Live data from Hacker News

The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

iflscience.com

71–80 of 279 posts

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying God is the best explanation for any newly described natural phenomenon.

How? We don't know gods exist. We know beings with technology and agency living on planets in space exist. There seems nothing at all similar between the two explanations.

Planet. Man has reach the moon (not in my lifetime) but that isn't a planet. There are robots out a little farther but so far as we can be sure only one planet has life. (you can calculate odds of others but there isn't enough data to be confident)

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends who got to the top first. If the most advanced was peaceful but eliminated threats. I’d assume they could create a collective empire. Apex ruthless only gets you so far verses a collective.

On the other hand they could still see us as a threat to the collective due to our levels of aggression, and eliminate us to protect themselves.

It's a safe bet that if they know about us at all they'll just stay away from us. Our media is filled with depictions of us killing aliens. There's little reason to think we'd accept them. We can't even get along with/accept other humans. Some people's first instinct will be to shoot them. Others will want to lock them up and experiment on them.

If aliens did come here they'd have to be very brave, powerful enough not to worry about what we'd do, or unaware of what we are.

I'm not too worried they'd kill us to protect themselves though. At the rate we're going, we'll kill ourselves off along with every other living thing on the planet long before we get out of our own solar system.

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#73
post #4

As compared to Australian FRBs: https://www.planetary.org/articles/0417-the-cosmic-microwave...

[flagged]

These nutjobs still don't want to grasp the reality that the UFO sighting at Area 51 was the radar test of the A-12 prototype, which was made out of shiny unpainted titanium and done in the salt desert due to its properties of absorbing electromagnetic waves. And then some people that saw this around Roswell were spreading the rumor of UFOs because at the time that was the trend on television.

Always bet on stupidity, they'll say anything to get their 5 minutes of attention on TV / social media. I mean, there were even senate and court hearings over this. Over a rumor that was disproven decades ago.

The US (and probably by extend our species) has a serious education and information validation problem.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12

edit: Downvotes without comments create the downvote paradox, and kind of prove my point

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. There are many, many cosmic processes that we don't know the first thing about. At one point, we didn't know what a pulsar was, and a fair amount of people probably thought it was an alien signal. Human History is littered with examples of attribution of the unexplained to aliens. So far, non alien explanations have been found for all of them, except possibly this one. Does it warrant further study? Absol…

Indeed. Human history is riddled with anthropomorphism and people here trying to argue for more of it. We probably wouldn't even recognize real aliens because we'd be too busy looking for our own reflection in the sky.

The real aliens were the friends we made along the way.

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#76
post #4

As compared to Australian FRBs: https://www.planetary.org/articles/0417-the-cosmic-microwave...

[flagged]

Mars is extraterrestrial. The sun is extraterrestrial. Even the moon is extraterrestrial.

And this article isn't about "coming here".

As for your claims about the motives of people seeking extraterrestrial life or even wanting there to be such life, they are beyond absurd. Likening it to religious faith: it is belief without evidence.

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#77
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either way, I really hope that we establish contact with aliens in my lifetime. Hopefully they're chill, and like us lol.

Any species that is advanced enough for interstellar communication will almost certainly be a highly aggressive apex species. You don't get to the top of the food chain by being nice, you get there by murdering all of the competition and plundering all of the resources. And if you were trying to be nice, someone else would have just wiped you out. The big question is if a species can eventually reach some point of co…

The somewhat counterintuitive rules for the best expected strategy to repeated conflicts:

- Nice

- Friendly

- Retaliatory/provokable

- Clear

https://youtu.be/mScpHTIi-kM At 15:00 in.

Re: The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any species that is advanced enough for interstellar communication will almost certainly be a highly aggressive apex species. You don't get to the top of the food chain by being nice, you get there by murdering all of the competition and plundering all of the resources. And if you were trying to be nice, someone else would have just wiped you out. The big question is if a species can eventually reach some point of co…

I think you are wrong and the more humanity has become intelligent, the more empathy and love we have displayed. I think it’s a hallmark of intelligence. The most intelligent people I know are the most kind and understanding. It’s the ignorant that are cruel and uncaring.

Sadly, we're becoming less intelligent with time I doubt the trend is going to get better before it gets worse.
Post reply on HN