Scientists - Time to actively try to contact aliens using "active SETI"
- Thread starter SniperHunter
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Thats how life has always been on earth. We'd just add aliens into the mix.
FullMetaltech
Member
Im in only if they get me some hot pics of Gamora via Hubble.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
I know
But most of those jerks probably wouldn't change their ways even with evidence hitting them in the face.
Mechanized
Member
What if they don't kill us? There are far worse things than death. People assume aliens are humanoids or have human morals, ambitions, or goals. They could be inter-dimensional blob creatures with methane blood that live off devouring the "soul" and damning us to an alternate dimension where time doesn't exist and we are just there eternally in anguish.
Now, there's a wise man.
...
Damn it. How do we protect ourselves from such creatures? Any ideas? We don't have inter-dimensional weapons...
Pai Pai Master
Banned
or that they don't find out about it >.>
Well us not having a soul is probably a good first defense against that.
Net_Wrecker
Member
Still more exciting than humans vs humans.
And again, best case scenario is: They give us cheat codes. Cheat codes. Worth the risk.
We're talking about aliens and you're bringing this fictional stuff into it :|
Ain't nobody stealing souls. They're terrible sources of energy and/or currency.
Lol! I can totally see this happening.
terrisus
Member
Alright, now we're talking.
PeskyToaster
Member
Do it. I want to know.
They would have? We can barely reach beyond our planet. They may not even give a shit about us yet.
freeofgreed
Member
Yeah I don't understand that camp either. I mean what are they going to do to us
eat us? I doubt it. A species intelligent enough to develop interstellar travel isn't going to waste so much time and resources just to eat us.
enslave us? Naw, if they're capable of space travel then that means they've gone through industrialization and you can't have slavery in an industrialized society as that takes jobs away from the workforce. Plus I'm pretty sure they'd have machines that could do any jobs better than we ever could.
Colonize us? Doubt it, if they have insteller travel they probably have found plenty of other planets that they could colonize.
So pretty much all that's left is for them to make peaceful contact with us.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
Why did I know that you were going to say that, god dammit.
a secret-boss
Banned
You called
You're making the mistake of applying human morals on them.
They might kill us just because. They might find it funny. They might be offended at our existence. They might not notice us (for whatever reason and exterminate us by accident). It might be a biological imperative in them. They might poke at us just to see our reaction. Or enslave us to study us. Or... well, coming up with various negative reasons is pretty easy.
We are already detecting hundreds, if not thousands, of potentially habitable planets with our puny technology.
An alien race that was capable of, like someone proposed, sending a planetary mass at 30% of the speed of light and actually hit us, would totally have detected our planet, and analyzed it enough to detect intelligent life.
Or as previously stated they will just nuke us with fast moving hunk of rock we will never see coming. Fire and forget. No worries about future competition.
terrisus
Member
Well, I mean, really, I was waiting for someone to say something a bit more frightening than that they would throw rocks at us and punch us in the face :þ
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, we could be never be able to understand how they think, what their goals are. We could be a hurdle in their goals, and them being indifferent to us would simply wipe us out.
Which is why scientists are worried about the unregulated production of an AI.
Which is why scientists are worried about the unregulated production of an AI.
terrisus
Member
It might already be on its way as we speak.
Well they could just shoot a relativistic projectile at us and assume our gods will take care of the "eternal anguish" part. Don't do any more work than you have to, so to speak.
Really, death may not be the most frightening thing when one starts coming up with alternatives but it may well be the most efficient one.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Go for it. By the time a highly advanced alien civilization responds and decides to live up the paranoid mentality of humanity by attacking the Earth, humanity's inevitable AI overlords will surely be capable of responding in kind with their superior posthuman technology.
One of the most prominent figure heads in terrestrial broadcasts is known only because of a leaked sex tape. At the least, whoever shows up might be DTF.
Net_Wrecker
Member
Well that's on us. We shouldn't have spent so much time dicking around with wars and junk.
It's a space race, baby, and we already fell out of the competition so now we need some help. Gotta reach out. Our hand might get bitten, but whatever, Darwin, I Ching, we gotta roll with it.
So why are you even worried? If they're already on the way to exterminate us, better to know than not to know, right?
While I can understand this, I think that any civilization capable of responding to us has probably grown past violent conquest. That's not to say Earth could not be conquered or subjugated, but it won't be as cut and dry as the Spanish in America.
The "advanced member of a civilization" objection is good, but.
If there's a darth vader out there with his own death star that he can use with little oversight of his empire, he also has super planet detectors and he already has seen us.
