Paper.
A journal that shall go nameless refused to publish that – without even sending it out for peer review – with the justification that it was “too speculative.” You can decide for yourself whether you believe that excuse, or whether you believe the refusal was for another reason.
And, yes, I know, the paper is too positive toward the HBD perspective and certain HBDers. However, if the paper had been sent out for review, who would have been likely reviewers? And, after all, what I cite in that paper are those aspects of HBD which to me reflect reality. There are, after all, differences in intelligence and behavior between the major racial groups, differential birthrates are real, dysgenic trends are real, spiteful mutations are real (just look at the HBDers themselves), etc. I don’t promote the worst aspect of HBD, their lies and distortions.
In any case, the paper is, in essence, a fully fleshed out version of the blog post.
Abstract
The Fermi paradox asks – if aliens and advanced alien civilizations exist, then where are they? Why have they not visited us? Why have we found no evidence of the existence of alien civilizations? The implication is that sentient intelligent aliens do not exist, and thus their civilizations do not exist. One possibility is that they existed in the past but do not exist now; another possibility is that they have never existed. In either case, something inhibits the development or maintenance of a detectable (by humans) space-faring alien civilization. Here I review several major explanations for the Fermi paradox and then propose a novel solution that focuses on racial diversity, racial differences, and civilizational collapse. It is typical to envision sentient alien species as monolithic populations, portrayed as monoracial and phenotypically fungible. What if this assumption is incorrect? Perhaps racial diversity is the rule among sentient species; thus, highly divergent human racial types find their counterparts in significant racial variability among alien peoples inhabiting worlds unknown. I further propose a Gresham’s law of universal racial diversity: the more intelligent and productive races of any sentient species will tend to be demographically outcompeted by those less intelligent and accomplished. Other disruptive social pathologies may also occur concomitant with increased local intra-species diversity. The threshold of technological competence for a space-faring alien civilization would no longer obtain as the races and cultures capable of maintaining that civilization are replaced by those incapable. Therefore, no such civilizations are detected.
Keywords: Fermi paradox, aliens, civilization, race, intelligence
Introduction
The so-called “Fermi paradox” asks – if aliens and alien civilizations exist, why haven’t we discovered any yet? Where are they? Why have not we been visited (assuming for the moment that UFOs are not evidence of visitation that has already occurred)? Assuming that evolution to a Type III civilization on the Kardashev scale is an assumed outcome of an ever-growing and evolving alien civilization , where are they? Where are the self-replicating alien probes3 that we are told should be infesting galactic space; where are the “flying saucers landing on the White House lawn?” It is possible that we are alone? Shouldn’t alien civilizations exist, given the Drake equation and the numerous possible habitable alien words that exist? Where is everyone? The implication is that intelligent aliens and their civilizations do not exist, that they do not exist now or that they have never existed. A weaker interpretation would be that something inhibits the development of a detectable space-faring higher civilization, even though there may well be intelligent extraterrestrial life, or at least has been such in the past.
In a 2015 essay, Robert Gray argued that the “paradox” as popularly perceived is neither Fermi’s nor is it truly a paradox. Apparently, Fermi informally broached the subject during a 1950 Los Alamos lunch, with the focus more on the feasibility of inter-stellar travel than on the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life with a technologically advanced civilization1. In 1975, Michael Hart more formally suggested that the lack of alien visitors meant that there is no intelligent alien life in our galaxy, with various counter-arguments being dismissed2. This idea was extended by Frank Tipler, who argued in 1980 that alien intelligences would have constructed self-replicating machines (e.g., probes) that would have spread throughout the universe, and the absence of such probes suggests that no intelligent alien life exists in the universe; Man is truly alone3. Besides stating that the paradox is properly ascribed to Hart-Tipler rather than Fermi, Gray further argues that it is not a paradox at all, because the Hart-Tipler arguments are based on a number of assumptions that may not be true. Is inter-stellar travel feasible? Would the galaxy be quickly filled? Would the Earth be colonized? Would this scenario be stable over time? These and other questions are assumed premises which if incorrect would weaken the ”Fermi paradox” arguments1.
