You know what the word example means, right? The Earth was chosen as a subject for the example because it was thought the reader would have some knowledge of it. In this case, Earth represents a system with a lot of resources, that never-the-less, could not sustain indefinite exponential growth.
They do not assert that no space travel is possible. They do not assert that the only resources exploitable reside on one's home planet. They also do not assert that all aliens must come from Earth (another silly conclusion that could result from too literal a view of their choice of Earth as an analogy).
What they say is that it may be harder than Fermi-believers think, to convert star systems into exploration and expansion. Maybe only linear growth is possible, due to limits that we do not yet understand.
Space/Science » in reply to Focus
Just turn the knob to the right, a little bit (or in Phil's case, to the left).
The whole thread (56 posts)
- Aliens may have economic issues, too
- Think of seeds, not ivy+another solution to the paradox
- re: Aliens may have economic issues, too
- Maybe the answer is to use fewer resources...
- Interstellar travel is impossible, not just uneconomical
- False - Fusion sufficient
- Engineering Aliens - Think of Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein
- FAST interstellar travel has a lot of hurdles for us at present
- We put our human limitations on any possible aliens.
- Not trying to
- re: Not trying to
- But what if that one species showed up a long time ago and left?
- Like I said, interstellar travel is impossible
- re: Not trying to
- Not trying to
- We put our human limitations on any possible aliens.
- FAST interstellar travel has a lot of hurdles for us at present
- re: Aliens may have economic issues, too
- Speculative
- re: Aliens may have economic issues, too