> Alintelbot@aol.com wrote:
> >If aliens are here, I don't think they'll be particularly interested in our
> >money or our women (though Bruce Sterling's Investors have a ring of
> >authenticity to them...). Rather, they'll be interested in our _uniqueness_.
> >And this is the one thing that would be destroyed by public disclosure.
Since "alien" civilizations are likely to be very old and very technologically advanced, there are likely to have evolved into the few "optimal" configurations that physics may allow. However it may not be possible to prove that those are the only optimal configurations (thinking along the lines of Godel and incomplete mathematical systems). So to continue the evolution of the galaxy one has to allow young civilizations to evolve and grow up along their own paths, intervening as little as possible (The Prime Directive). That allows a unique/diverse civilization to emerge and mature with the possibility of discovering a new "optimal configuration".
Greg Burch has come up with the rather unique idea, that in an "old" galaxy, there is a shortage of new memes, and we (collectively) are about to become a "virgin bride" for an lecherous old civilization.
>
> Look, just think for five seconds about the implications of the kinds of
> technologies we talk about here. Any aliens who didn't want to be seen would
> not be seen. If they don't want to be seen because that would destroy our
> 'uniqueness', then why are so many people reporting that they've seen them?
>
Michael Papagiannis (a BU astronomer) suggested in the mid-1980's that
they might be here and are simply observing us from the asteroid belt.
Even earlier, Robert Freitas had conducted several searches for alien
observation satellites in logical places (L5 points, etc.) and had come
up empty handed. He also wrote several articles about our gross inability
to detect many alien technologies.
The problem has become worse since our understanding of nanotech has increased. Robert has calculated that nano-aliens could rapidly construct a 1-meter^2 fiber-optic communications grid covering the face of the planet that harvests substantially *all* of our information flow, transmits it to a secret data store which beams it up to the mother ship every night. I've done some calculations that seem to indicate that the waste heat flowing from your body through your chair could power about a giga-op nanocomputer. It records everything you say or do, then hops off your chair at night, plugs itself into the net and transmits that information to the "Master Overlord". In fact, the Master Overlord has recently decided that you represent a threat to the "increased diversity" plan and instructed your house-watch-bot to replace you with a directly controlled nano-clone at the earliest opportunity....
There is a distinct possiblity that the increased belief in "little green men", abduction stories, etc. are nothing more than disinformation seeded into our culture to keep us from doing the serious and careful investigations required to discover the nano-aliens.
My major concern is that everyone at the Extro4 conference is going to be nano-clone so I might as well not even bother going.
Robert