ET Friend, Foe or doesnt matter

[uk 75]

A former Astronomer Royal is supposed to have said that we have no more chance of meeting Extraterrestrials than a Frog in a pond in Kent has of meeting a Frog in a pond in Kansas.
Others have suggested that we had better hide ourselves because any spacefaring civilisation is likely to treat Earth like Europeans treated natives or domestic animals.
Some have argued that any civilisation that could cross Space would have to be benign and advanced to have survived the era of nuclear weapons.
Any takers?

 

[Orionblamblam]

The only thing we can be sure of from an alien race that crosses the stars is that they are derived from an enthusiastic, action oriented race. Navel gazers wont do it. But we can't even be certain that the aliens would necessarily even be truly sentient. They might just be really inventive robots.

 

[sferrin]

Long as it ain't this:

 

[marauder2048]

Are the evolutionary pressures and conditions that made Homo Sapiens the belligerent, rapacious and relentless species we
are likely to occur on other planets?

 

[zen]

A former Astronomer Royal is supposed to have said that we have no more chance of meeting Extraterrestrials than a Frog in a pond in Kent has of meeting a Frog in a pond in Kansas.
Others have suggested that we had better hide ourselves because any spacefaring civilisation is likely to treat Earth like Europeans treated natives or domestic animals.
Some have argued that any civilisation that could cross Space would have to be benign and advanced to have survived the era of nuclear weapons.
Any takers?

Any space faring civilisation, arriving into the Sol System, would view Jupiter and the asteroid belt as of prime importance.
Some heavy (deep gravity well) rocky blue green planet inhabited by a species that hasn't even colonised it's own moon, when that moon is so conveniently located. Isn't of much interest beyond passing frivolous curiosity.

Why would they even ask us permission?
What could we possibly offer them, that they cannot extract from the resource rich Asteroid Belt?

 

[JohnR]

Long as it ain't this:

View attachment 646954

What the hell is that out of?

 

[marauder2048]

Long as it ain't this:

View attachment 646954

What the hell is that out of?

"The Thing"

Funnily enough, John Carpenter blames "E.T." for his movie's poor box office showing; it opened before his and "their alien was cute and ours was mean."

 

[JohnR]

Don't remember that scene although it is nearly 40 years since I saw that film. I remember the exploding dog head from the early scene and the guys chest opening as a mouth and biting of the guy doing defib's arms off. I jumped so much when that happened I ending up spilling coke in my lap and ending up
having to walk home with my jacket pulled down because it looked like I wet myself.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Are the evolutionary pressures and conditions that made Homo Sapiens the belligerent, rapacious and relentless species we
are likely to occur on other planets?

We have a grand total of one example. But from that one example, the smarter critters *tend* to be the meaner ones. Smartest dinosaurs... raptors, in particular troodons. Smartest mammals; primates. Forgetting humans, the smartest primates seem to be chimps, who have developed rape, murder and warfare. Smartest sea mammals: probably dolphins, who likewise revel in mayhem, including child murder. Orca are pretty smart, and they torture seals for fun. Corvids, especially ravens, seem to be the smartest of the birds, and they hold a grudge.

The job of a predator is harder than the job of an herbivore. Sometimes the predator can be successful if it is sufficiently well armed by nature via fangs and claws; but barring that it has to be smart. Humans got the short end of the stick as far as natural armaments... so we picked up that stick and beat our enemies to death with it. No reason to assume that an alien species that builds starships got there through some fundamentally different means. It's not like rabbits or cows or horses are renowned for their inventive minds.

Of course simply getting to complex life might be a difficult chore throughout the universe. Perhaps the universe is full to overflowing with worlds that developed cyanobacteria... and got no further. Might be a universe of slime. But if life does get to complex multicellular, its difficult to imagine how it could develop without developing carnivores.

 

[jeffb]

Are the evolutionary pressures and conditions that made Homo Sapiens the belligerent, rapacious and relentless species we
are likely to occur on other planets?

