"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

a reply to: roadgravel

Who said anything about being a warring society, that's not where I see us eventually progressing, we'll move past war, but not past corruptioin, where we are going is much darker than that.

Sloth, gluttony, masses ruled by petty entertainment and greed.

The assumption that aliens are completely different and have moved on to some higher superior moral level is a silly assumption to make. Too many people do it, I'm going another route, the one that doesn't require making an assumption with no natural basis that discounts all observations within nature.

a reply to: Puppylove
Finally. A thread that makes sense. I have a feeling that half the posters here are alien trolls. They are way more sophisticated then the human trolls I have encountered.

originally posted by: TheLaughingGod
a reply to: Unity_99
I try to tear them to pieces.

Symbolically of course. Dismantling structures and picking things apart.

originally posted by: combatmaster
a reply to: Puppylove
Yes indeed.

This idea has been extensively discussed on various threads here... you are really just hitting the tip of the iceberg.

Let me save you reading many threads: Science can measure matter, it cannot measure the rest (hence the name anti-matter). 97% of the universe as we know it is anti-matter.
We ( and everything that is i.e. matter) could just be the tip of the iceberg... and to us it would look like magic.

WRONG WRONG WRONG.
Step away from the science if you don't understand it.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: jimmyx

Mine is actually a human-alien hybrid and a character of mine in a game I rp in named Xiri. She's not actually a full grey. Really more a psitech hybrid human/grey, tony stark wannabee (corporation and power suit and quirkyness) with a very girly side and alter ego.

Champions Online.

I like your theory and story but who is to say these Aliens have the same mindset as humans? Do you really think they are as primitive and barbaric as humans and would do malicious things because they are bored? I think if a species has evolved and has become an advanced race that they would not have the same mindset as humans and therefore would not be tricking humans. But that is just my opinion.

a reply to: apoc36

But that is just my opinion

You don't actually have to say that. Unless you are quoting someone else. In which case it is not your opinion. Unless you agree. Then you don't have to say that.

a reply to: Puppylove

So they transversed the vast expanse of the galaxy to put a flaming bag of poop on our doorstep, ring the bell, and hide behind the bushes to observe our reaction?


Why the hell not?

a reply to: apoc36

I think what I think because in nature I've seen that the more intelligent things are, the more they vary on an individual level. In addition, those who vary towards compassion are rarely if ever the ones in power, throughout nature it's often the individuals who are both power hungry and capable that acquire the power positions. As species develop more ability to do nothing and play, they seem to gravitate towards that. Humans being a prime example of that. Most invention is based on the principle of making things easier.

As we develop more and more, the more people seek leisure and play. Meanwhile we sit around being ruled by the worst of us, because the best of us don't have the aggressiveness necessary to fight our predatory elites. Meanwhile the majority of us spend our days at play, and work. Our elites keep us working just enough we have little time to do more than work and play, this way we don't rebel as a whole. We keep being given new toys, ect.

Evolutionarily we advance more by technology now more than anything, we have no major ecological pressures, so I see no reason why we would mentally change too much from who we are now, no matter how much tech we get, unless we genetically alter ourselves. We will without interference remain a varied species, where the extremes remain rare, with the compassionate doing nice things, while the power hungry rule, and the majority just kinda puts about.

I see no reason why any other species would do too much differently once it hits our tech level and progresses beyond it. There's no reason a sentient species would all funnel towards a specific nature. The reason we are how we are is because we're sentient, and thus heavily varied mentally. Extremes should be rare in humans or others, with most falling towards a rather slothful existence where possible with self entertainment as the typical daily goal.

I don't believe aliens are like outsiders in D&D where they're all one alignment, which is what the "Space Brothers" of peace and love requires. It requires a species which has lost all individuality, as well as an odd jump and shift from how nature and sentience seems to progress to something else entirely.

