# How Should We Deal With Alien Contact? A Survey.



## mosaix (Jul 1, 2019)

How should we respond to alien contact? Scientists ask the public
					

Scientists searching the universe for aliens to conduct survey of the public for views on first contact




					www.theguardian.com
				




_Scientists wrestling with the delicate issue of how to respond should humanity ever be contacted by an alien civilisation have hit on a radical idea: a survey that asks what the public would do. _


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## Toby Frost (Jul 1, 2019)

Apart from a focus group of psychopaths and dictators, I can't think of anyone I'd want to ask less than "the public". I'm sure we used to have people who specialised in things like this. They were called "experts", if I remember rightly.


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## nixie (Jul 1, 2019)

Toby Frost said:


> Apart from a focus group of psychopaths and dictators, I can't think of anyone I'd want to ask less than "the public". I'm sure we used to have people who specialised in things like this. They were called "experts", if I remember rightly.


I'm with Toby, also if there is ever any alien contact keep the general public in dark until the experts are sure of intent and solution.


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## Lumens (Jul 1, 2019)

I think we should panic. Yes, let's panic.


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 1, 2019)

Toby Frost said:


> Apart from a focus group of psychopaths and dictators, I can't think of anyone I'd want to ask less than "the public". I'm sure we used to have people who specialised in things like this. They were called "experts", if I remember rightly.



Experts in 'contact with non-terrestrial intelligent alien beings'? Do we have any? I really think we have zero. We need some experience first. 

However, yes, I think there should be as much clarity on the intent of the message as possible. But our understanding may not be sufficient (and why can't aliens lie, just like us?). And then we have a problem.

However, assuming we can reliably interpret and trust a strong intent, our response has to be political and involve everyone, I feel. A small clique of scientists, say, shouldn't decide for all of us. They should present evidence and hypothesis, then give suggestions on what we could do next. And all of it should be open. 

Of course I wouldn't go as far as saying we should have something like a direct vote on it, à la  the farce that Brexit continues to be, but keeping it in the dark stores up problems.


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## chrispenycate (Jul 1, 2019)

In my collection of stage passes, identity badges and the like you might find some little pin-ons informing the world I am Chris Penycate - Expert (or sometimes 'experte', for Germanic gigs. Which would not make me the first person to call should extraterrestrials land on the Whitehouse lawn. In an unprecedented situation there are no experts except self-anointed ones, unless making up theories of ancient astronauts elevates one to this rôle. Hollywood's omniscient, benevolent scientists are extremely rare in laboratories worldwide, and specialists are rarely an answer to big problems.

And, little as I trust the democratic masses to come up with brilliant, well-considered action, you know who would end up with the responsibility, don't you. Politicians, and the military (frequently now difficult to distinguish between. And, at least in the country I'm living in now, these are not high on the list of people I'd like to see with the responsibility. Not that the people throwing stones at the UFOs and shouting 'Go back where you came from.' are any more rational, but the will of the people is at least fragmented and undecided. You can trust humanity to produce more opinions than available members. Nobody has the first idea abou what you can trust ETs to be, or do, or believe. 

Best ask the outsiders to meet up with a small, intelligent and flexible human group - ask them to stop off in orbit next to the ISS, and chat to generally benevolent and geeky beings who will generally approve of them.


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 1, 2019)

chrispenycate said:


> Best ask the outsiders to meet up with a small, intelligent and flexible human group - ask them to stop off in orbit next to the ISS, and chat to generally benevolent and geeky beings who will generally approve of them.



Can we assume the aliens are always benevolent and friendly chums?

What if the message that is picked up is a transmission/detection from a relativistic 40km asteroid 'missile' that has been launched to wipe out all life from planet Earth?


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## nixie (Jul 1, 2019)

I vote we have a handpicked delegation from the chrons. I'll start the nominations, please explain why they would be the  best representatives.
@chrispenycate ( see his above post)
@Toby Frost ( in his space captain Smith role)
@Venusian Broon ( being an actual alien)
@Jo Zebedee ( for expertise from when the aliens invaded Belfast, see Inish Carraig)
@Dave (I'm sure he has had  contact, Ascifi did give alien rewards)


Sorry if I'm being too frivolous, the post can be removed if need be


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## CupofJoe (Jul 1, 2019)

Venusian Broon said:


> Can we assume the aliens are always benevolent and friendly chums?
> What if the message that is picked up is a transmission/detection from a relativistic 40km asteroid 'missile' that has been launched to wipe out all life from planet Earth?


If they aren't going to be friendly, then there is probably not much we can do about it. Unless they are in a ragged state or limited numbers then their technology [of all types] will probably be so far ahead of us that there won't be much we can do to stop them doing whatever they want.


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## Dave (Jul 1, 2019)

Lumens said:


> I think we should panic. Yes, let's panic.


I'm busy lighting my flaming torch at this moment.


Venusian Broon said:


> Can we assume the aliens are always benevolent and friendly chums?


No, but if the predictions are correct, they will have travelled an awfully long way just to wipe us out!
Unless, they have come for our oceans of water or iron core - aren't those the usual reasons?
They certainly wouldn't have come all that distance just to have an intelligent conversation! (and won't get any either!)


CupofJoe said:


> ...their technology [of all types] will probably be so far ahead of us that there won't be much we can do to stop them doing whatever they want.


There is this too, would we ever stop what were doing to attempt to have a conversation with an ant? If we stepped on the ant accidentally, would we even be concerned about the effects, or the other ants that came to look? Would we feel we had missed out on the great library of ant knowledge and culture by missing speaking to them?

As for having a committee of experts to speak with them - I think it is a valid point to question what 'kind' of expert is required. A linguist for certain, but what if they don't communicate in words we can translate into language? What if (as in _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_) they communicate by music? What if they communicate only by mathematics or by geometric shapes? Or something we are as yet unable to conceive? The panel will need to be made up of the most diverse group of expects we can possibly think of.


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## Lumens (Jul 1, 2019)

Dave said:


> There is this too, would we ever stop what were doing to attempt to have a conversation with an ant? If we stepped on the any accidentally, we we even be concerned about the effects, or the other ants that came to look? Would we feel we had missed out on the great library of any knowledge and culture by missing speaking to them?


Actually, we have learned a lot from ants and their behaviour, but I still take your point that the ants are probably unaware of that.


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## Toby Frost (Jul 1, 2019)

As a member of the Chrons first contact team, I feel that I have the ant angle covered. Likewise the lemming angle.

My main worry is that they ask us to take them to our leader.


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## Danny McG (Jul 1, 2019)

Our only hope is one massive strike as they're landing.
If any survive them hack them to pieces and send those pieces back as a warning to keep away from Earth


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## Dave (Jul 1, 2019)

Lumens said:


> Actually, we have learned a lot from ants and their behaviour, but I still take your point that the ants are probably unaware of that.


Yes, we can be astounded by their ability to socialise and to build structures, and learn something we can apply ourselves, but we won't be worried about a nuclear or cyber attack from them, and will still build the motorway straight through their anthill - shades of _Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy_ there.


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## Dave (Jul 1, 2019)

Toby Frost said:


> My main worry is that they ask us to take them to our leader.


LOL


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## Vertigo (Jul 1, 2019)

Dave said:


> Unless, they have come for our oceans of water or iron core - aren't those the usual reasons?


This sort of harvest idea always winds me up. There's only one think that's abundant on Earth that's not abundant on millions of other uninhabited celestial bodies and that's life. Why go to the hassle of dealing with a load of messy life when you could get your iron, water or whatever much more easily elsewhere. On the other hand if your intent is to harvest life then it makes loads of sense.


