Damn Stephen Hawking and the chair he rode in on...

Also, any species advanced enough to have built a magical FTL drive will likely have mastered the technology of building habitats in space anyway, so why the need to conquer planets?

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Originally Posted by Steely Glint

Also, any species advanced enough to have built a magical FTL drive will likely have mastered the technology of building habitats in space anyway, so why the need to conquer planets?

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Hell, they'd discover like we have that low gravity is awesome and if you're adapted to a low-g environment then trying to invade a high-g planet is a true pain in the ass.

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Originally Posted by Illusions

Source

Bolded what interests me for starting this.

This has been circulating for a bit now, its even reached some local newspapers. The main problem comes from what I just experienced a few minutes ago. To the average person, Stephen Hawking's opinions on science rank pretty highly, and when he affirmatively states a belief in something, its taken as the gospel truth until someone else undeniably proves him wrong. Which is problematic. We've had movies depicting alien invasions for decades now, but we've also had movies where they're friendly, helpful, or at least not out to murder us en masse and plunder our planet for resources. Thank you Stephen Hawking for elevating the latter (the murdering and plundering en masse part) in the eyes of the average person as to what will likely happen if we ever cross paths. Thank you so much for this misguided opinion of yours. Right now I'm not even going to detail the logistics of why an alien civilization capable of interstellar travel would be uninterested in pillaging Earth for resources as I'd really like to hear what your opinions are on this.

He's done many wonderful things for science in general, however I would've hoped that someone as intelligent as Stephen Hawking would be able to understand and have some concept of the weight his opinions and statements have for people. :sour:

Also if anybody finds the thread title too crass feel free to PM a mod about it. :o

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I don't know about murdering, but I don't have the least objection to a worry about plundering. Yeah we have a problem with "single comparative sample" but what we see on Earth is a tendency for life to spread out and fill any environmental niche it can access, and sentience on our part hasn't seemed to cause any significant decrease in this behavior. In fact, we use it to adapt both ourselves, and the environments we come across, so we can spread into them.

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Originally Posted by Steely Glint

Also, any species advanced enough to have built a magical FTL drive will likely have mastered the technology of building habitats in space anyway, so why the need to conquer planets?

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Again, you're right, unless FTL drives are as easy as the combustion engine and no one quite figured it out yet..

He's also making a pretty important psychological judgement that is also unfounded —*that a society advanced enough to travel across space (which would take generations unless they had some kind of FTL technology) wouldn't also have a sense of morality or simple intellectual curiosity. That they would just be resource-hungry slugs after our water and sweet, sweet gravel.

Mmm, gravel...

Spoiler:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2009/...h_shouts_simms

SHOUTS & MURMURS
ATTENTION, PEOPLE OF EARTH
by Paul Simms
SEPTEMBER 21, 2009

e are on our way to your planet. We will be there shortly. But in this, our first contact with you, our “headline” is: We do not want your gravel.

We are coming to Earth, first of all, just to see if we can actually do it. Second, we hope to learn about you and your culture(s). Third—if we end up having some free time—we wouldn’t mind taking a firsthand look at your almost ridiculously bountiful stores of gravel. But all we want to do is look.

You’re probably wondering if we mean you harm. Good question! So you’re going to like the answer, which is: We mean you no harm. Truth be told, there is a faction of us who want to completely annihilate you. But they’re not in power right now. And a significant majority of us find their views abhorrent and almost even barbaric.

But, thanks to the fact that our government operates on a system very similar to your Earth democracy, we have to tolerate the views of this “loyal opposition,” even while we hope that they never regain power, which they probably won’t (if the current poll tracking numbers hold up).

By the way, if we do take any of your gravel, it’s going to be such a small percentage of your massive gravel supply that you probably won’t even notice it’s gone.

You may be wondering how we know your language. We are aware that there’s a theory on your planet that we (or other alien species from the far reaches of the galaxy) have been able to learn your language from your television transmissions. This is not the case, because most of us don’t really watch TV. Most of our knowledge about your Earth TV comes from reading Zeitgeisty think pieces by our resident intellectuals, who watch it not for fun but for ideas for their print articles about how Earth TV holds a mirror up to Earth society, and so on. We mean, we’ll watch Earth TV sometimes—if it happens to be on already—but, generally, we prefer to read a good book or revive the lost art of conversation.

