Poll: Should we fear aliens?

[titanium turtle]

It sounds plausible, but...

If aliens want Earth's resources, they'll come whether we're here or not. Sending signals won't make them want to come more. If anything, seeing a civilization on Earth would reveal that there may be resistance and make them want to come less. By that logic, we ought to figure out what kind of signals a powerful civilization that no one would mess with would give off and send them. Of course, if we do that, they may well see us as a threat and gang up. We don't know anything about the local interstellar political situation (if there is one) and hence anyone's guess on what to do is as good as anyone else's.

Really, if aliens wanted to wipe us out, they'd just dump a bunch of asteroids on the planet and we'd be done. They may consider peace or war with us as meaningless as us making peace or war on ants.

maybe they want the living space- why terraform when you can wipe out the pathetic species already on a habitable planet

 

[Mr.Mattress]

I think that if it's an advanced alien society that comes knocking on the door, we must all expect a China or Africa like situation were our planet will be carved up by the aliens on a map and each sector will be taken by whomever claims it. It's important, however, that we don't become reactionary (Look at how bad China and Africa got it for trying to kill the outlanders) or else we'll have it worse on our planet. Just praise our new alien overlords or run away (I'll probably do the latter).

If it was like, Space Bugs that came to our planet (Like Aliens or Head Crabs or those giant insects from that one movie, Star Ship Trooper), I think we would take them down. They aren't sentient, they may carry with them a morale code or something like that, but Space Bugs usually aren't sentient life forms.

 

[Venatio]

Aliens don't exist.

Well of course they exist, the question is whether or not any lifeforms out there have reached sufficient sentient capabilities for us to consider them on par with humanity.

Even if the formation of Earth was one in a million there are still practically billions of galaxies out there with countless star systems yet. The math says that, yes, there is a great chance that there is some life out there. Though whether or not they are microbes or animals or an actual people remains to be seen.

 

[Nikolai Smirnov]

It depends on how we first speak to them, so if we want them to be friendly we need to be polite to them, if we want to be at war fight them. It also depends on alien race.Other countrys will probably either fight or become allies to them.

 

[HippySecond]

I have seen enough movies to guess if we can have sex with them everything will be fine?

 

[Trivun]

Maybe the other civilization, because it's so advanced, will know that war is wrong and try to make a peaceful contact. But knowing that humanity is a buch of morons, we will probably fuck it up somehow.

Aliens should be afraid of us.

Congrats, you've basically stumbled upon the entire plot of the Halo tie-in novel 'Contact: Harvest', except that in the novel there's one single alien dude who doesn't want peace and betrays his own dad to that end. That dude then ends up being the bad Brute dude you fight in the second game finale.

In other words, I agree totally with this scenario, and it's probably the most realistic and likely.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

I agree with Hawking.
Funny that he wrote that sometime the past weeks, but it was already a sentiment along other scientists for a long time...

Is he Science's spokesperson or something?

Also; even if they're super enlightened: we are just some crazy animal to them, and our resources are soooo sweet! Would *you* not mine gold on "Earth Colony 22-A-0-2B" because there's some bugs whose housing you would disrupt? Believe me, the guy next to you WILL mine it bare regardless of your sentiment!

Hey, that's kinda the whole point of Avatar too!

 

[Freekey]

Allow me to start off by saying that I believe in religion, but not in shoving it down other people's throats. They don't like it. Stop.

Back to the thread: It totally depends on the type of aliens. As many others have pointed out, if they're here to wage war or such, and have the technology to bomb our asses to kingdom come from the next galaxy, there's not much we can do. But lets explore other possibilities:

A. In a universe with infinite planets and stars, there must be infinite planets inhabited by different alien creatures. Furthermore, one or more might be full of chocolate men and marshmallow women. Now THOSE aliens better stay the FUCK away from humans. Their taffy guns and jelly grenades will be merely scoffed at. And I dare not think what you American fatties will do to that planet. *shudders*

B. Alien creatures that have evolved to become beings of energy rather than matter. Now you think that might be a problem, but we'll probably find a way for them to fuel our cars. No more oil wars by just enslaving one race.

