Why do we assume that aliens would be far more advanced than us?

[conmag9]

Without reading the other responses (so sorry if someone covered this idea already):

Technically, yes, technology can be separated in development, but in practice developments in one area tend to leak into others. Sometimes this is quite complex, but sometimes less so (like: the fact that they have transmitters that powerful indicates incredible power supplies, which can be applied to other technology, including some weapon designs, to devastating effect).

There's also the fact that, unless they are very long lived and very patient, traversing the stars requires one to get around those pesky laws of physics, most prominently the limitation of speed to that of light. If one can get around those (whether by some sort of star-trek "sub" space where the general limits don't apply or the mass modifying tech mass effect introduced, or something stranger), then one already has a vast body of science which lends itself well to developing tools for breaking stuff, quite possibly including us.

Although I can't help but think we're assuming too much about how alien life would look, react and need. They might be so foreign we just don't notice them as life, even if our detection equipment were up to the task of finding them.

 

[In Search of Username]

I think it's more that if they've developed that advanced technology, there is an inherent assumption that they're intelligent enough to know starting a war you probably can't win is a dumb idea. Probably not a very reasonable assumption, we as a species are pretty advanced yet are always starting really stupid wars. But there it is.

Plus there's the fact that though technology can develop in different directions, different types of technology tend to rely on each other or logically lead to each other in a huge interconnected web of different ways, so often you can assume that if they have one technology they will likely (or even necessarily) have another. For example, rockets-for-shooting-at-people and rockets-for-shooting-people-into-space were pretty closely developed together, so the assumption that a species with advanced space travel technology would also have advanced weaponry isn't too far off.

 

[Rblade]

Why do we always picture aliens to be incredibly advanced aswell as them only ever arriving here to annihilate or conquer our planet?

The answers are rather simple:

1. Humanity will never be capable of traveling beyond our own solar system, and if we ever did make a proper attempt, then the people we would have to send would be children or infants.

2. Humanity will attempt to annihilate any sentient species which is not our own, should we ever encounter one. If monkey suddenly began to speak, then our first reaction would be that of fear, the next would be our deranged conception that this world belongs to us, and us alone. Making the aliens the aggressor is alot easier for people to accept than having some space hippie alien be sloughtered upon arriving on our planet.

3. We picture aliens to be highly advanced simply because our own species is so very young, and if there is no intelligent life out there that is already capable of spacefaring, then we won't be capable of conquering other planets either. And let's be honest for a moment... humans are only good at swinging clubs.

4. We imagine aliens to be cruel and bloodthirsty because that is exactly what our own species is.

1 why? tell people in the 50's about internet and smartphones and they would say you are insane. Tell Newton about quantum mechanics and he would ask you what you were smoking. Don't underestimate science and technological development.

2 A very dark assumption. I don't think we would kill talking monkeys. There would be problems but there is literally billions of people that advocate peace and preserving our world. And several forces in our world could "annihilate everyone" there is no indication we would be that cruel to aliens. You seem to be underestimating our species, which kind of makes it a self fulfilling prophecy.

3 really? All of science and art and medicine and you think our biggest asset is club swinging? we suck at club swinging, most animals would beat us at straight club swinging

4 granted, thats probably true. Although I would call it selfish rather then bloodthristy. I have literally never met a person in my entire life that enjoyed killing other humans. And killing or harming animals only in very very rare and demented cases.

 

[Abomination]

If they were to fire that faster than light speed Titanic at the earth the damage would be cataclysmic.

Er...if they fire it at just less than light speed, yes. Firing at light speed, though, nobody can really say, given that as far as we know, going faster than light is impossible. Assuming it to be possible, there will be all sorts of weird effects very different from what we are used to seeing, we can say what'd it be like as a weapon. Having said that, they'd have the ability to easily make various impressive weapons of some kind or other.

The thing is if you can throw something at 10,000 meters a second at something and it does a massive amount of damage what happens if you throw it at 20,000 meters a second? Or 30,000? Just keep multiplying until you reach light speed or tone it down by 1% if things get a bit wonky... the fact is if they're capable of moving a ship so fast we can't see it, and even our bullets aren't that fast, then their "bullets" are going to be the same as our nuclear missiles.

Their nuclear missiles are probably going to be the equivalent as our sun going super nova.

But as for the whole "we don't know what happens at light speed" thing, I do understand that stuff could just go haywire. But so far all we know is the faster something moves the more force it's going to bring with it when it hits something... and they're going to be able to move shit a lot faster than we can move shit - oh, and they're going to do it from space.

 

[Thaluikhain]

2 A very dark assumption. I don't think we would kill talking monkeys. There would be problems but there is literally billions of people that advocate peace and preserving our world. And several forces in our world could "annihilate everyone" there is no indication we would be that cruel to aliens. You seem to be underestimating our species, which kind of makes it a self fulfilling prophecy.

Er...humans have tried to wipe out other humans over and over again. Something not actually human being targeted doesn't sound unlikely.

The thing is if you can throw something at 10,000 meters a second at something and it does a massive amount of damage what happens if you throw it at 20,000 meters a second? Or 30,000? Just keep multiplying until you reach light speed or tone it down by 1% if things get a bit wonky... the fact is if they're capable of moving a ship so fast we can't see it, and even our bullets aren't that fast, then their "bullets" are going to be the same as our nuclear missiles.

Actually, no, as velocity increases mass increases, it's not just double the momentum with double the velocity. Also time and length get affected.

At light speed mass is infinite, time doesn't work, and there's no length along the direction of movement.

