Extraterrestrials: Hope or Threat

[Dreamfighter]

Judging by present behaviour, the presence of an 'intelligent' species might be a bit of a stretch. Though my cat might want to put a word or two in.
There might be some very bright individuals around. As a species, humans can be remarkably stupid.

As a species, humans have been more successful than any other known species, we have thrived uninterruptedly for half a million years, we have eliminated predators and diseases, we have learned to protect ourselves from the climate and we are very good at producing food and occupying new habitats to make them productive, the proof is that wild animals look for food in our garbage. Despite the misinformation created by the media, the reality of our species is that we are overcoming hunger, poverty and war. I don't think I would be able to eat my cat even in a case of extreme need, but I know what the cat would do in the same case. We are simply better.

Good to know human occupation of new habitats and making them productive is never a reason at all for wild animals looking for food in our garbage, and also not for the appearance of new diseases.
Very nice to know there are no poor hungry humans anymore who might be regularly looking for food in your or my garbage.
Excellent to know there are no humans anymore who are at war with one another.
Superb news about your predator...ehrr... cat. You´re also sure you would not eat your cow or your mother-in-law in case of extreme need?

 

[Dreamfighter]

As far as it goes inteligence in other species is a thing of many facets.

When going for a swim at sea, I sometimes prefer encountering the aquatic intelligence of a 30 years old dolphin to encountering the terrestrial intelligence of a 3(0) years old human. Probably I´m just a bit weird or stupid.

 

[Foo Fighter]

As far as it goes inteligence in other species is a thing of many facets.

When going for a swim at sea, I sometimes prefer encountering the aquatic intelligence of a 30 years old dolphin to encountering the terrestrial intelligence of a 3(0) years old human. Probably I´m just a bit weird or stupid.

Never had that pleasure but I will join the club very happily. We did a litlle diving off the Scottish weat coast and while on a navigation exercise and on one of the legs looked up from my compass to see a huge eye on a blob. I still get goode bumps, that eye was LOOKING at me and sizing me up. I was insignificant.

Pure treasure of the soul.

Basking shark - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[kaiserd]

To state the very obvious in our culture we project ourselves, our hopes and fears on to fictional aliens.

That then get weirdly refracted in human-made phenomenon like reports of chats with visiting aliens and alien abductions.
Utopian hippy aliens warning against nuclear war or silent sinister greys with plans for their probes depending on the year and the personality/ tastes of the people involved.

In reality an alien race that would ever visit us would have to have a very good reason to do per their own rationale given the resources and time required to do so.
However there isn’t any particular reason to think that rationale would be those we may project; this alien race is going to be very different from us and going to have a very different history. Indeed given the level of technology required to travel between stars it is most likely that such an alien race must have evolved well past any point equivalent to where we are currently at - they will have to have survived having the technology to build weapons far more powerful than our own, built far more sustainable societies in terms of their development than we have in terms of environment impact, etc.

 

[Orionblamblam]

In reality an alien race that would ever visit us would have to have a very good reason to do per their own rationale given the resources and time required to do so.

“Teasers are usually rich kids with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for planets that haven’t made interstellar contact yet and buzz them.”

“Buzz them?” Arthur began to feel that Ford was enjoying making life difficult for him.

“Yeah,” said Ford, “they buzz them. They find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no one’s ever going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennas on their head and making beep beep noises.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

[Justo Miranda]

If you introduce ET or God to explain the existence of intelligent life on Earth, you have only moved the original home of intelligence from Earth to another, unspecified place - or plane. You will have done nothing on formulating how original intelligence - ET / God / humans - arises, you will have only displaced the problem. Without proof for the interference of ET or God, I will stick with blind evolution as a starting position in the search for the origin of intelligent life. The more we know, the more we understand how little we know, the better we touch the sheer immensity of reality.

Of the three possibilities I choose evolution, possibly the increase in the intelligence of some primates was a desperate measure to avoid extinction when the appearance of the Rift Valley forced them to leave the forest and live in the savannah.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Judging by present behaviour, the presence of an 'intelligent' species might be a bit of a stretch. Though my cat might want to put a word or two in.
There might be some very bright individuals around. As a species, humans can be remarkably stupid.

