Would any alien visitors be friendly?

Re: omg ive got an antennia in ma A$$!!!

Wasn’t that an episode of Futurerama?

 

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dunno...i have better things to do than sit on my a$$ and watch telly.

thats probably why your boil is festering !!!!!

 

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No need to be rude man.

 

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There is a fine line between rundeness and hummer .....................i was pretty dam' close but from my line of sight i was just in the hummer side......................and with a name like festering boil you have to see the amuzing side as well

 

so what are you saying road kill???................were gonna be invaded..............then there gonna turn all our women into s£x toys and make us chaps hammer an 80hr week in the mines!!!!

I hope your wrong dude.............not to look clever, but no alien wants to get stiched with my momma.....shed break 'em!! lmfao!!!!!

 

Did you have to quote the entire thing?

The ant/human slavery bit was just an example of how all societies regard outsiders as either a resource or a pain in the arse. Nazism, apartheid and patriotism are only extreme expressions of the racial intolerance we harbour within ourselves. It's genetic. Only a logical survival trait. If we didn't put the welfare of ourselves, our families and our immediate friends over the welfare of strangers then we would be less competitive in a very competitive world.

What I'm saying is that I don't think Alien visitors would have any respect for us. I doubt they would regard us as anything more than animals. Termites build homes. Spiders weave. Birds can fly. Tree's stand high. We don't hold any of them in reverence.

We assume that our intelligence will be important to them. What do we know of intelligence? Very little. We have never met anything more intelligent than ourselves although there are clear indications that intelligence is not peculiar to ourselves but advancing in many species on our planet. It may not be uncommon in the universe. A calculating brain might in fact be a natural outcome on all worlds bearing life. We have no idea how far we or other beings are capable of evolving intellectually. Intelligence of our level and indeed intelligence as a whole might not have any value to star travellers. They might have met thousands of strange quasi-intelligent life forms and think of us as nothing more than another freaky ugly thing which likes straight lines.

 

Evolution...

Roadkill said:

With the constant talk of evolution I'm surprised that this example came up. Ants do not use slaves in the same sense as human beings.

Y'see, ants and bees and things like that are parthenogenic clones of the queen ant/bee/thing. Same genetic code = same organism, as far as evolution is concerned. Hence, when the worker bee dies because it stung another insect, its genetic code still gets propagated. That's how the dying bees become a selective advantage; if the worker bee was a unique organism it would not be in its interests to defend the hive by dying.

This means that when ants kidnap other ant babies and use them as "slaves", which is a sort of a peculiar term, this phenomenon is actually more like an organ transplant than slavery. True, it is a forced organ transplant, like if someone stole your lung...

That's the problem with alien races, you see. Let's say that the alien race we meet up with is a hive organization like the noble ant. Since it doesn't matter if the worker alien dies as long as the population is kept up, they might do all sorts of things we would find terrible, like exposing their workers to harmful radiation, sending them to work in lethal environments, or building houses out of them. This might be a perfectly good survival strategy just like our collaborative society, but it would be pretty hard for us to understand... and this is only an example of one way in which an alien species might be weird.

 

the idea of "hive aliens" was addressed well in the "enders game" series of books. Not only might an alien race like this seem barbaric in its treatment of their own population but they may do horrible thing to humanity, not out of malice but a simple misunderstanding about our nature as genetic individuals. To a race structured like bees or ants the loss of an individual would be no more terrible than trimming a toenail and may assume we are the same.

i think this kind of misunderstanding is a more realistic fear than simply a race of evil, malevolent and war mongering aliens wandering the universe killing everything in their path.

but hey, we won't really know until they show up.

 

Err seems to me that aliens are likely to be pretty.. well.. you know 'alien'. What makes you all so sure that we will even recognise them when we see them? How do you defend yourself against a 30,000 km sphere of self organising organic molecules for instance? Evolution on earth tells us only about evolution on earth it's kinda hard to make assumptions about silicon based crystalline lifeforms that live around the molten cores of large asteroids.
As the universe is close to infinite in scale it seems that anything that does not violate the laws of physics is theoretically possible.

