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Author Topic:   Avoiding Aliens
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 28 of 62 (557579)
04-26-2010 10:15 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee
04-26-2010 7:12 AM


Jumped Up Chimp writes:
He's definitely been watching too much V! I've often thought that Hawking, although obviously very clever in his academic field, talks a lot of unoriginal, wishy-washy drivel.
It just doesn't seem to make sense to me that a species that is so advanced that it can roam the universe should need to lead a nomadic lifestyle, plundering resources from other planets. You'd think that they'd have learnt to re-cycle first. If not, let's send them a few bottle banks.
When the whities first made contact with the reddies, the reddies absolutely did not in their wildest imagination that there wasn't enough room in this world for them to live together.
Human nature is violent, especially towards outsiders. What makes you think other sentient species are somehow any better than us?
The other complaint I have of your linear way of thinking is you very linearly interpreted Hawking's quote instead of trying to see the deeper meaning in what he said.
For example, let's look at something I would say.
I believe that we shouldn't just release all prisoners from jail tonight. We need to rehabilitate them and release them one at a time back into our society. I don't want our streets suddenly filled with rapists and murderers. And I absolutely don't want my wife to suddenly be raped by these hords of anarchists.
Someone like you would then try nitpick what I said in a linear way by saying: But most people didn't go to jail for rape. So, clearly you're insane.
Did you get that? My paragraph there wasn't about rapists. There's a higher meaning to what I said than what is literally there.
And in the same way, Hawking's quote presented a higher meaning than what is literally there. He didn't literally mean that there will be nomadic alien races out to take over our planet. He only used that as one possible example of how contact with a more advance civilization might be a bad idea just like I used rapists as one possible example of how releasing all prisoners in one day is a bad idea.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee, posted 04-26-2010 7:12 AM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 32 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee, posted 04-27-2010 4:53 AM Taz has replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 29 of 62 (557580)
04-26-2010 10:23 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by Rahvin
04-26-2010 12:14 PM


Rahvin writes:
1) They're not likely to be able to get here easily. So far as we know, you can;t go faster than light, meaning even relatively "close" civilizations will take thousands of years or more to travel interstellar distances.
I actually had a long conversation with Rrhain about this. Again, let me remind you people that the native americans couldn't by any stretch of imagination understand how other civilizations could exist on the other side of the vast ocean and those civilizations actually got the means to get to the americas.
What you just pointed out is pretty much the same narrow-mindedness that brought the native americans to their doom.
The reason to come here will never be "resources." It's easier to acquire resources by far in an asteroid belt or on low-gravity or even by mining uninhabited worlds than by wasting resources in a war.
Since when was the last time a big war was fought strictly over resources? Again, this is narrow-minded thinking, the same kind that brought the native americans to their doom.
Now, none of this precludes aliens that, while intelligent enough to travel interstellar distances, are also stupid enough to waste resources by attacking another intelligent civilization with the capability to fight back when easier choices are innumerably common.
And you think spending months on a floating wooden box and getting scurvy was any better for the spaniards? Personally, I wouldn't have signed up for such an expedition. And yet, history proved that there were such men who were willing to go through all those ordeals for power.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by Rahvin, posted 04-26-2010 12:14 PM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 33 by greyseal, posted 04-27-2010 4:55 AM Taz has replied
 Message 38 by Rahvin, posted 04-27-2010 1:51 PM Taz has replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 34 of 62 (557624)
04-27-2010 10:37 AM
Reply to: Message 32 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee
04-27-2010 4:53 AM


JUC writes:
But I still hold the opinion, as others clearly do, that it just seems staggeringly unlikely that any aliens would need to come to the Earth for selfish reasons, when they could almost certainly find whatever they need much closer to wherever they come from.
Again, there were plenty of places for the Europeans to exploit that were a lot closer, like the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. And they did for a while.
Spending months on the high seas to reach new lands like Australia and Americas? Sending whole armies to Indo-China to conquer Vietnam? It took years and much resources to do all these. And yet, the Europeans did all of this despite the hardships, the same sort of inconvienience that you use to think why aliens wouldn't come to earth to exploit it.
I would like to think that if we found life today on one of the planets or moons in our own solar system, we already have the awareness to treat it with the utmost care and respect. I may be naive in that but I really do think that given a "fresh" planet with life we would make our best effort to look after it.
Perhaps we'd treat it with care at the beginning. But as we found out that life is plenty thoughout the galaxy, we'd probably exploit it the same way we did with our own life on earth.
quote:
I'm also hopeful that we will develop the technology and social attitudes necessary to clean up our own planet long before we have the technology to travel to distant stars. If we don't, we'll almost certainly destroy ourselves long before we have inter-stella technology. I think it is likely the same scenario would apply to any alien species.
Just like what single ladies say to single guys at social occasions, I'd say to you to dream on.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 32 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee, posted 04-27-2010 4:53 AM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has not replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 35 of 62 (557627)
04-27-2010 10:49 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by greyseal
04-27-2010 4:55 AM


