I think I know what Alien visitors “Really” think of us, and it’s not good.

Recent Astronomic measurements have shown that the Earth is around Two Billion years younger than most other Planets in our Galaxy. This information, which is apparently accurate, means that other advanced civilizations could be that many years older than us. If you look back to our recent past, we Humans only became capable of modern lifestyles around Fifty Thousand years ago. In that incredibly short time we have learned to master fire, invent the wheel, learn Agriculture, Medicine, and Farming. Including Science, Math, and Industrialized Manufacturing. We invented flight, Rockets, and we went to the moon. All of this on a timescale that is minuscule compared to the age of the Earth. Can we even predict in our most improbable imaginings what will be possible even One Hundred years from now? Our Technological advances build on each other, allowing exponential growth, the more we learn the faster our rate of advancement. This means that the next One Hundred years will see a much more pronounced level of progress compared to the last.

If these ratios of knowledge to growth hold true with other species and these other beings are not just Hundreds of years more advanced, but Millions of years more advanced than us technically, what can we expect with regards to technological parity? A hyper advanced society may not even wish to bother with such lesser beings. If you then consider the odds that species from another Planetary system could easily be Two BILLION years more advanced than us, the possibilities aren’t just more complicated than we imagine, they are more complicated than we CAN imagine. Such a massive imbalance of scientific development and know-how may be insurmountable in terms of our ability to engage in even the most basic communications with such super advanced beings. This makes me think that friendly encounters between us and any of these very advanced societies are unlikely. Any encounters that we may have had or will have in the future may not be able to even be recognized as such by us. The best chance of meeting and engaging in some kind of exchange of ideas and goods with Alien cultures will be with those of a similar age and level of development.

Realizing the extent of our differences, we can appreciate some possible scenarios where we are being studied and examined in a detailed and methodical manner by unknown entities, but we can never observe and document these activities in a meaningful way. I can imagine an Alien Archeologist studying our ways and activities and the resulting data then being cataloged on a far away system. These other worldly societies may even have a method of disseminating the information similar to our version of “National Geographic.” I imagine that many aspects of our lives that we consider to be dull and uninteresting, will be observed with a sharply different viewpoint by others. Everyday activities that seem normal to us may seem grotesque in the extreme to beings outside of our society. Take drinking a cup of milk for example, a source of nutrition to us, but to far away beings, the act of drinking fluids squeezed from a sac hanging from the bottom of a Bovine mammal may be inconceivable and totally disgusting to them. The simple and normal act of sex between Humans with the resulting exchanges of fluids and secretions are probably considered to be barbaric and unhealthy, even though they themselves once practiced similar rituals. One can imagine a short clip of pornography taken from our planet being shown on their version of a science documentary as the announcer states that almost all Humans regularly engage in this type of activity, as the viewers cringe and are repulsed by our primitive display of animal behavior.

Continued from above:

Many things that we take for granted as civilized and proper will certainly seem crude and unwholesome to more advanced civilizations. So when wondering what Aliens may think about us, it is very likely that they will have a completely different viewpoint from ours. Depending on the level of differences between us technologically and sociologically, we may even be considered to be a dangerous threat, or perhaps just a planet of dull witted cavemen with Atomic bombs.

reply to post by RING0



Aside from the whole whether there are even vistors visting us, but asuming for the sake of pure debate that their are, wouldnt they recognize that their own species too, developed over time and that they had at one time been less advanced then they are now in terms of primitive animal displays?

reply to post by RING0


Fairly good argument RINGO. But one thing to consider is when we see a Lion tearing an baby zebra apart limb from limb do we not see it as nature? As the Lion simply being the Lion? It's neither, good, evil or barbaric. For all we know, these Aliens may even be incapable of emotional responses (as we understand them) in some cases. They may feel nothing in relation to our practices. It's all conjecture I guess.

IRM

[edit on 8/12/08 by InfaRedMan]

reply to post by RING0


RING0, I think another way of looking at is this:

If you see a little kid, they do some pretty dumb things some time. But are you going to despise a kid just for being a kid in and of itself?

No, because you yourself were once a kid.