British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking indicates "aliens are out there, but it could be too dangerous for humans to interact with" according to Yahoo News article from the Associated Press.
Well, he is probably right and does make compelling arguments for his statements regarding the aspects of intelligent alien species existing somewhere in the Galaxy or even in the Universe.
However, the comparison to Alien visitors being like Christopher Columbus in the New World, and humans being the open minded trusting Sun-God worshiping natives, I have to disagree with you there Dr. Hawking. This is a complimentary disagreement because of your respected level of knowledge and wisdom upon the Universe and unique aspects thereof. However, the stance that Aliens existing as some advance mythos of tribal Alien Warlords gallivanting through the cosmos ravaging rocky terestial planets for various resources including food, is a reflection of humans barbaric existence for our own recorded history.
Granted, if they have developed the technology and survived the E=MC^2 atomic stage of development to become a space traveling society or even space traveling nomad society, they would still have far advance knowledge on their computer systems and a wealth of knowledge of species that they probably were responsible for their own extinction.
They, as a species, probably came to value the uniqueness of life when they encounter life forms in other solar systems that they travel too. If they are capable of building large nearly planetary size ships, to support their "exploration" of the galaxy, then they would have advance knowledge of terraforming planets.
Yet, isn't it humans that project the aspects of the Evil Aliens traversing the Galaxy? Nearly every movie version that has aspects of dealing with "aliens" presents them in a negative light of destroying the Earth and consuming the human population as if humans were nothing more than cows or pigs, to be slaughtered and butchered by the Aliens for their food resources. So the argument stands, our very movies perpetuates this mythology because they have advance technology, we only have computer virus that destroys the great mothership in the movie "Independence Day" and humans only have bullets to fight the alien in "Alien".
Awe, our primitive human cognitive post chimpanzee screams and squeals in anger and aggression at some black monolith in Space 2010.
Maybe, and this is a matter of opinion for we have our conjecture of beliefs, they are more civilized and advance than we mear humans can only dream of in 200,000 years.
What if they were to build planetary starship the size of Mars or Earth, traveling the dark reaches between the stars for thousands of years. Each generation being instructed and schooled in concepts of nanotechnology, genetics and planetary engineering. Generation after generation learning via repetitive simulations on a variety of planets and the potential of finding a terrestial planet, such as Earth, where life is unique and diverse with various species. What if they have in their computer systems simulations of rocky worlds; Mars and Venus, or ice worlds such as Europa and Sedna? Or the gas giant planets of Saturn, Neptune and Jupiter?
Instead of the Aliens that you envision, what about a species of Aliens that would arrive on a planetary starship then survey the various planets for potential life and potential areas for establishing a colony via terraforming a world such as Venus. If they are capable of traveling 20 or 1000 light years from their home world, then surely they have the capabilities of building a space elevator that can transport water from Jupiter's moon Europa to a planet the size of Venus or Mars.
Europa, has the equivalent of twice the water of Earth. What if an advance Alien species could transport some of that water over to Venus, establish a hydrosphere, guide a few asteroids for impact to break up the crust of Venus in some areas to establish plate tectonics, seed the planet with various flora and fauna species of their distant homeworld.
Why not have an Alien species that would just observe Earth at a close distance, with their presence known. Yet, if a space ship the size of a planet were to magically arrive in this solar system and occupy the region between Mars and Jupiter, and then collectively as humanity were to start observing a magical transformation of Venus into an Earthlike planet. Or a species that is intelligent just being a neighbor to a species that just started to crawl and no longer is needing the cradle?
We, in our current existance, would worship them as Gods! Because they would mean us no harm. And we could go on about our daily lives without the fear that is so common to the descendants of "The Naked Ape". Aggression is part of the genetic coding of the hominid groups, extinct or extant. Maybe it is the fear that our human species will evolve with the continue aggression that have existed in the history of our species.
Yet, why should aggression be part of a species of Aliens that are capable of interplanetary and travel between the various supporting star systems that reside within the Milky Way?
