On 2023-12-19 17:56, Michael Galea via talk wrote: [snip]
The one that goes through my mind is: A space alien comes to earth and lands. And we run up to the S.A. and say "Thank God you're here! You've got to help us. We got this message from space? And we decoded it? And it was the plans for a giant computer? And we built it? and turned it on? And it took over the world and made us all its slaves? And it's cruel and our lives are horrible and you've got to do something!!" So the space alien says "Well, let's see the message." And it reads the message and says "This is a recipe for butterscotch chip muffins. What have you been doing?"
See "A for Andromeda" circa1962, written by Fred Hoyle and John Elliot. Followed up by "Andromeda Breakthrough" by the same authors.
But the aliens weren't so nice in the Andromeda books. The aliens provide schematics and code for wonderfully advanced computers.. that replicate themselves and start a terraforming project on Earth!
Hmm.... You could classify humans as computers built from the plans in our DNA. We are terraforming the earth. Could the story be true. They got here a few hundred thousand or million years ago and converted some apes into self replicating geoengineering devices that just work very slowly. -- Alvin Starr || land: (647)478-6285 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||