Gray makes valid points, and in general I agree with his arguments. However, for the sake of simplicity, and to invoke popular perception, I will continue to use the term “Fermi paradox” although it is to be understood to more properly describe Hart-Tipler arguments. In addition, while the existence of the “paradox” depends on a number of questionable premises, since “they” are apparently not here, it is useful to accept the existence of the paradox and examine explanations given in the literature, leading to my own thesis.
Several Explanations
Among the more recent hypotheses for the Fermi paradox, and in line with certain sociopolitical biases toward “green” outlooks, are those revolving around “sustainability.” Prominent among these approaches is the interesting speculative work of Wong and Bartlett, which builds upon a variety of other studies to formulate one potential solution to the Fermi paradox4.
In this analysis, planetary civilizations are considered akin to global cities, and cities are assumed to inevitably suffer from “superlinear scaling” causing demand for resources to outstrip supplies. While technological innovation can temporarily hold off collapse, eventually the ever-decreasing intervals between crises leads to systematic collapse occurring before a “reset” can be arranged. There may be an eventual revival, but any subsequent growth-oriented civilization would suffer the same fate and therefore no planetary civilization would make the leap to the point in which it becomes inter-galactic and thus directly makes its presence known to other civilizations. The authors further speculate that such a civilization has an alternate pathway, which they term “homeostatic awakening,” which can be considered the politically “green” approach of valuing long-term homeostatic stability over that of growth. Although this latter model may avoid collapse, it would also likely prevent the development of a technological civilization advanced enough to travel to other star systems. Hence, both models – growth and collapse vs. stable “green’ sustainability – would prevent the development of a civilization that would make tis presence known to an extent as to eliminate the Fermi paradox.
There are a number of assumptions built into this hypothesis, and the authors correctly cite some of them in their Discussion. Is the “superlinear” city model always correct and does it apply universally to larger biological groups, both on Earth and among putative alien civilizations? Will a “global city” linked by information processing rather than physical geographical proximity reflect the same limitations of physical city growth? Is it always true that technological resets are temporary and limited? Isn’t it possible that a technological fix, or set of fixes, would allow a civilization to have access to practically infinite energy resources? Could limitations of civilizational growth, such as those that are computational and memetic and not only physical related (energy and physical resources as well as disease), be self-correcting in certain alien cultures?
I also ask – is it possible alien civilizations, using technological breakthroughs that we do not understand, solve the problem of inter-galactic space travel even at a level of civilization not much greater than our own? Thus, instead of going through a slow phase of development of space travel, starting as humans have with chemical reaction engine rockets travelling short distances in space, could some alien civilization stumble upon “exotic” approaches to bridge the gulfs of space early in their space-faring journey? This possibility would “short-circuit” the collapse scenario and allow for inter-stellar travel by a civilization at the same stage as ours, albeit one “lucky” enough to have solved the technical problems of a space-faring culture sans an accompanying very high level of civilizational development.
Wiley5 has considered a number of these issues. He agrees with Tipler that the seeming absence of self replicating space-probes (SRPs) is a problem, given that he dismisses arguments made against the feasibility and relevance of SRPs. However, he does cite the idea that perhaps we simply haven’t been able to identify SRPs that actually have entered our solar system (although this would argue for a lower limit for SRP numbers; if we were overwhelmed by them they would be hard to miss – although I suppose they can be very small, even microscopic)5. Further, the SRPs from alien civilizations outside our galaxy simply may not be able to reach us across the vast gulf of inter-galactic space5. Perhaps extra-galactic alien civilizations are more likely than those in our own galaxy. He considers “Percolation Theory” as having promise, re: the Fermi paradox; thus, a sufficient number of non-colonizing colonies would block the expansion of the colonizing ones, putting a natural brake on expansion5. Wiley also considers and critiques a number of social collapse scenarios before introducing the idea of “interstellar transportation bandwidth.” Thus, there may be limitations on how many individuals can be transported across space in a given time frame. This may shield civilizations from contamination of the problems from elsewhere, making expansion more robust and making the Fermi paradox more problematical. If expansion is more protected and robust then where is everyone? On the other hand, the same bandwidth problem can limit expansion of biological aliens and thus explain perhaps why we haven’t encountered anyone yet. Note that this explanation assumes that a space-faring civilization has been established; in contrast, my alternative explanation (below) would explain why such a civilization may never come into being in the first place.