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## Danny McG (Jul 1, 2019)

Oops


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 1, 2019)

Yeah the 'they want our water' trope is such tripe. It is among the most abundant molecule in the universe and there is unimaginable amounts of the stuff (sprinkled with other lovely elements) just floating about in low-Gee conditions, more-or-less everywhere for an advanced space faring race. 

Hell, a number of Saturn's moons contain more water than the whole of the Earth.


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## Toby Frost (Jul 1, 2019)

I think it’s inevitable that there would be attacks on the aliens. Religious lunatics would inevitably see them as demons and try to kill them. The problem would be persuading the aliens not to retaliate too strongly. Given that there is probably at least a 50% chance that mankind would attempt genocide on these creatures, their best plan for them would be (at the very kindest) to take complete control. The purpose of aliens appearing might well be to inform us that we're in quarantine - although I'm not sure why they'd bother saying. Frankly, if I was an alien, I’d just hand out commemorative hats with either human-destroying viruses or mind-control devices hidden inside. 

One option might be that what found Earth was a sophisticated probe – an AI, basically. I’m not sure how this would change things, except that it might be slightly more reasonable than a living being. Or slightly more relentless in its efforts to destroy all humans.


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## Jo Zebedee (Jul 1, 2019)

nixie said:


> I vote we have a handpicked delegation from the chrons. I'll start the nominations, please explain why they would be the  best representatives.
> @chrispenycate ( see his above post)
> @Toby Frost ( in his space captain Smith role)
> @Venusian Broon ( being an actual alien)
> ...


I'd just blast them. On principle.


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## Vertigo (Jul 1, 2019)

Toby Frost said:


> One option might be that what found Earth was a sophisticated probe – an AI, basically. I’m not sure how this would change things, except that it might be slightly more reasonable than a living being. Or slightly more relentless in its efforts to destroy all humans.


Of course this may already have happened; remember Oumuamua the shard of interstellar rock that shot through the solar system at some 70,000 mph managing the extraordinarily unlikely coincidence of coming so close to the sun that it managed a pretty nifty slingshot around it:

"Alternatively, a more exotic scenario is that ‘Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization."

Hmm, where did I put that old tin hat....


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## Toby Frost (Jul 1, 2019)

That was probably the galactic equivalent of taking a short cut through a shady part of town and not stopping in case the locals stole your hubcaps.


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## MikeAnderson (Jul 1, 2019)

Toby Frost said:


> That was probably the galactic equivalent of taking a short cut through a shady part of town and not stopping in case the locals stole your hubcaps.


This planet is the Mississippi of the galaxy.


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## M. Robert Gibson (Jul 1, 2019)

Dave said:


> What if they communicate only by mathematics or by geometric shapes? Or something we are as yet unable to conceive?


Smell!  I'm convinced dogs are leaving messages for each other  all over the place in their quest to subjugate humans.
Therefore the advanced meeting party had better include a bloodhound or two.


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## Dave (Jul 1, 2019)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> I'm convinced dogs are leaving messages for each other  all over the place in their quest to subjugate humans.


No, it's the cats! Domestic cats are actually aliens. It is well documented. This is why they have a disdain both for humans and their lackeys; dogs. They also have a radio antenna/ receiver built into their back leg and a microphone hidden under the fur so that they can contact their Kzinti masters. They sit on windowsills on neighbourhood watch, every single day, recording everything like a CCTV camera. There is no record of them before ancient Egypt, when they were delivered as _"a gift from the gods." _Pull back a cat's ears and your have a Grey Alien's face. Also, the damn* purring! *There is no adequate scientific explanation for it. You want more evidence? How can they fall backwards off window balconies, fall two stories, and still flip-over to land unharmed on their feet? Anti-gravity emitters!


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## Danny McG (Jul 1, 2019)

Jo Zebedee said:


> I'd just blast them. On principle.


Agreed, kill them all, backtrack to their system, enslave and eradicate.
 (If we're lucky they might even taste like chicken)


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## Robert Zwilling (Jul 1, 2019)

I'm not sure that intelligent aliens would appreciate our ability to pick who gets to talk to them, they might like to make their own choices. Our leaders might be installed as court jesters, to provide some outlandish humor during time outs as our exploits to date are explained in greater detail and something is needed to break the rising monotony. Our planet's core could be unique, like a long running top. What if they only wanted to see how the planet's core worked by looking at it directly, the same way we bag rare specimens for scientific research.


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## -K2- (Jul 2, 2019)

I'm a FIRM believer that ALL aliens must be able to pass the 'Slim Whitman Indian Love Call Test' upon first contact...






If they pass that, the 'Bugs Bunny Endurance Test'...






Fail either... we nuke em'.  Just sayin'.  

K2


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## Dave (Jul 2, 2019)

Regarding the ability of the aliens to actually speak to someone in charge, of course, that was the theme of _The Day the Earth Stood Still_ (original version, not seen the Bill and Ted remake) and it would probably be harder today. You could even speak at the United Nations and then still be ignored by sovereign nations. The aliens won't be keen to go on an extended political junket. They will be expecting the 'world government' to come to them. After all, they are the most interesting thing that has ever happened. My guess is that they would get bored after a few weeks and go home, unless they really, really like our reality TV. In that case though, they could learn all they need just from a subscription to a streaming service.


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## Hugh (Jul 2, 2019)

One aspect that interests me is what an individual would actually do if he or she were to unexpectedly encounter an  alien. 

I once genuinely and truly believed, for all of one or two minutes, that I was a few feet, maybe no more than ten,  from a landed alien UFO. 
I was walking home late at night in a pitch black night along a deserted country lane when all of a sudden there was an alien craft a few feet ahead of me, lights blazing.  It seemed to be spherical.  I was totally flummoxed and couldn't decide what to do, whether to go forward and make contact or whether to retreat.  Could they be friendly or hostile?  I just stood there completely conflicted, not knowing what to do, but aware of the immensity of the situation.  After what felt a significant time, but was probably only a minute or two, I realised that it was a stationary car with its headlights on, and that there were two people in it looking at me.


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## Vertigo (Jul 2, 2019)

Hugh said:


> I realised that it was a stationary car with its headlights on, and that there were two people in it looking at me.


Which these days would probably be even more scary than the prospect of aliens....


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## MikeAnderson (Jul 2, 2019)

W.W.L.L.D. (What Would Lex Luthor Do?)





Word to mother, it's time to die Kryptonians!


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## Robert Zwilling (Jul 2, 2019)

I think in terms of originality the original Star Trek 4 movie did a good job of exploring the what if things aren't going the way we think they should way. Hey, we're over here! Don't you want to talk to us? We make good selfies.


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## thaddeus6th (Jul 3, 2019)

Does it matter?

I've they're capable of reaching us they're almost certainly vastly technologically superior. If they're evil, we'll be obliterated/enslaved. If they're benevolent, we'll be incapable of harming them.


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## -K2- (Jul 3, 2019)

thaddeus6th said:


> I've they're capable of reaching us they're almost certainly vastly technologically superior. If they're evil, we'll be obliterated/enslaved. If they're benevolent,
> *we'll be incapable of harming them.*



That's what this alien said...






K2


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## Parson (Jul 3, 2019)

Interesting thread.

First, I'm miffed, I think a Parson who loves S.F. and sees all life as wonderful and worthy of respect should be included.  

Second, Why should we think that a race of intelligent beings would be surprised at a world full of competitive people who join together to protect themselves from other groups? A planet of nations is IMHO more likely than one where there is a universally recognized hierarchy and obeyed.

