[Luis Dias]

This is not a joke I'm pulling. This is for real.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1104/1104.4462.pdf

Humanity may just now be entering the period in which its rapid civilizational expansion could be detected by an ETI because our expansion is changing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere (e.g. via greenhouse gas emissions), which therefore changes the spectral signature of Earth. While it is difficult to estimate the likelihood of this scenario, it should at a minimum give us pause as we evaluate our expansive tendencies.

It is worth noting that there is some precedent for harmful universalism within humanity. This precedent is most apparent within universalist ethics that place intrinsic value on ecosystems. Human civilization affects ecosystems so strongly that some ecologists now often refer to this epoch of Earth’s history as the anthropocene [79]. If one’s goal is to maximize ecosystem flourishing, then perhaps it would be better if humanity did not exist, or at least if it existed in significantly reduced form. Indeed, there are some humans who have advanced precisely this argument [80-82]. If it is possible for at least some humans to advocate harm to their own civilization by drawing upon universalist ethical principles, then it is at a minimum plausible that ETI could advocate harm to humanity following similar principles.

The possibility of harmful contact with ETI suggests that we may use some caution for METI. Given that we have already altered our environment in ways that may viewed as unethical by universalist ETI, it may be prudent to avoid sending any message that shows evidence of our negative environmental impact. The chemical composition of Earth’s atmosphere over recent time may be a poor choice for a message because it would show a rapid accumulation of carbon dioxide from human activity. Likewise, any message that indicates of widespread loss of biodiversity or rapid rates of expansion may be dangerous if received by such universalist ETI. On the other hand, advanced ETI may already know about our rapid environmental impact by listening to leaked electromagnetic signals or observing changes in Earth’s spectral signature. In this case, it might be prudent for any message we send to avoid denying our environmental impact so as to avoid the ETI catching us in a lie.

My emphasis. I'm reading the paper, is very big with lots of questionings of what aliens might or mightn'do, etc. This quote however is priceless.

edit: It's probably the most original argument for censorship I've ever seen, and it's not in timecube, it's actually in arXiv!! Hilarious!

[Sushi]

I don't get what's so outrageous or hilarious, except the sensationalized title you gave the post. It's not a terribly good paper (IMHO, not my domain), but it's not silly either.

[NGTM-1R]

arXiv is not exactly a respected outlet, merely one that allows rapid publishing and hence rapidly ensuring you get the credit. It's got plenty of the green ink and allcaps crowd. Without knowing what category the paper was published in and hence how or if it was endorsed, I have no reason to believe it didn't come out of one of the generalized and hence more or less unmoderated ones.

And for that matter, his conclusions don't sound terribly wrong. Nor does he state what you say he states.

[Luis Dias]

arXiv is not exactly a respected outlet, merely one that allows rapid publishing and hence rapidly ensuring you get the credit. It's got plenty of the green ink and allcaps crowd. Without knowing what category the paper was published in and hence how or if it was endorsed, I have no reason to believe it didn't come out of one of the generalized and hence more or less unmoderated ones.

Researchers come from Penn State, from the journal Acta Astronautica

And for that matter, his conclusions don't sound terribly wrong. Nor does he state what you say he states.

Oh  my I made a misreading! You are absolutely right.

/THREAD

[The E]

Thread title changed to more adequately reflect what is going on here.

[Sushi]

arXiv is not exactly a respected outlet, merely one that allows rapid publishing and hence rapidly ensuring you get the credit. It's got plenty of the green ink and allcaps crowd. Without knowing what category the paper was published in and hence how or if it was endorsed, I have no reason to believe it didn't come out of one of the generalized and hence more or less unmoderated ones.

Researchers come from Penn State, from the journal Acta Astronautica

And for that matter, his conclusions don't sound terribly wrong. Nor does he state what you say he states.

Oh  my I made a misreading! You are absolutely right.

/THREAD

[NGTM-1R]

Researchers come from Penn State, from the journal Acta Astronautica

About which I can discover remarkably little, or about the journal's parent organization, so that doesn't tell me anything either.