Another work invoked the idea of the “astrobiological phase transition” mediated by “global regulation mechanisms” such as gamma ray bursts. The astrobiological history of the Milky Way could therefore be divided into three phases, each separated by a transition. First, there was an early period devoid of life. Second, there was (or still is) a “disequilibrium” period in which life evolves, but global regulation mechanisms such as gamma ray bursts destroy sentient alien species before they reach the high technological level required of a space-faring civilization. Finally, once gamma ray bursts and other catastrophic events significantly decrease in frequency in an aging galaxy, a third “equilibrium” phase is reached in which a dominant space faring technological civilization has the time to safely develop. If humans are in late period II or early period III then not enough time has elapsed between catastrophic “resets” to allow the development of an alien civilization that we could encounter. In the future, in later period III, things would be different and at least one space-faring civilization would exist to make its presence known. This thesis makes several testable predictions and has been amenable to computer modeling7.
Some of the abovementioned scenarios may be plausible. Astrobiological phase transition seems to me to be particularly promising. However, none of these explanations are proven and, more to the point, are not all completely incompatible with each other. Even if these scenarios have validity for at least some putative alien civilizations, aren’t there also other possibilities, heretofore ignored, that also can be considered? Is there an alternative explanation that has heretofore gone unmentioned, perhaps in part because it is too controversial and “politically incorrect?”
An Alternative Explanation
I will now present an alternative explanation for the Fermi paradox, which fits in with the “societal collapse” set of possibilities, albeit with a novel mechanism proposed.
Popular conceptions of aliens (e.g., the “little green men” or “the grays”) envision alien species to be extremely homogeneous, virtual clones of each other. Therefore, in contrast to the human condition, aliens are typically assumed to be a biologically (and, sometimes, culturally) homogeneous population and, further, the implicit assumption seems to be that they have always been so; this homogeneity is the default condition of non-human sentient alien life. But what if this is not so? What if alien species are characterized by similar racial and cultural diversity as are humans? What could be the implications of that possibility for the Fermi paradox?
While controversial , evidence exists for genetic, hereditable differences in intelligence between human population groups, such as races . Behavioral differences exist as well with some populations exhibiting traits more compatible with a highly disciplined technological civilization, as evidenced by the historical record of accomplishment . There is also a tendency for an inverse relationship between intelligence and reproduction . This inverse relationship exists at the population level as well, as higher IQ populations of European and East Asian derivation have low birthrates and are demographically shrinking while the lower IQ populations of sub-Saharan Africa have higher birthrates and are expanding. In addition, mass migration typically occurs from regions of lower intelligence and accomplishment to those of higher intelligence and accomplishment. The expansion and migration of populations of lower intelligence, discipline, and accomplishment is, ironically enough, the result of conditions (e.g., higher standards of living, global communication, ease of travel) created by higher-intelligence populations. Extrapolating these trends forward suggests the possibility of a significant collapse of further development of, or even maintenance of, advanced technological human societies. In addition, varying cultures, established by different populations, can differ not only in their potential to develop the science and technology to achieve a space-faring civilization, but the interest and willingness to do so. Cultures may be more or less inclined toward homeostatic stability; homeostatic cultures would be less inclined to invest in the sustained technological development required of a space-faring civilization. Thus, differential cultural survival can also alter the technological trajectory of a civilization.