As a species, humans have been more successful than any other known species, we have thrived uninterruptedly for half a million years, we have eliminated predators and diseases, we have learned to protect ourselves from the climate and we are very good at producing food and occupying new habitats to make them productive, the proof is that wild animals look for food in our garbage. Despite the misinformation created by the media, the reality of our species is that we are overcoming hunger, poverty and war. I don't think I would be able to eat my cat even in a case of extreme need, but I know what the cat would do in the same case. We are simply better.

Good to know human occupation of new habitats and making them productive is never a reason at all for wild animals looking for food in our garbage, and also not for the appearance of new diseases.
Very nice to know there are no poor hungry humans anymore who might be regularly looking for food in your or my garbage.
Excellent to know there are no humans anymore who are at war with one another.
Superb news about your predator...ehrr... cat. You´re also sure you would not eat your cow or your mother-in-law in case of extreme need?

The lynx is a protected species in my country, all governments for thirty years have made enormous efforts for the preservation of wildlife, the main lynx sanctuary is the Coto de Doñana, in the southwest of the country, nobody can camp, build or cut a tree. Are the lynx of Doñana happy?, well the harsh reality is that every night they leave the sanctuary to look for food in the nearby villages, the same happens with the wild boars in the surroundings of Madrid, with the deer in the surroundings of Kyoto and with the baboons of Kenya. They know our world is better.
The average Ethiopian's income has doubled in a decade, the number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen below 10 percent for the first time in history, malaria mortality has plummeted, war conflicts have completely disappeared in the Western Hemisphere and become much rarer in the Third World. Some things have gotten worse, of course, but mostly the trend is positive and all this is due to the intelligence of a few.

 

[Justo Miranda]

As far as it goes inteligence in other species is a thing of many facets.

When going for a swim at sea, I sometimes prefer encountering the aquatic intelligence of a 30 years old dolphin to encountering the terrestrial intelligence of a 3(0) years old human. Probably I´m just a bit weird or stupid.

Orcas are also very intelligent and cannibalistic

 

[Orionblamblam]

Some things have gotten worse, of course, but mostly the trend is positive and all this is due to the intelligence of a few.

The trend lines, though, are starting to go in unfortunate directions. War has returned to the western hemisphere; crime and violence are up; birth rates, testosterone and sperm counts of western natives are down; rates of invasion and colonization are *way* up. Indicators of societal collapse akin to the fall of the Roman Empire are up. This is due to the stupidity of the many.

Once again, science fiction has warned us.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Some things have gotten worse, of course, but mostly the trend is positive and all this is due to the intelligence of a few.

The trend lines, though, are starting to go in unfortunate directions. War has returned to the western hemisphere; crime and violence are up; birth rates, testosterone and sperm counts of western natives are down; rates of invasion and colonization are *way* up. Indicators of societal collapse akin to the fall of the Roman Empire are up. This is due to the stupidity of the many.

Once again, science fiction has warned us.

Hi

 

[Archibald]

 

[CiTrus90]

 

[Orionblamblam]

Some things have gotten worse, of course, but mostly the trend is positive and all this is due to the intelligence of a few.

The trend lines, though, are starting to go in unfortunate directions. War has returned to the western hemisphere;

Hi

Ooops. Sorry, you are of course correct. I forgot that I was posting in late 2022, rather than late 2023. The timeline can be difficult to keep straight sometimes when you're busy dealing with the dark wizards that live under Disneyworld headquarters.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Some things have gotten worse, of course, but mostly the trend is positive and all this is due to the intelligence of a few.

The trend lines, though, are starting to go in unfortunate directions. War has returned to the western hemisphere;

Hi

Ooops. Sorry, you are of course correct. I forgot that I was posting in late 2022, rather than late 2023. The timeline can be difficult to keep straight sometimes when you're busy dealing with the dark wizards that live under Disneyworld headquarters.

