Are we space talibans?

Let me first say couple of words for intro - Recently I was thinking about UFOs and possible encounters with aliens. Even I would love for something like that to happen, I can’t hide my high skepticism it ever happened nor that will happen in any near feature. I will try to explain why I think visit has not happened yet as well why I think any aliens smart enough to come to earth might decide to keep a bit away from us.

It all starts with how I see possible first contacts. I doubt alien, or for that matter, if we ever manage to get to orbit of some other planet that orbits different star, we would blindly just land and announce our selves. Not being seen by natives is advantage and it should remain like that until we (or in our case, aliens) evaluate how dangerous species really are, are they any danger to our civilization. Of course, drones and satellites would be used to evaluate all of that, to monitor all details about life, dangers and not just danger from existing civilizations, but also about medical conditions and viruses.

As result of all of this, I have more and more feeling that aliens would see us equal (if not worst) to what I currently view talibans. We are acting as talibans with all those wars among ourselves, tests of nuclear weapons, inequality we live in, our destruction of only planet we have even in most advanced countries.

Would you share any of your science with someone who might use it to further destroy himself and those around them?
In my opinion, we have to grow up, and one of major obstacles is religion, which truly more separates people, goes against science and scientific progress as well, and turns us into modern talibans. We have to move past our difference and start acting as humans from earth, start to worry about our planet and make steps to protect it from huge corporations that have bought our governments and is working towards its goals rather than toward better future for all of us.

But, for now, we are just space talibans…

reply to post by SuperFrog


No. We are not space talibans as a people. There are already (human) individuals on celestial bodies around Earth - this I'm sure of it. Secret societies who already settled there. How else to explain these bases and artifact we found on the Moon and on other planets? The Elite had half a century to place just a couple of base on a celestial body, and I firmly believe that the Elite did. These hidden societies would want us, as a people, to think that WE are space talibans, because these societies would want us strapped on Earth. Otherwise we'd be competing with their monopole. Religion is not the obstacle - resources and poverty is. Yes I agree, extremists with destructive plans should be banned. But extremism doesn't represent the majority of the people. A true christian is pacifist (I know, I am friend with a christian physicist, and I studied a bit of the NT) - being christo-phobe and religio-phobe won't resolve the problem of injustice. I see no reason why we should start discriminating those who have Faith from those who don't. If these religious people have Faith and don't cause trouble, why should we judge and discriminate them? That's against Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Thought. Buddhism is a religion - will it be banned too from going to space? No. We NEED, as a people, to make sure ALL philosophies of the world have access to space.

So how do you know that inequality, war, greed, and hatred don't plague other civilizations? How do you know that the aliens that may or may not be visiting us aren't just some intergalactic corporation looking to exploit other life for what they consider currency? Why do we always assume that beings that can bridge the gap odf intergalactic travel are always a united species? Besides colony insects like ants and bees what life on this planet is united in benefit with each other? Even colony insects war against other colony insects.

SuperFrog
As result of all of this, I have more and more feeling that aliens would see us equal (if not worst) to what I currently view talibans. We are acting as talibans with all those wars among ourselves, tests of nuclear weapons, inequality we live in, our destruction of only planet we have even in most advanced countries.

And what makes you think that the aliens do not have wars and inequality? What makes you think they've never known those problems? Nature doesn't work that way, from our current understanding. Why are you attributing them angelic qualities?

It is actually very simple - civilization capable of star traveling has to survive, and we are more and more leading toward not surviving path... just look at today's politics, look at how many people die daily in all wars, many of them might be prevented.... that is not attributing them angelic qualities, just simple logical thinking.

Even if they have their own problems, what makes you think that they would like to 'add to problems' - humans from earth that are working at high rate on destroying their own planet?

Let's say that Stephen Hawking is right, and aliens are equally bad as we are, or as someone mentioned, they have corporations that lead their space program, by now we would in that case know about them, wouldn't we?

If not, then either they are smarter then us (or most of Hollywood who portraits first contacts all wrong imho) and they just might view us as not worthy to deal with...

reply to post by SuperFrog


Being smarter than us doesn't mean they are peaceful. There are corporations now that are looking into ways to mine asteroids using 3d printing. Corporations are also quickly surpassing governments in wealth and power.