Further, technological advancement and the “global city” can create pathological social conditions akin to Calhoun’s rodent utopia experiments with the resulting social pathologies that can contribute to societal collapse. Related to this is the relaxation of natural selection in advanced societies. Thus, we can observe dysgenic influences , not only manifested in decreased cognitive ability but in the development of “spiteful mutants” , maladaptive genotypes manifested in phenotypes that not only suppress the fitness of self but, spitefully, that of others, destroying social cohesion and promoting societal collapse. Such spiteful mutants are a biological result of technological advancement and the higher standards of living that relax natural selection against the unfit, and ironically contribute to the collapse of the technological society that spawned them. Another social pathology, related to race and mass migration that can inhibit the development of a space-faring civilization is the erosion of trust, social cohesion, and the organic solidarity of society that has been associated with increased diversity .
It is of course impossible to know how an alien species would react to increasing intra-species diversity even if such existed in their case, and we cannot assume their reaction would be the same as that of humans. Nevertheless, if we are going to extrapolate the human case to a possible mechanism explaining the Fermi paradox, then social disruption due to racial diversity also needs to be considered as a possibility. It is interesting that Wiley5 cites the idea that we need to be considering stellar societies rather than species; thus there may be cultural differentiation within a species, with each society being a separate contact possibility. I would extend that in the negative sense, in that cultural (and biological!) differentiation into varying societies, followed by contact and migration between them, may induce pressures and pathologies that would reduce, and not expand, alien contact possibilities.
Therefore, if alien populations are characterized by similar types of diversity and selective pressures as humans, then the following may be a common scenario. As a technological civilization develops, it creates dysgenic conditions that allows for the demographic expansion of less intelligent, less capable (racial) population groups, who replace the more intelligent and capable groups. At the same time, dysgenic effects occur in all groups, decreasing intelligence and ability, while promoting spiteful mutants and social pathologies. With the replacement of more capable racial groups with those less capable, and with the overall degeneration of all, any possibility of advancing to a technologically advanced, space-faring planetary (and then galactic) civilization is ended. Furthermore, as these dysgenic influences spread, cultures that reject an increasingly unattainable planetary civilization replace the declining cultures that at one time dreamed of going to the stars. This can be outlined as follows:
1. An intelligent alien species evolves on its home world.
2. Similar to humans, this species is differentiated into different genetically and phenotypically varied races (subspecies). These races differ in intelligence, abstract thinking, behavioral traits, accomplishment, rates of reproduction, culture, etc.
3. As the more intelligent and accomplished racial groups produce technological advancement, the enhanced standard of living, and decreased selective pressures, have a variety of consequences.
4. Population growth of the less intelligent and accomplished groups increases and outpaces that of the more intelligent and accomplished groups. The latter may actual see stagnant or declining population and increasingly become replaced by migrants from the less intelligent and accomplished populations.
5. At the same time, dysgenic trends for all populations decrease global intelligence, increase numbers of “spiteful mutants,” and result in various social pathologies. Diversity would erode trust and social cohesion, making long term investment in major projects unfeasible. Scientific innovation, technological advancement, and economic development would all plummet.
6. In the midst of this chaos, cultures may prefer homeostasis over technological advancement and will in any case lose the capacity for such advancement.
7. The alien species loses, perhaps irreversibly, the capacity (and interest) for the development of a highly technologically advanced space-faring civilization.
To summarize the major thesis: there is a Gresham’s-type law of universal racial diversity. Thus, the more intelligent and productive races of any sentient species will be demographically outcompeted by those that are less intelligent and accomplished; the latter, despite their deficiencies, are inevitably more fit with respect to the ultimate criterion of survival. Further, increased racial diversity among the alien civilization in territories previously important for innovation would induce a variety of disruptive social pathologies that would inhibit the pace of innovation. The threshold of technological competence for a detectable alien civilization would no longer obtain as the race or races capable of maintaining that civilization are replaced by those incapable. Therefore, no such civilizations are detected.
