> What is "now"?
"by now" means at some time before the present.
I'm just pointing out an alien encounter is not ruled out by physics. I'm not advocating for societal resources to be diverted to prepare for it.
You mention some well-known, difficult problems. Does their existence mean no one should ever talk about anything else?
I'm not sure why you get involved with a conversation just to point out that wars and climate change are happening. Everybody already knows that. I'm taking a little time out to comment on various topics here, as you seem to be doing too.
Anyway, if you're trying to encourage people to spend time on finding solutions to those problems, I'm listening. What's your proposal?
Sorry if I got you on the wrong foot. I was merely generally rambling, not critcizing you personally or your point. Of course it's fine to discuss this, just like it's fine that people discuss pokemon or cool jazz (who am I to judge). I could have posted this anywhere in the discussion tree. I'm merely a little fed up when some tech folks make it sound like this should be top priority for humankind.
Of course you're right about the physics.
And I don't have solutions to the hard problems either. They are hard for a reason.
Ah ok, thanks for clarifying. I certainly don't think it should be a top priority either, partly because of the low subjective probability, but mostly because it would be an outside context problem (excession) - it's impossible to prepare for an event whose implications we can't bound
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excession#Outside_Context_Prob...