RE: starship-design: RE: Bugs again

[Zenon Kulpa <zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl>]

> From: "Walker, Chris" <Chris.Walker@BSKYB.COM>
> 
> > From: Kyle R. Mcallister [SMTP:stk@sunherald.infi.net]
> > 
> >>L. Parker wrote:
> > >> 
> > >> Let us hope the whole galaxy doesn't subscribe to the survival of the
> > >> fittest philosophy, we may just run into another intelligent species
> > >> which is more fit...
> >
> I would make it a fairly safe bet that the rest of the galaxy DOES subscribe
> to the rule of survival of the fittest, otherwise they wouldn't have evolved
> to the point where they can travel between the stars. OK, so we don't know
> what alien life is like, but I'm pretty sure that it has to fight to survive
> and adapt in whatever environment it lives in - just like we do. Seems
> likely to be a universal constant.
> 
Exactly. I fully agree.


> >Think about this the next time you step on an ant colony that has done
> >nothing to you. Picture yourself as the big type III civilization, and
> >they as humans. Now on the other hand, if the ants come into your house
> >and/or bite you, by all means get the raid ;)
> >
> >Lets hope that most alien civilizations would be more willing to look at
> >us from a distance, rather than interfere with us in a particularly
> >nasty way.
> >
> Let us hope by all means, but please let us not count on it. As Zenon said
> "better work hard to become more fit." In my mind that includes colonising
> other planets so as not to put all our egss in one basket (the Earth).
> 
Yes. 
And for this reason I think we should not advertise our existence 
(not speaking about our coordinates in space) before we are
firmly established in the whole system (and even then, better we shouldn't).
Hence I consider foolish the sending in the past strong signals
aimed at other stars, or including a plaque on Voyagers
with coordinates of the solar system. I hope that when technology
permits, these crafts will be catched in midflight 
and taken back to Earth.


> To go back to the earlier point about not inadvertantly dooming other life
> when we breath out our bacteria, I think that's reasonable if we can avoid
> doing so:
> 
> (a) by just landing on dead planets, or using the spacestation-like 
>     habitats that Timothy van der Linden proposed, and
> 
> (b) if we have the luxury of picking and choosing such planets.
> 
> However, what if we need to get off Earth in a hurry (pick a disaster - I'm
> sure you've seen the films ;-) )? I think then that if the only planet we
> could reasonably get to just had rudimentary life on it, we wouldn't care
> about killing that off (inadvertantly or not) to save the human race. Hence
> my "survival of the fittest" response.
> 
Exactly.
Life is brutal, and the rule scales to interstellar distances too.

-- Zenon