The first of these is much more important in context.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Yeah, in a nutshell, since we haven't been able to find aliens, if aliens were able to find us they're probably more technologically advanced. As to why we then generalise to all of their technology being good, that's sort of how it works. The challenging scientific endeavour of space travel has produced a lot of technological breakthroughs that are implemented in the rest of society for other purposes. Chances are their technology would be better as a whole rather than just transport.

 

[Da Orky Man]

I was just reading the Wikipedia article on the "Wow" signal and it mentioned this:

Scientists say that if the signal came from extraterrestrials, they are likely an extremely advanced civilization, as the signal would have required a 2.2-gigawatt transmitter, vastly more powerful than any on Earth.

Now that strikes me as an odd conclusion to draw because it completely disregards the idea of sectionalized technological advancement.

I remember when the film "Battle: LA" came out, lots of people were like "that's unrealistic because if the aliens could travel through space to get here, they would be able to stomp us easily." Ditto with Independence Day, and any other alien invasion film you can think of.

I just don't get why that is such a popular assumption. I mean, sure they might be more advanced in space flight if they can travel through space, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have developed highly advanced military technology. Or with the Wiki article, just because they might have vastly more powerful radios doesn't mean they have developed computer technology to our level.

I guess what I'm saying is that because they are aliens, they will certainly have developed along different parameters than we have so their technology in one area might be far beyond ours but an area of ours might be far beyond theirs as well.

Thoughts?

Capcha: Hot sauce.

I agree. Our hot sauce technology sets the bar for everyone.

See the following:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WeaponizedExhaust

Basically, any engine that stands any chance of being decent for space use is likely also going to be a devastating weapon. The aliens just need to point their starship engines at a city, and the city disappears.

 

[Joccaren]

What is in the wikipedia article would refer to a certain path of technological advancement that they are further down than we are. Aka: energy generation.
2.2 gigawatts is a load of power to be used by one device. The most we have generated with even fusion is 16 Megawatts. That is a hell of a lot of power. To be able to generate that for use in a single device, and allow that device to use it, would require a sophisticated knowledge of electricity and the laws surrounding it that we do not have. Hence, in that department, they are far more advanced than we are.

Outside of that though we don't assume ET life will be more advanced than us. We assume it is likely to be either insects or bacteria, as they are the most common forms of life on Earth. Movies and such assume they are more technologically advanced 'cause it makes a good movie. That's about it.

 

[garjian]

I don't know why anyone assumes anything about aliens... An alien by definition is everything that is not us, and therefore there are infinite possibilities.

I suppose you can say that if they have mastered space travel, they must have mastered much more along the path, but for all we know, they could be riding on space-faring plant spores. You can't presume anything of the unknown, and thus you can create them with any attributes you like in a story.

 

[Joccaren]

Their nuclear missiles are probably going to be the equivalent as our sun going super nova.

As the rest of its been covered, no. Nuclear missile's damage is not dependent on its speed. Its dependent on the mass of Uranium used. You'd need a planet's worth of Uranium to get the sun's supernova out of a nuclear missile.
Anti matter missile? That's another issue, and you could get a lot of force out of that with only a little mass. Would still take a lot to hit supernova point though, more than would fit in one missile.

 

[Thaluikhain]

See the following:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WeaponizedExhaust

Basically, any engine that stands any chance of being decent for space use is likely also going to be a devastating weapon. The aliens just need to point their starship engines at a city, and the city disappears.

Possibly. Any sort of FTL drive is going to be magic from our point of view, nobody can say what the magic engines would do.

A rocket that takes you from here to Jupiter in a few days, OTOH...yeah, that'd be scary.

 

[zefichan]

Any alien that visits us must by necessity be far more advanced than we are. The energy source alone could wipe us out.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Considering how rare life is

Well we don't know how rare it is yet, Mars might have had life, Europa and Io might have life and that's just in our solar system.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Not to mention even if they came here on an Ark vessel, the spillover effects from the ability to build such a ship and have it fly through space for generations, would still make them more than a match for us.

Would have made them more than a match when it was built. After several generations flying through space, OTOH, who knows? Could fall into a dark age before they get here.

 

[Keiichi Morisato]

I highly doubt even the most blood thirsty aliens would care about us in the first place... hell to them we are most likely thought of as inbred hicks living in the middle of nowhere. that is if there are highly advanced aliens and UP3 is a thing...

 

[FireDr@gon]

Popular culture assumes that aliens would be more advanced than us because big, cool spaceships and space guns are more entertaining. As you lean towards the factual side of the speculation, things become far less entertaining for games or the big screen.

No-one that's interested in actual science assumes anything. However, as has been mentioned before, if aliens found us first, chances are they would be more tecnologically advanced, simply because of the vast effort it takes to travel billions of miles quickly and safely.

However, why even assume aliens would be human-like in any way, shape or form? if their phisiology was vastly different from ours, they might be able to travel far slower than the speed of light and, for example, 'hibernate' on the journey . If they used radiation in their metabolism, as some bacteria on earth do, they wouldn't need shielding from it and so on. All this ammounts to them being able to reach us without needing the superior technology that would be demanded of us. There is every reason to belive, therefore, that aliens may have different and not superior technology to us.

If you read lots of sci-fi (and i don't just mean star wars and star trek) then you will get much more food for your speculation than the rather narrow-minded assumptions that electrical entertainment has to offer, which needs warlike, high-tech aliens to be entertaining.

I think that aliens need not be technologically superior, and lots of authors would agree with me. The only requirement for an alien is to be extraterrestrial in origin. The assumptions, you can blame on the entertainment industry.