life elsewhere,who cares?

would anyone really care if we found life elsewhere? i,m not convinced......yeah at start it would be major story but i think people would lose interest like they do in any major story.

only people i think that would keep interested would be people like us which i,m going to grasp at 10-20% of worlds population and that maybe be me being generous.

so to me the governments should just release what they know cause most people woudn,t care less.....i,m convinced it would blow over and like walking on the moon they would just lose interest.

It doesn't REALLY matter, but it really matters just like a milestone matters. It represents a paradigm shift. There was "before we found life elsewhere" and "after we found life elsewhere." I don't know anyone anywhere who believes there isn't life elsewhere, but that's not really the issue. We don't know. Afterwards we will. It's kind of like Lindberg being the first to fly solo over the Atlantic. From today's perspective it's really no big deal, but when Lindberg did it for the first time it was as important as Neil Armstrong standing on the moon.

Well if we would be able to exchange knowledge and technology with them, our entire planet could be transformed. Getting off fossil fuels and ticking time bombs like nuclear reactors, having transportation far greater than cars or planes, advancing our scientific knowledge etc. You never know what the possibilities could be. I think most people would care about that. If we're just going to say "Sup?", and they're just going to say "Not Much", then I agree it wouldn't change things too much.

If that life were to come to earth it would certainly make a difference!
Just imagine all the new germs and diseases

If its just microbial life that we cant actualy get our hands on then I agree, it wouldn't make much difference.

reply to post by sparky31


Not likely going to happen. I feel one the top reasons why the government keeps such a thing secret is due to it giving our country a technological advantage over our rivals.
Another reason is that the aliens possess certain truths about life and the universe that we are either unwilling or unable to come accept. For example, imagine the ramifications of the aliens saying there is no creator. Imagine how devastating this would be to the religious amongst us.
Then you'll have the people who would think the aliens were playing a demonic trick on them and they will just not believe them regardless of how good the proof is. So now, just from this simple revelation you have conflict between humans and aliens.
Another reason for the secret is because we are egocentric by nature. We have already stereotyped the aliens before they announced themselves. "Oh they're here to save us or they're here to kill us or they're abducting us because they need us to survive and cause we are special" and there being no middle ground. I could go on but I think I've made my point.

If they were not a threatening race, it would blow over as fast as Gangnam Style did.
Sadly, people's attention spans are lousy these days.

If they were a threatening race, we wouldn't be able to care long enough
because we probably would be lunch meat.

I prefer to think it will be more like the show Alien Nation.

reply to post by sparky31


it does matter. because we have a poor grip on reality as a whole... the reality we impose on the universe, the sufferring and exploitation that is so abundant in our race, would come under scrutiny. If we come to know of other alien life, maybe even that life is sentient and has visited earth? Should we expect them to treat us the way we treat eachother and other lower life-forms? Do we justify being taken advantage of by a more intelligent species, by doing it ourselves? I think so. It's important because it implies there is something else out there to judge us. And we are still far too childish to deal with that reality.

I care. It would disprove most traditional Western religious dogma. That would be interesting, would it not?

The question in my mind is; How could one not care?

The discovery of life on another planet even if just microbial, would count among the greatest scientific finds in human history.


I for one am very interested.



SS

Originally posted by Philosophile
I care. It would disprove most traditional Western religious dogma.

How so? Even the Pope said there could be aliens, hasn't stopped those Catholics.

A few years ago someone made a fake documentary that explained that life had been discovered. It was really well done with clips of news reports and all sorts of interviews, some with known faces ect... I had it recorded on video and for a couple of weeks i used to leave it running on my TV if anyone was coming round to visit just to see the reactions it got.

I found about 80% of people were really surprised and shocked by it but 20% did not care at all. The funny thing was out of that 20% all of them were female.

I remember asking one girl why she didnt care after i caught here glancing at the TV and not commenting about it. She said "well everyone has thought aliens have existed for ages..what difference does it make now we know?"

When you think about it , it really wouldn't make much difference to daily life.

I certainly care. Perhaps one day we will find a form of intelligent life that isn't so concerned with greed and avarice, being more than willing to sell out their fellow kind for money, status or whatever terrible vice we use to accommodate our selfish and self destructive desires within our race as a whole. A race that shows that there is something to have hope in over our failed race.

Originally posted by CudiTheKid

Originally posted by Philosophile
I care. It would disprove most traditional Western religious dogma.

How so? Even the Pope said there could be aliens, hasn't stopped those Catholics.

If if recall correctly, Catholicism isn't the most prevalent denomination of Christianity in the west. I was really just referring to most Christianity as a whole. It just doesn't agree with the whole creation story in Genesis,

reply to post by sparky31


I would care A LOT because then I could say "haha told you so to a ton of people" who all said I was living in a fantasy world when they are just living in denial. i don't need some earth shattering announcement to tell me life exists in our vast universe. To think we are alone is kind of egotistical if you ask me. I would care greatly. It's something I have believed since I was a kid before I ever read about aliens or conspiracies. It's a feeling I felt. I use to stare at the sky and moon at night and say hi to whoever was out there. It was like I felt something out there and I was like 6!

