Just Saying!

If Independence day were about peaceful aliens just cruising the galaxy as we might do one day, then it would have been a box office flop, It has to be drama, and rocket launchers and of course the human always outwits the invaders and live happy ever after, to keep up the premise that we are a special species with so called intelligence.

What if we are alone in this ever expanding universe, that would be a sadder thought than us encountering some form of other life from the universe. which of course would probably not be biological 100% but a combination of biological and hardware/software fusion ed creations.

If they don't have compassion we are doomed if they are aggressive, but that's a human trait, and its more feasible to think they are explorers charting the universal inhabitants they come across on various planets... we to them are like house fly's to us. and look how we treat that species. why would we expect to get respect from other intelligent planetary life forms.Who are we? in the grand scheme of things, if they are in existence for 50.000,000 longer than we are. We couldn't communicate with them or them with us. So lets just hope they are explorers, and not war lords or its the end of us.

originally posted by: flipflop
So lets just hope they are explorers, and not war lords or its the end of us.

Well, we're not exactly a stagnant species. We're continuing to evolve, so humanity as we know it today will be gone soon enough anyway, even without alien contact. Neanderthals were around for a million years, then they faded out. Easy come, easy go.

The biggest thing we have going for us as far s avoiding slavery or annihilation is concerned is that if a society has their technological act together enough to travel between stars, then we have very little for them to kill us for. Things we value, like gold, can be found more easily elsewhere or created in a fusion factory. Water? All they need to do is burn hydrogen. Poetry? Maybe.

Aliens will never destroy us any faster than we can do it ourselves.

a reply to: flipflop

And really aren't all of our speculations on what aliens may or may not be like simply projections of our selves?
Just like our Gods and Demons.

So,if all we can really do is ''invent'' aliens, or gods, why not speculate from our ''better natures''? Why not imagine our meeting on friendly terms as equals. Imagining anything else just pales compared to that I think.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Poetry? Maybe.

Sure. And music. I fondly recall a SNL news wrap up in the early days. Reporting on the Voyager spacecraft that was sent out for ''first contact'' loaded with descriptions and embedded examples of our great music and art. The mock 'news'' report announced that a message had been received in response to the Voyager. The alien reply was short and to the point. ''Send more Chuck Berry''

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: flipflop

And really aren't all of our speculations on what aliens may or may not be like simply projections of our selves?
Just like our Gods and Demons.

So,if all we can really do is ''invent'' aliens, or gods, why not speculate from our ''better natures''? Why not imagine our meeting on friendly terms as equals. Imagining anything else just pales compared to that I think.

Well, we do, in media and art. It's why we can attribute as to whether or not meeting Aliens would be like Independence Day (Great loss, we fight back and win), E.T. (Assuming alien biology doesn't kill us on exposure, happy ending), War of the Worlds (We can do nothing but die, germs save us) or Skyline (We lose EVERYTHING, no happy ending).

I think in essence, you're correct that often times we project our greatest fears onto Aliens, but if we really wanted to use cold hard logic, we would simply look at how we exterminate bugs to get an idea of how an Alien race could wipe us all out without lifting a finger, perhaps introduce an invasive species.

What if, thru good intentions, the very Alien itself is toxic to us, like a silicon based lifeform?

Possibilities...

A short sci/fi story I once read was fun. The world had run out of things to export to ourselves, our resources were spent and the worlds economy was in jeopardy.

When the aliens arrived they wanted to make us part of a galactic marketplace, that we could buy stuff from other worlds and hence revitalize our own economy. But we had to find a product to trade with, something that was of value in other parts of the galaxy. If we didn't, well, they would leave us alone to our own death.

It was only one enterprising entrepreneur that figured out a product to sell on the interstellar market. He made the deal and became the head of the worlds largest and richest corporation. He made a contract with an interstellar perfume company to export our ''air pollution'' which was found to be very popular and in high demand across the cosmos.

a reply to: Arnie123
Yeah, it's a field of wide possibilities. My point being that ''if'' we are but bugs to them, then why do we even bother thinking about it if our thinking leads to naught other than fear or diminishing ourselves. Why bother. Sure that's possible but what good does it serve. Preparing to fight against a vastly superior advisory also seems a fools errand.

But thinking along the lines of meeting aliens who are similar enough to us and with whom we might be capable of establishing semi equal appreciation, then that is something we might be able to prepare ourselves for. We just don't know so why not pick one that to prepare for that would be good for us all?

