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  1. #41
    Herald of the Titans Berengil's Avatar
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    I think a lot of scifi is waaaaaaay optimistic about our chances of meeting intelligent aliens, ever.

    I'm an advocate of the Rare Earth Hypothesis (wikipedia has a great article).

    Essentially:

    Single-celled life common

    multicellular life very rare

    multicellular life that develops intelligence even rarer

    intelligent life that survives it "technological childhood" and spreads beyond its homeworld rarest of all

    We may very well be alone in our galaxy right now, or at least one of only a handful of sentient species extant at any given time in the same galaxy.

    If so, the chances of actually meeting another such species face to face are, well ... astronomical.

    Dr Michio Kaku states that it's very likely that if humans survive to become an interstellar species, we may well find many worlds that harbor single-celled organisms only, a few worlds with complex multicellular life ecosystems ( but no intelligent life there), and maybe just a few worlds containing the ruins of dead civilizations that didn't make it past their own planet for whatever reason.
    " The guilt of an unnecessary war is terrible." --- President John Adams
    " America goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy." --- President John Quincy Adams
    " Our Federal Union! It must be preserved!" --- President Andrew Jackson

  2. #42
    Writers are jacking off when they write aliens, so's don't worry about it.

  3. #43
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    The biggest misconception about aliens is that they are of comprehensible intelligence and technology to us, given the nigh unfathomable depth of time. 100 years ago we didn't have cars or planes or computers or television or satellites. 100 years from now, if we survive, we will be integrated with technology in ways you cannot even fathom - our brains will be connected to an internet that lets you share another persons experiences and memories precisely, our bodies will be only partially organic - upgraded by mechanical and electronic wonders of technology, yet even then we won't be deep into space travel - even if we do find FTL at that time.

    200 years from now we may not even have biological bodies anymore, we may well be technological willow-wisps, our brains uploaded into machines without need for a physical container - or if we do have such a container - continuing miniaturization may reduce our containers to little tiny drones with more processing power than all the CPUs on earth in even 100 years from today (hence willow-wisps). Only then, and still assuming we invent FTL travel in that time - will we make even a remote dent into our solar cluster, in our galaxy, in our super-cluster of galaxies, within our universe.

    By that time - Earth likely won't have a noticeable radio sphere emission - because all our communications will be via some new kind of fibre optics, or potentially quantum tunnelling. Earth has only had a radio sphere that we might identify for just over 100 years now, and 100 years from now - we may no longer have any radiosphere to detect.

    If a detectable radiosphere for a comparable civilization may only last for 200-300 years, out of 14.5 billion years of time so far - that means that even if we were currently within the radiosphere of another civilization - the likelihood of us not detecting an in-range civilization is 99.9999999862%.


    What if they are currently at the industrial era? We wouldn't detect them. What if they are 300 years ahead of us? They would detect us, we wouldn't detect them. The likelihood of us detecting a civilization who is at the same level of development as us, inside our tiny radiosphere, is basically non-existent. I like that somebody is looking - somebody needs to be looking - but really we will never find life via the SETI project.

    Which means if we can't find life, then we can only be found.

    That means a more advanced civilization than us - that means we won't detect their communications or technology, ever, because they won't want us to (whether malicious, defensive, or simply because spamming the radio waves with noise isn't an efficient means of communication for them - in the same way that we no longer communicate via mountain-top signal fires).

    If they choose to reveal themselves to us, they will likely be able to take whatever form they wish for first contact - including our own - or they will choose to show up looking like Asari's knowing we will be extra nice to them, or they won't have bodies at all - and we'll just be talking to their AI curator while they have a hundred billion consciousnesses inside servers on their mothership, playing video games and fapping while trotting around the stars - and none of them will find us interesting enough to greet us personally - so we'll just get the answering machine greeting and a request to download the sum total of human knowledge for their archives, in exchange for like - the cure for cancer or something equally trivial to them.

    Oh - and we will pose ZERO threat to them. Like, less than a common ant poses to you. The dumbest idea in sci-fi is that we're going to fight off an alien invasion - if anyone with FTL wants us dead, we're so collectively fucked it's not even worth illustrating the myriad annihilations they could select for us, given the power to fold space, distort time, and instantly accelerate mass beyond light.

