ALIENS

[groph]

If you're talking about the movie, it's fucking awesome, all of them. Especially the ones with Sigourney Weaver in them.

If you're talking about sentient life forms who do not live on Earth, then...

I am of the opinion that God does not exist, I put my "faith" in science.

Life seems to be kind of accidental. Our planet just happens to be the perfect distance from the perfect star to support life, which has evolved to its present state based upon the environment it's been growing up in. Of course, there could be intelligent life whose physiology/biochemistry is entirely different. Read "Life and Time" by Isaac Asimov for a good explanation of this.

It's very probable that other life exists because there are trillions and trillions of other stars out there, if not trillions of galaxies which could contain countless billions of civilizations. If the human race was the ONLY intelligent form of life anywhere in the universe, that would be kind of weird, and then I might pick up a Bible, but I doubt that's true.

Since space is fucking giant, very impractical distances would separate planets with intelligent life on them, so it's also pretty unlikely that two intelligent races would ever make contact unless some kind of faster-than-light means of travel were to be devised, which, to us tiny humans is impossible.

tl;dr, Yeah, aliens probably exist. We'll probably never know for a fact that they do, though,

 

[Andii]

While i believe you saw these things, your making this huge assumption that blinky lights = little green space men. In reality there is absolutly NO correlation between the two. Its been put there by sci fi, the media, and a million other things that have given people a predisposed notion that if you dont know what a light in the sky is, its automatically a space ship.

I see this all the time on that ghost hunters show(i dont watch it). A lamp will fall over or a board will creak and the guys will freak out. Now, there is no proof what so ever that a fucking ghost is doing that, but people still watch it, and the unrealistic connections are made that if a broom falls over while we are looking for ghosts, then obviously there is a ghost.
Its funny because when a board creeks or a broom falls over when they ARNT looking for ghosts, i'm sure they consider it normal.

When something is extremely close and vivid enough it can't be misinterpreted.

 

[groph]

Just imagine the implications of first contact though. Fields such as sociology would have to be expanded SO much.

University courses would be like

SOAN 4500: Krygrrgfrarrg Advanced Political Sciences

Seriously though, we'd have to study stuff like that. There'd be new anatomies, new psychology, probably some new stuff in chemisty, everything. We'd be combining the collective knowledge of two civilizations which would be the greatest thing to ever happen to us. That is, if we can find a way to communicate and if we (us, not them, I'm nearly certain that the human race would be the first to pull the trigger in the event of first contact but who knows) don't make the likely grave error of launching nukes at them. Humans are just xenophobic.

Also, if humans cannot travel faster than light, how about robots? They could be our ambassadors. We should really get robots working for us as quickly as possible. They should never be programmed to be self aware. We've all seen Terminator.

I really want a movie to come out where a benevolent, advanced alien race makes its first contact with an Earth that is pretty much war torn and on the verge of total collapse. Set it in like, 2150 or something like that. To add some irony as well as giant explosions, this advanced alien race could be looking for help because another, equally advanced and more warlike race is threatening their existence so this benevolent race fixes all of Earth's problems and kick-starts our technology to get it up to scratch so our now utopian, peaceful society can go to war as an ally of the benevolent race against the warlike race. It would be best to make this in multiple installments so it can go into the depth necessary, concluding with an epic intergalactic war. If this has already been done, refer me to this movie.

 

[vampiregenocide]

Havnt you seen district 13 man?? Thats a troo story!

That is a good film.

 

[Randy]

...Shadow in the Warp...

 

[tacotiklah]

@ groph

I think the plot to the game Starcraft is pretty similar to what you're talking about. Humans terraform several planets and build an entire civilization in a galaxy far from earth. The civilization is wartorn with oppression and tyranny and some planets have even been rendered uninhabitable by full scale nuclear war. Enter humans first contact with aliens. The humans name them "Zerg" which are an insect like life-form bent on consuming and assimilating all life in the universe. After the first planet falls, another alien life form known as the "Protoss". emerges and wipes out the whole planet in an attempt to roust the Zerg. Eventually the Protoss fall into a civil war over how they are treating humans, and along with the war against the Zerg, brings their race nearly to extinction. Eventually they learn to work with humans and share technology to fight back and deal massive blows to the Zerg and halt their advance.

In the expansion pack Brood War, humans from Earth come in an attempt to conquer the terraformed planets and tame the Zerg for their own purposes. Needless to say they get their asses handed to them and are completely destroyed by the zerg while they are retreating back to Earth.

I imagine you've played the game already, but I like the plot so much that I wanted to share it anyways.

 

[groph]

@ groph

I think the plot to the game Starcraft is pretty similar to what you're talking about. Humans terraform several planets and build an entire civilization in a galaxy far from earth. The civilization is wartorn with oppression and tyranny and some planets have even been rendered uninhabitable by full scale nuclear war. Enter humans first contact with aliens. The humans name them "Zerg" which are an insect like life-form bent on consuming and assimilating all life in the universe. After the first planet falls, another alien life form known as the "Protoss". emerges and wipes out the whole planet in an attempt to roust the Zerg. Eventually the Protoss fall into a civil war over how they are treating humans, and along with the war against the Zerg, brings their race nearly to extinction. Eventually they learn to work with humans and share technology to fight back and deal massive blows to the Zerg and halt their advance.

In the expansion pack Brood War, humans from Earth come in an attempt to conquer the terraformed planets and tame the Zerg for their own purposes. Needless to say they get their asses handed to them and are completely destroyed by the zerg while they are retreating back to Earth.

I imagine you've played the game already, but I like the plot so much that I wanted to share it anyways.

Oh yeah I've played the game, and I suppose you're right about the plot being kind of like what I described. I'm anxiously awaiting the release date of Starcraft II, which is July 27th. Starcraft came out in what, 1996-98?

