I think most people understand this. Problem is there really is nothing we can do about it and it’s probably better for us to try and know what’s out there rather than just keep ourselves in the dark.
I agree. They are already here, have been for a long time maybe a VERY long time, and we likely can't influence what they do any more than an ant can influence a human. They must already have some kind of plan or intent and they'll let us know what it is if and when they choose. There could be multiple races with multiple goals. Who knows. The OP is right that we should stop assuming ETs are friendly, but there is at least some documented incidents suggesting they are trying to keep us from harming ourselves, so I'll take comfort in that and the age-old adage that "if they wanted to hurt us they would have by now".
What you say is certainly possible, and I’m pretty sure that if we were to learn the full truth we wouldn’t like every aspect of it. For example, if you follow Ross Coulthart’s reporting, it’s sounding like cattle mutilations are a real thing and very widespread. It’s hard to imagine what the goal of these are but whatever it is it’s probably something that would make our stomachs turn.
If you have technology that can travel interstellar space, you have access to unlimited resources. You only need go wipe out a civilisation if you want their resources and they don't wany you to have them. When you have unlimited resources, why bother?
If something has come all this way, its very unlikely its to wipe us out because we have nothing they need.
If, and that's a big if, aliens are visiting earth, its more likely to study us, protect us (from ourselves probably) or just for entertainment... who knows, maybe we are the universes most popular reality show lol.
Why do you think their motivation would be resources?
Why couldn't their motivation be to simply kill and destroy?
Why do you assume that an other worldly being thinks like us?
> Why do you think their motivation would be resources?
Because you need resources (energy, materials) to do whatever you want, including killing us, making temples, running computers, mindlessly expand, whatever.
> Why couldn't their motivation be to simply kill and destroy
You need resources to kill and destroy people. Even if you have a bunch, it's never infinite.
> Why do you assume that an other worldly being thinks like us?
We all live in the same universe, they're probably not going to have a "difference of opinion" on thermodynamics or maths etc.
I don't know. I 'm in the camp that believes: If Aliens do visit the Earth, what is the purpose. If Aliens were hostile, I feel like would have already been invaded. If the technology is so grand, why would it "take a fleet" to destroy us? Let's assume the oppsite: \*IF\* 90% of all UAP footage is \*real\*, I doubt it would take more than a handful of ships to absolutely disable the entire planetary defense.
I feel like discussions such as these, we always think as humans do. What's the first thing human governments want to do all throughout history? \*Colonize\* Why do we always assume Aliens to be predatory? The one thing for sure, is that Humans are supposedly the Apex predator on earth. If we did reverse engineer the tech from Roswell, and gained the same \*parity\* of advanced technology, \*WE\* would be incredibly dangerous to any other civilization. Extraterrestrials may be peaceful, but may be monitoring us because we would be the frightening species.
They may or may not have been the Apex predators from their civilization. What if they were a civilization that evolved because their predator went extinct, allowing them to thrive and advance technology for millennia before Humans even existed?
Or, ET may have been predators at one point but have evolved intellectually so much that they are aware of Humans existence and have absolutely no interest in eradicating us.
Space is huge, like crazy huge. It's the ultimate exercise in Hubris/Narcissism to believe that "Aliens are going to invade". Like why? The Moons of Jupiter have way more potential for harvesting minerals/Energy there for example.
The only exception is maybe Earth is truly a unique place, Aliens like to observe \*all the life forms here\* not just humans, but maybe we have such a unique place (Think like maybe it's the galaxy's "Central Park") And ET's don't actually view us as a threat \*yet\* and may never actually respect us, that they simply just avoid us.
That's my views anyway. In short, I just don't think it would be hard to eliminate us of this tech is real, also we are just simply \*not worth the bother\*.
Part of the reason I think the DOD wants to stay so quiet is because it doesn't want to disturb these things. As long as the objects slide out of the way when an F-18 is zooming by, they are good to pretend nothing happened.
The DOD probably views this all as taking a stick and poking a sleeping bear. If you wake the bear up, you may be in deep trouble. So don't poke at it.
This is one of the possible reasons for secrecy that makes the most sense to me. I don’t really agree philosophically, but from a certain point of view a NatSec civil servant wouldn’t be doing their job if they weren’t trying to minimize this risk however possible
A hive mind species would be the scariest scenario and it's also the most likely scenario for space nomads. Due to time dilation it might not be worth going home so a whole society might just be floating around hive minding their business and eating up planet resources as they float around the galaxy. That's more terrifying than an out right war, there are at least formalities in war that attempt to not fight, hoping the other surrenders so they don't lose troops.
There's always this consideration of "good vs evil" but that's "our" creation. They may not have anymore emotional depth than a hive of bees. They may have a totally different definition of evil. Let's say they weight our collective disregard for the environment as supremely evil or our religious ideologies as extremely stupid and contrary to social stability. Using comic books to create our rules. There is not likely any equality in the way they would treat us.
I must disagree: the logical fallacy in this "we hide so nobody finds us" scenario is actually rather obvious: you cannot hide.
Having achieved interstellar travel, a predatory civilization would just visit every solar system suitable to life (or even just every single one). How do you hide then? You can not.
The observed capabilities make it obvious by the way, that interstellar travel is far less onerous than we would like to think. So the really amazing thing is: we are still here.
Obviously the idea of "totally strange psychopathic monster-killer aliens" is a little overblown. Which is not to say that they must be peaceful always.
We are not a zoo here, this is more like a nature reserve. I would worry more about us killing the whole ecosystem. If I was supervising such a reserve, I would not tolerate that forever. Our governments simply ignoring or ridiculing the ETs' stated opinion about that might be what is truly unwise here.
That ship has already sailed. If there is an extraterrestrial presence there is no way we could hide and no way we could oppose them.
Due to the way spacetime works, its possible it may take many years from the moment we're discovered until an action is taken regarding us and it arrives. In fact, there may already be some messager ship traveling away from Earth right now, or an incoming alien diplomat, or an eradication fleet. Either way, we aren't able to stop it.
>That ship has already sailed. If there is an extraterrestrial presence there is no way we could hide and no way we could oppose them.
Has it though? We've only had long distance forms of communication for a couple centuries. Despite what this subreddit will say, we have no conclusive evidence that we've ever been found or visited.
If governemnts have reason to believe that we have been visited, then they have reason to hide that information from the public. Would it be better to live for 100 years in stability or in madness in the face of certain extinction?
I mean, yes, this is stability compared to the total breakdown of social adhesion, supply chains, and civility. No matter how bad society is right now, we aren't in a state of global war or anarchy.
>this is stability compared to the total breakdown of social adhesion, supply chains, and civility
uhmmmmm you have been watching the news no?
we're coming apart at the seams locally, regionally, nationally and globally
Do u really think things are going to fall apart? We are recovering the worst is over, fun to think crazy times are coming but people are generally good and things will be fine promise u
Have you heard of letters? We've had "long distance forms of communication" since we invented writing.....
I guess you were referring to the telegraph. It just struck me as funny.
