Why We'll Never Meet Aliens 629
iggychaos writes "The idea that aliens will come visit us is fundamentally flawed. Paul Tyma ponders the technology that would be required for such an event and examines how evolution of that technology would preclude any reason to actually make the trip. He writes, 'Twenty years ago if I asked you how many feet were in a mile (and you didn't know) you could go to a library and look it up. Ten years ago, you could go to a computer and google it. Today, you can literally ask your phone. It's not a stretch at all with the advent of wearable computing that coming soon - I can ask you that question and you'll instantly answer. ... How would you change if you had instant brain-level access to all information. How would you change if you were twice as smart as you are now. How about ten times as smart? (Don't answer, truth is, you're not smart enough to know). Now, let's leap ahead and think about what that looks like in 100 years. Or 1000. Or whenever it is you'll think we'd have the technology to travel to another solar system. We'd be a scant remnant of what a human looks like today. ... The question of why aliens might 'want to come here' is probably fundamentally flawed because we are forming that question from our current (tiny) viewpoint. The word 'want' might not apply at all to someone 1000 times smarter than us."
We've already met one (Score:3, Funny)
The Dolphins and Mice ... (Score:4, Funny)
Paul Tyma will be proven wrong in 20 years. (Score:3, Funny)
It is not a matter of IF but WHEN. i.e. When is the human race going to grow up and look outside their myopic & arrogant view that they are the most important lifeform on the universe? Oh that's right, they finally have proof.
Contact has _already_ happened. It is just NOT allowed on the global scale - yet.
If I'm wrong I'll be just another idiot ranting that you won't remember. :-)
But if I'm right you'll be more interested in knowing that the limits to knowledge are not artificially limited by Science; there is another path to Knowledge.
Beside, the real interesting question is not "Are we alone?" but "Why the hell do we look so similar??"
Re:Wow, this is stupid. (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, but see, the point of the article is that, unlike all the rest of us, this guy actually is smart enough to predict exactly how our 1000-times-smarter hyper-advanced post-human descendants will think.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We've already met one (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We've already met one (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the only thing worth coming for (Score:5, Funny)
No, food. Human is a delicacy in some regions of the galaxy.
Re: Wow, this is stupid. (Score:5, Funny)
Based upon the fact there's no Unobtainium on our planet, I suspect they've already been here and taken it all.
Re:Why is this here? (Score:5, Funny)
And that's why I love Slashdot - news for philosophers and hypothetical matters.
Don't eat the ones on the northwest continent (Score:5, Funny)
The alien surgeon general recommends not eating pasty white humans from the northwest continent. You can eat all the yellow ones you like from the eastern continent they are much healthier for you. Though you may find yourself hungry again in just a few parsecs.