This is a place to throw together all of your thoughts on what E.T will be when we encounter them. To moderators--I decided, after going to Astronomy, and to Pseudoscience, to put this thread in this section because it is speculation and not scientific (or new age). I think, to make an accurate judgement of what E.T would think of us, and what we would think of E.T, we would have to say that we will encounter, through one means or another, an intelligent civilization at least equal in both its "societal" and technological development to our own. By this I mean that they still have problems with aristocrats stealing from the lower classes, enslaving helpless peoples (it sounds exaggerated, I know, however I seriously doubt that it is), etcetera. I think that this is a prudent thing to first lay down because in order to be what humans deem intelligent, we must first look at how intelligent life, both human and nonhuman (simian, avian, other?), has developed on this world. First and foremost it can be assumed that intelligent life, as deemed by humans, has probably developed from typical only-the-strong-survive early society, and that, like ours, it still has many remnants of that society embedded within its culture in the modern day, influencing daily life and thought. I guess that means that the drawback of being intellingent is that you become an oppressor in order to survive--it's either us or them. You become an oppressor of both your own species and of others, before and after real, grassroots agrarian civilization occurs. This can be demonstrated, with humans, with the likely (but not confirmed) influence man had in the extinction of both the Neanderthal and the Wooly Mammoth, and with the later enslavement of countless "savages and primitive peoples" by European-Hellenistic civilization, as well as many other civilizations. With intelligence comes greed. When Europeans encountered natives in the Caribean, the natives were subsequently enslaved, again and again, throughout Central and later North and South America. Indentured Servitude, slavery in Greece, Rome, everywhere. War crimes the Japanese committed against the Chinese in their various conflicts, that the Russians committed against their own soldiers in the second world war, that the Germans did to the Jews and the Gypsies, to name but a hairwidth's fraction of what has been done to the human race by the human race. Then it is equally easy to assume that if we find E.T, we will enslave or attempt to enslave it (at least early on). If E.T finds us, it is totally feasible for their species to do the exact same thing to us. The one thing that needs to be remembered through all of this is, first and foremost, Goofyfish's (old) quote, "There are not warlike people, only warlike leaders." We didn't need to enslave the inhabitants of the western hemisphere of Earth, and we undoubtedly will not need to enslave the inhabitants of the first civilization we encounter. However it was at the time economically feasible to do so to the Native Americans, to the blacks, and a planet brimming with cheap labor is no easy thing to ignore for humans or aliens. Well, I've written something about humans and aliens. I've speculated. Now, you do the same thing. Any subject you like--culture, language, location, history parallels (just to give you some ideas, dear reader). Debate my points. Incite conversation. Learn, with me.
A "Humano-centric view", I think... Consider: Might it not be conjectured that human cultures arose as a result of our own evolution as "humanoid" physical specimins, the development of the human brain/mind, and the environments in which we live. If in fact there are "alien" races, one might presume that they would have developed along similar lines - by which I mean very differently, in accordance with whatever physical form they have, etc... (A trivial example: The expression "on the other hand" because we have two hands, versus... ...well, I frankly don't know what, depending on an ETs phisiognomy, etc... ...If they don't have "hands" as such, or they don't speak to express ideas, or they just never utilized zippy little "folk-wisdom" expressions...) I agree that it might very well be the case that we would attempt to dominate a less developed ET "race" if we encountered them on some distant world. Presuming "apes will be apes" , (hairless or otherwise) unless some sort of cultural transformation has overtaken humanity - the sort which might very well eliminate the sort of "maverick" which would be the personality type to make interstellar jaunts, it seems conceivable that humanity might view the ETs in the same manner that European explorers did the Amerind cultures they encountered... If ET finds us, however... To me, it's anybody's guess what they might do... I envision them putting up the equivalent of huge billboards reading: KEEP OUT!! HIGHLY DANGEROUS CREATURES IN QUARRANTINE ZONE!!! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
interesting thought and very likely. i feel that when life encounters ET it could very well be in a form that we are not familiar with. we look at ourselves as beings and i think that we are expecting to see ET in a similar sense (ie legs hands torso head, etc.) when my theory revolves around ET being somthing far more complex to understand than that. it would consist of a totally unfamiliar form of life. something that we have never seen or could even begin to imagine. i am not able to provide any prime examples due to having no experience with such lifeforms. but lets just say it could appear as a microorganism. relating it to your theory, this could be the cause of an uncurable disease which infects us in order to contain and possibly enslave us. i believe since it is more likely them to find us first than vice versa. their technological advances will far exceed those of ours. this leads me to believe that they could even "visit" us with the absence of our knowledge and via methods unable to be comprehended by our most advance thinkers. basically, their method of attack would not be in a basic miliarty fashion. this may explain what happend to the Egyptians. i really feel there is some sort of relation to thier civilization and ET. not that i have the best ones, but i must compliment you on such a thought invoking post.
