Comment by Psychohistorian4 on Epilogue: Atonement (8/8) · 2009-04-04T23:20:00.000Z · LW · GW

This is, perhaps, obsolete by now.

That said, there seems to be a serious reasoning problem in assuming that this is a permanent solution. A species capable of progressing from Galileo to FTL travel in what, 30 years, seems like given another few centuries (if not much, much less) would easily be able to track down the remainder of both alien civilizations via some alternate route.

Consequently it seems like a massive sacrifice to delay the inevitable, or, at least, a sacrifice with highly uncertain probability of preventing that which it seeks to prevent. Not to mention the aliens would be rather unlikely to give humans any say in what happened after this interaction. The point about them being harder to fool is also probably true.

Perhaps I fail to understand the science, which I doubt is the issue. Perhaps flawed reasoning was intended by the author? I have to admit I was rather in agreement with the adminitrator.