Tell E.T. skeptics where to stick it
- Thread starter Itisnotlogical
- Start date
Nah, I just enjoy sticking pins into hot air balloons full of pomposity.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Thanks for the help, Deckerd.
Personally, I'll just ignore Zachary until he comes to his senses. It works with small children - it should work with him.
Personally, I'll just ignore Zachary until he comes to his senses. It works with small children - it should work with him.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
^^
Friends again now?
Friends again now?
I'll weigh in on the "Big place, small chance" contingent.
Not only is the Universe very big, it is also very old. We're not only looking at aliens coming to earth, but doing so during an extremely short period of time. Some star systems are billions of years older than ours, which is quite a head start.
I tend to think if the physics problems people think/hope we will solve in a thousand years to allow travel of interstellar distances reasonably would already have been solved by many (many) older civilizations than ours, and we would already be receiving guests. Since we aren't, they haven't, so it is likely they can't, and we won't.
For all intents and purposes, the universe may be teaming with intellegent life, but the odds of encountering it are virtually nil.
Not only is the Universe very big, it is also very old. We're not only looking at aliens coming to earth, but doing so during an extremely short period of time. Some star systems are billions of years older than ours, which is quite a head start.
I tend to think if the physics problems people think/hope we will solve in a thousand years to allow travel of interstellar distances reasonably would already have been solved by many (many) older civilizations than ours, and we would already be receiving guests. Since we aren't, they haven't, so it is likely they can't, and we won't.
For all intents and purposes, the universe may be teaming with intellegent life, but the odds of encountering it are virtually nil.
^^
Or it could be a hop a skip and a jump away from our galaxy. The point I was trying to make is, we don't know jack. A few hundred years ago, the computer I'm using would have been considered witchcraft and I'd have been burned at the stake. People in ancient Rome thought they had reached the pinnacle of technology, and look what happened to them. They got their asses conquered. My point is, we really don't know, so why not find out before we make asses of ourselves?
Or it could be a hop a skip and a jump away from our galaxy. The point I was trying to make is, we don't know jack. A few hundred years ago, the computer I'm using would have been considered witchcraft and I'd have been burned at the stake. People in ancient Rome thought they had reached the pinnacle of technology, and look what happened to them. They got their asses conquered. My point is, we really don't know, so why not find out before we make asses of ourselves?
Last edited:
We don't know there aren't unicorns and pink fairies out there either, but we can make logical deductions on their existence.
It COULD be a hop, skip and a jump away from our galaxy. If it turns out that our understanding of Physics and travelling beyond light speed is correct, a hop, skip and a jump might as well be on the other side of the universe. The (apparent) fact that nothing has made the hop, skip, or jump being eons older and wiser is a good arguement that our understanding of physics, in this regard, is accurate, that faster than light travel isn't possible, otherwise we would have been visited many times over.
I tend to believe the universe is teaming with life. I have no evidence except for the apparent odds, which themselves may just be wishful thinking. It appears I will never find out if I'm right. Even IF we mounted an effort right now the answer won't be back for thousands of years, and that. Personally, I'd rather spend the effort simply learning to live in space, set up a ship that can survive unassisted in orbit for a generation. Then take that proven technology to other planets, then the stars (and the big gaps between). I wonder if after the 5,000 years this will likely take, if those travellers return to earth if they would be identifiable as human?
Look who's talking. Before the really fast aircraft came out, people said you absolutely could not break the sound barrier, it was flat-out impossible. You could make all the calculations and account for all the variables you want- if I trip over my shoelaces heading out the door and crack my head open, that happened because of random chance. I try to keep an open mind; maybe it will be hundreds of millions of years before we can without a doubt verify the existence of aliens, much less make contact with them. Or maybe after years of observing us from afar, they'll decide that we're ready to acknowledge them and will have teatime with (insert political figure here) at noon tommorow.
^^
An open mind is great, but don't be so open that your brains fall out.
This isn't about what "people" say. "People" are idiots. The people that say things are impossible are generally not educated on the topic of which they speak.
IF it turns out our understanding of physics is wrong and it is possible to travel faster than the speed of light AND IF there are plenty of alien societies out there... THEN some of them have had not millions, but billions of years to figure out FTL travel, and visitors to earth would likely be common-place. So, either intellalient life isn't plentiful, or FTL travel isn't possible (or both). My reading/hope is that alien life is plentiful, so it is likely FTL travel isn't possible.
At any rate, starting now for a maybe in a million years (I think we're looking at 5,000, but that's neither here nor there) for a mission most likely to fail catastrophically, it's best to wait and build more local and immediate technology and experience. Telling people that don't believe in aliens "where to stick it" could end up foisting us on our own pitard... rather uncomfortably. Right now, we simply have belief, and they don't.
An open mind is great, but don't be so open that your brains fall out.
This isn't about what "people" say. "People" are idiots. The people that say things are impossible are generally not educated on the topic of which they speak.