C. Some alien races might be so technologically advanced that they would probably capture one human, perform all the basic tests ala anal probe, etc and take form of humans. Then they would just get one of their computers to crunch all the data on the internets and get a summary on humans which would probably display porn and just run the fuck away after they see even half of what I've seen.

So no, I don't think we have anything to fear. Even if they evaporate us in a second as someone has already said, then that's fine with me. I'd take evaporation over getting devoured any day.

 

[Killbuzz]

To have even an impaired image of God upon us, we are still by far greater than all but the Lord. Why do you place your thesis without even a minor fact or answer? Give me something that supports your D-Day preaching.

You mean like you gave "proof" for yours? I respect your faith, sir, but you have to understand that the rest of us don't accept "it's in the bible" as proof of anything.
What I am getting at is that your prooved your thesis no better than this guy did.
Again, I respect your faith. But you can't just assume that everyone share it. And if you discuss with people without faith, you can't use faith as an argument.

I believe the bible to be the whole, infathomable truth and word of the living God. I know, no matter what I say, religious or scientific, no one will accept what I propose. If I cannot use my scriptural evidence as proof, and no one (in most cases, ever) will let me or even listen to me prove it. I simply ask that you comprehend my hidden IF the bible is true, not that it is. Without my scriptural evidence, your asking me to put down my weapon, just like if I told you you cant use evidence for your "Big Bang" theory or whatever it is you believe.

I simply ask that you consider the bible, then consider my theory, then come to your conclusion.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

I presume that any evolved species will be naturally xenophobic, meaning it'll be a huge problem to get over that social hatred, and there will be immense cultural/social values between us. Whether or not their intentions are peaceful may have little effect on the outcome.

 

[Malkavian]

To have even an impaired image of God upon us, we are still by far greater than all but the Lord. Why do you place your thesis without even a minor fact or answer? Give me something that supports your D-Day preaching.

You mean like you gave "proof" for yours? I respect your faith, sir, but you have to understand that the rest of us don't accept "it's in the bible" as proof of anything.
What I am getting at is that your prooved your thesis no better than this guy did.
Again, I respect your faith. But you can't just assume that everyone share it. And if you discuss with people without faith, you can't use faith as an argument.

I believe the bible to be the whole, infathomable truth and word of the living God. I know, no matter what I say, religious or scientific, no one will accept what I propose. If I cannot use my scriptural evidence as proof, and no one (in most cases, ever) will let me or even listen to me prove it. I simply ask that you comprehend my hidden IF the bible is true, not that it is. Without my scriptural evidence, your asking me to put down my weapon, just like if I told you you cant use evidence for your "Big Bang" theory or whatever it is you believe.

I simply ask that you consider the bible, then consider my theory, then come to your conclusion.

Fair enough. Just be aware that that is not how your message reads. It seems as if you are preaching, not providing an argument based on the "if" premise. Based on the fact that you did not state the "if" premise, your argument is no more valid than the one you were commenting.

That aside, yes. If we accept the premise that the bible is the one, whole truth, then aliens do not exist. I do not accept your premise, but there is no flaw in your argument as such.

 

[ParkourMcGhee]

Unless they were so technologically advanced that they could terraform anything and extract elements from stars, or even make them themselves.

Your theory is plausible, however there's varying degrees to which any argument can be twisted. In this case, 180 .

 

[Brandon237]

Maybe the other civilization, because it's so advanced, will know that war is wrong and try to make a peaceful contact. But knowing that humanity is a buch of morons, we will probably fuck it up somehow.

Aliens should be afraid of us.

Yeah, only we would be crazy enough to try and nuke them with an H-bomb over one of our own cities. We're FUBAR like that.

 

[Danzaivar]

If there is another race somewhere out there and they make the effort to reach us, they'll have passed a lot of other planets with more resources (and possibily better atmospheres)

What makes you so confident of that? o0 Earth type planets aren't that abundant are they?