[JCDNWarrior]

Pretty random stuff, that people from ArXiv would even spend time on such a ficitious subject.. It would've been much more funny if this could be traced back to the IPCC itself though. I could use the fuel to write a little satire piece

[Luis Dias]

I wasn't being sarcastic. I really misread and now facepalmed about it. I'm somewhat embarrassed.

Despite all of it, it's still somewhat interesting.

Check this reporting, for instance:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/18/aliens-destroy-humanity-protect-civilisations?CMP=twt_gu

Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists
Rising greenhouse emissions could tip off aliens that we are a rapidly expanding threat, warns a report

[StarSlayer]

[Aardwolf]

If it is possible for at least some humans to advocate harm to their own civilization by drawing upon universalist ethical principles, then it is at a minimum plausible that ETI could advocate harm to humanity following similar principles.

Wat. Not ****ing up our home planet is somehow harmful to our civilization? Or are they talking about eco-terrorists?

Edit: was just thinking that, starslayer.

[Unknown Target]

It's something I've thought about before, too, and discussed with others. If we were to unleash our civilization upon the galaxy, as dysfunctional as it is now, well we would definitely not be a positive influence. If anything at our current state we'd be pretty similar to the aliens in Independence Day; rapidly expansionist, destroyed our home planet by basically strip mining it, now we continue on to suck other planets dry to fill our need for greater power.

That being said, I really think the majority of the world's problems today are caused by the mistakes of a few people with very centralized power. Most of them I don't even think do it maliciously; I think from bottom to top (which IMO is a structure that should no longer exist and be "accepted") most everyone's trying to do "the right thing", but most of them are just bollocksing it up.

Eh, I still hold out hope for our confused and stressed race.

[Nuke]

im sure the aliens have come to the conclusion that environments are not static, unless engineered to be so. aliens would likely have their own history of environmental damage (or rather a history of alien hippies claiming that they did damage when in fact there was little or none), and thus would know roughly at what stage of development we are currently at. needless to say if they are advanced enough and can foot the bill to come over here and kick our asses for being douchebags, then by all means do it. we will have the thunderwells ready. frankly id rather us invade them before they get the chance to invade us, wouldn't mind having a second planet in our empire.

[Bobboau]

I can't help but wonder, if we came upon an alien world and found that some recent change on that planet has allowed one species (and a hand full of hanger on species) do displace the vast majority of other species, would we consider this some sort of moral wrong we were obligated to right.

and while we are speculating about aliens, they might also consider our subjugation of the rest of our planet as a sign of cultural strength and respect us for it, funny thing about aliens, since we have not yet met any, we really can't say much about them.

[Mongoose]

Maybe the aliens have a Prime Directive that they blissfully ignore every other episode.

[Nuke]

id hate to think that a powerful alien race would be as such because they were a bunch of tree hugging hippies. militant aliens i can handle, aliens who conquer other worlds cause theyve destroyed the ones that came before, theyre ok, aliens who see themselves the shepards of the universe and have to put the unruly ones in their place, go for it, but not hitech peacenick tree hugging space hippies, anything but that!

besides i figured that such a race would be powerful enough to immediately counteract environmental damage they may cause, or perhaps they are not even dependent on habitable worlds for their survival. perhaps they slipped their terrestrial bonds long ago and have become biologically incapable of surviving planetside. such a race would have little intrest in our plannet. perhaps they would wait for a certain admiral with a certain brand of beer to invite over for dinner.

[watsisname]

Pretty random stuff, that people from ArXiv would even spend time on such a ficitious subject..

What exactly are you saying is fictitious?  The possibility of ETI, or climate change?

[Sushi]

Suddenly this is sounding a lot like that short story Battuta posted a while ago:

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=75340.0

[Davros]

study of alien behaviour based on studying zero aliens

[watsisname]

Have you even looked at the paper?  It's not a study of alien behavior, and no duh we've studied zero aliens.  (Unless you buy that Roswell stuff...)

This paper is an analysis of various possible first encounter scenarios and which of those scenarios could be beneficial or harmful to humanity.  It's actually quite interesting, I thought.

This thread needs more tutta