Sadly, Earth TV is like a vast wasteland, as the Earthling Newton Minow once said. But, for those of you who can understand things only in TV terms, just think of us as being very similar to Mork from Ork, in that he was a friendly, non-gravel-wanting alien who visited Earth just to find out what was there, and not to harvest gravel.

Speaking of a vast wasteland, you might want to start picking out and clearing off a place for our spacecraft to land. Our spacecraft, as you will see shortly, is huge. Do not be alarmed; this does not mean that each one of us is that much bigger than each one of you. It’s just that there were so many of us who wanted to come that we had to build a really huge spacecraft.
So, again, no cause for alarm.

(Full disclosure: each of us actually is much bigger than each of you, and there’s nothing we can do about it. So please don’t use any of your Earth-style discrimination against us. This is just how we are, and it’s not our fault.)

Anyway, re our spacecraft: it’s kind of gigantic. The deceleration thrusters alone are sort of, like . . . well, imagine four of your Vesuvius volcanoes (but bigger), turned upside down.

We don’t want to hurt anyone, so, if you could just clear off one continent, we think we can keep unintended fatalities to a minimum. Australia would probably work. (But don’t say Antarctica. Because we’d just melt it, and then you’d all end up underwater. Which would make it virtually impossible for us to learn about your hopes and your dreams, and your culture, and to harvest relatively small, sample-size amounts of your gravel, just for scientific study.)

A little bit about us: our males have two penises, while our females have only one. So, gender-wise, if you use simple math, we’re pretty much identical to you.

And, as far as protocol goes, we’re a pretty informal species. If you want to put together a welcoming ceremony with all your kings and queens and Presidents and Prime Ministers and leading gravel-owners, that’s fine. But please don’t feel like you have to.
Technically, it would be possible for us to share our space-travel technology with you, so that you could build a spacecraft and travel to our planet also. But, for right now, it just feels like it would be better if we came to your place.

Speaking of gravel, one thing we can’t tell from our monitoring of Earth is how your gravel tastes. It’s just something we’re curious about, for no real reason. Is it salty? It looks salty.

Maybe you could form a commission of scientists/gravel-tasters to look into this and let us know. Just have them collect all the gravel you have and put it in one big pile. (There are some pretty big empty parts of Utah, New Mexico, and Russia that might be good spots for such a large gravel pile, but that’s just an F.Y.I.)

Then, if you could have your top scientists/gravel-tasters go through this gravel pile, tasting each and every piece, that would be great. Also, if it’s not too much of a hassle, have them put all the saltier-tasting pieces in a separate pile.

Anyway, that about wraps up this transmission! Looking forward to seeing you very soon. (Sorry we couldn’t have given you more notice, but we didn’t want you Earth people going crazy and looting stuff and having sex in the streets out of panic about losing all your delicious gravel, which is something that is definitely not going to happen, because, when it comes down to it, what is gravel really but just a bunch of baby rocks?)

Our E.T.A. on Earth is sometime in the next four hundred and fifty to five hundred years, which we know is a blink of an eye in your Earth time, so start getting ready! Let’s have fun with this.
Yours,

A Species from a Galaxy You Haven’t Even Noticed Yet

P.S.—We saw that you sent some people to your moon recently. Good job! But, just to let you know, don’t waste your time with the moon. There’s no gravel there. We already checked. ♦


Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2009/...#ixzz0mFwRAFni

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Originally Posted by Tempus Vernum

I'm not going to bother addressing that kind of hypothetical physics.

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But your response to the habitable planets query is wildly hypothetical biology. Interesting.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

He's also making a pretty important psychological judgement that is also unfounded —*that a society advanced enough to travel across space (which would take generations unless they had some kind of FTL technology) wouldn't also have a sense of morality or simple intellectual curiosity. That they would just be resource-hungry slugs after our water and sweet, sweet gravel.

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Is that kinda like how people advanced enough to split the atom would certainly have enough morality not to engage in bloody wars of imperial conquest, or conduct mass-exterminations of those whose opinions are different than theirs? :|

Really, if there's one thing that humanity has conclusively proven, it's that better technology doesn't make better people.

