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From: KFL@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU ("Keith F. Lynch")
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Aliens
Message-ID: <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].848884.860312.KFL>
Date: Wed, 12-Mar-86 23:41:09 EST
Article-I.D.: <[MC.LCS.MIT.EDU].848884.860312.KFL>
Posted: Wed Mar 12 23:41:09 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 19:08:24 EST
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Organization: The ARPA Internet
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    From: brahms!desj@ucbvax.berkeley.edu  (David desJardins)

    Jong@HIS-BILLERICA-MULTICS.ARPA writes:
    >... Most likely, we would encounter an unimaginably more advanced
    >civilization.

       I see this kind of statement a lot, and it really seems pretty
    silly to me.

  Our civilization is very new compared to the lifetime of Earth.  A
species from a planet where life started a few percent sooner or
evolved a few percent faster might have invented computers and
starships while dinosaurs were the most advanced thing on Earth.
  Where would such a civilzation be today?
  Lets say we were to pick up a radio signal from aliens at some
distant star.  Assuming the average civilization capable of sending
such a signal lasts for the lifetime of their star, which is around
ten to the tenth years, what are the chances that we will have caught
them within a century of the beginning of that civilization?
  If the average civilization lasts ten to the tenth years and
broadcasts a message from the time they are first able to build
equipment to do so (equivalent to 1940s Earth technology) until their
sun goes nova after ten to the tenth years, then the probabilty that a
signal is from some civilzation less than or equally advanced as ours
is only 4 in a billion.
  If we were to go exploring, the odds are somewhat better, since we
can contact a stone age culture by going there, but not by listening
to the radio.  But, assuming mankind is one million years old, and
that that is a typical pre-technical duration for a species, chances
of finding such a stone age culture rather than a culture far in
advance of ours is still only one in ten thousand.
  It is quite mind boggling to me.  I think about all the technical
progress that has been made in the last hundred years, or even in the
last ten years, and try to project ahead.  I can think of all sorts of
things that might exist in a century, but I really can't imagine what
might be around in a thousand years, any more than the average person
of the year 1000 could have imagined ARPAnet or even USEnet.
  Of course it is possible that there are no other technical
civilizations, or that they are but they always blow themselves up
within a century, or that there is no other life, or that they are
maintaining 'radio silence', or that...   Who can say?  I hope I live
to find out.
								...Keith