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Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

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Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#11

Post by asdfadfs »

ebbv wrote: post #2

The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. And it's obvious that if we could travel around the galaxy and we detected life forms on another planet, we would obviously go visit them and check them out. The…

>>The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. Look, there are many ponds of varying sizes, a couple of meters to hundreds of meters in diameter, in the woods near my home. Some of them most likely have life of some form. How interested are you in going there and study that life or even just check out what life there is? None? Right. That is the whole point of the article. You already know there is life there, it is not unique. Why bother?

Your are making the exact mistake the author cautions against. We think we are important, most likely we are a dime a dozen in the vastness of the galaxy.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#12

Post by [deleted] »

snowwrestler wrote: post #8

> The bottom line is that if an alien race is capable of getting here, all the other technology they've requisitely developed in the meantime would make the trip unnecessary at best - and more than likely, simply meaningless. This argument is structurally similar to the argument that God exists because God is perfect, and a necessary attribute of perfection is existence. It begs the question. Personally I think the r…

[deleted]

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#13

Post by webwielder »

Another day, another instance of someone saying "Stephen Hawkings" or "Jony Ives".

The biggest impediment in my mind to alien contact is time. Intelligent life could have evolved any time in the past 13 billion years or any time in the next googol years. The probability that we would cross temporal paths in our few thousand years of viable existence seems low.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#14

Post by ebbv »

asdfadfs wrote: post #11
ebbv wrote: post #2

The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. And it's obvious that if we could travel around the galaxy and we detected life forms on another planet, we would obviously go visit them and check them out. The…

>>The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. Look, there are many ponds of varying sizes, a couple of meters to hundreds of meters in diameter, in the woods near my home. Some of them most likely have life…

There are people who are interested in the contents of those ponds, and they already have been studied.

The people who are curious about the ponds (planets) are the ones that would be put on the ship.

Not to mention your analogy is terrible. Those ponds aren't interesting to me because they are nothing special. They don't contain anything that we aren't constantly surrounded with everywhere.

On the other hand in the galaxy, planets with life on it are special. And intelligent life even more so.

Your argument is extremely, extremely weak. As I said, it's obvious, if aliens were cruising around the universe the whole purpose of it would be to find other intelligent life and inhabitable planets and interesting stuff. If we were doing it, that would obviously be our purpose, there's no reason to think that wouldn't be the purpose of any other intelligent life.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#15

Post by aegiso »

ebbv wrote: post #2

The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. And it's obvious that if we could travel around the galaxy and we detected life forms on another planet, we would obviously go visit them and check them out. The…

> We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves.

Actually, as far as our interactions with other life forms go, we either ignore them (intestinal bacteria), keep them away (diseases), exterminate them (pests), or harvest and devour them (farming), or kill them for sport (hunting). The utterly insignificant fraction that become objects of our affection are those that are extremely close to us on the evolutionary scale. This wouldn't be the case with a civilization advanced enough to visit. Not even close.

If someone somewhere discovered a new breed of cockroach, would you care?

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#16

Post by adventured »

asdfadfs wrote: post #11
ebbv wrote: post #2

The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. And it's obvious that if we could travel around the galaxy and we detected life forms on another planet, we would obviously go visit them and check them out. The…

>>The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. Look, there are many ponds of varying sizes, a couple of meters to hundreds of meters in diameter, in the woods near my home. Some of them most likely have life…

Humans have spent a massive amount of time and effort studying other forms of life on this planet. As a species, we clearly have an intense interest in that, demonstrated in everything from what we look at on Reddit, to what books are purchased to what types of vacations people like to take, to gardening and cultivation, to the number of people that work in fields directly related to the environment or animals.

Your premise is invalid.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#17

Post by tempaccount9473 »

If aliens aren't coming to this planet, clearly this is a market ripe for disruption!

I'm now looking for a cofounder who will shake up the L2L (lifeform to lifeform) market with a new disruptive social media platform for unmotivated hypotetcial advanced beings to share pictures of intergalactic felines.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#18

Post by asdfadfs »

codex wrote: post #3

This article seems to gloss over the hypothesis that aliens evolved under evolutionary pressure, and are thus likely to want to reproduce and expand. So no matter how advanced they may become technologically, they might still want our resources and our planet, simply because they're reproducing themselves at an exponential rate--especially if they've solved the immortality problem, which is likely. Even with advanced…

>>This article seems to gloss over the hypothesis that aliens evolved under evolutionary pressure, and are thus likely to want to reproduce and expand.

Remember though that we've already seen that people in rich nations are not driven to reproduce and expand like bunnies. Is there some evolutionary pressure on you that drives you fuck woman and have children with them? Is the impulse so strong that you cannot help yourself? We can have as much sex as we want, but without the children because of birth control. Why would it be any different for Aliens?

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#19

Post by trafficlight »

aegiso wrote: post #15
ebbv wrote: post #2

The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. And it's obvious that if we could travel around the galaxy and we detected life forms on another planet, we would obviously go visit them and check them out. The…

> We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. Actually, as far as our interactions with other life forms go, we either ignore them (intestinal bacteria), keep them away (diseases), exterminate them (pests), or harvest and devour them (farming), or kill them for sport (hunting). The utterly insignificant fraction that become objects of our a…

If it were a Mars cockroach, we would desperately care.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#20

Post by [deleted] »

asdfadfs wrote: post #11
ebbv wrote: post #2

The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. And it's obvious that if we could travel around the galaxy and we detected life forms on another planet, we would obviously go visit them and check them out. The…

>>The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. Look, there are many ponds of varying sizes, a couple of meters to hundreds of meters in diameter, in the woods near my home. Some of them most likely have life…

[deleted]
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