tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743365011632433837.post6151110458666873191..comments2023-07-19T02:46:53.997-07:00Comments on The Screw: PocahAvatarAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03571960752358483715noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743365011632433837.post-21236928264518677992010-01-05T20:24:13.540-08:002010-01-05T20:24:13.540-08:00But how far away is Pandora? You can't just ma...But how far away is Pandora? You can't just make the assumption that we could conceivably make it 'there' when 'there' doesn't even exist! The technologies may exist, but does that mean that the Pandorans have to be at a level of backwards tribalists? No. They, as you said, would probably be at similar levels to us. It's so boring to see the same thing over and over; tribal aliens and super-advanced aliens. Let's see some middle ground! Like we meet halfway, both exploring the galaxy. I don't know, just because modern science tells us that MIGHT be the conceivable case, doesn't mean FILM has to follow it. And it rarely does - you know that.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03571960752358483715noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-743365011632433837.post-4773668662058395902010-01-03T06:48:46.508-08:002010-01-03T06:48:46.508-08:00"I would also like to point out that aliens i..."I would also like to point out that aliens in films are always one of two things: either a) they vastly outdo Earthlings on the level of technology or b) are completely primitive."<br /><br />While your point is correct, I don't believe it to be a fair criticism: ongoing scientific debate (unfortunately, I have no good links on the topic) has come to more or less that conclusion.<br />The sketch of the argument is as follows: take the human race as it is now, with today's level of technology. If we met an alien race tomorrow morning, it would be because they're capable of interstellar flight. Obviously, they have more sophisticated technology than we do; the question is how much more so? The argument asserts that the measure of this sophistication is distance: more advanced technology should allow longer distances to be traveled. Thus races close to our level of technology who have come to visit us should be physically closer by -- which means we should already have seen the electromagnetic mess they'd be throwing into the sky. That we haven't seen such emissions implies that there are no nearby civilisations capable of emitting them (if I had a decent link, I could tell you how far away the aliens aren't). Any alien intelligence must then be visiting from bloody far away -- and is thus far more advanced than we are.<br />The same argument applies in reverse: if we made our first halting attempts at interstellar spaceflight, we'd be stuck nearby, and thus anyone we find would be close by. If we don't already know they exist, they don't use EM waves, and thus are primitive compared to us.<br /><br />(As a note on relevance, it's worth noting that many of the technologies shown in Avatar could, optimistically, be available to us within a century; in the big picture, the humans in Avatar are at about the same level of sophistication as we are today.)Justinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03215887717524174071noreply@blogger.com