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Comment by exe34 | Hacker News Reader

> Is it really that unlikely that some non-human intelligence potentially billions of years more advanced than us

I think there's a fine-tuning problem with that kind of argument. You have to believe all the steps that make intelligent space-faring life elsewhere come into being, and yet only one other manages to do so. If there were more than one, then it seems to me the same argument about government conspiracies would apply: every single one of them would have to work very hard to hide any evidence of their existence - not just from our mobile phones, but our most advanced telescopes.

I think if there were others close enough to matter, we'd have been colonised by an errant Von Neumann machine by now.

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> You have to believe all the steps that make intelligent space-faring life elsewhere come into being

I would argue that it's very selfish thinking we would be the only intelligent life in the universe, let alone our own galaxy. If you're throwing out the entire argument based on that presumption, then this conversation is pointless.

Science is about optimism to learn what we don't know. There are things in the sky that we can't identify, as Obama has said https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1hNYs55sqs We should be open to the idea of all possibilities, rather than dousing fire on it.

you only read half the argument.

Why would some Von Newman probes colonize us instead of just observing?

    ------> Point
    ---> You

> I think if there were others close enough to matter, we'd have been colonised by an errant Von Neumann machine by now.

As long as were exploring wild theories, how about this one: Aliens smarter than us have colonized earth and are manipulating our information sources so we are not aware. Further, every once in a while they "give" us discoveries to advance our technology in a controlled manner. Perhaps we're captives in what is equivalent to a zoo.

I find that more pleasant to imagine than aggressive/hostile aliens that could probably destroy our civilization in about 17 seconds, though that would have the benefit of solving all of our problems in one fell swoop.

I already thought of that one - bacteria and fungi are their compute substrate for their immaterial cities. (ref: diaspora by Greg Egan, and surface detail by Ian M. Banks).

>it seems to me the same argument about government conspiracies would apply: every single one of them would have to work very hard to hide any evidence of their existence - not just from our mobile phones, but our most advanced telescopes.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-and-why-the-fbi-mysterio...

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