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A comment on UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low. Parent comment

Re:UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly h... by admissionsguy on Thursday May 06, 2021 @04:53AM (#27060650)
The aliens might also be less intelligent than humans, but more advanced technologically due to the lead time or just higher cooperativity. "Dumb aliens" could be a refreshing premise for a sci-fi story.. although it lies on the same continuum as any ant-like intelligent collective, so it's nothing new after all.
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Re:UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly h... by suby on Thursday May 06, 2021 @05:18AM (#27060822)
It's a cool idea. I'd bet that it's unlikely for a sufficiently intelligent species (say one capable of creating machines to cross interstellar distances) to stay dumb, though.

Humanity is fast approaching the point where we can edit our genes or otherwise select for intelligence. Even the idea of creating non-human super intelligent agents of some sort is arguably within reach over the course of the next few hundred years.

I like to think that though the starting average intelligence for a given species might be lower than others, eventually we all wind up at the same place, either turning ourselves into or building some hypothetically (given the laws of the universe) maximally intelligent system.

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Re:UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly h... by T-A on Thursday May 06, 2021 @08:25AM (#27062156)
Here's a classic one:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3302567-pandora-s-planet

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Re:UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly h... by devoutsalsa on Thursday May 06, 2021 @06:12AM (#27061134)
Isaac Arthur made a video titled “Stupid Aliens”:

https://youtu.be/yXWe8g0zziw

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