Stephen Hawking says beware intelligent aliens.

[HareBrain]

Such a probe fired at the opposite end of the Milky Way could carry frozen embryos. On arrival, the robots thaw them, incubate them, and then educate the new offspring. Obviously I am talking of an advanced technology. However, it is entirely possible that humans will be able to do that within 1,000 years.

Does anyone know of an SF story that has this as its central idea?

 

[chrispenycate]

The basic problem is not whether they are benevolent or aggressive, it is that when one culture comes into contact with another, it is changed, and historically, cultures with inferior technology were destroyed. The missionary seeking to save souls, the trader only interested in profit, and the would-be noble looking to carve himself out a kingdom might have very different motives, but a few decades down the line the result is the same; anthropologists trying to analyse from the ageing details of their original lifestyles and philosophies.

With distances between the stars I doubt whether they could conquer, or there would be anything but knowledge that it would be economic to trade; but they could still destroy humanity as we know it (and would that be so bad a thing, I hear you ask? That's not entirely the point) without the slightest malevolence.

 

[JDP]

Would the Earth's meagre resources even be worth the effort of travelling lightyears to harvest?

And why would such advanced aliens even need to come in person? I think the assumption that physical travel is necessary is a little parochial They could be surveilling every facet of our lives from the comfortable sulphur flats of Khrrykktibynyckusstys Prime using advanced technology that is indistinguishable from magic to us mere humans. Contact in-person (or even ex machina) would be a little déclassé for the Khrrykktibynyckusstysians, believe you me; they're a snooty bunch.

Perhaps they could wipe us out at any given moment with the push of a button (or even with just a thought?). But don't worry, just make yourself a hat out of aluminium foil like mine, and at least their mind-control beams won't get you.

 

[skeptical]

There is an obvious resource to harvest from Earth. DNA.

Biological resources may be the vital material. To take a little nucleic acid from each and every species on Earth would require little in the way of mass to transport. Yet their value might be a billion times greater than gold.

The biggest thing, though, in this discussion is the depth of our ignorance. We simply have no idea of what our hypothetical alien species might be like. Beneficent or malevolent? We do not know.

 

[AE35Unit]

And I say dont worry folks, the distances involved are too much to make the threat a valid one!

 

[Parson]

Does anyone know of an SF story that has this as its central idea?

We were just dealing with this on the book finder thread. Hogan's "Voyage from Yesteryear" uses this idea as one way of crossing interstellar distances, but the real "story" has much more to do with sociology and psychology than technology.

(I'm thinking in alliteration here )

 

[Moonbat]

I think one of the problems with this (fermi paradox) theory is that it hasn't taken into account the 4.6 billion years it took for intelligent life to evolve here on planet Earth. Saying we only need another 680'000 years to span the galaxy is also asuming that we will last that long, other species existed on this earth for longer than we have and did not reach a state of intelligence, so regardless of the amount of time involved there is also the delicate nature of evolution to factor in.

If modern society is any kind of example (and I wager that it isn't) the more developed a country the slower its population increases until (as with many Western nations) the internal population is no longer increasing. If you extrapolate this to the 'Aliens' then there is a perfect chance that they are not going to expand indefintiely across the stars but rather find a nice little corner and settle down into a prolonged comfortable existance.
Obviously there are flaws with my argument, evolution of the 'aliens' for example might require extraterrestrial DNA to keep things moving, either that or extreme enviromental pressures.

 

[HareBrain]

We were just dealing with this on the book finder thread. Hogan's "Voyage from Yesteryear" uses this idea as one way of crossing interstellar distances, but the real "story" has much more to do with sociology and psychology than technology.

(I'm thinking in alliteration here )

Thanks, Parson -- a friend has started writing a story with exactly that set-up, so I'll get him to take a look.

 

[Parson]

I think one of the problems with this (fermi paradox) theory is that it hasn't taken into account the 4.6 billion years it took for intelligent life to evolve here on planet Earth. Saying we only need another 680'000 years to span the galaxy is also asuming that we will last that long, other species existed on this earth for longer than we have and did not reach a state of intelligence, so regardless of the amount of time involved there is also the delicate nature of evolution to factor in.

This has always been the flaw that I've seen in the Femi paradox as well. On the other hand we are making the rather major assumption that we are something like average in the time it takes for intelligence to develop.
Which might not be true. If one assumes that evolution on the macro scale develops along a bell shaped continuum, it is a good bet to be in the middle third. But with no other examples to compare our evolutionary development to, it is by no means a sure bet.

I think a better bet is that if there are technically advanced aliens, they will at least have a history of competing successfully, and likely violently, at one time of the other. So, as Hawking says, we should tread carefully in this area.

 

[skeptical]

To moonbat and parson
About this 'flaw' in the Fermi Paradox.....