Third, Being much advanced doesn't necessarily mean that they would have ready and obvious defense against a nuclear bomb. --- The very idea of such a use of physics might be completely off the board for them. To say nothing of suicide bombers, snipers, and a whole host of other deadly things we've thought up along the way. 

Fourth, (discouragingly) If an alien race was capable of stellar travel why would they bother with earth? Either uninhabited planets or planets inhabited with a less aggressive and more advanced species would be much higher on the list of places to visit.


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## nixie (Jul 3, 2019)

Parson said:


> Interesting thread.
> 
> First, I'm miffed, I think a Parson who loves S.F. and sees all life as wonderful and worthy of respect should be included.



I only put forward a list of nominees,  others  can contribute


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## -K2- (Jul 4, 2019)

Another of those movie moments where it didn't work out so well for the little green guys 






K2


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## BAYLOR (Jul 8, 2019)

Has anyone here seen the season 7 South Park Episode *Cancelled *?


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## psychotick (Jul 8, 2019)

Hi,

Actually, has anyone here considered the fact that we might not know what to do when faced with an alien? I'm just finishing off a book on this very idea. You see an alien you respond - usually badly. There's running and screaming, throwing up, turning into a statue and then finally going full ape sh*t crazy and attacking it. All variations on fight or flight responses. 

Everyone thinks they know what they'd do if aliens arrive. But no one does. What if the experience is simply so overwhelming that it robs people of their wits? That when confronted with something that is completely new / unknown, they simply can't apply anything they know about the world to their interaction?

But other than that I'm with the OP - if in doubt develop a survey! Always good business school policy!

Cheers, Greg.


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## Parson (Jul 8, 2019)

@psychotick (Greg) interesting post. I think you are definitely on to something there. It's like the first time being involved in a life or death situation. You are often surprised by not only your own reaction, but also the completely unpredictable reactions of others. This is a kind of a big deal here in the States presently. Some security guards and police men are being legally charged with cowardice for failing to get involved with an active shooter while on duty. ---- Seems a bit harsh in my opinion. 

The Bible speaks of being completely aware of your own sin and unworthiness when meeting the Creator. It is not be hard to imagine an alien scenario in which something similar would happen.


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## psychotick (Jul 8, 2019)

Hi P,

Yeah, thanks for that. I hadn't considered the biblical parallel. But it works in a strange way. Because don't we describe God as that which passeth all understanding?

But really while I was writing this, I worked with a number of thoughts / works in my head. The scenario began with Simak's Time is the Simplest Thing since it's about astral travellers encountering aliens. But bits and pieces came into it from everywhere. There's a piece in one of the Lewis books where the hero gets to see himself through the eyes of the aliens, and wonders who the strange pear shaped creature is. That always struck me as amazing. To not even be able to recognize yourself as human. And there's loads of other sources out there where alien really means alien. Not a guy with funny ears. But something that's almost completely beyond the human experience.

I mean think about Roadside Picnic. They came, they stopped for a little bit, had a picnic and left some litter behind. And we can't even understand their litter? It's brilliant but I have the horrible feeling it may actually be accurate. And there was a short story I read years ago where aliens declared war on us and practically wiped us out because we signed a peace treaty with them. They simply couldn't understand that such a thing could exist. They would have been perfectly happy being friends with us, but for the peace treaty! (From memory the story was written as an "I told you so!" from the female MC to the others!)

And it seems to me that this might well be the same. We think of aliens in their flying saucers (my book has those too!) as sort of funny looking people. And it never occurs to us that they're not human at all. We may never be able to understand them. It's not a question of maths or logic or language. They simply are completely alien for want of a better word. And how do we respond to that? If they can't understand us and we can't understand them? If we look at them and don't even know what we're looking at?

Cheers, Greg.

PS - we still need a survey!!!


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## psychotick (Jul 8, 2019)

Hi P,

Actually I'm going to add a tiny bit to that. I had a friend and Colleague, Helen, now passed from the world sadly. But she had this - I'm not sure if you'd call it a gift - which allowed her to bend her arm a tiny bit backwards. Probably about five or ten degrees. And every time she used to do that, and I'd see her arm bending the wrong way, it would completely freak me. I'd want to turn away and try not to imagine the sound of bones and joints snapping. But it was completely natural for her.

Now imagine seeing that or something equally freaky, but a thousand times worse!

Cheers, Greg.


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## Dave (Jul 8, 2019)

psychotick said:


> But other than that I'm with the OP - if in doubt develop a survey! Always good business school policy!


For the first time when looking at this thread I read the thread title that way (even before reading your post.) Yes, there would undoubtedly be bureaucrats with surveys on clipboards. In fact, there would probably be Royal Commissions held, Special Investigators appointed and a hundred and one committee rooms occupied. Nothing says 'we haven't a clue what to do' like opening a government inquiry.


psychotick said:


> I'd see her arm bending the wrong way, it would completely freak me. I'd want to turn away and try not to imagine the sound of bones and joints snapping.


A boy at my school could do this. He had broken his elbow when very young and it had set in some odd way. He would do it in the locker room after PE just to wind everyone up. It had that same effect on everyone. He knew that it did and loved seeing people squirm.


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## Vertigo (Jul 8, 2019)

I'm not sure I entirely agree with some of these points. For example I don't think @psychotick's friends arm bending trick is completely relevant. The reason for the discomfort is, I think, not because the backwards bending is alien per se but rather because both you and she are human and you know that your body, and most other people's bodies, can't do this without this without breaking. However you don't feel any of that kind of discomfort when looking at say Octopuses (octopusi?) or snakes which are far more 'alien' to us in their movements.

Some may have atavistic reactions to some body forms. So for example if the alien is insect like in its appearance then there are some who will go to pieces just because of that. Or arachnoid the same. But I think it's unlikely all or even most would react like that.

On Earth life has occupied pretty much every niche available and we have environments ranging from ice to super high temperatures in which life manages to survive and over the millions of years life has been around it's tried just about every viable configuration with varying degrees of success. Throughout all of those iterations the solutions have certain commonality. Only looking at higher lifeforms that have at least some chance of achieving technological intelligence those will include some form of motile ability (legs, flippers, wings), ability to manipulate your environment (arms, hands, tentacles, trunks, prehensile tails), ability to reason (brain or some equivalent). I can't imagine anything much more outrageous being successful in an alien environment that has not been tried somewhere sometime on Earth.

Early on there were some pretty wacky life variants but they have always been superseded by more efficient alternatives, a process still going on today. And nothing that life has produce in the last 100 million years or so has been so outrageous that it would cause the sort of complete abandoning of reason as has been speculated on. Terror, maybe, if coming face to face with the likes of T-Rex.

Also it's not too difficult to understand pretty much all of these life variations. I don't mean down to the ability to communicate directly (we're not doing so well with any of our native life on that front) but rather understanding their motivations. All motile life that has ever been on this planet is driven by pretty much the same motivations: survival of the gene, escape the predator and hunt the prey. I see no reason to believe any life from anywhere in the universe would be driven by any significantly different motivations and therefore produce any significantly different structures.

So personally I believe we would probably be able to understand them on a basic level but whether we could manage to communicate is another matter (I refer you again to our ability to communicate with the like of Dolphins for example). I believe that if we ever find life out there we will find whole ecologies of parallel evolutions rather that incomprehensibly alien ones. One of the great failing I see sometimes in SF creations of weird aliens is any plausible progressive evolutionary road to get to that point. The best attempts at this that I have see probably come from Neal Asher, in particular in his Spatterjay books. But even there, though extreme, the weird alien lifeforms are still comprehensible and still obey those fundamental motivations.

