Mytical wrote:Yeah and it is called "How not to run a planet" or "How to ruin a world!"
You speak as if it is not inevitable that any intelligent life form would not run into the same problems that we have, that somehow (if there is other intelligent life out there) we are the only beings who would have made mistakes along the way. I do not believe that is a justifiable assumption. If other intelligent beings are out there I think it is reasonable to assume that they, too, would have encountered the same problems. They, like us, would have religion, nationality, morals and race as a cause for war. They, like us, would have technologies that contribute to problems with their own ecosystem. They, like us, would have to tackle overpopulation. They, like us, would have humanlike frailities such as greed, envy, malice. They, like us, would have despots, terrorists, zealots, slavery, rape, murder, drugs, serial killers, prostitution, poverty, political parties, religious sects, revolutions and contentious political strife. Just as they, like us, would probably have the capacity for great things, like love, art, science and philosophy. Certainly, if they are sufficiently more advanced than us to know about us much less to be able to visit our planet, it is conceivable that they would have solved many of the problems that we face now (and they no doubt faced at one time). But by the same token, they most likely would be facing their own problems, problems that we no doubt will likely face in the future.
My point is that you speak with a certainty that screwing up everything is a problem restricted only to humans on Earth. I contend that it's probably more of an intergalactic trait of intelligent life.
"What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?" - Richard P. Feynman