we put reasonably intelligent creatures in cages, test on them..etc. I don't see why a highly advanced civ couldnt be thought to do the same to us.
Only except Stephen Hawking doesn't just say we need to be careful. He outright declares that we should avoid all contact with extra terrestrials. His rationale for it stems straight from imperialism. His reasoning clearly stems from a belief that aliens would want our resources. If you toss that rationale out, then his whole hermit advice has no grounds.
"Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses them to lead on to a serious point: that a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity.
He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldnt want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.
He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is a little too risky. He said: If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didnt turn out very well for the Native Americans."
I can't think of any resources that we have here that isn't abundant through out the universe. Maybe water but isn't most comets made of it? They must be looking for the 6 food groups.
Why not? Err on the side of caution. When it comes to the potential annihilation of your species you need to think twice about who you broadcast yourself out to. That's all Stephen Hawking was saying. Just be careful.
Realistically though it doesn't really matter because once you get outside our tiny sphere of influence the likelihood of us even being noticed by anyone else is very remote. As much as we've broadcast (intentionally or otherwise) the galaxy is so vast it'd be a miracle if any other sentient species noticed us yet. We give ourselves too much credit sometimes.
True, and he does have a point, assuming they do just want our resources. Why would they? Don't know, can't ask them. Doubt they'd understand me anyway if I did.
If the resources they required were not mineral in nature (such as liquid water or even manpower), they might have limited areas to search in galaxy. The reasons they might come to Earth could easily be "war"-like. This race has the ability to travel hundreds, if not thousands or millions, of light years to reach our planet. They could need a resource, want to expand their empire, simply fear future enemy. They could even want to steal a a technology or build an intergalactic super highway. Peace is largely a human concept. In most of nature, sharing resources stops when it is inconvenient and fighting erupts.Tagged for later, but a quick comment..
Keep in mind that our earth's minerals and 'hard stuff' are not rare. There is little reason for any 'aliens' to need to mine anything, as if there was this type of need they would either eventually cease to exist due to rarity or would come up with an alternative. It is, imo, statistically unlikely that they would need to scour the universe for some precious metal. If this was the case it'd be a very brief moment in stellar history.
It seems much much more likely that they would want or need us for another type of need.. Entertainment, artwork, etc... Much in the same way our past civilizations are looked at for their amazing architecture, music, and so forth. These are things that no higher being or 'alien' can produce on their own.. Think something along the lines of a higher level mathematician being consciously unable to produce a painting or piece of music that truly stirs the soul. These are things no one can produce by combining other elements or randomly in the universe.
To me, the universe is clearly a large-scale experiment relying on random factors to produce something.
If the resources they required were not mineral in nature (such as liquid water or even manpower), they might have limited areas to search in galaxy. The reasons they might come to Earth could easily be "war"-like. This race has the ability to travel hundreds, if not thousands or millions, of light years to reach our planet. They could need a resource, want to expand their empire, simply fear future enemy. They could even want to steal a a technology or build an intergalactic super highway. Peace is largely a human concept. In most of nature, sharing resources stops when it is inconvenient and fighting erupts.
Not that it would matter the reason, if a warlike people came to Earth, our defenses would stand short of stopping them but a long shot. Their technology would be highly advance.
If the resources they required were not mineral in nature (such as liquid water or even manpower), they might have limited areas to search in galaxy. The reasons they might come to Earth could easily be "war"-like. This race has the ability to travel hundreds, if not thousands or millions, of light years to reach our planet. They could need a resource, want to expand their empire, simply fear future enemy. They could even want to steal a a technology or build an intergalactic super highway. Peace is largely a human concept. In most of nature, sharing resources stops when it is inconvenient and fighting erupts.
Not that it would matter the reason, if a warlike people came to Earth, our defenses would stand short of stopping them but a long shot. Their technology would be highly advance.