Well, I have also been wrong to give some data from the book that was published before the war in Ukraine began.

How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom Hardcover – May 19, 2020

By Matt Ridley

https://www.amazon.com/How-Innovation-Works-Flourishes-Freedom/dp/0062916599

 

[paralay]

,

 

[Orionblamblam]

For those who have ears,

there are a lot of materials about the population of other planets of the Solar system. And many of these sources are more than a thousand years old.

Which means they can be safely ignored. A thousand years ago, people believed a whole slew of patently false things... diseases were caused by out of balance humors or demons or witches; the stars were just little points of light in the sky; the Sun went around the Earth; Kings and serfs and slaves are all neato-keen institutions worthy of respect and maintenance; the "faith of a child" was actually a *good* thing. People then weren't stupid... but they were ignorant, and they were often quite wrong. If they couldn't be expected to understand the nature of *fire,* they sure as hell couldn't be expected to understand the nature of life on other worlds. People in the past did not have access to wisdom that we don't. All they had was access to less facts and lack of access to the scientific method, the most important development in all human history.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Prepare for alien encounter now before it's too late, warn scientists

Team at University of St Andrews says Earth needs to work on communicating with extraterrestrials as first contact could happen any day

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[edwest4]

Prepare for alien encounter now before it's too late, warn scientists

Team at University of St Andrews says Earth needs to work on communicating with extraterrestrials as first contact could happen any day

www.telegraph.co.uk

Let's see. Are we talking Star Trek aliens or actual, say, multi-tentacled aliens who communicate telepathically? "before it's too late"?

Laughable. Completely laughable.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Laughable. Completely laughable.

Disagree. "Aliens" could be anything from bacteria on Mars or Europa to a friggen' Q. We simply cannot predict. But what we can do is make some effort to plan ahead. A comet could impact the Earth; a gamma ray burst could fry half the planet; a Carrington Event could trash the infrastructure; an engineered virus could wreak havoc; a primordial black hole could swing by and disrupt planetary orbits. All of these are "sci fi" plots, and they're all worthy of preparing for. Same with alien contact.

Sure, we don't know what the aliens will be like. But the worst possible situation would be for the authorities to be utterly surprised by the mere appearance of them. "Oh, crap, flying saucers! Nuke 'em now!"

 

[edwest4]

You're not making much sense. I'm involved in scenarios for all kinds of aliens/worlds/future and do a lot of research. The bottom line: We don't know anything. Nothing. About aliens. And it will stay that way in the real world. Without facts means yes, we will likely blow them up using whatever is on hand. Regarding the rest of what you wrote... sigh...

If Q shows up, I'll get him your email address...

 

[bobbymike]

The approach should be twofold:

1) Continue the search
2) Get us off this planet to somewhere else greatly enhancing our survival probability

2) is much more important

 

[Orionblamblam]

You're not making much sense. I'm involved in scenarios for all kinds of aliens/worlds/future and do a lot of research. The bottom line: We don't know anything. Nothing. About aliens.

No, we don't. What we *do* know is "humans." And the unveiling of "aliens" could result in "humans" going stupid. How would humanity respond to "we've discovered bacteria on Mars?" Likely by going "huh" and then going about their day. How would humanity respond to "we discovered a messaged radioed from a civilization a hundred light years away?" THAT is something worthy of study. Depending on the message, you'll have a bunch of people who give zero damns, and some people who care a *lot.* This could well include those who go absolutely nuts. It would be advisable to have some sort of plan in place on how to reveal the message, how to respond to the message being sprung onto the public by astronomers who bypass governments, how to plan for and deal with potential fallout, how to deal with the cults and religions and political ideologies that may result.

An alien message is the sort of event that can be foreseen but cannot be predicted. It is a realistic prospect of unknown and unknowable odds of happening in any timeframe. It should be studied, planned, wargamed.

 

[jeffb]

You're not making much sense. I'm involved in scenarios for all kinds of aliens/worlds/future and do a lot of research. The bottom line: We don't know anything. Nothing. About aliens.