So why we are still alive.
Blargonaut
Banned
What if the frequencies of our transmissions are lethal to some alien species and we're actually committing mass interstellar xenocide without knowing it
What if we already have an intergalactic reputation as an infamous species of heartless mass-murderers
What if that's why we're so alone
What if we already have an intergalactic reputation as an infamous species of heartless mass-murderers
What if that's why we're so alone
I'm not sure I follow the logic here? Especially since interspecies conflict and subjegation of an alien other are not the same thing.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
How do you know that we're intelligent enough for that civilization to notice us if that civilization is so ahead of us? Take for instance: you're an explorer who's about to discover Machu Picchu, will you really worry for those ants that are quite far from you? We are those ants to more advanced civilizations, and we live extremely far away from the center of the galaxy. We barely have an impact on our own solar system, why would they think we're nothing but cavemen?
terrisus
Member
Well, that would explain why people are always reporting being probed...
Why do we always assume and either/or thing with aliens? Either they're all peaceful and good or they all want to kill us. Why can't it be that aliens will *gasp* have cultures and beliefs just as varied as we do, and that even within the same species some will want to help us while others will want to exploit us?
I think that a group that is able to expand well outside the confines of its planet is probably more reliant on economics and diplomacy than military power. To have a functioning interplanetary empire, you need friends at home first.
Unless they're the Covenant and are able to glass us, an extraterrestrial state will probably want us to like them, so they can more easily use our resources and manpower.
But you are suggesting that there's some kind of planet killer civilization that whenever an ant starts showing signs of actual intelligence, sends a planet killer their way, because of, say, fear of competition.
That doesn't make sense.
If I were the guy on charge of the planet killing, I would not wait around until a planet shows signs of intelligence by sending SETI signals out there. I'd be checking on those planets already. I'd be proactive. I am on charge of planet killing, I have to show a good report on planets killed every century or I get fired. What if a civilization decides not to send a SETI signal and one day they show up at our door? I'd get fired.
We are doing this right this minute, searching for habitable planets, with technology barely more advanced than what Galileo had. Planet Killer aliens would need to be thousands of years more advanced than us, so they'd already done the SETI thing on planet Earth. We'd be accounted for.
Because one has to deal with (potential/assumed) capabilities, not intentions.
Yeah, maybe they're OK and want to trade or something. But they might have the capability of destroying us... and it may be more beneficial for them to destroy us, if they can without us responding. Anything we do should be backed up by enough firepower, just in case. It would be nicer and better that we never have to use that firepower, sure, but we can't be sure it won't be needed.
And we are not good enough yet.
Net_Wrecker
Member
I think there's this notion that a space faring species will have already "gotten over" all the "nonsense" like opposing cultures, opposing religions, infighting, etc. and that our variation and prejudices are what hold us back.
So basically aliens that can reach us will be a well oiled machine of singular thoughts and goals, with either peaceful or hostile intentions. The opposite of us.
M0nochromatic
Member
In order to get the advanced tech we need as a species, we need to reverse engineer some higher level shit, they'll probably be friendly. They don't care about our resources if they can travel the universe, they can find that shit elsewhere. What we would need to worry about is the exchange of information, and how they want to integrate cultures.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
Oh sorry, I was just following your line of thought there.
Even if they already had a SETI system with radio support, we have no idea if they'd still use it, there might be better ways of communication like quantum entanglement so they could have phase radio out. Or they are still using it! We're really just making suppositions here. Pretty much debating the Fermi Paradox with each other.
What you're saying there, is that we are known in the universe and well perhaps those civilizations don't want us to know about them just yet, which is the zoo theory. My favorite theory in the Fermi Paradox.
Yeah this is a real danger, but it is a relatively minor one. Their culture may destroy and overwrite our culture. But maybe it'd be for the best, if we can get advanced tech in exchange.
My interpretation is that there's a hard limit to technology, at least relative to propulsion systems, so there's not much to worry about. The great silence only happens because, either as you say, there are better communication methods we don't know about, or simply civilizations don't coexist in the same time frames, close enough to communicate anyway. The best we can hope for is to catch someone else uploading their internet. If we apply game theory, the best move is to upload our internet too, at regular timeframes.
Zoo theory is nice to think about, but maybe it is more of a "we can look at them but not really go there. Let's wait until they are advanced enough to send our internet, and maybe one probe with some cultural trophies that will arrive in a thousand years".
I mean, maybe they can just send a ton of rockets with nukes at us, but then again, so can we so they have as much to fear of us as we do of them. Space Cold War.
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