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Is it smart to reach out to aliens?

Is it smart to reach out to aliens?

  • Total voters
    25
Cardinal said:
You want us to have a sociologist's point of view, then give us a sociologist's point of view. Or drop it already.
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That's not my point. I am refuting Hawking's creds on the issue.

Why would you trust Hawking on sociology in regard to aliens, and not trust him on sociology in regard to geopolitics.

Admit it, you disagree with Hawking on geopolitics. You agree his position therein is idiocy. Thus, clearly your support of him herein is the result of agenda and not a presumption of infallibility.

Beau, the member that first posted Hawking's position herein, ALSO disagrees with Hawking on geopolitics.

You two need to decide: is Hawking an expert on subjects outside of his discipline(s) or not? If he is, then you two need to drastically alter your positions on geopolitics.
 
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ecofarm said:
That's not my point. I am refuting Hawking's creds on the issue.

Why would you trust Hawking on sociology in regard to aliens, and not trust him on sociology in regard to geopolitics.

Admit it, you disagree with Hawking on geopolitics. His position therein is idiocy.
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Not pictured above: a link to a sociologist pontificating on what aliens might be like.
 
NoC_T said:
We're talking about trans-warp drive (or whatever the ****) and artificial creation of wormholes for transport between galaxies. Not TV and pocket calculators.

The discussion itself assumes a race of bewildering technology. It's laughable to suggest that they'd be operating along the lines of 21st century Capitalism and offing each other in the multiple millions.
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When I was born, there was no real theory of how we could travel "FTL". All the scientists said it was impossible, 'cuz Saint Albert said so.

A couple decades later, one with solid math behind it was devised, the Alcubierre Drive. It didn't make a huge splash among the general population, partly because the energy requirements were astronomical.

Then, not too many years later, a new recalculation says that Alcubierre Drive could be made with an order of magnitude LESS energy, and faster to boot...


Now, this is just one theory, and at this point its more like a hypothesis and manipulating negative energy densities is not on our radar screen. However, given the pace of advancement over the past half-century, and these developments over just my short lifespan (from no FTL to a theory of FTL to an improved and less improbable theory of FTL).... I'm starting to think it might NOT require another million years to crack warp drive or something similar.... maybe not even another thousand.


And that the aliens we meet might not be that much more socially or ethically advanced than current humanity....



but of course, it is all speculation. :)
 
Cardinal said:
The place If there's even the remotest chance that they could be as awful as we have been, why take the chance? We might be too unenlightened by their own standards to be worth treating as equals. There's the possibility they might not even consider us sentient. We might be their food.
c)nanoo nanoo

From Page Not Found - Debate Politics Forums
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Imo, it is wise to reach out to them. That being said, it's our fellow humans that we would probably be under the most threat from. The knowledge that aliens do indeed exist would upset the religious and political systems of our planet to such a severity, that I believe many people would literally come unglued and emotionally/ psychologically malfunction.
 
Cardinal said:
Not pictured above: a link to a sociologist pontificating on what aliens might be like.
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You don't get to dictate the points I make.

No reference is required in my debunking of your agenda driven support for Hawking.

Do you agree with Hawking on geopolitics or not? Just admit it, you don't. That kills your support of him on subjects outside his disciplines.
 
Gathomas88 said:
In a word, no. They might very well be friendly. However, by the same token, they might not be. We really can't afford to take that chance.

If and when we ever happen to encounter an extraterrestrial intelligence, it needs to be on our own terms.
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If they are that far ahead of us, it will be on their terms, and we would have no choice.
 
Cardinal said:
I think that would sort of be like a new Amazonian tribe telling us, "Oh, no, our tribe's village isn't over that hill, it's...uh, behind that one over there."

Hilarity ensues.
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:lamo



Perhaps a bit like this?


 
Gathomas88 said:
Sociology is junk science and pretty much always has been.
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Showed to be one of the least paying majors of all time, but you can learn a lot from it which is the sad part.

Anyways, back to thread.

I think people need to be more optimistic about this... Too many alien movies with aliens having tech 500000 years ahead of us has invaded the minds of everyone. For all we know 2000 years from now WE'RE those aliens to some other species (boy would that make me happy).
 
Goshin said:
When I was born, there was no real theory of how we could travel "FTL". All the scientists said it was impossible, 'cuz Saint Albert said so.

A couple decades later, one with solid math behind it was devised, the Alcubierre Drive. It didn't make a huge splash among the general population, partly because the energy requirements were astronomical.

Then, not too many years later, a new recalculation says that Alcubierre Drive could be made with an order of magnitude LESS energy, and faster to boot...


Now, this is just one theory, and at this point its more like a hypothesis and manipulating negative energy densities is not on our radar screen. However, given the pace of advancement over the past half-century, and these developments over just my short lifespan (from no FTL to a theory of FTL to an improved and less improbable theory of FTL).... I'm starting to think it might NOT require another million years to crack warp drive or something similar.... maybe not even another thousand.


