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A comment on SETI spots dozens of new mysterious signals emanating from distant galaxy. Parent comment

Re:SETI spots dozens of new mysterious signals emanating fro... by stcredzero on Thursday September 13, 2018 @05:14PM (#17982668)
This is for much the same reason that we could transport everything in our civilization by people carrying things around on Segways, but we don't, because why would we deliberately choose something suboptimal?

In some high profile military simulation exercises, the "Iran" side used motorcycle couriers to side-step the "US" advantage in signals intelligence. Perhaps other civilizations which manage to survive know something that prompts them to use highly directed, highly efficient spread spectrum technologies which are very hard for us to detect?

Perhaps the universe is much more dangerous for intelligent beings than we know in our youthful naivete as a species?

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Re:SETI spots dozens of new mysterious signals emanating fro... by abecedarius on Thursday September 13, 2018 @07:21PM (#17983575)
Besides emissions security, perhaps there's the equivalent of "never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of mag tapes" (with, say, a lattice of atoms of different types instead).
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Re:SETI spots dozens of new mysterious signals emanating fro... by bredren on Thursday September 13, 2018 @06:43PM (#17983367)
Perhaps other civilizations which manage to survive know something that prompts them to use highly directed, highly efficient spread spectrum technologies which are very hard for us to detect?

Perhaps the universe is much more dangerous for intelligent beings than we know in our youthful naivete as a species?

This is terrifying.

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Re:SETI spots dozens of new mysterious signals emanating fro... by robterrell on Thursday September 13, 2018 @10:57PM (#17984396)
"The Three-Body Problem" (& its sequels) are a fantastic exploration of this terrifying idea.
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Re:SETI spots dozens of new mysterious signals emanating fro... by webnrrd2k on Thursday September 13, 2018 @08:40PM (#17983922)
I don't think it's really worth considering as a realistic reason for societies choosing suboptimal technologies, but maybe some sort of Skynet scenario is possible, or something more like Frank Herbert's Butlerian Jihad[1].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad

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Re:SETI spots dozens of new mysterious signals emanating fro... by JohnJamesRambo on Thursday September 13, 2018 @08:54PM (#17983975)
"had been a semi-religious social upheaval initiated by humans who felt repulsed by how guided and controlled they had become by machines:"

Boy, that rings true right now. I kind of hope that happens.

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Re:SETI spots dozens of new mysterious signals emanating fro... by smegger001 on Friday September 14, 2018 @06:16PM (#17991487)
Yeah in the books the universe life is kinda shitty for tens of thounsands of years because of the restrictions on "thinking machines". It is pretty much a blanket ban on much above a 80s level non networked pc. Anything that breaks it is pretty much black market good or used an excuse for military take over by a stronger feudal house. All automation pretty much requires a human in the loop. Also any machine a "in a image of a man is banned" also pretty much a prosthetics will get the owner killed. The Dune universe is a dystopic hell hole for anyone not a member a noble house or an administer for Chom mega-corp.
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