Contact aliens a good or bad idea?

[Domiku]

Hi, Was watching "sky at night" its a BBC program http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/s...proginfo.shtml about well space, astrology and things.

One of the presenters brought up a rather interesting point and wondering how others feel about it. The point was about Aliens and contacting them. The Presenter starts talking about messages being sent into space and if its a good or bad idea. I should say there was more than 1 presenter all had different opinions.

2 of them were thinking its a good idea why not and the other 1 come up with a grate reason why its a very bad idea we try to contact aliens.

The reason it would be a bad idea was because we have only recently been able to get into space and send radio signals and stuff our technology is good but its not at its peak or anything, there is still much more we can do and learn. The presenter goes on to say if we can contact Aliens they must have a way to receive the information we send out. If they can receive the information we send out there technology must be at least as good as ours or better.

Think about it this makes sense if its only been around say 100 years we have been able to contact or send information out from our planet they might have had the technology to receive and send these messages themselves for 1000's or millions or more years. They would be far ahead of us. Sending out a message is like sending out a "come take our resources" message and would most likely end up bad for us.

Sorry for shitty spelling and grammar hope you get the gist of what i am trying to say. Please feel free to comment and criticize me. Lets start and interesting debate.

Is sending out information about our planet into space a good idea or a bad idea?

If if was us on earth receiving a signal say in 1000 years when/if we have the ability to space travel long distances and stuff i would not be going to say hello i would be going to make some money and claim me some land.

[Deleted]

Good. They are our only savior.

[redsunrising15]

If the have the capability to receive our messages, they most likely have the capability to wipe out or enslave our entire civilization. Bad.

[Jaerin]

There is no way for us to prevent our signals from going into space. We've been broadcasting for 50 years now.

Heck the light of our cities would probably be potentially perceptible a significant distance away.

Imagine tomorrow we got a signal from another galaxy that was some how readable and understandable from our perspective. Even if we discovered it tomorrow we couldn't communicate with them because of the 10-25 year+ delay, we can't go see them because of the light-years of distance from us, and we certainly wouldn't be affected by them other than psychologically.

The only difference between that signal and the light from a star is that we see a different pattern in it.

[Sterilize]

I can't imagine what resources they'd come to earth for that they wouldn't be able to find everywhere else in the galaxy. that said, yeah.. If we find anything at all its going to be either extremely primitive our blow or tech out of the water. They'd find us before they even received any message sent from earth. If that's the case, I'm curious moreso how people will react here when they discover we aren't the most intelligent form of life in the galaxy. What a massive blow to the ego.

[Deleted]

Are you serious? Good or bad idea?

Before asking such a stupid question answer yourself these questions first:

1. Are there any lifeforms on other planets / stars, different than what we know?
2. Are these lifeforms if they exist more intelligent or not?
3. Are they savage?
4. Do they recognize war?
5. Do they search for alternative something that we have?
6. Do they have alternative something that we seek?
7. Is there any way to connect with them?
8. How long will it take for us to reach them and for them to reach us?
9. Is it possible that they are just humans on another Earth just like we are?
10. Are these answers you have to those questions a fact or are they just hypothesis?
11. Are they the aliens or are we?
12. Do they have any kind of weapons?
13. Are they killable ergo immortal or not?
14. Are they aggressive?
.....
xxxxxxxx. Is it a good idea to contact them?

You see, when we have an answer, a CERTAIN answer to question number we might proceed with the rst of the question to finally reach the anwer to you pretty lame question. And I say this with all due respect. You have no clues that other lifeforms even exist, let alone contact any of them. Who are you going to contact on Mars? The soil? Hf with that....

[Deleted]

man this topic has bee beaten and resurrected a thousand times... Not that it gets any less interesting :P

The argument and opinion is often "no, because we'd get wiped out". I often see that people base that on the fact that: They have the technology to travel the stars, hence they have the technology to erase/enslave us"...

But, if they have technology for interstellar travel, wouldn't that point to a higher level of intellect? Intelligent people know that war is not the answer and that peace is more favourable in any instance.
If Aliens ever visited earth, i'm convinced it would be with peaceful terms, offering trade and technology for other planets to prosper.

[Deleted]

Not all aliens are monsters hell bent on pwning everything.

I say yes, the chances of it happening are so slim i'd be stoked even if aliens came to earth just to kill us all.

[Stir]

I'd say it's a very, very bad idea.

Let's say there are apex aliens out there. Intelligent beings who can travel vast distances through space AND time.

These aliens are animals. Maybe not in the same sense as us, but they're mobile and will require sustenance.. Because without such a requirement, mobility is pointless.
That means that they're a product of biology, much like our animals and plants.

