From: BillK (bill@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sun Aug 03 2003 - 09:33:42 MDT
On Sun Aug 03, 2003 02:41 am Lee Corbin speculated:
> I fear that they would! In less than a thousand years, the Earth
> will probably be at the center of a civilization expanding at
> the speed of light. By the same token, if there ever are
> aliens in the skies of Earth, they will be from a civilization
> (when they left it) about a thousand years ahead of ours.
>
I have generally tended to agree with Lee's previous statement that we
are alone and there are no aliens out there waiting to pounce on us.
But there is another alternative that I don't remember anyone
mentioning. Look around you. Old folk with a good pension or a pile of
assets don't do much. Sitting on your porch in a rocking chair seems
like a good deal to them. It is the young who haven't made their pile
who rush around 'doing' things.
Now if you add together increased lifespans, reducing birthrates, the
need to be 'safe' (to protect your vastly increased lifespan) then the
outcome seems clear.
An OLD population with very few (or even none) young entities won't
actually 'do' very much. You might think now that you will want to do
lots of exciting research, world-shaping projects, etc., but the future
reality will be very different. It's rather like a self-confident young
man stating with supreme assurance that 'marriage and kids won't change
me in the slightest'.
There might well be thousands of alien civilizations out there, but they
are all doing the vastly advanced equivalent of sitting on their front
porch in their rocking chairs watching the universe go by.
Just as we will.
BillK
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