My two euro cents:

We are not alone. Simply because space, universe, time and all that, is a part of the nature. Like trees and flowers, oceans and clouds, animals and humans on earth for example. It´s all a big natural cycle and earth is just a very, very, very small part of it. And nature is not known to waste space like for example creating a whole universe but only us uncivilized humans on a suicide trip because of egoism and greed. It would be highly illogical for nature to act like this.

And i hope that if other civilisations from out there are advanced/old enough to travel here, they most likely left behind what is killing us: Egoism and greed. I am even sure that they left it behind while advancing and thriving, otherwise they would have destroyed themselves long before they could advance and thrive to the point where they can travel space( and time?). Like humankind will sooner or later, long, long before it could reach that point.

So i think they are more intelligent than us cavemen and don´t need to be greedy and selfish anymore, don´t need to kill everything else that lives. Because they learned that unity and not division, helping each other instead of fighting each other lets civilisations advance and thrive. And that it is better if all civilisations learn from each other and all civilisations thrive and advance because of that.

They can´t all be as stupid as us cavemen and cavewomen on earth, that would be higly illogical for nature again. I guess we are a failed experiment, maybe somebody from somewhere else messed around with our genes but were at that point not advanced enough to uninstall greed and egoism from our human system.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

it's a field of wide possibilities

Not really. If aliens arrive they are either peaceful or they are not.

We just hope they are peaceful, because life is not a Will Smith movie.

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: Arnie123
Yeah, it's a field of wide possibilities. My point being that ''if'' we are but bugs to them, then why do we even bother thinking about it if our thinking leads to naught other than fear or diminishing ourselves. Why bother. Sure that's possible but what good does it serve. Preparing to fight against a vastly superior advisory also seems a fools errand.

But thinking along the lines of meeting aliens who are similar enough to us and with whom we might be capable of establishing semi equal appreciation, then that is something we might be able to prepare ourselves for. We just don't know so why not pick one that to prepare for that would be good for us all?

I think we don't really have choice in the matter on how we think. The progression of the Human race and our history alone is of nightmarish things, of course we're going to think of it and potential ramifications, whether it serves us or not.

While I do agree in principle that preparing to fight a vastly superior adversary is a fools errand, it also reminds me of the daunting challenges mankind themselves have achieved, through impossible odds, however dangerous it is, we are a species that mixes highly flammable chemicles together in flimsy metal ships and blast off into space using precalculated numbers as our steering. You could say, in essence, we thrive off the challenge, even if its futile in the end.

As for your last paragraph, I think as long as the Human race continues to uphold society and progress under those conditions, we could apply those etiquettes to an Alien race that comes to us.

However, I'm reminded of a short story I once read by Harry Turtledove, Vilcabamba,

When the enormous ships were first detected, between Mars’ orbit and Earth’s, every nation radioed messages of welcome and greeting. The Krolp ignored them all. The enormous ships landed. There were still videos—Harris Moffatt III had them on his computer—of human delegations greeting the aliens with bouquets and bands playing joyful music. At last! Contact with another intelligent race! Proof we weren’t alone in the universe!
“Better if we were,” the President muttered.

When the Krolp came out, they came out shooting. Some of those fifty-year-old videos broke off quite abruptly. And “shooting” was the understatement of the millennium. Their weapons made ours seem like kids’ slingshots against machine guns.

Seeing how the Krolp wanted things to go, half a dozen militaries launched H-bomb-tipped missiles at the great ships. They couldn’t live through that, could they? As a matter of fact, they could. Most of the missiles got shot down. Most of the ones that did land on target didn’t go off. And the handful that did harmed the Krolpish ships not a bit and the rampaging, plundering aliens running around loose very little.

They weren’t invulnerable. Humans could kill them. Unless somebody got amazingly lucky, the usual cost was about two armored divisions and all their matériel for one Krolp. Back in the old days, the United States was the richest country in the world. All the pre-Krolp books said so. Not even it could spend men and equipment on that scale.

a reply to: flipflop

"Intelligence" is a human construct. We can only gauge possible extraterrestrial intelligence based on our own understanding.
It is basically moot. What is "intelligent" in the extraterrestrial sense, may be incomprehensible to us, and vice versa.

a reply to: DerBeobachter
Yes perhaps someone did mess with our genes, or maybe altered our DNA, we could be an abandoned experiment, an unfinished experiment or indeed an ongoing experiment. My hope though is that we are nobody's experiment, and any visitors we see near out planet are nothing more than tourists, and explorers.

a reply to: Kreeate

Completely agree with that, I was going to mention that in my opening post but didn't want to go off on a tangent, and into another topic. but you are absolutely right, Intelligence is a human implied assessment, its not a universal yard stick to gauge all things by. so as you say, an aliens definition of intelligence may vary quite a lot from our own definition.

originally posted by: Kreeate
a reply to: flipflop

"Intelligence" is a human construct. We can only gauge possible extraterrestrial intelligence based on our own understanding.
It is basically moot. What is "intelligent" in the extraterrestrial sense, may be incomprehensible to us, and vice versa.

