Hypothetical question

reply to post by yeti101


Then with exploration in mind, I would ,as President of who-ever-is-in-charge (hey..it could happen) say just explore, no intentional contact.

Now, if they do realize we are there somehow, then I would change and begin contact.

Originally posted by yeti101
Would you order the probe to release the rover to the surface to find out more about them? Do we have an obligation to tell them that THEY are not alone? Or do we hide the realities of the universe from them until such a time they can communicate with radio signals or maybe even never.

What do you think?

For my own purposes, I'd go ahead and send the rover down. My personal attitude would be "what the hell." They'll find out about us pretty soon, anyway.

However, since any probe like that would likely be part of a much larger exploratory effort, the majority of the scientific team would probably want to sit back and study the civilization before we "contaminate" it with knowledge of our presence. Scientists are always doing that kind of thing.

Anyway, it would take decades if not centuries for a physical probe to get there, and along the way, we would be picking up evidence of civilization from long range spectrometry and stuff like that. So it probably wouldn't be a big surprise to us, and we'd have a lot of time to debate what we were going to do about it. They could very likely discover our radio signals a long, long time before the probe ever got there.

One thing we might do is drop the probe and give them specific instructions on how to build a good radio telescope, and where to look for us. Our radio signals are already reaching them, and that might give them a chance to find out who we are at the present and what we're up to. Then we can at least start some kind of communication with them, even though the response time for any question would be 10 years or so.

A more likely scenario is that our telescopes first spot a liveable planet, then an atmospheric chemical spectrum that indicates some kind of life or industry, then perhaps some basic radio signals coming from them. Then we can decide if we want to try two-way communication or not, probably using radio, since sending a physical probe is so slow.

Then there's always the notion that maybe we want to keep ourselves secret for a while, until we can determine if the aliens are going to be friendly or fierce. On this planet, the little creature who pokes his head farthest out of the hole is the one most likely to get its head bitten off. The same might be true for space.

good post nohup

shadow

Both Voyagers has already exceeded this speed.

the voyagers are only going about 40,000mph not even 0.001% light speed never mind 10%

[edit on 25-1-2008 by yeti101]

if that civilization would be physically identical to us i would infiltrate their society , and has we were more advanced than them it would be easy to get power to rule and explore them making me a tirane and keeping them ignorant and easily controllable , i would had a massive labor force to export back to earth

[edit on 25-1-2008 by dracodie]

man, do guys have any idea what kind of power youd be playing with?

look at our civilizations of the ancient times. theres alot of ancient astronaut theories right? that the 1st kings were like, more than human?

so what would happen with their belief systems and the future progression of their race and global progression if we make ourselves known while they are too primitive to understand.

that would be making the same mistake that the supposed ancient astronauts did by not definitively putting the notion to rest somehow that they may not have actually came to our planet at all.

a tree full of cults, beliefs, religions, all would spawn, and like branches it would infect their minds soto speak. we could literally play God once we deciphered their language and spoke to them in their own language, invisibily via unmanned vehicles, maybe in the air, they'd worship our high tech pieces of tin for .. his lord's sake.

while this would make the devil happy that he is deceiving an entire other planet of people through the use of his best weapon, humans of earth.

Well the idealistic side of me says that the best idea would be to leave the probe in orbit because of the track record people have had when it comes to destroying native tribal culturals(SP?) . Realistically I would say that the probe would be sent to the plants surface to collect soil samples and other data whether or not this would impact the society in questions depends on where the probe landed , how populated the plant is and other factors.

Nerve gas canisters and a cryogenically frozen contingent of shock troopers sent soon afterwards.

Everyone seems to forget that our technologies and 'advancements' have not changed Humanity in the slightest. We are a virus, that exists outside the normal checks and balances of Nature. We conquer and consume, and that is all we have ever done and all we will ever do.

Without the inherent violence and warlike natures within each and every one of us we would still be using animals to pull the family plow and none of these computers or playstations or MRI machines would exist. Don't kid yourself for one moment about that very important fact.

If I were in-charge of the mission - which means I am in the military, black ops. - I would hide the whole thing. Deny the existance of the civilization, hire a guy called Lohn Jear and another guy called Lob Bazar to cook up stories so ridiculous that any one with double digit IQ and above would forget about the whole thing ....

Seriously though, I would stay the heck away and observe from a good distance lest I teach them the warring ways of men - that is if they havent already learned it from the 9pm news cast they are receiving by now.

reply to post by KaiBosh


I want to say that human nature isn't only violence. We have great capacity for compassion and benevolent innovation. Fact is, there is more good in the world than evil...But the evil is so damned intense isn't it? But it hasn't consumed the Earth. And we're all still here. I agree that for the most part, humans exist outside of nature's checks and balances, but that's what makes us interesting. Any intelligently guided species will go through it's history in a pattern of trail and error. Many ideas will be tested and many will fail, and yet, some don't. And the ones that don't fail are the ones we cherish the most.

