Re: Fermi's Paradox and FTL drives

Gene Ward Smith wrote:
> If the sheer implusibility of FTL drives, given what we now 
> know, has not convinced you, you might want to ponder the 
> added weight it gives to Fermi's "paradox". If such a thing is 
> possible and can be expected to be discovered by any advanced 
> civilization, then we really would expect them to be showing 
> up. Aboul all that could slow things down would be wormholes 
> or Alderson Drives, etc, as a system. The standard warp speed 
> or 60 parsecs per hour or whatever drive doesn't really make 
> sense; there shouldn't be an upper speed limit.

	Why? That depends on HOW your FTL drive operates. That's one of the 
most nonsensical things you've posted, Gene. Even in the "barely 
believable maybe-handwaving with real physics" methods, the effective 
speeds range from nigh-infinite (you're here, you're there!) to 
"slightly over lightspeed), and if we're postulating "physics we don't 
yet have a clue of", you haven't a single reason to postulate that 
there is, or is not, a speed limit.


	And the Fermi paradox is a bunch of nonsensical handwaving, too. 
There's assumptions galore in that one, roughly as many as in the 
Drake equation, and the essential outcome is "Hell, we don't know, 
maybe there isn't another intelligent species in the universe, or 
maybe there's one around every habitable star."



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