I think that aliens would be people, not exactly like us of course, but certainly not as far apart from us as many people's hopeful thinking requires. They would be varied, not just between the different species, but within their own as well. This isn't a fantasy game with fantasy races, it's reality, there's very little reason for a species to have advanced without being varied and adaptable. The reason sentients are so varied, is adaptability, therefore, the more intelligent, and more adaptable we become, the more varied, not less varied we should be intellectually and personally.

Therefore, if there are aliens, they are intellectually varied, their personalities are different on individual levels, and therefore an entire species or galactic society of "space brothers" of peace and love is inconsistent with what it means to be a sentient species who's evolved in an adaptive enough way to advance to the point of becoming space faring in the first place.

Nice people, who do right by others, and have no need, drive or desire for personal leisure or comfort, nor drive to hold power or sway over others do not advance, they have no reason to, they'd live as one with each other and their environment they'd never progress. Therefore I see no reason a species would have what it takes to progress then miraculously suddenly switch gears to become something completely different and become an entire species of hippies.

a reply to: Kojiro

Well that's where I made her originally and where the model came from, but I actually play her in tabletop RP using the Hero system which the champions game is based off of, as well as altered the picture some from the screenshot. Added eyelashes and a symbol on her helmet, cleaned up a bit of graphical errors, and altered the face a little to better have the right shape. But yes I made the model in champions online, good catch.

a reply to: Puppylove

Again you are thinking like a human to come up with your analogy

a reply to: apoc36

Again you're assuming aliens would deviate extremely from the way nature has shown itself to progress.

We're both assuming, but one of us has something observable and real data to pull from, while the other is just engaging in hopeful thinking.

I'm not just pulling from humanity with my observations.

Let me put it this way, no one has ever given a good reason why aliens, who logically evolved on a planet, much like we did, developed sentience while becoming super adaptable just like we did, who conquered their environment, just like we did, to develop technologies just like we did, then then rapidly advance with their technology and take to the stars, to suddenly STOP having any of the traits that cause a species to develop these technologies and expand in the first place.

Plus none of the evidence we have points to it being the case.

Reports are varied, not consistent. Varied is what should be expected. Those who believe in the all good aliens space brothers scenario insist that those who have the other encounters are delusional.

I at least posit a scenario where both are possible without assuming aliens are all evil or all "space brothers" why is my aliens are just super advanced people scenario the least likely one? It requires the least assumptions, and has more evidence in nature to be the most likely.

Yeah Puppylove, I totally agree with everything you say here.

Often in alien abduction stories the aliens say they are scientists, they are clearly studying us.

The technology is probably unbelievable to us. They probably have total optical camouflage.
Probably be able to manipulate space and time.
I bet they and their ships are all around us.

The way they could read our minds and communicate telepathically is not an indication of paranormal ability, but again highly advanced technology.

As for being friendly, look at the guy who had the holes drilled out of him. Clearly to some races we are just "samples".

a reply to: Puppylove

But one of us has something observable and real data to pull from, while the other is just engaging in hopeful thinking.

Ok so I am assuming you mean I am the one that is just engaging in hopeful thinking? So if you have real data that you are pulling your information from. Do you mind sharing that information to the rest of us so we can see the same thing you see? Some may agree with you and some will not. I happen to be one that does not agree with your analogy. If you are going by HUMAN history then your theory is flawed. You cannot look at human history or even human data to assume what an entire different race / species acts and thinks.

I do agree with you that their tecnology is so advanced to ours that it may look like magic to us. That I totally agree on, I just do not agree that all the paranormal or weird things that humans cannot explain is aliens playing a joke or messing around with us.

a reply to: Puppylove
Well I'm sorry to say this but in all the years (over 40) that I have taken an interest in all this paranormal, UFO , conspiracy stuff one thing just drives home more and more, especially from the US religious right and far too many ATS members unfortunately........plain old ordinary scientific ignorance sometimes mindnumingly ignorant bordering on lobotomised.

Why does sufficiently advanced technology seem like magic irrespective of the level of of technology or the observer? The answer is simple, ignorance of the technology DUH!!!! Remember the builders of the technology see it as a machine NOT magic.