1. The rule of Law

2.Ethical means of conduct

3. Complex social programs which are essential to a surviving civilization.
We're talking, schools, hospitals, house of worship, applied trade developments...etc

4. Technological achievements conducive to survival and information gathering. Things like applied materials(Metal working, sculpting, casting, electricity/power generation).

5. Agricultural development, such as farming and raising/taming of livestock.

6. Resource gathering i.e. Mining operations. Retrieval of precious metals and ores.

Science and mathematics which cannot be stressed enough, is the most important achievement of our civilization and would probably be the crowning achievement of another.

These things cannot be ignored as we ask ourselves what our true nature is. And what the true nature of living beings on other planets are. If we're guided merely by conquest and aggression, then why are we still here? It's not that I'm denying our aggressive tendencies, but I believe too many give credence to these aspects of our existence as the guiding force behind our technological society. And it just isn't the case. It is true that these concepts by and large have been influenced by aggression and conquest, but it is not the sole catalyst.

In regards to the speeds and times it would take to travel there, lets not forget that half the problem in space is not gaining the desired 10% or whatever it may be, but also slowing down again. Slowing down would take just as much energy and time as accelerating, so one would probably have to start applying the brakes, or counter-thrusters or whatever, at about half the distance there, which would double the ETA.

I think though, that the sooner we do something like this the better! Why not just send something now that will arrive in, say 200 years? It would be a rather nice gift for future generations, to get to see pictures of planets from another solar system, life or no life!. Alas! the costs! And the cuts to Science expenditure! Where is our Space Elevator?

We then should send a few more probes and then the inevitably secret/incognito manned missions. I absolutely believe there's a real Prime Directive. We must allow them to reach out to us in fact; not faith. They must have as much free will as possible. (The most crucial difference is whether or not they already have any belief system that espouses "gods" who come from the heavens. If they don't, then Contact can be accelerated as much as possible). We watch them for years, decades or centuries, revealing only unprovable glimpses of ourselves, and when the most fearful psychopaths inevitably take control of their governments (primarily because of our displays) by establishing official-legal National Security-type institutions (or certainly if they already have religions), we know the time for our First Contact with them is drawing near or near enough. Or, most sadly, if there's to be not one strongly/loudly righteous voice able or allowed to be heard above the din of the Tangled Web, we formally Contact them only after whatever catastrophe(s) they inflict upon themselves (certainly if they have the industry and population we do)... But that's easy for me to say being a Deist; unless given good reason to believe otherwise.

reply to post by yeti101


i think we should straighten out our own moral behavior's first of all before we interfere with strangers lives.
assuming they write or have a language we'd have to learn it and then there is the matter of diseases that we might give or get from them if we tried to actually visit in person.
i live in a town of 10 thousand---we have moved around here 5 x in 34 years.every spot we set up house the neighbours were unpleasant or their kids were out of control acting like baboons so who would want them to visit?
also vice versa once the majority of our neighbours realized we had jewish religious beliefs they didnt want to visit anyway let alone be civil.

I think the wise thing would be to watch the civilisation from a distance incase they used our technology for evil

nah .. knowing humans ..

we'd immediately enslave their whole freaking race just to do all of our labor and menial tasks, since we'd be superior, they'd be inferior to our intelligence.

sad but true .. knowing mankind..

[edit on 1/26/2008 by runetang]

Originally posted by Nohup

Originally posted by yeti101
Would you order the probe to release the rover to the surface to find out more about them? Do we have an obligation to tell them that THEY are not alone? Or do we hide the realities of the universe from them until such a time they can communicate with radio signals or maybe even never.

What do you think?

For my own purposes, I'd go ahead and send the rover down. My personal attitude would be "what the hell." They'll find out about us pretty soon, anyway.

However, since any probe like that would likely be part of a much larger exploratory effort, the majority of the scientific team would probably want to sit back and study the civilization before we "contaminate" it with knowledge of our presence. Scientists are always doing that kind of thing.

Anyway, it would take decades if not centuries for a physical probe to get there, and along the way, we would be picking up evidence of civilization from long range spectrometry and stuff like that. So it probably wouldn't be a big surprise to us, and we'd have a lot of time to debate what we were going to do about it. They could very likely discover our radio signals a long, long time before the probe ever got there.

One thing we might do is drop the probe and give them specific instructions on how to build a good radio telescope, and where to look for us. Our radio signals are already reaching them, and that might give them a chance to find out who we are at the present and what we're up to. Then we can at least start some kind of communication with them, even though the response time for any question would be 10 years or so.

A more likely scenario is that our telescopes first spot a liveable planet, then an atmospheric chemical spectrum that indicates some kind of life or industry, then perhaps some basic radio signals coming from them. Then we can decide if we want to try two-way communication or not, probably using radio, since sending a physical probe is so slow.

