POLL - Is Earth Ready to Meet an Alien Civilization?

[SpaceXFanMobius57]

The obvious intelligent thing for an Alien sentience to do is to do nothing and observe. We are a developing civilization, we are not especially good nor are we especially bad. Civilizations have to climb the ladder of development all of the time and we are no different. For an alien sentience we are a valuable asset to study to see how civilizations develop. They realize that for a civilization at our particular stage, making themself known would be irrisponsable and destructive to our civilization. They will do absolutely nothing to compromise us and go through extreme means to make sure that thier observation methods are not detectable. We are probably some sort of heavly protected wildlife and science zone. They will let us develop on our own and let whatever happens happen.

Civilizations rise and fall throughout the universe all the time, im pretty convinced most start up warlike and divided like we have been and go through a sereis of developments. Eventually civilizations extinct themselvs or they move on to bigger things, morally, technologically etc. The human race is just travling the rung and cannot be paraded or condemed yet.

All these claims about seeing UFOs and governemtnal alien cover-ups are a ruse. They are peoples imaginations and the want to believe some more stuff is going on than there is. Any advanced civilization would not need to abduct anyone and would surly not let thier vehicles be visible to us.

[netdragon]

I believe it will take some adjusting to for most people in the beginning, but it won't be long before people take it for granted. The human race is very adaptable.

I have met and talked to ETs before, and seen them without talking many more times it wasn't that big a deal.

[SpaceForAReason]

Hypothesis 1: Man did not originate on earth.
Hypothesis 2: The so-called aliens inhabiting other worlds... just more humans like us.
Hypothesis 3: If they are so very advanced, they would certainly limit their exposure to us and vice-versa.

[CosmologyCafe]

Our dark cinematic fantasies of bad scary aliens are all precise reflections of the manners in which we treat the other species of our planet.
They'll consider us vermin, and exterminate us. (Independence Day, etc.)
They'll hunt us like wild game. (The Predator)
They'll kill us for no particular reason. (The Alien)
They'll enslave us for foodstock, organ harvesting, medical experiments, genetic engineering, and slave labour. (Nazi Aliens)
The few of us they allow to live they'll keep as pets, desexed and lobotomized. (Forbidden Planet)

These are precisely what we do to the other species of this planet. We have hundreds of reasons to kill them, but no reason to try and communicate with them. And these are our co-species on Earth, blood relatives so to speak. This does not bode well for ET contact. Probably, an ETCiv would put Earth in quarantine until humans stopped finding reasons to kill everything else, and started finding reasons to safeguard their fellows and preserve their biosphere.

[writerman]

I think the stereotypes of what aliens might be like--either ET or Alien--are probably both wrong. The fact that a civilization has been around longer than ours will not negate species narcissism or individual ego or self-interest. I predict negotiating with them would not be much different than between different nationalities here at home. I also think the vast distances involved--unless currently barely imaginable forms of propulsion are involved--makes interstellar conflict highly unlikely. What are they likely to want from our planet they couldn't get from countless billions of other worlds?

The standard imperatives when the unlimited resources of the cosmos are available--wealth, leibensraum. , etc--just aren't operable anymore. They might find us interesting as a curiosity, and we them. I think the most likely relationship between us and them would in the end be vast amiable indifference.

There's lots of living room out there, folks. And an inexhaustable store of resources, enough for a trillion civilizations.

And however advnaced they may be, I don't think they'll ever be able to answer the eternal questions--the ultimate meaning of life and consciousness--any more than we can.

[Valcan]

BTW id like to recomend this book to anyone who is interested in the subject or just likes good books.

http://www.webscription.net/p-946-conta ... chaos.aspx

Good book though at times a little slow.

[Valcan]

"we still have a shot a a civilization with no war and no poor. imagine how our civilization would bloom if everyone had a full mind and a full stomach...?"

Heheh right,

As long as there is man there will bee poor and hungry and war and death. THAT is the natural way of things.

Some people wont get along no matter what.

Some people are just to f'in lazy to do a job (btw im in no way rich kinda poor realy always have been) some are mentaly not there. Some are just unlucky.

As the saying goes....reality bites.

BTW think on this would you really want a race to come in assign you a place and basicaly keep you safe secure and inslaved (for your own good remember!!!) for the rest of your life. And then your childs life, and theres, and theres, and on an on anon.

Not all slaves are chained in steel or iron.

[stormhelm]

lol~ frankly who cares?
i doubt any other intellegent races exist and look here on earth as appalling lack of intellegence shown everyday with wars, corruption, the way teeneagers dress, etc and daily dose of media b.s. and obama is 1 of them
the day i hear the intersteller version of "dancing with the stars" and wearing thigh high boots like i do? i will beleive in them otherwise keep dreaming away as its free.
big deal either way.

