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   Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Wednesday, 10-May-2023 20:07:13 JST Charlie Stross

   in reply to

   • Fraser Cain

   @fraser I skimmed the paper: I have to say, I think it's (trivially) junk, insofar as (a) it focusses exclusively on the implications of black hole driven star formation for the Drake equation without (b) considering whether black hole prevalence is detrimental to the later terms in the equation (emergence of life)—eg. by irradiating the fuck out of nascent biospheres.

   If the authors stuck to high metalicity star formation rates (rather than ETI) they might have something useful to say.

   • goatsarah likes this.
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     Fraser Cain (fraser@m.universetoday.com)'s status on Wednesday, 10-May-2023 20:07:14 JST Fraser Cain

     Advanced Life Should Have Already Peaked Billions of Years Ago

     Astronomers are starting to work out what impact black holes have on their galaxies and those surrounding them. According to a new study, powerful winds coming from black holes could impact the formation of life itself. What were the best places and times in the Universe for these civilizations to form? The denser the environment with more black holes driving star formation, the less habitable the galaxy. The most successful civilizations arose in galaxies large enough to form stars but far away from galaxy clusters. Intelligent civilizations peaked around 6 billion years ago.

     https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.04033