    So there are really two things I wish everyone would walk away with, regarding aliens:
    1) it is a virtual certainty that in our ~infinite universe, life not only exists beyond earth, but exists often - and intelligent life even beyond us is out there, but beyond our reach - and/or if we are not beyond their reach, they have no desire to reveal themselves to us
    2) forget everything you know about what aliens look like, and abandon all hope of defeating them - whether by hax0ring their mothership, or shooting their ground invasion troops in the head, or sprinkling water on them, or whatever other dumb idea you have seen.

    With that said, I love alien movies and games especially - but mostly because of what it says about humanity - not because I think any of them are good accounts of alien contact.
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  4. #44
    Deleted
    War would be unavoidable, we didn't become top of food chain by sharing power and to think we suddenly would start with those who are not even from here who could also supplant us is wishful-thinking. Also real estate in the universe that is habitable n far between is just too valuable for any species to not fight over.
    Imagine the time n incredible effort it would take for us to find a habitable world n then being told we can't set up shop there by the locals, that is a titanic slap in the face.

    People who think peace is possible are naive n childish.

  5. #45
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Paraclef View Post
    Are you a Human supremacist ? Because you sound like one.
    Aren't you?
    Never trust the xeno, the heretic and the unclean...

    Put your faith in the god emperor and your trusty flamethrower instead.

  6. #46
    Sci-fi, and fantasy in general, create an unrealistic stereotype for humans.

    Want to know why aliens don't visit us? Because they've seen our fiction. They know we think we're better than any other possible alien species.

  7. #47
    Deleted
    Topic maker plz go talk to somebody i am worried about you state of mind.

  8. #48
    For a moment I thought you were going to talk about how aliens are "stereotyped" as being humanoid/having human-like qualities and attitudes and morals.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoranon View Post
    How is that a statistical certainty pray tell? Saying "universe is very big so there must be aliens out there" is a statistical fallacy. Why? You do not know the most important part of the equation. Namely the %of life beginning to exist on a planet capable of supporting it.

    Say for example, there are 1 trillion (just a random number to make a point) planets in the universe capable of supporting life. Now if intelligent life has a 1 in billion probability of existing, it means that aliens almost certainly exist. But if the probability is 1 in 1000 trillion then we are almost certainly alone.
    On the other hand, the suggestion that because we haven't heard from an alien species from somewhere in the millions of billions of galaxies in the couple hundred years or so we've had radio technology it's unlikely for intelligent aliens to exist is a fallacy itself. At most you can say we don't know.

  9. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    The biggest misconception about aliens is that they are of comprehensible intelligence and technology to us, given the nigh unfathomable depth of time. 100 years ago we didn't have cars or planes or computers or television or satellites. 100 years from now, if we survive, we will be integrated with technology in ways you cannot even fathom - our brains will be connected to an internet that lets you share another persons experiences and memories precisely, our bodies will be only partially organic - upgraded by mechanical and electronic wonders of technology, yet even then we won't be deep into space travel - even if we do find FTL at that time.

    200 years from now we may not even have biological bodies anymore, we may well be technological willow-wisps, our brains uploaded into machines without need for a physical container - or if we do have such a container - continuing miniaturization may reduce our containers to little tiny drones with more processing power than all the CPUs on earth in even 100 years from today (hence willow-wisps). Only then, and still assuming we invent FTL travel in that time - will we make even a remote dent into our solar cluster, in our galaxy, in our super-cluster of galaxies, within our universe.

    By that time - Earth likely won't have a noticeable radio sphere emission - because all our communications will be via some new kind of fibre optics, or potentially quantum tunnelling. Earth has only had a radio sphere that we might identify for just over 100 years now, and 100 years from now - we may no longer have any radiosphere to detect.

    If a detectable radiosphere for a comparable civilization may only last for 200-300 years, out of 14.5 billion years of time so far - that means that even if we were currently within the radiosphere of another civilization - the likelihood of us not detecting an in-range civilization is 99.9999999862%.


    What if they are currently at the industrial era? We wouldn't detect them. What if they are 300 years ahead of us? They would detect us, we wouldn't detect them. The likelihood of us detecting a civilization who is at the same level of development as us, inside our tiny radiosphere, is basically non-existent. I like that somebody is looking - somebody needs to be looking - but really we will never find life via the SETI project.

    Which means if we can't find life, then we can only be found.

    That means a more advanced civilization than us - that means we won't detect their communications or technology, ever, because they won't want us to (whether malicious, defensive, or simply because spamming the radio waves with noise isn't an efficient means of communication for them - in the same way that we no longer communicate via mountain-top signal fires).

