One In A Billion?
At CATO Unbound this month, David Brin’s lead essay makes two points:
We probably shouldn’t send messages out to aliens now on purpose, and more surely we shouldn’t let each group decide for themselves if to send.
The lack of visible aliens may be explained in part via a strong tendency of all societies to become “feudal”, with elites “suppressing merit competition and mobility, ensuring that status would be inherited” and resulting in “scientific stagnation.”
In my official response at CATO Unbound, I focus on the first issue, agreeing with Brin, and responding to a common counter-argument, namely that we now yell to aliens far more by accident than on purpose. I ask if we should cut back on accidental yelling, which we now do most loudly via the Arecibo planetary radar. Using the amount we spend on Arecibo yelling to estimate the value we get there, I conclude:
We should cut way back on accidental yelling to aliens, such as via Arecibo radar sending, if continuing at current rates would over the long run bring even a one in a billion chance of alerting aliens to come destroy us. And even if this chance is now below one in a billion, it will rise with time and eventually force us to cut back. So let’s start now to estimate such risks, and adapt our behavior accordingly. (more)
As an aside, I also note:
I’m disturbed to see that a consensus apparently arose among many in this area that aliens must be overwhelmingly friendly. Most conventional social scientists I know would find this view quite implausible; they see most conflict as deeply intractable. Why is this kind-aliens view then so common?
My guess: non-social-scientists have believed modern cultural propaganda claims that our dominant cultures today have a vast moral superiority over most other cultures through history. Our media have long suggested that conflictual behaviors like greed, theft, aggression, revenge, violence, war, destruction of nature, and population growth pressures all result from “backward” mindsets from “backward” cultures.
If you mean "shut all radars because aliens", its just an obviously poor choice.
My original comment was regarding the possibility of a highly-cohesive, eugenic, and non-proselytizing religion/culture being the bedrock of a high-tech civilization. The example I gave was more on the illustrative side. Keep in mind that what allowed current secular Jews to develop their smarts was this exact thing: sticking to their economic niches, their non-proselytizing religion and procreating.
As to *ultra*-Orthodox Jews now in Israel: you may be right (to an extent, for now at least). However, long-term, the experiment that is running right now in Israel may bear fruits that are contrary to what you're saying. Religions are not always as rigid when it comes to survival. When time comes, and they become the majority, things will *have* to be at least somewhat different, or everyone perishes. There are already reports of some Haredim joining the military. Plus, it's always possible to have 5% of your people devoted to science and engineering, while the other 95% mainly studies Torah and keeps the social glue active.
We live in the age of automation, after all, but IMO it's better to be praying and studying as opposed to robbing convenience stores and burning cars.