Are we going to be the little green men?

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by grazzhoppa, Aug 5, 2002.

  1. grazzhoppa yawwn Valued Senior Member

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    Lets say we get off this planet and go to...lets say Mars, being the best choice so far. After living on Mars and transferring Earth's "excess" population there, we have a great understanding of living and traveling in space. Then we make a ship that can go VERY fast and VERY far (antimatter engines, solar sails, HyperSleep....blah blah blah).

    I have a strong belief there is intelligent life somewhere out there. I don't think they have discovered us though. -What happens when we are the aliens? How would we conduct ourselves?
     
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  3. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    How we should conduct ourselves and how history says that we have conducted ourselves is very much at odds.

    It will be a morass to negotiate through, assuming that we can communicate, as in starting off it will be easy to say or do the wrong thing not knowing what mores are the standard and what constitutes an insult or pat on the back so to say.
     
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  5. fadingCaptain are you a robot? Valued Senior Member

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    When we are the aliens it will be like 'the war of the worlds'! I have a feeling we would want to conquer and control anything we found. Sad...but true.
     
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  7. grazzhoppa yawwn Valued Senior Member

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    I agree with fadingCaptian. In the long run we will probably destroy their society, unless they are more ruthless than ourselves

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    Here's another question for ya'll. -Will the "aliens" take a ride into the Milky Way first or will we venture into their backyards first?
     
  8. %BlueSoulRobot% Copyright! Copyright!! Registered Senior Member

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    (totally ripping off the Matrix here

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    ...)

    Human beings are a virus. As explained in the Matrix, like any virus we consume all the resources in the place where we multiply before moving on. The very intelligence that makes us conscious of our own destructiveness is the intelligence that allows us to adapt to any threat to our continuity.

    So, if we do eventually make it out into space, we'd probably kill whatever we found. Being unfamiliar with the aliens, we'd take any sign of contact as violence and hostility, simply because we aren't acquainted with their communication standards.

    Sometimes, I think the reason we're not finding anything at all is because we're not using what the aliens consider as communication, so we can't identify it, let alone see it as a sign that something's out there.
     
  9. %BlueSoulRobot% Copyright! Copyright!! Registered Senior Member

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    I think we'd be first...just on a hunch.

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    And (I forgot this before) Welcome To SciForums, Grazzhoppa!

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  10. Thor "Pfft, Rebel scum!" Valued Senior Member

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    I think that we would conduct ourselves very proffesionally
    But, if they have something we want, we'd bully them into giving it to us.

    Anyone more savage than Humans...not bloody likley. We kill each over for money
     
  11. Firefly Registered Senior Member

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    I'm really intrigued as to what (real) aliens might be like, what the media has so far suggested is so limited. They might not be "human shaped", likely wouldn't have two eyes, mouth, etc, would have different organs and stuff, not need oxygen etc...

    Bu yeah, we'd probably ruin it.

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  12. overdoze human Registered Senior Member

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    Hey!

    Who you calling "little"?

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    Besides, I prefer violet. Somehow more high-tech.

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    So yeah, huge violet men.

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    And you may be right.

    However, after 12-15 billion years or so, I suspect we aren't finding anyone out there either because they are way beyond us and aren't interested (not any more than we would be intrigued by a run-of-the-mill paramecium), or they tend to depart these boring backwaters for more interesting realities, or we disgust them for some reason (maybe for them oxygen is excrement, which in fact it is

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    ), or they just don't consider us ready for any real contact (we're still too much animal and too little sentience.) Or maybe we're all unique and alone, destined to become the future gods of the universe (yeah, right...

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    )

    Oh yes, how we would conduct. Well, I'm actually a bit more optimistic than most here. I think by the time we get to be the aliens we'll be doing it under aegis of UN or something equivalent. As such, perhaps we could avoid repeating our usual atrocities. Plus, it's possible we'll create something like the Startrek "Prime Directive" that forbids us to interfere with technologically inferior civilizations so that we don't play our usual instinctive subjugation trick on them.
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2002
  13. Eman Resu Registered Senior Member

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    Thor has a good point. We wouldn't kill someone/something because it walked on two tails and three noses. We would befriend it and determine it's value. Once we found what that value we would give them whiskey and cigarettes and go away for a couple of decades and come back and take what is "ours".
     
  14. Clockwood You Forgot Poland Registered Senior Member

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    Most would be ignored

    There are a lot of potential worlds out there we could colonize, though genetic manipulation of the human body is a must for most of them. A good portion of these would have little of value to a non-modified society.

    For example Mars: Anything you can get here you can get somewhere else cheaper. For raw materials you have near-earth asteroids; for food you have hydoponic farming.

    It would be like Arkansas, you love it if you live there but you ignore it otherwise.
     

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