Yes, competition for resources is bound to be a common theme.

 

[riggerrob]

Dear uk75,

WARNING: pure speculation ....
If we meet/are invaded by ... another sentient species, they might be so vastly different that we will not recognize them as sentient creatures.
For example, recent chemical traces suggest that there is life on Venus. However, the Venusian atmosphere is toxic to humans. At best, humans could live in artificial cities - supported by balloons - floating high in the Venusian atmosphere.
Venusian creatures might be giant floating beasts that vaguely resemble the whales swimming in Earth's oceans. OTOH Venusians might be too tiny to be seen by the naked human eye. Maybe Venusians burrow into human pores and eat us from the inside.

 

[pathology_doc]

To take a slight tangent, I think one of the more interesting things to do in science fiction is to take a look at how the author/scriptwriter handles first contact, commerce and conflict between humans and alien races.

H.G. Wells more or less set the scene in 1898 with a war that humanity should have lost outright if not for the fact that they were vulnerable to our bacteria but not the other way around (but infectious diseases were not as well understood back then, and we can give him a pass on that).

The golden age of raygun sci-fi beginning in the 1930s (Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, the pulp SF magazines) is generally thought of as "us vs them", but there are stand-out exceptions. E.E. "Doc" Smith's various universes include a Galactic Civilization whose biological and philosophical diversity leaves Star Trek for dead, with bizarrely alien races being firm friends and near-as-makes-no-difference-to-humans not necessarily so. First contact doesn't always result in a fight, and when it does, it's sometimes due to a tragic misunderstanding that is later resolved and enables peaceful coexistence. Species with which humanity (and its allies) goes to war do not always remain enemies, and although some battles escalate to the level of planetary annihilation (literally), other enemy homeworlds are conquered near-bloodlessly and occupied with the intent of benign long-term reform. Moreover, unlike Star Trek, not being a spacefaring race when Galactic Civilization finds you isn't a justification for shutting you out of the club.

 

[uk 75]

The physicist and space expert Brian Cox suggested it might be possible that despite there being billions of planets which could have the conditions necessary for intelligent life, there may only be one single planet in each Galaxy that has the rich fabric of life that Earth has. As we struggle with Virus, climate change and our traditional squabbling between nations, it is a sobering thought to realise we may be unique.

 

[Dilandu]

Others have suggested that we had better hide ourselves because any spacefaring civilisation is likely to treat Earth like Europeans treated natives or domestic animals.

It make no sense. Europeans were interested in native's lands, resources, ect. Why would spacefaring civilization be interested in Earth?

 

[jeffb]

Others have suggested that we had better hide ourselves because any spacefaring civilisation is likely to treat Earth like Europeans treated natives or domestic animals.

It make no sense. Europeans were interested in native's lands, resources, ect. Why would spacefaring civilization be interested in Earth?

Are you kidding? I think they'd be very interested in us, not in terms of physical resources of course which you can get anywhere but in terms of studying our completely alien (to them) cultures and lives which will be pretty much unique. How we do things, how we organize, the stories we tell, how those stories relate to our physical natures. All that civilization in a bottle stuff, ultimate ant farm sort of thing.

And I'm thinking they'd absolutely love netflix.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Why would spacefaring civilization be interested in Earth?

Religion. As has often been pointed out, interstellar warfare and conquest make no practical or economic sense (barring unlikely developments in cheap FTL). But history has shown that "this makes no practical or economic sense" has never stopped incredibly wacky things when they are spurred on by something akin to religion. See: Krikkit.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Just as we have those who want to know everything about each and every mollusc or bacteria/virus, there will be those among alien species who will look at us and say stuff like, "What the heck did they do THAT for, are they NUTS"? If they see television signals they are going to be REALLY confused by eastenders etc, probably want to have all the inoculations going before first contact for fear of contracting a case of (nutty as a) fruit and nut cake.

I hope so anyway. Thinking THIS is the best that there is, gets depressing.