Why does technology denote intelligence, why can't a higher form of life be bereft of technology but highly evolved societally, we have species on this planet that may actually be beyond us in that yet to us we treat them as lower life forms, take dolphins for instance, a highly social creature that finds no fault with man and gladly will help him, why is it they seem to understand us but we don't understand them. I think instead of searching off the planet for other life forms, maybe there are life forms right here on earth that we should be learning to communicate with first. Is it not beyond the realm of possibility that two intelligent life forms evolved at the same time, one on land, one in water.
Maybe we only have warlike leaders, but another little feature of our psychological makeup is that we love following leaders. The manner in which ETs would treat us would therefore probably depend on the way their society is build. Do they have leaders? Are their leaders warlike? Do they follow leaders? Do they have peaceloving leaders, who try to minimize the warlike spirit of the ordinary members of society. Are all social communities in all species on this earth warlike? That would increase the chance that an alien species is also warlike. A social community with a leader seems to be quite numerous here, but not exclusive. The role of the leadership seems the vary. Do aliens have leaders that are merely the leader of a harem? Or are they there to guide and protect a community. There are only ifs and questions I'm afraid...
If an ET has already discovered us it is undoubtedly because we have peppered the cosmos around earth with radio waves. Give or take a few decades, there's a fifty-light-year sphere around the Earth that humanity has reached. Give it a hundred thousand years and our extremely faint signals will have reached the entire galaxy. I don't know where to look, but if anyone could find out how many stars are in this sphere, it would be much appreciated... We also have to examine the extraordinary amount of luck involved in our species' creation, and in the survival of complex biological systems on planet Earth. We have a gas giant, Jupiter, to deflect dangerous comets (most of the time, at least. The bearded fellow must have been drunk with Dionysus 65 million years ago...), one that is far enough away to not endanger us and close enough to exact a good deal of gravity. Then there is the sun, a nice, average size, quite common in the universe, which I believe (correct me if I am wrong) is situated in a small section of the galaxy brimming with oxygen, among other things, maybe from an old supernova explosion or something. I'm going on information I've seen, heard and read my entire life, so forgive the lack of sources. Then there is the evolution of humanity, and as I mentioned in another thread, the countless possibilities for its destruction early on in its evolution--how a drought or a famine or a migration of predators or prey could have completely wiped out our simian ancestors, and how they were fortunate enough to survive, is truly amazing. Let's say there is a situation like this, identical to ours. The aliens aren't anything totally out of the ordinary and they have managed to survive all of the perils of evolution. Then they have to deal with themselves--with bad guys like Hitler and Reagan--they have to also be fortunate enough to survive not only the outside world but the inner politicking of their own race. So far we have, at a great human expense, done this as well. Now they've gone through all of this, and on top of that, they have to be in our general vicinity, in a universe greater in size than humans can really comprehend. Given all of this, and the immense, almost guarantee of civilization failing through one means or another, I'm not surprised at all that we haven't found anyone yet. It will undoubtedly be a most remarkable thing if two races, in a universe so packed with danger and destruction, can find each other. More remarkable still if they manage to coexist.
dolphins are smart. i remember seeing somewhere that at one point in their evolutionary path, they grew legs and became amphibians(??). after some time, they realized that there was nothing on the land for them, lost the legs, and returned to the freedom of the oceans. dolphins are more advanced than we, i think. dolphins don't fight each other. theyre entirley cooperative. loving. caring. intelligent freaking creatures. they group together and fight sharks. THEY KILL SHARKS! they use SONAR! a technology WE borrowed from THEM! these things may not have arms to contruct high rises, but when you have the freedom and love that a dolphin has...who needs marketing? they have an ocean full of food and a supply of friends that will never betray them because of petty greed. i wish i was a dolphin. dolphins are the most amazing creatures. it wouldnt surprise me if they were capable of speaking complex languages and just choose not to.