greyseal writes:
To be fair, I don't think it was the native american's narrow-mindedness that brought them to their doom, I think it was the superior technology in terms of guns and armor, and the superior (at least in terms of taking advantage of the natural world) methods of the immigrants.
I didn't say it was the only reason that doomed them. It was a combination, but the first step towards sealing their own extinction was the fact that they couldn't possibly forsee how more advance civilizations from all the way on the other side of the world could come and subjugate them.
However, I also think Hawkings in this respect is talking bullshit. Why would you want to live at the bottom of a gravity well as deep as the Earths? Why would you want to saddle yourself with something less than 1% of the resources of the solar system? especially when it's full of pesky natives that have nuclear bombs and who can seriously give you a bad hair day when you try to subjugate them?
At the time when the Europeans started going around the world and colonized the already occupied areas, there were still plenty of places that were not occupied by anyone.
And right here you've stumbled upon the same BS argument that the other guy made.
The Europeans could have conquered the bulk of the Americas and left the natives alone well enough. But it was inevitable that they subjugated these peoples.
What I have in mind about space conquest is more in the line of them exploiting the resources of our solar system first. And then as time went by, they had more and more war fleets in the area. Earth was just right there. It would eventually be inevitable that they come and bombard the hell out of our cities.
Again, that's just one scenario how we could be destroyed. But what most of us fear are the billions of scenarios we haven't thought of, just like how the native Americans couldn't by any stretch of imagination have thought about being conquered by far more civilizations from the other side of the world.
By the way, recently researchers of extra-solar planetary systems came to the conclusion that the rocky nature of our solar system is the exception rather than the norm in the galaxy. It seems like everywhere they looked everything is gaseous instead of rocky.
If an advance alien wanted to exploit the resources of space, they'd probably stumble into our backyard sooner or later.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by greyseal, posted 04-27-2010 4:55 AM greyseal has not replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 41 of 62 (557719)
04-27-2010 5:43 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by Rahvin
04-27-2010 1:51 PM


Rahvin writes:
Since when was the last war fought because "Hey, there are some guys on the other side of the world who don't even know we exist and who aren;t sitting on any resources we can't find elsewhere and who are not affecting our lives in any way whatsoever, let's go smash em!"
Nazis. Most people don't know this. And the only reason I know this is because I'm a history freak. Very early on, Hitler was already ordering the planning of an invasion of North America.
And these were humans. Imagine what could potentially happen if a technologically advance civilization is taken over by a hand full of mad aliens.
Space is different. It's huge. Resources are not concentrated in controlled areas. If the Vulkans need more radioisotopes, they can simply get some from the nearest asteroid, with absolutely no reason to come and take ours. If the Trandoshans have completely exhausted their solar system's resources, they can still get more from the nearest asteroid in a neighboring star system far easier than they could by coming all the way over here to take ours by force. If Emperor Xenu holds a vastly different political ideology from ours, we still don't pose any sort of threat to his rule on the other side of the galaxy. Slave labor is easier to accomplish through cloning or (far better) robotics.
And since I'm a history freak, there is one thing I need to point out to you that mad rulers in history seldom had logical and legitimate reasons to conquer, enslave, and exterminate their enemies.
Khan even thought to depopulate China before his advisors told him the dead don't pay any tax.
You're using logical reasons why an alien race wouldn't come and smash us. And I commend you for that. What I fear aren't the logical ones, though. What I fear are the ones that have no other reason to smash us beside the fact that we're here.
Since when was the last time a big war was fought strictly over resources? Again, this is narrow-minded thinking, the same kind that brought the native americans to their doom.
Way to go in turning my words against me. The thing is you're still thinking linearly.
The native americans never imagined they were sitting on top of resources that the Europeans wanted. To them, these weren't resources at all.
If you're going to go this route, at least consider the possibility that there are resources in our solar system or even right underneath us that we haven't the capacity to consider them as resources at all.
The point that I have been making of which you people keep missing by nitpicking the examples I give is there are unforeseen factors that will ultimately play into the unlikely scenario of an alien invasion. You have the benefit of being able to look back at history and see all the obvious reasons why the Europeans would conquer the Americas and effectively exterminated entire cultures. But try to think outside your little box for once.
As far as the native Americans were concern, gold was not a resource they'd fight over. As far as the native Americans were concern, nothing by any stretch of their imagination could have exterminated their culture in less than a hundred years.
If we ever face an alien threat, it will probably be something we have never even imagined.
The native Americans understood bow and arrow. They never even saw a horse. Try to draw a parallel. You're discussing possible weapons of how an alien race could smash us to bits using your limited understanding of what weapons are.
Would you like to make the argument that the natives imagined guns and canons? Would you like to make the argument that the natives imagined horses?
The destruction of native culture was a long process, and was mostly the result of small colonies that later decided to either a) get rid of the natives so they could have more resources, or b) convert the natives for Jeebus.
a) is not an issue in space. There is no reason to colonize Earth. Their biologies are almost certainly to be completely incompatible with the conditions on Earth. They don't need to steal our gold or spices or land or water or radioisotopes or metals because it's easier to get all of those things elsewhere.
b) is a potential issue. Religious crusades override any bounds og logic or reasonable expenditures of resources. Religious zealots from spaaaaace are the only threat I would consider truly plausible.
Haha, you sound exactly like a little child. And here is why. Little kids tend to only learn from the literal part of what happened to them. They tend not to be able to apply a deeper interpretation of what happened.
Were you seriously thinking I was thinking that the aliens would come in a wooden ship like the spaniards?
I haven't claimed anything at all. I haven't speculated anything at all, unlike you. The only thing that I have been arguing for is for us to caution for things that are unexpected.
Like I said from the beginning, what drove the native American cultures to extinction were things wildly outside of their imagination. And what's probably lurking around the corner for us are things wildly outside our own imagination.
But continue on if you think we have it all figured out. I always love to see this attitude when some creationist comes in here and proclaims he knows all.
Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by Rahvin, posted 04-27-2010 1:51 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 42 of 62 (557723)
04-27-2010 5:54 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by Aware Wolf
04-27-2010 3:54 PM