Dangerous Aliens and the mythos of tribal Amazonians from Atlantis, sells and develops scripts for multi-million dollar movies. Because it is full of blood, guts, weapons of mass destruction, human extinction. It is the basis of slavery, the destruction of millions of bison and the various cultures of a planet all because of the Gold collected in the New World by the Europeans.
Aliens, that have the capabilities to build planetary size star-ships for terraforming rocky worlds that are geological unwelcoming to humans, i.e., Venus....wouldn't even be of interest.
What humanity can agree upon is very simple: whatever Aliens are, they are not primates. Yet, we have not met any in our existence as a species, so we go into the future fearful because of our own myths that prevail. If we do, and at some point probably will, encounter an alien culture or civilization, it is going to be humans that bring out the nuclear weapons or the harpoons. Just so that humans can hang its head upon our cavern wall.
Aliens that are capable of interstellar and interplanetary travel, if they visited Earth and were to walk inside a muesum or even download our entire internet for a complete analysis of our cultural ideas and concepts probably would be repulsed at the idea of even having various species in zoological parks or as muesum specimens. The would have the wisdom and abilities to create worlds for life to exist.
Just think of the concept: A planetary size spaceship in orbit around Jupiter would destablize the gravity wells of the Jovian moons. The same planetary size spaceship could gravitationally direct a moon the size of Europa or Io for a Venus or Martian impact. They may as well live thousands of years, and our lifetime is measures like we measure that of a fruitfly.
When humans can use their technology to change the geological processes on the neighboring worlds of Venus and Mars to allow them to become habitable, then we will have gained emense knowledge and wisdom because we will apprieciate the uniquiness that is life. Until then we overpopulate our planet and cause the extinction of thousands of species per year.
Dr. Hawking, Aliens are dangerous?
3 comments:
Great article my friend!
Douglas, I'm glad that the scientific community and specifically the astrobiology community are acknowleding the pausibility of an advance extraterrestial species.
Dr. Stephen Hawking's is one of the greatest minds of our age and time of our civilization. His thoughts and ideas will be referenced in the future by society who live and work in space environments.
Someday, there will be "Contact" with another intelligent species of extraterresial origin. How long that will take, is unknown. What the significance of that moment will be profound, because the discovery of an alien intelligent species will radically change our preceptions.
Hopefully, war and warefare will not occur after the discovery.
Yet,not all of our society walks into the habitat of the Chimpanzee...it takes a special and uniquely sensitive human to be accepted within the group or troop...as Dr. Jane Goodall is.
Instead of worrying about being annilated by space aliens, maybe we as a species could develop the sensitive and empathic aspects for when that day arrives.
If they are 200,000 or even a million years technologically advanced, they would find our warfare technology and agression as a limitation. Maybe it is within the first 500 years since the discovery of the E=MC^2 destructive potential is a mile marker for an "Intelligent Species".
How would a species, such as Humanity, prove to an Alien extraterrestial species that they were capable of existing within the larger Universe?
Great post, Jerry. I've been meaning to comment on it for awhile, but haven't gotten to it until now.
Humans turned to space as part of the Cold War, but although some military minds would still like to see the militarization of space, I think our international treaties against weapons in space are evidence that we collectively realize the dangers of that road.
With the exception of China, most space faring nations have collaborated to some extent for the benefit and scientific advancement of all nations. In that context, I don't think we have to worry about humans going into space for destructive purposes.
However, commercialization of space is looming this decade, and not long after that we may see the outright exploitation of resources in other parts of our solar system. It is access to those resources that will be the wild card in whether or not humans can remain friendly in the space environment.
Now, assuming that we can peacefully negotiate the distribution of any off-Earth resources, I think we can keep our aggressiveness on-planet, and remain peaceful spacefarers.
If that is the normal process among galactic space faring civilizations, then there would be no need to worry about alien contact being hostile towards us. They would more likely be scientifically curious about us, or if they were seeking resources, may be willing to trade technology for them. I hope I'm not being naive.
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