Personally I think we should fear the aliens. We can barely sort ourselves out as it is, and its a big gamble to hope a more advanced race wouldnt harbor any ill intentions towards us.

Hell, I can imagine themselves justifying an invasion easily: humans have been messing up their own planet and might very well be their own doom, dragging every species on the planet down with them. Eradicating this plague on the face of the earth would be the merciful thing to do, the aliens would surely take better care of the planet and put it to good use.

Seriously, we dont look good to an outside race imo :S Short of the aliens having the temperaments of mother theresa, we can expect them to consider us little more then self harming savages.

Edit: Lets not under estimate the value of our planet. Don't want to turn hippie but it IS a valuable prize and will surely tempt any race interested in expansion.

Erm, unless they're VERY close to us then the only way they'd be reaching us is some form of FTL travel or spending thousands/millions of years heading to us; I sincerely doubt in the former's case it would be worth wiping out other sapient species rather than say terraforming a closer planet a bit.

The only real reason a race might be willing to spend friggin ages to reach us would be if they aren't that advanced and REALLY needed this planet. The only need that great would be if they buggered their own up and couldn't fix it; which is about where we are now.

You also need to consider that we are buggering the planet up AT THE MOMENT. A few hundred years from now we'll have either sorted it out and be advanced enough to start fixing it, or this planet won't be nearly as nice and thus less of an interest anyway; protected by our own failure (so to speak).

I could totally see us just starting war on anything that arrived tho. Because we're dumb like that.

--

tl;dr version: Anything advanced enough (but is still an actual threat) would have wiped itself out before it reaches us. Anything really advanced could just terraform something closer to them if they need it; only reason to come here would be curiosity. Etc.

 

[Frankster]

If there is another race somewhere out there and they make the effort to reach us, they'll have passed a lot of other planets with more resources (and possibily better atmospheres)

snip

snippy

Again what makes you think they would have terraforming technology?
Or that it would work as smoothly as it does in say.... Masters of orion 2? (to give an example)
Or that there arent conditions of some sort regarding where and when to use it? etc etc etc...

My main point is you and a few others here make loads of assumptions about these aliens, and their technology (if they can travel into space they MUST be able to terraform or MUST have discovered loads of planets similar to ours), but all these assumptions are likely based on sci fi or guesses.
Same for your explanations on FTL or space travel, for all we know they might have their own ways of travelling through space that would be mind blowing to us and completely destroy any preconceptions we have about space travel.

And then opposite to these assumptions you then casually denigrate the worth of the planet we are on.
AFAIK we haven't even discovered an earth like planet yet, let alone one teeming with life and ressources like the one we are on (and then this is assuming aliens have the same concept of ressources as us, for all we know water might be used as currency in their civilzation!)

We haven't met any aliens yet. Where do these assumptions come from?
How can we already make these conclusions about what tech they may or might not have?
Why do we assume an evolved race is peaceful? etc etc etc...

Whose to say they ain't imperialistic? etc etc... Im seeing all these conclusions about how aliens wouldnt bother with us because we wouldnt be worth the effort, but how do any of you know that?
For all we know it could be an easy thing for them, just send a troop transport of highly advanced soldiers, 50 years later they report the dominant race has been flushed out and their glorious empire have a new colony, it wouldnt even be much of a big deal to them.
And we could fix our planet if we truly wanted to, so its safe to assume aliens could too once they clear us off it.

That's essentially the message of The Day the Earth Stood Still. The original. I don't count the remake as a movie.
Basically they were saying that human beings are a self-destructive race, and so it would be in the best interest of the universe for us to disappear.

Good to know, I confess I havent watched the original, am curious about it now that you told me its message

 

[AMMO Kid]

Aliens don't exist.

Well of course they exist, the question is whether or not any lifeforms out there have reached sufficient sentient capabilities for us to consider them on par with humanity.

Even if the formation of Earth was one in a million there are still practically billions of galaxies out there with countless star systems yet. The math says that, yes, there is a great chance that there is some life out there. Though whether or not they are microbes or animals or an actual people remains to be seen.

Aliens don't exist.