RE: RE: Mars: "Rogue" memes and the laughter curtain

Billy Brown (ewbrownv@mindspring.com)
Sat, 24 Jul 1999 11:43:47 -0500

Alintelbot@aol.com wrote:

> Billy wrote:
> > Since the idea of technological aliens having visited our solarsystem in
> > any fashion is itself problematic (it is virtually impossible to
construct a
> > scenario that makes any sense),
>
> Huh? I could go a few rounds with you on that one, but I'm making a run
for
> a latte in a minute, so I'll save that book for another time...

and Eliezer S. Yudkowsky [sentience@pobox.com] wrote:
> That kind of technology doesn't allow for moderation. On the spectrum
> of Blaringly Obvious to Totally Undetectable, it is simply beyond
> probability that the aliens just *happen* to fall in the Detectable To
> Twentieth-Century Humans But They Have To Look Real Hard category.

That pretty much sums up my view on the topic. You can't have interstellar space travel without having nanotechnology and sentient AI, because sub-light travel simply takes too long (and it probably can't be done without them, anyway). But if you have those kinds of technologies, you don't leave behind quant little old-era-SF-style artifacts. Your stealth missions leave no traces at all, and your non-stealth missions will rearrange the entire solar system. Besides, how exactly do you ever make them go away? Anything that could kill them off would also exterminate all life on Earth (not to mention leaving unmistakeable signs all over this side of the galaxy).

Billy Brown, MCSE+I
ewbrownv@mindspring.com