Aliens are alien FACT

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Dee Cee

 

im not sure saying "What makes you all so sure that we will even recognise them when we see them?" is really fair in this context. Since we do originate from earth its only natural our speculation will revolve around life as we see/understand it.

Its true that life could exist as "a 30,000 km sphere of self organising organic molecules" but when we leave (speculatively) what we understand as life on earth one could as easily talk about the potential of a race of planet sized unicorns that can shoot creamed corn out of their horns. As you said, in a nearly infinite universe, anything is possible.

My point is even though there is little agreement in this thread, one is the idea that if aliens exist they could easily be of a form unimagined by us. From what ive read here few people are claiming to know (absolutely) what they will be, we just need to give them a shape in order to talk about them. Its just a lot easier to discuss this in terms that we can imagine (relate to).

From a human perspective, at least, what shape an alien race takes is a lot less important than the effect contact with them might have on us. so i think your point misses the focus, in this thread at least.

just my opinion tho, i certainly don't speak for everyone.

 

Hey Buf

"friendly" is an English word and a human concept.
Not to recognise the implications of this when talking about 'aliens' just turns this thread into a form of (not very) intellectual masterbation

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Keep it up

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Dee Cee

 

DC,

this is a forum ... its always intellectual masturbation, thats what they do best. Doubly so in this case because the MOST we can do is speculate regarding aliens, no one has a leg to stand on when commenting on E.T.. Every single word is a guess.

 

I know, I'm just being difficult

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Let me screw on my geek hat.
My take on the deal...
We live in a four dimensional universe. There has been an awful lot of water pass under the cosmic bridge and I think it's nieve to assume that any species we encounter will be within our understanding.
The four dimensional universe is vast and I don't believe it's crowded with life. (Any luck yet SETI? How long has it been?) Two races meeting, that moment of first contact, would be a rare event. Lets factor in that forth dimension now. It is (I hope) reasonable to assume that tecnological species will continue to develop until they run out of science , imagination or the will to live. Or they may just kill themselves off as we seem intent to do.
So... (bear with me I seem to be rambling)
We can do no math (we don't have the data) but it seems reasonably to suggest that while we are able barely claw our way out of the gravity well, any aliens we meet will be way way beyond our understanding socially and technologically.
Arthur C Clarke put it in a nutshell
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
Having established a context lets try and address the topic.
"Would any alien visitors be friendly?"
If they choose to make themselves known then I think they would be. After all we would have nothing they could possibly want. These dudes would have the power to build their own planets so why ransack ours?
You may think that they would trash the earth because they enjoy that sort of thing. I've postulated already that life is rare in the universe. A species that cannot see the value in rare things never builds technology worth a shit. Curiosity is a survival instinct. For even a warlike advanced society would see the value in allowing us to exist. Thats not to say they may not mess us around a little.

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I believe on the whole that your "Traditional" Alien (i.e not the big ball of gas) would most likely in, order of preference.
1] Ignore us and we would never even know they existed
2] Ignore us but not hide the fact they exist (what have they got to worry about after all)
3]Study and possibly interact on a basic limited human level.
I honestly think anything else would be a waste of alien time and energy and I think that 3] is the very best we can hope for.

Is that more the sort of thing you were after buffys?
Dee Cee

 

Would alien visitors be friendly?? I don't know, but it's perfectly possible for there to be an alien base on the other side of the moon! I used to laugh at this idea, but nothing says that there isn't one.

