What if? Life on Mars/Venus

[Crewman47]

If either Mars or Venus had been Earth type planets and had Human life evolve on them then, if those humans had devloped at a similar rate to ourselves then how much of a difference would it have made to our rate of social and technological development and the space program itself, assuming of course that we discover that each planet is inhabited and try to contact them?

Do you think it'd make any difference to allow us to develop at least interstellar flight between planets?

 

[Bill Morris]

I wonder how disruptive first contact would turn out to be, even if tech levels were about the same. People doing research, writing literature, doing art, etc. might find contact disruptive, since the public would be more interssted in what already exists in the newly contacted culture. Maybe an invention I'm in the final stages of perfecting is already in use and well developed by the Martians. And who's going to publish my lastest romance novel or release my latest album when the public is engrossed in learning about Martian culture?　Who would want to watch the usual movies and TV programs or pay attention to our own celebrities when there's so much new to see?

 

[KJbushway]

Well seeing how one planet would be a cold place and one would be a really tropical place, I could see two things happening:

1. A interplanetary war for ground, with atomic nuclear bombs or biological warfare.
2. A peace founded by big buisness with travel between for the richest and well off, leaving the not so up there to sneak or steal their way aboard space ships.

I see conflicting views of religion and a fight to see who is the most dominant force, because the gravity is different between planets. Do I think that we would work together to build advanced starships? Not likely, right now humans can't even agree on simple views such as gay marriage and separation between religion and laws that rule over everyone.

 

[Robert D. Robot]

.... And who's going to publish my lastest romance novel or release my latest album when the public is engrossed in learning about Martian culture?　Who would want to watch the usual movies and TV programs or pay attention to our own celebrities when there's so much new to see?

Funny you make this interesting point. I have a friend who really wanted to create children's books about medieval stories and fairy tales when she started out from college; however, she had the misfortune(?) of starting her career in the late 1950's at the dawn of the Space Age. She told me that no one at that point wanted stories about knights and dragons. Publishers wanted stories about rocket ships and the men who flew them!

Even now, are there not some countries that try to keep the onslaught of American Culture a bit at bay to preserve their
own cultural identity, regarding art, film and music?

 

[KJbushway]

Yeah.

 

[Terengo]

You have described virtually every SF book I read as a kid in the late 50s and early 60s. Since it was an optimistic time, everything in the stories usually worked out fine.

 

[KJbushway]

The cold war and space race where optimistic times?

Generally yes, the books written represent the mood of the times its written in.

 

[Terengo]

The cold war and space race where optimistic times?

Actually, they were, at least in the circles I moved in. There was still a buzz from winning WWII that lasted into the late 50s. Science was still seen as capable of providing solutions to everything eventually. The space race wasn't scary; it was wildly exciting to a young boy such as me. The Cold War was really hotter in the 60s than the 50s.

 

[KJbushway]

Ah.

 

[Bill Morris]

Even now, are there not some countries that try to keep the onslaught of American Culture a bit at bay to preserve their own cultural identity, regarding art, film and music?

Oh, they certainly do. I'm an American living in Japan, and there's a lot of U.S. TV not shown here. The regular channels do air some foreign series (in some cases first season only then move on to season 1 of something else) and only in the wee hours. Satellite broadcasting is better (from my perspective) in that regard but nothing like what's available in the U.S. And before the 1980s the audio was only the dubbed Japanese version. Now that's selectable, and they'll sometimes air interviews with the voice actors, like having the woman who did the Japanese Janeway voice giving her feelings about the character and the show. And many old shows you can watch online are blocked here.

I heard some government ministry guy from Indonesia once state emphatically, "Even bad domestic programming is preferable to good foreign programming."

 

[MANT!]

Hmm..depending upon the time contacted..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Cadet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Planet_(novel)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_Planets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_World_of_Difference_(novel)

 

[sojourner]

Well, if it's fairly concurrent development on all planets concerned, then there wouldn't be any discovery of each other until the invention of the radio in the early 20th century, seeing as even now optical telescopes can barely resolve artificial features on other planets. Once radio contact is established though, BAM! technological innovation explodes as 2/3 worlds share data/spy on each other. By this day and age I would expect the world(s) to be unrecognizable.

The only problem is the likeliness of concurrent development is so small as to be non-existent.

 

[Bill Morris]

If it started with radio, by the mid-'30s people might start to accept that the strange broadcasts were from other planets, while the few linguists among hard-core believers were still in disagreement about the meaning of many Venusian and Martian words, which wouldn't be cleared up until well into the '50s, when television broadcasting was getting into gear. So by 1959--ten years before the day humans walked on the moon and other humans canceled Star Trek (if it even existed under such circumstances)--we would finally have professional exotranslators hard at work and starting to provide some detailed information about our neighbors, and people would still be bickering about details well into the computer age. And that's all still assuming concurrent development.

But these hypothetical Venusians are mountain dwellers who spend their time watching Earth TV and munching veggies grown inside their air-conditioned homes: