[ExI] fermi paradox- weighted summary

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Dec 6, 2007 11:53 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> > bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki
> > ...
> >
> > If you need 2 million years to travel to the nearest star, don't
> > bother to go: somebody else will be there before you... Rafal
>
>
> That isn't clear Rafal, but even if so, why is that necessarily a problem?
> If some intelligent space traveling life form had arrived on this planet any
> time before about 50 kiloyears before present, they would have had little
> conflict with the life forms that were already here.

### Well, releasing nanotech to alien-form the planet (after putting
some stuffed trophies of local bipeds over the mantelpiece) might not
be seen by the aliens as conflict.....and actually the bipeds wouldn't
see the black clouds dissolving the world as a form of conflict,
either, so in a way you could be right :)

  A sufficiently
> advanced life form could perhaps coexist peacefully and even undetected
> among current life on earth.

### Indeed, this could be the case, but only if we depended on totally
different resources for our survival. This is of course possible -
humans and most archaea are doing splendid sharing this planet. The
"undetected" part is harder to swallow but not totally inconceivable,
especially if you like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers kind of
sci-fi. But even if we don't need the same resources, the implications
of advanced aliens on Earth could be unfavorable - our attempts at
transcending our human condition and becoming advanced could be as
problematic as the chances of bonobos developing human-level
intelligence and carving out a place for themselves, against the
background of our civilization. Imagine an alien presence infecting
all our Friendly AI designs, and either sabotaging them, or worse,
triggering extermination.

In general, I do expect that beings that are somewhat similar will
consume the same resources and therefore compete intensely. This is
why if you have two species of Paramecium eating the same species of
bacteria in an experimental setup (artificially reducing the number of
ecological niches), after some time only one survives. Aliens will be
either like us, likely to turn nasty at the drop of a hat, or
superior, and therefore possibly benevolently indifferent - but only
until we develop to the level where we start consuming their
resources.

Rafal