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Well the thing to remeber about aliens is that they will have to endure many of the plantary problems and regional space problems that humans will have to endure, such as magnetic pole reversals, magnetic pole reversals are based on the rotational speed of a planet, and the density caused by gravity of hydrogen and helium that generate magnetic feild of planets(gas density of the planets core). the rotational speed of planets increase or has a higher rate of magnetic pole reversal the farther it is from the galaxtic center, or center of the spiral galaxtic arm, this means that planets closer in to the gravity centers have a more stable magnetic feild and less frequent plantary destruction, or planet destrubance by pole reversals and therefor have longer periods to develope organize life,Intelligence. the magnetic feild plays a crucial role in biological life no matter where it is in the galaxy, meaing that planets that posses intelligent life also have a magnetic feild. the influence of the magnetic feild determines the rate of intelligence, a faster motion of a magnetic pole will result in a higher rate of intelligence, square to this or equally inportant to this is the strength of the magnetic feild, which determins the rate of effect or influence that a magnetic feild has on the devloping intelligence of the life form on a planet.
planets in the gravity centers of the galaxy such as the sprial arm of our galaxy have greater quanities of hydrogen and helium, as well the have grater gravity complexity, this means that such a planet would have a stronger magnetic feild, with a slower motion of the magnetic poles, the earth would have a weak magnetic feild but a fast moveing feild. in each event regardless the rate of intelligence will increase before the occurance of a magnetic feild reversal, and at the time of magnetic feild reversal the life forms that inhabit the planet will exsperince the destruction of the developed civilzation by the same force that created it, the magntic feild.
understnding the role that the magnetic feild plays in the devlopment of intellegence, each planet in the galaxy that harbors life has a set time to develope, for aliens closer in to the center of the galaxy and its sprial arms the time of devlopment allowed by the natrual force of the magnetic feild is much longer, and effective, than that for earth of the outter planets of the galaxy that harbor life. for earth the poles reverse every say 5,000 to 7,000 ,or 10,000 years, inner planets could have twice as long.
regardless they like us must exsperince the magnetic pole reversal which as well threatens all life on their planet, if they do not gain the intelligence to determine before hand the event of magnetic pole reversal they will meet the destruction by the reversal and fail to make it to becoming space traveling aliens, to meet us. any alien to arrive and meet us will come from a civilization that has gained the intelligence to conqure a planetary event that is destructive, this with in itself tells us that they would be more advance that current mainstream earth people as we do not have the ablity to safe guard the earths population from such a destructive natural event.
in addtion to the event of magnetic pole reversal that occurs on every planet harboring life as all life is dependant of a magnetic feild for development, aliens would also exsperince the galaxtic changes of the various suns that form local groups of stars, and determine the chemistry and atomic stablity of different regions of the galaxy, making the destinct signture of life for their region. for earth life has been relative to our current chemistry for 27,000 years and there are about 9,000 years left of that chemical and atomic stablity of or region of the galaxy, given are solar systems speed of travel through are local group of stars, this means that in general the total span of human exsitance is equal to about 36,000 years, at which time the chemistry that makes humans possible in the galaxy will no longer exist. given this humans will have to master not only the magntic pole reversal but also the change in chemistry and atomic stablity, meaing that humans will have to find a suitable enviroment artifical of another planet ect.... to continue the humans race as a species. like wise a alien race in another part of the galaxy will have to learn to do the same.
Because local groups of stars are more closer togeather in the gravity centers such as the spiral arms there is a greater chemical stabltiy in those regions. This defines that in addtion to a more stable magnetic feild giving longer times before magnetic reversal alien planets closer to gravity centers also have stable chemistry and atomic stabity.
for us we got about 36,000 years, they have about 500,000 years of chemical and atomic stablity, that difference in chemical stabltiy gives them a greater chance of survial in a magntic pole reversal, with less biological adaption to make during the change increasing the chance of developed intelligence even furthur, it is with out doubt that intelligent alien life exist, and will come from the inner regions of the galaxys sprial arms.
the simple fact of chemical change due to aligenment of local star groups and various sun traveling through the galaxy makes it clear that aliens will travel in order to gain that stabity of chemistry, meain they will look to find regions of space that will harbor their chemistry making life for them possible. this fact of chemical stablity will compel them to travel the galaxy resulting in the discover of other life forms. because we can give a estaimat of 500,000 years before a chemical chnage for inner planets and solar systems, we can make a determination on when contact will or when or is going to happen, simply count back 500,000 years from to day, in our region that would have been say 13 times of chemical changes at our speed of travel through the galaxy, this means that from there beiing they are some 450,000 time older than us, (minimum). aliens had only say 15,000 years to make contact will a complexted life form on earth, this produces a high probality in reality that aliens could make contact, at anytime.
But due to chemical changes as we are located on the very outter edge of the galaxy this would be a remote satilte, or exploring vessal. at any rate the aliens envoled would be galaxtic traveling and with the abltiy to travel such, regions such as ours could only be worth visting for the contract and development of a space craft for traveling the cosmos, such as to another galaxy like Adromeda. here we offer the gravity completixty for a base in the far reaches of the galaxy.