I actually think we are better. When we invade countries, most of us don't rape and slit the throats of random women anymore (except in central Africa). We hold [often fruitless] to address issues of planetary importance. We engage with massive negotiations to limit/disarm the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

We've done horrible things, but over time we've become aware of it and larger portions of humanity have tried to avoid doing abjectly terrible things.

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Originally Posted by CitizenCain

But your response to the habitable planets query is wildly hypothetical biology. Interesting.

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There's a difference though in that hypothetical biology is at least possible without having to discover brand new fundamental principles in organic chemistry (like when the early Earth had air we couldn't even breathe there was plenty of anaerobic activity going on for example). The idea that our air might have the wrong mix of gases for an alien biology isn't that far fetched.

Hypothetical physics on the other hand almost always requires some kind of handwave or ass pull.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

I actually think we are better. When we invade countries, most of us don't rape and slit the throats of random women anymore (except in central Africa). We hold [often fruitless] to address issues of planetary importance. We engage with massive negotiations to limit/disarm the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

We've done horrible things, but over time we've become aware of it and larger portions of humanity have tried to avoid doing abjectly terrible things.

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Fun fact: the US isn't the only nation with the ability to split the atom. Russia, China and Pakistan are all members of the nuclear club... and don't adhere to "our" standard of morality, by any stretch of the imagination. But they making exciting new discoveries in the fields of torture and techniques for silencing political dissent.

Yeah, but they aren't planning to commit genocide and conquer the earth to consume all of our precious gravel, are they?

Well, they claim they aren't... but they do lie a lot. And some of their food *is* pretty salty, so maybe it's a strategic possibility we should be paying more attention to.

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Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy

I don't know about murdering, but I don't have the least objection to a worry about plundering. Yeah we have a problem with "single comparative sample" but what we see on Earth is a tendency for life to spread out and fill any environmental niche it can access, and sentience on our part hasn't seemed to cause any significant decrease in this behavior. In fact, we use it to adapt both ourselves, and the environments we come across, so we can spread into them.

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This sets up a problem though. If they are so numerous that they need to plunder every planet they come across, then we can't hide from them like Hawking suggests. If they aren't that numerous, then there are still plenty of other more easily attainable resources out there.

My other problem is that if you have the resources and technology for interstellar travel, you've very likely developed the resources and technology to produce any other resource you might need, or at least to get to a place that isn't inhabited.

I don't see Hawking as being wrong in postulating that a meet up between our species might go over like the meeting of the Native Americans and the Colonists, but I'm not exactly sure plundering for resources would be their primary goal of coming here.

Consider it from our perspective. What would be the point to raiding a whole planet inhabited by sentient and sapient beings simply for their resources? How would there be no alternatives?

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Originally Posted by Illusions

Consider it from our perspective. What would be the point to raiding a whole planet inhabited by sentient and sapient beings simply for their resources? How would there be no alternatives?

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Water? Sure, you can make water from raw resources but it's an extremely energy intensive process.

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Originally Posted by Illusions

Consider it from our perspective. What would be the point to raiding a whole planet inhabited by sentient and sapient beings simply for their resources? How would there be no alternatives?

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From our perspective, it's rarely been about "need." Columbus didn't discover America because he needed Lebensraum, Africa wasn't colonized because Europeans needed negros, and the British didn't conquer the globe because they needed somewhere to send their hideously ugly women. It was based on desire.

For all we know, humans make great pets, or are a tasty source of protein, or are really amusing because many of them treat their women as equals. Or Earth is just a really pretty paradise planet compared to all the others... and human civilization must be wiped out because it's blocking the view.

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Originally Posted by Being

Water? Sure, you can make water from raw resources but it's an extremely energy intensive process.

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Uh, no, actually it's exactly the opposite. Universe's most abundant element + heat + oxygen. It is, in fact, a spontaneous process because it doesn't require a whole lot of energy.

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Originally Posted by Being

Water? Sure, you can make water from raw resources but it's an extremely energy intensive process.

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I think you should do some research there. Also on an energy scale of no energy to the energy it takes to travel interstellar distances in a reasonable time-frame, where do you think making water ranks?

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Originally Posted by CitizenCain

Uh, no, actually it's exactly the opposite. Universe's most abundant element + heat + oxygen. It is, in fact, a spontaneous process because it doesn't require a whole lot of energy.

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The energy intensive part of the process is generating (or scooping up) the free hydrogen and oxygen required.

