# Would space aliens be good or bad? Why? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 10, 2007, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175 "2007-10-10T03:30:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2007, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/81 "2007-10-14T11:55:17Z")
We’d probably catch some kind of incurable disease from space aliens and everyone would die. Or, they would catch us and keep us as pets. Either way, I say bad. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2007, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/82 "2007-10-14T12:38:49Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] Possibly, as well as convincing themselves that the primates don’t feel a thing when plunged into boiling water - the screaming sound is just air escaping from their lungs. [/QUOTE] I would just like to point out the irony of your location, vis a vis the idea of being plunged into a pot of boiling water and eaten like a crustacean. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Below\_Me](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/da6949/32.png) [@Below\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Below_Me)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2007, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/83 "2007-10-14T20:05:49Z")
[QUOTE=SHAKES] A curious hypothetical of mine. If space aliens were to find our little blue planet do you think they would be “good” as in; cure all cancer, solve the worlds energy resources problems, etc.. Or would they be “bad” as in humans will make great pets kind of bad? Why do you think they would be good or bad? [/QUOTE] I find most alien optimist feel that evolution cures the savage soul like in Star Trek. Well we’ve evolved way beyond monkeys do we cure cancer for them or solve their resource problems? We don’t even treat them like pets we’re more than happy to bulldoze their habitat and hook electrodes to them for a few dollars more (and these are our relatives). Our only hope is that we don’t taste like “Glornax” or have enough physical similarities to make us medical research material. You can be sure that if they expended the enormous expense to come here it would be for their benefit not ours ---
**Author:** ![AdmiralCrunch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@AdmiralCrunch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AdmiralCrunch)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2007, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/84 "2007-10-14T20:27:42Z")
[QUOTE=Below Me] You can be sure that if they expended the enormous expense to come here it would be for their benefit not ours [/QUOTE] But why the hell would they visit us? The only thing the Earth has that everywhere else doesn’t is life. Even the most savage and cruel civilization wouldn’t go out of their way to destroy what isn’t even remotely a threat. Just nuke us or send a gamma ray burst our way. I definitely think curiosity is the biggest motivator to contact inferior ET life, technologically speaking. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2007, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/85 "2007-10-14T20:28:49Z")
\*\*AdmiralCrunch \*\*–love the handle. You should post more. ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2007, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/86 "2007-10-14T21:37:10Z")
[QUOTE=Phlosphr] What would really suck is if the Aliens looked like [this](http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r156/Phlosphr/Jaws-Fish3.jpg) very earth bound nasty fish. [/QUOTE] Where the hell did _that_ come from? Is that real? Or a truly exquisite Photoshop job? Really, I’d like to know more about it. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2007, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/87 "2007-10-14T21:59:33Z")
Perhaps advanced civilizations lose their curiosity, and turn inward. Maybe that explains why we don’t pick up alien radio signals,or why we haven’t seen any visitors. The old drivers of exploration are gone, when you consider people advanced enough to travel between stars. Gold, greed, and God don’t make much sense when you can stay home and have anything you want. Personally, I like the idea of advanced civilizations setting up those “black monoliths”-live evolves to the point of curiosity, and the monoliths transmit the info. Much less tedious than going from star to star, hpong to find something. ---
**Author:** ![Below\_Me](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/da6949/32.png) [@Below\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Below_Me)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2007, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/88 "2007-10-14T22:47:21Z")
[QUOTE=AdmiralCrunch] But why the hell would they visit us? The only thing the Earth has that everywhere else doesn’t is life. Even the most savage and cruel civilization wouldn’t go out of their way to destroy what isn’t even remotely a threat. Just nuke us or send a gamma ray burst our way. I definitely think curiosity is the biggest motivator to contact inferior ET life, technologically speaking. [/QUOTE] You obliviously don’t know the value of certain Human based extracts on the galactic market do you? As a matter of fact humans are seeded through out the known galaxy for this very purpose for all we know. The Mayan calendar ending in 2012 may signal harvest time for our precious jizmaglobin.and xizycorium (I hear it’s a painful and bloody affair). Also, since when has curiosity been defined as a benign? The people who hook monkeys up to electrodes do it out of curiosity. Kids blow up and dissect frogs out of curiosity. We tested Nuclear weapons out of curiosity. Pandora opened her box out of curiosity and so have we. Face it our coherent electro magnetic emanations have signaled our doom at the speed of light. ---
**Author:** ![by-tor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/by-tor/32/266_2.png) [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/89 "2007-10-15T18:35:59Z")
I think they would look at our propensity for violence, our territoriality, our alarming breeding ability and our primitive but crafty tool using intelligence and conclude that we are a potential future threat if we ever discover a means to interstellar space travel. I also think they would see us as a possible disease vector for themselves. In either case, contact would be off limits. At best they would set up surveillance and a quarantine, at worst they would eliminate us from afar. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/90 "2007-10-15T20:18:22Z")
[QUOTE=AdmiralCrunch] But why the hell would they visit us? The only thing the Earth has that everywhere else doesn’t is life. Even the most savage and cruel civilization wouldn’t go out of their way to destroy what isn’t even remotely a threat. Just nuke us or send a gamma ray burst our way. [/QUOTE] We don’t have to be a threat (and we probably wouldn’t be in the least). Maybe they just like our planet because it has a similar gravity and temperature. Maybe they just want all the water or nitrogren or whatever. The destruction of our civilization might be incidental to their actual goals. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/91 "2007-10-15T22:23:08Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] We don’t have to be a threat (and we probably wouldn’t be in the least). Maybe they just like our planet because it has a similar gravity and temperature. Maybe they just want all the water or nitrogren or whatever. The destruction of our civilization might be incidental to their actual goals. [/QUOTE] Or because 6 billion Humans and a million or so Dolphins are what they need to make a meatloaf. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2007, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/92 "2007-10-15T23:56:09Z")
[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor] Or because 6 billion Humans and a million or so Dolphins are what they need to make a meatloaf. [/QUOTE] You’d think that any civilization capable of interstellar travel would have long since figured out how to make a dolphin-safe humanloaf. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/93 "2007-10-16T20:47:33Z")
I like to think they’re going to get out of their spaceship and say, “Our governments are corrupt, we have problems with wars and prejudice, our teenagers are out of control! You’ve GOT to help us!” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2007, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175/94 "2007-10-16T21:41:20Z")
_Predator_ postulated a race of hunter/warriors. Not every trip into space is a trip out of curiosity or the pursuit of resources. There’s a bunch of different, maybe even zany-to-us reasons for someone to travel into our gravity well. Some critter here may resemble some long prophesied messiah. “We’ve come to worship your pigeons. They are the most perfect form of \!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-space-aliens-be-good-or-bad-why/422175.md?page=4)