From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Fri Apr 25 2003 - 13:23:27 MDT
Greg Jordan wrote:
> 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.
### This possibility is covered by the "common loss of interest in the above
activities" part of the Fermi paradox explanation.
Rafal
>
> 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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