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Originally Posted by Illusions

I think you should do some research there. Also on an energy scale of no energy to the energy it takes to travel interstellar distances in a reasonable time-frame, where do you think making water ranks?

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How much hydrogen and oxygen can your ship scoop up between Alpha Centauri and here?

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Originally Posted by Being

How much hydrogen and oxygen can your ship scoop up between Alpha Centauri and here?

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67 billion metric tonnes. Even between galaxies, there are unimaginable quantities of free gases.

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Originally Posted by CitizenCain

67 billion metric tonnes. Even between galaxies, there are unimaginable quantities of free gases.

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Average hydrogen density in space is about 0.1 atoms per cm3.

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Originally Posted by Illusions

This sets up a problem though. If they are so numerous that they need to plunder every planet they come across, then we can't hide from them like Hawking suggests. If they aren't that numerous, then there are still plenty of other more easily attainable resources out there.

My other problem is that if you have the resources and technology for interstellar travel, you've very likely developed the resources and technology to produce any other resource you might need, or at least to get to a place that isn't inhabited.

I don't see Hawking as being wrong in postulating that a meet up between our species might go over like the meeting of the Native Americans and the Colonists, but I'm not exactly sure plundering for resources would be their primary goal of coming here.

Consider it from our perspective. What would be the point to raiding a whole planet inhabited by sentient and sapient beings simply for their resources? How would there be no alternatives?

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If they're here, then they're spreading beyond their base ecological niche. So much is obvious. The only parallel we have is life here on Earth, which tends to aggressively exploit any ecological niche it can shove itself into. Intelligence itself, at least on our level, is plainly insufficient of itself to stop this behavior because, well, we haven't. And even if it were, again, we're talking about them being here, which means that yes, they are spreading in some degree, so they plainly haven't overridden that behavior anyway. And if they're spreading across space, they've plainly thought of at least a few tricks we can't realistically engineer yet, which is just never a thing to inspire a sense of security. Given this, I don't see how a cautionary comment is particularly out of line.

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Originally Posted by Being

Average hydrogen density in space is about 0.1 atoms per cm3.

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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...8/ai_17223636/

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Originally Posted by CitizenCain

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...8/ai_17223636/

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That source doesn't state the density of clouds.

This one does,

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/DaWeiCai.shtml

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"On average, the density of matter in the space between the 10^11 stars of the Milky Way is 0.1 neutral hydrogen atoms (H) per cubic centimeter."

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After Reading Only the OP and the first few Page 1 responses, I have 2 cents to share:

There's two problems with Hawkings warning:
#1. There are no resources here on Earth that are not plentiful practically everywhere else near and far. Except maybe our brand of life. I could make up a scifi story where something like that might be worth conquering for, but it would be a stretch.

#2. He assumes aliens will be like us in their behavior and in their resource needs. The latter is irrelevant per #1 above. The former is a serious mistake but it could go either way. Aliens could be murderous xenophobes. They could also have Jesus like compassion and empathy. Or they could have such different minds that we could never understand each other, which might turn out badly for us. Its impossible to know before you actually find aliens, and of course by then its probably too late.

So the sensible question becomes: Assuming any aliens we contact are vastly technologically superior to us, is it worth the risk to contact them or should we make an effort to hide? (Can anyone say Fermi Paradox Solution #7?)

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Originally Posted by Nessus

Of course it does

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:haha:

Hawking has never made a case to hide, he has always been a strong supporter of getting the hell off this rock.

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"Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers ... I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space."

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Originally Posted by Being

That source doesn't state the density of clouds.

This one does,

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/DaWeiCai.shtml

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So, clearly someone doesn't know what an average is. Anyone else wanna jump in and edumacate our poor communist?

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

So the sensible question becomes: Assuming any aliens we contact are vastly technologically superior to us, is it worth the risk to contact them or should we make an effort to hide? (Can anyone say Fermi Paradox Solution #7?)

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And how would we go about hiding from a technologically superior, space faring race of aliens? I mean, there's only so much that running under the nearest tree will do to conceal us, you know.

Besides which, the warning doesn't mean we should hide or nuke any spaceship before it lands - it just means that should we be contacted by advanced alien life, we need to be careful about how we approach the situation, lest we meet the same fate as the Native Americans. For starters, we could not make the same mistake the Aztecs did, and welcome our future conquerors as gods (and make it easy for them to slaughter us, herd us onto reservations and steal all our gold tasty gravel).

