iangardner]

I almost didn't subscribe last video. Then you say space civilizations need math and I'm like, wait a second, that's not "necessarily" true.

10 seconds later you say the same and also this:

"So while it is good to have rational assumptions, it always pays to remember that the universe is large enough to have a good laugh at us and our assumptions, too."

I'm hooked! So happy I did subscribe. 😊

[heekomogwin]

We don’t see them because they are too far away. We are seeing the past. We can’t see right now that far away

[Entity]

If getting to 10% lightspeed or greater is extremely difficult and nearly space faring civilizations go to ideal candidate star systems. There is a chance that successful colonizing another star system is like winning the lottery 100 times consecutively in a week with no losses. The longer a journey takes, the greater the chances of something going wrong becomes.

[wolvenar]

The Fermi Paradox is probably something along the lines that there's so many things going against colonization of a galaxy versus going for it, that it's just really, really hard to happen.