You should note that 10% of the star systems in our Milky Way galaxy are 2 billion plus years older than ours. If it took 4.5 billion years for intelligent life to evolve on Earth, and if that is typical, then on 10% of the life bearing planets, that intelligent life evolved 2 billion years ago. Plenty of time.....

 

[jojajihisc]

But why would a planet capable of supporting life necessarily yield intelligent life?

 

[skeptical]

Further to my comment about 10% of the galaxy ....

This adds up to about 20 billion star systems. If life is found on one planet in every one million star systems, that is 20,000 star systems with life, and 2 billion years plus older than Earth.

If one in a thousand star systems with life evolve intelligent life, that adds up to 20 intelligent species with a 2 billion plus years head start on Earth.

Of course, my numbers may be totally wrong. Add a zero to both numbers, and there is a very good chance that there is no intelligent life in our galaxy except Earth life.

 

[Parson]

Further to my comment about 10% of the galaxy ....

This adds up to about 20 billion star systems. If life is found on one planet in every one million star systems, that is 20,000 star systems with life, and 2 billion years plus older than Earth.

If one in a thousand star systems with life evolve intelligent life, that adds up to 20 intelligent species with a 2 billion plus years head start on Earth.

Of course, my numbers may be totally wrong. Add a zero to both numbers, and there is a very good chance that there is no intelligent life in our galaxy except Earth life.

As much as it pains me, this is what I think. No intelligent life in our galaxy except for humanity, and we basically waste the precious gift.

 

[Moonbat]

Skeptical,
There are many more contributing factors to intelligent life evolving on Earth, there would need to be a planet the size of Jupiter to protect the Earth like planet from ateroid impacts, and even then it seems like asteroids come along fairly frequently and wipe everything out. So 2 billion extra years doesn't really count for much if the window of opportunity (to evolve intelligence) is shortened significantly by other external influences.

I think intelligent life may well have evolved but that to expect to see evidence of it from all the way out here is wishful thinking. The idea behind Fermi's paradox is based on large numbers and the expectation that life evolving isn't too tricky, nor intelligent life evolving, nor technological capabilities being reached quickly enough to allow galaxy wide migration. there are alot of factors that we have no way of analysing except for our own experienced, and that is hardly a good way to begin a statistical analyses.

 

[skeptical]

Actually, I agree with Parson that intelligent life is probably very, very rare.

The thing really is the sheer lack of data that we have to make deductions from. The numbers usually quoted are enormous, and if life is common, then it follows that highly evolved (hence intelligent) life would also be numerous in our galaxy. It is the word 'if' that we must remember....

However, back to the OP, I agree with Hawking that we should not be sending out invitations to potential visitors from elsewhere in our galaxy. Just as we have no data on numbers of life bearing worlds, we also have no data on what any hypothetical intelligent species might be like. It might be both xenophobic and genocidal.

On the other hand, they might be utopians who would just love to share their wonderful gifts with us, but is it worth taking that risk?

The probability of any probe or signal from Earth actually reaching an intelligent species is rather small. But it still seems a very unwise thing to do, sending a signal, and tempting fate.

 

[Ursa major]

If the aliens see our TV tranmissions, they'll suspect strongly that there's little or no intelligent life on Earth.

But Earth could still be made into an SSSI**, so it isn't definite that we'd be wiped out.







** - a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

 

[Urien]

No the aliens will put us on trial first; then they'll find us guilty of being beastly to one another. The sentence of course will be death for humanity, after all xenocide reflects a merciful, enlightened and benevolent nature.

I never did get the logic of those shows.

 

[Dave]

I'm still not happy about the "Shoot First, Ask Questions Later" attitude promoted here. If the aliens also have this same attitude then 'Intelligent Life' does not deserve to survive because it will have been proven not to be very intelligent. However, hiding ourselves and monitoring for them instead is a plan that will only work if they don't have the same idea themselves.

On the subject of picking up TV and Radio broadcasts from Space. There may only be a short window to catch those of a few hundred years while technology moves from broadcasts of long wave to narrow cast direct short wave and wired internet based TV.

 

[Moonbat]

In some senses 'shoot first and ask questions later' is the intelligent response. If (the use of the word 'if' suggests there is a chance) there is a chance that they are going to attack then shooting first would be prudent in terms of survival, not sure about asking questions of a dead alien, but a beaten and surrendered Alien could still answer questions.

Violence in nature is common and they say it is a dog eat dog world, so maybe any aliens that we encounter would be violent xenophobic monsters. If peace is the result of an enlightened populace then maybe when we have found peace (becomed enlightened) we will realise that agressive expansion isn't required. Not sure if scientific exploration would suffer the same fate. But then truly benevolent scientific exploration would be as non-invasive as possible so maybe we just havne't caught the robotic alien scientist taking small samples of our population

 

[Ursa major]

With regard to intelligence, don't forget to factor in that we are a species testing for the effect of our anatomy on the likelihood of earthquakes.