And that the aliens we meet might not be that much more socially or ethically advanced than current humanity....



but of course, it is all speculation. :)
Click to expand...
I take your point, but for the very same reason, we can safely assume that, since there's no isolating the scientific snowball effect from the social dimension on which it depends and in which it gathers pace, morality would have to develop proportionately. In less than a century, we've had the enfranchisement of women, civil rights movements, child protection legislation, the welfare state, anti-war movements and even our current dialogue pertaining to SSM. Now try to place our current level of social development in the context of scientific advancement millennia beyond our own. From internal combustion to galaxy hopping. We're looking at the same difference as that between psychiatry and flaying the skin from someone's body to cure demonic possession. The difference between between riding on horseback and catching the overnight from coast-to-coast.

That's what we're looking at, in social terms.
 
Cardinal said:
The place is earth. The year is now. We have heard for the first time in human history alien signals, and if we reach out to them they can find us. Do we

a)Contact them, under the logic that any alien race is likely to be highly civilized by our own standards, and will therefore be benevolent. After all, we can see a gradual easing off of barbarism in recent history. Conquering and pillaging is no longer glorified, and is punished when possible. It seems natural to assume that an alien race has already passed trials similar to our own, and only by civilizing itself would it be able to cross the vast interstellar space to reach us.

In my debate opponent's own words:



b)Not contact them and wait until we know more, under the logic that the only example we have of an intelligent species (our own) is one that has acted badly to each other, other species and the earth for most of recorded history. If there's even the remotest chance that they could be as awful as we have been, why take the chance? We might be too unenlightened by their own standards to be worth treating as equals. There's the possibility they might not even consider us sentient. We might be their food.
c)nanoo nanoo

From Page Not Found - Debate Politics Forums
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As vast as the universe is we have to assume that for every friendly alien there is a hostile alien.For that reason alone we should not be trying to contact extraterrestrials.Plus who knows what kind of disease that we could be infecting them with or they infecting us with.
 
ecofarm said:
You don't get to dictate the points I make.

No reference is required in my debunking of your agenda driven support for Hawking.

Do you agree with Hawking on geopolitics or not? Just admit it, you don't. That kills your support of him on subjects outside his disciplines.
Click to expand...

No, I don't get to dictate the points you make, but I certainly get to make fun of them and your lazy debating style. Especially when sociology is the basis of your argument. Hawking isn't the basis for mine. Sure, I did essentially say, "here's this really smart guy who also agrees with me," but he isn't remotely the heart of my position. So, again, link to a sociologist or admit you're pulling it out of your ass.

I mean, you didn't really expect to bring up sociology a hundred times and not be asked to link to a sociologist, did you?
 
NoC_T said:
We're talking about trans-warp drive (or whatever the ****) and artificial creation of wormholes for transport between galaxies. Not TV and pocket calculators.

The discussion itself assumes a race of bewildering technology. It's laughable to suggest that they'd be operating along the lines of 21st century Capitalism and offing each other in the multiple millions.
Click to expand...


Why?
.....
 
NoC_T said:
I take your point, but for the very same reason, we can safely assume that, since there's no isolating the scientific snowball effect from the social dimension on which it depends and in which it gathers pace, morality would have to develop proportionately. In less than a century, we've had the enfranchisement of women, civil rights movements, child protection legislation, the welfare state, anti-war movements and even our current dialogue pertaining to SSM. Now try to place our current level of social development in the context of scientific advancement millennia beyond our own. From internal combustion to galaxy hopping. We're looking at the same difference as that between psychiatry and flaying the skin from someone's body to cure demonic possession. The difference between between riding on horseback and catching the overnight from coast-to-coast.

That's what we're looking at, in social terms.
Click to expand...


Again, you have only one example, Homo Sapiens, to point to as an example. There is no certainty that the same would hold true for how aliens would view others not of their species.
 
lizzie said:
If they are that far ahead of us, it will be on their terms, and we would have no choice.
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Not necessarily. It's a big universe out there, after all. It'd actually be fairly easy to simply "blend in" with the background so long as we don't go out of our way to stand out.

If we were to dedicate ourselves to searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life, while, at the same time, minimizing our own observable presence, it could theoretically be possible for us to give ourselves a decent chance of seeing anything that might be coming at us before it saw us.

Of course... However, there's always the possibility that they might already be here as well.

Supposedly, we've been tracking an odd satellite in polar orbit around the Earth for several decades now. No one knows for sure who built it, or how it got there.

Black Knight satellite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

image-of-black-object-from-sts88.jpg


It could be Soviet, or it might simply be misidentified space junk left over from one of our various launches.

However, it could also very well be an alien probe keeping tabs on us as well. You never know. :shrug:
 
Cardinal said:
No, I don't get to dictate the points you make, but I certainly get to make fun of them and your lazy debating style. Especially when sociology is the basis of your argument. Hawking isn't the basis for mine. Sure, I did essentially say, "here's this really smart guy who also agrees with me," but he isn't remotely the heart of my position. So, again, link to a sociologist or admit you're pulling it out of your ass.

I mean, you didn't really expect to bring up sociology a hundred times and not be asked to link to a sociologist, did you?
Click to expand...