Also I don't see our race on a path towards self-annihilation. Maybe a possible major culling of the population, but the elite will survive as well as general survivors.

Having said all this, other races in the universe could have gone through this same development. Also the universe is a big place. When two galaxies collise, the odds of two stars hitting each other is exceedingly small. Even intelligent life in our particular neighborhood of the galaxy would have a tough time finding us.

reply to post by SuperFrog

But, for now, we are just space talibans

Yes.
The original meaning of the word Taliban is students , as we study the stars and space I guess that literally makes us space taliban.

Would we be viewed like the people that call themselves Taliban by other beings ? , maybe yes maybe no , hard to tell without knowing who is doing the judging , I have a feeling they would just see us as a primitive but promising species going through growing pains.

reply to post by SuperFrog


To quote the character Harry Lime (portrayed by Orson Welles) from the classic film The Third Man:

"You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.

In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Even though that was one of the best pieces of dialogue from that film, I'm not necessarily taking what Harry Lime says literally -- i.e., I think the Swiss have given us more than cuckoo clocks. However, the general point being made may have some merit. Some of the greatest things humanity has done has been due to, and in response to, war and the need to show might and strength.

Could we also do great things when we are all at peace? Probably, but it's also possible that the pace of technological advancement is quickened by need, and that need is greater when there is competition.

That competition and need to show might and strength could be the "necessity" part of the old saying "Necessity is the mother of invention". If we are all at peace, there may be less of a necessity for rapid technological growth.

SuperFrog
It is actually very simple - civilization capable of star traveling has to survive, and we are more and more leading toward not surviving path... just look at today's politics, look at how many people die daily in all wars, many of them might be prevented.... that is not attributing them angelic qualities, just simple logical thinking.

Wars do not threaten survival of our species (except perhaps nuclear war, but we've managed to avoid this so far), and the population of planet Earth keeps growing ever faster. The "not surviving" path is entirely due to poor management and logistic errors. This has nothing to do with being "space talibans". If aliens survived to more advanced levels of civilization, then they must have solved their logistic problems more effectively than we did. Or they've colonized new worlds and migrated there.

SuperFrog
Even if they have their own problems, what makes you think that they would like to 'add to problems' - humans from earth that are working at high rate on destroying their own planet?

Pardon me? Are you saying that the aliens would find the discovery of another sentient species uninteresting? Really? No curiosity? Then again, we know nothing about alien psychology, so anything's possible.

SuperFrog
Let's say that Stephen Hawking is right, and aliens are equally bad as we are, or as someone mentioned, they have corporations that lead their space program, by now we would in that case know about them, wouldn't we?

Why is that? Of course they don't go into full disclosure mode, because such a sudden clash of civilizations could have horrible consequences (the shear panic alone could precipitate a war, and let's not even talk about the utter chaos which could result from technological exchange, bad idea man), so they prefer small-scale, local contact and study. Just because they're not looking for trouble doesn't mean they are perfect. And I'm pretty sure they have corporations or something thereabout.

reply to post by SuperFrog


It could be that an alien species intelligent enough to cross the vast distances between the stars might not need to actually land or fly around 200 feet from the ground to observe us. They might be able to just do it from orbit...kinda like they always did in star trek.

Put us into orbit Mr Sulu..

reply to post by PhoenixOD


I even wonder about the "advanced intelligence" part.

Surely they may have greater knowledge, but that necessarily does not mean greater intelligence. For example, we have more knowledge today than we had 2000 years ago, but we have virtually the exact same intelligence (as a species) today that we had 2000 years ago...

...And 2000 years from now, the human species may still not have a greater intelligence than we have now, but we may have additional knowledge that allows us to have interstellar travel. We may be space-faring in 2000 years, but we would be the same species with virtually the same intelligence as today.

That's because knowledge is not the same as intelligence.

