21–30 of 68 posts
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If there is life in the Proxima Centauri system, and it has the technological capability to get to the Earth, I think they already know about us.
Serious question: how could they already know about us? Are you simply assuming they have advanced signal detection technologies that match their space fairing capability?
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I would venture a guess that all so-called intelligent life seeks make use of anything that it can get its hands on and order it according to its will. If this is true, then you really don't ever want to meet other intelligent life. At best they would integrate you into their economic system, just like we integrate people with lower intelligence into our economic system... or underdeveloped countries for that matter.…
That’s a closed minded view of intelligence. There’s a level above exploitation where you value other intelligent life and cherish it.
Heck maybe in the long run aliens have more to fear from humans than humans have to fear from aliens. But it's not going to end well for one of them in the long run.
Our first encounter with space faring aliens will probably go about as well as native Americans first encounter with Europeans.
I prefer a Dark Forest strategy for approaching the universe. If anything, we should be thinking about how to emit less radiation that can be traced back to Earth into space. Best case: aliens send us technology via morse code. Worst case: relativistic projectile from advanced civilization destroys Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Forest
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would venture a guess that all so-called intelligent life seeks make use of anything that it can get its hands on and order it according to its will. If this is true, then you really don't ever want to meet other intelligent life. At best they would integrate you into their economic system, just like we integrate people with lower intelligence into our economic system... or underdeveloped countries for that matter.…
That’s a closed minded view of intelligence. There’s a level above exploitation where you value other intelligent life and cherish it.
That sounds like a hope/belief, not a fact.
There may be levels of regard for intelligence that are below pets. See, for example, "To Serve Man". [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man
edit for misspelling
Are they fucking crazy? Turn out that light! Our first encounter with space faring aliens will probably go about as well as native Americans first encounter with Europeans.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At this point I think I would rather take our chances with the aliens since we are going to destroy ourselves anyway.
For being such a cynic about humanity you're awfully optimistic about aliens.
How we would agree on a handshake? Aliens don’t know English let alone Morse code.
If nothing else, you can draw simple two-color pictures by sending pixels in a NxM grid, where N and M are both primes. Enough minds thinking about the problem will eventually figure it out.