In a long essay, makes the case that we'll never meet aliens. And his conclusion is that we'll never meet aliens because once they've developed the technology to travel the great distances between stars, the trip will be meaningless.
I think there's a lot of validity to this argument. We anthropomorphize aliens based on our current state of technology. We imagine aliens flying around in their alien spaceships, sipping their alien coffees, perusing alien laptops. "We come in peace."
But you have to comprehend the compounding effect of exponential technological advancement. iPhones didn't exist 5 years ago, now we consider smartphones a commodity. Once an alien has the ability to travel from star to star, they'll probably just be getting their robots to do the work for them - in fact, they'll probably be indistinguishable from robots themselves.
Once you're far enough along that technology curve, it all just comes down to energy. What's the most efficient way to get more energy? Traveling to other stars probably isn't it.
Stars provide energy, and planets give you a place to stand on. But they come with tricky gravity fields, that aliens might decide just aren't worth the effort to vist.
I think there's a lot of validity to this argument. We anthropomorphize aliens based on our current state of technology. We imagine aliens flying around in their alien spaceships, sipping their alien coffees, perusing alien laptops. "We come in peace."
But you have to comprehend the compounding effect of exponential technological advancement. iPhones didn't exist 5 years ago, now we consider smartphones a commodity. Once an alien has the ability to travel from star to star, they'll probably just be getting their robots to do the work for them - in fact, they'll probably be indistinguishable from robots themselves.
Once you're far enough along that technology curve, it all just comes down to energy. What's the most efficient way to get more energy? Traveling to other stars probably isn't it.
Stars provide energy, and planets give you a place to stand on. But they come with tricky gravity fields, that aliens might decide just aren't worth the effort to vist.
No comments:
Post a Comment