grabby aliens

the consensus among scientists today is that the universe was created in a colossal explosion that gave birth to matter and the physical laws of the universe about 13.8 billion years ago, the big bang. about 9 billion years after the big bang, the solar system, including the sun and earth, emerged. in the first few hundred million years after earth was formed, oceans started to take shape, providing life with a chance to begin. a few hundred million years later, life appeared on earth in the form of simple microorganisms. it then took about two billion years from this point to transition from single cells to multicellular organisms, about two billion years more for humans to appear, and approximately 300,000 years for homo sapiens, the first anatomically modern humans, to evolve into the advanced and technological civilization that we are today.

here's a perspective. before the solar system was born, the universe was an unfriendly environment where stars constantly exploded, black holes emitted massive amounts of radiation, and galaxies collided, enough to hinder the potential for life to emerge and thrive, over and over again. conveniently, the solar system was born after all this chaos, creating a welcoming environment for life on earth to emerge, survive, and thrive. it's remarkable because it seems like an extremely lucky chance, and life on earth might be among the earliest, if not the earliest, to emerge in the milky way. however, our sun burns about 90% brighter than other stars in our galaxy and will continue to increase in brightness. in about a billion years, it will boil our oceans, destroying life on earth, and in the next few billion years, it will start to run out of hydrogen fuel and begin to die. in this cosmological context, the sun is relatively short-lived compared to most other stars, the red dwarfs, which can sustain habitable planets for trillions of years. that's a ridiculously long timespan, opening up a large window of possibilities for life to form and significantly increasing the chances of technologically advanced civilizations emerging in the future, which then implies that we’re here early. i mean, if we've witnessed life emerging on earth just a few billion years after its formation, how many more instances of life could potentially arise and thrive in the next trillions of years on any of these countless planets?

if life on earth might be among the earliest, if not the earliest, to emerge, then humans might be among the earliest, if not the earliest, advanced technological civilization to emerge. this is not only based on how our solar system and planet home emerged after the hostile period of the universe which is considered the earliest timeline for life to flourish, or how we have not yet found enough evidence for extraterrestrial life, but also because of the hard steps, or the difficult phases civilizations have to go through from where their planet became habitable to progress to advanced civilization. on earth, for example, the hard steps are the formation of early life, the transition from single cells to multicellular organisms, the development of complex brains in species, etc. human civilization is considered very early due to the relatively high number of hard steps achieved in a relatively short lifespan because the more hard steps and/or the less time spent passing through them, the less likely the chance that there's a civilization that appeared as early as we did. human earliness is also further explained by the hypothesis of 'grabby aliens'. to better understand this concept, let’s first differentiate the aliens into two categories: loud aliens and quiet aliens. loud aliens are “loud” because they make visible and noticeable changes to their environment, their activities create “noise” or signs (we might detect their wave of energy or interference, hence hearing their “loudness” and noticing their presence, for example). meanwhile, “quiet” aliens don't expand or change much, and their presence is limited to one star system, with no noticeable impact on their cosmic surroundings, just like humans are currently. grabby aliens are a model of loud aliens, defined by three parameters: they expand from their origin planet at a fraction of the speed of light, they last a long time and make significant and notable changes wherever they go. they're grabby in expanding their presence in the universe, becoming territorial and potentially threatening the existence or potential emergence of other life with their grabby presence, which, consequently, sets up a deadline, a catastrophic event preventing other lives or potential lives from emerging due to their rapidly expanding civilization, a deadline for advanced civilizations to establish themselves before things get too crowded, or in simpler terms, a sort of race against time for advanced civilizations to claim their spot before it gets too crowded out there.

this is how grabby aliens can explain human earliness. if grabby aliens existed, they would have occupied the habitable planets. this suggests that humans must be early because we’re here on our planet, if we're late, the planets including ours would likely have been taken. furthermore, since grabby aliens move fast at a fraction of the speed of light, last a long time, and make noticeable changes wherever they go, then we would have likely noticed them. but we don't observe such aliens, so they probably don't exist yet, suggesting again that we’re early in the timeline of advanced civilizations. although on a side note, the prospect of encountering such aliens while we remain in a quiet, non-expansive state is not necessarily desirable as this scenario suggests that our likelihood of evolving into a grabby civilization is lower as we might not fully realize our potential to expand in the universe, remaining less assertive compared to grabby aliens who continuously expand until they encounter others, like us, potentially jeopardizing our existence.

since we're early, and the emergence of other civilizations before us is unlikely, no one is grabby enough just yet to pose a threat to our existence or potential for expansion. therefore, we have early access to the vast, limitless possibilities ahead of us, the entire galaxy and even more galaxies to explore and expand into.