If I was an alien that could cross the distance between stars WTH kind of reason would I have for intermingling with some planet scum disease infested maggot mouth monkey people? I got bettter things to do than waste my time trying to communicate with them, like collecting materials for our starships and homebases and performing maintenance on our outposts and administrating our fleet of drones which travel all through the local galaxy looking up peoples *******.

Ok if I"m a hypothetical alien then honestly we have about as much interest in you as you have in apes. We probably have visited you, but not on equal times/terms. Why should we? Take care of your own **** and stop expecting us to care. You're lucky you're protected, otherwise you may be on my dinner plate. And don't think that doesn't happen. There have been some abuses of the law.

And we get the same treatment from the "overseers" who figured out how to travel between universes. We're stuck here like a ragged dog looking for food. The "overseers" are like demigods to us - what does that make them to you? And so who's at the top? Is there a boss? We don't know anymore than you do.

Also remember space is BIG. We don't just bump into you. You see only one part of us. We drink and kill and rape too, but it's fancier and our bodies are squeaky clean. Don't let how we look on the outside confuse: we're as evil as you.

Soylent Green Is People
reply to post by PhoenixOD

 

I even wonder about the "advanced intelligence" part.

Surely they may have greater knowledge, but that necessarily does not mean greater intelligence. For example, we have more knowledge today than we had 2000 years ago, but we have virtually the exact same intelligence (as a species) today that we had 2000 years ago...

...And 2000 years from now, the human species may still not have a greater intelligence than we have now, but we may have additional knowledge that allows us to have interstellar travel. We may be space-faring in 2000 years, but we would be the same species with virtually the same intelligence as today.

That's because knowledge is not the same as intelligence.

edit on 3/3/2014 by Soylent Green Is People because: (no reason given)

Knowledge (information) and processing power (raw processing power of the biological machine you are inhabiting) is one thing. Wisdom (understanding of action/reaction) how to use it is another question.

Both knowledge and wisdom can evolve even if processing power stays static.

reply to post by SuperFrog

Listen ....there is never going to be a first contact. It already happened thousands, perhaps 100's of thousands of years ago. The evidence is everywhere you look, in every country of the world all over this planet.

Stop watching the skies, and start looking over your shoulder in the grocery store. They are everywhere. And you should be thinking about that, and not looking for something thats happened already.

reply to post by SuperFrog


Where to even start? Ok...

Let's start with your description. Taliban members in space (there is no such word as talibans. What rot!), would be the precise same as they are on earth, but in space. That is, they would be adherents to a religious and political ideology which is specific in its origin, content, and meaning, and cannot be applied to anyone who is not actually aligned down the same political, religious, and ideological lines. If we are to discuss a complicated topic, let's not start from a position of failure, otherwise it renders the process utterly without value.

Moving on. I imagine that what you mean, is that we as a species could be viewed as a bunch of fractious, argumentative, occasionally thuggish, brutal morons, incapable of putting aside our differences on a species wide scale, and moving forward in unity, rather than taking steps backwards by fragging the bejesus out of one another under increasingly spurious pretexts.

This is a position which is not at all new. I for one agree, in so far as to say, that I believe that until we as a species learn to coexist peacefully with one another, until we dethrone the carrion eaters who feed on our toil (and no, I am not talking about the Royal family of my nation, or anyone else's), the suits, the politicians, the people who set us against one another for their own nefarious ends, those who benefit from driving a wedge between people within nations, and between nations themselves, until these are gone, we should not travel beyond the bounds of our own solar system.

To do so previous to purging ourselves of those who would seek to turn us against one another, who would seek to keep secrets from us, those who would seek to retain power for themselves, and cement unhelpful constructs as part of society, like an over abundance of national security, at the expense of causing a severe lack of personal liberty for instance, would be to doom us to a future, wherein all we achieve by leaving our own star system, is to offer us new worlds to rape and burn, new theatres in which to murder one another for resources.

However, as to how we are seen as a species by an alien intelligence, who the hell can possibly say, with any verifiable basis for their opinion? We KNOW nothing about alien species. For all the conspiracies, and all the waffle from shady money makers, and all the TALK you hear about these things, not ONE event can be proven to be an incident where contact definitely occurred, only that such a thing was reported. Not one video of a UFO can be said to unquestionably feature an alien craft, otherwise they would be identified objects, and we would know a hell of a lot more than we do, for SURE about what is happening with regard to the presence or lack thereof, of extra terrestrial intelligences in our solar system.