What most people understand as "humor" is essentially a reaction produced as a result of pattern recognition. We're a lot like prairie dogs. We have brains that are constantly searching for patterns, just like a groundhog scans the grass near their holes on the lookout for predators. When they see something surprising -- that doesn't match the pattern -- they let out a little whoop or bark to warn the rest of the groundhogs.

When we see something sticking out from the pattern, we laugh, which is a kind of bark. That's why people will laugh at the same jokes over and over, long after the surprise is gone. It's because we're built to react to the change in pattern.

Real UFOs, when they show up, sometimes offer a tremendous shift in the ordinary pattern of life. We expect things to fly a certain way, or remain tethered to our perceptions of 4-D reality. And when they step out of our expectations, we can be fascinated or terror-stricken, or even laugh.

If nothing else, real UFO sightings are great at illustrating our own perceptual limitations.

a reply to: apoc36

I'm looking at other species besides humans as well, especially the more advanced and intelligent ones. Earth has more than humans on it you know.


I'm looking at how life has evolved, how more adaptable intelligent species behave, ect. Actual data. I'm looking at the natural world, and drawing my conclusions based on that.

You're just going, "they're alien and not human therefore the must all be drastically different from us entirely"

I'm going, they're living things, that like us and everything else on this planet evolved from a competitive natural environment, and thus much like life here, will have evolved at least somewhat similarly to our own. If behaviors and the like seem more common the more intelligent our life forms become, especially the more successful ones, the more likely another sentient being will display such traits.

Once again, people at one with their world do not advance, they simply exist, at peace with each other. There are no entire species of space brothers, cause they're still planet bound singing cumbaya.

Let me put it this way, I put the people who believe in our all peaceful love and light space brothers in the same category I do the people who believe the same thing about dolphins.

Dolphins are often treated with the same brush, treated as these beautiful creatures of love and joy, creatures who help others and are so much better than us.

Which couldn't be further from the truth. For every dolphin who's saved someone from drowning there's dolphins who brutally drowned someone for fun, or drowned them while trying to rape them. For every pod of dolphins you see happily playing, some other pod has found some poor porpoise they've cornered to gang rape. For every dolphin innocently doing tricks for onlookers, there's another biting a puffer fish to get high and passing it on to his buddies.

Dolphins pods are more akin to fraternities (many with all the worst traits of our worst fraternities) than they are a peaceful loving people. Like all fraternities, some are better than others, some are community conscious and caring but others are complete douche-bags.

Yet there are still those who despite all this, believe dolphins are somehow morally superior to us and our great loving sisters of the sea. The only thing that prevents them from being as bad as us is they lack hands to work with.

I place those who believe in space brothers who are one and all believers of love and light in the same category of those who believe the same thing about dolphins. It's not how things work, with sentience and intelligence comes intellectual and moral versatility and variety. So any alien group will have both it's good and it's bad. Is that simple. Anything else is illogical wishful thinking with blinders.

Also such wishful thinking is dangerous. Wishful delusional thought like that is what leads to people going to "play" with the dolphins ignorant to what they're really capable of, find the wrong pod, and die, beaten, potentially violated and drowned.

Makes me think of those people who killed themselves to join their space brothers on their mother ship in that cult. If we assume there was an alien involved, which is more likely?

They're souls were uplifted and they went with the aliens to some paradise.

or

Like many human cult leaders with a power trip, the followers were lead to their doom by someone who got their jollies off manipulating people, and instead of moving on, they all just died.

or

It was a psychological and sociological experiment with human guinea pigs.

I'd place bets on two of them before the first one. Assuming an actual alien was involved... though I could see the government doing the third one as well.

Point being, some alien comes along claiming to be your space brother, and you buy it and go along with him, it's on you.

a reply to: Phage

I know I do not have to say that. But I wanted to. Unless there is a rule against it?

Good quote.