tim (10/21/82)
Something no one has explained to me yet is why any culture would have any desire to build self- propagating starships. What good does this do you? How do you justify the expense? As to the recent point about the assumption that advanced intelligences have advanced technology: one answer is boredom. If a culture develops tech- nology in the first place, it is for comfort (I assert); when maximum comfort is achieved, the design of new machines or other technologies becomes an art. Also, maintenance of comfort requires technology as advanced as that which first brought about the comfort. No machine can run forever without maintenance. However, I agree that these technologies are not neccessarily of the planet-moving type that so many seem to expect to observe; I can easily see a race being fairly satisfied with living in a fairly small space, say a few planets. Finally, I'd like to reiterate my earlier point: There is no way for us to know if other intelligent species exist or not. We don't know what to look for. Observing ourselves tells us nothing about what traits are universal to intelligence. Tim Maroney (unc!tim)