# Alien Civilizations & the Arc of Technological Development **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 8, 2001, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191 "2001-03-08T03:55:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/21 "2001-03-12T15:01:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > In the Delta Quadrant…almost every alien civilization the Starship _Voyager_ has encountered has had warp drive, shields, and weapons of similar power to their own. Then I second your :rolleyes: Sheesh. _Celestina_ there is some cause to think that life on other planets may be vastly different from our own. Whether said life is intelligent, I don’t know. I maintain that the psychology of an intelligent species competing for limited resources is, universally, a formula for war without a centralized form of religion/ philosophy/ government/ whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/22 "2001-03-12T17:20:55Z")
The important thing to remember is that aliens will NOT be Star Trek aliens, they’ll be alien aliens. Think about the creatures on our planet that we consider pretty intelligent. Dolphins, Elephants, Ravens, Octopi, etc. These are creatures that are actually very similar to humans, especially the mammals. But they have very different social structures. We can’t expect aliens to have the same sociality as us, even if they were very similar to us. Look at our closest relatives. Chimps don’t have pair bonds, Gorillas live in single-male families, Orangutans are solitary, Gibbons are territorial single-pairs. And then add in sensory differences. Imagine creatures that can sense electric fields. It took us centuries to even recognize that such a thing as electricity even existed. But what if we could sense electricity directly? The concept of a battery is pretty simple, just reacting metal and acid. A neolithic tribe could make them. But they would never have the IDEA of making them…but if they could sense electricity they might. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/23 "2001-03-12T17:38:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > \*\* > In the Delta Quadrant – where contact with the humans, Klingons, and Romulans has been practically non-existent over lo these many centuries – almost every alien civilization the Starship _Voyager_ has encountered has had warp drive, shields, and weapons of similar power to their own. \*\* I think you’re missing a basic point: societies that don’t have warp drive would not be able to interact with other spacefaring cultures. Hence they would have no contact with them. Voyager’s prime directive forbids the crew from making ANY contact with a civilization that does not possess warp technology. So they would have no contact with them. They HAVE run into prewarp planets, IIRC, but they had to be secretive in any dealings w/ them. As for other spacefaring aliens that have no prime directive to prevent contact, any prewarp society they discovered would likely either acquire the technology from them (and therefore be on the same level) or be destroyed. Just like when Europeans ran into stone age peoples in the past few centuries. So you’d expect everyone to have a rougly similar level of technology, b/c the less-advanced folks have either copied the more-advanced ones or been killed off. Lord, I’m such a geek. ---
**Author:** ![sojourn26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@sojourn26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sojourn26)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/24 "2001-03-12T17:49:40Z")
I am going to have to agree w/ **Lemur866**. There is no sure way to determine if an alien civilization is going to follow along the same path of ours or not. Take in consideration the aliens themselves. Who is to say that they are even carbon based life forms? Who is to say that they are even in a solid state? Maybe they are chemical based, or energy based, what type of technology would they require then? Of course another difference would be the planet they live on. Is it a gas giant, a planet primarily composed of some type of fluid, say liquid nitrogen or so forth? Is the planet a solid planet, or to term more adequately, a giant rock? What about the gravity, temperature, atmosphere, nearby orbiting objects, the sun it revolves around and the orbit it follows around the sun? If per say, that the orbit around the sun pulls the planet into a winter like season for 80% of the year and a blazing summer the rest of the year, what technology would they have to counter this? Another important variable is, are they the only ones on the planet? What about more than 1 alien species that evolved? Would they live in harmony, war, or just not be compatible with each other at all? What about if they are not even at the top of the food chain? What would a civilization be like if something preyed on them other than themselves? Hell, if you want to even go further out there, what about life that might exist without ever originating from a planet? Something that lives in the vacuum of space or in nebulas or something really wild like those? For all you know, aliens could be posting right now about the same topic. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/25 "2001-03-12T17:51:25Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by toadspittle \* \*\* > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > Lord, I’m such a geek. \*\* You must embrace your geekiness! Who do you think invents all the cool technology? ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/26 "2001-03-12T20:23:30Z")
Um … I didn’t say “Lord, I’m such a geek”, toadspittle did. I am _well_ past the stage where I feel any need to acknowledge my geekiness with such phrases. I just argue over whether the Enterprise could beat a Star Destroyer in a fight. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/27 "2001-03-12T20:30:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sojourn26 \* > **I am going to have to agree w/ Lemur866. There is no sure way to determine if an alien civilization is going to follow along the same path of ours or not.** There is little doubt in my mind that life itself could be very different. It is so on earth here, no? There is some doubt(to me) that intelligent life could be made out of something other than carbon or silicon compounds, just from my experience in chemistry and electricity. Intracellular communication is necessary for an _intelligent_ creature (ie- its components, if even not cells as we understand them, would need to interact). Organic chemistry is a varied and complicated field, and life is varied and complicated. Seems to go hand in hand to me. Any _thing_ which relied on electricity in some way would require metal salts for ionic strength variations, or be made out of a conductive metal itself, in which case they could not be type 2 metals (second from the left on periodic table) since those react violently with water to form bases (IIRC…the hydroxide attaches to the metal and H gas is given off). This reaction could, of course, be part of the energy process of the thing, but then I would wonder about what liquids it uses for cooling, control, fluidity of movement, etc etc. In short, to me, a compact intelligent life form is probably going to be pretty similar to us in more ways than they are different. ---
**Author:** ![celestina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/258eb7/32.png) [@celestina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/celestina)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/28 "2001-03-12T20:44:11Z")
aynrandlover said: “Celestina there is some cause to think that life on other planets may be vastly different from our own. Whether said life is intelligent, I don’t know.” ayn: Sorry if my post wasn’t clear. I meant that life on other planets is vastly different that on earth. I was pointing out that to me at least “alien” by definition means different in physical form as well as in the capacity to define differently from humans the concepts of “intelligence,” “technology,” and “civilization.” ---
**Author:** ![sojourn26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@sojourn26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sojourn26)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/29 "2001-03-12T21:49:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by aynrandlover \* > \*\* > There is some doubt(to me) that intelligent life could be made out of something other than carbon or silicon compounds, just from my experience in chemistry and electricity. Intracellular communication is necessary for an _intelligent_ creature (ie- its components, if even not cells as we understand them, would need to interact). Organic chemistry is a varied and complicated field, and life is varied and complicated. Seems to go hand in hand to me. > > Any _thing_ which relied on electricity in some way would require metal salts for ionic strength variations, or be made out of a conductive metal itself, in which case they could not be type 2 metals (second from the left on periodic table) since those react violently with water to form bases (IIRC…the hydroxide attaches to the metal and H gas is given off). > > This reaction could, of course, be part of the energy process of the thing, but then I would wonder about what liquids it uses for cooling, control, fluidity of movement, etc etc. > > In short, to me, a compact intelligent life form is probably going to be pretty similar to us in more ways than they are different. \*\* Just remeber though that this assumption is based off of what we know now and what we know of on this planet. As with everything involved w/ astrology and astrological theories, we know only a billionth of how everything works. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/30 "2001-03-12T21:58:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by aynrandlover \* > \*\*In short, to me, a compact intelligent life form is probably going to be pretty similar to us in more ways than they are different. \*\* I’d agree with that, as long as we recognize that a human and a earthworm are amazingly similar. Any animal is going to have to process energy. It will have to get that energy from autotrophs, whether the autotrophs are chemosynthetic, photosynthetic, or mechanosynthetic. They are going to have ways to move around (they could be sessile, but sessile creatures don’t tend to have advanced nervous systems). So any intelligent alien is going to have to move around and get food. They will have to sense their environment. Bilateral symmetry seems very very likely, even for methane-breathing space slugs from Jupiter’s core. Vision is pretty likely. Legs or fins or wings are likely. What is NOT likely are omnivorous creatures with five fingers on two hands with two legs who evolved from brachiating tree-climbers, with vesitigial hair all over their bodies except their heads, who live in long term male-female pairs within a larger band and have hidden estrous. I agree that similar laws of physics will produce similar creatures on similar planets. But we have to keep in mind that “similar” has to be taken broadly. We see that on earth, with dolphins, ichthyosaurs and sharks evolving similar shapes. But even with those similar shapes provided by convergent evolution there is a huge difference between a dolphin and a shark. And we still have no idea if aliens will have DNA or proteins or any biochemistry similar to ours. Maybe bacteria travel between stars routinely, and all life in our galaxy will be very similar biochemically. Or maybe not, we don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/31 "2001-03-12T23:58:02Z")
I think that any aliens out there, “intelligent” as we choose to define it or not, will be so incredibly different from us that we may have difficulty categorizing such creatures as “life,” much less rating their technology and intelligence. One thing worth remembering is that science fiction, good or bad, almost universally uses aliens to demonstrate some aspect of ourselves either by similarities or by differences. Aliens in literature are a human construct, and aside from the most basic similarities dictated by the physics and chemistry discussed above, I doubt that real aliens would be anything like what I can imagine. Those differences are going to dictate enormous differences in alien technology. For example, if an alien creature is an intelligent ocean on another planet, it might work on a purely biochemical level, using no tools as we know them at all. The thing could be a spacefaring alien, sending globs of itself into orbit via biochemical rockets which explore and then reenter the atmosphere to rain down information on itself. Its thought processes and endeavors might take thousands of years. Would we even recognize such a thing as a thinking creature? Maybe, if you caught it sending some part of itself into orbit, but what if it takes a hundred years for it to prepare a launch? That having been said, if and when we _do_ meet an alien race, I can almost guarantee that they’re going to have some striking similarities to us. They _have_ to, because we’re not just looking for intelligent life. We are looking for _intelligent life that understands how to utilize the radio part of the electromagnetic spectrum for purposes of communication that is recognizable in some form to humans, and utilizes that form of communication frequently enough for us to spot them._ So the first aliens we discover are probably going to be something of kindred spirits. However, I maintain that the discovery of such creatures will not confirm the theory that technology advances upon similar lines for all intelligent species. _Similar critters are the only ones for whom we are currently searching._ ---