As for it not affecting anyone I don't think so. There are many super uber duper religious people out there who would freak out. It would shatter their belief system. I'm not saying their beliefs are wrong but it would shatter them. I mean look at the people who committed suicide because they thought they missed the rapture and were left behind. So yes it would hurt people but that is not reason to keep it from everyone and yes I do believe those in charge are keeping the knowledge of ET life a secret from the masses.

reply to post by sparky31

would anyone really care if we found life elsewhere? i,m not convinced......yeah at start it would be major story but i think people would lose interest like they do in any major story.

if would be initially interesting and then most people would become less interested as they realised the finding made no difference to their everyday tasks of living and survial.

The only event that would drastically alter the paradigm on Earth is direct contact with ET, anything else and life would just go on as normal. Just look at the announcement a few years back when they thought they found microbes on Mars. There was some buzz by the media for a few weeks, and then everything died down. The same would probably occur if SETI detects a signal.

Originally posted by AthlonSavage
reply to post by sparky31

 

would anyone really care if we found life elsewhere? i,m not convinced......yeah at start it would be major story but i think people would lose interest like they do in any major story.

if would be initially interesting and then most people would become less interested as they realised the finding made no difference to their everyday tasks of living and survial.

Interesting. Your view, or the view of many? I most certainly would not lose interest any time soon after learning of extraterrestrial life. It would be one of those things that would stay with me the rest of my life, as well as observing how they conduct themselves juxtaposed to how we as humans do.

Originally posted by mblahnikluver
reply to post by sparky31

 

I would care A LOT because then I could say "haha told you so to a ton of people" who all said I was living in a fantasy world when they are just living in denial.

i don't need some earth shattering announcement to tell me life exists in our vast universe. To think we are alone is kind of egotistical if you ask me. I would care greatly. It's something I have believed since I was a kid before I ever read about aliens or conspiracies. It's a feeling I felt. I use to stare at the sky and moon at night and say hi to whoever was out there. It was like I felt something out there and I was like 6!

As for it not affecting anyone I don't think so. There are many super uber duper religious people out there who would freak out. It would shatter their belief system. I'm not saying their beliefs are wrong but it would shatter them. I mean look at the people who committed suicide because they thought they missed the rapture and were left behind. So yes it would hurt people but that is not reason to keep it from everyone and yes I do believe those in charge are keeping the knowledge of ET life a secret from the masses.

yeah if u read my post i said people on here would care........as for those that believe other things i just think that after a few weeks of it then think people would lose interest and go right back to everything they believed in anyway so if the government is trying to hide anything i don,t see the point.

Absolutely it would matter,it would be one of the significant discoveries in our history when we learn we're part of a universal ecosystem,even a universal culture possibly not just a celestial one.

It's probably true that once the knowledge has sunk in and there's not apparent effect on people's daily lives a majority of people will get on with their lives much as they did before except with the knowledge that there IS life out there after all.

There will be a large number of people who it'll make no difference what so ever to.The sort of people who are focused on their own lives and concerns that they're barely interested in the fate of people from another continent so it's daft to expect them to have an epiphany when life in the universe is confirmed.

Rightly so,controversial a viewpoint it may be but why should every human on the planet feel the same it has the same significance and importance to them,each to their own.

Much like others have said I think life out there is a cast iron certainty and it's just a matter of time until the solid evidence is found to confirm it,in a way the announcement won't be earth shattering rather simply pleasing !!

And anyone who thinks it'll deal a blow to organised religion is living in a fantasy world i'm afraid.Personally nothing would please me more than to see the big 3 dealt a blow to which they couldnt recover but they'll just fit the new 'universal' outlook into god's overall plan and carry on as before !!

Originally posted by sparky31
would anyone really care if we found life elsewhere? i,m not convinced......yeah at start it would be major story but i think people would lose interest like they do in any major story.

only people i think that would keep interested would be people like us which i,m going to grasp at 10-20% of worlds population and that maybe be me being generous.

so to me the governments should just release what they know cause most people woudn,t care less.....i,m convinced it would blow over and like walking on the moon they would just lose interest.

I think big business would try to exploit sports especially between planets. Like if there is a civilization under mars and they are incredible in the fine disciplined sports such as ice skating etc. I'm am sure big money would try to get involved and would be a big mess like it is here were only the rich get it all with little left over for the rest of us. Terrible! So it would be a BIG deal for the RICH for SURE. But of course it wouldn't be just sports, but the same thing in all the other fields as well. Capitalism is not bad of course, it is just our concept of it stinks to HIGH HEAVEN ! NO SAFEGUARDS FOR THE RICH, NO CHECKS AND BALANCES. The rich will want to own every thing (any off planet endeavors) they can get their greedy little or big hands on!


Who cares! The rich do once they know they can exploit them (aliens) for all their worth !
There probably is not a whole lot of interest now, but wait till they know they can make money off em. Then it will make the 49er gold rush look like child's play.