From: Greg Jordan (jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu)
Date: Fri Apr 25 2003 - 07:38:15 MDT
It seems improbable that a civilization spread out over various star
systems would be using radio or any other light-speed communication
system, which would be far too slow. So most likely, we are simply not
able to monitor their communications medium, and perhaps it is also not
"broadcast" but rather pointed with a little more privacy.
Radio communication will probably be just a short blip in human
technological history. If it is happening on another world, though, for
communication on-planet only, would we still be able to detect it?
gej
resourcesoftheworld.org
jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu
On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 12:02:48 -0700
> From: Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal@smigrodzki.org>
> Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: RE: Doomsday vs Diaspora
>
> Civilizations which travel in space and loudly proclaiming their existence
> by radio and other means we can detect, are apparently uncommon. This fact
> can be the result of either uncommon genesis, common loss of interest in the
> above activities, or common doom. No a priori anthropic argument can decide
> between the alternatives. The optimist, then, will hope to be the result of
> an uncommon event, which allows a reasonable expectation of extreme
> longevity, perhaps disinterested in talking to primitives and not
> contravened by observation. The pessimist worries that we are the products
> of a common event, and therefore consigned to the outcome most compatible
> with what we see.
>
> Since our data on either the likelihood of spontaneous life emergence, or
> the future of average sentient interest development, or the actual
> cumulative extinction risk for a civilization of our type, are woefully
> inadequate, the optimist and the pessimist will reach their conclusions
> according to their predilections, while the Bayesian will not conclude
> anything at all, aside from the need to search for new knowledge and to
> carefully incorporate it in his reasoning.
>
> Rafal
>
>
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