How Did Extraterrestrials Survive Their Nuclear Age?

How Did Extraterrestrials Survive Their Nuclear Age?

However overwhelming a world or national crisis may seem, one can’t help but suspect that it isn’t entirely new. If you’re sympathetic to the view that life exists elsewhere in the universe, it follows that other planets have confronted problems similar to ours on earth and lived to see another day (however long that is in another galaxy). For example, how did the denizens of another planet survive an era when its states, federations, or territories were armed with nuclear weapons or their extraterrestrial equivalent?

The article does bring up an interesting question and some prominent people have interesting takes on it. One suggestion is that since there is no apparent direct evidence of ET life that quite simply, they didn't survive nuclear technology. Others take a stance that since we have survived our nuclear technology it follows that other life forms also would. Another possibility: they destroyed their home planet and doomed themselves to nomadic behavior.

No matter how one looks at it this is an interesting question.

Much like how debunkers use our own human scientific progress to gauge the potential progress of extraterrestrial civilizations in reaching other planets, the same applies here.

You cannot use human tendency towards violence as a gauge for extraterrestrial civilizations. All of them could be completely different and potentially peaceful. We just don't know as of yet.

Yeah, it would be hard to say what they could have done and how/why because we really do not know how they function. Maybe they never had that problem.

Maybe they didn't have a "nuclear" age?

I would assume that an intelligent species would, unlike us, try every single thing to bring about free energy.

Let's not forget that we could completely forgo Nuclear alternatives with green energy such as wind, thermo or even wave evergy.

Were just not in control.

~Keeper

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


I think the jury is still out on if we have survived our nuclear age. I do feel some civilization has to have survived it as there is an alien presence on the planet. I can't exactly prove that, just a feeling i get after seeing UFO's and that jazz.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I mostly agree with what you say, this could have been on earth too.
To my knowledge the Germans reinvented free energy devices before the first atom bomb was thrown (which were also German).

Originally posted by Frith

You cannot use human tendency towards violence as a gauge for extraterrestrial civilizations.

I feel the same way. In fact, our entire notion of extraterrestrial life is extremely anthropocentric. It's quite difficult for us to think outside the box.

Here is one plausable way to survive a nuclear age. Take over the world before nuclear bombs are developed. It did not happen here but came close to happening more than once. If our worlds land mass were different. Lets say more accessable then it could have been possible for a country to take control and rule everyone. Then later on much later nukes come along. In our case it was much sooner because we were at war. But war too could of been the cause for nukes not to come along if it had been more successful in the past.

reply to post by Frith

You cannot use human tendency towards violence as a gauge for extraterrestrial civilizations. All of them could be completely different and potentially peaceful. We just don't know as of yet.

I believe you can surmise that all creatures in the universe are hostile. The reason why is due to the fact that regardless of what planet you are from or what galaxy you were still formed from evolution. Evolution would always lead a tendency to fight and compete.

Originally posted by Reactor
Take over the world before nuclear bombs are developed.

I agree with this. If the world would have been taken over then nuclear technology would have be developed for more peaceful uses and transportation methods.

Originally posted by Three Legs
reply to post by Frith

 

You cannot use human tendency towards violence as a gauge for extraterrestrial civilizations. All of them could be completely different and potentially peaceful. We just don't know as of yet.

I believe you can surmise that all creatures in the universe are hostile. The reason why is due to the fact that regardless of what planet you are from or what galaxy you were still formed from evolution. Evolution would always lead a tendency to fight and compete.

Agreed, but only for so long.

Part of evolution would also entail a spiritual evolution. You could say that they would have come to the conclusion that they should not kill each other, but work together for the common good.

Again, it's hard to imagine another species at work as we have a very biased opinion, we only have ourselves and our limited perspective to go by.

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Why would there have to be a spiritual evolution? Nothing about evolution is spiritual. Can you give me some examples to change my mind?

Working together would actually lead to physical de-evolution as there would be nothing there to prune the weak branches from the tree.

[edit on 6-6-2010 by Three Legs]

Originally posted by Three Legs
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Why would there have to be a spiritual evolution? Nothing about evolution is spiritual. Can you give me some examples to change my mind?

I explained myself wrong.

Societal evolution. Just like humans another species would presumably start out as nomads, hunter/gathers and then eventually settle into what we call "civilization".

Eventually in a societal setting we do, as humans anyway, lean towards wanting to be safe and not argue with ourselves and love our fellow neighboors.

War becomes something that is discouraged instead of encouraged and prosperity among all people becomes top priority.