 

[Orionblamblam]

If they see television signals they are going to be REALLY confused by eastenders etc, probably want to have all the inoculations going before first contact for fear of contracting a case of (nutty as a) fruit and nut cake.

I suspect that a common reaction across the universe when a starfaring race gets within TV range of another race is...

 

[Dilandu]

Are you kidding? I think they'd be very interested in us, not in terms of physical resources of course which you can get anywhere but in terms of studying our completely alien (to them) cultures and lives which will be pretty much unique. How we do things, how we organize, the stories we tell, how those stories relate to our physical natures. All that civilization in a bottle stuff, ultimate ant farm sort of thing.

Okay, I stand corrected: I meant, that they would obviously not be interested in us in therms of resources, conquests, ect. The analogue -

is likely to treat Earth like Europeans treated natives or domestic animals

- is obviously incorrect, you agree?

 

[SleeperService2]

A former Astronomer Royal is supposed to have said that we have no more chance of meeting Extraterrestrials than a Frog in a pond in Kent has of meeting a Frog in a pond in Kansas.

Some have argued that any civilisation that could cross Space would have to be benign and advanced to have survived the era of nuclear weapons.
Any takers?

First point I'm in total agreement with which I'll expand on below.

Second Point - Not necessarily. Human development is but one of many paths available. Consider a planet where life develops but in borderline conditions. As intelligence develops the species that survive would have to be co-operative which would make warfare unlikely. Assuming they developed astronomy and could see all the stars there would have been an impetus to develop a system of space travel to find a nicer place to live. Assume a slightly lower gravity and no Dark Ages and progress could be remarkably quick.

The only thing we can be sure of from an alien race that crosses the stars is that they are derived from an enthusiastic, action oriented race. Navel gazers wont do it. But we can't even be certain that the aliens would necessarily even be truly sentient. They might just be really inventive robots.

True. I think they would need to be sentient though as that is a component of inventiveness, also space exploring and reaching out for contact both strongly suggest self-awareness. Not every life form will be carbon based, and biological.

The physicist and space expert Brian Cox suggested it might be possible that despite there being billions of planets which could have the conditions necessary for intelligent life, there may only be one single planet in each Galaxy that has the rich fabric of life that Earth has. As we struggle with Virus, climate change and our traditional squabbling between nations, it is a sobering thought to realise we may be unique.

Not quite with the good Professor here. Now we can fill in some of the variables in the Drake Equation with more confidence the average dispersion of current active civilizations is about one per 100 light years. We're in a thinly populated part of the galaxy so it's likely more here. Say 150 light years. Ditto the galactic core is likely to be thinly populated, so in the rest the spread will be much less say 50 light years. But for us the frog in pond analogy is pretty close. But it could happen. We just need to find a way to make it happen. There are several prospective avenues to explore but IMHO we will run out of time before we achieve much. Reality check: We made brief visits to a moon 250,000 miles away nearly 50 years ago, we may get back there in five more. In those 50 years technology has improved so we can reasonably expect to get humans on Mars.

Frankly the only way we'll meet ET is if they come here. Whatever we fear/think/believe will be of little consequence I think.

 

[jeffb]

Are you kidding? I think they'd be very interested in us, not in terms of physical resources of course which you can get anywhere but in terms of studying our completely alien (to them) cultures and lives which will be pretty much unique. How we do things, how we organize, the stories we tell, how those stories relate to our physical natures. All that civilization in a bottle stuff, ultimate ant farm sort of thing.

Okay, I stand corrected: I meant, that they would obviously not be interested in us in therms of resources, conquests, ect. The analogue -

is likely to treat Earth like Europeans treated natives or domestic animals

- is obviously incorrect, you agree?

I certainly hope so! I can't see why they would treat us like that though, it's a hell of a long way to come to do it. What could it possibly gain them?

 

[Arjen]

A nice new hyperspace bypass, obvs.

