January 25, 2010

• Advanced Alien Civilzations Don’t Exist

  Lunchtime musings of a post-burrito experience here. If there were advanced alien civilizations in our small corner of the galaxy (say within 3,000 light years) then IMHO they would have introduced themselves by now. As of today they might have stone tools and the equivalent of an English pub, but they don’t have much else (really, what more do you need besides rocks and beer anyway?). Here’s how I figure it.

  1. We lost a LOT of ancient knowledge when the Library at Alexandria was burned to the ground. Hundreds, if not a thousand years, of knowledge went up in smoke. I’ve read claims of even more.
  2. Science pushed down in the name of religion has by my estimation retarded our scientific growth by 1500 years. By the same token, the correct implementation of God’s wisdom would have saved us thousands of years of destructive behavior. We have so far blown it on both sides of that fence.
  3. We use the greatest knowledge sharing tool ever created mostly to watch things that don’t require too much knowledge to understand.
  4. Life on this planet expends a LOT of energy on eating other life, attacking other life, and defending itself from both of these. Imagine if all that energy were spent in more productive ways.

  An advanced alien civilization could, if it avoided these pitfalls, be 3,000 years ahead of us in the game, and could have started transmitting lotto ticket numbers to us 3,000 years ago, which means that by now if they were within 3,000 light years we would be hearing from them, and someone would be collecting their millions…of three eyed flying fish or whatever.

  • 4:26 pm
  • 11 Comments