No, we don't. What we *do* know is "humans." And the unveiling of "aliens" could result in "humans" going stupid. How would humanity respond to "we've discovered bacteria on Mars?" Likely by going "huh" and then going about their day. How would humanity respond to "we discovered a messaged radioed from a civilization a hundred light years away?" THAT is something worthy of study. Depending on the message, you'll have a bunch of people who give zero damns, and some people who care a *lot.* This could well include those who go absolutely nuts. It would be advisable to have some sort of plan in place on how to reveal the message, how to respond to the message being sprung onto the public by astronomers who bypass governments, how to plan for and deal with potential fallout, how to deal with the cults and religions and political ideologies that may result.

An alien message is the sort of event that can be foreseen but cannot be predicted. It is a realistic prospect of unknown and unknowable odds of happening in any timeframe. It should be studied, planned, wargamed.

You'd like to think that the news would be the catalyst that'd encouraged us to finally get our shit together. But then again:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbT1fCHOjfI&ab_channel=Citiprime

 

[Justo Miranda]

For those who have ears, there are a lot of materials about the population of other planets of the Solar system. And many of these sources are more than a thousand years old. If we discard the children's game "I believe - I don't believe", then we can make a fairly complete and objective picture on this issue.
Planet Jupiter - population of Domination, planet Saturn - population of Thrones, Mars - Forces, Sun - Powers, Venus - Beginnings, Mercury - Archangels, Moon - Angels, Earth - People

View attachment 686600

Thanks for the drawing, I find especially fascinating the flying eyes of Seraphin and Thrones, they seem designed for aerial reconnaissance.
According to an ancient legend, a man named Ezekiel observed flying wheels and winged humanoids when walking near the Chebar River in Caldea, 25 centuries ago.

The celebrated biblical passage may only be a made-up story, but archaeology and paleontology have proven time and time again that every myth and legend have a base of truth.

Ezekiel

The greatest resource on the Internet to begin the search for the meaning and origin of Life

www.garvandwane.com

 

[Justo Miranda]

For those who have ears,

there are a lot of materials about the population of other planets of the Solar system. And many of these sources are more than a thousand years old.

Which means they can be safely ignored. A thousand years ago, people believed a whole slew of patently false things... diseases were caused by out of balance humors or demons or witches; the stars were just little points of light in the sky; the Sun went around the Earth; Kings and serfs and slaves are all neato-keen institutions worthy of respect and maintenance; the "faith of a child" was actually a *good* thing. People then weren't stupid... but they were ignorant, and they were often quite wrong. If they couldn't be expected to understand the nature of *fire,* they sure as hell couldn't be expected to understand the nature of life on other worlds. People in the past did not have access to wisdom that we don't. All they had was access to less facts and lack of access to the scientific method, the most important development in all human history.

Here you are my two cents in favor of legends:

For 2,400 years the readers of the Odyssey believed that Cyclops were an invention. However, XX century archeologists discovered rests of a dwarf fossil elephant in Sicily with a skull like that of a giant head and which nasal duct looked like a frontal eye. It is the origin of the Mediterranean legend of Cyclops.

The Chinese imperial dragon legend is easier to explain; dinosaur fossils sold in chemistries against impotence.

The Indian rhinoceros discovered by the army of Alexander the Great was the origin of the medieval legend of the Unicorn. Although extinct 100,000 years ago, the Elasmotherium would be a more convincing reference.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Prepare for alien encounter now before it's too late, warn scientists

Team at University of St Andrews says Earth needs to work on communicating with extraterrestrials as first contact could happen any day

www.telegraph.co.uk

Let's see. Are we talking Star Trek aliens or actual, say, multi-tentacled aliens who communicate telepathically? "before it's too late"?

Laughable. Completely laughable.

