Contacting Aliens 'A Bad Idea', Warns Hawking

[Admiral Buzzkill]

You've consumed the benefits of the U.S. invasions of other nations, of course, and you still do.

Why would an alien form of life that could cross interstellar distances give any thought at all to the "rights" of local and non-compatible life?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You've consumed the benefits of the U.S. invasions of other nations, of course, and you still do.

Why would an alien form of life that could cross interstellar distances give any thought at all to the "rights" of local and non-compatible life?

Strictly speaking, nobody has any rights other than those they can uphold by force. This is the whole reason why we have governments: a large organized body designed to uphold our (or, when things go to hell, the local dictator's) rights. Sometimes a very sophisticated people will have advocates who will argue for the rights of outsiders, but you can't always count on that being the case, or even being effective; the U.S. still bans the import of ivory from elephant tusks, but that doesn't stop American poachers from taking them.

Ultimately, if the Gorn or God knows who else thinks humans are tastier than chicken, the only thing we have going for us is that we're alot more powerful than chickens and we have the ability to make it economically infeasible for them to harvest and eat us (through either sabotage, guerilla warfare or full scale combat). The worst case scenario is we encounter a race of aliens who not only find us tasty, but enjoy the added challenge of having to hunt and kill their meals, in which case we're fucked: no amount of resistance will deter them, and we're reduced back to a race of cave-dwelling hominids cowering in fear from voracious predators.

 

[John Picard]

I know this has been a theory before, but to me, it's further evidence that an advanced species wouldn't desire to plunder the Earth for resources:

Ice asteroids likely source of Earth's water: study

 

[Silvercrest]

Stephen Hawking doesn't agree.

He thinks that they will rape and impregnate our women with alien seed and use us as slaves.

I, for one, welcome our new impregnating overlords.

 

[skep155]

I think people have overlooked a potential source of conflict, even if upon first contact both Humans and Aliens had entirely benevolent intentions, conflicts would inevitably arise due to our inability to communicate with each other effectively. In real life universal translators don't exist, it's hard to translate the languages of our own species, imagine trying to communicate with a species who 'talk' to each other by secreting chemical's from their bodies because their primary sense is smell. If one of our ambassadors farts at the negotiation table it could be taken as a deceleration of war or an invitation to set up a helium 3 mining base on the moon.

Sure we might have space ships and all types of cool gadgets, but biologically we'll be no different to the primitive hunter gatherers living on the African Savannah 80,000 years ago, and what does a frightened Homo Sapien do when it's mind thinks it sees a dangerous predator? Many people are terrified of insects yet they present a negligible threat to us. Imagine twelve foot tall sentient insects that have jaws big enough to swallow you whole and on top of that they fly around the Galaxy in space ships, even if they behaved fairly amicably and periodically sent us gifts do you think we'd want to be friends with them? I honestly can't envision a reaction other than sheer terror followed by a rush to build lots of giant bug killing guns.

 

[John Picard]

I think people have overlooked a potential source of conflict, even if upon first contact both Humans and Aliens had entirely benevolent intentions, conflicts would inevitably arise due to our inability to communicate with each other effectively. In real life universal translators don't exist, it's hard to translate the languages of our own species, imagine trying to communicate with a species who 'talk' to each other by secreting chemical's from their bodies because their primary sense is smell. If one of our ambassadors farts at the negotiation table it could be taken as a deceleration of war or an invitation to set up a helium 3 mining base on the moon.

Sure we might have space ships and all types of cool gadgets, but biologically we'll be no different to the primitive hunter gatherers living on the African Savannah 80,000 years ago, and what does a frightened Homo Sapien do when it's mind thinks it sees a dangerous predator? Many people are terrified of insects yet they present a negligible threat to us. Imagine twelve foot tall sentient insects that have jaws big enough to swallow you whole and on top of that they fly around the Galaxy in space ships, even if they behaved fairly amicably and periodically sent us gifts do you think we'd want to be friends with them? I honestly can't envision a reaction other than sheer terror followed by a rush to build lots of giant bug killing guns.

Bah. You're reading far too much into it. Where do you figure people can't translate languages here, on Earth?

 

[Cheapjack]

I think people have overlooked a potential source of conflict, even if upon first contact both Humans and Aliens had entirely benevolent intentions, conflicts would inevitably arise due to our inability to communicate with each other effectively. In real life universal translators don't exist, it's hard to translate the languages of our own species, imagine trying to communicate with a species who 'talk' to each other by secreting chemical's from their bodies because their primary sense is smell. If one of our ambassadors farts at the negotiation table it could be taken as a deceleration of war or an invitation to set up a helium 3 mining base on the moon.

