Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
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Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#2It's true that once something was able to reach us, they'd probably have very little interest in conquering us, stealing our resources, or anything else "movie aliens" do. Where I disagree is that such beings wouldn't be interested in us.
Start with us. Despite knowing basically where we came from, what our ancestors looked like, and how their DNA would look, we're still fascinated to find links and steps along the way. I'm still intrigued by bugs and bacteria, despite being much more advanced and sophisticated. We still call our dogs "smart," and enjoy when they communicate with us in their simple ways.
Anything that goes into space is probably curious. You don't even start a space program to look or travel elsewhere if you're not interested in what might be out there!
How could you not be interested in an entirely different biosphere? In exploring among plants and animals, the likes of which you'd never seen? If you lack that kind of curiosity, you'd just stay home in the first place. We're all just speculating of course, but it's an interesting topic.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#3Imagine a race of technologically advanced religious zealots. Now imagine that their god has tasked them with converting everyone in the universe and kill any who refuse. If you're having trouble, just imaging a Catholic Space Crusade or an Islamic Space Jihad, it's the next "logical" step. I'd be pretty afraid of aliens with that kind of mindset.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#4Imagine a race of technologically advanced religious zealots. Now imagine that their god has tasked them with converting everyone in the universe and kill any who refuse. If you're having trouble, just imaging a Catholic Space Crusade or an Islamic Space Jihad, it's the next "logical" step. I'd be pretty afraid of aliens with that kind of mindset.
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Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#5Imagine a race of technologically advanced religious zealots. Now imagine that their god has tasked them with converting everyone in the universe and kill any who refuse. If you're having trouble, just imaging a Catholic Space Crusade or an Islamic Space Jihad, it's the next "logical" step. I'd be pretty afraid of aliens with that kind of mindset.
I think it's difficult to do any sound prediction. Once you reach a certain level of civilization advancement, I think everything is different, a little bit like you couldn't compare our civilization with the first human beings fighting for food.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#6Previous Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5613920
Original Link: http://paultyma.blogspot.com/2013/04/why-well-never-meet-ali...
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#7If there are or were aliens, why have we not heard them?
Forget visits, why haven't we heard a peep? From anywhere?
The universe is 13.77 billion years old. It took planet earth 4.54 billion years to evolve a species capable of emitting significant electromagnetic radiation.
I'm starting to be pretty convinced that we are the first advanced species, and perhaps life is a lot more rare than we imagine.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#8Imagine a race of technologically advanced religious zealots. Now imagine that their god has tasked them with converting everyone in the universe and kill any who refuse. If you're having trouble, just imaging a Catholic Space Crusade or an Islamic Space Jihad, it's the next "logical" step. I'd be pretty afraid of aliens with that kind of mindset.
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Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#9the largest logical fallacy among many that this article suffers from is that alien species would necessarily need to be technologically advanced to reach us. This probably comes from another flawed line of thought that aliens need to be like us in some way (hence requiring things like figuring out how to survive radiation, last for long periods without food and so on). This doesnt really make sense since on earth itself there are species that can do things we humans couldnt do (cockroaches can cope with tremendous amounts of radiation for example, and bacteria that live near geysers etc - thrive at extremely high temperatures). So why isn't it possible that an alien species that just about figures out how to ride a rock in space and doesnt really need all the advancement that we need to survive - comes floating by planet earth and decides to check us out sometimes?! Don't back up a lack of imagination with flawed logic ;)
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#10If there are or were aliens, why have we not heard them? Forget visits, why haven't we heard a peep? From anywhere? The universe is 13.77 billion years old. It took planet earth 4.54 billion years to evolve a species capable of emitting significant electromagnetic radiation. I'm starting to be pretty convinced that we are the first advanced species, and perhaps life is a lot more rare than we imagine.
Because we've been listening, rather half-assedly, for less than 100 years to a thing that is orders of magnitude larger than that (in light years) and haven't heard anything ... there must be nothing there?!
That's pretty much like knocking on the door of a house with all the lights on, and when it isn't answered three milliseconds later, concluding no-one is home.