Why can't you just admit you were wrong? It's clearly intellectually dishonest for you to glorify Hawking's position on one thing outside of his disciplines (on the grounds that he is smart) and then claim he's wrong on another thing outside his disciplines.

Either you think he's credible on things outside his disciplines or not. And I know you do not agree with him on geopolitics.

So, what will you do? Either admit he's not credible on things outside his disciplines, or drastically change your own geopolitical position.
 
Gathomas88 said:
Not necessarily. It's a big universe out there, after all. It'd actually be fairly easy to simply "blend in" with the background so long as we don't go out of our way to stand out.

If we were to dedicate ourselves to searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life, while, at the same time, minimizing our own observable presence, we could, theoretically, at least, give ourselves a better chance of seeing anything that might be coming at us before it saw us.

Of course... However, there's always the possibility that they might already be here as well.

Supposedly, we've been tracking an odd satellite in polar orbit around the Earth for several decades now. No one knows for sure who built it, or how it got there.

Black Knight satellite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

image-of-black-object-from-sts88.jpg


It could be Soviet, or it might simply be misidentified space junk left over from one of our various launches.

However, it could very well be an alien probe keeping tabs on us as well. You never know. :shrug:
Click to expand...

The size and age of the universe has been used as an argument for why we could feasibly never meet aliens. Too big of a place to run into each other, and there's certainly no promise that we'd even exist at the same time.
 
Gathomas88 said:
Not necessarily. It's a big universe out there, after all. It'd actually be fairly easy to simply "blend in" with the background so long as we don't go out of our way to stand out.

:
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That isn't what I'm saying. If they are that technologically superior to us, it will be on their terms. They have the upper hand, and we are inferior in that sense.
 
ecofarm said:
Why can't you just admit you were wrong? It's clearly intellectually dishonest for you to glorify Hawking's position on one thing outside of his disciplines and then claim he's right on another thing outside his disciplines.

Either you think he's credible on things outside his disciplines or not. And I know you do not agree with him on geopolitics.

So, what will you do? Either admit he's not credible on things outside his disciplines, or drastically change your own geopolitical position.
Click to expand...

I don't think you know what a sociologist's discipline is.

And read my post more slowly.
 
Cardinal said:
The size and age of the universe has been used as an argument for why we could feasibly never meet aliens. Too big of a place to run into each other, and there's certainly no promise that we'd even exist at the same time.
Click to expand...

It all depends on one variable, whether or not FTL can physically occur. Faster than Light travel is the sole determining factor as to whether or not we will ever meet aliens.
 
Luftwaffe said:
It all depends on one variable, whether or not FTL can physically occur. Faster than Light travel is the sole determining factor as to whether or not we will ever meet aliens.
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I've heard of bringing two points of space-time together and punching a hole through them, so to speak.
 
lizzie said:
That isn't what I'm saying. If they are that technologically superior to us, it will be on their terms. They have the upper hand, and we are inferior in that sense.
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Depends on the disparity of technological superiority, if nukes do the same damage to them as it can do to us then we will have a lot of leverage as well.

Nuclear bombs in today terms have powers in the megatons of TNT, the center of a nuclear explosion can reach unimaginable temperatures. The sheer amount of energy is insane, maybe they have better body armor than us? Maybe their ships are faster or have more weapons? But unless they are THAT far ahead of us where they can suddenly just tank megaton bombs then we will not be powerless, humans love their nukes, I'm sure we have a ton as well as the capability to rebuild our cold war instinct of building the best WMD's we can possibly make.
 
Cardinal said:
I've heard of bringing two points of space-time together and punching a hole through them, so to speak.
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It's all theoretical however, is my point.

Science finds the truth only through observation, we do not have observation of this happening.

The value of theories like these = ???
 
cpgrad08 said:
Why?
.....
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Because the image of a greedy banker, sat rubbing his hands in glee as he repossesses a family home home, doesn't quite gel with the image of a society in which economic, educational, health and social issues have been long since resolved against a backdrop of scientific advancement ten thousand years beyond our own.

Because the prospect of hunter-gatherers chasing down deer and dressed in animal furs, in Washington in 2014 strikes me as a vaguely amusing notion.
 
Luftwaffe said:
Depends on the disparity of technological superiority, if nukes do the same damage to them as it can do to us then we will have a lot of leverage as well.

Nuclear bombs in today terms have powers in the megatons of TNT, the center of a nuclear explosion can reach unimaginable temperatures. The sheer amount of energy is insane, maybe they have better body armor than us? Maybe their ships are faster or have more weapons? But unless they are THAT far ahead of us where they can suddenly just tank megaton bombs then we will not be powerless, humans love their nukes, I'm sure we have a ton as well as the capability to rebuild our cold war instinct of building the best WMD's we can possibly make.
Click to expand...

I'm going to assume that splitting the atom is one of those areas in science you don't get to skip on your way to discovering faster than light travel. Us having nukes would be as much of a game changer as realizing that an island nation we're invading is armed with muskets: everyone knows about them already. No, I think if you want to get the drop on aliens you're going to need something a little fancier than that.
 
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