I have to partially disagree with this. There are proven and measurable metrics in this reality, like Ions, Radiations, Atoms, Molecues. It may be labled differently, but the basic fundamental buidling blocks and associted elements can be seen as some sort of baseline for the progression of a certain species.
Your post only makes sense if we're talking higher dimensional beings, not near peer species operating in the same reality, Universe.

originally posted by: flipflop
a reply to: Kreeate

Completely agree with that, I was going to mention that in my opening post but didn't want to go off on a tangent, and into another topic. but you are absolutely right, Intelligence is a human implied assessment, its not a universal yard stick to gauge all things by. so as you say, an aliens definition of intelligence may vary quite a lot from our own definition.

Agreed. My point is simply this... any extraterrestrial entity that is in contact with earth is most likely advanced to the point where it/they don't need nor require anything from us. The technology that got them here (and back) would be such that they would require absolutely nothing from us (Earth). In essence, they would be indistinguishable from magic. Unfortunately, that kind of magic is gospel for many. In any form, the unexplained remains... unexplained.

a reply to: Blue Shift

It would really be a shame if humanity is gone before or without alien contact, that would seem such a missed opportunity, after all they could have been friendly types, and that would have been exciting, on the other hand they might have been aggressive and seen us as nothing more than a blade of grass is to us... I agree the Neanderthals couldn't hack it for some unknown reason. Sure we prob don't have much that would warrant an alien killing us, apart from ourselves. as food or for experiments. .. oh well all we can do is stoke up the furnace and get the hydrogen lit, while we read Edgar Alan Poe.....

originally posted by: Arnie123

originally posted by: Kreeate
a reply to: flipflop

"Intelligence" is a human construct. We can only gauge possible extraterrestrial intelligence based on our own understanding.
It is basically moot. What is "intelligent" in the extraterrestrial sense, may be incomprehensible to us, and vice versa.

I have to partially disagree with this. There are proven and measurable metrics in this reality, like Ions, Radiations, Atoms, Molecues. It may be labled differently, but the basic fundamental buidling blocks and associted elements can be seen as some sort of baseline for the progression of a certain species.
Your post only makes sense if we're talking higher dimensional beings, not near peer species operating in the same reality, Universe.

Fair enough. It was merely my perspective and of course you have the right and freedom to disagree. I accept and respect your point of view and agree that mine may be biased. There are many approaches to this concept and by the nature of it, I guess we can agree that no theory is absolute. It's all guesswork here.

a reply to: Kreeate

You're absolutely right, it could be anyones guess.

But consider this, we already have the math and knowledge down as to how long it would take to travel at the speed of light and the associated effects like Mass and Energy.

We can already theorize on the implications of the technology needed.

So is it really a stretch to say that Aliens advanced enough to travel here would be almost "magical"?

One of the holy grails for us to advance to the next stage is ENERGY, small, compact and dense, we solve this, we can travel furhter beyond, which lead to advances in Material sciences, which translate to computational advances like Quantum.

But, who knows, hmm?

originally posted by: Arnie123
a reply to: Kreeate

So is it really a stretch to say that Aliens advanced enough to travel here would be almost "magical"?

Not a stretch at all in my opinion. I think that many of the unexplained things we see in the sky are interesting. Some may be "not from here". Most are explicable. A small percentage could be attributed to being practically 'magical' in the sense that they cannot be explained with any reasonable description. 'tis a wonderful world we live in.

a reply to: Moohide

Certainly it can be considered simple if that is the narrative we choose to view it from. Remember, this is all coming out of our own heads, speculations contrived from limited information, rumor, and other speculations.

But yes, as I was saying, I try to keep my adjustment to potential alien contact simple. Prepare ourselves, and to me to prepare for hostile or so advanced and alien invasion would be like building a sand castle on the beach. The only valid preparation that makes sense to me is to prepare to meet them as equals.