So I don't think the hypothetical aliens will be too surprising in form or too incomprehensible in motivation.


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## psychotick (Jul 8, 2019)

Hi V,

I don't know. But ask yourself this - google it in fact. Why are people afraid of spiders? Most of them are harmless. Most people who are phobic about them have never actually been bitten by a spider. There's theories that it's a learned thing. Others that it's genetic. Even social. Same thing with snakes.

My guess - and it is just a guess - is that at least it's in part because we specifically don't understand them. We're less afraid of dogs, even though they're probably far more of a danger, because we do understand them. We have some ability to predict what they'll do, how they'll act and react, and what dangers they pose. But I'm guessing if a dog sized spider wandered down the street people would be running in absolute terror. And even if they were told it was a vegetarian spider, they'd still be running.

And there's another factor to consider - immediacy. You see an alien - hey Alien itself - on telly and it isn't really scary. Why because it's on the telly. So a part of you knows you're safe. But what if their were no screen? If it was standing in front of you, and you didn't know what the hell it was or what it could do? Likewise with most of the other extremely weird creepy crawly things. You see them on telly, often magnified and your reaction is anything from mild fear to disgust. But if it was human sized and walking down the street? If in essence it was "real"?

Cheers, Greg.


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## Vertigo (Jul 8, 2019)

Oh don't get me wrong, as I say the appearance of a T-Rex doesn't engender terror in a picture but put one live in front of me and I'd be running for my life. So terror I can get to grips with it's the idea of being completely rendered incapable by the alieness that I don't hold with. Terror is understandable and expected. Reactions like attacking, equally so. But I don't hold with the idea that they'll be so alien as to be impossible to understand. I hold that what we are likely to see is a lot of familiar looking parallel evolution. I can see no reason why on another planet exoskeleton based life (insectoid) could outcompete vertebrate life when it has never managed to do so here. Evolution has tried numerous insectoid variations (even quite large ones during periods when oxygen levels were higher than now) and though the most numerous motile life form they have never been dominant since vertebrates became established. So I'm really not expecting too many great surprises when/if we meet Me Alien! But I'll still keep an open mind; it's a moderately large universe out there but I still expect to see familiar structures and motivations.


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## -K2- (Jul 8, 2019)

In that we're only capable of understanding from our own experience and potential actions/motivations to a great degree, past simply guessing, I would think logically any initial contact would play out only one of two ways (regarding their actions).
1. If they consider themselves superior, I would expect that they would simply want to observe us in more detail, close up, taking normal precautions, yet past that feel comfortable circulating freely having little interest interacting past simple amusement.
2. If they consider themselves inferior, that is when they would seek to make direct contact in the hopes of advancing themselves.

The scenario of them feeling 'peer' I find unlikely.  We seem to always want to assume that what we long for, in this case 'space travel with ease,' establishes a measuring stick regarding intelligence and power.  For all 'we know,' an alien species might have devoted 99% of their efforts to space travel in the hopes of finding something to advance themselves.  So our lack thereof, is not necessarily a gauge regarding advancement or feelings of self worth (us tending to be well rounded).






K2


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## M. Robert Gibson (Jul 8, 2019)

psychotick said:


> But I'm guessing if a dog sized spider wandered down the street people would be running in absolute terror


Correct 





Just found a part two


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## Parson (Jul 9, 2019)

I guess what I was getting at with the Biblical analogy was that an alien presence might be so vastly and obviously superior to us that we might just stand there with our mouths hanging open utterly convinced of our own inferiority. --- Think Pizarro and the Inca at the first meeting. (At least if the reports are to be believed.)


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 9, 2019)

Parson said:


> I guess what I was getting at with the Biblical analogy was that an alien presence might be so vastly and obviously superior to us that we might just stand there with our mouths hanging open utterly convinced of our own inferiority. --- Think Pizarro and the Inca at the first meeting. (At least if the reports are to be believed.)


Re: Pizarro and the inca. Yes the Spaniards defeated overwhelmingly superior forces, and yes it was down to better technology, but I do think the conquistadors did 'play' into the culture at the time, a lot like Cortez and Montezuma a bit earlier. There was a huge amount of politics and 'culture clash' that afforded the Spaniards massive, albeit fake, advantages against the empires of America. These central and south american civilisation could have easily (if they had taken up 'total war' and re-thought how their cultures worked) wiped out these small bands of bastards. (Although decimation due to eurasian diseases and the inevitable more boat loads of europeans that would/did come across anyway may have ground them down anyway...perhaps)

An alien scenario I think that is similar to conquistadors might see a small bunch of tech'd up aliens siding with the Russians, say, helping them to overcome the US and then take over the world. 

But yes, they might be so mind-bogglingly advanced we wouldn't have a chance. Although if they were *so *advanced, couldn't they just make their own habitats in spaces with material just lying about (there's soooo much of it!) And therefore not need to come and conquer us in the first place....


....but what can we say. They're alien. Just really, totally different from how we could even possibly think _how _they they actually think.


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## Dave (Jul 9, 2019)

Venusian Broon said:


> (Although decimation due to eurasian diseases and the inevitable more boat loads of europeans that would/did come across anyway may have ground them down anyway...perhaps)


And there are the two other problems we might face immediately beyond that very first contact. How would we deal with preventing the transmission of alien viruses, and how would we feel about mass alien tourism/alien immigration, or of the kind of culture clash depicted in _Alien Nation?_


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## Parson (Jul 9, 2019)

Would alien viruses be a problem? Even given Vertigo's alien similarities I would have my doubts that alien viruses would be able to attack humans, or at least not without some serious evolution.


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## Dave (Jul 9, 2019)

Not if viruses are extraterrestrial in origin, as some Panspermia theorists maintain. 

But yes, it would involve a species jump. That has not been uncommon among species of Earth-life, but it does depend how close the aliens are to us genetically and biological, if they are at all. (Why only the same four DNA base pairs, why not six, or eight?) We'd be safe with some more exotic alien varieties, like those of the 'beings of pure energy' kind.


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## Danny McG (Jul 9, 2019)

There's been a few too many 'cute and friendly' aliens depicted in films and on the telly.
We need to ramp up the paranoia with more 'hostile aliens want to eat/destroy us' stories.

It's the only way we can keep mentally prepared to obliterate them as soon as we spot them. Grab their tech and savage their galactic organisation.

"Party's over Greenies, kneel before man"


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## Dave (Jul 9, 2019)

Do you really think that "there's been a few too many 'cute and friendly' aliens depicted in films and on the telly?"

I would fully expect that if I did a proper 'survey' and added them all up, then the 'we have come to harvest your Earth's iron core and oceans of water, make you our slaves, obliterate your puny planet and then assimilate your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own' would overwhelm all the 'kids on bicycles helping an orphan left behind when their ship stopped by to use the restrooms.'


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## psychotick (Jul 9, 2019)

Hi,

What about the not so cute and friendly humans? Think the Enterprise epp where the Vulcans land, raise their hands in the universal sign of peace, and Zephram Cochrane blows their leader away and with a band full of human pirates steals their ship!!!

Cheers, Greg.