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Originally Posted by CitizenCain

Well, how is he wrong?

“If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

Sounds airtight to me.

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That's what environmental suits are supposed to be :p

anyways, Hawkings is taking you all for a ride at your expense. I can already hear his machine-laugh.

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Originally Posted by CitizenCain

So, clearly someone doesn't know what an average is.

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How about you qualify that comment so I have something to respond to. :bulb:

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

Hawking has never made a case to hide, he has always been a strong supporter of getting the hell off this rock.

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We can hide from aliens and still spread the eggs. :)

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Originally Posted by CitizenCain

And how would we go about hiding from a technologically superior, space faring race of aliens? I mean, there's only so much that running under the nearest tree will do to conceal us, you know.

Besides which, the warning doesn't mean we should hide or nuke any spaceship before it lands - it just means that should we be contacted by advanced alien life, we need to be careful about how we approach the situation, lest we meet the same fate as the Native Americans. For starters, we could not make the same mistake the Aztecs did, and welcome our future conquerors as gods (and make it easy for them to slaughter us, herd us onto reservations and steal all our gold tasty gravel).

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I'm starting to think 'hide' was a poor choice of words. First and foremost hiding would mean not attempting to contact any alien species we observe. For example, if SETI picks up some signal and we determine its of intelligent origin. Assuming its broadcast and not focussed at us, we would hide by not sending our own signal to the source. The second way to hide would be to not send out powerful signals of our own, both intentionally as has been done in the past, or inadvertantly via mass media. This is the kind of hiding I was thinking of.

The third and most extreme way would be to not leave our star system and go out exploring. That decision may have already been made for us due to distance, but if we really really wanted to, we could go despite that obstacle (IMO).

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

The second way to hide would be to not send out powerful signals of our own,

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What signals?
http://ryanflood.files.wordpress.com...ht-410x410.jpg

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

After Reading Only the OP and the first few Page 1 responses, I have 2 cents to share:

There's two problems with Hawkings warning:
#1. There are no resources here on Earth that are not plentiful practically everywhere else near and far. Except maybe our brand of life. I could make up a scifi story where something like that might be worth conquering for, but it would be a stretch.

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How about slaves?
Can't mine those from gas clouds in space. ;)

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So the sensible question becomes: Assuming any aliens we contact are vastly technologically superior to us, is it worth the risk to contact them or should we make an effort to hide? (Can anyone say Fermi Paradox Solution #7?)

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I'd say no. (not worth the risk)
Talk of FTL's and alternative mineral gathering sites are fun and all, but he wasn't speculating on what they might want, and it's not really relevant.
If a superior species contacts us, they are going to have a reason for doing so, and the odds of those reasons being purely to our benefit, are long odds indeed.

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

What signals?
http://ryanflood.files.wordpress.com...ht-410x410.jpg

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Intentional radio signals directed toward aliens. Or inadvertant signals from our radio and television communication.

Not sure what you mean by the pic. The lights of Earth arn't visible very far out. Certainly not from another star. The most likely way they would find us is our radio broadcasts. Or by looking at the shit we put in our atmosphere. That's a dead give away...

whoosh

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Originally Posted by Crowheart

How about slaves?
Can't mine those from gas clouds in space. ;)

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Robots would be much better slaves than humans could ever possibly be. And if you have the tech to travel betweent he stars to pic up slaves, it seems you'd have the tech to build a decent robot.

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I'd say no. (not worth the risk)
Talk of FTL's and alternative mineral gathering sites are fun and all, but he wasn't speculating on what they might want, and it's not really relevant.
If a superior species contacts us, they are going to have a reason for doing so, and the odds of those reasons being purely to our benefit, are long odds indeed.

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What they might want is key, though. And fun to speculate.

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

whoosh

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Well then explain yourself. Damn. I'm not smart enough to guess what you mean. :mad:

Yeah, it's fun to speculate.

But since we couldn't know what they want, we can only know they want something, and is that something going to be something that benefits us or hurts us?
As long as we're trapped on this planet with no room to maneuver, why risk the real possiblity of them wanting something we aren't going to want to give up?