 

[Michel Van]

Why would spacefaring civilization be interested in Earth?

Depending on if they have FLT engines !

By sub-light speed transport, plans involve invasion and exploitation colonialism make no sense
Exception are colonize effort were Space Ark or automatic seeder probe arrive
Either the Aliens in religious delusion of promised land or stubborn computer following his program,
And establish a Colony and Terraform Earth for there needs, without care for Human race...

Also automatic self-reproducing Probes that "mutated" over Time
Arriving and consume New York or Paris or Tokyo to build there children regardless of Humans

With FLT engines it's complete differently Game
Invasion and exploitation colonialism make a sense here
either because Earth in position they need in fight with Rivals, what make Earth to Military outpost and Target for Rival.
or they exploit Earth for rare raw materials they not have or exploit biodiversity of Earth
It would have certain Irony if some that Stuff like earth maple syrup become new drug for Aliens.
or the Aliens are religious zealot who what you to missionize or exterminate the unbelievers...

Science-Fiction explored ever aspect of first Contact and what happen next

Some Recommend Reading:
Murray Leinster. 1945 novelette First Contact.
Damon Knight. 1950 short story To Serve Man
Dean R. Koontz. 1973 novel The haunted Earth
Harry Turtledove. 2010 short story Vilcabamba
Liu Cixin 2008-2016 trilogy novel "Remembrance of Earth's Past"
Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, 1980 anthology Aliens!
Carl Sagan. 1985 novel Contact: A Novel.
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. 1985 novel Footfall

 

[Dilandu]

Depending on if they have FLT engines !

Nah, it isn't...

Exception are colonize effort were Space Ark or automatic seeder probe arrive

And why exactly Earth? The general rule is that if you could build space ark capable of sustaining itself during interstellar flight, you could also build big, comfortable space habitats - rotating colonies or hollowed-out asteroids, perfectly fitted for your biology. MUCH simpler than trying to adjust to the barely hospitable conditions of alien world.

or they exploit Earth for rare raw materials they not have

This make no sense. Civilization capable of spending enormous amounts of energy on interstellar flight could find any kind of raw resources much closer to home.

or exploit biodiversity of Earth

This is actually possible, yes. In fact, the biosphere is the only reason at all why any civilization might actually need to colonize some planet - to study its species, and find useful.

But invading Earth for biodiversity - just not practical. Why not just cooperate with humans - who ALREADY knew almost everything about Earth biodiversity - instead of trying to take over the planet? Invasion of the enemy homeworld (in our case - humanity homeworld) is enormously messy by definition; while invaders are forced to haul everything through space, defenders have all their industry, all their population and most of their resources at home. Just imagine that some aliens dropped even a million (enormously hard to transport!) troopers on Earth; it's a tiny drop in comparison with hundreds of millions soldiers that Earth could muster with ease.

Essentially the only practical way to took over enemy homeworld is to bomb it into submission from orbit. But cratering the planet if you are interested in its biodiversity is... not very practical.

It would have certain Irony if some that Stuff like earth maple syrup become new drug for Aliens.

...Please, no John Ringo...

 

[Orionblamblam]

Consider a planet where life develops but in borderline conditions. As intelligence develops the species that survive would have to be co-operative which would make warfare unlikely. Assuming they developed astronomy and could see all the stars there would have been an impetus to develop a system of space travel to find a nicer place to live. Assume a slightly lower gravity and no Dark Ages and progress could be remarkably quick.

Warfare is -or at least can be - an outgrowth of competition for limited resources. A place where the living is marginal would seem to make warfare *more* refined.

In a series of sci-fi stories I scribbled together, humanity meets a spacefaring race that is baffled by warfare. On their world they evolved up to the equivalent of the "caveman" stage when an extinction event wiped out all their competitors. they went from being gnawed upon by their "lions" "tigers" and "bears" to living in paradise. So they evolved the rudiments of intelligence through conflict, but then evolved true sentience and civilization in peaceful conditions. Maybe not the most likely, but it's what I got...