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## Danny McG (Jul 9, 2019)

Dave said:


> Do you really think that "there's been a few too many 'cute and friendly' aliens depicted in films and on the telly


E.T.
Mork and Mindy
3rd rock from the sun
Close Encounters of the 3rd kind
My favourite Martian
Mike and Angelo


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## Vladd67 (Jul 9, 2019)

Don’t forget Alf


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## Vladd67 (Jul 9, 2019)

Dave said:


> No, it's the cats! Domestic cats are actually aliens. It is well documented. This is why they have a disdain both for humans and their lackeys; dogs. They also have a radio antenna/ receiver built into their back leg and a microphone hidden under the fur so that they can contact their Kzinti masters. They sit on windowsills on neighbourhood watch, every single day, recording everything like a CCTV camera. There is no record of them before ancient Egypt, when they were delivered as _"a gift from the gods." _Pull back a cat's ears and your have a Grey Alien's face. Also, the damn* purring! *There is no adequate scientific explanation for it. You want more evidence? How can they fall backwards off window balconies, fall two stories, and still flip-over to land unharmed on their feet? Anti-gravity emitters!


Reminds me of an episode of UFO, it was theorised that not only were the aliens coming to earth to steal our bodies for parts but that the aliens that came to earth were artificially constructed from captured humans and then possessed by an alien intelligence. This seemed to be confirmed when an alien cat infiltrated S.H.A.D.O. headquarters and scouted out the place, when the true nature of the cat was realised a chase ensued resulting in the alien cat meeting a grisly end when it met up with a pack of hunting hounds.


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## Karn's Return (Jul 9, 2019)

Never survey the public for anything, and definitely not online. I think Pepsi learned that lesson with a Mountain Dew flavor a while back, with names I dare not repeat here.


The point is, there's reasons why governments keep secrets from their populous, and whether or not those reason are always good or not, I have to agree with them at times, and contact with an extraterrestrial race would be one of those things that should be kept hidden until their true motives are discovered. That said, if a hostile, advanced race were to make contact with Earth, I don't think we're at a good point technologically to deal with anything that has FTL or Hyper-drive abilities...


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## Dave (Jul 9, 2019)

Could you actually keep it a secret?

I don't believe in the Roswell or Area 51 conspiracies because there would be real photos and witness testimony that wasn't fake. Even 50 years ago there may have been parts of planet Earth that was scarcely populated and where an alien could land and take-off without being seen by a human. That just isn't true today. Anytime something happens today there are people ready with mobile phones to capture everything. Some would do that rather than to rescue the injured from an accident or attack, or to run away to safety.


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## Karn's Return (Jul 9, 2019)

If not keep it a secret, then try their best to keep things contained and keep the citizens away from any sites of contact, if contact did not prove to be immediately hostile and a diplomatic approach may be tried.


If immediately hostile, then there would be no way it could be kept secret as our cities would be the targets of attack, and even in times that wouldn't be the case, livestock and other animal life, as well as potential massive damage to our farmland, would not be able to be kept secret either. However, the media would be able to spin such events in a way as to blame disease, weather, droughts/wildfires, etc.


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## M. Robert Gibson (Jul 9, 2019)

Why would advanced aliens visit Earth?
Because they like the taste of Soylent Green!


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## tegeus-Cromis (Jul 9, 2019)

You know, SF aside, people forget how utterly isolated we are in an infinite, or practically infinite, universe. The chances a) that there is intelligent life within communication distance, b) that they are advanced enough to detect and locate us, c) that, if they do so, they'd be interested in us enough to come see us, and d) that they have the technology to do so, are infinitesimal. All these notions of aliens invading Earth are left over from the days when people still considered Martians an actual possibility.


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## Dave (Jul 9, 2019)

M. Robert Gibson said:


> Why would advanced aliens visit Earth?


We do we travel now? Why do we want to explore space? Curiosity about other cultures. To see amazing sights and sounds. To seek out new worlds, new civilisations, to go boldly where no one has gone before.


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## Parson (Jul 9, 2019)

Karn's Return said:


> However, the media would be able to spin such events in a way as to blame disease, weather, droughts/wildfires, etc.



I doubt that. The media has precious little credibility and the "true" story would get out. --- Just think about the undying quality of conspiracy theories. I can't imagine how the truth could be more contained than something which is both nonsensical and false.


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## Danny McG (Jul 9, 2019)

Dave said:


> We do we travel now? Why do we want to explore space? Curiosity about other cultures. To see amazing sights and sounds. To seek out new worlds, new civilisations, to go boldly where no one has gone before.


Nooooo! Dave! Nooooo!
Do Kirk, not Picard


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## M. Robert Gibson (Jul 9, 2019)

Dave said:


> To go boldly where no one has gone before





dannymcg said:


> Do Kirk, not Picard


It's just not the same without a split infinitive


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## Lumens (Jul 9, 2019)

Just send out a probe.

That's what I would (boldly) do.


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## Dave (Jul 9, 2019)

Lumens said:


> Just send out a probe.
> 
> That's what I would (boldly) do.



Which takes us right back to @Vertigo's post here: How Should We Deal With Alien Contact? A Survey.

There is a real possibility that probes could have periodically visited Earth, just to check how evolution has been getting along and whether or not we wiped ourselves out yet!


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## ctg (Jul 9, 2019)

Dave said:


> I don't believe in the Roswell or Area 51 conspiracies because there would be real photos and witness testimony that wasn't fake.



How do you now know they weren't real, after everything that has happened?


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## Dave (Jul 9, 2019)

ctg said:


> ...after everything that has happened?


What has happened? There was some special effects make up and some top secret spy planes.


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## mosaix (Jul 9, 2019)

Never expected that this thread would still be going. 

Here’s a point worth discussing. Is it likely that an aggressive, war faring alien race is going to be able to develop space travel technology? Or is it more likely that, in order to develop space travel technology, a race has to be more interested in the science and exploration than war fare? 

(And in saying ‘space travel’ I’m not talking about getting into orbit or the nearest planet. I’m talking about proper space travel. )

To put it another way is a race more interested in conquering, enslaving etc going to destroy itself before it gets to the stars? 

Are we worrying about nothing?


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## ctg (Jul 9, 2019)

Dave said:


> What has happened? There was some special effects make up and some top secret spy planes.



I hope it's all like that mate. We'll see. 



mosaix said:


> .Is it likely that an aggressive, war faring alien race is going to be able to develop space travel technology? Or is it more likely that, in order to develop space travel technology, a race has to be more interested in the science and exploration than war fare?



Yes and Yes. The humanity has a flaw in thinking as we seem to have accepted that we are alone and there could never be anyone before us. Certainly not aliens who might have developed technology sooner than us.


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 9, 2019)

mosaix said:


> Never expected that this thread would still be going.
> 
> Here’s a point worth discussing. Is it likely that an aggressive, war faring alien race is going to be able to develop space travel technology? Or is it more likely that, in order to develop space travel technology, a race has to be more interested in the science and exploration than war fare?
> 
> ...



Well, the point is we've _have _developed space travel and I'd count us a pretty aggressive race...at least the beginnings of space technology. Who knows where we'll be in a hundred years, and what we'd be able to see via huge increases in telescopes, radio and optical and computing power. (Assuming we don't destroy ourselves of course, but I am, oddly, somewhat optimistic about that.) 

But then how can anyone make an assumption that only some peaceable race of Carl Sagans could ever make the leap up to some sort of galactic travellers? I find this assumption a tad weak. This sort of assumption came about after the development of the atomic and H-bomb where there was a real fear that the world would be totally destroyed. (I've just read _Atomic: The First War of Physics and the Secret History of the Atomic Bomb 1939-49, _I thoroughly recommend it as a book of modern history of this subject: very little physics, but a lot about the physicists of the time.) I'm not sure such a doomsday scenario holds up as much today - although I'll readily admit, we're still sitting with enough weapons to destroy ourselves and who knows what sort of regimes get into place and think they can get away with something...