Then there's always the notion that maybe we want to keep ourselves secret for a while, until we can determine if the aliens are going to be friendly or fierce. On this planet, the little creature who pokes his head farthest out of the hole is the one most likely to get its head bitten off. The same might be true for space.

I am not so sure, perhaps you will spearhead an invasion, since we don't know much of their DNA or brains, who knows, they could evolve really, really fast and appear within earth atmosphere in 50 years fully equipped ready to rule.

Fragile earth, are we alone or ?

[edit on 26-1-2008 by tangent45]

Great question, I think the best thing that we could is investigated because it will make us more knowledgeable of our universe.

I have a couple of questions
1. Are this entity are like us, or they are more like different, like an animal sense.
2. How far behind are they, do they have knowledge of communication, and do they know where they are?
3. Could you compare them in our History, maybe circa 1000, 500, or maybe 3000?

Other scenario is since our technology is not that far advance that we could not go there, so telling our present would be DUMB. Might as just well study them from a distance, with out their knowledge.

If the planet is habitual for us let say they are going to be invaded, remember we like Virus, invade, conquer, use, pollute and multiply humans way of doing thing. Everybody will try to get a piece of the pie first scientist, then politicians, then business men, then religion and the list goes on and yes even Mafia.

To answer to your question if we are going to be like aliens and the answer is NO the only reason we can never be above Alien is because, is because I think Aliens have a different mind superior then us. Just like animals and humans, we humans think more and have more data then animals do (period). Even a human that lives in the jungle have less or equal knowledge then today’s men and superior knowledge then animals.





[edit on 26-1-2008 by newkid]

[edit on 26-1-2008 by newkid]

Awesome question!

A few hundred years behind us. That's what makes this an interesting ponder.

I would not contact them and nor would I study them in any way that could be discovered by them. If they are a few hundred years behind- their lives would be scary enough without aliens in the mix.

We ourselves are just beginning to drop superstitious and archaic religious beliefs (many which were inspired by alien contact- all have resulted in enslavement theories and death over differences of opinion). However- if I were in the minority and my world leaders decided to let our presence know or observe from a place where their discovery of us is likely- I would recommend full on contact with the entire population of the planet.

Secrets are bull#. To deny anyone crucial information is to arm them with fear to destroy not only their enemies- but themselves.

Being lost in denial and the constant manipulation of truth has done very little for the enlightenment of mankind here on Earth. I would like to think we have matured enough as a species to act like an advanced civilization- if not, let them grow at their own pace in as much peace as they are capable of.

We are not Gods- and to be accidentally or purposely thought of as a deity has only inspired mankind to enslave worshipers.

If we cannot add to the benefit of all equally- then we need to stay in math class for a while.

[edit on 26-1-2008 by dk3000]

I hope we would take the time to conquer such a world if ever we had the chance. Mankind will take from the stars what ever we deem fit for our use. Some backwater planet just deserves to get it's ass kicked, plus when its over no one will be able to figure out what just happened. The survivors will develop weird religions and new malevolent gods (likely based on us).
I bet there is already a probe on it's way to Alpha Centauri, and I hope it has enough nukes to flatten a few of the enemies major cities and population centers. We could poison their water supply from orbit, or neutron bomb their atmosphere. Either way, the Terran march towards victory will not be stopped.
BaLTHORIUM G!

If in an hypothetical future era (I hope soon) when we will technologically manage a space trip of 4,5 5 or 6+ light years to a specified target solar system and have the ability to convey data back and forth from our probes in a logically acceptable time limit and we find a living breathing civilization only 200 years behind out current estimated level of progress in that system..then we should..

PAUSE for thought:
What should constitute levels of progress for a civilization totally different than ours?
What should constitute a satisfactory realization of the cosmos of another civilization for us?

So lets say we found a civilization exactly like ours and we decide we are looking our own civilization only 200 years behind in to the future.

We have spend so much time and energy to build the projects to reach such a civilization so we should be considering all possibilities even the remotest ones of acquiring data from such a meeting.

A different understanding of the universe and its politics if such exist should be theorized by us by that time.

We should not be considering low level civilizations only but higher level ones at the same time.

Ever present monitors in the vastness of space, since space IS the final frontier and must be unforgiving, any civilization that succeeded there also succeeded in other trivial matters levels of their existence.

SO we SHOULD send the probe down and fully alert that lower level of civilization of the wonders they might achieve if the resemble US for example!

Then wait to see what happens. IMO we might be really surprised of how many other entities will come in to play and that just might be an even greater discovery than this low level civilization itself.


[edit on 26-1-2008 by spacebot]

i think we should observe them it would be very interesting to see their religious practices. would be kinda funny if they also had a guy they nailed to a cross become their messiah. also 200 years ago is not that long ago. in 1808 many medical advances were being made (nothing compared to today but in general) so i dont think there is a need to help them we got through it okay.

[edit on 26-1-2008 by areyosicker]