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

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

Kelly,

>>Immune systems usually see almost every non-self organism as dangerous. I
>>wouldn't think that it doesn't matter much whether the non-self organism
>>comes from space or Earth.
>>In some cases the body even starts killing something of itself, this is
>>called an auto-immune disease.
>
>Immune systems arn't that good at detecting, much less combating, 'any'
>non-self organism.  They are best at detecting and defeating things that the
>organism routinly is attacked by.  Alien micro life would not be something
>were 'tuned' to fight or look for.

As far as I know they are quite good at detecting, only finding the
"antidote" before it is too late can be a problem. However antibiotics
usually can help quite a lot.
And even if we were not immune to alien bacteria, would we be able to spot
it? Likely there are more Earthly bacteria that kill people than Space bacteria.

>>>As to the microbes from space, thats a very thinly defined theory.  Besides
>>>it still gets back to no signs of alien organisms alive here now.
>>
>>The latter is exactly the point I wanted to make. No apparent signs, so
>>whatever comes down, doesn't seem to spread.
>
>Or never came here, or whiped out an area to quickly to sustain itself.

Well, that's why I didn't mention it the other discussion :)

To get back to the point: Why would alien bacteria survive better than Earth
bacteria?

>>Expecting it, has shown to be completely different from knowing it.
>>Everyone knows that it is quite likely that something terrible can be
>>expected to happen to them during their lifetime. Yet many get badly hurt
>>psychologically when it actually happens.
>>Primordial microbes from Mars hardly compare to beings that have technology
>>that looks like magic.
>
>Still its unlikely to make us all run home and hide under the bed.  It never
>did before when we encountered alien (foreign) cultures with magical
>technologies and alien forms.  I can't see we'ld be that much less able to
>handel the same thing now or in the future?

Which "cultures with magical technology" do you mean. I can't recall when WE
encountered them before. True other cultures did, but I thought they usually
believed in magic.

>>I didn't mean we were a threath to the aliens. If they start spreading
>>technology, some nations may use it in a different way than intended, which
>>may change world power in sudden ways. (Eg. Give Saddam Hoessein a ZPE bomb,
>>which he nicely puts somewhere in New York.)
>
>My point was the aliens wouldn't care about those effects.  If we can't play
>nice with the new toys, thats our problem.

Why then contact us and give us the data? Just for the fun to see what happens?

>>>If Aliens came all this way, we'ld be the major area of interest on this
>>>rock.
>>
>>True, but dropping in as anthropologists would certainly destroy what they
>>where looking for. Only if they are psychologists, they would enjoy playing
>>games with us.
>
>Anthropologists would tend to disagree.

What good is destroying your test subject if your only example?

Tim