Now, there is now a great deal of competition in space, even more so than in the 'golden age' of the cold war. We've got China, India, EU and commercial US interests now doing a lot more. 

Also, I should point out, that to think of aliens as wanting to 'conquer, enslave' is a really human way of thinking about things. Perhaps there are intelligent beings like us out there that might think the same way as us. But, probably, if they are there, they really just don't...

But aliens could be so far away from us that they might view the whole planet as lacking in intelligence totally. Take a few genetic samples then perhaps just change everything to suit their own _alien _needs. It might just look to us like being 'conquered'. There's a load of scenarios like this, that are nothing like conquer/expansion/cuddly aliens like Dr Sagan that exist!


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## psychotick (Jul 9, 2019)

Hi,

Oh the old trope - the more advanced alien races must be more civilised because if they weren't they would have blown themselves up? That's a story book theme. Maybe it's real in some cases. And maybe in others the barbaric, species conquering monster alien races just aren't suicidal! Meanwhile the peaceful ones have climate changed / polluted / ecological melted down themselves to death!

It's all guesswork I'm afraid.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Anthoney (Jul 9, 2019)

I think our most likely encounter will be a signal sent hundreds or thousands of years ago by a species that may or may not still exist.  Maybe not even an intentional signal.  Just noise from their planet.


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## -K2- (Jul 10, 2019)

Anthoney said:


> I think our most likely encounter will be a signal sent hundreds or thousands of years ago by a species that may or may not still exist.  Maybe not even an intentional signal.  Just noise from their planet.



We already received that...







You know the rest 

K2


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## Parson (Jul 10, 2019)

This thread is only speculation. But I like speculation. I would posit that a war like race is more likely to develop star travel than a peaceful one, because (if they are anything like us!) there would be a continual sense of competition. And, as we think we know, every technology can be weaponized.


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## Dave (Jul 10, 2019)

It really depends how close the aliens are to us biologically. If they are very similar then I agree with @Parson  The phrase necessity is the mother of invention is an apt one here. Our technology has all been developed as a result of competition and a dire need to survive (and here I'm speaking more generally to include the use of fire, the invention of the wheel, farming and domestication of animals.) If a species never had any competition or never felt under pressure then it would have no need to change, no need to develop new technology or to move away from its origin. Those aliens would remain at home singing peace songs and sharing love for each other, and never venture off world. We would still be apes living in the African Rift Valley.


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## Toby Frost (Jul 10, 2019)

I'm not even sure that humans are all that warlike, at least not individually. It's more a herd mentality and a willingness to do anything if a god or leader says its okay to do so that make us dangerous. If 1930s Berlin and Tokyo had just been one big brawl, it would have worked out better for mankind. (Richard Morgan's _Black Man_ is interesting on this subject, but off-topic.)

Aliens would be best advised, if they didn't actually attack, to make a massive show of superior force - of course, crossing space is pretty superior, but people are thick. As well as religious lunatics wanting to sacrifice the aliens to God, they'd have to deal with various politicians trying to exploit their goodwill, steal their tech, etc. There's also a weird sub-Heinlein school of thought that species can't live together and that you'd better get the first shot in first. Perhaps the best method would be for the aliens to treat Earth as a sort of asylum and take the humans for a day-trip to space every so often - but otherwise keep the place closed and carefully monitored.


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## Vertigo (Jul 10, 2019)

Dave said:


> It really depends how close the aliens are to us biologically. If they are very similar then I agree with @Parson  The phrase necessity is the mother of invention is an apt one here. Our technology has all been developed as a result of competition and a dire need to survive (and here I'm speaking more generally to include the use of fire, the invention of the wheel, farming and domestication of animals.) If a species never had any competition or never felt under pressure then it would have no need to change, no need to develop new technology or to move away from its origin. Those aliens would remain at home singing peace songs and sharing love for each other, and never venture off world. We would still be apes living in the African Rift Valley.


I agree in that I believe competition, curiosity and, indeed, aggression are probably, from an evolutionary perspective, necessary for the development of intelligence. My main reasoning for this position is that pretty much the only effective evolutionary survival strategy that we have seen in some 4 billion years for non-competitive non-aggressive animals has been mass production. Remember we develop through the survival of genes so it seems to me that either we compete aggressively to ensure our genes' survival or we breed so many that our genes will survive the predation of the predators. And I contend that the former requires the development of fairly significant intelligence and the latter does not.

I know it's not quite as simple as that but pick, say, the top 50 most intelligent species on this planet and see how many of them are herbivores. If you are a carnivore/omnivore you need a very high prey to predator ratio* and that inevitably results in, I would argue, more aggressive territorial behaviour than that required to defend your precious fruit tree or bit of pasture. And the predator typically also has the armaments to 'enforce' its territorial claims and is not going to spare their use just because another species is pacifist.

I'm afraid that I have a firm belief that any species that becomes dominant within its environment will be aggressive, territorial and ruthless. Should that species become 'civilised' then maybe, just maybe, they will overcome their nature and become pacifist. But even if that aggression is now redundant within their society, at least from a procreation (ie. evolutionary) perspective, I see no reason why it would become a negative trait which, again from a procreation/evolutionary perspective, would result in it being removed (naturally) from their genome. In other words even if they overcome their nature, their nature is unlikely to evolve away. That would only happen if that nature was no longer competitively successful or they intervened to remove it artificially, a very dangerous strategy if you don't know what sort of alien species they may encounter in the future.

So my belief is that any aliens that might find us would not be dissimilar to us, in that they will be naturally aggressive _but_ whilst they may have 'overcome' that aggression through 'civilisation' it will still be there.

* And incidentally that's why I think omnivores are likely to be more successful in this competition as they are not as limited as pure carnivores.


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## psychotick (Jul 10, 2019)

Hi V,

I always hate evolutionary arguments. They mostly end up with someone in essence arguing that evolution is essentially guided whether they realise it or not. It's not guided. Mutation is random. And selection favours those genes / traits that allow a creature / species to survive and reproduce. If intelligence helps them do that, then it will be selected for. But very often it doesn't. Consider sharks. One of the most highly rated predators in the marine world. Evolution has not made them particularly smart. It's mostly sharpened their senses, streamlined them, added to their speed and stealth etc. In fact it's so advanced them that they haven't really evolved in hundreds of millions of years.

Humans didn't evolve intelligence to help them hunt. But rather to survive. So we need intelligence to use tools, act socially / form tribes, communicate etc.

If you're going to argue that intelligent aliens are aggressive because of evolution, you have to show why aggression is a beneficial trait to them. It may well be. It may also not be. There's no reason a herbivore can't be intelligent. Think of whales - filter feeding ones. Why are they so smart relatively speaking? It's only a question of why that intelligence helps it to survive and procreate.

The other problem that keeps cropping into these sorts of arguments is that people often confuse tech advancement with evolution. It's not. Evolution takes place over millions of years. Tech advancement has nothing to do with it. And quite frankly modern man is likely no more intelligent than man of fifty thousand years ago. Its been argued that Neanderthal's were smarter than cromags. It just didn't help them.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Vertigo (Jul 10, 2019)

psychotick said:


> Hi V,
> 
> I always hate evolutionary arguments. They mostly end up with someone in essence arguing that evolution is essentially guided whether they realise it or not. It's not guided. Mutation is random. And selection favours those genes / traits that allow a creature / species to survive and reproduce. If intelligence helps them do that, then it will be selected for. But very often it doesn't. Consider sharks. One of the most highly rated predators in the marine world. Evolution has not made them particularly smart. It's mostly sharpened their senses, streamlined them, added to their speed and stealth etc. In fact it's so advanced them that they haven't really evolved in hundreds of millions of years.
> 
> ...


