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

[Steely Glint]

The problem with any alien invasion scenario is to come up with a motive. There's surely plenty of barren systems out there to be stripe minded, so why go to the effort of attacking a habitable system?

[CitizenCain]

Relativistic Kinetic Kill Vehicle
+
Game Theory

Put the two together and you realize the only rational way to interact with alien life is to annihilate it.

Hardly. Firstly that only applies to alien life capable of producing Relativistic kill vehicles, and much importantly, ignores the possibility of using alien life as labor and/or food. I can't be the only one wondering if those blue space aardvarks are tasty, or if my own alien space spider could weave me a better T-shirt (to say nothing of the cost savings - no longer would I have to pay a bunch of Chinese kids 17 cents an hour to make clothing, when an enslaved space spider could do it for all the bugs it could eat).

[agamemnus]

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.

I think it all depends on the physics of interstellar travel. If it's relatively easy compared to raiding or extracting resources from a planet, then yes, they will plunder our resources. If it's hard, then there's no point -- they can just mine a star or a planet the size of Jupiter.

[Tempus Vernum]

The problem with any alien invasion scenario is to come up with a motive. There's surely plenty of barren systems out there to be stripe minded, so why go to the effort of attacking a habitable system?

Planets also have steep gravity wells which are expensive to get in and out of. Things like the oort cloud or the kuiper belt would be much more attractive prospects than planets.

[Being]

I've mentioned this before, the moon is an alien spy satellite monitoring the carbon dioxide content in our atmosphere. When it reaches a prescribed level, they will come to harvest it.

[Steely Glint]

If the level of Carbon Dioxide in Venus's atmosphere isn't enough for them, then that's something we won't have to worry about till everyone on earth is safely dead.

[Being]

Venus is too close to the Sun for them. They will melt.

[CitizenCain]

Planets also have steep gravity wells which are expensive to get in and out of. Things like the oort cloud or the kuiper belt would be much more attractive prospects than planets.

Again, depending on the physics of interstellar travel (if it's Star Trek style "warp" drive, moving space at huge multiples of light speed, a planetary gravity well isn't going to be expensive or difficult to overcome), and perhaps more importantly, the relative abundance of "habitable" planets. If habitable planets are indeed extremely rare, it would probably make sense to invade or annihilate the native species (without damaging the planet with a kinetic weapon or the like) and take it for your own... or even do what the Europeans did with large swaths of the Americas and use the indigenous population as a source of slave labor.

There are really too many unknowns to make an educated stand either way, but it does seem like it won't be good (long term) for any indigenous species that encounter space faring aliens. Like Hakwing pointed out, the whole Columbus thing didn't work out too well for the natives of the Americas, and there's little reason to think the dynamic would be so different if aliens capable of interstellar travel show up on our shores.

[Crowheart]

An alien race with similar biologies could consider a habitable world to be worth much more than one with mineral resources.

EDIT: ^ Bah, beat me to it.

[Tempus Vernum]

Again, depending on the physics of interstellar travel (if it's Star Trek style "warp" drive, moving space at huge multiples of light speed, a planetary gravity well isn't going to be expensive or difficult to overcome),

I'm not going to bother addressing that kind of hypothetical physics. There's currently no signs of viable FTL travel without infinite energy density or prohibitive quanitities of some kind of exotic matter. STL seems to be the only way to go at the moment.

and perhaps more importantly, the relative abundance of "habitable" planets. If habitable planets are indeed extremely rare, it would probably make sense to invade or annihilate the native species (without damaging the planet with a kinetic weapon or the like) and take it for your own... or even do what the Europeans did with large swaths of the Americas and use the indigenous population as a source of slave labor.

We needs to be careful when defining what makes a planet habitable. After all for the majority of Earths existence it has been inhospitable to the average human even though it has supported life. Aliens would probably have it just as bad, discovering that our atmosphere requires them to take precautions that we could, in turn, take advantage of to kill them. (Oh man, you mean we've found another planet without enough chlorine in the air? and what's with this caustic free oxygen all over the place? I hate wearing enviro-suits dammit!)

[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?

[Tempus Vernum]

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?

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.

[LittleFuzzy]

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.

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

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.

[agamemnus]

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?

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

[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.

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

[CitizenCain]

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

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

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.

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.

[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.

[Tempus Vernum]

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

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.

[CitizenCain]

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.

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.

[Dreadnaught]

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

[CitizenCain]

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.

[Illusions]

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.

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?

[Being]

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?

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

[CitizenCain]

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?

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.

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

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.

[Illusions]

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

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?

[Being]

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.

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

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?

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

[CitizenCain]

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

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

[Being]

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

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

[LittleFuzzy]

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?

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.

[CitizenCain]

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

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