[stormhelm]

wow an expert??? how did he acquire such arcane knowledge? STAR WARS!!!!
have fun dreaming professor!!

The obvious intelligent thing for an Alien sentience to do is to do nothing and observe. We are a developing civilization, we are not especially good nor are we especially bad. Civilizations have to climb the ladder of development all of the time and we are no different. For an alien sentience we are a valuable asset to study to see how civilizations develop. They realize that for a civilization at our particular stage, making themself known would be irrisponsable and destructive to our civilization. They will do absolutely nothing to compromise us and go through extreme means to make sure that thier observation methods are not detectable. We are probably some sort of heavly protected wildlife and science zone. They will let us develop on our own and let whatever happens happen.

Civilizations rise and fall throughout the universe all the time, im pretty convinced most start up warlike and divided like we have been and go through a sereis of developments. Eventually civilizations extinct themselvs or they move on to bigger things, morally, technologically etc. The human race is just travling the rung and cannot be paraded or condemed yet.

All these claims about seeing UFOs and governemtnal alien cover-ups are a ruse. They are peoples imaginations and the want to believe some more stuff is going on than there is. Any advanced civilization would not need to abduct anyone and would surly not let thier vehicles be visible to us.

[stormhelm]

I believe it will take some adjusting to for most people in the beginning, but it won't be long before people take it for granted. The human race is very adaptable.

I have met and talked to ETs before, and seen them without talking many more times it wasn't that big a deal.

Yea your politician like obama and pelosi! and now I met an "et" here!!! they even sell you tacos!!
this is sooo fun and i smoke but not the weed you do!

[FlatEarth]

No way, not a chance. How could we begin to explain why we have nuke tipped missiles pointed at each other? How could we begin to explain the yahoos who kill themselves and others because they think they are doing the work of God? How could we begin to explain stormhelm? The list is endless. We have our work cut out for us before we can be considered ready for such a meeting, and it’s doubtful we’ll ever get there.

[cyclonebuster]

The bible speaks of hosts which are aliens many many times.

Genesis 2:1 (King James Version)

Genesis 2
1Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.


Psalm 33:6 (King James Version)

6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

[spacefire]

I think we're ready...ready as we'll ever be...although I feel like the first "official" contact will be a radio transmission.

[Valcan]

LOL yea i think id cheak with the people who i was about to meet to see if it was ok if i land my assualt shuttle first.

[SpaceXFanMobius57]

wow an expert??? how did he acquire such arcane knowledge? STAR WARS!!!!
have fun dreaming professor!!

The obvious intelligent thing for an Alien sentience to do is to do nothing and observe. We are a developing civilization, we are not especially good nor are we especially bad. Civilizations have to climb the ladder of development all of the time and we are no different. For an alien sentience we are a valuable asset to study to see how civilizations develop. They realize that for a civilization at our particular stage, making themself known would be irrisponsable and destructive to our civilization. They will do absolutely nothing to compromise us and go through extreme means to make sure that thier observation methods are not detectable. We are probably some sort of heavly protected wildlife and science zone. They will let us develop on our own and let whatever happens happen.

Civilizations rise and fall throughout the universe all the time, im pretty convinced most start up warlike and divided like we have been and go through a sereis of developments. Eventually civilizations extinct themselvs or they move on to bigger things, morally, technologically etc. The human race is just travling the rung and cannot be paraded or condemed yet.

All these claims about seeing UFOs and governemtnal alien cover-ups are a ruse. They are peoples imaginations and the want to believe some more stuff is going on than there is. Any advanced civilization would not need to abduct anyone and would surly not let thier vehicles be visible to us.

Your're trying to bring me down becuase you could never write such pretty paragraphs like that. No i did not gain my writing skills or thoughts from star wars, but writing class and my sense of judgment on what an intelligence should do. I also think about what would make sense.

[junjobx2199]

We are to savage and primitive to be of any interest to any other race of beings . Sorry maybe in another thousand years , if the Earth is still habital.

[kelvinzero]

I really doubt aliens would keep away because we are too bitey.

This notion of aliens silently waiting for us to reach some moral level before providing evidence of their existence is the same con job that religions have played on us for centuries.

If the alien race was not so far ahead of us that we are like bacteria to them, then we would probably still get visited by the Steve Irwin of aliens. "OOOH look at this beauuuutiful planet. Look at how it is bristling with Nuclear weapons. Thats a defense mechanism. Look how angry it gets when I bonk its nose like this..."

[eribon]

Hi there,

I'm an alien from a far away galaxy. I'm in charge of studying your civilization and I happened to stumble upon this blog.
Although meant for earthlings, I hope you don't mind me joining the debate. (forgive me my spelling mistakes - english is not my native language).