I can agree with some of your points.

Most certainly it is unlikely that our current intelligence differs much from that of Cromagnon. However evolution does sometimes take place much, much faster when either the species is under massive pressure or when there are significant vacancies in the ecology after, say, a major extinction event. Also evolution should be measured in generations not years, so very short lived species such as fruit flies can evolve very quickly. However that has little to do with my arguments.

I sincerely hope I never gave the impression evolution was guided. As you say it most certainly isn't other than the abstract guidance of survival. And yes if intelligence assists in that then intelligence will evolve. Regarding filter feeding Cetaceans, let me briefly put my pedant hat on as state that they are still predators! However I agree not a lot of intelligence is required to filter feed. Except maybe knowing where and when they will find the krill etc. Also I would say we really don't know just how intelligent the big filter feeders actually are! But they are physically very handicapped when it comes to manipulating their environment which is when I suspect the intelligence traits can really kick in big time, as in making tools etc.

I also don't think I ever stated that intelligence is inevitable for a predator just more likely. If the predator is already extremely successful, like your shark example, then it's unlikely small incremental increases in intelligence would provide any significant advantage. And that's the other thing about evolution, of course, not only is it slow but it moves in small incremental stages. So it's no use asking if an intelligent rabbit would stand a better chance against foxes, of course it would, but rather would a _minutely _more intelligent rabbit have a better survival rate than a _minutely _faster rabbit. My vote goes to the latter. 

So I don't say that all predators will inevitably be intelligent (I doubt there's a _lot_ of intelligence in a snake), but I do think intelligence is a trait that is more advantageous to predators. I also would dispute your claim that humans evolved intelligence to use tools. Chimps are just hitting that stage but I would argue they have had higher than average animal intelligence for a long time. As for acting socially; I would ask why is social behaviour a successful trait? And I would argue that it is because it makes for more efficient food gathering (hunting in packs etc) and defense of your territory. It all comes down to ability to survive in the end. 

Incidentally one of the reasons I think intelligence is likely to favour omnivores or at least more catholic eaters than say wolves is that most carnivores have pretty much only got one hunting strategy whereas an omnivore will develop many; they must discover which fruits are edible and which are poisonous, a strategy for hunting a monkey is not going to work for hunting termites etc.

Finally I think I wrote everything in probabilities. I didn't say an intelligent alien _would _be an aggressive, predator just that I think it's much more _likely _than a pacifist herbivore.

As you might have guessed I find this a fascinating topic!


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## Dave (Jul 10, 2019)

psychotick said:


> They mostly end up with someone in essence arguing that evolution is essentially guided whether they realise it or not.


Thanks, I'm sure we will all avoid doing that now.


psychotick said:


> The other problem that keeps cropping into these sorts of arguments is that people often confuse tech advancement with evolution.


No confusion here, though I see I might have conflated technology and intelligence with my throwaway comment that we would still be Apes. The point is that any alien who makes contact is going to require both intelligence and technology and so _might_ be quite a lot like us in many ways. Ravens use tools but they aren't intelligent. Dolphins are intelligent but they can't build a spaceship. I'm not sure we are certain yet why we became super intelligent. It might well have been to be better hunters. It certainly wasn't so that we could visit the stars. Regarding the examples given, the Whale is intelligent because its distant land ancestor was intelligent, it doesn't require intelligence to filter feed the oceans. The Shark isn't intelligent because it has been successful for a very long time without any need for intelligence to evolve.


Toby Frost said:


> I'm not even sure that humans are all that warlike, at least not individually.


You really think so? People are cruel, vindictive and stop at nothing to put themselves first. It is so unusual for them to act any differently that we call those heroes and give them medals. History is filled with genocide and slavery, both ancient and modern history, and where I do agree with @psychotick is that we are not very genetically different to a man of fifty thousand years ago, so probably also not so different in temperament and behaviour.


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## Vertigo (Jul 10, 2019)

It occurs to me that a better example to counter my own arguments about non-intelligent herbivores would be elephants. they are arguably quite smart and they are herbivores. But, as I said, I don't site intelligent herbivores as impossible just much much less common. And, as @Dave points out, to come visiting us they need technology as well and that means the ability to manipulate stuff, whilst the elephant's trunk is pretty handy (sorry!!!), they only have one, and my mate who lost one of his arms in the army many years ago will tell you that the inability to work one manipulator against another is hugely limiting.

If octopuses had managed to evolve on land they might have given us a run for our money!


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## M. Robert Gibson (Jul 10, 2019)

Dave said:


> Dolphins are intelligent but they can't build a spaceship


I have nothing intelligent to add to this discussion, so I'll just say


> So long and thanks for all the fish.


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## Robert Zwilling (Jul 10, 2019)

I don't know about super intelligence as a human parameter when we have installed kill switches into our infrastructure. I don't know what survival of the fittest means when looking at the race between humans and other animals on this planet. The other animals don't seem to be winning and without being able to build spaceships they probably won't have a chance. Perhaps it is survival of the trickiest that replaces survival of the fittest once one or more groups attain artificial superiority over the rest of the populations. Trickiest is a quality that the coyote has always had. It is just big enough to be a killer but has a build that is stealth like in the way it presents it's body flying along on thin low profile legs. Human trickiness and fittest is usually limited by how long the batteries last. Do star hopping citizens have the same weakness, lose the mode of transportation and their hold on life suddenly evaporates. Perhaps evolution based on external machinery has an asterisk next to it like the steroid records. If lasting change is based on using mental power to manipulate the environment without machinery then the dolphins could build a spaceship and sorcery is much more than a lost art.


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## Danny McG (Jul 11, 2019)

See that soldier in the original 'The day the Earth stood still'?
The one who fired at the alien as it was raising the peace offering?

That's me, that is.


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## Toby Frost (Jul 11, 2019)

Dave said:


> You really think so? People are cruel, vindictive and stop at nothing to put themselves first. It is so unusual for them to act any differently that we call those heroes and give them medals. History is filled with genocide and slavery, both ancient and modern history, and where I do agree with @psychotick is that we are not very genetically different to a man of fifty thousand years ago, so probably also not so different in temperament and behaviour.



That's not what I mean. I'm not saying that people are _nice_. Trust me, I have absolutely no illusions in that regard. They're not, and they need very, very strong checks to prevent them behaving in a debased fashion. Only an idiot could look at the last few years and disagree with that. But they are followers, not leaders or loners. A really warlike species would be full of individuals permanently bashing one another. It would be proper chaos. That's not how humans work. What humans want is permission to indulge their worst instincts. That permission requires them to follow a god-figure. To my mind, it's as much moral cowardice as being inherently warlike.

I mentioned Richard Morgan's _Black Man_ earlier. That involves a kind of (human-looking) semi-caveman, who is from a species of violent loners. At once point, he observes that the only sense of religion he has is a vague urge to find God and fight him. That's what I mean by really warlike. But I suspect that we might be arguing much the same point here.


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## Extollager (Jul 11, 2019)

C. S. Lewis has some interesting speculations in a late essay with the somewhat banal title "Religion and Rocketry."






						Religion and Rocketry, by C.S. Lewis
					

In my time I have heard two quite different arguments against my religion put forward in the name of science. When I was a youngster, people...




					scientificintegrity.blogspot.com
				




He takes the angle of ours being the species that makes contact with life on another planet.