Aware Wolf writes:
Well, I'm not sure I buy it. I don't doubt you're accurately portraying the limitations of these technologies as they exist today here on Earth, but we're talking about a super-advanced species and all that.
Right now as it stands, he is describing these technologies based on our limited understanding of what could be. I would bet that if we were back in the 50s he'd be describing future technology with vacuum tubes. He'd be imagining alien races coming to ships operated by vacuum tubes based computers.
You know, the I-know-all attitude.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by Aware Wolf, posted 04-27-2010 3:54 PM Aware Wolf has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 44 by Rahvin, posted 04-27-2010 6:58 PM Taz has replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 45 of 62 (557745)
04-27-2010 7:04 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by New Cat's Eye
04-27-2010 5:58 PM


CS writes:
Who would win in a fight between a werewolf and a vampire?
Depends. If you put one of each in a room together, of course the werewolf would win. But if you let them fight it out in the real world, my money is on the vampires.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 43 by New Cat's Eye, posted 04-27-2010 5:58 PM New Cat's Eye has seen this message but not replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 46 of 62 (557747)
04-27-2010 7:07 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Rahvin
04-27-2010 6:58 PM


Rahvin writes:
I'm also dismissive for the most part of the motivation an alien species would have to come here. So far as we understand, FTL is not possible. That means that there is no reasonable threat posed by cheap, easy, FTL travel like what we see in movies. The reasonable methods by which an alien race would come here involve extremely long travel times with a significant investment in resources, and an STL approach that we very well may see years in advance because of the thermal (and possibly other) emissions of the ship(s). That means a machine race, or cryonic storage, or massive generation ships. Like I;ve suggested previously.
It's funny how after several posts of me pointing out that you're describing how advance alien races would or would not travel through space based on our very limited understanding of space travel, you're still doing it. Again, if this was the 50s, you'd probably be describing everything in terms of vacuum tubes.
Do you have anything substantial to say, or are you simply going to continue with your wonderfully vague "lol, expect the unexpected" platitudes?
So, let me get this straight. I can't call out a know-it-all attitude? I'm sorry if I bursted your bubble.
Added by edit.
This thread is a wonderful demonstration of how star trek evolved over the years. The technologies in the original series looked cool to the people back then, but it sucks to us nowadays. Kirk was a sexist pig, but now Picard is an idealistic bleeding heart liberal. What's worse, when Harry Kim first met Janeway, he didn't know whether to address her as sir or mam... as if they're still debating this in the future. Memo: this debate has been settled for years now in the professional world. Sir for man and mam for woman are perfectly acceptable social norms.
You're doing the same thing as star trek producers. You're describing the future based on your current understanding of what's out there and stamp your foot on the ground and says "this is it, there's no other possibility".
I'd drop this whole thing if you had just added a line admitting you're only basing your claims on observations of our current time and technological level. But you're throwing these univeral claims out there without leaving room for anything unexpected. There's that magic word again.
Edited by Taz, : No reason given.
Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Rahvin, posted 04-27-2010 6:58 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
Taz
Member (Idle past 3291 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 62 of 62 (558460)
05-01-2010 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by Hyroglyphx
05-01-2010 9:14 AM


Re: Fearing fear itself
A request to admins.
Since there is no evidence that aliens exist, can we please close this thread? Apparently, there are some who do not want us to discuss hypotheticals.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by Hyroglyphx, posted 05-01-2010 9:14 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
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