**Author:** ![Xploder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a183cd/32.png) [@Xploder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xploder)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2001, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/32 "2001-03-13T00:16:07Z")
What has always struck me about this type of question is the following: Assume an intelligence that evolves normally yet **never leaves the ocean**. How _could_ there be a similar type of technological development chain? Pretty difficult to discover fire if you can’t leave and underwater environment. Also, FWIW, I agree with **Sofa King** when he states this: _Similar critters are the only ones for whom we are currently searching._ ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2001, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/33 "2001-03-13T06:44:16Z")
What if the intelligent aliens were only a few inches tall? Yeah, not likely with our form of nervous system, but maybe their version of neurons are smaller and more efficient. This would have a major effect on their technology - they might never get out of the stone age if they lived in a somewhat Earthlike environment, because it would be extremely difficult for them to build a fire hot enough to refine ore. Once they built one (which would probably have to be the size of a small castle to them) how would they manipulate the objects inside? They would need to build elaborate cranes and manipulator arms to reach into it. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2001, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/34 "2001-03-13T15:22:33Z")
**Badtz** , been reading the smurf/fire thread? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2001, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/35 "2001-03-13T19:49:04Z")
aynrandlover wrote: > [@](#): > > Any _thing_ which relied on electricity in some way would require metal salts for ionic strength variations, or be made out of a conductive metal itself, in which case they could not be type 2 metals (second from the left on periodic table) since those react violently with water to form bases (IIRC…the hydroxide attaches to the metal and H gas is given off). This would only be a problem if the creature’s biology were water-based. If they were ammonia-based, or (in a much colder environment) liquid-methane-based, alkaline and alkaline-earth metals would not have nearly as much water to react with. sojourn26 wrote: > [@](#): > > Just remeber though that this assumption is based off of what we know now and what we know of on this planet. As with everything involved w/ astrology and astrological theories, we know only a billionth of how everything works. (underlining mine) Please, _please_ tell me you meant “astronomy” and “astronomical”! ---
**Author:** ![sojourn26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@sojourn26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sojourn26)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2001, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/36 "2001-03-13T21:00:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > sojourn26 wrote: > > > [@](#): > > > > Just remeber though that this assumption is based off of what we know now and what we know of on this planet. As with everything involved w/ astrology and astrological theories, we know only a billionth of how everything works. > > (underlining mine) > > Please, _please_ tell me you meant “astronomy” and “astronomical”! \*\* Yeah, that was what I meant. It happens when you are posting on 3 different subjects while at work. ---
**Author:** ![Xploder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a183cd/32.png) [@Xploder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xploder)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/37 "2001-03-14T01:28:26Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by tracer \* \*\*sojourn26 wrote: > [@](#): > > Just remeber though that this assumption is based off of what we know now and what we know of on this planet. As with everything involved w/ astrology and astrological theories, we know only a billionth of how everything works. \*\* Or if the life form was based on, say, liquid copper? As in, a superhot environment. At that point, water would be NO problem as there wouldn’t BE any in the environment. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/38 "2001-03-14T06:57:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by aynrandlover \* > \*\ ***Badtz** , been reading the smurf/fire thread? 😛 \*\* Actually, no, but now I’m going to go looking for it. This is something I have thought about before, inspired by an old SF story where a guy encounters an advanced race of tiny people. ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/39 "2001-03-14T07:03:20Z")
Can’t seem to find it, can you give me a link? ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2001, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191/40 "2001-03-14T08:37:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by tracer \* > \*\*Um … I didn’t say “Lord, I’m such a geek”, toadspittle did. > > I am _well_ past the stage where I feel any need to acknowledge my geekiness with such phrases. I just argue over whether the Enterprise could beat a Star Destroyer in a fight. 😉 \*\* Oops, sorry. ☹ I vote for the Star Destroyer, because I don’t think a turbolaser is the same thing as a regular laser, it just looks the same. Plus it has all those TIEs and it’s more intimidating. But I digress. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alien-civilizations-the-arc-of-technological-development/57191.md?page=3)