Benevolent Intelligent ET Lifeforms Are A Pipedream

reply to post by Balkan


I agree with you.
I think about it like this. We need energy to survive at our most basic level. We get energy by taking it from the environment. So we are always taking and looking for more.

Since we always need we will take.
A truly benevolent species would die first before taking from or hurting another species.

So there may be intelligent species out there in space but I agree. I really have doubts that they would be benevolent.

I beleive the late and great Carl Sagan once asserted that... " It will not be us who one day visit the stars. It will be a race of beings very much like us but with fewer of our weaknesses and more of our strengths "

Thats my story and im sticking to it. This world has been deluded and conquered for too damn long. Human's, as i have observed, when uninfluenced by the purposeful outside forces meant to pitch us against one another, are peaceful and compassionate people. This is a potential that every single human being holds. The wonder and awe in the eyes of those who wish to see and explore the world from different points of views in inextinguishable.

To simply state that its a pipe dream that there are no peaceful races above us is simply proving your a prime product of the powers that be. You have been manipulated to beleive the world is all about divide and conquer, and that there are ranks among us that seperate us.

To have an imagination and believe that there are benevolent beings is justifiable because awe and imagination are the driving factors behind the greatest minds that have provided us science and progress in this world.


Take a look within. You know it to be true.

Since we have nothing to judge by, only ourselves - It's all pie in the sky. You can make a case for benevolence just as well as you can for agressive and hostile, because we have nothing to go by other than ourselves and our imaginations.

Our fiction and folklore is filled with drama and conflict with aliens because these are a reflection of ourselves, not real testimony.

With our current theories of quantum physics and all sorts of emerging technologies, I think it's easy to envisage other worlds who have reached a level of technology and thinking where tribal squabbles for land, resources and illusions of power are nothing but stories recounted from history books - is it so impossible to believe that not everyone in the Universe is as stubborn as us to evolve?

Originally posted by quietlearner
It would help if you actually replied with a counter argument instead of shallow "you are wrong, I'm right" replies.
at this point I'm just thinking that you are arguing for the sake of arguing, not to mention I can even detect subtle trollish incitation from your posts.

I've given any counter arguments I can give. Most of my presentation was in the original post. If I didn't explain it well enough, or there is some error, my apologies. I've read back thru my posts and while I have made some errors in my arguments (mainly where I posted without proofreading enough), it's mainly sound, and I presented it the way I wanted to. I think I've addressed every reply in the thread that was worth addressing. If you don't like my tone or my reasoning, and I'm dumb, why stick around? I wouldn't waste my time if it were the other way around.

And can't I troll my own thread? Man, some people.

I think this image:




along with the quote in my signature:

I'll tell you one thing about the universe though. The universe is a pretty big place. Its bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if its just us... seems like an awful waste of space. Right? - Ellie Arroway Contact (1997)

pretty much shows there is a better chance there is benevolent intelligent ET lifeforms in the universe then that there aren't.

Well, it's nice to see some fresh interest in the thread. Unfortunately, I don't have time to go thru all the replies today. I'm a bit disappointed at my thread title after the fact.. It would be better to read: Benevolent Intelligent ET Societies Are A Pipedream. A bit misleading.

Anyway, here is some stuff I dug up I think is interesting. Unfortunately, I'll have to get back to it tomorrow.

Dominance hierarchies occur in most social animal species that normally live in groups

Fish, birds, animals..etc..

It is not clear how much of dominance hierarchy in humans is due to the intrinsic biology of our brains, derived from evolution, and how much is due to cultural factors.

en.wikipedia.org...

Assumptions about human behaviour that members of market societies believe to be universal, that humans are naturally competitive and acquisitive, and that social stratification is natural, do not apply to many hunter-gatherer peoples

I think this statement can be refuted and is controversial. Anyway, that's fine for a primitive people, but what about societies?

Social stratification is based on four basic principles: (1) Social stratification is a trait of society, not simply a reflection of individual differences; (2) Social stratification carries over from generation to generation; (3) Social stratification is universal but variable; (4) Social stratification involves not just inequality but beliefs as well.[3]

en.wikipedia.org...

I think you assume FAR too much.
Who is to say other non-Earth ecosystems and food-chains exist in the form ours do? What if other planets lack for predator and prey, and instead survive through entirely different means? Who is to say at some point in the future our species will not turn over a new leaf and prosper in a non-toxic way as opposed to the BS we have now. Who is to say you are intelligent enough to determine what can and can't be regarded as benevolence? Perhaps it's a case of 'you have to be cruel to be kind', and we are being allowed to near destroy ourselves in order to learn not to play with fire by getting burnt.

