Stephen Hawking Warns of Alien Menace

[Deckerd]

I, as some here, was a little bit surprised hearing Hawking present the idea of hostile aliens as if it is on the level of a new theory

I'm pretty sure he didn't present it as a new theory.

 

[Meredith]

What did the government tell Mr. Hawking that we don't know????

 

[LitmusDragon]

But then, remember the ending that EJO came up with for BSG... where the Colonials land on Earth between 2001-2009 only to have Bush nuke their ships?

Some of us still haven't watched this show. Might want to watch the spoilers.

If someone as smart as Hawking is a little paranoid about aliens, it makes me feel a little bit better about my own paranoia.

 

[trekkiedane]

Some of us still haven't watched this show. Might want to watch the spoilers.

The last episode of that particular show aired in March 2009 and as I remember the rule-of-thumb is that if the show is more than ½ a year old in the country of origin you don't need to 'watch the spoilers' -not even in thread titles.

 

[Deckerd]

In any case there wasn't a sniff of a spoiler in Maestro's post, so I'm baffled by the response.

 

[Jono]

After reading this I've started to leave glasses of water around the house and have mounted baseball bats on the walls in every room just in case aliens invade...

 

[LitmusDragon]

In any case there wasn't a sniff of a spoiler in Maestro's post, so I'm baffled by the response.

Oh so that didn't actually happen on the show? Nevermind then.

(I have no idea who EJO is)

 

[Deckerd]

In any case there wasn't a sniff of a spoiler in Maestro's post, so I'm baffled by the response.

Oh so that didn't actually happen on the show? Nevermind then.

(I have no idea who EJO is)

The Stare

 

[thumbtack]

What if the aliens aren't Christians, and don't mind reboots?

The purity of our culture would be destroyed!!!

 

[Brolan]

My thinking is any aliens that contact us are more likely to be benevolent than hostile. To make it to space they would have had to discover nuclear weapons and not destroy their planet with them. They also would have to pour a good deal of resources into non-military space science to first explore their own solar system, then the rest of the galaxy.

We barely achieved the first, and can't seem to complete the second.

 

[Brolan]

If I were an advanced star-faring alien race seeking to take control of Earth for its resources, I'd simply seed the planet with biological weapons- sneak in an engineered virus, say- without even announcing my presence. Cloak a ship, gather data on human genetics and biology- shouldn't be too hard- use the advanced tech available to our interstellar culture to cultivate a deadly plague tailored to their biology. They have very little genetic diversity. It shouldn't be hard, if we have FTL and all. Who needs a full-out attack on the planetary defenses? The humans don't need to know we even exist. One stealth shuttle carrying the plague, seed the planet, sit back and wait a few months. One free planet!

Defend against that.

If they are hostile they wouldn't even need to do that. They could just come down and take what they want. The technology difference would be so extreme we wouldn't have a chance. You saw what a 10-20 year difference in technology did in the Iraq War, imagine a difference of hundreds or thousands of years.

If the aliens are hiding it's for our own good.

 

[B.J.]

I kinda like G'Kar's "ant" explanation for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLZW8Deq8vE