(PhysOrg.com) -- Molecules of hydrogen peroxide have been found for the first time in interstellar space. The discovery gives clues about the chemical link between two molecules critical for life: water and oxygen. On Earth, hydrogen peroxide plays a key role in the chemistry of water and ozone in our planets atmosphere, and is familiar for its use as a disinfectant or to bleach hair blonde. Now it has been detected in space by astronomers using the ESO-operated APEX telescope in Chile.
An international team of astronomers made the discovery with the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope (APEX), situated on the 5000-metre-high Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes. They observed a region in our galaxy close to the star Rho Ophiuchi, about 400 light-years away. The region contains very cold (around -250 degrees Celsius), dense clouds of cosmic gas and dust, in which new stars are being born. The clouds are mostly made of hydrogen, but contain traces of other chemicals, and are prime targets for astronomers hunting for molecules in space. Telescopes such as APEX, which make observations of light at millimetre- and submillimetre-wavelengths, are ideal for detecting the signals from these molecules.
Now, the team has found the characteristic signature of light emitted by hydrogen peroxide, coming from part of the Rho Ophiuchi clouds.
We were really excited to discover the signatures of hydrogen peroxide with APEX. We knew from laboratory experiments which wavelengths to look for, but the amount of hydrogen peroxide in the cloud is just one molecule for every ten billion hydrogen molecules, so the detection required very careful observations, says Per Bergman, astronomer at Onsala Space Observatory in Sweden. Bergman is lead author of the study, which is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a key molecule for both astronomers and chemists. Its formation is closely linked to two other familiar molecules, oxygen and water, which are critical for life. Because much of the water on our planet is thought to have originally formed in space, scientists are keen to understand how it is created.
Hydrogen peroxide is thought to form in space on the surfaces of cosmic dust grains very fine particles similar to sand and soot when hydrogen (H) is added to oxygen molecules (O2). A further reaction of the hydrogen peroxide with more hydrogen is one way to produce water (H2O). This new detection of hydrogen peroxide will therefore help astronomers better understand the formation of water in the Universe.
We dont understand yet how some of the most important molecules here on Earth are made in space. But our discovery of hydrogen peroxide with APEX seems to be showing us that cosmic dust is the missing ingredient in the process, says Bérengère Parise, head of the Emmy Noether research group on star formation and astrochemistry at the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany, and a co-author of the paper.
To work out just how the origins of these important molecules are intertwined will need more observations of Rho Ophiuchi and other star-forming clouds with future telescopes such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and help from chemists in laboratories on Earth.
This research is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Yes, but the main point, related to this thread, is that we're not out there giving tools to monkeys.
I can't think of any resources that we have here that isn't abundant through out the universe. Maybe water but isn't most comets made of it? They must be looking for the 6 food groups.
For those who are unable to conceive of any possibility that ETs could have been behind creating sentient humans from animals in earth's distant past.
In today's news:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8653962/Scientists-warn-of-Planet-of-the-Apes-scenario.html
The thing is there just is a main difference between us and monkeys that makes us very different from them and possibly more similar to aliens. It's called Science. Or Scientific method. And Math. Reason and logic.
The problem is that "interstellar/relative space flight" is always a 1 direction trip only. because it's also a trip into the future. If you can go at like 99% of speed of light you could cross the universe in a human life but if you return the earth and sun would be gone.
So the problem is not the doing it but getting the discoveries of your trip back to you home planet. This is more or less impossible to solve.
If one considers the possibility of existence of a race being able of cosmic traveling, It is implied that such race not only has survived itself, but also has reached a level of technology advanced enough to manipulate resources, making them "undepletable".
At such levels, the simple idea of dependence on resources is out of the question.
If you can go at like 99% of speed of light you could cross the universe in a human life
Resources are always depleted. If I build a rocketship out of iron and launch it into space, I now have one rocketship worth of iron less then I use to have. If I keep building iron rocketships and launching them out to space I will eventually be out of iron. As populations grow, so does their resource needs. One billion people need a lot less titanium then one trillion people. No amount of manipulating resources will get around these facts. Eventually a species will have to go out looking for more resources.