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

After Reading Only the OP and the first few Page 1 responses, I have 2 cents to share:

There's two problems with Hawkings warning:
#1. There are no resources here on Earth that are not plentiful practically everywhere else near and far.

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Completely true. CHON is not exactly rare. This is just a B movie trope to justify teh evil aliens. Darwinism apparently being unsuitable.

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Except maybe our brand of life.

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They hate our way of life! W had it right all along!

As an aside, I wonder if a crazy religion could govern aliens. As you note, the natural resources angle is hogwash. But what if aliens had an equivalent of "God gave us dominion over the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea, and those butt ugly mudpeople of planet three of the qrtzp system?"

Given that every US president publicly professes a deep obedience to God, is this so far-fetched?

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The former is a serious mistake but it could go either way. Aliens could be murderous xenophobes. They could also have Jesus like compassion and empathy. Or they could have such different minds that we could never understand each other, which might turn out badly for us. Its impossible to know before you actually find aliens, and of course by then its probably too late.

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This I seriously disagree with. If we agree that any advanced species would have arisen out of the hundreds of millions of years crucible of evolution (and I for one insist on that as a premise), then they would likely be cutthroat, combative and self-serving, like us. And they would have been pulled forward by an exceptional couple of percent that have no control over policy, also like us (meaning that the large majority of the species would be relatively dim individuals who can't see beyond the end of the own junk). In fact, isn't this almost by definition? Wouldn't it be reasonable to expect those traits from any evolved organism? I'd be willing to grant that a "space baby" species might have become sophisticated enough to have moved past that, but would such a species really give a crap? It would be like us fussing over ants.

Or alternatively there's a high degree of competition with other latently psychopathic species before one reaches such enlightenment, in which case the cutthroat evolution never stops, and nobody ever moves beyond it, no matter how advanced they become.

Either way, it seems very likely that any species who would be remotely interested in us would likely be narsty SOBs. Unless they have some do-gooder liberals working against their economic interests, that is.

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So the sensible question becomes: Assuming any aliens we contact are vastly technologically superior to us, is it worth the risk to contact them or should we make an effort to hide? (Can anyone say Fermi Paradox Solution #7?)

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I'd say Hawking is spot on. Parsimony argues to be as conservative as possible with the existence of our species, and defer first contact as long as possible. Not cowering, but to avoid it as long as that doesn't interfere with our progress. Certainly don't seek it out.

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Originally Posted by CitizenCain

And how would we go about hiding from a technologically superior, space faring race of aliens? I mean, there's only so much that running under the nearest tree will do to conceal us, you know.

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EM. It is by orders of magnitude our biggest footprint in the universe.

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Besides which, the warning doesn't mean we should hide or nuke any spaceship before it lands - it just means that should we be contacted by advanced alien life, we need to be careful about how we approach the situation, lest we meet the same fate as the Native Americans. For starters, we could not make the same mistake the Aztecs did, and welcome our future conquerors as gods (and make it easy for them to slaughter us, herd us onto reservations and steal all our gold tasty gravel).

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Heh, totally agree. Like the gravel allusion. :up:

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Originally Posted by Crowheart

But since we couldn't know what they want, we can only know they want something, and is that something going to be something that benefits us or hurts us?
As long as we're trapped on this planet with no room to maneuver, why risk the real possiblity of them wanting something we aren't going to want to give up?

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Why not? Because we might die? We're all going to die anyway. I say let's risk it. If they come and lay eggs in our chests, who cares? I'd rather die knowing than to quiver and hide in ignorance. :D:up:

I read first contact novella where the aliens were broadcasting signals with designs to build teleporter gateways. The humans who got the signal built the gateway and through it came attacking hordes. The humans managed to close the gate right quick but the aliens at that point knew where they were and sent an attack fleet the hard way over decades of transit time. That story's obviously been done, but the rub was what they were looking for. The alien attackers were actually AIs built by an alien race that lived entirely in VR and were more or less immortal. The AIs would go out looking for other intelligent beings and download all the experiences of individuals from those species and send the information back so the VR aliens could live those experiences. Unfortunately with humans, the download process was to lop off our heads and disintegrate them.

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

Why not? Because we might die? We're all going to die anyway. I say let's risk it. If they come and lay eggs in our chests, who cares? I'd rather die knowing than to quiver and hide in ignorance. :D:up:

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Curiosity killed the cat, eh?
Personally, I'd happily live in ignorance to avoid having eggs laid in my chest, but hey, to each his own..;)

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Originally Posted by ']['ear

They hate our way of life! W had it right all along!