True. I think they would need to be sentient though as that is a component of inventiveness, al

Well, we don't *know* that. Termites and spiders can make some pretty complex and seemingly inventive structures.

 

[Dilandu]

Liu Cixin 2008-2016 trilogy novel "Remembrance of Earth's Past"

Extremely incompetent writing, with logic being brutally oppressed to the point of total collapse. Essentially author got ONE good idea - "sentient quantum spies" - and everything else is just plainly wrong, stupid or incompetent. Alien race being terrified about the idea of being discovered by more powerful alien race - but launching interstellar invasion fleet, which BY DEFINITION make their detection much more probable. The idiotic three-body problem; aliens are able to build a fleet of starships to evacuate their population from doomed planet, but for some reason that did not get the idea of just building space habitats in their own system. The total misunderstanding of exponential growth; it is NOT possible for the one exponent to "overtook" the other, already more advanced.

In short - not worth attention, if it wasn't the overhyped "first Chinese sci-fi".

 

[drejr]

Peter Watts wrote about some fairly terrifying non-sentient (sapient?) aliens in the Blindsight series.

To presume aliens wouldn't be interested in our resources is thinking pretty small. An alien civilization may be an expanding sphere of expansion around a core of husked solar systems, constantly trying to outrace resource depletion.

It's highly unlikely there's anyone out there colonizing the galaxy - expansion even at slower than light speeds would be a blink in galactic time.

It's more likely the galaxy is littered with ruins of civilizations dead for billions of years.

 

[marauder2048]

Religion. As has often been pointed out, interstellar warfare and conquest make no practical or economic sense

Sadistic pleasure?
Boredom?
Glory Seeking?
Rent Seeking?
Thrill Seeking?
"The A.I. Isn't hard enough?"
Sociological experiment gone wrong?
Safe testing area for new weapons intended against higher end threats?

Given that the dominant species on Earth is not economically rational why would we expect that form E.T.?

It looks like warfare was endemic in the Middle Ages because the militarized elite found it to
be thrilling and as armored knights they had very little risk.

 

[Kat Tsun]

It's more likely the galaxy is littered with ruins of civilizations dead for billions of years.

basically me when i make starships in aurora 4x and get destroyed by the first aliens i find

and yi blindsight is great and freely available on p watts's blog: https://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

 

[_Del_]

Warfare is -or at least can be - an outgrowth of competition for limited resources. A place where the living is marginal would seem to make warfare *more* refined.

Even plants react to "foreign" species and fight for resources. I doubt many places have environments such that this fight is not an evolutionary pressure.

 

[dumpster4]

Peter Watts wrote about some fairly terrifying non-sentient (sapient?) aliens in the Blindsight series.

To presume aliens wouldn't be interested in our resources is thinking pretty small. An alien civilization may be an expanding sphere of expansion around a core of husked solar systems, constantly trying to outrace resource depletion.

It's highly unlikely there's anyone out there colonizing the galaxy - expansion even at slower than light speeds would be a blink in galactic time.

It's more likely the galaxy is littered with ruins of civilizations dead for billions of years.

Maybe, maybe not:

"New research conducted by three Caltech physicists and one high-schooler suggests that the Milky Way galaxy may be full of self-annihilated extraterrestrial civilizations. These findings are reportedly a more up-to-date analysis of the Drake equation—a probabilistic argument intended to stimulate debate about the number of intelligent alien civilizations within our galaxy.

The researchers propose that the Milky Way is a graveyard of former civilizations that destroyed themselves upon reaching a certain technological level.

Though an intriguing idea, scientists who spoke to The Debrief expressed skepticism concerning the study’s conclusions."

