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[lumin]

Hawking:

“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 colonize whatever planets they can reach,” 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.”

Response by Mary Voytek, senior scientist for astrobiology at NASA:

“Ignoring the possibility [alien life] and hiding your head in the sand, waiting for them to find us is certainly isn’t a scientifically intelligent way to proceed or a good cultural way to anticipate something like that either...Our approach to it has been to be prepared. We’re not going to get caught, say like the Native Americans when Columbus came to their shores. We’ve been actively listening and hopefully we get some information before any eventual encounter ever happens.”

While I really think Stephen Hawking is selling himself out to sensationalize the whole thing with "Oooo, scary aliens!", I do kind of have to agree with him.  Just why are we in such a rush to discover intelligent life in the universe?  I think the Cristobol Colon example is perfectly reasonable, who's to say that a technologically superior alien race would be any less hostile than the Spanish Conquerers even if they are doing it for good intentions?

I don't like the NASA scientist's argument, "Our approach to it has been to be prepared".  How can you possibly prepare for meeting an alien race that could be thousands, if not millions or even billions of years more advanced than human-beings?

Even the English and French basically wiped out the Native Americans and put them on reservations in the name of "saving" or "civilizing" them.  In reality, one race's version of civility is really just subjective to the one with the most power.

So even if we did discover a race in the near future that was not hostile, it would probably mean they would be less technologically advanced than us, resulting in not being able to interact with them in the first place (being too far away to visit or communicate).  If the extraterrestrial race was "more" advanced than us, then they would probably feel the need to "educate" or "civilize" us.  In both scenarios finding extraterrestrial life does, at best, barely anything to help the human race and, at worst, causes our destruction or enslavement.

Discuss?

[Willfor]

The capitalised "aliens" in the title made me think you meant the movie, and not simply general space aliens.

[RedKing]

He's only afraid that it'll wind up being him that has to save us with his robotic exoskeleton.

[Kebooo]

I think we should know whether the Borg are coming beforehand, so we can build giant ion cannons on Earth to shoot them down.

Also, I disagree with the comparison to Spanish conquistadors.  Those groups had not reached a certain level of intelligence or culture (you could say that's still true of many people).  But suppose you're controlling the aliens, and you find some primitive alien race.  Do you force yourself on them?  Why are the aliens Spanish conquistadors and you are not?  Wouldn't greater intelligence give them an understanding of their own, possibly similar history?

I'd say it's terribly conceited of us to go "oh, we know it's wrong to forcefully 'educate' another group, but the smarter, more advanced aliens don't!"

[lumin]

I'd say it's terribly conceited of us to go "oh, we know it's wrong to forcefully 'educate' another group, but the smarter, more advanced aliens don't!"

Who says we do know it's wrong?  Saying that it's wrong doesn't mean it doesn't happen every day on this planet.  The road to hell is full of good intentions.  I think it's conceited to say that the aliens will have it all figured out just because we don't.

If you're right and I'm wrong, we make some new friends and possibly get some nice new technology.  If I'm right and you're wrong, we get exterminated or enslaved.  Personally, I'd prefer no aliens at all over the chance of meeting bad aliens.

[Chthonic]

I'm pretty sure that the technology to colonize an entire planet comes arm-in-arm with the technology to utilize extra-planetary resources . . . why dive into a gravity well to do your mining, when there's an abundance of material just floating around out in space, along with as much (solar) energy as you could possibly need?  CO2, water, hydrogen . . . tons and tons of stuff for the canny E.T. with an appropriately decked out space-ship to cart off . . .

Plus, chances are the gravity, rotational period, atmospheric constituents, and available spectrum of solar energy probably all combine to make all but the most home-like planets close to unbearable, biologically speaking.  Not to mention having to fight unfriendly natives for the privilege of squatting on some hell-hole planet you're not evolved to.

[Aqizzar]

While I really think Stephen Hawking is selling himself out to sensationalize the whole thing with "Oooo, scary aliens!"...

I'm sorry, but what?  Since when has Stephen Hawking ever been known as a self-aggrandizing shill?  He's the modern day Einstein; he comes up in the news every couple years when he happens to talk about something laypeople understand, because he's an interesting character.

Anyway, he's basically repeating the same wry observation made by scientists, science-fiction authors, naval-gazers, and anyone else who ponders how low an opinion they hold of humanity.  We're a bunch of jerks, so it's not unreasonable to assume that other planets are full of jerks, and if they have the technology to travel the stars they could be jerks on an interstellar scale.  Sleep tight.  I agree with him though - seeking contact is the better than not.  If nothing else, we'll have that much more time to plead for our lives.

[Kebooo]

Who says we do know it's wrong?  Saying that it's wrong doesn't mean it doesn't happen every day on this planet

When I say we, I mean us at this forum.  What makes you or the original poster, who seem to be demonizing the idea of forced education/civilization, so great and noble compared to far superior aliens?  Why is it "likely" that they would hold this belief but people on this forum don't share it?  Is bay12games the center of the universe's greatest, most compassionate, noble beings to ever exist, and those mean, evil, conquistador aliens with a hundred times our intelligence and social cohesiveness (to get here) will only want to consume our resources or force us into their way of life, well, because they're not us here at bay12games, and we here are such rare, benevolent godlike beings that it's LIKELY a smarter species wouldn't hold our views, because who possibly could ever attain our ultimate selflessness?  Likely!

[Grakelin]

The obvious answer to being prepared is so that we can set up our massive payload of nukes to detonate all at the same time if aliens land on our planet and start rounding us up, and not so that we have a chance to actually fight back.

[CJ1145]

I can understand Hawking's reasoning, but I think it makes much more sense to contact them. If they find us, they might mistake us for primitives and try to exploit us, or otherwise look down on us. If WE find THEM, well, that'd probably impress them at least somewhat.

[RedKing]

  But suppose you're controlling the aliens, and you find some primitive alien race.  Do you force yourself on them? 

Ask yourself the same scenario, with humans as the "aliens". Hells yes, we'd force ourselves on them. Even if not in an overtly militaristic way.
They'd have Coke, Bibles and Nike rammed down their throats (or respective digestive orifices).

 

[Il Palazzo]

This makes no sense. In what way exactly is Earth worthy of exploitation?
Is there some unobtanium hidden underneath my house?

[Zironic]

I always loved the theory that Alien Life would be so inherently different and unnatural that there could never be any true peace or understanding between us and them. We all assume they are humans with brow ridges but what stops them from being fundamentally different, physically and mentally, than us? Nothing. That's the scary shit. Aliens like humans would be a dream, because they would resemble our motives, but aliens that are actually alien are the true nightmare, what morals do they have? What views of life do they hold? Individuals to them might be nothing, or maybe the entire alien species is an individual... Do they use binary, trinary, do they even use computers? We assume that because the universe has the same elements and a consistent set of physics, that it's impossible aliens to be truly different.

[Tarran]

Well, aliens that want to strip mine earth is a (very) distant possibility, think about it this way In their eyes: You've got earth, which is slowly running out of resources, and you've got resource rich planets like Mercury, and Mars. Moons like Io, Titan, Triton, or even our own moon. Why would you even waste resources wiping out the human race when you could get it for free without fighting and in greater quantities by completely ignoring the defenseless humans?

[Grakelin]

If they strip mined our moon, that would probably be just as good as exterminating us.