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What I meant was the way life works on our planet, the various complex chemicals and reactions that we use, etc. It might yeild something of value for aliens.

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As an aside, I wonder if a crazy religion could govern aliens. As you note, the natural resources angle is hogwash. But what if aliens had an equivalent of "God gave us dominion over the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea, and those butt ugly mudpeople of planet three of the qrtzp system?"

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I would not be surprised at all.

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This I seriously disagree with. If we agree that any advanced species would have arisen out of the hundreds of millions of years crucible of evolution (and I for one insist on that as a premise), then they would likely be cutthroat, combative and self-serving, like us. And they would have been pulled forward by an exceptional couple of percent that have no control over policy, also like us (meaning that the large majority of the species would be relatively dim individuals who can't see beyond the end of the own junk). In fact, isn't this almost by definition? Wouldn't it be reasonable to expect those traits from any evolved organism? I'd be willing to grant that a "space baby" species might have become sophisticated enough to have moved past that, but would such a species really give a crap? It would be like us fussing over ants.

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You have a dim view of humanity and I hope you're wrong. :(

It may be that any species that doesn't find a way to be less aggresive and/or individually selfish can never get much beyond the point of being able to self-destruct. After all its not at all certain our civilization will survive the next 100 years.

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Either way, it seems very likely that any species who would be remotely interested in us would likely be narsty SOBs. Unless they have some do-gooder liberals working against their economic interests, that is.

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It seems true communism might be viable. It isn't for humans because we're as fucked up as you say, but consider the ants. Something like 75% of insect biomass is ant and that's because their supreme cooperative abilities offer tremendous survival advantage. Intelligent beings with that kind of cooperative ability would not necessarily be insanely aggressive/ selfish.

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Originally Posted by Steely Glint

Also, any species advanced enough to have built a magical FTL drive will likely have mastered the technology of building habitats in space anyway, so why the need to conquer planets?

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Fun?

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

What I meant was the way life works on our planet, the various complex chemicals and reactions that we use, etc. It might yeild something of value for aliens.

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Meh, I seriously doubt it. If that technologically advanced, presumably they'd have advanced biology and chemistry. After all, the new thing in medicinal chemistry to to program E. coli to synthesize drug precursors en masse. And thus instead of a 12 step synthesis with precursor A, you have a 6 step synthesis with precursor B. Much cheaper, higher profit margin. It's like what was done with humulin 25 years ago, but with multi-step engineering to get the biosynthetic pathway down.

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I would not be surprised at all.

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Ideological certitude is probably the single most dangerous invention of intelligence (well, maybe rationalization), and I can't imagine that it would be limited to humans. And no, this is not restricted to religion.

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You have a dim view of humanity and I hope you're wrong. :(

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Just a biologist. What baffles me is how somebody can understand evolution and think otherwise. See Nessie's Darwin quote. Pretty much nails it. And trust me, I've struggled long and hard to find something better. It just ain't there if you stick to the facts. :(

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It may be that any species that doesn't find a way to be less aggresive and/or individually selfish can never get much beyond the point of being able to self-destruct. After all its not at all certain our civilization will survive the next 100 years.

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Now that's a good point. One could consider it the advanced intelligence corollary of Darwinism: at a certain point, a successful intelligent species is too aggressive, and will inevitably destroy itself in one way or another. Even then Kzin could be considered an example. :)

But where is the bar set? Reasonable enough to escape self-annihilation does not mean reasonable enough to co-exist with another species. And consider "A mote in God's eye" and whether a different species could trust us enough. Only if they were vastly superior.

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It seems true communism might be viable. It isn't for humans because we're as fucked up as you say, but consider the ants. Something like 75% of insect biomass is ant and that's because their supreme cooperative abilities offer tremendous survival advantage. Intelligent beings with that kind of cooperative ability would not necessarily be insanely aggressive/ selfish.

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Sure, you could consider a communal system. Now, consider what ants do to other nests of the same species, much less other species. Darwinism still works, even if the unit is a community and not an individual. Consider what we do to other species. It is about 99% "what can I gain from this creature."


edit: that's right, two Niven allusions in the same post. :up: