E.T: Friend or Foe?

Great Debates
61

ET is likely neither friend or foe. If they wanted to interfere with us they would have done so by now. Consider that our planet has been habitable for a billion years or more, and still has a good 1/2 billion or more left. If aliens wanted to colonize us because we are their ‘goldilocks’ planet it would have already happened.

The main thing to realize is that any ET out there has likely been around for at least hundreds of millions of years. The Milky Way is over 13 billion years old. ET’s have had all that time to develop earlier on any of the planets orbiting the 200-400 billion stars in our galaxy - our human ‘civilization’ of 50,000 years is just a blip in that timescale. Other ET’s have had plenty of time to colonize the whole galaxy if they chose to - travelling at fractions of light speed. The fact that they didn’t come here is probably telling of something.

62

Compassion / cooperation among ETs would not necessarily translate into compassion / cooperation with humans. The analogy of an ant colony comes to mind - the entire colony works extremely well together because they all share very similar genes and thus everyone is “family”. However, they’re extremely aggressive to anyone outside of their family. Seems to me that ETs with an ant colony-like setup would be well suited to the kind of collaboration needed to build advanced technology AND the kind of aggression needed to wage war on “outsiders”.

63

It is also entirely possible that we, humans of Earth, are the elder race in the entire Milky Way galaxy.

There is no evidence to say otherwise. Hope is not evidence, neither are probabilities.

My second vote is for evil, malignant bugs that won’t even consider us to be anything but annoying food.

My first vote remains. Somebody has to be first, it might be us, or the distances may be so great that the question is moot.

64

Possible, but not entirely possible, and not likely. For this to be true there must be very few habitable planets in our galaxy (which doesn’t look to be the case) the development of life is highly improbable - doubtful - and the development of intelligence is high improbable, which we don’t know. Either that or we are on one of the older planets in the galaxy, also certainly not true.

As for us being food, I doubt we’d agree with them, and would likely be poisonous.

65

A star faring civilization as in the Star Trek model has as much of a Fermi paradox as we do. What happened to all the starfaring races of billions of year ago? Roddenberry at least faced this head on, and made them all Q-like. Still, a lot of sf like to visualize first contact like Columbus sailing to the West Indies, where it would really be more like Columbus sailing into New York Harbor.

66

When I’m optimistic, I think that any advanced civilization we might meet would value human minds and culture for our potential. Our achievements may not be very impressive on a galactic scale as yet, but that may change in due course. Such a civilization might allow us to develop naturally, or assist us in subtle or not-so subtle ways.

When I’m pessimistic I think that any advanced civilization we might meet would fear us for the same reason, and act to prevent or inhibit our further development.

67

I think this way too. It would be prudent for any advanced alien to eliminate human civilization if it could see that we are a potential threat. The fact that they haven’t means we probably are a long ways off from being a threat to them.

An analogy I often think of is our interaction with dolphins. Dolphins probably have more in common with us than any aliens we are likely to ever meet. However, if dolphins were right now down in the oceans currently producing their first nuclear bombs how would humans react? You’re afraid of a nuclear armed Iran, how about nuclear armed cetaceans? I saw ‘The Cove’ - time for payback with porpoise.

68

Or, they may value us for our Jet-Skis.

I’ve always subscribed to the “aggressive species don’t last long enough to develop interstellar travel” theory myself, but really I guess who knows. They might crush us underfoot the same way we mindlessly step on bugs.

69

I put my money on there being other sentient life out there, inferior, comparable or superior to us, simply given the mathematical improbability of there not existing such beings. I also put money on them being too far from us to conceivably travel to us or vice-versa. Even if they had methods for travelling extremely far, the energy requirement on any such method that we’ve concieved would be so great as to render them nothing more than interesting mathematical models. I concede that** it is** arrogant to consider that simply because we are unable to propose a model, that it cannot be done, but I’ll have to go with arrogance on this one.

The only other conceivable idea I can think of is that there exists some beings that interact differently with the physical dimensions of the universe than us, such as a higher dimensional existence; something for whom time functions differently or is irrelevant, or indeed physical position/dimension functions differently or is irrelevant. In such an example I’d argue that we’d have a hard time interpreting any such being in any meaningful manner and that they’d probably seem godlike or something comparable to magic. This is of course pure sci-fi speculation and it’s not a notion I’d seriously defend, beyond its being possible and an interesting concept.

70

Yeah, but the actual question is this: how would people in Kansas react if they knew dolphins were developing bow and arrow technology. Not very scared, I suspect.

71

I think it is an open ended question. On one hand, any alien species with the technological know how for interstellar travel most likely can manufacture any thing they want/need. So I don’t see how we would be in competition with them for any resources. On the other hand, why would we assume that their social structure’s morality would be compatible with our own. Think about insect colonies and how they might advance. I don’t see any common ground.

72

I have always felt this way, too. Same thing goes to people who champion post-scarcity societies. Life is apathetic, aimless, blind, and greedy. Unlimited wants and needs will make resources permanently scarce. And who cares how many resources are in space if we squander them here and can’t get off the planet? As far as space travel is concerned, we’re at the bottom of a really deep well using all our resources just to run around in circles.

Sure, they could just go somewhere else, but chances are if we inhabit a convenient location, so will other life elsewhere. All things equal, there’s a limit to how much we’re willing to care about displacing lifeforms to acquire resources. Our needs will always outweigh theirs.

I don’t believe this is a base or immoral position. It’s life. We’ll displace cows when we cut their heads off before making steaks or when we starve them out to make room for our own peaceful vegetarian farms to feed 30 billion people. How much pressure will have to exist before we’ll really expand off this planet? And what pressures will cause us to leave the solar system? And if the closes habitable planet just happens to have some life, how bad will pressures have to be before we put our needs before theirs?

What possible reason would some species have to actually travel here?

73

I think if ET is out there, he’ll have developed far enough to know that whenever a superior species interferes with others, it all goes pear-shaped. It doesn’t matter how well-meaning it is, it alters the balance of nature. We, as humans still are a long way from accepting this, we still introduce species to other continents to eradicate pests and then are surprised when a seemingly unconnected species is wiped out due to the consequences. We’re better off keeping our grubby mitts out, and stop trying to be smarter than Nature, you and i both know it, Humans as a whole don’t.

Therefore, I think that the only time we are going to meet ET is when we rock up to his house in our starship, and that’s a long long way down the road.

Meanwhile, it’s possible that ET is well aware of us, observes us as a long-term science project in action, and is very very careful not to skew it all by letting us see him.

Let’s face it, seeing ET would give a few of the organised religions some headaches explaining these other-worldly beings, and possibly see some of them consigned to the dustbin. Right now, that would seriously screw with ETs project, we’ve almost managed to get off this rock properly yet still are split into deadly divisions over an invisible, unproven Sentient Being who sees ALL of what ALL of us do. If I were ET, I’d be very interested in where this one is going, without messing it up by popping in to say Hi.

Actually, possibly ET might have been screwing with us by putting in a few “flaming chariot” appearances and the like back in history, in the same way bored kids tap on the glass at the aquarium, or simply cannot resist chucking in a piece of bread despite all the “Do NOT feed the animals” signs.

We probably aren’t much of a threat to ET right now, even at our most hostile and aggressive, we’re likely to fizzle out because of it, or because at the other end of the spectrum, we are too nice. I mean, why would any logical species keep the sickly and weak alive? Why pollute the gene pool with those who aren’t healthy? (It’s a little too far for me to say that only the blond haired and blue-eyed Ubermensch should inherit the Earth, but from ET’s point of view, it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?) I think that we might be able to wring another few millennia out of our time here as ET waits to see how this one pans out - it may be the result of a few Stephen Hawking-like scientists who instruct the physically fit and “healthy” ones how to build our first starship. Now that’s got to be interesting back in ETs lab, hasn’t it, that a “flawed” species may thrive and escape this sphere?

