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Have we already been visited by aliens?

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Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#151

Post by galkk »

yoz-y wrote: post #120
mtts wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the Chinese science fiction author Liu Cixin the Fermi paradox is solved by the certainty that if an alien civilization announces its presence to the rest of the universe, one of the gazillions of other advanced alien civilizations is sure to destroy it. So they keep quiet.

The books and all are nice but the Dark Forest Theory doesn't hold agains much scrutiny. Among other reasons because if that were true we would be already dead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmCTmgavkrQ

I mean - it's called Dark Forest, but if you will look at any documentary, even dark forest is full of life. You will hear crickets, you will hear owls, you may see fireflies.

The theory has catchy name, but even the earth's nature disproves it.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#153

Post by trhway »

cbozeman wrote: post #52
wait_a_minute wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the biggest problems I have with Star Trek. If we were literally gods by comparison to some fledgling species, the only ethical approach would be to elevate them and cure their diseases and advance their knowledge as quickly as humanly possible.

Imagine a race of ultra-advanced aliens were to give us technology that keeps us not only alive indefinitely, but robust and healthy, without disease. Just that one piece of technology. Not even weird weapons like antimatter bombs, etc. Do you think humanity would suddenly come together in understanding and peace to explore the stars and advance ourselves... or do you think people who already have enormous wealth and…

>Imagine a race of ultra-advanced aliens were to give us technology that keeps us not only alive indefinitely, but robust and healthy, without disease. Just that one piece of technology. Not even weird weapons like antimatter bombs, etc.

I think that exactly what happened 2000 years ago. Unfortunately we just failed to understand most of the info and it got lost "in translation" due to communication barrier. The good thing is they did promise to return and try again when hopefully our development and ability to understand would get a bit more advanced.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#154

Post by nobody9999 »

StavrosK wrote: post #21
mrbonner wrote: post #17

I just started to watch the 1993 series Star Trek new generation. The show has some interesting ideas regarding advanced civilizations vs the primitive ones. One of which is called the prime directive prohibiting any star fleet from intervening with the evolution of primitive people. In one of the episodes “who watches the watcher” the USS enterprise travels to planet Minkita 2 for a rescue mission and encounters a p…

You should try DS9 when you're done with TNG. It's very different, but still great. I think they're some of the best shows ever made, especially because they didn't tiptoe around ethical dilemmas, they made them a main part of each episode's plot.

>You should try DS9 when you're done with TNG. It's very different, but still great.

I'm going to recommend Babylon 5 for this as well. It's not nearly as utopian as Star Trek and focuses on many of the issues interacting with other people/groups/alien species that ST (DS9 does do this, in some respects) generally ignores.

It also doesn't ignore capitalism, greed and general bad behavior like ST mostly does.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#155

Post by jonny_eh »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #35

> Loeb, though, explicitly rejects the Sagan standard—“It is not obvious to me why extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” he observes—and flips its logic on its head: “Extraordinary conservatism keeps us extraordinarily ignorant.” So long as there’s a chance that 1I/2017 U1 is an alien probe, we’d be fools not to pursue the idea. “If we acknowledge that ‘Oumuamua is plausibly of extraterrestrial-techno…

Also infuriating since Sagan was a proponent of long-shot science like SETI and the golden disc on Voyager. He proved that we can be scientifically rigorous and still take chances to explore.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#156

Post by emteycz »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #119
mtts wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the Chinese science fiction author Liu Cixin the Fermi paradox is solved by the certainty that if an alien civilization announces its presence to the rest of the universe, one of the gazillions of other advanced alien civilizations is sure to destroy it. So they keep quiet.

That would imply the laws of physics somehow dictate the self-manifestation or creation of intelligent clouds of elements (e.g. humans) who by their vary quantum waveform / nature are violent and want to destroy other clouds of elements even if the cost involves harvesting energy from your only local star.

Not necessarily - the laws of physics might merely make it likely enough to be common.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#157

Post by GoblinSlayer »

eloff wrote: post #34
flatiron wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can at least put something in its way and if it nopes around it to avoid a collision that’s pretty freaking interesting.

Again, if we had the technology to do that it would be amazing. We can't generate even within a couple orders of magnitude of the acceleration needed to do that.

AFAIK, Japan conducted an experiment of asteroid exploration by collision and it revealed chemical composition. But if it's not an asteroid, it might be seen as rude.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#158

Post by lo_fye »

Many people have seen them so near that there's no possible way it's a misidentification. For example, standing in the same room, indoors, in their homes... or outside in groups with many other corroborating witnesses (Google "Ariel School Zimbabwe mass sighting"). They're not all lying. In fact, if even just 1 is true, then yes we are being visited by aliens.

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#159

Post by networkimprov »

tiborsaas wrote: post #47

Prof David Kipping did a point-by-point analysis of Loeb's claims: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX_Bj7064Ms TLDW: most likely a natural object.

After I watched that (love Dr. Kipping) I watched Event Horizon's interview with Loeb, and it raises a cpl items that Kipping didn't address (e.g. the shape is a pancake, not cigar).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D24E4F90HTo

Re: Have we already been visited by aliens?

#160

Post by johnisgood »

lo_fye wrote: post #158

Many people have seen them so near that there's no possible way it's a misidentification. For example, standing in the same room, indoors, in their homes... or outside in groups with many other corroborating witnesses (Google "Ariel School Zimbabwe mass sighting"). They're not all lying. In fact, if even just 1 is true, then yes we are being visited by aliens.

I did not search for it yet, but "Mass psychogenic illness"[1] is a thing. From Wikipedia: "Mass psychogenic illness (MPI), also called mass sociogenic illness, mass psychogenic disorder, epidemic hysteria, or mass hysteria, is the rapid spread of illness signs and symptoms affecting members of a cohesive group, originating from a nervous system disturbance involving excitation, loss, or alteration of function, whereby physical complaints that are exhibited unconsciously have no corresponding organic aetiology.".

There also have been mass hysteria cases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_hysteria_cases

I would also like to mention "Folie à deux"[2]. From Wikipedia: "Folie à deux ('madness for two'), also known as shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD), is a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief, and sometimes hallucinations, are transmitted from one individual to another.".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux

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