Okay; so they are a product of biology. They have clearly evolved. Evolved to be an apex species.
And the only way to become an apex species is for them to outcompete other species.
So they are like us: Possibly omnivorous, but definitely predators.
That means that, like ourselves, violence is first nature to these creatures.
Like ourselves, this species has thrived, which means that their only natural enemy would be members of their own species... Again, like us.
Which means that they are very much aware of war.

The fact that they've discovered such spectacular feats of space travel means that their planet is no longer fit to sustain all of them. Pretty much like us, again.
That means that the only reason for them to ever come our way is conquest. Again; pretty much like us.

If we ever contact alien life, it would be in our best interest for us to instigate physical contact. We've not yet developed out of our physical prowess entirely, which would give us a huge edge over a species that has developed to rely so much on technology that they will probably not pose a very physical danger to us. However, that very same technology could easily wipe us out.

If we were to contact THEM directly, rather than inviting them to contact us, we would hold a huge advantage over them, and could choose to do as we seem fit, rather than allowing the choice to them.

Of course; this is all strictly hypothetical, and it is assuming that there is an intelligent life-form anywhere near us, in space AND time. As history has shown us, anything can happen that might slow down the development of intelligent life. We assume that we are the first absolute apex species on our planet, and it has taken billions of years to produce us. And we've not been around that long. So the possibility of there being intelligent life near us in space... Is already pretty much non-existent. Add to that that time is possibly the most important factor here, and chances are we'll never discover intelligent life on another planet at all.

We might come far with intelligent life on our own planet, though... Corvids are pretty damn intelligent.

Edit post: To clarify why I still think it's a very, very bad idea to invite aliens over even if I don't believe they're out there (in any relevant way, shape or form), let me explain it by this analogy.
I am an atheist. I don't for a second believe that there are deities of any kind. However, I'm not inclined to don a copper full-plate armour, climb up a mountain, and stand there during a thunderstorm, waving my sword, and shouting 'all gods are bastards!'

[Zhinkis]

Good.
The world is too boring right now.

[Deftone007]

If if was us on earth receiving a signal say in 1000 years when/if we have the ability to space travel long distances and stuff i would not be going to say hello i would be going to make some money and claim me some land.

Hopefully in 1000yrs we are evolved enough to not pillage planets like that, but you never know.

[Bezoar]

You're right in asuming that if they can hear us they are more technologically advanced, therefore more intelligent. I'd like to think that an intelligent species would know better than to wage pointless war, killing off another species which represents no threat (us). Unless they're Daleks. Then we're f*cked.

[Stir]

You're right in asuming that if they can hear us they are more technologically advanced, therefore more intelligent. I'd like to think that an intelligent species would know better than to wage pointless war, killing off another species which represents no threat (us). Unless they're Daleks. Then we're f*cked.

You're confusing intelligence with motive.
We're so much more intelligent than chimpanzees, for instance. That doesn't stop us being just as warlike as chimpanzees.

[anveena]

Good, we need something new and exciting to happen on this boring planet than the usual crap that goes on.

[Bezoar]

You're confusing intelligence with motive.
We're so much more intelligent than chimpanzees, for instance. That doesn't stop us being just as warlike as chimpanzees.

True, but perhaps with higher intelligence they can see a more logical motive, peace. Then again, killing us all might be more logical, we're not THAT nonthreatening I guess

[BatteredRose]

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."

True words from Agent K in the first MiB movie.

[Bezoar]

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."

True words from Agent K in the first MiB movie.

Oh this, so much this!

[HungryHippo]

I would like to say yess for these few reasons:
1: hot alien babes
2: advanced game systems
3: 1

I rest my case

Sorry * good idead (dun know why i typed yess)

[Zazeeth]

With the current state of the world, it would be a bad thing. If we were to make contact, it most likely wouldn't be us making contact as a planet/species, it would be a race between countries trying to contact them first to secure whatever knowledge they may divulge for themselves.

If anything, I would hope that any spacefaring civilization out there would be aware of our presence already, but would be sitting by the sidelines watching us. Waiting for us to either reach a type 1 civilization, or for us to destroy ourselves. In essence, letting us decide for ourselves whether we are worthy to take further steps into the universe than we've already taken.

There are so many ways to take this, that overall, it's both good and bad.

[Nengal]

Never going to happen. Radio waves from our communication network would attenuate to almost an unrecognizable blurb by the time they reached the edge of the solar system and the actual attempts by people to make contact barely make it three times the distance of our solar system.