IF it turns out our understanding of physics is wrong and it is possible to travel faster than the speed of light AND IF there are plenty of alien societies out there... THEN some of them have had not millions, but billions of years to figure out FTL travel, and visitors to earth would likely be common-place. So, either intellalient life isn't plentiful, or FTL travel isn't possible (or both). My reading/hope is that alien life is plentiful, so it is likely FTL travel isn't possible.
At any rate, starting now for a maybe in a million years (I think we're looking at 5,000, but that's neither here nor there) for a mission most likely to fail catastrophically, it's best to wait and build more local and immediate technology and experience. Telling people that don't believe in aliens "where to stick it" could end up foisting us on our own pitard... rather uncomfortably. Right now, we simply have belief, and they don't.
That's a misconception. People said it was impossible to control an aircraft above the speed of sound. They weren't saying it was impossible to go that fast. Bullets and rockets were already proven to go faster than sound. A whip moves faster than sound. That's why it cracks.
The "sound barrier" was an apparent limit in aircraft engineering. The "light barrier" is a limit set by physical law. There's no comparison. Just because you can break one barrier does not make it any more possible to break the other.
The point being that the "experts" who said "such and such" and proclaimed the "impossible" were WRONG. Dead wrong. It doesn't matter why they were wrong or the differences in the specifics of the issues at hand. The "experts" were wrong and that permits latitude to question the credibility of "experts" on other matters.
I know we're trying to avoid the whole 'UFO's have landed' angle, but since this is the TREK BBS, just for the sake of argument, aren't we overlooking the possibility that ET's might have some sort of non interferance philosophy? After all, even we try not to 'contaminate' the subjects of our study of nature such as the great apes etc. might ET's do the same? The possibility of 'covert' surveilance would mitigate the "we haven't been visited so it's impossible or there's no one out there" argument. And mind you, this surveilance could take many forms, for all we know it could be that advanced ET's have the ability to appear human and interact with us, so we would never know? I Guess my point is; The possibilities are endless, so lets not define the perameters too narrowly.
But, you are defining the parameter norrowly yourself. It's really hard not to if you want to arrive at any sort of guess. You are advancing the idea that ET's are acting as a single unit, or minimally have a common belief, and as such may have ALL decided to be covert and non-interfering. If FTL travel is possible, then there would be Klingon and Romulan types out there conquering and Federation types being covertly non-interfering. Even the non-interfering Federation interfered pretty often.
While non-interference is a high minded idea, humanity hasn't done it so well just here on earth. Just one interfering entity (person, social group, government, corporation) can undo all the high minded non-interfering folks talk about. One would have to conclude with infinite possibilites there would be everything out there waiting to deal with us in their own ways.
When it comes to non-interference, I don't think there would be unanimous buy in, there would always be the Harry Mudds or Centaris out there to find a way to profit from the natives.
Without FTL travel, the only interaction would be in "world ships". Think of how much building one would take out of our economy, how many could we build, even in 1,000 years? So we send them out in a couple directions. What are the odds that we happen upon a star system that with it's billions of years of history just happens to be in that point of development that an intellegent life form is emergent but hasn't exausted their natural resources yet? If nearby aliens did this, what are the odds they chose the right instant in time? 50,000 years either way in the Billions of years of history, a cosmic blink of the eye, and they miss us.
Perhaps all the neighborhood aliens checked out earth a billion years ago, found a hot rock, or 100,000 years ago and found some smart monkeys but nothing to really talk to, said, oh well, and set off toward the next next star. Would we be inclined to retrace our steps in 50,000 years, or go somewhere new?
Don't get me wrong, I'd love for that grain of sand in that desert be found, but with the world ending in 2012 they better hurry
I agree, however, that the possibilities are endless. They just get narrowed down real quick by the vastness of space.
I know what you mean, but it's still comparing apples to oranges. When the "experts" said it was impossible to control a manned supersonic aircraft with the technology in use, people started working on new technologies that would allow it. There were provable examples that things could fly supersonic, so it was a matter of discovering the right technique in order to prove the "experts" wrong.
Now, when "experts" say that the laws of physics don't allow anything to be accelerated past the speed of light, there is a great deal of evidence that says they're right. So we should... what? Get new experts? Make up new laws of physics? We can't just start working on new technologies unless they're based on something. So, what does that leave us?
I don't mean to say that we won't discover a means. I'm just saying that there isn't much latitude right now to do so. The sound barrier "experts" were only describing our ability to build airplanes. The light barrier "experts" are describing our best knowledge of how the world works. Both things can change, but one is a LOT harder to change than the other.
On the other hand, if we make a breakthrough tomorrow, or if the aliens land, I'll take it all back.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Who the hell went out and counted all the grains of sand on Earth? seriously, somehow we apparently know the number of grains of sand on the Earth and therefore know theres more stars than grains of sand but just who was it that went and counted them?
