XPost: sci.skeptic, alt.atheism, alt.conspiracy   
   XPost: alt.alien.research, alt.ufo.reports   
   From: jtem01@gmail.com   
      
   If we find an inhabited world, an intelligent species then   
   chances are they're a ignorant, primitive society.   
      
   Every so called "Intelligent" species would have to experience   
   a primitive stage.   
      
   This is inescapable.   
      
   No planet is going to spontaneously spawn life only for it to   
   immediately climb out of the primordial ooze & build super   
   computers.   
      
   No. Not going to happen...   
      
   Humans existed for MILLION OF YEARS before any of us left   
   evidence for the controlled use of fire, let alone metallurgy.   
      
   The genus Homo -- "Humans" -- officially begins with Homo habilis,   
   conventionally dated back about 3 million years... though the   
   oldest fossil of which is considerably younger.   
      
   If you Google it, the usual suspects (Wikie, Google A.I.) are   
   going to give you ridiculously old dates but the truth is that   
   we find evidence for the spread of fire back hundreds of   
   thousands of years, not millions...   
      
   The oldest throwing spear is around 400k years old, btw. But   
   after 300K years or so they disappear from the archaeological   
   record... don't show up again for quite a while...   
      
   The point is, if you didn't know, humans went through a lengthy   
   primitive stage before ever achieving industrialization, and   
   even then it took centuries to go from the Industrial Revolution   
   to space.   
      
   So a primitive stage is necessary, all "Intelligent" species   
   must pass through a primitive stage, but nobody is required to   
   graduate to an advanced stage.   
      
   Nope.   
      
   If you graphed all the so called "Intelligent" species in the   
   universe it would look something like a pyramid -- the greatest   
   number at the bottom, the most primitive species, tapering off   
   to the smallest number of highly advanced species, so rare they   
   actually form the point!   
      
   Why?   
      
   Because all so called "Intelligent" species would enter a   
   primitive stage, but not all would leave it.   
      
   Humanity was nearly wiped out entirely, rendered extinct, by   
   a "Super Volcanic Eruption," less than 80k years ago. And as   
   bad as it was, there were worse. There were bigger, more   
   catastrophic eruptions in the earth's past.   
      
   Asteroids? Like the one that ended the dinosaurs?   
      
   Disease.   
      
   An unfortunate Gamma Ray Burst could be a planet killer...   
      
   Ever hear of "Snowball Earth?" The odds of an intelligent   
   species surviving one of those lie somewhere between ZERO   
   and NIL...   
      
   And then out of the "Intelligent" species that made it though   
   a primitive stage without some natural catastrophe wiping them   
   out, there's always self destruction.   
      
   Nuclear war. Biological warfare. Chemical warfare.   
      
   Read any of the A.I. doomsday scenarios?  Yeah, that.   
      
   And do keep in mind that the whole time they're trying to   
   survive their industrial period WITHOUT killing themselves,   
   there's still all the natural threats they had to dea with in   
   their primitive stage. None of them went away. So, their odds   
   of becoming extinct have actually GROWN, not retracted...   
      
   *We* here on earth are not yet at the point where we set up   
   a self sustaining, self progressing breeding population on   
   another world, so preserve our species in the event of a   
   catastrophe -- natural or man made. WE, right now, are still   
   in the "More likely to go extinct" stage than the primitives...   
      
   AND THEN there's the fact that species die. The vast majority   
   of species to ever exist on this planet are gone. They're   
   extinct.   
      
   What if an intelligent species evolved pretty close to another   
   world with an intelligent species?  Real life isn't Star Trek.   
   Such a scenario would present a major threat to one or both!   
      
   The point is that there's LOTS of ways a species may go   
   extinct, and the older they get THE MORE LIKELY they will fall   
   to one. Not the less likely, the more likely they won't   
   survive.   
      
   Their odds may improve over time but there would always be a   
   non-zero chance of them getting snuffed out ever century...   
   decade... year...   
      
   Thus:  The rarest species would be the oldest, the most   
   technologically advances, while the most numerous species   
   would be the most primitive -- the more primitive the more   
   numerous. Yet...   
      
   Yet everyone insists that if we find aliens they're going to   
   be hyper advanced. No, they're likely smashing rocks   
   together & wishing they could stop freezing their buns off   
   whenever it gets cold.   
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
   --   
   https://jtem.tumblr.com/tagged/The%20Book%20of%20JTEM/page/5   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)