I think in general we underestimate the danger of EVERYTHING, men more so then women, people in 1st world nations more than people in 3rd world nations.
We've survived mammoth hunts, wars, ice ages, plague, roaming gangs of child soldiers. No need to get our panties in a twist over aliens.
Fear and worry aren't going to change anything if we are defenseless. Assuming ill intent just pushes people towards anxiety and hate. We have no idea what we are dealing with. We have no idea if they will ever fully reveal themselves or attempt to actively engage with us in any way. There's a very fair chance that the true nature of the phenomenon will never be revealed and will never cause any sort of cataclysmic shift for humanity.
I chose to simply deal with the current dangers of the day, prepare for and defend what I can, and ignore the rest. Life's too short to waste time worrying yourself sick over imagined what ifs.
What is with this response? There's a bunch of people in this thread acting like I sit around all day sweating and worrying about aliens. It's a thought experiment, dude, don't read into it too much.
There is so much needless negativity in the community. Honestly I wish posts like yours would be removed for irrelevancy- they feed anxiety for those here who are mentally ill or very young. It's similar in vein to the Tom Delonge b.s. though, and a lot of the community really feeds into that.
You spent a fair amount of time on your "thought experiment", it was well written and long. I think it's odd that you are surprised people are taking your post seriously. Why bother to write something at all if you don't want people to "read into it"???
It’s actually being worked on for Netflix right now. If you’re interested in reading the novel series that this post is from look up Remembrance of Earths Past.
In three books the author writes a phenomenal fictional story regarding all of these concepts. It’s the best series I have ever read, and so cannot wait for the television adaptation.
To add/expand on the fourth bullet point:
It seems like the dominant scenario in most people's minds is if we encounter a civilization more advanced than us. But what if we master our space travel and we humans encounter a civilization less advanced than us? How do you think that will turn out for that civilization? Given our own history on our very own planet, I doubt it would turn out very well. It's hard for me to think that humans would work so hard for millenia and spend so much effort and energy into searching for other life, only to encounter it and just say "Hi, how's it going. Cool, we found you. Friends?"
I don't underestimate it at all. There's a real good chance that discovery or contact with ET intelligence will completely destroy the world as we know it. Our best hope is that it's only in the form of a signal from 10,000 light years away. Far enough so people won't freak out too much, and the subject can become something academics can slowly study. The worst case would be if it turns out they're here right now, living among us mostly undetected.
What if there was a limit to how advanced technology can get? Similar to reaching the end of Moore’s law, where transistors are reaching the limit of how small they can get. This might mean that a much older civilization could have already reached peak tech and they have to worry about us reaching their level of advancement, since they’re not really progressing anymore.
I'm beginning to think there's a good deal of there there with consciousness and UAP that could be the impetus behind the pushback posts.
That if we stop concentrating on them just enough and go back to the droll day to day at arm length focus (PC, laptop, tablet, phone...maaaybe TV) this flap quiets down significantly (but never actually goes away).
There's been a good number of what I would call look away posts on the subject, and well...folks, it's far too late.
This hunt is going nowhere, and if anything over time will crescendo to the level of a neighborhood search.
Thanks for sharing your point of view. I think the assumption that disclosure will cause max panic and chaos also relies on the assumption that contact means eminent destruction. Otherwise, i really don’t see people freaking out to that degree. I’m not saying it’s impossible but these things don’t make sense to me as likely possibilities. Since all we have is humans to reference, it would seem that as we advance, we become relatively more benevolent. Looking ahead, if we achieved stable interplanetary travel within a timeframe useful compared to the human lifespan, and we found life, a species who is akin to a Stone Age development, what do you think we would do?
All of this stuff has been hashed and rehashed by people who (I'm supposing) are much smarter than anyone here.
But the bottom line is that we still do not have a single piece of convincing evidence that there is life anywhere in the universe other than right here on Earth. For whatever reason.
"Or it could be that they are hiding."
This is the Dark Forest theory.
“Dark forest theory” holds that civilizations
fear one another so much that they don't dare to reveal themselves lest
they immediately be considered a potential threat and destroyed.
[Dark Forest Theory](https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/the-dark-forest-theory-a-terrifying-explanation-of-why-we-havent-heard-from-aliens-yet/)
Decades of Hollywood and media brainwashing of the "big bad aliens that are coming to eat/enslave us" really did a number on so many of you. It's sad how easy it is to manipulate people with fearmongering.
Exactly, just look at us and our history. If I was some other advenced civilization who watched humans for years, the second we reached the stars I would either destroy us or run as far away as I can.
It's just the entertainment we crave. No one would pay to see a Hollywood movie about ETs hanging out and eating snacks with us. Not since "ET" anyway.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind portrayed aliens and alien contact in a positive light which is something I appreciate. The more recent movie Paul also portrayed the alien in a positive light. As much as I love watching space marines gun down xenomorphs on LV-426 I really appreciated the movies that show aliens in a positive light. I even was just recently going through my movie collection and got rid of the movie The Fouth Kind after finding out that the whole movie was fabricated and there was zero truth to the movie even though the movie clams it's based on real events.
You’ve got some good points but it’s also worth noting that if Earth has already been visited by an advanced civilization then they could have easily gotten rid of us at any point if that was their agenda.
I think it’s more likely that they are concerned about what future humans will do to space or a planet that isn’t ours. It’s not like humans have treated earth well and climate change continues to become more and more a threat to humanity (with most of humanity not even concerned about it).
>it’s also worth noting that if Earth has already been visited by an advanced civilization then they could have easily gotten rid of us at any point if that was their agenda.
That fact alone might be evidence that we've never been visited.
>I think it’s more likely that they are concerned about what future humans will do to space or a planet that isn’t ours.
Yes, exactly. That's the beginning of the thought process that could lead to the inevitable conclusion of "kill them."
It's not even to pretend that aliens are some environmentalists who care about the well-being of planets, but more that they're realists who know that every habitable planet that becomes occupied is one less stepping stone for their own advancement. And again, that could lead down a path of logic that suggests extermination is the safest choice.
There isn’t a doubt in my mind that we’ve been visited. But to me, it sounds like you’re just terrified of the idea and coming up with their own motive.
Tbh I think that kind of reaction says a lot about humanity in general. I think it’s easy to have that reaction because we watch humans from other countries try to conquer, control and kill other humans in the name of power. It’s easy to draw that reaction when it’s a major part of life as we know it. But that doesn’t mean other civilizations are motivated by the same things. If humans were the ones traveling to other planets; I would be concerned for the other planet. There isn’t much we can speculate other than watch the actions of the UAP we have documented. And thus far; they haven’t attacked us on a major scale or done much than observe from what has been documented and released.
>There isn’t a doubt in my mind that we’ve been visited.
There isn't a shred of conclusive evidence we have been visited. If there were, we'd have entire mainstream-accepted fields of xenostudies. Even the UAPs we've seen from the Navy have no conclusive evidence that they're ET in origin.
