On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 09:37:48AM -0700, Schmidt Mickey D Civ HQ USAFA/DF wrote: > > It appears to me that any advanced civilization will have several > obstacles to overcome when it relates to traveling across the gulf of
No problem, given that your average alien is some 10-100 megayears more advanced than us. What's the probability of discovering an alien in just your age group? Zero. > space to "check out" some suspected intelligent species. Technology: > Even if we were to discover an extra-terrestrial civilization today as > near as 11 light years away -we couldn't do anything about it for many > years. Economic: To build a "starship" and fuel it with anti-matter or Time is cheap. (Everything which doesn't survive doesn't count a priori). > similar exotic fuel would cost the equivalent of the entire world GNP So don't. Use phased array radiators (which can be terrestrial), and a gray sail carrying a tiny probe. If you can push at >>1 g for several months, things turn funky fast. We could do that right now, you know. > for decades. No one would accept that cost. Third, Cultural: Our > outlook, are we Xeno-phobic or Xeno-philic? We're evolutionary agents, overall. So the local variations don't count whether spatially, or long-term. > As long as a civilization's economy and energy is tied to their local > star they aren't likely to leave. On the otherhand and I cannot see how You can't make such sweeping statements over a large population of evolutionary agents over long time periods. Also, fusion is trivial (we can almost do it), and costs of dispatching a ~kg probe are negligible in return to what you'll get -- a whole universe on a silver plate. Solid-state culture can travel by encoded relativistic matter or by laser. Subjective transfer time: zero. And it will get crowded, fast. > a race could become totally space-faring: a race that is entirely > space-faring like the Aliens in Independence Day or the Borg must go > looking for raw materials. I believe it would be easier to raid asteroid > belts and icy moons than fight a civilization but that's just me. Of course, but a) they would be awfully advanced b) asteroid belts and icy moons are finite resources, and hence will run out (quickly enough, if you'll do the math). > In my opinion the paranoia over the interaction of alien races is a > wasted effort. Absolutely. If they'd passed here, we'd never happened. If they'd pass right now (probability: zero), we'd be dead. A few more years, and we'll pass them. No harsh feelings, I hope. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net
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