Another_ embodied species is like ours if its mature members can make promises_ (whatever it looks like).  Without knowledge of "their" language or languages (it seems usually to be assumed that "aliens" will all speak the same language -- I don't suppose that's necessary to assume), that could be impossible for us to recognize.  But for now that's about as a good a short definition of _human_ as I can offer.


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## Dave (Jul 11, 2019)

Let's not stray too far into "religion" or we will have to close the thread. I can however, see the point that @Toby Frost is making now. Individuals try to hold their behaviour in check but are always seeking permission to do otherwise from leaders. We call the first a decent society, the alternative leads to civil war or worse. I respect that there are a wide variety of views on religion held by the members of this forum, but I think everyone would agree that if most people believed in an all powerful God, then robbing from Churches would not have been an item on the national News here yesterday evening. We have lost many of the checks on behaviour that we once had in place.

However, I'm quite certain that we could never have the First World War again today either. The combination of pressures put upon UK men to enlist, either because they were fighting for their King, or for their Country, or for their God, or against propaganda of the barbaric "Hun", or because women would call them cowards and hand them a white feather, and that they could never keep their positions in civil society, lead to whole streets, villages and boys clubs signing up, and going off to the trenches to die together. I don't believe anyone has the same kind of formal respect for their leaders today, in part because of the poor quality of those leaders, but I wonder if the those leaders actually had any better leadership qualities in the past?

On the other hand, an alien invasion (or merely an alien visit) would surely galvanise people into a united popular resistance. Even against superior odds and certain death, if it were shown to be a just cause then people would fight back. That is why, despite what they knew about the effects of First World War, they were resigned to fighting the Second World War within a generation. If their were also populist leaders who had enough followers and could stir xenophobia....

(There you go. Only page 5 of the thread and I almost mentioned Hitler!)


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## Extollager (Jul 11, 2019)

Dave, yes, a caution about political discussions and religious debates is fine, but probably you would agree that the "first contact" topic has a religious aspect.  Interestingly, though, the Lewis essay I cited argues that, after an initial flurry of people claiming points for their side, the discovery of "alien" life elsewhere in the universe would likely leave things pretty much where they were.  He goes on to discuss some things that, strictly speaking, go beyond first contact.

I've wondered about what would happen if Terrans detected radio transmissions -- certain evidence of a civilization "out there" somewhere.  I think people are usually naive about how easy it would be to translate them, let alone to reply.  I imagine a scenario in which a whole generation is growing up knowing there is civilized life on such-and-such a planet far away, but with no way of understanding the broadcasts (including even knowing if they are intended to be detected by off-planet beings).  What would it be like to run up against something like that as just a simple fact of life, year after year?  I wonder if it would be possible even to pinpoint just where the emissions transmissions were from.  Without that, how could one estimate how old they were?  So you have radio broadcasts from an uncertain place and from an uncertain time, and no hope of understanding them.  I wrote a story in which I tried to relate that kind of limitation to others.  We tend to think that "progress" will just keep on (assuming we don't blow ourselves up or die from climate change), but limits do get reached.  For example, even with extreme genetic engineering, people won't _always_ keep getting taller or faster.  What would it be like when, say, the record for running the mile had been set decades ago -- just as an example of coming up against limits?


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## Dave (Jul 11, 2019)

Extollager said:


> I think people are usually naive about how easy it would be to translate them, let alone to reply. I imagine a scenario in which a whole generation is growing up knowing there is civilized life on such-and-such a planet far away, but with no way of understanding the broadcasts (including even knowing if they are intended to be detected by off-planet beings). What would it be like to run up against something like that as just a simple fact of life, year after year?



Absolutely! Daniel Jackson from _Stargate_ does not exist. The Rosetta Stone (written in three languages) was unique. We have no idea how to read the Olmec script on the Cascajal Block. I had heard of that before, but a quick Wikipedia search gives a whole page of undecipherable writing systems, and those were written by humans.


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## Extollager (Jul 11, 2019)

I should've written, "a whole generation is growing up knowing there is *or was* civilized life on such-and-such a planet."  If it's very far away, the time lapse between the emitting of the radio transmissions and their detection on Earth would be considerable.

James Gunn's *The Listeners* deals with something like this, but it is years since I read it & I don't remember much.


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## Danny McG (Jul 18, 2019)




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## Dennis E. Taylor (Jul 18, 2019)

Getting back to the idea of "experts", in this case I think they'd be people who have been paid to think of as many scenarios as they can and come up with responses. It's a theoretical kind of expertise, but it still puts them several steps above the "holy crap! run in circles!" crowd.

Some possible alternative scenarios:
1. We get a radio message, but no live visit
2. We get a visit from a non-intelligent probe, with a message and instructions for replying.
3. We get a visit from a probe with an A.I.
4. We get a visit from aliens who are somewhat ahead of us technologically, except for having FTL (think 'accidental discovery')
4a. Those aliens are like us in that they are comprehensible: individuals with understandable motivations.
4b. Those aliens are different in some way: hive mind, herd animal, Tines (from A Fire Upon the Deep), silicon life, etc. but are still trying to communicate
4c. Those aliens are completely incomprehensible, like in The Arrival
4d. The aliens are at the level of 2001 A Space Odyssey, and there's simply no common ground.

Now throw in belligerence. Are they peaceful, or are they here to conquer/enslave/exterminate us? Do they want our water/iron/coffee? Are they interested in trade, exchange of knowledge, or are they here as missionaries? (That last one would really set off the fundamentalists)

There's an interesting segment on one of Isaac Arthur's SFIA videos where he talks about how you'd go about working out communications with aliens, and it's really interesting how much you can do with zero initial information. As for communicating by smell or color blinks, I'd expect that any intelligent species capable of getting into space would have to have created some kind of written language, simply because at the early stages of civilization you A) need to record things, and B) only have the 'marks on a surface' option. However weird the aliens would be, you should be able to start with simple things like run/eat/go and work up from there.

Anyway, the bottom line for me is that how it goes would be determined more by them than by us. We'd just be reacting.


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## Parson (Jul 18, 2019)

Dennis E. Taylor said:


> Anyway, the bottom line for me is that how it goes would be determined more by them than by us. We'd just be reacting.



Good insight! And easy to overlook.


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## Vertigo (Jul 18, 2019)

Dennis E. Taylor said:


> Are they peaceful, or are they here to conquer/enslave/exterminate us? Do they want our water/iron/coffee?


First question is possible but the second is highly unlikely. As already discussed, there is literally_ nothing_ on this planet that they couldn't get with_ much_ less effort elsewhere in the solar system. But the planet itself? We don't yet know how common planets with significant amounts of both liquid water and land are out there. It's perfectly possible they may want our real estate.


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## tegeus-Cromis (Jul 18, 2019)

Vertigo said:


> First question is possible but the second is highly unlikely. As already discussed, there is literally_ nothing_ on this planet that they couldn't get with_ much_ less effort elsewhere in the solar system.


Really? How about Funko Pops? Maybe what they really want is our Funko Pops. Seen as the apex of civilization throughout the known universe.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 18, 2019)

Run away !


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## Lumens (Jul 18, 2019)

They'll want our maple syrup.


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## Parson (Jul 18, 2019)

Lumens said:


> They'll want our maple syrup.



Are you a closet Canadian?


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## Lumens (Jul 18, 2019)

Parson said:


> Are you a closet Canadian?


The aliens are. You wait and see!

We'll be calling them Canaliens before long, once they get a taste for the stuff.


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