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Notes -
Some hard science news, that nevertheless became part of culture wars.
As you probably heard, third recorded interstellar object is on the way. It stands out of sample of three, just like the previous two.
The usual suspects, most prominent Avi Loeb and John Brandenburg of ancient nuclear war on Mars fame sound an alarm to warn from incoming alien invader.
Mainstream science dismisses the concerns and sees the object as ordinary red colored D-type asteroid.
< tinfoil hat> well, what are they supposed to do? </tinfoil hat>
Not that "we" as mankind could do anything if ayys were really here. See just Avi Loeb's proposals.
Nah. I cannot imagine better way to ensure Earth's swift destruction than to introduce aliens to United Nations. Compared to this plan, doing nothing at all is the superior alternative.
Based on a current understanding of physics, the only reason to launch an invasion would be to acquire the population as human capital for empire building- terraforming is at least an understood problem and the dark forest theory is more easily resolved by WMD’s than boots on the ground invasion.
Therefore any potential invaders can be negotiated with, and it’s not worth worrying about.
If they can do interstellar warfare, they should be capable of ASI or at least mass-cloning of geniuses with the same biology. Maybe they have 'ethics' that block those two and they're trying invade-the-galaxy, invite-the-galaxy for political reasons?
But how likely is it for an advanced civilization to have such a flawed system of govt?
Very.
The problem with the 'technological approach' to human capital is that its embracers never actually get around to it. They insist on Just One More Master's Degree and reason that they can mass produce geniuses eventually so why worry about it. In contrast, Sex Is Fun(go ahead, dispute it if you want), and women like babies. We had an AAQC recently from a woman who wanted another baby and thought it was a horrible idea, she just wanted one anyway. Making young women take care of robotic babies designed to discourage them from motherhood raises the teen pregnancy rate.
But go ahead, try to mass produce geniuses through technology. That's what South Korea thinks it's doing(yes, hangwon is pointless zero sum competition. They don't know that). The single digit number of their young will attain impressive credentials if they don't kill themselves first. No, you cannot avoid hangwon and gaokao if you have designer babies. Or expect AI to replace us until they paperclip maximize in their own solar system until the collapse of the local civilization turns it into something like Golgafrincham or Magrathea or Frogstar B or in fact most of the rest of Douglas Adams' cautionary tales because no one can figure out how to program common sense. Maybe AI fueled economic bubbles is the great filter of the fermi paradox, or maybe uber-k selection until the kids kill themselves rather than subject their own children to 18 hours a day of school is the great filter. Either way, the alien civilizations which make contact with us will be empire builders that seek to integrate conquered races into (a lower tier of)their power structure; the other alien races would just wipe us out rather than landing.
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