外星人造访是为了知识，而非资源Aliens Would Visit for Knowledge, Not Resources
Brett： 我想史蒂芬·霍金说过，向宇宙广播无线电波是一个错误，因为外星人就在那里，而且它们会像征服者一样。它们会为了我们的资源以及各种其他东西而想要占领我们的星球。
对于邪恶外星人前来抓我们的想法，你可以有几种回应。
第一种是：要想在无限的未来中不断进步，并拥有能让你穿越银河系的技术，就必须具备波普尔那样的知识观——也就是说，你能够自由地探索思想的空间，能够证伪各种假设，而且没有中央权威，没有施加于人的强力，因为这些东西会扼杀创造力。
要拥有一个创造力最大化的社会，你必须拥有自由，必须拥有自主权，因此你将拥有一个非暴力的社会。你将拥有一个把创造力本身视为目的的社会。
当我们遇到外星人时，我们不该指望它们是想要夺取我们资源的不道德混蛋，恰恰相反：它们会看着我们，心想我们真是原始野蛮。它们会觉得我们是道德上的侏儒，而且会想要教导我们。它们不会想把我们关进监狱或诸如此类。
知识是一个统一的整体。如果它们的物理学比我们先进得多——先进到能让它们接近光速，或利用某种怪异的广义相对论引力效应制造出虫洞，从而以超过光速的速度穿越太空——那么它们所有的科学家都会遥遥领先。它们所有的知识都会遥遥领先：它们的数学、它们的道德、它们的政治制度。
所以我们不必担心外星人。
而且，顺便说一句，我们也不必担心它们偷走我们的资源。它们不会说："啊，那里有个满是煤和水的星球。我们要把它夺过来。"
不，它们会拥有这样的知识：能够收集星系际空间中的氢，把它变成一座聚变反应堆，再用 3D 打印制造出它们想要的任何技术。
事实上，这或许是费米悖论的另一个答案。它们不需要离开自己的地盘，因为它们已经拥有完美维持自身的技术。
Naval： 它们拥有戴森球，可以收集所需的一切能量。它们可以收集所有的物质，创造它们想要的任何东西，还可以在 VR 空间里拥有它们想要的任何现实。
它们唯一缺少的，就是它们尚未拥有的新知识。
Brett: I think Stephen Hawking said that it was a mistake to broadcast radio waves out into the universe because the aliens are going to be out there and they’re going to be like conquistadors. They’re going to want to take over our planet for their resources and various other things.
There’s a couple of responses you can have to the idea of evil aliens coming to get us.
The first is that the only way to make progress into the infinite future and to have the technologies that would enable you to traverse the galaxy, is to have this vision of knowledge that Popper had—namely, that you are freely able to explore the space of ideas, able to falsify assumptions, and don’t have centralized authorities and force being used on people, which dampens down creativity.
To have a maximally creative society, you have to have freedom, you have to have liberty, and therefore you will have a non-violent society. You’ll have a society that values creativity as an end in itself.
When we encounter the aliens, we shouldn’t expect that they’re going to be immoral bastards that are going to want to take over our resources, but the opposite: They’re going to look at us and think what primitive savages that we are. They’re going to think that we’re moral midgets, and they’re going to want to teach us. They’re not going to want to put us in prison or anything like that.
Knowledge is a unified whole. If their physics are so much better than ours—which enables them to approach the speed of light or to use some weird general relativity gravity thing that creates a wormhole, so they can get through space faster than the speed of light—all of their scientists are going to be so much farther ahead. All of their knowledge is going to be farther ahead: their mathematics, their morality, their political institutions.
So we don’t have to worry about the aliens.
And, by the way, we don’t have to worry about them stealing our resources. It’s not like they’re going to go, “Ah, there’s a planet full of coal and water. We’re going to take it.”
No, they’re going to have the knowledge to be able to sweep up the hydrogen in intergalactic space and turn that into a fusion reactor and use 3D printing to create any technology that they want.
In fact, that might be another answer to the Fermi paradox. They don’t need to leave their local area because they’ve already got the technology to perfectly sustain them.
Naval: They’ve got Dyson spheres and they can gather all the energy they need. They can gather all the matter, they can create anything they want, and they can have any reality in VR space that they want.
The only thing that they would be lacking is new knowledge that they don’t have.