See:

Physicists Say Milky Way Is a Graveyard of Alien Civilizations - The Debrief

New research conducted Caltech physicists suggests that the Milky Way galaxy may be full of self-annihilated alien civilizations.

thedebrief.org

 

[sferrin]

"New research conducted by three Caltech physicists and one high-schooler suggests that the Milky Way galaxy may be full of self-annihilated extraterrestrial civilizations. These findings are reportedly a more up-to-date analysis of the Drake equation—a probabilistic argument intended to stimulate debate about the number of intelligent alien civilizations within our galaxy.

I could just as easily say the reason we don't hear from these civilizations is because they all became zombies.

 

[drejr]

Of course you could, but you'd have a hard time creating a model to support your hypothesis.

(If you did you would in fact reach the exact same conclusion as the paper.)

Basically the paper is a chronological extension of the galactic habitable zone theory. It's more optimistic than the blurb suggests.

 

[Dilandu]

looks like warfare was endemic in the Middle Ages because the militarized elite found it to
be thrilling and as armored knights they had very little risk.

Er... no. For thrill they have tournaments & other competition - with specific rules & specific armor (much heavier than combat one) to reduce risk.

Wars were waged for the usual economic & political purposes. Its just the situation of weak central rule - caused by military dominance of small, extremely professional knights elite - created too many sides who couls initiate one with each other.

 

[BAROBA]

They will probably come to this solarsystem ,throw all the planets into the sun and move this thing standing in the way of the new galactic conduit that is very necessary to do what they need to do. Wiped out an entire eco-system because they needed a faster way to do something. Similar to laying a new fiber optic cable or a new train-route. They don't see us, they don't care...

 

[sferrin]

Of course you could, but you'd have a hard time creating a model to support your hypothesis.

(If you did you would in fact reach the exact same conclusion as the paper.)

Basically the paper is a chronological extension of the galactic habitable zone theory. It's more optimistic than the blurb suggests.

Nope. Their, "model" is based partially on assumptions that are unknowable. "I don't know how we get zombies, but zombies it is, because reasons."

 

[drejr]

I can safely assume you haven't read the paper.

 

[sferrin]

I can safely assume you haven't read the paper.

Did the paper NOT speculate the galaxy was a graveyard of suicidal civilizations?

 

[drejr]

No. The authors didn't presume to guess at the cause or even probability of "self-annihilation," which I suppose could be anything from mundane collapse to zombification to getting so smart you disappear up your own rectum in a burst of exotic forum smileys.

They ran a range of simulations with various parameters set to different values and found that probability of annihilation was the most influential factor "determining the quantity and age of galactic intelligent life." Unless Pann was set to zero, meaning effectively immortal civilizations, their simulations suggested most extant civilizations are relatively similar in age. They don't assume a high probability of annihilation, but since they also can't assume a low probability, it's possible that intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy is too young to be easily observed.

In fact, since their simulations found the probability of abiogenesis to have a low impact on the quantity of complex life, the paper supports life being common in the galaxy, though not quite so common as in the past.

They also found that the number of civilizations likely peaked billions of years ago in a ring 4 kiloparsecs from galactic center based on distribution of main sequence stars and frequency of transient sterilizing events. Again, this is a fairly straightforward extension of the galactic habitable zone.

The authors aren't arrogant enough to say this is actually what's going on, it's just a statistical tool that could be developed further for optimizing SETI resources. Even though of course the actual values of parameters may be unknown you can still explore possible relationships between them through simulation.

My own views are more pessimistic. I expect the probability of self-annihilation is close to one.

 

[zen]

Hmmmm.....self annihilation
The obviously one is the dreaded grey goo of nanotechnology and it's natural parallel in viruses and diseases.
As if that wasn't a frightening prospect, we have AI, which means such things are dominant in the galaxy.
And then we get into either prosaic things like running out of certain resources or things like DNA failure and the terrifyingly extreme prospects of them having meddled with quantum entanglement and wiping their world lines from existence. Literally making themselves never have existed.
That latter is probably in efforts to go FTL or.....

Well there is another option.....

At a certain level and faced with the reality of the Universe having an end, either one tries to find ways to preserve said universe.....or you find ways to leave.