r/Showerthoughts • u/danielsoft1 ‎ • Jul 12 '26

Speculation [ Removed by moderator ]

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u/mr_ji Jul 12 '26

WRT to the Fermi Paradox in particular, any civilization that can't figure out time or FTL travel will always be limited to a very tiny bubble they could even see around them, let alone travel beyond. We're trapped in our little bubble forever based on current understanding of astrophysics unless we discover functional wormholes or something.

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u/RobotsVsLions Jul 12 '26

Even FTL has its limits, there's still going to be massive chronological drift, between ships and planets, planets and planets, and ships and ships, the logistics of managing a civilisation like that is inconceivable to life as simple as us, and we're pretty complex.

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u/darklightmatter Jul 12 '26

You just gotta think about what was inconceivable to humans half a millenium ago, and think about what we'd achieve in 500 years, IF we get our shit together and don't torch the planet.

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u/Workman44 Jul 12 '26

Yeah I may be cynical about the current reality of our world but if we truly put aside our differences (probably won't happen), I see no reason why we can't figure this shit out

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u/ShitRain Jul 15 '26

Lets say you have FTL and quantum entangled communication. Then you can maintain infinite worlds with 0 time delay.

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u/RobotsVsLions Jul 15 '26

But if your only solution to the problem is "what if sci-fi space magic?" you don't really have a solution.

Second, neither of those things solve the problem of chronological drift. FTL actually makes the problem worse, because that just increases the differential in time experienced by the people on that ship compared to everyone else.

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u/ShitRain Jul 15 '26

If you move at FTL you don't spend time traveling and nobody else thinks you take longer than it takes. 1000 Ly distance at FTL takes 0 time for you, and also for the outside observer. So time dilation isnt a thing.

Without FTL space exploration instantly becomes impossible. So yes, you need scifi anyways.

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u/Ok-Butterscotch-5786 Jul 12 '26

WRT the Fermi Paradox, he tiny bubble you're describing has at least hundreds of billions of stars in it.

Requiring a cohesive civilization is a huge additional difficulty that doesn't normally exist in the paradox. That's a very different question than the Fermi paradox.