    If they choose to reveal themselves to us, they will likely be able to take whatever form they wish for first contact - including our own - or they will choose to show up looking like Asari's knowing we will be extra nice to them, or they won't have bodies at all - and we'll just be talking to their AI curator while they have a hundred billion consciousnesses inside servers on their mothership, playing video games and fapping while trotting around the stars - and none of them will find us interesting enough to greet us personally - so we'll just get the answering machine greeting and a request to download the sum total of human knowledge for their archives, in exchange for like - the cure for cancer or something equally trivial to them.

    Oh - and we will pose ZERO threat to them. Like, less than a common ant poses to you. The dumbest idea in sci-fi is that we're going to fight off an alien invasion - if anyone with FTL wants us dead, we're so collectively fucked it's not even worth illustrating the myriad annihilations they could select for us, given the power to fold space, distort time, and instantly accelerate mass beyond light.

    So there are really two things I wish everyone would walk away with, regarding aliens:
    1) it is a virtual certainty that in our ~infinite universe, life not only exists beyond earth, but exists often - and intelligent life even beyond us is out there, but beyond our reach - and/or if we are not beyond their reach, they have no desire to reveal themselves to us
    2) forget everything you know about what aliens look like, and abandon all hope of defeating them - whether by hax0ring their mothership, or shooting their ground invasion troops in the head, or sprinkling water on them, or whatever other dumb idea you have seen.

    With that said, I love alien movies and games especially - but mostly because of what it says about humanity - not because I think any of them are good accounts of alien contact.
    haha, best most realistic/logical post I've seen on this topic ever

    Couldn't have said it better , thumbs up.

    Sadly most people will avoid it, because it requires too much brain power to understand , and thinking about sexy or drooling stupid aliens is more fun for them than having a real discussion on the topic.

  10. #50
    Such vile creatures




    Last edited by Puri; 2016-12-31 at 01:12 AM.

  11. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by mayhem008 View Post
    So in alot of science fiction movies aliens are portrayed as gross drooling monsters who want to kill us. I fear that this will create a dangerous stereotype for when we meet real aliens. As a culture we're heavily influenced by movies and we learn stereotypes easily from them. This could put real aliens in alot of danger when we meet them.
    I would argue that aliens portrayed as drooling monsters aren't meant to be aliens so much as they are meant to be monsters. Having aliens in a movie for the sake of having an alien usually means they are much less monster like and usually there to portray "different humans"(example: just about every alien in Star Trek) rather than actual aliens. Obviously movies and TV are constrained by not having actual aliens to appear in their shows. Still I think true aliens would perhaps be so different close contact would be nearly impossible. Who knows though.

    I'm sure people would have plenty of reasons to fear aliens beyond what they looked like. I mean, we've never had another sentient species to deal with. Especially one more advanced then ourselves. We know what happens when cultures clash. I have a feeling if we had enough in common to have close contact the same kinds of things would happen. Aliens probably have a lot to fear from us as well and would no doubt be wise to be cautious when contacting us.

  12. #52
    Immortal Stormspark's Avatar
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    Any alien race that has the ability to get to this planet (meaning: interstellar travel) would automatically be peaceful. Why? Because the technology needed for interstellar travel would be used for war if they weren't peaceful, and it would easily destroy planets several times over. So if they survive to make it into space - peaceful.

    Also, the idea that any alien civilization would need resources from our planet is ridiculous. Interstellar travel would consume far more resources and energy than our meager little planet could ever offer. If they needed resources they'd be mining moons and uninhabited planets.

  13. #53
    We found alien life already. Hence why Trump wants to build a wall. lolololololol. Sorry I couldn't help it.

  14. #54
    Deleted
    The desert is scorching hot by day, freezing cold by night, the oasis is invaluable. Imagine being informed that you can't have that water and should go back into the desert.

    Space is similar, if you are space-walking outside int space station on the sunny side then you would burn without suit but would become an ice cube only centimeters away in the shade. That's what space is, an inhospitable desert but where the oasises are light-years apart n then ur told "sorry, it's occupied, plz find some other oasis"
    Fuck that shit! If we by some miracle could reach another oasis, it's value wouldn't just be what it has because if something happens to earth being habitable then this new oasis would be plan B, the survival of our species. We would let our survival be up to another species that ofc wouldn't want to loose its oasis to us, well, we'd owe life on earth a future n war is the only option.
    Doesn't matter what those aliens think, I say we fuck them up! They'd do the same sensible thing to us.
    People are acting like as if habitable worlds are around every corner n there's no need for war, well that's bullshit.
    If we ever get visit by aliens, won't matter if they r cute like ET or nasty Xenomorphs, they would all go pew pew lazers on us. We are only alive cuz none have found us yet. It needs to be international law not to send out information out in space advertising our oasis to everyone who could be listening. Anyone trying to contact aliens is a traitor to mankind who naively think aliens don't want our oasis. With the serious lack of habitable real estate in the galaxy, sharing is some childish shit.
    We need to conquer the galaxy n when we have gathered enough oasis under our belt, then and only then should we maybe care about the lives of aliens n even then it would be risky.

