From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Mon Nov 08 1999 - 11:03:39 MST
I'm not sure I understand you here, are you saying that you think any
power can be assured of 100% control over it's own space? Perhaps that
is a working definition of a power.
I just thought I might have a possible explanation for Fermi's paradox:
the price of failure for contact, even at a very low risk, is much
higher than any potential rewards. A power might have a few hours
amusement studying earth people, but if this planet contains (unbeknowst
to us) a hidden evil power that entraps such a visitor, this leads to
the aforementioned hideous torture for eons.
Thanks,
-Mike
> This one is easy. Right now, attack is easier than defense; you can't
> stop a massed nuclear attack. Given nanotechnology, the inequality will
> get even worse. But in software, it seems to me that it's getting
> easier to defend then attack, and I certainly don't see Powers worrying
> about Trojan-horse attacks and the like. And it could be that under the
> ultimate laws of physics, defense is just easier than attack; once you
> have total control over local space, no external force can take it away
> from you.
>
> Leaving aside answers like "social contracts" and "convergent motivations".
> - --
> sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
> http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
> Running on BeOS Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns
> Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way
>
-- ====================================================================== Michael Wiik Principal Messagenet Communications Research Washington DC Area Internet and WWW Consultants http://messagenet.com mwiik@messagenet.com ======================================================================
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