🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2826@pt.cs.cmu.edu> dep@cat.cmu.edu (David Pugh) writes:
>You may be half right, though -- it may be the case that any race "advanced"
>enough to make contact over interstellar distances always ends up destroying 
>itself (either with nukes or something worse). Suppose, for example, that it
>is possible to build a weapon that would kill everyone on the planet...

Could be done now, probably, if one of the superpowers wanted to spend enough
money and effort on it.

>... something like this may happen in the next 20 years ...

Don't forget that if things had happened differently, we might already have
a small lunar colony.  Based on our own experience, it would seem that a
species acquires space travel and planetary-sterilization capability at
about the same time, so it's anybody's guess which would become a major
factor in species survival first.  This isn't very satisfactory as a
*universal* explanation for the lack of visitors.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu