Why do we assume UFO/Aliens are always hostile?

[SinisterGehe]

I been just thinking while watching some really bad TV-documentary about aliens.
Simple question came to mind: "Why do we always assume that alien creature will be hostile towards us?"
Question is interesting in my opinion - so what you think?

Also we are not please do not open the discussion about do they exist - it leads nowhere. This is more of psychological/philosophical discussion about the behavior we have towards aliens.

Is it just the Pop-culture? Or do we really think that whatever is out there is out to kill us - no discussion of motives. Just that they are hostile by default.

In my opinion: If someone spends milenia and massive amount of resources to find another living and thinking creature, they aren't going to wipe out what they find just because... It doesn't seem logical.

So what you think.


P.S

I know that there are positive portrayals - there is no need to mention it anymore. But when I look the media in GENERAL from what I see. I can not see EVERYTHING upon earth and hear every opinion - I am just a single person.

You have to understand that the media culture is different around the world, what we see. I have drawn this view and opinion from majority of media, opinions and context I have observed. I am sure there is "Alien huggers" and "Lets blast anything different than we are of our solar system soon as we spot them" (Which btw worries me, I know there are "armies" in America ready to attack the first aliens that contact us. (AGAIN I AM SURE THEY EXIST ELSEWHERE ALSO - But I haven't heard of them as much I have heard of American people - and sorry... Western-Popular-Media-culture sadly happens to surround you America.)

Edit:
I quote myself from further down the topic:

"Just out of curiosity. Why do people think that our planet has the unique resources that aliens would want. There are planetary objects made of prime elements, pure gas, even some that are pure metal. And most planetary objects contain all elements in plenty, and most of them have more mass than we do. So why spend resources on wiping out entire civilization when you can just go and pick the fruits around them. Just look at the other planetary objects near us. Hell... Moon is assumed to have inner core of pure heavy metals (majority of the mass). So what resource would earth have that aliens couldn't find along the way here?

Water? - Even it exists in massive volumes outside of earth."

 

[madwarper]

Simple question came to mind: "Why do we always assume that alien creature will be hostile towards us?"
Question is interesting in my opinion - so what you think?

I think you're making an assumption on how "we always view" extraterrestrials.
You're ignoring all the times extraterrestrials are portrayed as friendly or indifferent towards humanity.

 

[sextus the crazy]

1. Aliens are a good target as they are foreign and there is no morality attached to killing them

2. Because we assume aliens act like we do.

 

[SinisterGehe]

Simple question came to mind: "Why do we always assume that alien creature will be hostile towards us?"
Question is interesting in my opinion - so what you think?

I think you're making an assumption on how "we always view" extraterrestrials.
You're ignoring all the times extraterrestrials are portrayed as friendly or indifferent towards humanity.

There are many references of aliens being friendly. I know that, I have kept up with pop-culture thank ou.
!BUT! Why isn't it the default assumption? Why is it the rare exceptions compared to the negative portrayal.

 

[IrenIvy]

Because they are different and meeting something different scares people; also they are 'unknown', total factor X, and this might scare even more than being different
Because human history shows that if one nation has an (technological/resource) advantage over another nation that it can use with little repercussion it will most probably use that advantage to exploit the less advanced nation horribly, even if the some part of populace in more advanced nation might be against it or even if some benevolent philosophy exists
Because aliens don't have visible ties with Earth culture/race/credo issues, they are handy to have as antagonists, beat-them-up targets or strawmen (strawaliens?) to whatever issue they supposed to represent without a burden of real-life morale or lawyers to developers; like they can be a Scary Dogmatic Aliens but the connection with earthy religions will be not as obvious as if instead of aliens it was a branch of some real-life church or religion or political credo or real-life foreign country
Because humanity might have that 'halo effect' thing going (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect), and aliens are mostly unattractive (therefore untrustworthy at the least) unless they are shown as attractive in which case they are most probably 'good' aliens or will be converted to 'good side'

 

[SinisterGehe]

1. Aliens are a good target as they are foreign and there is no morality attached to killing them

2. Because we assume aliens act like we do.

So you think if humans ever could develop the technology to travel space and find other race, you assume the first thing in our mind is to destroy what we find?

Looking at the history I would assume we would exploit the resources if we can. After that happens the integration between the 2 populations and after that starts either the separation or mutual beneficial work.

There are very few civilizations that have been completely wiped out. Without ANY traces of the population left. Incas, Mayas and Aztecs civilization got destroyed but the population integrated to the new population or created new native population.
And yes I know there are some really mysterious disappearance of !civilizations! Olmecs, Nabateans, Aksumite Empire, Mycenaeans, Minoans... Etc. There is only proof of their civilization being destroyed, but no traces of what happened to the population.

 

[FalloutJack]

There are many references of aliens being friendly. I know that, I have kept up with pop-culture thank ou.
!BUT! Why isn't it the default assumption? Why is it the rare exceptions compared to the negative portrayal.

Ah, well that's paranoia. We're not at home with our own species as is, so it's easy to make the assumption that if we get trouble from our own that Mr. Long-Distance Traveler can be even more violent, stranger, or both.

 

[madwarper]

There are many references of aliens being friendly. I know that, I have kept up with pop-culture thank ou.
!BUT! Why isn't it the default assumption? Why is it the rare exceptions compared to the negative portrayal.

Again, YOU are making the assumption on what the "default" is. Stop that.

 

[pilouuuu]

Well, I grew up with the idea that aliens could be friendly thanks to Spielberg movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T., but funnily enough even Spielberg himself seemed to give up on the concept with movies like War or the Worlds.

I wonder if he knows something that we don't... In my opinion there are chances that aliens can be hostile, friendly, something in between or simply neutral. Why couldn't they be nothing else but hostile?

 

[IrenIvy]

So you think if humans ever could develop the technology to travel space and find other race, you assume the first thing in our mind is to destroy what we find?

Looking at the history I would assume we would exploit the resources if we can. After that happens the integration between the 2 populations and after that starts either the separation or mutual beneficial work.

After humans will strip them of all their culture and way of life along with resources, surely, 'integration' would be the word to use
By some reasons humans really don't want to be at receiving end of the same treatment. I wonder why.

 

[SinisterGehe]

There are many references of aliens being friendly. I know that, I have kept up with pop-culture thank ou.
!BUT! Why isn't it the default assumption? Why is it the rare exceptions compared to the negative portrayal.

Again, YOU are making the assumption on what the "default" is. Stop that.

Well thank you for judging me, instead of joining to the discussion.
Unless you have something proper to add, please leave this topic. I don't care of your views about me. They are not under discussion here.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Pop culture, if they aren't hostile, there's less chance of a cheesy action movie.

In reality, we see big nations fucking over small ones, predicting powerful species might do it to others doesn't seem that outlandish.

And if they are all nice, well, no need to worry about that.

 

[A Satanic Panda]

Because of evolution by natural selection favoring predatory behavior. If they climbed to the top of the food chain and dominated space, then we assume they're like us.

 

[A Satanic Panda]

Because of evolution by natural selection favoring predatory behavior. If they climbed to the top of the food chain and dominated space, then we assume they're like us.

That's assuming they were a predatory race to begin with. There could be a possibility that an alien species evolved intelligence due to constantly having to outsmart predators.

Well then we would be meeting their predators first wouldn't we?

 

[DoPo]

There are many references of aliens being friendly. I know that, I have kept up with pop-culture thank ou.
!BUT! Why isn't it the default assumption? Why is it the rare exceptions compared to the negative portrayal.

Again, YOU are making the assumption on what the "default" is. Stop that.

Well thank you for judging me, instead of joining to the discussion.
Unless you have something proper to add, please leave this topic. I don't care of your views about me. They are not under discussion here.

Want to back up your claims of what pop culture is or isn't with facts? Because madwarper has a point, you're just ignoring it and shooing him.

The discussion is meaningless if the premise is. What, should I start a topic "Why are all people purple?" now? What could we possibly discuss there that's on topic?

 

[The Abhorrent]

The whole "top of the food chain" deal is somewhat of the context, though one should note that the most intelligent species actually come from the middle of the food chain (smart enough to both evade larger predators and catch their own prey). That provides the instinctive aspects, it's mostly out of fear that we'd effective lose our place as the dominant species.

Sentience is a bit of a double-edged sword, as it also allows us to ponder the purpose any extra-terrestrial would come to visit out planet. Space-travel isn't something one could do easily (no matter how science fiction decides to portray it), distances are too far and any "rest-stops" are remote; if they're coming here, it's for a purpose. If it's to simply study us, they'd probably opt to stick to long-range communication (much cheaper in terms of resources); exploration may be done in a similar fashion, as we do already with our own telescopes.

So yeah, if they decide to come here... it's probably because we have something they'd want. A habitable location may be the logical conclusion (though that's assuming all habitable planets are earth-like, to an extent), as most other resources could be obtained from uninhabited planets; but there's no way of knowing if they'd take the position of benign ambassadors or conquerors. Of course, we'd like it to be the former; but the latter just seems that much more likely, especially given our own history.

The conqueror standpoint isn't necessarily out of malice either, it could be simple disregard for the well-being of lesser-evolved species (and if they got here, you could probably guess who we'd be). Who cares if a few hundred try to stop you from getting what you need (some most certainly will, and you know it), there's several billion of them; heck, why not use them as another resource while you're at it? It's not like they're as smart as you. There would be a few "human-huggers" to be sure, but there'd also be those who exercise extra malice towards lesser species for their own entertainment (another assumption taken from human nature, but a fairly safe one).

---

Of course, there's the simple reason - no good story exists without some sort of conflict. Simply put, a story about fighting off alien invaders is much more interesting than trying to establish benign communications.

 

[sextus the crazy]

1. Aliens are a good target as they are foreign and there is no morality attached to killing them

2. Because we assume aliens act like we do.

So you think if humans ever could develop the technology to travel space and find other race, you assume the first thing in our mind is to destroy what we find?

Looking at the history I would assume we would exploit the resources if we can. After that happens the integration between the 2 populations and after that starts either the separation or mutual beneficial work.

There are very few civilizations that have been completely wiped out. Without ANY traces of the population left. Incas, Mayas and Aztecs civilization got destroyed but the population integrated to the new population or created new native population.
And yes I know there are some really mysterious disappearance of !civilizations! Olmecs, Nabateans, Aksumite Empire, Mycenaeans, Minoans... Etc. There is only proof of their civilization being destroyed, but no traces of what happened to the population.

Exploitation of resources still ends of with lots of killing and death. Just look at what the British empire did. Obviously, we won't kill all of them. Exterminating an entire group of people take great amounts of resources.

 

[Heronblade]

The primary reason, as other have mentioned, has more to do with entertainment than anything else. A hostile encounter provides an excellent basis for excitement in science fiction. Encountering a race of intergalactic hippies is, while not boring to portray, not quite at the same level in terms of sales.

If you will notice, even in cases where first encounter is with a peaceful group, there tends to be at least one third party that is hostile to everyone (Star Trek, Galaxy Quest, Mass Effect, etc.) Providing an antagonist of some kind is quite simply a part of good story writing, and a new and unknown group or entity provides an obvious choice for that role, whether or not it is the best choice depends on other factors.

Outside of entertainment, the tendency is to assume that other races would not have made the effort to come our way without some purpose in mind, and we have little to nothing to offer a galactic community in terms of peaceful trade.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Easy. Because humans are hostile.

If humanity found a planet of aliens that were less advanced than us, we'd probably do the whole "invasion of North america and the subjugation of the natives" thing all over again.

And since WE think like that, we assume any other intelligent life would think that way too.

Hence the hostile alien cliche.