There are aliens and they are likely to be Republican.

[TheBigotBasher]

Stephen Hawking is to do a documentary for the Discovery Channel detailing the mathematical possibility that Aliens exist. In it he warns that it would be dangerous for humans to try and contact them.

Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved.

“To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”

snip

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 wouldn’t 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 didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7107207.ece

So if we try and contact them, they will fight wars and strip us of our assets. They will get on with Rush Limpballs then.

[mdmc]

1. thanks for the interesting read..

yes

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Now "V" on ABC has new relevance.

[TheBigotBasher]

4. I still think the original was better.

It also had Newt Ginrich in it.

[Gman2]

3. God would never allow aliens to eat his favorite planet creatures.

[RandomThoughts]

5. Well that also would assume one type of alien.

And the concept of the arguement saying they should exist, also says many should exist.

The concept that they should be humanitarian, could lead to the error of sharing tech to other race not humanitarian.

Creating a rouge less nice alien set, and a humanitarian set.

So the humanitarian ones have to go around and clean up the raiding of peaceful societies, by the pretty far advanced less emotionally evolved set.


That is a common story to answer good and bad, and still fit logical arguements in sci fi.



He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on
That quote is an assumption of a limit to resources that far advanced aliens would not have overcome.

Just suppose molecule construction by many types of atomic manipulations. What if any molecule becomes a resource of any other type, what if energy was not an issue?


Read a book on unlimited energy, find a universe that is a complete void, and one that is complete energy, then flow the energy from full to empty, do not actually take that energy, but use its flow as power. Then total conservation of energy in the dimension you are in is maintained, although more of an academic point short of billions of years, and only universes effected are deemed in consistent state, so no time exist, and no life due to that limitation.

[IDemo]

6. I'm surprised that Hawking has adopted a sci-fi view of aliens

We like to surmise that an advanced civilization, even a highly advanced one, would follow the Star Trek model: building large spacecraft to explore the Cosmos. I find it far more likely that a means of travel not requiring speed of light or greater acceleration in a giant tin can would be discovered and used. We already stand at the brink of the artificial mind; by another century (or sooner) will the human body/brain/mind even be a desirable package for interstellar exploration? As advanced as we like to feel we have become, we are but ants compared to any reasonably advanced species.

[TheBigotBasher]

7. In the overall scale of the Universe

we are less than ants and more like a speck of dust.


Earth, as pictured from Mars.

[IDemo]

8. A very small speck, at that

I was speaking in terms of our technological rating in a side-to-side comparison with any other advanced civilization "out there".

[TheBigotBasher]

9. I know

I just wanted an excuse to add the cool pic from Nasa to this post.

:-)

[Ozymanithrax]

10. A species with the technology to move between stars would probably not need our resources...

We know that planets are common. So why cross the universe to this particular planet to steal what we have.

Now, the next problem is getting all those resources back home. Much easier to go some place close.

I like Science Fiction and enjoy alien invasion stories, but coming to steal our stuff doesn't work.

The only reason to invade an alien Species on a world hundreds of light years a way is because you have a desire to dominate them or enlighten them to the awesomeness of your own superior alien culture.

[drm604]

11. Stephen Hawking is a giant intellect so I hesitate to disagree with him

but surely any life advanced enough to travel between stars wouldn't need to seek out inhabited planets for their resources. There have to be plenty of resources available throughout the galaxy without spending time and resources seeking out rare inhabited planets to plunder.

I'd be more concerned about aliens following some crazy religious imperative to eliminate or enslave anything other than their own kind. I really can't see where they could have any kind of economic incentive to seek us out.

To be fair, I haven't seen the show yet so he may have some arguments that I haven't thought of. I love this kind of programming so I already have it in the TIVO.

[Cal33]

14. Hawking's reasoning that since there are an astronomical

number of stars with planets around them, there must be intelligent life elsewhere from
the sheer numbers alone. This seems logical to me. But his assessment that these
alien intelligent beings must be as aggressive and greedy as human beings are is only
a guess. There is no mathematical way of showing it. My guess is that some of them
are, others might be loving and giving intelligent beings. It's only a guess.

[drm604]

15. I don't disagree with the reasoning that intelligent life elsewhere is likely.

I also don't disagree that some are likely to be aggressive and greedy. Evolution likely selects for such things.

What I disagree with is that they would bother to seek out rare inhabited planets purely out of greed or even economic necessity. The universe is full of the elements required by life (of whatever kind). Those elements could be harvested from any rocky bodies or gas giants. The number of uninhabited places they could mine must vastly outnumber the number of inhabited places. Why go out of your way to seek out the rare inhabited planet when you're surrounded by easy pickings? Greed would dictate going for the easiest most abundant pickings.

[Motown_Johnny]

12. he has already made that statement publicly and I disagree with it.

The resources needed to travel here would far out weigh anything they could plunder from our planet.
It just doesn't make any sense.

[TheBigotBasher]

16. Why would they?

We hardly know anything of our own resources, much of the ocean remain unexplored. We are so addicted to oil and looking up at the sky that we fail to look down.

[L0oniX]

13. Yes ...reptilians!

[Odin2005]

17. No, there are far better places an advanced civilization can get resources.

Like white dwarfs.

[Mojeoux]

18. If they have money, they can get the Planet

If it fits the bottom line, the stockholders would insist.

[BlooInBloo]

19. Anna might be a republican, but she's hot enough for me to overlook it for at most 30 seconds.