Further, one can link my hypothesis with that of Wong and Bartlett4 and state that one reason why planetary civilizations inevitably fail to solve their problems and collapse, or are forced into stasis, is precisely because the more intelligent fraction of the civilizational population are replaced by those less intelligent and less capable. If the “race and IQ” problem is inevitable then that would make the sustainability problem inevitable as well.
Proving my theory is problematical; the same can be said of many other theories about the Fermi paradox. Extrapolating from the human case to the alien is tempting, but is fraught with assumptions and speculations. The absence of alien contact does not specifically and definitively inform us to the reasons for that absence, leaving us with nothing but speculation. Ironically enough, or paradoxically enough, an answer to the paradox may involve actually finding the remains of an alien civilization and/or its artifacts, or somehow coming into contact with an extent civilization, and then, in some manner, discovering the civilizational trajectory of that species to discover what if anything went wrong. Obviously, the presence of racial differentiation in sentient alien life, with each race having different capabilities, would be compatible with this thesis. Even more general, we would expect alien life to exhibit the types of genetic/phenotypic variation and processes of natural selection as life on Earth, with fitness ultimately being defined by reproductive capacity and genetic continuity.
Even if it was possible to obtain such information about sentient aliens, the data would be limited in sample size (even to a sample size of one) and its universal applicability would be in question. For the time being, we are left with theory, hypothesis (with little immediate chance of testing/falsification), and speculation. Indeed, given the problems in testing/falsifying any of these ideas, they are more truly speculative theories than scientific hypothesis. We are left to wonder.
Discussion
It may well be that some combination of some or all of the ideas listed above, including my own seven-point alternative hypothesis, may explain the Fermi paradox. Indeed, one book listed fifty (!) possible explanations for the Fermi paradox (none blaming it on racial diversity); it is unlikely that any one of those, or mine for that matter, is the one and only answer. Perhaps none of them are. The alien mind and culture may be so different from that of humans that they may eschew a space-faring technological civilization for reasons we cannot imagine and not those listed above.
We may never know the validity of the thesis outlined here, but its plausibility (at least in my opinion) should be a warning to us of the possibility of a similar situation happening to humanity. The pace of innovation, particularly of “disruptive” findings is slowing and while there may be a number of reasons for this, and while correlation does not equal causation, there is a correlation between a slowing down of innovation and increasing racial diversity as well as with mass migration and the resulting multiculturalism in the West. It is at least possible that something similar has occurred to other sentient intelligent species.
I would argue that, in any case, humans had better solve these problems for themselves. If my thesis is correct, then the current trajectory of humanity would preclude the development of a space-faring civilization. If the Hart-Tipler thesis is correct, then the fate of humanity is the fate of the only intelligent life in the galaxy/universe, and these issues therefore take on cosmic importance. If intelligent alien life does exist, and if the Fermi paradox ends up being proven wrong, if contact is established, then it behooves humanity to be as technologically advanced as possible to deal with that eventuality. Regardless of the possibilities, from the standpoint of human interaction with the cosmos, current dysgenic trends must be stopped and reversed. While such a suggestion, particularly with its implications, re: race and immigration, may be politically unpalatable in some quarters, the argument nevertheless must be made.
We may never know why THEY are not HERE, but we may discover why WE are not, and never will be, THERE. And therein lies, perhaps, the true utility of these theories.
References
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5. Keith B. Wiley. 2011. “The Fermi Paradox, Self-Replicating Probes, and the Interstellar Transportation Bandwidth” arXiv:1111.6131 [physics.pop-ph]m(or arXiv:1111.6131v1 [physics.pop-ph]). https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1111.6131.
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