05-13-2024, 06:03 PM
This post was last modified 05-13-2024, 06:36 PM by IdeomotorPrisoner.
Opening Post:
If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet. - Stephen Hawking
I know it's Taboo to use a quote to start a position, but It's helpful to illustrate my argument.
I don't think Dr. Hawking gives the degree of separation enough disparity. Orders of magnitude. Not Spanish explorers vs. The Taino People, Not puritans vs. Heathens, but like humans vs mice.
Little humans scurrying about, exalting other human-mice, condensing in bulk, and consuming resources as they breed (or not) in behavior sink.
We are but things to study. Probably very similar to mice from a withdrawn perspective.
A species that can send something way further than 20,359,938,541 kilometers in 47 years is likely to approach us like "barely conscious pond scum".
Theorists like Carl Sagan or Arthur C. Clark have speculated surviving would make them benign. Or that intelligence favors empathy and adaptability. Much like the bias Sagan references, I feel a similar bias should be applied to the belief an alien species evolves on a vector of altruism and benevolence. What says they wouldn't be antisocial and parasitic? Right up to a sci-fi wraith feeding on human life-force.
For this reason I think it is FAR MORE presumptious and myopic to give the benefit of the doubt that interaction would be in our best interest. There's too many exploitable malevolent positions on our own planet that makes me wonder why anyone would think the above/below of it all doesn't apply universally.
Quote:The Alien Presence.
(For countless centuries, human beings have been intermittently obsessed and or dismissive regarding the presence of intelligent entities "other than human" in their world. From myth to legend, from parapsychology to hardened scientific speculations, the explanations have veered between near certainties to suspect fabrications.)
Assertion: Presuming they exist, we (humans) should organize formal public efforts to definitively "contact" these beings and commence a dialog with them openly.
If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet. - Stephen Hawking
I know it's Taboo to use a quote to start a position, but It's helpful to illustrate my argument.
I don't think Dr. Hawking gives the degree of separation enough disparity. Orders of magnitude. Not Spanish explorers vs. The Taino People, Not puritans vs. Heathens, but like humans vs mice.
Little humans scurrying about, exalting other human-mice, condensing in bulk, and consuming resources as they breed (or not) in behavior sink.
We are but things to study. Probably very similar to mice from a withdrawn perspective.
A species that can send something way further than 20,359,938,541 kilometers in 47 years is likely to approach us like "barely conscious pond scum".
Theorists like Carl Sagan or Arthur C. Clark have speculated surviving would make them benign. Or that intelligence favors empathy and adaptability. Much like the bias Sagan references, I feel a similar bias should be applied to the belief an alien species evolves on a vector of altruism and benevolence. What says they wouldn't be antisocial and parasitic? Right up to a sci-fi wraith feeding on human life-force.
For this reason I think it is FAR MORE presumptious and myopic to give the benefit of the doubt that interaction would be in our best interest. There's too many exploitable malevolent positions on our own planet that makes me wonder why anyone would think the above/below of it all doesn't apply universally.
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