XPost: alt.checkmate, sci.physics, alt.philosophy.checkmate   
   From: bender@the.future   
      
   Checkmate  wrote:   
      
   > They're undoubtedly "out there" somewhere.  Fortunately for us, they're   
   > way too far away to ever get here, and vice-versa.  A bigger risk is   
   > microbial forms of life being close enough for us to find them, and   
   > stupid us unwittingly contaminating the Earth with something that we have   
   > absolutely no biological defense against.   
      
   I wrote a too-long reply yesterday, then Agent, which   
   *never* crashes, crashed.   
      
   There's their threat to us, and there's also our threat   
   to other life forms, which Nasa, at least, seems to take   
   as a Prime Directive.  Even the Apollow spaceships going   
   to the moon were disinfected as well as was practical.   
      
   > When you consider the vastness of the universe, it's entirely possible   
   > that there are other solar systems that contain more than one planet   
   > within the "Goldilocks Zone," where two competing civilizations could end   
   > up at war with each other.  I'd be highly surprised if there weren't   
   > areas of the universe like that.  We can thank our lucky stars that we   
   > don't live close enough to anyone else to go to war with, because we   
   > can't even live peacefully amongst our own kind.   
      
   It's hard to know who we're close to, as we might not   
   detect another civilization unless they want us to detect   
   them.   
      
   The critical question is how long does a civilization   
   last once it becomes technological.  We have only had   
   WMDs a century if you include mustard gas... how are we   
   going to make it for another millenium?  Creatures in any   
   competetitive selection process are going to be at least   
   occasionally hostile.  I hope they can do better than   
   we've done.   
      
   There is at least one star with 2 potentially habitable   
   planets, i forgot details.   
      
   > I hope that alt.checkmate will see more thought-provoking posts like this   
   > in 2018, because I've had my fill of all the pointless political prattle   
   > that cluttered up last year.   
      
   Thanks, but guess what... it's an election year again.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)