Dwyane D.L.Rabon

 

I agree with hawking, any civilization with the means to inhabit earth wouldn't think twice about exterminating the human race any more than we would worry about stepping on a bug when we're walking around outside.

 

BigBlueHead

They also farm aphids. We have domesticated countless species. So the comparison between human slavery and insect slavery isn't just an in-species trait. It can be extended to foreign animals.

DeeCee

Why cross interstellar space at all? Why did our ancestors cross oceans. If we assume the galaxy is still young and intelligence is in part the ability to think ahead and plan for the future then Aliens might be crossing interstellar spaces to remove competition. Resources are not limitless. The galaxy is a jungle and no doubt partially explored frontier at best. Have you heard of Von Neuman probes. Self replicating robots that could be programmed to spread across space. An intelligent race might decide to send killer robots across the galaxy to kill off new intelligences. They might even home in on radio waves. That was a story by Greg Bear.

Life may not be rare in the universe. It seems pretty common on this rock. Raptors had curiosity. Grizzly bears too. Tigers have curiosity. Mostly about what your insides look like. You can't make such a generalised all encompassing statement and expect it to hold much weight. Ghengis Khan came within a whisker of comitting genocide when he conquered China. The oldest civilisation on Earth would have vanished. Luckily he chose to rule it instead and created the Khan dynasty. Aliens might not find our lifestyle and creature comforts so inviting. The most likely reason for crossing the stars would be colonisation.

It would seem it but as you say we don't have the data. Birds can fly and they have brains the size of peanuts. No polished metal wings and turbofans. Mother nature got around the problem without needing to involve super intelligence. Even insects learned to fly before plants invaded the land. What about planets with less gravity than Earth? Less of a gravity well. Much of our problems related to spaceflight are more related to politics than physics. During WW2 the Germans were producing thousands of V2 rockets capable of reaching space and launching a hundred a day at England. Creatures could evolve to live in space. Not with technology but compatible biology. Like invasion of the body snatchers. Ofcourse the most likely Alien we are ever to meet is a virus like in the Andromeda Strain. Panspermia or ships or robots or something else we can't imagine. It will come here for a reason and we can't disregard the possibility that reason will be unfriendly. What if they have enemies? Would they risk us joining their enemies or would they try to persuade us to join them? Perhaps with the unrevealed intent of dragging us into a bloody war if we say yes or destroying us if we say no. Life is harsh on Earth. The universe is probably harsher.

 

I think I remember the story your talking about.

Isn't it the one where a comet brings nanomachines to earth and the machines don't realise that there is intelegent life on Earth and end up transforming the planet so the aliens that sent the nanomachines can live on Earth. But in the process all the life on Earth is destroyed.

Hopfully that doesn't happen!!

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Absolutely. The story roadkill referred to is Forge of God by Greg Bear; the alien replicators use the mass of the Earth to make new replicators, and kill humanity as a way of ensuring that we could never threaten them at some future date.

If we meet an alien race that thinks in such ruthless objectivist terms we would not last very long.
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SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html

 

There once was an infant lost in the woods, crying its heart out, wondering why no one answered, drawing down the wolves...


The child, ravaged by wolves, falls quiet in the forest, and the long darkness is filled with an undisturbed silence.

The Forge of God.
by Greg Bear.