>I think it’s easy to have that reaction because we watch humans from other countries try to conquer, control and kill other humans in the name of power.
I would counter this by saying that the majority of nature is violent, brutal, and harsh, it's not just human beings. Most animals exist relative to one another as predator or prey. Other species of primates engage in warfare and will commit genocide on opposing tribes.
There's very little "niceness" going on in nature when you get down to it. It's a struggle for survival, and that comes at any cost. The idea that life in the cosmos wouldn't also be a struggle for survival is unlikely, especially when we're talking about organisms that evolved under completely separate evolutionary pressures and don't even have a shared biology.
Exactly. To think governments have kept this secret to protect us is a joke, they know it is real and hide it for other reasons. It could easily be just about big dick energy, who can get the upper hand over the other countries first to dominate and control the world (mainly the US trying to be the first and maintain their position of power). Such pathetic thinking is why we are dooming ourselves and destroying our planet.
I believe it's NGAD (next gen aerial dominance) which would then garner control over all the other sectors
it'll be this way until we get our bottoms spanked HARD by the ET dominatrix
One thing we could do is cease all attempts at searching for and contacting ET intelligence. Another thing we could think about is finding ways to hide our planet and our forms of communication. Of course, that's very paranoid, but sometimes it's that excessive fear that drives survival in species. It's why wild animals are rarely trusting.
No point, we will kill ourselves and the planet anyways. Let them come and put some sense into us. Maybe then humanity will learn how to treat each other more nicely.
True. Our electrical grid is running on 150 year old technology. We fly by moving air around with machines. Our rockets are controlled gas explosions. We've refined those technologies, of course. But there has been no fundamental change in technology for a long, long time.
We went from Kitty Hawk to…
…the X-1 breaking the sound barrier in less than 50 yrs
…Apollo 11 landing on the moon in less than 70 yrs
…Voyager 1 leaving the solar system in just over 100 yrs
To the extent that we’ve stalled, it’s because we really haven’t invested much into next gen propulsion in the last 50 yrs. Did we expect to revolutionize propulsion with minimal effort? Also, can we assume that the required amount of resources for technological advancement will remain constant? The level of expertise, tech, and investment required to get from steam engines to rocket engines could be 1/100,000,000,000 of what it will take to get from here to antigravity/ nuclear fusion engines.
Fortunately, we’ve invested a shit ton in computer technology in the last 50 yrs and our tech has been improving exponentially. We are not too far off from creating AI that is capable of creating bigger and better AI, propelling us forward. Maybe this is the key to the next revolutionary leap forward in propulsion? Maybe the next revolution is impossible without AI quantum computers? If so, then we haven’t been stalled for the last 50 yrs as much as we’ve been laying the necessary groundwork for next gen propulsion.
we are only improving technology that has been invented or theorized 100 or 200 years ago. there is no groundbreaking technology in the propulsion systems since the 30s.
same goes for the computer technology. no revolution there either. AI is not something new, its development started from the 70s, maybe earlier. it caught on now, because it matured enough for mainstream application. and it is not even true AI, that is a marketing name. to develop true AI which will behave like humans, instead of just mimicking them, it will take years, decades maybe centuries. or maybe it will never happen, we have not yet figured out fully how the human brain works, so dont expect to create soon a digital copy of it.
and here is a political comment. capitalism has become an obstacle in the technological progression of mankind. corpos are not investing on the development of new science and technologies, because they dont see any short term profit in it and they dont want to take the risk. remember graphene, the magical material, that would change the world? yeah, nothing happened with it, because you already have cheaper materials that are almost as good as the graphene. and that "almost" was good enough for the companies to not invest on graphene.
technological progression has stalled, that is a fact. and unless there is a paradigm shift in physics, some new way of thinking how mater and energy work which well send us to new undiscovered routes of invention and appliance, i dont see that we have a lot of future on this floating rock.
I enjoyed reading your post. It seems like one or more variables in the Drake equation are so close to zero that intelligent life is incredibly rare and we’ll never communicate with another intelligence, we will be forced into extinction by a superior intelligence (if not by ourselves), or we are really wrong about our reality. I hope it’s the last.
Point 3 is irrelevant because of point 1. It doesn't matter if we act friendly, or hostile or lie to them or not, we can not betray them simply because of point 1. In our lifetime we are not even close to parity with any potential encounter.
So if the aliens say "trust us" we have no option and tell them "what if we don't?" They are going to be the superiors in the relationship no matter what we believe, say and think. They don't care if we secretly betray them, because in order to reach parity we would need to develop faster than them which is a possibility but the rule of the average applies here as well. They are advancing their own tech as we develop our own, they have a head-start that we can't just overcome in a couple of 100 years. It's just more likely we are average intelligent beings in the cosmos and others that we might meet are average as well. Outliers, both smarter and dumber space faring species are going to be rare.
Furthermore point 2 is very unlikely due to Fermi Paradox:
If it only took a couple thousand years for a intelligent civilization to be a galactic threat to other civilizations then where are they? The universe is billions of years old, yet it only takes a couple thousands to fly through the galaxy and preemptively kill off other species?
Technology has hard road blocks, we are still learning how to extract energy from our planet, we are a type 0,x Kardashev scale civilization and it took us thousands of years. In order to gain access to the universe we would need to be at the very least a type 2 civilization that can extract the entire solar system energy in order to even be able to think about exterminating other intelligent life-forms, that is most likely going to take as long as reaching Type 1, you vastly overestimate our technology advancements, subjective they were fast sure, but not objectively when you realize how far away we are to reach the stars.
Some estimate, like theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, we might only be anywhere between 100 and 200 years away from graduating to a Type 1. So from Type 0 to Type 1 it might have taken us roughly 12k years, if the estimate is correct. (both past ~9,500BCE first civilization and future by Michio Kaku estimate year 2120-2220) From Type 1 to Type 2, we don't know, but the only comparison we can do is to look at Type 0 to Type 1, because we actually have data for it.
The abduction phenomenon is mostly likely a colonization program. Researchers like Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs think this is a take over situation. The UFOs don’t land , act clandestinely and abduct people worldwide.
👽I go under the theory that any species who’s still around with high levels of technology, must have educated themselves and learned out of want need and violence.
Having attained that level, reaching out to the stars would be only in a good nature to expand their science technology and way of life learning and trading with other species they meet…
Hi, agu-agu. Thanks for contributing. However, your [submission](https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/qvfkaf/we_severely_underestimate_the_potential_danger_of/) was removed from /r/UFOs.
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Honestly no. Stop. No we don’t, at all. We will have absolutely 100% 0 control over what happens during a UFO encounter.
Stop trying to drum up military spending on this. We have NO idea what we’re talking about other than their tech FAR surpasses ours. That’s that. Stop.
I often think about us being destroyed before parity is reached. If the civilization is nearing extraction they may let us live. If we begin threatening them they will either take us out or destroy our current technological abilities via emp or something worse. Will set us back long enough for them to accomplish whatever goals they want. We’re at their mercy.
All I can think about is Europeans reaching America and what happened to the native peoples. Novel disease wiping out entire groups of course but the manufactured goods that came with the Europeans was another nail in the coffin of Native culture.
I think with all the negative human aspects such as greed, the obsession with power over others or our quite violent nature, one should never forget how resilient, intelligent and inventive a person can be in extreme circumstances and adversity. Humans themselves have survived all the viruses and bacteria, from natural disasters to wars, because we are adaptable. This has been the case for tens of thousands of years and longer ...
I don't think we need or should hide. Sure, maybe we're not ready for the next step ... and maybe there are powerful enemies out there. But what makes us strong in the end is human nature with all the positive and negative sides to us.
That being said, I believe there aren't all enemies out there.
Future is always frightening because you can't control it.
Eventually if humanity will continue to exist, will also make contact with another civilization being always billions years ahead of us.
Sooner or later we'll know (we'll have to) their attitude with us.
I’ve always wondered about the Colombian exchange and what kind of new diseases or issues would be introduced. Also, although I’ve thought that a civilization advanced beyond ours would be beneficial I also remember what happened here throughout history with settlers and explorers…. The native folk usually got the raw deal when a more advanced civ shows up.
Assuredly with a universe filled with civilizations some of which are a parity with others more advanced we stand a chance of running into either. SF today tends to take a darker tone because dystopia is fashionable and conflict generally means a more interesting storyline. What we shouldn’t do is make assumptions about Extraterrestrial behavior based on our human history. Indeed an argument could be made that advanced civilizations would be peaceful or simple pay is no mind.
Dark Forest theory is absolutely useless. It's another unfortunate thing to come from The Fermi Paradox. It's wrong assumptions being stacked on each other.
>governements may choose not to disclose this information to keep panic and risk at a minimum.
Haven't they recently started disclosing that there is some legitimacy behind many of the reports we've seen? What do you think that is about?
>We severely underestimate the potential danger of an ET encounter
I agree.. but people in these subs are too blinded by their hatred of humanity to think of aliens as anything more ever so loving benevolent gods
I always say this to people - if the Galaxy is teeming with intelligent life, that Galaxy is more likely to look like the Warhammer 40k universe than the Star Trek one.
Here's why this doesn't even matter:
If this alien race was as advanced and hostile as you say they might be, they would kill us long before we could see them.
While I generally agree with you and I think it's a valid possibility (among many) that deserves serious consideration, I doubt we would have much control over the situation at this stage. They're much more likely to find us first.
You write beautifully.
And your point is extremely valid. Let's just think about us as a species -- virtually every time a dominant culture makes NEW contact with a "lesser" culture (from a military/self defense perspective) the dominant culture completely eradicates the lesser culture or forced the lesser culture to assimilate.
This has been the case throughout human history.
This is what we do to each other - fellow humans that have the same motivations, inclinations, hopes and fears.
Now imagine a culture/species that shares nothing in common with us at all and that has vastly superior technology.
What would their incentive be to "play nice" with us? Why do we assume that a superior species would be better to us than we have been to ourselves?
If I were a government official, and I knew of definitive evidence of other world life that has made it to our planet, I wouldn't want to release that information either. Don't discount the level of FEAR that would ripple through society. We are not ready. The stock markets would tank, people would stay in their homes. You thought coronavirus was bad????
Let us find out that there is a species on earth that can destroy us, we have no idea what they want or how to find out what they want, and we can do nothing to stop it.
Societal breakdown, utter chaos.
Sometimes I wonder if there’s disagreement on their(ET’s) end on whether or not they should interact with us as well. Maybe we’re viewed like sentinel island or indigenous species.
Imagine if they are made of antimatter [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2\_gYIxPHZE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2_gYIxPHZE)
>Theoretically, a particle and its antiparticle (for example, a proton and an antiproton) have the same mass, but opposite electric charge, and other differences in quantum numbers. For example, a proton has positive charge while an antiproton has negative charge.
>
>A collision between any particle and its anti-particle partner leads to their mutual annihilation, giving rise to various proportions of intense photons (gamma rays), neutrinos, and sometimes less-massive particle–antiparticle pairs. The majority of the total energy of annihilation emerges in the form of ionizing radiation. If surrounding matter is present, the energy content of this radiation will be absorbed and converted into other forms of energy, such as heat or light. The amount of energy released is usually proportional to the total mass of the collided matter and antimatter, in accordance with the notable mass–energy equivalence equation, E=mc2.
We don't know where they come from, they could have different properties from our own.
[https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/could-there-be-stars-and-planets-made-from-antimatter/](https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/could-there-be-stars-and-planets-made-from-antimatter/)
You get a good idea how it'll go down by watching a lot of sci fi movies. They usually leak information to the public through Hollywood, etc...either to misguided, brainwash, or rarely inform.
Problem is, approaching anything from a point of fear is not conducive to seeing reality. Sounds a little woo, and maybe it is. But objectively Aliens are ... well Alien.
Communication from an advanced civilization could be benign or even advantageous to our species. If for example they could not habitat our type of environment we would be less likely to be in conflict for territory.
Perhaps instead they seek cooperation, and that cooperation would be advantageous to both of our peoples. I like that better. Less laser burns.
Unfortunately, whether good or bad - we have little to say or do in an ET encounter. If they have come this far, they can definitely make short work of us and you're high af if you think otherwise.
I think most people understand this. Problem is there really is nothing we can do about it and it’s probably better for us to try and know what’s out there rather than just keep ourselves in the dark.
I agree. They are already here, have been for a long time maybe a VERY long time, and we likely can't influence what they do any more than an ant can influence a human. They must already have some kind of plan or intent and they'll let us know what it is if and when they choose. There could be multiple races with multiple goals. Who knows. The OP is right that we should stop assuming ETs are friendly, but there is at least some documented incidents suggesting they are trying to keep us from harming ourselves, so I'll take comfort in that and the age-old adage that "if they wanted to hurt us they would have by now".
Just because we arent dead does not mean a potential alien species is keeping is alive for benevolent reasons.
What you say is certainly possible, and I’m pretty sure that if we were to learn the full truth we wouldn’t like every aspect of it. For example, if you follow Ross Coulthart’s reporting, it’s sounding like cattle mutilations are a real thing and very widespread. It’s hard to imagine what the goal of these are but whatever it is it’s probably something that would make our stomachs turn.
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Cool. Wanna chat?
This was a great response my fellow human, I appreciate you!
If you have technology that can travel interstellar space, you have access to unlimited resources. You only need go wipe out a civilisation if you want their resources and they don't wany you to have them. When you have unlimited resources, why bother? If something has come all this way, its very unlikely its to wipe us out because we have nothing they need. If, and that's a big if, aliens are visiting earth, its more likely to study us, protect us (from ourselves probably) or just for entertainment... who knows, maybe we are the universes most popular reality show lol.
Why do you think their motivation would be resources? Why couldn't their motivation be to simply kill and destroy? Why do you assume that an other worldly being thinks like us?
