How should we respond to alien contact?

[Ironside]

36 minutes ago, Essan said:

The only other possibility I can think is they they may be obsessive religious nutters determined to convert all life in the universe the the worship of 'dGud yMth the true creator of the universe, who requires absolute obedience, the building of a 12 mile high temple of gold, and the sacrifice of all first born life on the 2nd day of the 4th month of each planetary year, else the universe will be totally and utterly destroyed.  Which, is, I suppose, not entirely to be ruled out.

 

What if that was the one true religion too. Now that is a scary thought 

[Grim Reaper 6]

1 hour ago, Essan said:

What use would an alien species capable of interstellar travel have with Earth?   Firstly, even if they come from a planet fundamentally similar to our own, it will still have different gravity, different trace elements essential to life, different atmosphere, different levels of radiation.  And different viruses.  Anything they can get from Earth (whether it be resources or somewhere to live) could be found on many other planets that are not inhabited by a technological species.  They may be curious, and wish to observe us.  Or they may wish to "uplift" us to a higher level of technology.  There's no logical reason for them to wish us harm - unless planets like Earth are very rare and they are very desperate to find an Earth-like planet to "terraform" to their own requirements to inhabit.

Unless they need to build a hyperspace bypass and Earth is in the way, or they have major issues concerning the possibility we may discover the question to life, the universe and everything, they should, logically, come in peace.

The only other possibility I can think is they they may be obsessive religious nutters determined to convert all life in the universe the the worship of 'dGud yMth the true creator of the universe, who requires absolute obedience, the building of a 12 mile high temple of gold, and the sacrifice of all first born life on the 2nd day of the 4th month of each planetary year, else the universe will be totally and utterly destroyed.  Which, is, I suppose, not entirely to be ruled out.

 

What if their looking for slaves, they may need workers. Another thought, what if we are biologically compatible, and they want to use us medically. There could be many reasons they could do us harm, like I said above I hope we don't make contact until we have the ability to defend ourselves. Actually I hope we are just left alone, it's safer that way.

[Unusual Tournament]

20 hours ago, Robotic Jew said:

With missiles of course.

...well, until they say we come in peace what other response is there. 

[Rlyeh]

3 hours ago, Ironside said:

Maybe i am naive but i'd like to think any hyper-intelligent life has passed the need for conquest and violence and perhaps has a higher degree of empathy. If we take every example of nature though its a cell eat cell, dog eat dog world. We can only assume that this trait is universal 

What makes you think that?  Technology in no way implies empathy.

[Rlyeh]

2 hours ago, Essan said:

What use would an alien species capable of interstellar travel have with Earth?   Firstly, even if they come from a planet fundamentally similar to our own, it will still have different gravity, different trace elements essential to life, different atmosphere, different levels of radiation.  And different viruses.  Anything they can get from Earth (whether it be resources or somewhere to live) could be found on many other planets that are not inhabited by a technological species.  They may be curious, and wish to observe us.  Or they may wish to "uplift" us to a higher level of technology.  There's no logical reason for them to wish us harm - unless planets like Earth are very rare and they are very desperate to find an Earth-like planet to "terraform" to their own requirements to inhabit.

No reason to harm us?  I can think of one, wiping out a potential threat.  It would be better to do it before we gain the technology of interstellar travel.

[Ironside]

4 hours ago, Ironside said:

Maybe i am naive

@Rlyeh  But i did say ''hyper-intelligent'' not technologically advanced

[Duke Wellington]

16 hours ago, Seti42 said:

The best thing to do is not let religious leaders, business leaders, or military leaders make any kind of important decision regarding first contact.

Leave it up to scientists, diplomats, and artists. You know, our best humans.

Erm… no

A balanced approach is needed so all people need to be involved in the debate.

[Duke Wellington]

12 minutes ago, Rlyeh said:

No reason to harm us?  I can think of one, wiping out a potential threat.  It would be better to do it before we gain the technology of interstellar travel.

Yes, thats one reason why they could wipe us out.

Maybe another is that they want our water, or because civilizations develop technologies and abilities unique to themselves they maybe want to harvest us of our technologies and abilities. Maybe those space aliens are Nazis and want to wipe us out for simply being a liberal democracy? Maybe they are religious fundamentalists who view us as heretics that need converting?

[Rlyeh]

5 minutes ago, Ironside said:

@Rlyeh  But i did say ''hyper-intelligent'' not technologically advanced

Many psychopaths are "intelligent".

[Ironside]

2 minutes ago, Rlyeh said:

Many psychopaths are "intelligent".

Wow you've got me there. You're right. We can probably assume aliens suffer from mental illness too hey?... Makes you think...

Edited July 2, 2019 by Ironside

[Ironside]

7 minutes ago, RabidMongoose said:

Yes, thats one reason why they could wipe us out.

Maybe another is that they want our water, or because civilizations develop technologies and abilities unique to themselves they maybe want to harvest us of our technologies and abilities. Maybe those space aliens are Nazis and want to wipe us out for simply being a liberal democracy? Maybe they are religious fundamentalists who view us as heretics that need converting?

I agree with the unique civilization part, But why would they want our water? It can be synthesized with Hydrogen and Oxygen which is available all over the universe e.g. Nebulas, Stars, etc plus H20 is already present in most comets and gas clusters

[Rlyeh]

4 minutes ago, Ironside said:

Wow you've got me there. You're right. We can probably assume aliens suffer from mental illness too hey?... Makes you think...

