starship-design: Aliens, why haven't they contact us?

[TLG.van.der.Linden@tip.nl (Timothy van der Linden)]

Kelly,

>>Why would the aliens not wear special suits that are near 100% bioshields?
>
>If anything leaks out.  It sould stand out like a neon sign.  (HEY!  This
>species of microbe doesn't use our kind of DNA!!)

If a few bacteria leak out, they may very well be killed before they can
replicate and mutate.
And if indeed aliens are in abundance, they may have infected Earth long ago.
Furthermore, there is speculation that microbes come to Earth by meteorites
and dirty snowballs every day.

>>As many suggest, aliens might cause an unwanted psychological effect
>>(apathy, hysteria) in most cultures. A reasonable alien race would not just
>>make contact without thought. Therefore it is likely that they still hide.
>
>This ones kind of a bogus prejudice on 20th century types part.
> Historiocally human cultures routinely ran into alien non person cultures.
> Ok, most were just the next tribe over.  But to them that was as shockingly
>alien as aliens would be to us.  The tribes seldom wen't hysterical and
>colapsed at the site.  If they were in conflict they fought.  If not they
>tried to trade or ignored one another.

You may have a point about older cultures. But I believe that for many today
the world view would change more than they could cope with. My best guess
is, that old civilisations believed in miracles, so a strange species wasn't
much of a shock. (I believe that several European explorers where seen as gods)
A reason to believe that mentality has changed too is that not so many
centuries ago, the fear for the unknown was really bad (witchhunt).

One may wonder why old civilisations never benefited from alien
intervention. Maybe they did, but where not interested in technological
progres. Or maybe they didn't because aliens may have little incentive to
help us out.

In one of our private discussions you also mentioned apathy as a result of
seeing that others are much more advanced and discovered long ago what you
only held possible in your dreams.

Also for quite some time, sudden balance shifts in economical and military
power would have been rather critical.
This can't be bogus, otherwise I'd see little reason for certain programs to
be secret (stealth planes).

>Besides.  We never worry much about droping in on aborigional cultures.

The reason for us dropping in on aborigional cultures is usually for
resources. What happened to the aboriginals seemed to be less important with
the result that it disappeared rather fast.

Aliens are likely to have little interest in resources on Earth, so
contacting us would likely only create problems.

Tim