    We only have one oasis, earth, n we should gamble our fate on that aliens aren't thirsty?!

    War is the only acceptable relation we should have to aliens, I don't care if they are even naive n friendly ETs, we should take their oasis n f00k them up cuz we can't afford not to.

  15. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by mayhem008 View Post
    So in alot of science fiction movies aliens are portrayed as gross drooling monsters who want to kill us. I fear that this will create a dangerous stereotype for when we meet real aliens. As a culture we're heavily influenced by movies and we learn stereotypes easily from them. This could put real aliens in alot of danger when we meet them.
    Unfortunately, any life we do meet if we ever do is going to probably be either A) way beyond our technology or B) life in the sense of bacteria or something we didn't think of because traveling to any nearby systems even at lightspeed is a long trip. So unless there's life on one of Jupiter's moons, I'm not concerned.

  16. #56
    Over 9000! Kithelle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Paperfox View Post
    You're assuming that aliens exist. The fact that nobody has heard anything - other than the so-called "Wow" signal - is called the Great Silence. And the fact that it even has a name speaks volumes.
    There could be a lot of reasons aliens don't visit us and maybe there aren't any aliens around that don't want to conquer us?

    I'm not saying it's impossible...but I just find it odd such a vast universe and we're the only sentient race around? Could be the only sentient race in the Milky Way and other races out there in other galaxies who haven't developed intergalactic travel...

  17. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    The biggest misconception about aliens is that they are of comprehensible intelligence and technology to us, given the nigh unfathomable depth of time. 100 years ago we didn't have cars or planes or computers or television or satellites. 100 years from now, if we survive, we will be integrated with technology in ways you cannot even fathom - our brains will be connected to an internet that lets you share another persons experiences and memories precisely, our bodies will be only partially organic - upgraded by mechanical and electronic wonders of technology, yet even then we won't be deep into space travel - even if we do find FTL at that time.

    200 years from now we may not even have biological bodies anymore, we may well be technological willow-wisps, our brains uploaded into machines without need for a physical container - or if we do have such a container - continuing miniaturization may reduce our containers to little tiny drones with more processing power than all the CPUs on earth in even 100 years from today (hence willow-wisps). Only then, and still assuming we invent FTL travel in that time - will we make even a remote dent into our solar cluster, in our galaxy, in our super-cluster of galaxies, within our universe.

    By that time - Earth likely won't have a noticeable radio sphere emission - because all our communications will be via some new kind of fibre optics, or potentially quantum tunnelling. Earth has only had a radio sphere that we might identify for just over 100 years now, and 100 years from now - we may no longer have any radiosphere to detect.

    If a detectable radiosphere for a comparable civilization may only last for 200-300 years, out of 14.5 billion years of time so far - that means that even if we were currently within the radiosphere of another civilization - the likelihood of us not detecting an in-range civilization is 99.9999999862%.


    What if they are currently at the industrial era? We wouldn't detect them. What if they are 300 years ahead of us? They would detect us, we wouldn't detect them. The likelihood of us detecting a civilization who is at the same level of development as us, inside our tiny radiosphere, is basically non-existent. I like that somebody is looking - somebody needs to be looking - but really we will never find life via the SETI project.

    Which means if we can't find life, then we can only be found.

    That means a more advanced civilization than us - that means we won't detect their communications or technology, ever, because they won't want us to (whether malicious, defensive, or simply because spamming the radio waves with noise isn't an efficient means of communication for them - in the same way that we no longer communicate via mountain-top signal fires).

    If they choose to reveal themselves to us, they will likely be able to take whatever form they wish for first contact - including our own - or they will choose to show up looking like Asari's knowing we will be extra nice to them, or they won't have bodies at all - and we'll just be talking to their AI curator while they have a hundred billion consciousnesses inside servers on their mothership, playing video games and fapping while trotting around the stars - and none of them will find us interesting enough to greet us personally - so we'll just get the answering machine greeting and a request to download the sum total of human knowledge for their archives, in exchange for like - the cure for cancer or something equally trivial to them.