If they are a predatory species it wouldn't really be an illness, it would be a normal characteristic.

[Ironside]

3 minutes ago, Rlyeh said:

If they are a predatory species it wouldn't really be an illness, it would be a normal characteristic.

These are all things i haven't really considered, Thanks!

Edited July 2, 2019 by Ironside

[Robotic Jew]

1 hour ago, Captain Risky said:

...well, until they say we come in peace what other response is there. 

We could send all of our most attractive people to "greet" them and see if anatomies are comparable?

[Robotic Jew]

48 minutes ago, Ironside said:

Wow you've got me there. You're right. We can probably assume aliens suffer from mental illness too hey?... Makes you think...

Maybe NOT being a psychopath is the mental illness?

[Mystify]

Sure would be nice to have a factual way of getting mass amounts of analytics pertaining to how many humans believe in the existence of ET's.

[+Desertrat56]

9 hours ago, Ironside said:

Maybe i am naive but i'd like to think any hyper-intelligent life has passed the need for conquest and violence and perhaps has a higher degree of empathy. If we take every example of nature though its a cell eat cell, dog eat dog world. We can only assume that this trait is universal 

Well, that is a nice thought but base on "advanced" civilizations on earth, the technology outpaces the intelligence and empathy.  

It is ridiculous to assume that some alien beings think like we do.  Just look at the difference between how a city person and a country person think, then the difference of how a european or asian think and we are the same species.

[Ironside]

7 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

Well, that is a nice thought but base on "advanced" civilizations on earth, the technology outpaces the intelligence and empathy.  

It is ridiculous to assume that some alien beings think like we do.  Just look at the difference between how a city person and a country person think, then the difference of how a european or asian think and we are the same species.

Theres just no way to tell.

They might have such an abudance of food, water and resources they never even had a need for war. 

They might live on a planet lacking anything and have developed completely for domination of territory.

They as @Rlyeh says might be predatory psychopaths where they've factory farmed their relatives for food (Abe's Odyssey)

We will never know until we know 

Edited July 2, 2019 by Ironside

[the13bats]

sci fi flicks etc aside, it really depends on the type contact as to what to reply,

for example if its a radio signal on one extreme to some alien trying to probe trump on the other extreme both would have very different responses....

[Duke Wellington]

On ‎02‎/‎07‎/‎2019 at 3:15 PM, Mystify said:

Sure would be nice to have a factual way of getting mass amounts of analytics pertaining to how many humans believe in the existence of ET's.

I personally dont, although I am open to being wrong.

In my opinion something far more exotic is going on with the universe.

[+Desertrat56]

21 hours ago, RabidMongoose said:

I personally dont, although I am open to being wrong.

In my opinion something far more exotic is going on with the universe.

I agree, but I also think the question about who believes in aliens has to include 1. non earth sentient beings exist somewhere, 2. non-earth sentient beings visit earth, 3. non-earth sentient beings don't exist, & 4. I don't know/think about it.  I suspect the largest percentages of people would choose 1 or 4.

[the13bats]

24 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

I agree, but I also think the question about who believes in aliens has to include 1. non earth sentient beings exist somewhere, 2. non-earth sentient beings visit earth, 3. non-earth sentient beings don't exist, & 4. I don't know/think about it.  I suspect the largest percentages of people would choose 1 or 4.

then what about the defination of "aliens" i have seen theories on here range from interdimential beings to time traveling humans to stuff i can even paraphase

[+Desertrat56]

7 minutes ago, the13bats said:

then what about the defination of "aliens" i have seen theories on here range from interdimential beings to time traveling humans to stuff i can even paraphase

In my opinion the "aliens from outerspace" are what is mainstream and what people think about, not many even think about the non-physical possibilities.  We could add that as a question, though and I would expect some would choose those "extra dimensional sentient beings exist", "extra-dimensional sentinent beings visit earth" & "there are no other dimensions" but I think that would have to be a separate section from the first set of questions unless we add "both extra-dimensional sentient beings and non-earth sentient beings exist"....  then there would be 11 questions (we don't need 3 versions of I don't know/don't think about it)

Edited July 7, 2019 by Desertrat56

[+Desertrat56]

This topic made me think of the VLA in Socorro, about 2 hours from where I live and I decided to go visit.  They have a first saturday tour all summer so I went with my daughter and two cousins.  They went just to have something to do, I am the one who loves science stuff.  The one thing that I misunderstood about that set of arrays is what they are doing.  I had it confused with the arrays in Acericibo Puerto Rico mainly because of two movies, Contact and The Arrival that were partly filmed at the Socorro array.  This array along with one in Chile and one that is stretched across 5,351 miles in the northern hemisphere, collect different frequencies of light and combine the data from all three arrays to get "pictures" of the galaxy. 

the website for anyone who is interested is public.nrao.edu. 

The interesting thing is that anyone of any age and profession can submit a request for time on the array if they can submit a proposal that is unique or interesting.  Also, all the data is available to anyone after it has been studied for one year.  If there were alien ships out there these are the first people who would see them.

[the13bats]

i knew what most think of as "aliens" but couldnt resist,

didnt they close some observatory last year and some said it was because they saw aliens?