Just The Caffeine Talking

Great Filters, Part 1

Two weeks ago, during the world's first CYBER WorldCon, I participated in a panel discussion called "COVID-19: A Great Filter?" The panelists were myself, writer and Coronavirus expert Vylar Kaftan, and astrophysicist Valentin Ivanov. Our topic was the concept of the "Great Filter" and whether a plague like the current Coronavirus outbreak could qualify.

         The more I thought about Great Filters, the more I realized there was no way to fit the topic into one 50-minute Zoom panel, or even a single 'blog post. So I'm going to write a series of posts about potential Great Filters, working my way through different types and examining what we know and how plausible they are.

         But first: what the heck is a Great Filter?

         The term comes from an essay by economist and futurist Robin Hanson, which you can read here. To summarize, we know that technological civilization capable of communicating across interstellar distances is possible, because we exist and could do it ourselves. But if that's the case, as Enrico Fermi famously asked, "Where is everybody?"

         Science doesn't like unique phenomena. There should be either multiple technological civilizations, or none. We know it's not impossible because we exist, so . . . where is everybody?

         Just to complicate matters, it's unlikely that most civilizations out there would be about the same age as our own. It took billions of years for Earth to produce hominids, and hundreds of thousands of years for humans to develop radio telescopes and space travel. Even a variation of just one percent would mean other civilizations would be millennia, if not eons older than our own. Even at modest rates of growth they should be detectable across interstellar distances even if they aren't deliberately signaling to us.

         Frank Drake tried to quantify the probabilities of such civilizations arising in his famous Drake Equation, which you can read about here. He broke apart the likelihood of civilizations existing into a number of sub-probabilities. How likely are stars to have planets? How likely is it for a planet to support life? How likely is it for intelligence to arise? And so forth.

         Hanson took that another step. Obviously something keeps the number of technological civilizations very low. How do we know that? Again, because we're here. If civilizations were common, either we'd have heard from them, or seen signs of their existence . . . or we wouldn't exist because a bunch of settlers from the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy colonized Earth right after dropping an asteroid on Yucatan to clear away those pesky dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

         The big question is whether the Great Filter — the real bottleneck keeping the number of civilizations vanishingly small — is behind us or ahead of us. In other words, is the origin of life or the origin of intelligence the Great Filter, in which case we've passed through; or is there something about to happen to us which we can't predict or prevent, and which has hit every other nascent civilization in the Milky Way?

         As I said, this is a subject too big for a single post, so I'm breaking down the potential filters into categories. First come Stellar Filters: things related to the Galaxy or to stars which make life or intelligence unlikely. Next is Planetary Filters, reasons to think Earth might be extremely rare in some way. Then Life Filters, looking at just how likely it is for life to arise and evolve into something which could become intelligent. After that comes Intelligence Filters, also including issues of language and tool use. Then Civilization Filters, which might make large-scale social systems uncommon in the Galaxy.

         That brings us up to the present, and then I'll start looking at Filters we still may have to get through. Disaster Filters are things which might bring down or destroy our civilization. Space Filters are things which might confine us to a single planet or a single star system. Perception Filters are reasons for optimism: maybe we just haven't seen everybody yet. And finally there are Meta Filters, which are essentially ways to reject the entire question.

         And so, having finished that long-winded introduction, I will stop here and leave everyone hanging. Next week: Stellar Filters!

The First CYBER WorldCon!

This year's World Science Fiction Convention was to have taken place in New Zealand, but since that country is entirely sealed off from the outside world, the convention has gone entirely on-line. It's a CYBER WorldCon! See the link here.

Despite obstacles the show will go on! I'm participating in several events, without leaving my house in Massachusetts. Here's my schedule (all times are in US Eastern Daylight Time):

Wednesday, July 29, 5:00 p.m.: Kaffeeklatsch

An hour-long informal hangout with me and nine other fans. Grab a drink and join us! (I probably will be having something stronger than coffee.)

Wednesday, July 29, 7:00 p.m.: Staying Closer to Home: Science Fiction in the Solar System

A panel featuring Daniel Abraham, Jeffrey Carver, myself, G. David Nordley, and Ian McDonald; focusing on the future of science fiction set within the Solar System rather than among the stars, and how our rapidly changing understanding of the Sun's other planets is affecting that.

Thursday, July 30, 5:00 p.m.: COVID-19: A Great Filter?

A panel featuring Valentin Ivanov, Vylar Kaftan, Ion Newcombe, and myself. We'll discuss whether pandemics like the current Coronavirus outbreak might explain why we don't see any sign of technological civilizations elsewhere in the Galaxy.

Thursday, July 30, 6:00 p.m.: Reading

I'll be doing a 20-minute reading of "Calando," a new short story of mine from the original anthology Retellings of the Inland Seas.

Friday, July 31, 6:00 p.m.: The Ascent of Wonder: What Makes Hard SF

Panel starring Kenn Bates, myself, Mark English, Harun Siljak, and Deborah Munro. We'll focus on how important it is to get the science right, what rules can we break, and who does it well?

Friday, July 31, 11:00 p.m.: RPG Design (And What to Do Next)

Join Michael Sands, Morgan Davie, Brandon O'Brien, myself, and Stephen Dedman for a discussion of how to design role-playing games and how to get them published.

Another Cup of Tea

The complete "Teatime Readings" series is now available for viewing on YouTube. You can see them here. Or you can skip right to my reading from The Initiate.

There's a lot of good stuff and some interesting comments and conversation. Check it out.

Inland Seas Reviews

The first reviews of Retellings of the Inland Seas are out, and it looks as though this collection is getting a good reception. 

