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Is the Interstellar Object 3I/Atlas Alien Technology?

arxiv.org

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Re: Is the Interstellar Object 3I/Atlas Alien Technology?

#11
> The relevance of this is that had the object indeed been discovered earlier, then there would have been some possibility that humanity could have mounted an intercept mission, a recourse that was out-of-the-question by the time 3I/ATLAS was actually detected

The only kind of intercept mission that would make sense to me from a game theory perspective is a totally blind, large scale thermonuclear weapon strike. The first thing that it wakes up to shouldn't be a harmless probe that can only phone home the bad news.

Re: Is the Interstellar Object 3I/Atlas Alien Technology?

#13
post #11

> The relevance of this is that had the object indeed been discovered earlier, then there would have been some possibility that humanity could have mounted an intercept mission, a recourse that was out-of-the-question by the time 3I/ATLAS was actually detected The only kind of intercept mission that would make sense to me from a game theory perspective is a totally blind, large scale thermonuclear weapon strike. The…

It's not all the dark forest; sometimes it's the shine of a a warm welcome!

Re: Is the Interstellar Object 3I/Atlas Alien Technology?

#14
post #11

> The relevance of this is that had the object indeed been discovered earlier, then there would have been some possibility that humanity could have mounted an intercept mission, a recourse that was out-of-the-question by the time 3I/ATLAS was actually detected The only kind of intercept mission that would make sense to me from a game theory perspective is a totally blind, large scale thermonuclear weapon strike. The…

Here's an interesting PBS Space Time video [1], "Dark Forest: Should We NOT Contact Aliens?", that goes over some of the game theory that a civilization might want to consider when deciding how visible to allow themselves to be to others.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXYf47euE3U

Re: Is the Interstellar Object 3I/Atlas Alien Technology?

#18
post #12

It’s probably an alien escape pod that ejected from their civilization when their clickbait plague reached even their scientific journal articles.

The Cold War, conspiracy theories, tabloids and the dismantling of public education really did a number on a lot of people.

Statistically speaking, intelligent life is out there. Mathematically speaking, the odds of us or them ever making contact is near 0.

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