In my opinion, a civilization with FTL technology will have developed very advanced navigation systems for their spaceships. Their computing capacity will be far greater than anything we have on Earth and for these systems it will be easy to create a translation matrix for all our languages and writing systems. The problem is not how to talk to them, the problem is whether they would want to talk to us.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Here you are my two cents in favor of legends:

Note: the examples you give showed that the ancients were *wrong.* The cyclops didn't exist, dragons didn't exist, crushed dinosaur fossils do nothing medically.

 

[1635yankee]

As far as it goes inteligence in other species is a thing of many facets.

When going for a swim at sea, I sometimes prefer encountering the aquatic intelligence of a 30 years old dolphin to encountering the terrestrial intelligence of a 3(0) years old human. Probably I´m just a bit weird or stupid.

Orcas are also very intelligent and cannibalistic

Great white sharks will leave an area for months when orcas pass through. The whales attack the sharks just to eat the livers

 

[Justo Miranda]

Laughable. Completely laughable.

Disagree. "Aliens" could be anything from bacteria on Mars or Europa to a friggen' Q. We simply cannot predict. But what we can do is make some effort to plan ahead. A comet could impact the Earth; a gamma ray burst could fry half the planet; a Carrington Event could trash the infrastructure; an engineered virus could wreak havoc; a primordial black hole could swing by and disrupt planetary orbits. All of these are "sci fi" plots, and they're all worthy of preparing for. Same with alien contact.

Sure, we don't know what the aliens will be like. But the worst possible situation would be for the authorities to be utterly surprised by the mere appearance of them. "Oh, crap, flying saucers! Nuke 'em now!"

We are not prepared to maintain a colony on the Moon, we do not even have ships with artificial gravity by rotation to travel to Mars and much less the capacity to supply a Martian colony. Even if in the future we manage to establish colonies on other planets or orbital archaeologies, our species will still be in danger of being exterminated by the explosion of a nearby supernova that destroys our atmosphere and our magnetic field. Our theoretical physicists are unable to solve the problem of the speed of light and old Albert keeps mocking us in the 1952 photo. The only way to preserve something if the worst happens is to create a database containing genetic information on all known life forms in our world and send copies away from the solar system in probes protected against radiation or buried deep in several asteroids located in polar orbits. Maybe ET is doing it too because it doesn't trust our future for reasons we can't know?

You're not making much sense. I'm involved in scenarios for all kinds of aliens/worlds/future and do a lot of research. The bottom line: We don't know anything. Nothing. About aliens. And it will stay that way in the real world. Without facts means yes, we will likely blow them up using whatever is on hand. Regarding the rest of what you wrote... sigh...

If Q shows up, I'll get him your email address...

I disagree, if ET exists we know three things about it or them: -Has FTL technology -Is interested in something that is on our planet -Does not want or can not communicate with us

 

[Justo Miranda]

As far as it goes inteligence in other species is a thing of many facets.

When going for a swim at sea, I sometimes prefer encountering the aquatic intelligence of a 30 years old dolphin to encountering the terrestrial intelligence of a 3(0) years old human. Probably I´m just a bit weird or stupid.

Orcas are also very intelligent and cannibalistic

Great white sharks will leave an area for months when orcas pass through. The whales attack the sharks just to eat the livers

They also attack newborn whales to eat their tongue and leave the rest, not out of hunger but for fun, like chimpanzees when they hunt monkeys to devour their young.

 

[Justo Miranda]

Here you are my two cents in favor of legends:

Note: the examples you give showed that the ancients were *wrong.* The cyclops didn't exist, dragons didn't exist, crushed dinosaur fossils do nothing medically.

That's true, but the misconceptions of our ancestors contain information about real things, even if they weren't scientifically prepared to understand them.

 

[Orionblamblam]

That's true, but the misconceptions of our ancestors contain information about real things...

It could hardly be otherwise. However, they remain wrong on a vast array of topics and the point remains that expecting The Ancients to have had some special insight into aliens or the supernatural or anything beyond the mundane facts of their daily lives is silly.

 

[Justo Miranda]

That's true, but the misconceptions of our ancestors contain information about real things...

It could hardly be otherwise. However, they remain wrong on a vast array of topics and the point remains that expecting The Ancients to have had some special insight into aliens or the supernatural or anything beyond the mundane facts of their daily lives is silly.

The daily life of these people was much simpler than ours, they practically dedicated themselves to survive by spending all their energy to obtain food and little else. Any means they had to obtain information was always controlled by the religious caste.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The daily life of these people was much simpler than ours, they practically dedicated themselves to survive by spending all their energy to obtain food and little else. Any means they had to obtain information was always controlled by the religious caste.

That's not entirely accurate. There is an incorrect assumption that primitive life was one of constant toil, but many recent primitive tribes have shown that they can get their nutrition out of just a few hours labor per day. This of course is highly dependent upon local conditions, of course (I've seen the case made that the development of more complex systems of thought is driven in part by seasonal change, requiring one to plan ahead for the predictable dark times). And the rise of a religious caste is dependent upon society reaching a level of "free time" to support an entire caste that does not devote its time to scrounging for the basics of life.

Most of the existence of humanity on Earth has not had a system of writing. the ability to record thoughts and observations is kinda vital to the development of science, and science is kinda vital to actually understanding reality. And the development of writing seems to require a reasonably sophisticated agricultural society; it also seems that private property rights need to be understood and protected, as much early writing seems to involve merchants keeping records. So that's something else we can expect from aliens: if they are intelligent and successful, they'll not only understand the scientific method, they'll probably be capitalists.

 

[edwest4]

I've just heard from Q. He says he finds your ideas to be 'intriguing.'

 

[Dreamfighter]

Prepare for alien encounter now before it's too late, warn scientists

Team at University of St Andrews says Earth needs to work on communicating with extraterrestrials as first contact could happen any day

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[sferrin]

You're not making much sense. I'm involved in scenarios for all kinds of aliens/worlds/future and do a lot of research. The bottom line: We don't know anything. Nothing. About aliens.

No, we don't. What we *do* know is "humans." And the unveiling of "aliens" could result in "humans" going stupid. How would humanity respond to "we've discovered bacteria on Mars?" Likely by going "huh" and then going about their day. How would humanity respond to "we discovered a messaged radioed from a civilization a hundred light years away?" THAT is something worthy of study. Depending on the message, you'll have a bunch of people who give zero damns, and some people who care a *lot.* This could well include those who go absolutely nuts. It would be advisable to have some sort of plan in place on how to reveal the message, how to respond to the message being sprung onto the public by astronomers who bypass governments, how to plan for and deal with potential fallout, how to deal with the cults and religions and political ideologies that may result.

An alien message is the sort of event that can be foreseen but cannot be predicted. It is a realistic prospect of unknown and unknowable odds of happening in any timeframe. It should be studied, planned, wargamed.

You'd like to think that the news would be the catalyst that'd encouraged us to finally get our shit together. But then again:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbT1fCHOjfI&ab_channel=Citiprime

It would most likely be used as a cudgel by the usual suspects to control behavior.

 

[edwest4]

"control behavior" Uh huh...

 

[Orionblamblam]

I've just heard from Q. He says he finds your ideas to be 'intriguing.'

You laugh, but somewhere right now someone is reading your post and deciding to create a religion around it.

 

[Hydroman]

For those who have ears,

there are a lot of materials about the population of other planets of the Solar system. And many of these sources are more than a thousand years old.

Which means they can be safely ignored. A thousand years ago, people believed a whole slew of patently false things... diseases were caused by out of balance humors or demons or witches; the stars were just little points of light in the sky; the Sun went around the Earth; Kings and serfs and slaves are all neato-keen institutions worthy of respect and maintenance; the "faith of a child" was actually a *good* thing. People then weren't stupid... but they were ignorant, and they were often quite wrong. If they couldn't be expected to understand the nature of *fire,* they sure as hell couldn't be expected to understand the nature of life on other worlds. People in the past did not have access to wisdom that we don't. All they had was access to less facts and lack of access to the scientific method, the most important development in all human history.

We all know where Vulcanized rubber technology came from.