I just hope that ET is more interested in letting us do our own thing, to find our own destiny, rather than him deciding we are out of control and thin us out a bit to re-dress the balance and give all the other creatures here a bit of a chance. If ET likes his project to be manicured like an English country garden, it’s not good for us, the unpredictable stinging creature that might spoil a nice Summer’s day spent sitting and looking at the topiary. And what if ET is a dolphin-like creature, watching in horror at the way we treat members of his evolutionary family?

For me, I think the only other possiblity of seeing ET is when his intergalactic boot stomps us into nothingness, either out of boredom or because we are in the way of the Vogon bulldozers. Even if we developed from the rubbish he threw out of his starship window as he passed by this way billions of years ago, one day there will be a group of convicts wandering by clearing up the litter. I hope they say “Hey, check this out!” when they find us, and don’t just punt us into the furnace to keep this part of the galaxy neat and tidy…

74

I posit that an alien intelligence sufficiently advanced to travel between stars would by necessity be the baddest dog on their stellar block. To get to that point, they have to survive, and survival ain’t easy.

I further posit that aliens would actually be alien. We won’t understand them, won’t understand their motives, and vice versa. They may very well come in for a landing with their gun ports open, as a sign of respect, which we interpret as a sign of aggression, and the fight is on.

For that matter, our leader may burp, fart, sneeze, or offer a handshake which passes on a deadly disease for which they will take vengeance. Or not.

As for the Human Zoo theory…see my sig.

75

Stephen Hawking said it best (paraphrasing) - ‘when the explorers colonize the discovered territory, it doesn’t end well for the natives’. Intelligence <> good intentions. It wasn’t that long ago that Germany was considered the most advanced, cultured country on Earth, ahead of the curve on research in medicine, rocketry, music, etc. Didn’t take long for the country to go crazy on a murderous rampage for a few years. In Vietnam, the same wily leaders who came up with an intricate system of tunnels and jungle trails used to supply their guerrillas also ordered their minions to murder entire villages who wouldn’t get with the program & sing the praises of Uncle Ho. Even more recently, the 9-11 plot and i.e.d.s that’ve claimed so many of our lives com from a culture of learning, and obviously cunning foe. We assume that if an alien civilization makes contact, they’ll be highly intelligent and advanced - maybe they’ll be looking for food, a la the Twilight Zone episode ‘To Serve Man’. Then again, maybe they have been observing, only to be disgusted by our primitivity, violence, and taste in entertainment. The proof that there is intelligent life in the universe is that they’re trying *not *to make contact. Maybe they’re doing us a big favor as such.

76

No, I think Hawking has been quite short-sighted on this one.

It reminds me of Q on star trek. A virtually omnipotent being but mentally…he acts like a 14-year human. Completely at the whim of his emotions.
It’s an understandable lack of imagination – we can’t possibly imagine how a being like that might behave, but there are lots of reasons why this depiction is naive.

It’s seems likely that by the time a species can travel interstellar distances they would have the technology to alter their own genome as they see fit or make advanced AI.
Perhaps they’ll synthesize intelligences that are destructive or malevolent? Perhaps. But nevertheless to look at (the worst) human behaviours and extrapolate that they would be like that, would be to make the same error as with Q.

77

This is what I was thinking. They would have to have been violent at some point. Who is their competition for resources/territory?

I guess the best we can probably hope for is that whichever alien race comes to pay us a visit that its a member of some kind of intergalactic alliance with other friendly races of species…and not some hell-bent rogue race that is like interstellar Vikings or something.

78

A colonial intelligence, like an ant colony, would destroy us as a matter of course.

Main Course, that is.

79

It seems to me that by the time a species can travel interstellar distances they would have intelligence so advanced as to view us the way we might view low level primates or even insects.

Most likely the would be destructive to us for the same reason a bulldozer is destructive to an ant hill. Because we are simply in their path. Goals and motivation or destructive malevolence would have nothing to do with it.

80

Right, so they would look down on us.
But doesn’t their advancement mean that they would be advanced?

That’s the problem with this analogy; people keep looking at it in a relative sense and forgetting that also they will in absolute terms be more advanced than we are. It’s ridiculous to say “So anyway, an advanced intelligence will act like human beings at our most mindless”.