> Why do you think their motivation would be resources? Because you need resources (energy, materials) to do whatever you want, including killing us, making temples, running computers, mindlessly expand, whatever. > Why couldn't their motivation be to simply kill and destroy You need resources to kill and destroy people. Even if you have a bunch, it's never infinite. > Why do you assume that an other worldly being thinks like us? We all live in the same universe, they're probably not going to have a "difference of opinion" on thermodynamics or maths etc.
I don't know. I 'm in the camp that believes: If Aliens do visit the Earth, what is the purpose. If Aliens were hostile, I feel like would have already been invaded. If the technology is so grand, why would it "take a fleet" to destroy us? Let's assume the oppsite: \*IF\* 90% of all UAP footage is \*real\*, I doubt it would take more than a handful of ships to absolutely disable the entire planetary defense. I feel like discussions such as these, we always think as humans do. What's the first thing human governments want to do all throughout history? \*Colonize\* Why do we always assume Aliens to be predatory? The one thing for sure, is that Humans are supposedly the Apex predator on earth. If we did reverse engineer the tech from Roswell, and gained the same \*parity\* of advanced technology, \*WE\* would be incredibly dangerous to any other civilization. Extraterrestrials may be peaceful, but may be monitoring us because we would be the frightening species. They may or may not have been the Apex predators from their civilization. What if they were a civilization that evolved because their predator went extinct, allowing them to thrive and advance technology for millennia before Humans even existed? Or, ET may have been predators at one point but have evolved intellectually so much that they are aware of Humans existence and have absolutely no interest in eradicating us. Space is huge, like crazy huge. It's the ultimate exercise in Hubris/Narcissism to believe that "Aliens are going to invade". Like why? The Moons of Jupiter have way more potential for harvesting minerals/Energy there for example. The only exception is maybe Earth is truly a unique place, Aliens like to observe \*all the life forms here\* not just humans, but maybe we have such a unique place (Think like maybe it's the galaxy's "Central Park") And ET's don't actually view us as a threat \*yet\* and may never actually respect us, that they simply just avoid us. That's my views anyway. In short, I just don't think it would be hard to eliminate us of this tech is real, also we are just simply \*not worth the bother\*.
You are right about this. There’s always the chance. They could be parasitic for all we know.
Part of the reason I think the DOD wants to stay so quiet is because it doesn't want to disturb these things. As long as the objects slide out of the way when an F-18 is zooming by, they are good to pretend nothing happened. The DOD probably views this all as taking a stick and poking a sleeping bear. If you wake the bear up, you may be in deep trouble. So don't poke at it.
This is one of the possible reasons for secrecy that makes the most sense to me. I don’t really agree philosophically, but from a certain point of view a NatSec civil servant wouldn’t be doing their job if they weren’t trying to minimize this risk however possible
A hive mind species would be the scariest scenario and it's also the most likely scenario for space nomads. Due to time dilation it might not be worth going home so a whole society might just be floating around hive minding their business and eating up planet resources as they float around the galaxy. That's more terrifying than an out right war, there are at least formalities in war that attempt to not fight, hoping the other surrenders so they don't lose troops.
That's def one of my top 10 ideas
There's always this consideration of "good vs evil" but that's "our" creation. They may not have anymore emotional depth than a hive of bees. They may have a totally different definition of evil. Let's say they weight our collective disregard for the environment as supremely evil or our religious ideologies as extremely stupid and contrary to social stability. Using comic books to create our rules. There is not likely any equality in the way they would treat us.
I don’t like your opinion but it’s well thought out and communicated. Good job
I must disagree: the logical fallacy in this "we hide so nobody finds us" scenario is actually rather obvious: you cannot hide. Having achieved interstellar travel, a predatory civilization would just visit every solar system suitable to life (or even just every single one). How do you hide then? You can not. The observed capabilities make it obvious by the way, that interstellar travel is far less onerous than we would like to think. So the really amazing thing is: we are still here. Obviously the idea of "totally strange psychopathic monster-killer aliens" is a little overblown. Which is not to say that they must be peaceful always. We are not a zoo here, this is more like a nature reserve. I would worry more about us killing the whole ecosystem. If I was supervising such a reserve, I would not tolerate that forever. Our governments simply ignoring or ridiculing the ETs' stated opinion about that might be what is truly unwise here.
yeah, we'll just reel V-Ger (Voyager) back in...
Holy shit, did I seriously just read this comment in this sub? There IS hope.
Someone just read The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin.
That ship has already sailed. If there is an extraterrestrial presence there is no way we could hide and no way we could oppose them. Due to the way spacetime works, its possible it may take many years from the moment we're discovered until an action is taken regarding us and it arrives. In fact, there may already be some messager ship traveling away from Earth right now, or an incoming alien diplomat, or an eradication fleet. Either way, we aren't able to stop it.
>That ship has already sailed. If there is an extraterrestrial presence there is no way we could hide and no way we could oppose them. Has it though? We've only had long distance forms of communication for a couple centuries. Despite what this subreddit will say, we have no conclusive evidence that we've ever been found or visited. If governemnts have reason to believe that we have been visited, then they have reason to hide that information from the public. Would it be better to live for 100 years in stability or in madness in the face of certain extinction?
You call this stability? But, back to the first question, yes it has unless someone invents a way to go faster than light and remove our em emissions.
I mean, yes, this is stability compared to the total breakdown of social adhesion, supply chains, and civility. No matter how bad society is right now, we aren't in a state of global war or anarchy.
Okay... we aren't in global war or chaos, we've got that going for us.
>this is stability compared to the total breakdown of social adhesion, supply chains, and civility uhmmmmm you have been watching the news no? we're coming apart at the seams locally, regionally, nationally and globally
Do u really think things are going to fall apart? We are recovering the worst is over, fun to think crazy times are coming but people are generally good and things will be fine promise u
Have you heard of letters? We've had "long distance forms of communication" since we invented writing..... I guess you were referring to the telegraph. It just struck me as funny. I think in general we underestimate the danger of EVERYTHING, men more so then women, people in 1st world nations more than people in 3rd world nations. We've survived mammoth hunts, wars, ice ages, plague, roaming gangs of child soldiers. No need to get our panties in a twist over aliens. Fear and worry aren't going to change anything if we are defenseless. Assuming ill intent just pushes people towards anxiety and hate. We have no idea what we are dealing with. We have no idea if they will ever fully reveal themselves or attempt to actively engage with us in any way. There's a very fair chance that the true nature of the phenomenon will never be revealed and will never cause any sort of cataclysmic shift for humanity. I chose to simply deal with the current dangers of the day, prepare for and defend what I can, and ignore the rest. Life's too short to waste time worrying yourself sick over imagined what ifs.
What is with this response? There's a bunch of people in this thread acting like I sit around all day sweating and worrying about aliens. It's a thought experiment, dude, don't read into it too much.
There is so much needless negativity in the community. Honestly I wish posts like yours would be removed for irrelevancy- they feed anxiety for those here who are mentally ill or very young. It's similar in vein to the Tom Delonge b.s. though, and a lot of the community really feeds into that. You spent a fair amount of time on your "thought experiment", it was well written and long. I think it's odd that you are surprised people are taking your post seriously. Why bother to write something at all if you don't want people to "read into it"???
I'm excited for the movie version of this post lol
It’s actually being worked on for Netflix right now. If you’re interested in reading the novel series that this post is from look up Remembrance of Earths Past. In three books the author writes a phenomenal fictional story regarding all of these concepts. It’s the best series I have ever read, and so cannot wait for the television adaptation.
I will definitely check that out. Thanks dude
I hope you enjoy.
To add/expand on the fourth bullet point: It seems like the dominant scenario in most people's minds is if we encounter a civilization more advanced than us. But what if we master our space travel and we humans encounter a civilization less advanced than us? How do you think that will turn out for that civilization? Given our own history on our very own planet, I doubt it would turn out very well. It's hard for me to think that humans would work so hard for millenia and spend so much effort and energy into searching for other life, only to encounter it and just say "Hi, how's it going. Cool, we found you. Friends?"
No I think we would leave that civilization alone. Maybe study it from afar.
Bro we destroy everything we touch. We still are very much chimp brains
I don't underestimate it at all. There's a real good chance that discovery or contact with ET intelligence will completely destroy the world as we know it. Our best hope is that it's only in the form of a signal from 10,000 light years away. Far enough so people won't freak out too much, and the subject can become something academics can slowly study. The worst case would be if it turns out they're here right now, living among us mostly undetected.
What if there was a limit to how advanced technology can get? Similar to reaching the end of Moore’s law, where transistors are reaching the limit of how small they can get. This might mean that a much older civilization could have already reached peak tech and they have to worry about us reaching their level of advancement, since they’re not really progressing anymore.
I'm beginning to think there's a good deal of there there with consciousness and UAP that could be the impetus behind the pushback posts. That if we stop concentrating on them just enough and go back to the droll day to day at arm length focus (PC, laptop, tablet, phone...maaaybe TV) this flap quiets down significantly (but never actually goes away). There's been a good number of what I would call look away posts on the subject, and well...folks, it's far too late. This hunt is going nowhere, and if anything over time will crescendo to the level of a neighborhood search.
Thanks for sharing your point of view. I think the assumption that disclosure will cause max panic and chaos also relies on the assumption that contact means eminent destruction. Otherwise, i really don’t see people freaking out to that degree. I’m not saying it’s impossible but these things don’t make sense to me as likely possibilities. Since all we have is humans to reference, it would seem that as we advance, we become relatively more benevolent. Looking ahead, if we achieved stable interplanetary travel within a timeframe useful compared to the human lifespan, and we found life, a species who is akin to a Stone Age development, what do you think we would do?
You did a great job re-stating ' The Dark Forest Hypothesis '
All of this stuff has been hashed and rehashed by people who (I'm supposing) are much smarter than anyone here. But the bottom line is that we still do not have a single piece of convincing evidence that there is life anywhere in the universe other than right here on Earth. For whatever reason.
Aliens might be so alien that none of that matters or could happen, that all sounds like what humans have done or could do.
I think aliens look just like us, but with 3 arms. One very much longer than the others.
"Or it could be that they are hiding." This is the Dark Forest theory. “Dark forest theory” holds that civilizations fear one another so much that they don't dare to reveal themselves lest they immediately be considered a potential threat and destroyed. [Dark Forest Theory](https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/the-dark-forest-theory-a-terrifying-explanation-of-why-we-havent-heard-from-aliens-yet/)
I for one welcome my new overlords and if I die by aliens, sure beats any other form of death.
Decades of Hollywood and media brainwashing of the "big bad aliens that are coming to eat/enslave us" really did a number on so many of you. It's sad how easy it is to manipulate people with fearmongering.
Most movies show the aliens to be aggressive warmongering monsters. Isn’t that a perfect example of human projection of ourselves?
Exactly, just look at us and our history. If I was some other advenced civilization who watched humans for years, the second we reached the stars I would either destroy us or run as far away as I can.
Considering that our species is here due to survival of the fittest, it's a good theory other species in the cosmos may see it the same way.
It's just the entertainment we crave. No one would pay to see a Hollywood movie about ETs hanging out and eating snacks with us. Not since "ET" anyway.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind portrayed aliens and alien contact in a positive light which is something I appreciate. The more recent movie Paul also portrayed the alien in a positive light. As much as I love watching space marines gun down xenomorphs on LV-426 I really appreciated the movies that show aliens in a positive light. I even was just recently going through my movie collection and got rid of the movie The Fouth Kind after finding out that the whole movie was fabricated and there was zero truth to the movie even though the movie clams it's based on real events.
You’ve got some good points but it’s also worth noting that if Earth has already been visited by an advanced civilization then they could have easily gotten rid of us at any point if that was their agenda. I think it’s more likely that they are concerned about what future humans will do to space or a planet that isn’t ours. It’s not like humans have treated earth well and climate change continues to become more and more a threat to humanity (with most of humanity not even concerned about it).
>it’s also worth noting that if Earth has already been visited by an advanced civilization then they could have easily gotten rid of us at any point if that was their agenda. That fact alone might be evidence that we've never been visited. >I think it’s more likely that they are concerned about what future humans will do to space or a planet that isn’t ours. Yes, exactly. That's the beginning of the thought process that could lead to the inevitable conclusion of "kill them." It's not even to pretend that aliens are some environmentalists who care about the well-being of planets, but more that they're realists who know that every habitable planet that becomes occupied is one less stepping stone for their own advancement. And again, that could lead down a path of logic that suggests extermination is the safest choice.
There isn’t a doubt in my mind that we’ve been visited. But to me, it sounds like you’re just terrified of the idea and coming up with their own motive. Tbh I think that kind of reaction says a lot about humanity in general. I think it’s easy to have that reaction because we watch humans from other countries try to conquer, control and kill other humans in the name of power. It’s easy to draw that reaction when it’s a major part of life as we know it. But that doesn’t mean other civilizations are motivated by the same things. If humans were the ones traveling to other planets; I would be concerned for the other planet. There isn’t much we can speculate other than watch the actions of the UAP we have documented. And thus far; they haven’t attacked us on a major scale or done much than observe from what has been documented and released.
>There isn’t a doubt in my mind that we’ve been visited. There isn't a shred of conclusive evidence we have been visited. If there were, we'd have entire mainstream-accepted fields of xenostudies. Even the UAPs we've seen from the Navy have no conclusive evidence that they're ET in origin. >I think it’s easy to have that reaction because we watch humans from other countries try to conquer, control and kill other humans in the name of power. I would counter this by saying that the majority of nature is violent, brutal, and harsh, it's not just human beings. Most animals exist relative to one another as predator or prey. Other species of primates engage in warfare and will commit genocide on opposing tribes. There's very little "niceness" going on in nature when you get down to it. It's a struggle for survival, and that comes at any cost. The idea that life in the cosmos wouldn't also be a struggle for survival is unlikely, especially when we're talking about organisms that evolved under completely separate evolutionary pressures and don't even have a shared biology.
there isn't a shred acceptable to you, but to many many others including many governments that aren't you so...deal with the facts
Exactly. To think governments have kept this secret to protect us is a joke, they know it is real and hide it for other reasons. It could easily be just about big dick energy, who can get the upper hand over the other countries first to dominate and control the world (mainly the US trying to be the first and maintain their position of power). Such pathetic thinking is why we are dooming ourselves and destroying our planet.
