REM@MIT-MC@sri-unix (10/20/82)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC> I go along with Webb's argument as most likely. Intelligence the level of Humans/Apes, Dolphins/Whales, Octipusses, Insect colonies seem to evolve rather commonly. Technology the level of Humans has evolved (we know) at least once, but we have no idea whether it evolved elsewhere. Space technology like we envision seems not to have evolved yet anywhere in this galaxy nor in nearby galaxies, although it may have evolved in Seifert galaxies or in random distant places. In any case, space technology seems to be rare. We know of not one instance of it yet, and it seems not to have taken hold of nearby galaxies yet. Somewhere on the road from Whale/Insect/Octipus/Ape level intelligence to advanced space technology, most species either die out or simply don't make further progress for billios of years. I have two major theories: (1) The road from intelligence to technology is difficult. We are likely the very first in this galaxy to make it. (2) The road from technology to advanced space technology is difficult. Nobody in this galaxy has made it yet, those who got as far as we have now have all died out (nuclear or biological war?) or gone into declaine (Reagan&Stockman). The latter is unlikely since Japanese et al are taking upthe slack, and I would imagine such alternatives would exist on other planets where technological civilization evolved. This option thus reduces to "most technological civilizations commit nuclear or biological suicide before achieving advanced space technology". I see no way to distinguish between these two cases without going out to explore the galaxy, looking on planets for (1) intelligent lifeforms which haven't yet achieved technology, and (2) relics of past technological civilizations which have suffered disasters such as nuclear or biological war. Of course if we succeed in gathering that evidence, it'll mean we have passed from Earth-based life to space-based life, thus making the question moot except for scientific curiosity and predictions of what we might meet in other galaxies, since at that point we'll surely be the first in our galaxy to spread to space where others have failed or haven't even gotten the idea to try, and the question of whether we were the first to achieve technology or the first to spread technology to space will be moot.