Sure we might have space ships and all types of cool gadgets, but biologically we'll be no different to the primitive hunter gatherers living on the African Savannah 80,000 years ago, and what does a frightened Homo Sapien do when it's mind thinks it sees a dangerous predator? Many people are terrified of insects yet they present a negligible threat to us. Imagine twelve foot tall sentient insects that have jaws big enough to swallow you whole and on top of that they fly around the Galaxy in space ships, even if they behaved fairly amicably and periodically sent us gifts do you think we'd want to be friends with them? I honestly can't envision a reaction other than sheer terror followed by a rush to build lots of giant bug killing guns.

That's SOOO 1950's!!!

Are we going backward?

What if they're intelligent and peaceful?

What if they just look different??

 

[Deckerd]

it's hard to translate the languages of our own species,

since when?

 

[skep155]

it's hard to translate the languages of our own species,

since when?

Look up the Rosetta Stone. Without it we'd have taken a lot longer to translate the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics into a comprehensible language. We don't translate it out of thin air, without a direct historical link to an ancient language or someone from the past attempting to translate a language which they are more familiar with than us it's extremely difficult to translate the languages of ancient cultures. In the case of native central/south americans not many possessed a written form of their own language anyway so they adapted to learn European languages.

My point being that all of our languages share something in common, namely that they can all be spoken by the Human tongue, making them far more translatable than the languages spoken by a bioluminescent invertebrate.

 

[John Picard]

it's hard to translate the languages of our own species,

since when?

Look up the Rosetta Stone. Without it we'd have taken a lot longer to translate the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics into a comprehensible language. We don't translate it out of thin air, without a direct historical link to an ancient language or someone from the past attempting to translate a language which they are more familiar with than us it's extremely difficult to translate the languages of ancient cultures. In the case of native central/south americans not many possessed a written form of their own language anyway so they adapted to learn European languages.

My point being that all of our languages share something in common, namely that they can all be spoken by the Human tongue, making them far more translatable than the languages spoken by a bioluminescent invertebrate.

Your initial statement " it's hard to translate the languages of our own species, " does not match up with your Rosetta Stone example. Linguists have been able to decipher many languages, over the years there were completely unrelated to the Rosetta Stone.

 

[skep155]

since when?

Look up the Rosetta Stone. Without it we'd have taken a lot longer to translate the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics into a comprehensible language. We don't translate it out of thin air, without a direct historical link to an ancient language or someone from the past attempting to translate a language which they are more familiar with than us it's extremely difficult to translate the languages of ancient cultures. In the case of native central/south americans not many possessed a written form of their own language anyway so they adapted to learn European languages.

My point being that all of our languages share something in common, namely that they can all be spoken by the Human tongue, making them far more translatable than the languages spoken by a bioluminescent invertebrate.

Your initial statement " it's hard to translate the languages of our own species, " does not match up with your Rosetta Stone example. Linguists have been able to decipher many languages, over the years there were completely unrelated to the Rosetta Stone.

Of course, but they didn't do it overnight did they? I'm not a linguist but I assume that they didn't sit down and translate the entire Mandarin language along with all its colloquialism's and dialects within a few short days. If you ask the people who are learning the languages of isolated South American rainforest tribes 'how hard is it' i'm fairly sure they won't say "It's a piece of cake, only took me a week lol!".

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Of course, but they didn't do it overnight did they? I'm not a linguist but I assume that they didn't sit down and translate the entire Mandarin language along with all its colloquialism's and dialects within a few short days. If you ask the people who are learning the languages of isolated South American rainforest tribes 'how hard is it' i'm fairly sure they won't say "It's a piece of cake, only took me a week lol!".

The rosetta stone was used to decipher dead hieroglyphics.

When dealing with a living language, decipherment is a LOT easier - as Coloumbus/Magellan/etc (who were NOT linguistic genuises) discovered, as any anthropologist can tell you. The ones who speak the language will explain what a word, a scibling means by pointing at the object, performing the action, etc.

Of course, when dealing with aliens, mathematics will be the first language that is spoken. Why? Because it is the same throughout the universe; only the written symbols are different - but easily explained.

 

[Anticitizen]

An alien species doesn't have to be purposely hostile, or emotional, to be dangerous to us.

Imagine an alien species called, let's say, the Bozos of Dunlop IV.

The Bozos possess no emotion. They are fruitful and multiply at a very quick rate, and have short lifespans. They do not fear death. They look like giant termites.

When making a decision, instead of heated, emotional argument, they combat. Two arguing Bozos will fight to the death over what action to take over something. The survivor gets its way. If it turns out it was the right decision, the survivor has a higher chance of surviving further and propagating its bloodline. In other disagreements, three Bozos may simultaneously attack one lone dissenting Bozo. These sorts of battles are usually over quickly, and the majority gets its way (more votes!).