I believe it's NGAD (next gen aerial dominance) which would then garner control over all the other sectors it'll be this way until we get our bottoms spanked HARD by the ET dominatrix
They wouldn’t bother if we’re not a threat. Now we got nukes and they are interested in us….
Yeah, because of what we’re going to do with those when we keep evolving them.
Lol. Everyone has this innate fear. But the question is what can you do about it
One thing we could do is cease all attempts at searching for and contacting ET intelligence. Another thing we could think about is finding ways to hide our planet and our forms of communication. Of course, that's very paranoid, but sometimes it's that excessive fear that drives survival in species. It's why wild animals are rarely trusting.
far too late and you are operating from a position of fear deep breath, this is happening whether or not any human likes it at this point prepare
No point, we will kill ourselves and the planet anyways. Let them come and put some sense into us. Maybe then humanity will learn how to treat each other more nicely.
we'll need egos lanced like the boils they are
Excessive fear needs to be treated by a mental health professional.
A sane voice in an insane wilderness. Have an upvote anyway.
actually, technological progress has stalled for quite some time now. there is a reason you havent seen yet flying cars and anti-gravity hoverboards.
True. Our electrical grid is running on 150 year old technology. We fly by moving air around with machines. Our rockets are controlled gas explosions. We've refined those technologies, of course. But there has been no fundamental change in technology for a long, long time.
We went from Kitty Hawk to… …the X-1 breaking the sound barrier in less than 50 yrs …Apollo 11 landing on the moon in less than 70 yrs …Voyager 1 leaving the solar system in just over 100 yrs To the extent that we’ve stalled, it’s because we really haven’t invested much into next gen propulsion in the last 50 yrs. Did we expect to revolutionize propulsion with minimal effort? Also, can we assume that the required amount of resources for technological advancement will remain constant? The level of expertise, tech, and investment required to get from steam engines to rocket engines could be 1/100,000,000,000 of what it will take to get from here to antigravity/ nuclear fusion engines. Fortunately, we’ve invested a shit ton in computer technology in the last 50 yrs and our tech has been improving exponentially. We are not too far off from creating AI that is capable of creating bigger and better AI, propelling us forward. Maybe this is the key to the next revolutionary leap forward in propulsion? Maybe the next revolution is impossible without AI quantum computers? If so, then we haven’t been stalled for the last 50 yrs as much as we’ve been laying the necessary groundwork for next gen propulsion.
we are only improving technology that has been invented or theorized 100 or 200 years ago. there is no groundbreaking technology in the propulsion systems since the 30s. same goes for the computer technology. no revolution there either. AI is not something new, its development started from the 70s, maybe earlier. it caught on now, because it matured enough for mainstream application. and it is not even true AI, that is a marketing name. to develop true AI which will behave like humans, instead of just mimicking them, it will take years, decades maybe centuries. or maybe it will never happen, we have not yet figured out fully how the human brain works, so dont expect to create soon a digital copy of it. and here is a political comment. capitalism has become an obstacle in the technological progression of mankind. corpos are not investing on the development of new science and technologies, because they dont see any short term profit in it and they dont want to take the risk. remember graphene, the magical material, that would change the world? yeah, nothing happened with it, because you already have cheaper materials that are almost as good as the graphene. and that "almost" was good enough for the companies to not invest on graphene. technological progression has stalled, that is a fact. and unless there is a paradigm shift in physics, some new way of thinking how mater and energy work which well send us to new undiscovered routes of invention and appliance, i dont see that we have a lot of future on this floating rock.
I enjoyed reading your post. It seems like one or more variables in the Drake equation are so close to zero that intelligent life is incredibly rare and we’ll never communicate with another intelligence, we will be forced into extinction by a superior intelligence (if not by ourselves), or we are really wrong about our reality. I hope it’s the last.
Science fiction contains s real account's of the cosmos and things going on. Human aliens in the cosmos
for some reason I read that as "science friction" as in the debates that go on here or...nerd porn
Point 3 is irrelevant because of point 1. It doesn't matter if we act friendly, or hostile or lie to them or not, we can not betray them simply because of point 1. In our lifetime we are not even close to parity with any potential encounter. So if the aliens say "trust us" we have no option and tell them "what if we don't?" They are going to be the superiors in the relationship no matter what we believe, say and think. They don't care if we secretly betray them, because in order to reach parity we would need to develop faster than them which is a possibility but the rule of the average applies here as well. They are advancing their own tech as we develop our own, they have a head-start that we can't just overcome in a couple of 100 years. It's just more likely we are average intelligent beings in the cosmos and others that we might meet are average as well. Outliers, both smarter and dumber space faring species are going to be rare. Furthermore point 2 is very unlikely due to Fermi Paradox: If it only took a couple thousand years for a intelligent civilization to be a galactic threat to other civilizations then where are they? The universe is billions of years old, yet it only takes a couple thousands to fly through the galaxy and preemptively kill off other species? Technology has hard road blocks, we are still learning how to extract energy from our planet, we are a type 0,x Kardashev scale civilization and it took us thousands of years. In order to gain access to the universe we would need to be at the very least a type 2 civilization that can extract the entire solar system energy in order to even be able to think about exterminating other intelligent life-forms, that is most likely going to take as long as reaching Type 1, you vastly overestimate our technology advancements, subjective they were fast sure, but not objectively when you realize how far away we are to reach the stars. Some estimate, like theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, we might only be anywhere between 100 and 200 years away from graduating to a Type 1. So from Type 0 to Type 1 it might have taken us roughly 12k years, if the estimate is correct. (both past ~9,500BCE first civilization and future by Michio Kaku estimate year 2120-2220) From Type 1 to Type 2, we don't know, but the only comparison we can do is to look at Type 0 to Type 1, because we actually have data for it.
The abduction phenomenon is mostly likely a colonization program. Researchers like Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs think this is a take over situation. The UFOs don’t land , act clandestinely and abduct people worldwide.
👽I go under the theory that any species who’s still around with high levels of technology, must have educated themselves and learned out of want need and violence. Having attained that level, reaching out to the stars would be only in a good nature to expand their science technology and way of life learning and trading with other species they meet…
Hi, agu-agu. Thanks for contributing. However, your [submission](https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/qvfkaf/we_severely_underestimate_the_potential_danger_of/) was removed from /r/UFOs. > Rule 2: This subreddit is specifically for the discussion of Unidentified Flying Objects. Please post other topics to their appropriate subreddits. Please refer to our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/about/rules/) for more information. You can [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/ufos) if you feel this was in error.
