[ExI] 30 Solutions to the Fermi Paradox

[spike at rainier66.com]

…> On Behalf Of John Grigg via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] 30 Solutions to the Fermi Paradox

 

Spike wrote:

>>…"Hey wait a minute, think of the potential markets we could open up.  Brilliant Johnnie!  We could sell them oceans of ColaCola, potato chips by the metric ton.  We buy their planet’s oil and uranium, THEN we explain internal combustion and nuclear power."

 

>…Spike, you absolutely must read "Jack Faust," by Michael Swanwick. It is very much along these lines, but even more fiendish.... 

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243860.Jack_Faust 

 

John  ;  ) 

 

 

 

 

Fiendish?  Do explain this term in the context of the idea please.

 

Consider Africa exporting its uranium.  Outside of one country (guess which?) there are no nuclear reactors in Africa, none.  The uranium isn’t doing them any good.  A reactor wouldn’t do them any good either: they don’t have the distribution network to carry that much power nor the consumer base to use it and pay for it.  But the money they get from that uranium is critically needed, by their leaders who need the hard currency to hire the expertise to keep their version of Air Force One flying:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/may/16/mali-president-boubacar-keita-private-plane-international-aid-donors

 

John your comment brings to mind Arthur C Clarke’s sage comment that in any encounter between two cultures of vastly different technological levels is always enormously destructive to the less advanced society.

 

spike

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