RE: starship-design: Fermi's Paradox - Drake's Equation will have to be rewritten

["L. Clayton Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

>   Waiting for somebody to put out the welcome mat is my guess.
>   I can see them arriving and leaving with very little impact.


Well, that is the nice way to put it I suppose. We have had quite a round of
heated discussions previously, mostly my fault after bringing up the novel
"Killing Star". I'm afraid I don't share the viewpoint that intelligent
species are automatically benevolent.

As a matter of fact, I tend to agree with Pelerine. ANY civilization is
going to decide for its own survival, and given the facts as proposed by
Pellegrino, if there were another intelligent species out there anywhere
close to our own level, they would already be doing their utmost to wipe us
out. Since we're still here, I guess there aren't any within at least one
hundred light years.

I don't think that another civilization is going to subscribe to the "First
Principle" as proposed by Gene Roddenberry, so I don't really believe they
were waiting for a "Welcome Mat" either.

We have had a great deal of difficulty confining this list to designing a
starship because so many different topics impinge upon the core subject.
However, this is one that is definitely central to our topic. If it could be
done, then it already has been done, and they would be here by now. So
sayeth Fermi (and Drake for that matter). Well, they aren't here. SO, there
are either extenuating factors we haven't discovered yet, or there are
reasons why it isn't possible to do this, which we haven't discovered yet.
Does anybody want to propose an explanation?

Lee Parker