In short, we should probably wait until we are certain that we are being observed, before being concerned as to the opinions we engender in the hypothetical watchers. Perhaps it would be better if we concerned ourselves a little more with how what we do here on this planet, makes US feel. Perhaps we might see some positive changes on this planet, if we were a little more involved in the majority, in making this place what we want it to be, in inspiring the behaviour we want to see in our fellow man, by acts of goodness and charity, by utilising honesty and decency, in place of violence and tyranny. Perhaps if we all were more concerned with putting in place the foundations of a fairer future, we would not be so potentially backward in appearance, were ET to drop by for a slice of cake, a cup of tea, and a wag of the chin?

All I know, is that ET or not, humanity MUST at some point leave this star system. Unless we end ourselves previously, I see it as an inevitable outcome. The question is, how much of a mess are we going to make of it, and how well are we going to take advantage of the learning process, both technologically, and ideologically speaking, which leads us there?

Krazysh0t
So how do you know that inequality, war, greed, and hatred don't plague other civilizations? How do you know that the aliens that may or may not be visiting us aren't just some intergalactic corporation looking to exploit other life for what they consider currency? Why do we always assume that beings that can bridge the gap odf intergalactic travel are always a united species? Besides colony insects like ants and bees what life on this planet is united in benefit with each other? Even colony insects war against other colony insects.

Wars are over resources.

If you can travel the stars you have access to resources beyond what most people could imagine.

Therefore, no need for waring over resources.

reply to post by JadeStar


War isn't just for resources. War also happens through hate and intolerance. What if an alien race saw our rapid technological development and saw us as a possible future threat? Or even worse as a possible tool for some other scheme they have? What if they need bodies to fight some intergalactic war and see us as good cattle to groom amd send into battle in their sted? When all other resources become plentiful the only scarce thing left to wage war over is life itself and the ability to control other life. I could totally see humans attacking another intelligent species on some trumped up charges all because they are different. Therefore I can also see other life doing the same.

Also there is one scarce resource you are forgetting that we have that other alien racea may want (assuming they are carbon based and like us) a habitable planet that doesn't require wasting many resources on terraforming.

JadeStar
Wars are over resources.

If you can travel the stars you have access to resources beyond what most people could imagine.

Therefore, no need for waring over resources.

Or just more resources to war for...

I'm not sure abundance satiates greed. It just leads to bigger anthills.

JadeStar

Krazysh0t
So how do you know that inequality, war, greed, and hatred don't plague other civilizations? How do you know that the aliens that may or may not be visiting us aren't just some intergalactic corporation looking to exploit other life for what they consider currency? Why do we always assume that beings that can bridge the gap odf intergalactic travel are always a united species? Besides colony insects like ants and bees what life on this planet is united in benefit with each other? Even colony insects war against other colony insects.

Wars are over resources.

If you can travel the stars you have access to resources beyond what most people could imagine.

Therefore, no need for waring over resources.

What if the resource was earth itself?

What if Earth was a planet similar in gravity, climate, atmosphere (both in gases and in atmospheric pressure), and radiation levels to an alien race's homeworld (similar enough that the aliens could live here with little to no supplemental requirements)...AND that alien's homeworld was getting rather crowded, and they wanted another similar world to colonize.

Maybe planets such as Earth and their homeworld are hard to find, and when they do find one, they may want the exclusive use of it simply for its "real estate" in general, rather than for its specific resources.


We ourselves are looking for an "Earth 2.0". Let's say that sometime in the future, when Earth is overcrowded, we find an "Earth 2.0" and also have the means to get there. Then, what happens when we DO get there and find some native species (possibly intelligent) who already live there? Would we just say "oh well, lets leave these guys alone and instead go look for Earth 3.0", or do we colonize that first planet anyway?

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


If we have the means to get there we would also have the means to get a probe there, and check things out before we launched a huge arc type ship with a huge population on it.