It all seems rather bloodthirsty to us, but remember that the Bozos reproduce very quickly - like Tribbles. Without this sort of 'culling the herd' form of debate they would face overpopulation issues. They also hold very little importance to personal life or death, as their lifespans are so short. As a result of their way of life, they evolve rather rapidly compared to most Earth creatures. Survival of the fittest, taken to heart.

Now, imagine how Earthlings meeting them for the first time on a remote planet would go down. Probably end in the slaughter of a human delegation and Earth's declaration of war.

With the Bozos never really understanding that what they did might be considered 'wrong' by another species.

Alien life doesn't have to play by any rules we set for it.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Anticitizen:

The 'Bozos' will never develop advanced technology - this requires cooperation, as in both parties of a given argument surviving.

 

[Anticitizen]

A requirement for humans, sure...

The Bozos do cooperate - the ones that survive, that is. Also, despite their short lifespans, they have a genetic memory. They're aliens, remember?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

A requirement for humans, sure...

The Bozos do cooperate - the ones that survive, that is. Also, despite their short lifespans, they have a genetic memory. They're aliens, remember?

The bozos who survive get killed in the next argument.

Anticitizen, science and technology require the cooperation of countless individuals, both intellectual and material.
In order to develop advanced technology and actually have something to inscribe in a genetic memory, the bozos need to cooperate, to work together "as in both parties of a given argument surviving" again and again.

Any species that can't cooperate will NEVER develop beyond stones and spears.

 

[Myasishchev]

^Hell, it's why democracy with rule of law triumphed over other forms of government, at least so far as material culture is concerned.

What I find funny about Hawking's pronouncement is the assumption that we could hide Earth from an extraterrestrial intelligence capable of hurting us. If they're looking, they would likely be able to image Earth and determine its size and chemical composition, whether we were here or not, or make noise or not. If Earth-like planets are important, they will be looking, either remotely like we do, or if resources like ours are important enough to seize, with probes.

By broadcasting our presence, we would be doing a favor to societies which generally try not to screw with other intelligences, who might then deprioritize us on the list of colonizable planets; but we wouldn't be saving ourselves from amoral aliens, because if they want Earth, they'll come and get it, because our little blue ball is not at all invisible to anyone who cares enough to look.

 

[Brandonv]

What I find funny about Hawking's pronouncement is the assumption that we could hide Earth from an extraterrestrial intelligence capable of hurting us. If they're looking, they would likely be able to image Earth and determine its size and chemical composition, whether we were here or not, or make noise or not.

This is a really good point. We are already beginning to study the atmospheres of exoplanets, and the recently launched Kepler telescope is expected to be able to find Earth-like planets. If we already have this much capability, then any advanced civilization near us already knows we are here.

A hypothetical alien race could even use their local stars gravity lens to do a detailed survey of our solar system. For all we know, pictures of Earth are hanging in alien science classrooms right now.

 

[Shatnertage]

The intentions of aliens, unfriendly or not, is inherently unfalsifiable until they get here. We just don't have any frame of reference to make more than a guess about what would happen.

I guess it might make sense to take precautions against the eventuality that "bad aliens" find us, but since we've got no idea what they would be like, what could we do? Dig deep holes and hide until they leave?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

^Hell, it's why democracy with rule of law triumphed over other forms of government, at least so far as material culture is concerned.

What I find funny about Hawking's pronouncement is the assumption that we could hide Earth from an extraterrestrial intelligence capable of hurting us. If they're looking, they would likely be able to image Earth and determine its size and chemical composition, whether we were here or not, or make noise or not. If Earth-like planets are important, they will be looking, either remotely like we do, or if resources like ours are important enough to seize, with probes.

By broadcasting our presence, we would be doing a favor to societies which generally try not to screw with other intelligences, who might then deprioritize us on the list of colonizable planets; but we wouldn't be saving ourselves from amoral aliens, because if they want Earth, they'll come and get it, because our little blue ball is not at all invisible to anyone who cares enough to look.

This was not the only questionable assumption Stephen Hawking made.
Another relates to the alien's motivation - exploiting Earth's resources, according to him:

"What reasons would aliens have for attacking us?
Logically - ony one reason is realistic:
They want to destroy us because, in a few thousands of years, we will be advanced enough to pose a threat to them, and the aliens want to prevent this from coming to pass. In other words, the aliens want to nip the threat in the bud.

Resources - those on Earth lie in a deep gravity well, unlike those in the asteroid belt, for example - much cheaper to exploit the asteroids, from an alien's perpective;
Slavery - for manual labor, robots are far better (less troubles, more production; for intellectual labor, no alien smart enough to develop interstellar travel will be stupid enough to cede it to someone else.

Ideologically/religiously - all bets are off.
The aliens may want to dress us all up as ballerinas, for all we know."