Space Virus

[Nowhere]

By "definition" - no. And not that many (as) would want only their country to benefit.

[schmosef]

An alien coming to land on Earth would do one of two things;

1. head for the brightest sources of light at night or most built areas visible in daylight in order to make contact.

2. avoid #1 like the plague so as to avoid/delay contact until they're good and ready, if ever.

If #1 is the case then Canada has nothing to worry about

If #2 is the case then they'll land in the Yukon or Siberia and never be heard from until they're ready to do #1.

In either case Canada having an ET policy is moot.



Dr. Mordrid

There's no need to get snarky about Canada.

You think it would be hard for me to come up with a smart ass remark about why beings of higher intelligence wouldn’t choose America as the country in which to make first contact?

[Dr Mordrid]

Ain't my fault if you have >50% of North America but not even as many inhabitants as Califlakey.

Besides; I gave one darned good reason for Canada (the Yukon at least) to be the site of first landing if not first contact - wide open nothingness.

Comparative intellect? I give you Matrox's management

Dr. Mordrid

[Jon P. Inghram]

Besides; I gave one darned good reason for Canada (the Yukon at least) to be the site of first landing if not first contact - wide open nothingness.

Yeah, unless they go into orbit and just drop a tiny shuttlecraft down to say "Hi!" or else use a propulsion system that doesn't involve pushing mass out the back of the ship they're probably gonna land somewhere where leaving a scorched wasteland in their rockets wake won't make too many people pissed at 'em, assuming they're trying to be polite in the first place.

[Sasq]

Yeah, unless they go into orbit and just drop a tiny shuttlecraft down to say "Hi!" or else use a propulsion system that doesn't involve pushing mass out the back of the ship they're probably gonna land somewhere where leaving a scorched wasteland in their rockets wake won't make too many people pissed at 'em, assuming they're trying to be polite in the first place.

So they could probably land on Capital Hill, to a standing ovation then

[Dr Mordrid]

Why would they go to poor little Capital Hill, Vermont?

FYI: the US legislature is on Capitol Hill

Dr. Mordrid

[Sasq]

bah, I am still not even one coffee down yet, will worry about my spelling after I hit caffine critical mass

[Nowhere]

OK, this is becoming ridiculous, now some "particle physicist at the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois" tells basically the same.
Unfortunatelly, while he's apprently not into computer science, he's definatelly much more credible to the public than some potician :/

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/28/1254249&tid=160&tid=172&tid=1

[Nowhere]

You know, come to think about it, there is one possibility of "viral infection" - in the form of viral meme. Not only in the sense of religion, but also for example something like highly advamced type of blipvert - if we can already cause, by using images, epileptic attack in some of people or, by using special images, cause "malfunction" in the cognitive process (optical illusions), then perhaps there's a possibility that much more sophisticated messages, while looking normal, will induce some behaviour...
i wonder if they could be formed based only on our TV, etc. though

[cjolley]

You know, come to think about it, there is one possibility of "viral infection" - in the form of viral meme...

For example

It's already doing damage