Our problem is we allow the minority, or the extremism to rule over the actions of the majority.

Imagine if a species who had a million years of evolution on us had worked these things out?

Or even one that is JUST as advanced as we are, realized it 100 years ago. Things would be very different.

~Keeper

[edit on 6/6/2010 by tothetenthpower]

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


Probably had their 'nuclear age' (we're talking power, not weapons yes?) at a different stage in their development than we did (assuming they are a race with a similar temperament to us Humans).

That's even assuming they even had a nuclear age at all.

They may have worked out the theory, but never attempted to put it to any practical use, knowing how potentially dangerous it could be. Or else they had discovered and perfected another form of energy vastly superior in every respect compared to nuclear, and went along that route instead.

Or as i say, perhaps they had their nuclear age, when they were far more socially developed than we were/are. More stable and better equipped to safely implement it's use, and deal with the effluent and waste (or even eliminate waste altogether).

Perhaps they discovered nuclear energy at a time in their development that we have yet to reach ourselves. Maybe at a point 100 or 1000 years into our future.

reply to post by Three Legs


Occam's razor - I think we haven't found intelligent life because it's not there. At least, not for a long time.

Maybe evolution wins in the end no matter how smart we think we are ... and one day the forests will come back. The whales (or whatever) will fill the oceans again. Great dumb beasts will lumber across the land.

It does open up the question though ... has intelligent life evolved on Earth before?

reply to post by tothetenthpower

Imagine if a species who had a million years of evolution on us had worked these things out?

Or even one that is JUST as advanced as we are, realized it 100 years ago. Things would be very different.

Things would be different that is for sure.
1. There would be twice the human population fighting for the same resources.
2. Mankind would have gotten dumber and weaker as a whole.

The thing is as bad as war is, it is a neccisity for improved evolution of the top species.

To understand my point. Lets say we never have a war again and we all have compassion on our fellow neighbors and keep adding entitlements to keep people from falling througgh the cracks. Lets say we do that for a 1000 years and pretend we dont all go bankrupt or realize we are stupid for working when entitlements will take care of us.

So 1000 years later what would you have. Probably 100 billion humans crammed onto the planet. In that 100 billion you would have the majority stem from some underachieving, undereducated gene pool.

So we would basically live like in the movie Idiocracy but with a huge density of humans.

Easy.


They didn't have aliens messing with their early development causing rifts in the overall species, aka religion. Therefor the aliens were all working as one and with each other, rather than against each other. Therefor they had no need for even developing nuclear weapons and used them for peaceful purposes only.

Maybe?

Originally posted by area6
reply to post by Three Legs

 

It does open up the question though ... has intelligent life evolved on Earth before?

Without the tools or the knowledge of how to look past the last 10 thousand years, there's no way of knowing.

If human civilization existed millions of years ago there would simply be nothing left to prove such a thing.

~Keeper

Originally posted by Three Legs
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

Imagine if a species who had a million years of evolution on us had worked these things out?

Or even one that is JUST as advanced as we are, realized it 100 years ago. Things would be very different.

Things would be different that is for sure.
1. There would be twice the human population fighting for the same resources.
2. Mankind would have gotten dumber and weaker as a whole.

The thing is as bad as war is, it is a neccisity for improved evolution of the top species.

To understand my point. Lets say we never have a war again and we all have compassion on our fellow neighbors and keep adding entitlements to keep people from falling througgh the cracks. Lets say we do that for a 1000 years and pretend we dont all go bankrupt or realize we are stupid for working when entitlements will take care of us.

So 1000 years later what would you have. Probably 100 billion humans crammed onto the planet. In that 100 billion you would have the majority stem from some underachieving, undereducated gene pool.

So we would basically live like in the movie Idiocracy but with a huge density of humans.

I don't agree that "group think" mentality hurts is.

I think if anything we've realized how bad things get when you have 1 guy talking for everybody else. Dictators, Kings, Presidents all of that crap has led to our downfall as a species so far.

We are the top of the food chain for a few reason. Thumbs, upright walking and our ability to work together.

Also the self awareness but that's another thread.

I don't think your scenario is plausible. If we were all working together and giving a damn about each other, we would work out the problems of over population, economical strife and any other issue facing us.

The fact that we remain divided is the problem.

Besides, you can't knock on something until it's been tried. And this hasn't.

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Well then lets take it out 100,000 years. Populaton would probably be a few trillion. Do you think earth could sustain a few trillion humans, most of which would be rock stupid?