All in all it's a big claim to make, though at least you state it is your opinion.

of course we are predators, our eyes are on the front of our faces aren't they? however, the fact is we don't have to be weak, but we can control our instincts so as to live in some level of peace with each other.

reply to post by InternetGremlin


I completely agree with you. It is human ignorance to believe that we are the MOST advanced and MOST intelligent life-form in the universe. Our milky-way is far greater than our minds, at their current stage, could even begin to process, let alone the rest of the 99.999% of the universe. Our intelligence about our place in the grand scheme of things has come a long way. Don't you remember when the earth was flat? Or when the earth was the center of our universe? Our perspective and knowledge about the cosmos changes as we gain the knowledge to explore the vastness the universe.

Originally posted by MisterFister103
You're projecting human behavior to a species of intelligence that we know nothing about. Maybe ET started out with similar roots, but eventually evolved to the point where they no longer need to make war for such mundane causes like religion, oil, or food. I would imagine a space-faring intelligence knows so much more than we can comprehend. We've travelled to the moon, we can clone things, we're learning behavioral traits of monkeys. They've probably created wormholes and new species of life.

I think you've got it backwards. The more intelligent and benevolent ET is, the more dominant I think they are. The ones that still feel it's okay to enslave and eat other creatures, have yet to evolve......mankind has yet to evolve.

Preach it brother!

Originally posted by Balkan
If you don't like my tone or my reasoning, and I'm dumb, why stick around? I wouldn't waste my time if it were the other way around.

never said you were dumb, you are obviously getting angry at people just from disagreeing with you

Originally posted by Balkan
And can't I troll my own thread? Man, some people.

You can troll your own post but its not nice to others

Originally posted by Balkan
In this regards, my little social experiment was (once again) a resounding success.

this thread was never about fair discussion was it?
i will take your advice and bid farewell then

I think that our first true contact will be with machines/probes.

What will we look like in thousands of years ? I'm guessing we will be some sort of hybrid/mechanical indestructible fusion powered beings. We wont need food, we wont need water or anything like that. Our soul purpose will probably be to find and help other lifeforms and explore to find out what the universe is and why its here. I mean what else would we do, just roam around the galaxy and pointlessly destroy other life forms because we are better? If we had the technology that would make us live forever and never be hungry I think our priorities would change. My point is, we will not always be this apish, we will have more advanced technology that will enable us to change. Whats the point of going to war or fighting someone that cant feel pain, cant die, and cant be injured ? The machines will literally be smarter then us in only a hundred years, can you imagine all they will accomplish then ? I don't believe we will be the same race in a couple thousand years, and if we can do it, then so can they. I think that the majority of intelligent life forms in space are benevolent.

reply to post by Balkan


When you think that there has been life on Earth for 3.5 billion years, and out of all that time only ONE species became sentient, It stands to reason that intelligent life is very rare. Then given the probability that we will probably render ourselves extinct relatively soon in cosmic terms, even if thats played out billions of times on billions of other planets, the chances that there will be a planet close enough to detect intelligent beings for the brief time they exist before blowing themselves to kingdom come are probably too small to even think about. The universe is HUGE. Star trek and other sci fi has done us a disservice to us by making us think that interstellar travel is easy. It isnt and never will be. BUT..... since we dont have any sample of what is really out there among the billions of galaxies, its totally possible that a number of species are long lived and have solved the problem of travel between the stars. Even so, an alien invasion is not likely because any starfaring race will have engineering on a level that will allow them to easily gather resources from asteroids and comets, and terraform planets, maybe even make planets, no need to come down here and kick our little primate bottoms. Unless they just want to capture us as pets.

For a civilization to evolve and advance so much that they can travel interstellar distances within a feasible amount of time, means that a civilization has to move past racism, hatred, slavery etc. if they want to reach the stars. And the reason for that being, if there is racism, hatred, slavery etc. then the civilization will destroy itself, which means no advanced technology, including starships.

There is also the possibility that us humans are the first technologically advanced life forms in the universe. Somebody has to be first right? After all we are first it seems here on earth. Perhaps we are at the dawn of sentient lifeforms.

Originally posted by extraterrestrialentity
For a civilization to evolve and advance so much that they can travel interstellar distances within a feasible amount of time, means that a civilization has to move past racism, hatred, slavery etc. if they want to reach the stars. And the reason for that being, if there is racism, hatred, slavery etc. then the civilization will destroy itself, which means no advanced technology, including starships.

Well mankind has always struggled with racism, hatred, slavery, etc. We still managed somehow to move forward with our science and technology and as of so far, haven't destroyed ourselves. AND, we already have been to space - repeatedly. We have our military personnel living up their for 6 month stints at a time, and there is ALWAYS someone up there now.

Who knows. Maybe someday we might. There is always hope.

~ Serra

reply to post by Serraphina


But you see, if hate, racism etc. continues, and with our civilization having some pretty good technology, we will most likely kill ourselves with this technology, most likely before we have technology to take us to the stars.

typical human arrogance and limited thinking ...

there are far more things on heaven and earth than your philosophy can imagine ...

What if the ET are totally hot?

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