Nerds of a Feather reviews it here.

Treehouse Writers blog reviews it here.

It's always interesting to see how different reviewers look at the same book. I like to see varying takes. When everyone focuses on the same things I'm always suspicious they're just reading the press release.

 

The Glorious Fourth of July

Two hundred and forty-four years ago a group of men signed a remarkable document: a Declaration of Independence. They wrote out their reasons for defying their King, and signed their names to it, then published the whole thing. They even sent a copy to the King they were challenging, even though they all knew this would bring down the full force of what was, at the time, the mightiest military power in the world. 

The signers of the Declaration were not desperate men. Most were well-off, and some were quite rich. They had a lot to lose, and of course the penalty for what they were doing was death. But they made their choice because they — and many of their fellow citizens — believed that they were no longer Englishmen. They were Americans. They chose to be Americans and fight to be Americans even if being American would get them hanged or shot.

Today we should remember that choice, and live up to it. Be Americans.

 

Set Sail on the Inland Seas!

The anthology Retellings of the Inland Seas launches today, from Candlemark & Gleam publishers. Edited by Athena Andreadis, this collection of original short fiction takes the myths and history of the Mediterranean into the realms of fantasy and science fiction. I'm proud to be one of a rather impressive lineup of contributors, including Shariann Lewitt, Alexander Jablokov, Judith Tarr, Melissa Scott, and many others. My own story, "Calando," takes place in the same "Billion Worlds" future I'm using for the novel I'm finishing up for Baen Books. You can get it in print or digital form, from the publisher, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. 

 

Luna in the Night

We got our cat Luna as a little black kitten in 2006, and she quickly grew into a grouchy, headstrong animal — always quick to nip or hiss when she didn't get her way.

She was never an "inside cat." We let her outside any morning she wanted to go. In practice this meant any morning when the ground wasn't covered with snow. Once outside she was the apex predator of our yard, bagging some critter almost every day. Field mice, chipmunks, voles, a mole once, and at least one songbird.

Despite her proven hunting ability she always liked a nice disgusting can of cat food for dinner. We learned to keep her inside after feeding her, since without hunger to bring her home she'd stay out until all hours. She often objected to this arrangement, especially on summer evenings when it was still broad daylight after dinnertime.

A couple of nights ago she managed to slip out after dinner. None of us saw it happen. I only noticed after full dark outside, when it occurred to me that I hadn't seen the cat in a while. Hmm.

Checked the screen porch (sometimes she gets shut in there overnight when we lock the house door). Nope. Checked all the downstairs rooms. No sign. Checked all the upstairs rooms. No cat.

This was when I alerted Diane, and the two of us went through the whole house again, checking the basement, looking in cabinets, and opening the closets in case she had gotten herself shut in. Checked under the beds and behind the piano. No sign of Luna.

Logically, if she wasn't in the house she was outside. We called, we made tapping noises (like the sound of knocking the last globs of disgusting cat food off the spoon into her bowl). We called some more. We shone flashlights around and turned on all the exterior lights. We checked all her favorite spots outside, and looked under the porches. We checked to see if she'd gotten locked inside one of the cars. No cat.

Then we heard the coyotes.

We didn't have coyotes in New Orleans when I was growing up. At night a full pack of coyotes make a weird, demented-sounding chorus of high-pitched howls. Almost like shrieking. It doesn't sound like any kind of animal, more like a troop of goblins or something. In the dark woods it's hard to tell what direction the noise is coming from, and even an adult human with a flashlight and boots finds it unsettling.

They must have been somewhere towards the back of our property, because every time a train went by it set them off. Maybe they were down by the tracks. Luna doesn't normally go that far, but a dreadful suspicion was growing in everyone's mind.

What can you do? We called and searched and searched and called and finally gave up. I went to bed. Diane took one more look outside.

And found the cat!

She was perfectly fine, but obviously something had spooked her badly. Her tail was fluffed and didn't get back to normal for quite a while. All that night and all the next day she stayed close to my son Robert. Presumably because he's now the biggest thing around.

We'll never know what happened, of course. She can't tell us. The best guess is that Luna did catch wind of the coyotes and sensibly found a place to hide. I know of some spots on our property where a cat could hide but a coyote couldn't get into. Maybe she climbed a tree. She waited until she was sure the coast was clear before bolting back to our door.

Less than 48 hours later she was trying to get outside after dinner again. No.

AmazingCon Continues!

The online SF convention AmazingCon continues all this weekend. Tomorrow, June 14, I'll be doing a panel at 10am on Worldbuilding. It should be a great show, as the lineup of panelists is pretty impressive: me, Paul Levinson, Rosemary Claire Smith, and T.B. Jeremiah. We'll be talking about how to make convincing and unique science fiction and fantasy settings. Join us tomorrow morning!

 

 

This Con Will Be Amazing!

This weekend Amazing Stories is sponsoring a virtual science fiction convention: AmazingCon! It features readings, panels, special events — all the good parts of a convention without the hotel food and travel expense. 

I'm doing two events: a reading from my work in progress at 3pm on Friday, June 12; and a panel on Worldbuilding at 10am on Sunday, June 14. 

So put on your virtual hall costume and come to the virtual con. Ralph 124C41+ would approve!

 

Time For Tea!

There's an excellent series of online readings organized by Sarah Smith, Brookline's Grande Dame of Fantasy and Science Fiction, called Teatime Readings. I did one last week, and now everyone can enjoy it here. The first half of the video is me reading a chapter from The Initiate, and the second half is a question-and-answer session about why and how I wrote that book — and some hints about what I'm doing right now!