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Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?

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Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?

#1

Post by uptown »

A topic of conversation that colleagues and I frequently revisit questions whether humankind will ever encounter what's typically referred to as "aliens", and if so ... the implications of such an encounter. We've generally concluded that if such an encounter were to occur, it could change almost every aspect of our lives (science,religion,technology, etc.). With that said, we have no consensus of belief as to whether it will ever happen nor an agreement of exactly how our society would be impacted.

I'm curious what the members of the Hacker News community believe .... both whether it will ever happen, and how it would affect the world we know.

Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?

#3

Post by emilsedgh »

Forget stuff you watched on Stargate. Probably first encounters would be much less interesting. Like we find a few bacterias there. Or with best luck, an animal or something like that.

Really, encountering inteligence life on other planets would be very damn interesting, but IMHO, highly unlikely.

Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?

#4

Post by paol »

emilsedgh wrote: post #3

Forget stuff you watched on Stargate. Probably first encounters would be much less interesting. Like we find a few bacterias there. Or with best luck, an animal or something like that. Really, encountering inteligence life on other planets would be very damn interesting, but IMHO, highly unlikely.

Still, even finding non-intelligent alien life would make it much more likely that intelligent alien life exists somewhere.

(Basically there are 2 probabilities we can't estimate now, other that they are != 0: the probability of life appearing on a given planet (P1), and the probability of intelligence evolving once life is present (P2). The probability of intelligent life then is P1 x P2)

Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?

#6

Post by charlesdm »

The chance of it existing somewhere is pretty big. However, our galaxy is huge so the chance of ever encountering them is pretty slim for now. I don't really expect us to find something until we develop a working sort of FTL technology. Since achieving this is probably still a few hundred years off I'm personally a bit sceptic whether we'll ever reach this point with all the problems we're facing here on earth.

I really believe we should focus on development of technology and infrastructure that would allow a large amount of people to go live on for instance Mars. This would allow us to focus on the development of FTL technology without the chance of dying before we complete it and it would probably boost additional development in space technology as well.

Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?

#7

Post by proexploit »

paol wrote: post #4
emilsedgh wrote: post #3

Forget stuff you watched on Stargate. Probably first encounters would be much less interesting. Like we find a few bacterias there. Or with best luck, an animal or something like that. Really, encountering inteligence life on other planets would be very damn interesting, but IMHO, highly unlikely.

Still, even finding non-intelligent alien life would make it much more likely that intelligent alien life exists somewhere. (Basically there are 2 probabilities we can't estimate now, other that they are != 0: the probability of life appearing on a given planet (P1), and the probability of intelligence evolving once life is present (P2). The probability of intelligent life then is P1 x P2)

Finding non-intelligent alien life would not make it more likely that intelligent alien life exists. It either exists or it doesn't. :)

Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?

#8

Post by byoung2 »

charlesdm wrote: post #6

The chance of it existing somewhere is pretty big. However, our galaxy is huge so the chance of ever encountering them is pretty slim for now. I don't really expect us to find something until we develop a working sort of FTL technology. Since achieving this is probably still a few hundred years off I'm personally a bit sceptic whether we'll ever reach this point with all the problems we're facing here on earth. I rea…

The chance of it existing somewhere is pretty big. However, our galaxy is huge so the chance of ever encountering them is pretty slim for now

Just 500 years ago, Europeans didn't know about America. It may turn out that aliens bump into us by accident and we find out that they were right around the corner the whole time. Or it is possible that the aliens have the FTL technology to get to us from a point far enough away that our satellites can't see them yet.

Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?

#10

Post by byoung2 »

proexploit wrote: post #7
paol wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, even finding non-intelligent alien life would make it much more likely that intelligent alien life exists somewhere. (Basically there are 2 probabilities we can't estimate now, other that they are != 0: the probability of life appearing on a given planet (P1), and the probability of intelligence evolving once life is present (P2). The probability of intelligent life then is P1 x P2)

Finding non-intelligent alien life would not make it more likely that intelligent alien life exists. It either exists or it doesn't. :)

I think he meant that finding non-intelligent alien life might make the possibility that there is also intelligent alien life more believable.
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