Re: SETI and The Fermi Paradox

On Sep 1, 5:38�am, BradGuth <bradg...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sep 1, 6:16�am, "HVAC" <harlowcampb...@gmail.com> wrote:

"Hagar" <ha...@sahm.name> wrote in message

news:y4mdnSoWbs0ttwHXnZ2dnUVZ_ridnZ2d@giganews.com...

If we take out Solar System as a typical configuration for single Star
systems in our galaxy, it would not be too far fetched to assume that
there are planets orbiting those stars as well. �The distribution of
solid, gaseous and icy planets should follow our Solar System's pattern to
some degree and moons orbiting those planets would be the rule, rather
than the exception.

Apply this to the Drake equation, and life in the Universe is a distinct
possibility. �Even though there is no proof as yet, accepting the paradigm
that life on Earth is unique is tantamount to religious fanaticism.

Life, yes....Intelligent life? �Maybe not so much.

Using Earth as a guide, life should arise on alien
planets soon after they form. On Earth however,
this simple 'slime' ruled the planet for billions of
years. �Only in the last 3/4 of a billion years of so
has any beginnings of complex life been found.

It's really only in the last hundred years that we have
developed the ability to send signals that have the potential
for reaching other planets.

Even tho the galaxy is HUGE, our appearance in it is for
such a fleeting bit of time that cosmologically speaking,
we aren't even really here.

I think we're alone.

Where is the evidence for high-speed travel anywhere in
the universe? Any craft achieving a good percentage of C,
would emit so much X-ray radiation that it would stand out
like a Christmas tree. �We could easily see such an object
from Earth.

We haven't. �Why?

Even in some sci-fi world of warp drives that would achieve
superluminal speeds by going OUTSIDE our universe, where
are the semi-advanced civilizations that are still using sub-light
travel? �Again, such craft would stand out like a Christmas tree
and be visible to Earth's astronomers across 1/2 the visible universe.

And another thing. �If a civilization desires to spread across the
universe, a Von Neumann Probe would be the obvious choice.
It doesn't need to be fast, all it needs is time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft

So why don't we hear from them?? We've been broadcasting radio and TV
signal for almost 100 years now and surely some of them must have reached
a number of the nearest stars.

However, any civilization even only 1000 years ahead of us,
technologically, would regard radio transmissions on par with Indian smoke
signals rising from the mountain tops. Even if they were sighted today, no
one today would even know what they were, much less what they meant.

So, what about signals from them?? �Assuming that they still use radio,
the waves propagate radially and thus get weaker with distance. In
addition, they are subject to gravity fields and generally subjected to a
lot of noises produced by a host of galactic events, such as pulsars,
magnetars, gamma rays etc. By the time they actually arrive here, more
than likely they'd be reduced to unintelligible white noise.

So why haven't they landed and demand we take them to our leaders ??
Perhaps they don't want to. Humans have been on Earth appr. 3 million
years or so. The real intelligent human era began after the last ice age.
Actually, "intelligent" is a misnomer, since it has resulted in one blood
bath after another for equally absurd reasons. Perhaps every civilization
goes through such a cycle of trials and tribulations of killing each other
and plundering their planet and its resources. Perhaps a few alien species
manage to survive that ritual of self destruction, to start all over again
with a different perspective of their surroundings, one of them being to
avoid contact at all costs with the sort of civilization which caused
their near extinction. �Let's face it, if we were to see a real alien UFO
in the sky, the Air Force would scramble jets in an attempt to shoot it
down. Welcome to Earth.

When you hear them talk about missions to Mars, the overriding reason is
not exploration, but exploitation of its mineral resources. Creating a
livable habitat is governed by that prospect alone. �We found another, as
yet untouched piece of real estate, just waiting to be raped and polluted
for the almighty buck and disposable hardware.

No, any aliens taking a close-up snapshot of us and our brief history of
wanton propagation, pollution, gross environmental mismanagement and nasty
demeanor, would turn their spaceship around and put it in hyper-drive,
scratching the Earth of their list of possible progenitors of intelligent
life.


You don't even have to be all that intelligent in order to survive on
the planet Venus, and you certainly wouldn't need the technology of
radio or space travel capability. �It seems species/biodiversity
survival is simply far more important than what we call intelligence,
because it doesn't do any good being Einstein smart if your species is
dead.

However, if you have sufficient technology for accomplishing space
travel, Venus would certainly be an ideal planet to pillage, plunder
and rape for all she's worth.


The protective atmosphere of Venus is by itself worth billions per
year if planning on mining/extracting whatever, not to mention the
unlimited renewable energy that such an atmosphere along with the vast
geothermal energy resource at the surface represents a combined energy
cache that's worth trillions per year.

 ~ BG