外星人会为知识而来，而非资源
布雷特：
我认为斯蒂芬·霍金说过，向宇宙广播无线电波是个错误，因为外星人会在那里，他们会像征服者一样。他们会想要接管我们的星球以获取资源和其他各种东西。
对于邪恶外星人来抓我们的想法，你可以有几种回应。
首先，要在无限未来取得进步并拥有能够让你穿越银河系的技术，唯一的方法就是拥有波普尔的那种知识愿景——即你能够自由探索思想空间，能够证伪假设，没有中央权威和对人民使用武力，这些都会抑制创造力。
要拥有一个最具创造力的社会，你必须拥有自由，你必须拥有自由，因此你将拥有一个非暴力的社会。你将拥有一个将创造力本身视为目的的社会。
当我们遇到外星人时，我们不应该期望他们会是不道德的混蛋，想要接管我们的资源，而是相反：他们会看着我们，认为我们是多么原始的野蛮人。他们会认为我们是道德侏儒，他们会想要教导我们。他们不会想把我们关进监狱之类的。
知识是一个统一的整体。如果他们的物理学比我们先进得多——这使他们能够接近光速或使用一些奇怪的广义相对论引力来制造虫洞，这样他们就能以比光速更快的速度穿越太空——他们所有的科学家都会远远领先。他们所有的知识都会更先进：他们的数学、他们的道德、他们的政治制度。
所以我们不必担心外星人。
而且，顺便说一句，我们不必担心他们偷走我们的资源。他们不会说：“啊，那里有一个充满煤炭和水的星球。我们要拿走它。”
不，他们将拥有能够扫荡星系际空间中的氢并将其转化为聚变反应堆的知识，并使用3D打印来创造他们想要的任何技术。
事实上，这可能是对[费米悖论](Fermi paradox)的另一个答案。他们不需要离开他们的本地区域，因为他们已经拥有了完美维持他们生存的技术。
纳瓦尔：
他们拥有[戴森球](Dyson spheres)，可以收集他们需要的所有能量。他们可以收集所有物质，可以创造任何他们想要的东西，并且可以在虚拟现实空间中拥有任何他们想要的现实。
他们唯一缺乏的将是他们尚未拥有的新知识。
Aliens Would Visit for Knowledge, Not Resources
The only thing they will lack is the knowledge they don’t have
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](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](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.