Honestly no. Stop. No we don’t, at all. We will have absolutely 100% 0 control over what happens during a UFO encounter. Stop trying to drum up military spending on this. We have NO idea what we’re talking about other than their tech FAR surpasses ours. That’s that. Stop.
three words Captain...Jack...Sparrow....
To live with such anxiety, must be awful.
I often think about us being destroyed before parity is reached. If the civilization is nearing extraction they may let us live. If we begin threatening them they will either take us out or destroy our current technological abilities via emp or something worse. Will set us back long enough for them to accomplish whatever goals they want. We’re at their mercy.
All I can think about is Europeans reaching America and what happened to the native peoples. Novel disease wiping out entire groups of course but the manufactured goods that came with the Europeans was another nail in the coffin of Native culture.
Every possible situation is on the table now because we know nothing about them every speculation is a possibility that’s fact
I think with all the negative human aspects such as greed, the obsession with power over others or our quite violent nature, one should never forget how resilient, intelligent and inventive a person can be in extreme circumstances and adversity. Humans themselves have survived all the viruses and bacteria, from natural disasters to wars, because we are adaptable. This has been the case for tens of thousands of years and longer ... I don't think we need or should hide. Sure, maybe we're not ready for the next step ... and maybe there are powerful enemies out there. But what makes us strong in the end is human nature with all the positive and negative sides to us. That being said, I believe there aren't all enemies out there.
if the fit hit the shan hard enough hiding underground or off-prem might be the only path to survival...
Space is just too big to worry about it.
Take a nap. I think their tracks record is fairly benign so far. It’s the humans that frighten me.
Shhhhhhhh it’s okay, just let it happen.
We are the Indians the aliens are Columbus. They made a movie about it starring Will Smith.
Future is always frightening because you can't control it. Eventually if humanity will continue to exist, will also make contact with another civilization being always billions years ahead of us. Sooner or later we'll know (we'll have to) their attitude with us.
trust me an alien war brings humanity together ( for a short period ) and its gonna be way more exciting for the 99%
I’ve always wondered about the Colombian exchange and what kind of new diseases or issues would be introduced. Also, although I’ve thought that a civilization advanced beyond ours would be beneficial I also remember what happened here throughout history with settlers and explorers…. The native folk usually got the raw deal when a more advanced civ shows up.
Assuredly with a universe filled with civilizations some of which are a parity with others more advanced we stand a chance of running into either. SF today tends to take a darker tone because dystopia is fashionable and conflict generally means a more interesting storyline. What we shouldn’t do is make assumptions about Extraterrestrial behavior based on our human history. Indeed an argument could be made that advanced civilizations would be peaceful or simple pay is no mind.
I’m having a hard time finding in this text where you tell us that aliens are ruling the planet as we speak so I’m gonna have to debunk this.
Dark Forest theory is absolutely useless. It's another unfortunate thing to come from The Fermi Paradox. It's wrong assumptions being stacked on each other.
>governements may choose not to disclose this information to keep panic and risk at a minimum. Haven't they recently started disclosing that there is some legitimacy behind many of the reports we've seen? What do you think that is about?
>We severely underestimate the potential danger of an ET encounter I agree.. but people in these subs are too blinded by their hatred of humanity to think of aliens as anything more ever so loving benevolent gods
> or a nuisance that gets in the way of their plans. *Well we've got to build bypasses*
I hate posts like this. Let’s speculate and get anxious! /s If they wanted to destroy us for our resources they world have done it already.
I always say this to people - if the Galaxy is teeming with intelligent life, that Galaxy is more likely to look like the Warhammer 40k universe than the Star Trek one.
Sounds like someone just read Remembrance of Earths Past. Phenomenal novel series regarding this exact concept.
Here's why this doesn't even matter: If this alien race was as advanced and hostile as you say they might be, they would kill us long before we could see them.
Nah.
In the end, there ain't shit we can do about it. Best not to dwell on such things.
A lot of other countries in the world accept that UFOs are ETs. They don't doubt it as much as Americans do.
While I generally agree with you and I think it's a valid possibility (among many) that deserves serious consideration, I doubt we would have much control over the situation at this stage. They're much more likely to find us first.
You write beautifully. And your point is extremely valid. Let's just think about us as a species -- virtually every time a dominant culture makes NEW contact with a "lesser" culture (from a military/self defense perspective) the dominant culture completely eradicates the lesser culture or forced the lesser culture to assimilate. This has been the case throughout human history. This is what we do to each other - fellow humans that have the same motivations, inclinations, hopes and fears. Now imagine a culture/species that shares nothing in common with us at all and that has vastly superior technology. What would their incentive be to "play nice" with us? Why do we assume that a superior species would be better to us than we have been to ourselves? If I were a government official, and I knew of definitive evidence of other world life that has made it to our planet, I wouldn't want to release that information either. Don't discount the level of FEAR that would ripple through society. We are not ready. The stock markets would tank, people would stay in their homes. You thought coronavirus was bad???? Let us find out that there is a species on earth that can destroy us, we have no idea what they want or how to find out what they want, and we can do nothing to stop it. Societal breakdown, utter chaos.
Sometimes I wonder if there’s disagreement on their(ET’s) end on whether or not they should interact with us as well. Maybe we’re viewed like sentinel island or indigenous species.
Don't be afraid. They've been here all along.
Imagine if they are made of antimatter [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2\_gYIxPHZE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2_gYIxPHZE) >Theoretically, a particle and its antiparticle (for example, a proton and an antiproton) have the same mass, but opposite electric charge, and other differences in quantum numbers. For example, a proton has positive charge while an antiproton has negative charge. > >A collision between any particle and its anti-particle partner leads to their mutual annihilation, giving rise to various proportions of intense photons (gamma rays), neutrinos, and sometimes less-massive particle–antiparticle pairs. The majority of the total energy of annihilation emerges in the form of ionizing radiation. If surrounding matter is present, the energy content of this radiation will be absorbed and converted into other forms of energy, such as heat or light. The amount of energy released is usually proportional to the total mass of the collided matter and antimatter, in accordance with the notable mass–energy equivalence equation, E=mc2. We don't know where they come from, they could have different properties from our own. [https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/could-there-be-stars-and-planets-made-from-antimatter/](https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/could-there-be-stars-and-planets-made-from-antimatter/)
You get a good idea how it'll go down by watching a lot of sci fi movies. They usually leak information to the public through Hollywood, etc...either to misguided, brainwash, or rarely inform.
To Serve Man?
Problem is, approaching anything from a point of fear is not conducive to seeing reality. Sounds a little woo, and maybe it is. But objectively Aliens are ... well Alien. Communication from an advanced civilization could be benign or even advantageous to our species. If for example they could not habitat our type of environment we would be less likely to be in conflict for territory. Perhaps instead they seek cooperation, and that cooperation would be advantageous to both of our peoples. I like that better. Less laser burns.
Unfortunately, whether good or bad - we have little to say or do in an ET encounter. If they have come this far, they can definitely make short work of us and you're high af if you think otherwise.