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Stephen Hawking: If aliens call, we should be 'wary of answering'

sanman said:
Reknowned physicist Stephen Hawking has warned that if we do receive message signals from extraterrestrial life, we should be wary about responding to them, lest we suffer the catastrophe of alien invasion as a result
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What springs to mind upon reading this thread is how I once saw a program on National Geographic, where some mathematician attempted to fill in the variables of Drake's Equation. He arrived at the conclusion, that alien incursions should occur at a rate of something like once every 40 years. Now, I'm sure our best guesstimates of those variables will have changed in the years since the program was aired, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Attempting to analyze the unknown tends to be pretty difficult, as you have to base your conclusions upon the broadest of observations.
I would however like to posit a few facts that could conceivably be universal.

Good:
1. That any species capable of crossing interstellar distances would likely also be at a technology level where they would be capable of procuring any resources Earth could offer in more efficient ways. (I.e. no "wars for oil".)
2. That if a species happened to like the same kind of real estate that we do, Hydrogen and Oxygen happen to be the top 1 and 3 most common elements in our galaxy. So there's a decent chance that terraforming would be more expedient than hostile takeovers.
3. That any species capable of reaching us, would have to be peaceful enough to have survived thus far without wiping itself out.
4. And that even if they were not peaceful, an "Independence Day" style incursion would not be an efficient way of expending resources anyway. At least a slower approach would give us a better chance to discover what was going on and take measures against it.

Bad.
1. That species who are intelligent tend to be predators.
2. That the most resource efficient way of exterminating someone would be to get them to do the job themselves, not to send hordes of expensive warships to blow sh*t up.
3. That any species capable of crossing interstellar distances would likely also be at a technology level where they would be capable of mimicking and manipulating us in ways undreamed of, making the above viable.
4. And even if the National Geographic guy I mentioned (contact with humanity every ~40 years) was off by a factor of 1.000, it would no longer be a question of when such an event will happen, because then it already would have happened.

Don your tinfoil hats, everyone. Donald Sutherland is coming for your cow lips.
 
HK.227 said:
What springs to mind upon reading this thread is how I once saw a program on National Geographic, where some mathematician attempted to fill in the variables of Drake's Equation. He arrived at the conclusion, that alien incursions should occur at a rate of something like once every 40 years. Now, I'm sure our best guesstimates of those variables will have changed in the years since the program was aired, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Attempting to analyze the unknown tends to be pretty difficult, as you have to base your conclusions upon the broadest of observations.
I would however like to posit a few facts that could conceivably be universal.

Good:
1. That any species capable of crossing interstellar distances would likely also be at a technology level where they would be capable of procuring any resources Earth could offer in more efficient ways. (I.e. no "wars for oil".)
2. That if a species happened to like the same kind of real estate that we do, Hydrogen and Oxygen happen to be the top 1 and 3 most common elements in our galaxy. So there's a decent chance that terraforming would be more expedient than hostile takeovers.
3. That any species capable of reaching us, would have to be peaceful enough to have survived thus far without wiping itself out.
4. And that even if they were not peaceful, an "Independence Day" style incursion would not be an efficient way of expending resources anyway. At least a slower approach would give us a better chance to discover what was going on and take measures against it.

Bad.
1. That species who are intelligent tend to be predators.
2. That the most resource efficient way of exterminating someone would be to get them to do the job themselves, not to send hordes of expensive warships to blow sh*t up.
3. That any species capable of crossing interstellar distances would likely also be at a technology level where they would be capable of mimicking and manipulating us in ways undreamed of, making the above viable.
4. And even if the National Geographic guy I mentioned (contact with humanity every ~40 years) was off by a factor of 1.000, it would no longer be a question of when such an event will happen, because then it already would have happened.

Don your tinfoil hats, everyone. Donald Sutherland is coming for your cow lips.
Click to expand...

I would raise one issue, though: that extermination doesn't require a fleet of warships, but rather just a big ass rock and a space lasso. Propulsion capable of interstellar travel would most likely be able to nudge something out of the asteroid belt into a collision course with earth. Due to the nature of orbital mechanics, this would necessarily be a high velocity impact. A big enough rock would make nuclear deflection efforts meaningless. (Sorry, Bruce Willis, but your plan wouldn't work on a rock the size of Texas)
 
Deuce said:
I would raise one issue, though: that extermination doesn't require a fleet of warships, but rather just a big ass rock and a space lasso. Propulsion capable of interstellar travel would most likely be able to nudge something out of the asteroid belt into a collision course with earth. Due to the nature of orbital mechanics, this would necessarily be a high velocity impact. A big enough rock would make nuclear deflection efforts meaningless. (Sorry, Bruce Willis, but your plan wouldn't work on a rock the size of Texas)
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I'm guessing the methods would depend on what their motivation was.
Genocide for fun, resource exploitation, lebensraum, political refugee haven, tourist attraction, religious proselytism, reality TV setting, depraved sexual preferences, etc.
*edit* And not to forget, demolition to make way for new interstellar superhighway.
 
Deuce said:
The Fermi paradox isn't asking you to accept anything in particular.
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Yup, the Fermi Paradox is what makes me a skeptic when it comes to intelligent alien life that has FTL drives. It's such a basic, convincing argument that wipes out all other assumptions.
 
HK.227 said:
What springs to mind upon reading this thread is how I once saw a program on National Geographic, where some mathematician attempted to fill in the variables of Drake's Equation. He arrived at the conclusion, that alien incursions should occur at a rate of something like once every 40 years. Now, I'm sure our best guesstimates of those variables will have changed in the years since the program was aired, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Attempting to analyze the unknown tends to be pretty difficult, as you have to base your conclusions upon the broadest of observations.
I would however like to posit a few facts that could conceivably be universal.

Good:
1. That any species capable of crossing interstellar distances would likely also be at a technology level where they would be capable of procuring any resources Earth could offer in more efficient ways. (I.e. no "wars for oil".)
2. That if a species happened to like the same kind of real estate that we do, Hydrogen and Oxygen happen to be the top 1 and 3 most common elements in our galaxy. So there's a decent chance that terraforming would be more expedient than hostile takeovers.
3. That any species capable of reaching us, would have to be peaceful enough to have survived thus far without wiping itself out.
4. And that even if they were not peaceful, an "Independence Day" style incursion would not be an efficient way of expending resources anyway. At least a slower approach would give us a better chance to discover what was going on and take measures against it.

Bad.
1. That species who are intelligent tend to be predators.
2. That the most resource efficient way of exterminating someone would be to get them to do the job themselves, not to send hordes of expensive warships to blow sh*t up.
3. That any species capable of crossing interstellar distances would likely also be at a technology level where they would be capable of mimicking and manipulating us in ways undreamed of, making the above viable.
4. And even if the National Geographic guy I mentioned (contact with humanity every ~40 years) was off by a factor of 1.000, it would no longer be a question of when such an event will happen, because then it already would have happened.

Don your tinfoil hats, everyone. Donald Sutherland is coming for your cow lips.
Click to expand...

Any pros are outweighed by the Old Man's War principle, which not only makes a species being hostile possible, but really quite probable.
 
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