Re: Barely Detectable Aliens

Scott Badger (wbadger@psyberlink.net)
Mon, 26 Jul 1999 08:49:32 -0500

> Alintelbot@aol.com Wrote:
>
> >I think it's likely there are a _lot_ of >technological civilizations
out
> > there, and I think it's unwise (to be mild) >to assume that _every
> >single one_ is going to employ a variation of the nanotech scenario
> >that obviously sits well with members of this mailing list. Some of
them?
> >Quite probably. But _all_ of them?
>
> If they ignore that scenario then they're not very interesting, besides,
we don't need
> all of them. If even one civilization took to the Nanotechnology path
anytime in the last
> 5 billion years ago or so it would be obvious to anyone who had eyes
that the night sky
> had been engineered. We see nothing of the sort, thus I conclude that
quite probably
> their are no ET's, or if there are they're too dull to bother with.
>
> >We ourselves are a rather long way from the sort of nanotech you're
describing,
> >so we can't really even use _ourselves_ as an example.
>
> Nanotechnology may or may not be near on a human time scale, but from a
cosmological
> perspective it will happen instantaneously, this very instant.
>
> John K Clark jonkc@att.net

It's probably already been stated on an earlier post, but could someone please tell me again:

(1) How long ago approximately did it become possible (feasible) for technological civilizations to develop? IOW, how long *have* they had to expand? John refers to 5 billion years above. Was it really that long ago? Were there heavy element planets around back then?

(2) John states that it would be obvious to anyone with eyes that the night sky was engineered. Could he or someone else expand on this a bit or give me a reference.

Thanks,

Scott