We had to invite the destruction of earth in order to save it
By Thoreau
Ever worry that it’s a bad idea to beam radio signals into space in hopes of making contact with aliens? Ever worry that they might take those radio signals as an invitation for some interplantary pre-emptive democracy-building? Well, fear no more: If aliens detect our electromagnetic transmissions, the signal they’re most likely to detect is the radar that we’ve been using to search for planet-destroying asteroids.
Comment by Dave Allan —
May 8, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
Asteroid worry has got to have a larger signature than alien invasion worry, which probably shouldn’t register at all.
Comment by asg —
May 8, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
Reminds me of the epigraph to Jack McDevitt’s novel “Chindi”;
Do not use driftwood to make a fire because it may have been cast on the waters by a chindi, who will then track you by its light.
Navajo taboo
Comment by Sigivald —
May 8, 2008 @ 3:07 pm
That’d be a pretty old taboo, since the Navajo migrated to the southwest, what, 1000 years ago?
Comment by mds —
May 8, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
No.
No.
I’m of the “bacteria don’t build spaceships” school. Interstellar travel is bound to be a sufficiently intensive undertaking that any civilization with the wherewithal to send out waves of conquest and colonization would have no need to do so. Seriously, it would just be so much easier to build O’Neill habitats for the frontier-minded.
…Wait, you were being facetious, weren’t you? Well, whipping up xenophobia against our almost-certainly benevolent alien overlords is no laughing matter, laddie.
Comment by srv —
May 9, 2008 @ 1:12 am
It would require exactly one xenophobic super-civilization.
- Greg Bear, Forge of God
Comment by mtc —
May 10, 2008 @ 2:42 am
srv-
Having read Forge of God a while ago, and the sequel Anvil of Stars just recently, I’ve been thinking along similar lines. It’s one possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox–carelessness with the EM spectrum is the quickest way to get yourself found and exterminated. Maybe that’s also why we haven’t seen any Dyson spheres out there–kind of gives away the whole ‘there’s intelligent life in this solar system’ thing.
This presupposes a pretty extreme level of hostility or paranoia on the part of extraterrestrial intelligences, but look at how brutal we are toward each other. Do you really want us colonizing the neighborhood? As Bear says, it only takes one civilization to decide no.