    Oh - and we will pose ZERO threat to them. Like, less than a common ant poses to you. The dumbest idea in sci-fi is that we're going to fight off an alien invasion - if anyone with FTL wants us dead, we're so collectively fucked it's not even worth illustrating the myriad annihilations they could select for us, given the power to fold space, distort time, and instantly accelerate mass beyond light.

    So there are really two things I wish everyone would walk away with, regarding aliens:
    1) it is a virtual certainty that in our ~infinite universe, life not only exists beyond earth, but exists often - and intelligent life even beyond us is out there, but beyond our reach - and/or if we are not beyond their reach, they have no desire to reveal themselves to us
    2) forget everything you know about what aliens look like, and abandon all hope of defeating them - whether by hax0ring their mothership, or shooting their ground invasion troops in the head, or sprinkling water on them, or whatever other dumb idea you have seen.

    With that said, I love alien movies and games especially - but mostly because of what it says about humanity - not because I think any of them are good accounts of alien contact.
    This is a well thought out post. I have a question though. Lets assume that the path to technological advancement can occur very quickly as you say. What if there is an upper physical limit on how technologically advanced you can become. If aliens come by to visit they may not see us as a current threat. But could they perhaps see us as a future threat.

    If in 1000 years we can have the same tech that they do and perhaps the willingness to turn it against them. Or even just disregard for their personal space. We can have self replicating ships traveling throughout the galaxy perhaps encroaching on other species territory. There's a lot of space out there but not a lot of useful matter. Anything growing exponentially can cover a very large, even cosmic, distance very quickly. It is conceivable that we could completely colonize the galaxy at whatever speed we were capable of traveling in all directions with self replicating A.I. world ships.

    We are programmed to replicate and spread.
    Last edited by Zmaniac17; 2016-12-31 at 01:35 AM.

  18. #58
    Deleted
    Science fiction
    Aliens are usually bad guys in films, so of course they're going to look evil and stuff. Dinosaurs are critters from hell in Jurassic Park, but in reality, they were just animals. I highly doubt non-simple aliens actually exist anywhere close to us though

  19. #59


    If the aliens ever invaded our planet Earth, then they would more than likely go after Matt Stone and Trey Parker first - only a purely utilitarian society that is incapable of understanding satire would have managed to advance so far as to lead a full scale invasion on another planet. They'd be pretty pissed at the way that we portray them.

  20. #60
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zmaniac17 View Post
    This is a well thought out post. I have a question though. Lets assume that the path to technological advancement can occur very quickly as you say. What if there is an upper physical limit on how technologically advanced you can become. If aliens come by to visit they may not see us as a current threat. But could they perhaps see us as a future threat.

    If in 1000 years we can have the same tech that they do and perhaps the willingness to turn it against them. Or even just disregard for their personal space. We can have self replicating ships traveling throughout the galaxy perhaps encroaching on other species territory. There's a lot of space out there but not a lot of useful matter. Anything growing exponentially can cover a very large, even cosmic, distance very quickly. It is conceivable that we could completely colonize the galaxy at whatever speed we were capable of traveling in all directions with self replicating A.I. world ships.

    We are programmed to replicate and spread.
    If they perceive us as a threat, and their determination is that they must kill us to stave off the possible threat that we would technologically surpass and destroy them 1000 years from now, and that despite all their current advantages they cannot possibly win this future war - by any other means than annihilation. Then I think I already covered that, if they have FTL, and they want to destroy us - we're dead. We won't see it coming, they won't land troops, they won't send an armada - they'll blow our planet up.

    Whether that's by using an FTL engine as a weapon, or simply redirecting asteroids to rain hell on us - the tools needed to travel between stars in a reasonable timeframe (FTL) are basically all Deathstars. Star Wars portrays planet killing weapons as being moon-sized unique weapons that change the balance of power in a galaxy, Star Trek destroyed a planet by using a super-rare, artificial element, to create an artificial black hole. None of that is necessary. Any ship capable of hucking asteroids at Earth can defeat us without a single boot on the ground.

    That's all assuming it comes to violence though. More likely is that such a culture would outpace us toward whatever technological limit may exist - or if they have already reached it - they would be able to leverage their advantages to contain and control and domesticate us without the need for violence, potentially without us even aware that they were influencing us: a cold war against an unknown enemy, a battle for minds, waged with meme-weapons - aliens posting Pepe faces - shifting our zeitgeist to something amenable to our alien superiors.
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