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The Impossibility of Colonizing the Galaxy
OriginalArlen writes "The science fiction writer Charlie Stross has written an excellent and comprehensive explanation of why, thousands of SF books, movies, and games notwithstanding, human colonization of other star systems is impossible. Although interstellar colonization seems common-sensical to many, Charlie makes a clear-headed and unarguable case, so far as I can see, that it ain't gonna happen without a 'magic wand' or two. Nevertheless it would be interesting to see reasoned responses from the community who believe that colonization is not merely possible, but inevitable — and even, as Hawking has said, vital for the survival of the species. So, who's right — Hawking or Stross?"
I think the AC in this thread just pwned you, but I wanted to point out the ridiculousness of this specific argument of yours:
Aliens with any technical achievement have much better things to do with their time than bother with the likes of us. Sure, if they needed the colonization space and Earth were convenient, they'd be here. But they won't go out of their way to talk to us. We've got little to offer them.
See, it's this kind of half-baked thinking I see coming from the proponents of space colonization. It makes you guys look Scientologist nuts.
If interstellar travel were easy mate, the earth would have been colonized long, long before humans and our civilization ever came along. If colonization is practical, possible or desirable, our solar system would be crawling with aliens. They wouldn't have come here to visit us - they'd have come here for the same reasons why guys like you think we should be dumping billions of dollars into researching manned spaceflight. You know, god, country, capitalism, manifest destiny, sun's going nova, adventure, challenge, to get away from it all, riches, resources, energy . . . the whole irrational catalog.
The Milky Way is billions of years older than the earth. Even if you grant that technological civilizations are vanishingly rare, and that they would have had a hard time springing up long ago because of an increased frequency of gamma ray bursts and other sterilizing events, that still leaves a several billion year window for some alien travelers to stumble along and claim earth as their own. Their absence speaks volumes regarding fanciful space colonization plans.
But your comments are sophomoric and are becoming flamebait.
Coming from Mr. "Enrico Fermi is dumb" that's especially rich.