Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!alberta!ubc-cs!uw-beaver!cornell!mailrus!iuvax!silver!chiaravi
From: chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Seti
Summary: Warfare by mind virus could be done, but it's risky for the perpetrator.
Keywords: _A is for Andromeda_ by Fred Hoyle; religion; fascism
Message-ID: <2173@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>
Date: 29 Aug 88 00:28:14 GMT
References: <587138396.iaeh@ISL1.RI.CMU.EDU> <443@csed-1.IDA.ORG> <1140@ndsuvax.UUCP> <430@gt-ford.gtisqr.UUCP>
Reply-To: chiaravi@silver.UUCP (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Organization: Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Indiana University, Bloomington
Lines: 72

In article <430@gt-ford.gtisqr.UUCP> kevin@gtisqr.UUCP (Kevin Bagley) writes:
>In article <1685@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu>, trn@warper.jhuapl.edu (Tony Nardo)
>writes:
>> Or, on a more grim note, let's say that there's a species which
>       [Highly abbreviated]
>>    1) fairly developed civilization,
>>    2) developed very effective weapons
>>    3) bit overcrowded,
>>    4) believing themselves to be the "roughest, toughest
>	[stuff deleted]
>
>I do **not** believe this garbage, but lets say there is a civilization
>out there with the above type of mentality, (I personally think that
>type of mentality is far more obnoxious than our own and that our
>civilization is teetering on the brink of self destruction.)

	Why do you think it is more obnoxious than our own?  We seem to meet
all four qualifications to degrees ranging from fairly (#1, #3, and #4) to
excellently (#2).

>                                                             why
>couldn't this super tough highly teched civilization did exist, they
>may be capable of doing severe damage simply through communcation.
>i.e.
>   1) They could communicate to us a cure for cancer that was
>      actually a very subtle poison that was airborn and did
>      not take affect for n years.

	Fred Hoyle (and maybe a co-author, I don't remember) had the same idea
in _A is for Andromeda_ and another book, in which aliens in the Andromeda
galaxy send instructions on how to build a self-aware computer with a mission
to convert Earth to be like the aliens' planet or destroy it if the
inhabitants (us) see through the plot and quit cooperating.  While the
scientific premises in this particular dilogy are less than sound, it is
impossible to prove that the same sort of thing could not be accomplished by
better-thought-out methods of the same general idea.

> [. . .]
>   3) Mass hypnotism followed by mass suicide.
>
>   4) Help me here folks. How else do you cause genocide by remote control?

	An elaboration of #3 is as follows:  send over a religion or a
political ideology which will spread to everyone on the planet and which
preaches lethal intolerance of anyone not converted, and then optionally does
a Jim Jones job on a massive scale, or sets up something like that portrayed
in George Orwells _Nineteen Eighty-Four_.  To ensure that it takes hold, tempt
the original recipients (most likely to be scientists, the government, and the
military) with means to great power (insights into how to build superweapons,
etc.) which can be used most effectively if they participate in the religious
and/or ideological program.

>I find this no more bizarre than the concept of this type of
>civilization and a hell of a lot cheaper than sending their
>starfleet.

	You could be right.  The problem with this kind of approach is that
(unless the perpetrators travel considerably from their home to broadcast the
message, thus negating at least some of the savings), they give away their
location.  And if the plot doesn't work, they run the risk that their intended
victims might be sufficiently enraged or feel a sense of duty sufficient to
cause them to take the trouble to come over physically and do their very best
to blow the perpetrators out of existence -- and if they have their act
together, they will do everything to keep their own home planet secret, so
that the perpetrators will not know who is taking revenge on them if they
tried this in more than one direction.  If responses are expected, they
wouldn't be too hard to fake.

	-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
	   chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
	   lucius@tardis.harvard.edu	(in case the first one doesn't work)
	Villainy knows no bounds. . . .