There are a couple of guidelines we have for deciding on to contact other civilizations or not. I'll briefly sum them up here for you.

1.Jungle factor.
With 'jungle factor' we mean in how much a civilization still runs by the primitive 'animal' rule of 'survival of the fittest'.
While many earth-tribes (I believe you call them 'countries') have sufficient ways of taking care of the weakest, there are still many large tribes where health and wealth is based purely on personal merit. As long as your 'income' determines how much health care you can get, you are pretty much in a high 'jungle state'. I leave it up to you to decide how to rate your own tribe on the jungle scale. Although I've seen some promising initiaves, I don't think you will be able to change from 'survival of the fittest' to 'survival of everyone'. Earth still scores too low on this scale I'm afraid.

2.Tribal factor.
Although the concept of a 'tribe' is difficult to explain to our 'people', for you earthlings it is still the unquestioned way you organize your planet. As an example: some decades ago, we were quite excited to watch you reach the first extra-planetary place, the satellite that revolves around your planet - I believe you call it 'moon'.
However, we were very disappointed when we noticed that you planted a tribal symbol on the satellite. The planting of a symbol is ok, but the fact that the symbol only represented one tribe and not humanity was quite shocking to us. I hope you forgive us for it, but at that moment you fell back to the lowest rating on the tribal scale. (forgive me for not mentioning 'war' and other excruciating artefacts of tribal organization - it is too painfull for us to think of such things).

3.Sustainability factor.
Every form of life evolves. Some forms of life suffocate themselves by overpopulation, or polution of their own habitat. We watched this happen to the first forms of life on your planet. These life forms flourished on the abundance of methane, but unfortunately suffocated from their own excrements, namely oxygen. We feared this was the end of the story for your planet, but luckily we noticed that new life forms started to develop in the oxygen-rich environment. A second chance for your planet! Unfortenately, although the oxygen life form has reached moderate intelligence, we fear that it will not reach the sustainability level. Oh well, We'll just have to wait for the third wave of live on you planet. There's no hurry for us.

So, until these minor issues above have been resolved, I greet you!
And don't be too disappointed: you tried hard, and actually almost made it. Very impressive.

Bye,

Erik Bongers (the alien).

[StarofDavid]

Well, this poll brought out the usual suspects, the atheists, the conspiracy theorists, and the human self hate fan club. The stunning lack of logic exhibited by some more than answers this question. As a species we are more than ready to meet an alien civilization, if your taking for granted any visitors we'd receive would be typical of THEIR civilization. We'd have no common frame of reference to know right away if we were meeting the best or worse these beings had to offer, including an attack. After all, there are and always have been a hell of lot of good and kind Japanese, but they attacked the U.S. when they thought it was in their own self interest.
Now to the religion thing. Believe or non-believe in a God or gods BOTH take a leap of faith as we have NO quantitative way to prove either. For purposes of this discussion this is irrelevant.
As for our ability to defend ourselves if things went bad in a meeting with aliens, this a worry I have as well, but not to the extent of not wanting to meet them. I realize their being here would mean they are far advanced of us in technology, but living things can be killed. The collective preparedness of the world's military for this event is not known, as the public would be the last they would share that info with, as they would not want their plans broadcast to the aliens themselves. In this modern culture the military can't say anything about a pimple on someones ass without it being broadcast around the world. If our or any other military has a plan in place for an alien visitation, they are completely correct for keeping it a secret.
Intelligent life can be either good or evil by turns, we are as ready, or not as we ever will be. No matter how carefully handled, there would be mistakes made in such a meeting. The integrity of the collective leadership on both sides will determine if it gets out of hand................so vote well my friends

[Dryden88]

To all who are against Religion,

Wow... I cannot believe your view on religion? So everyone who believes in god fits into the categories described? "The aliens are the devil we should kill them." Then apparently you dont know many religious people. Most people of faith dont believe in forcing there opinion anymore. They generally just want to be left alone and not rediculed by the elite in this country. I personally am not religious, but I believe in god but also believe (might want to sit down for this) in evolution. This is called intelligent design. So because I have a different beliefe system or idea then you then am I immediatley an idiot or an ideologue? Alien in my opinion would only reinforce god's power and majesty not destroy it. Faith would be restored and renewed not dropped into chaos. Good created the universe, wait I meant a unknown event caused the big bang that set the universe into motion. What cause that to happen, and then that. and then that. I see religion as a leap of faith that all the elite have lost the ability to make, because there education has pushed that ability out of there system. Off topic I know but it bothers me everytime someone blames religion (like that would bother a vastly intelligent species) for aliens not contacting us. The violent acts of most of the religions have been over with for 100's of years. Stop blaming religion for all your ill's.