Ridiculous. Blame it on WoW.

 

[tacotiklah]

Oh yeah I've played the game, and I suppose you're right about the plot being kind of like what I described. I'm anxiously awaiting the release date of Starcraft II, which is July 27th. Starcraft came out in what, 1996-98?

Ridiculous. Blame it on WoW.

Yeah I cant wait to play it either. I didnt know they announced the release date for it. The plot is so damn awesome. I suck at RTS games, but they usually have really cool storylines so Im a fan of them just the same.

But Im definitely anxious to hear when Diablo 3 comes out.

And Im definitely all for a starcraft movie being made; provided it has the right actors and plenty of amazing special effects to do it justice...

 

[Explorer]

A couple of ideas...

Why assume that aliens will have a form of physics which doesn't follow the rules we ourselves can observe in the physical world? There's a lot of assertions that aliens will have technology which will accomplish things which are ruled out by the laws of thermodynamics. Those laws aren't based on arbitrary constructs based upon human perception, but instead come from the real world.

----

Imagine a big rock at the top of a hill, containing potential energy by virtue of its height. Now, imagine that rock rolling down and coming to a rest at the bottom. How much energy will it take to put that rock back where it came from, and to restore its potential energy?

Now, imagine that the hill you want to go up is the downward slide from the past to the future. How much energy would one have to invest to send something into the past?

----

Assuming that there are extraterrestrials who have developed the technology to travel interstellar distances, and that they are coming to Earth... why would they be friendly?

Even on Earth, societies rarely reach a point of niceness. Most forms of government are unstable, and wind up in a state of feudalism. (And yes, even anarchy has that tendency; feudalism is the low-energy state, like a boulder which has rolled to the bottom of the hill.)

Why hypothesize that aliens would care about us as a species? Why wouldn't we be a resource to be consumed and/or exploited?

----

Given the huge problems of interstellar travel and communication, and of maintaining a government or society which would support such a venture, it's very unlikely that aliens are capable of visiting us. That's not even looking at the likelihood of aliens developing their technology at a time when their visits would coincide with our modern day.

----

Lastly...

For those who want something interesting to read, and are curious about the workings of MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network, which claims to work for scientific investigation of UFO activity), here's a link to the blog of James Carrion, who resigned as head of MUFON due to the deception being practiced by UFO investigators and supported by MUFON.

http://tinyrl.com/CarrionResigns

It gives numerous examples, and I have no doubt that Carrion was not popular with either those who want to believe, nor with those whose livelihoods depends upon being able to sell to those believers....

 

[vampiregenocide]

A couple of ideas...

Why assume that aliens will have a form of physics which doesn't follow the rules we ourselves can observe in the physical world? There's a lot of assertions that aliens will have technology which will accomplish things which are ruled out by the laws of thermodynamics. Those laws aren't based on arbitrary constructs based upon human perception, but instead come from the real world.

----

Imagine a big rock at the top of a hill, containing potential energy by virtue of its height. Now, imagine that rock rolling down and coming to a rest at the bottom. How much energy will it take to put that rock back where it came from, and to restore its potential energy?

Now, imagine that the hill you want to go up is the downward slide from the past to the future. How much energy would one have to invest to send something into the past?

----

Assuming that there are extraterrestrials who have developed the technology to travel interstellar distances, and that they are coming to Earth... why would they be friendly?

Even on Earth, societies rarely reach a point of niceness. Most forms of government are unstable, and wind up in a state of feudalism. (And yes, even anarchy has that tendency; feudalism is the low-energy state, like a boulder which has rolled to the bottom of the hill.)

Why hypothesize that aliens would care about us as a species? Why wouldn't we be a resource to be consumed and/or exploited?

----

Given the huge problems of interstellar travel and communication, and of maintaining a government or society which would support such a venture, it's very unlikely that aliens are capable of visiting us. That's not even looking at the likelihood of aliens developing their technology at a time when their visits would coincide with our modern day.

----

The universe is like a very complex machine, designed to work in a specific way via a certain set of rules. Now you can't change those fundamental rules, but you can modify the machine to work differently, or use it in conjunction with something else to gain a desired effect. We know this is how things work because of how animals have evolved on different continents. They evolve in similar ways to combat the same problems. Nature is complex, but predictable.

And theres always the possibility they will be an enemy race, however if they are more advanced than us, they will have had to overcome the same problems any race will face e.g. over use of resources, world wars etc. This problems will hopefully teach them a great deal, and maybe they will have achieved a higher sense of being, knowledge and wisdom.

 

[Demiurge]

A couple of ideas...

Why assume that aliens will have a form of physics which doesn't follow the rules we ourselves can observe in the physical world? There's a lot of assertions that aliens will have technology which will accomplish things which are ruled out by the laws of thermodynamics. Those laws aren't based on arbitrary constructs based upon human perception, but instead come from the real world.

----

The argument comes up a lot in religious discussions, too, where the powers and abilities ascribed to aliens/gods are always going to be one step ahead of both our abilities AND our general comprehension.

If we say it's impossible, the response will be, "humans' limited understanding of how things work may cause us to say things are impossible that might actually be possible."

There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that there are things that we do not understand yet scientifically, but I don't think that necessarily writes a blank check for believing in anything of the science-fiction variety.

 

[Spondus]

The argument comes up a lot in religious discussions, too, where the powers and abilities ascribed to aliens/gods are always going to be one step ahead of both our abilities AND our general comprehension.

If we say it's impossible, the response will be, "humans' limited understanding of how things work may cause us to say things are impossible that might actually be possible."

There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that there are things that we do not understand yet scientifically, but I don't think that necessarily writes a blank check for believing in anything of the science-fiction variety.

It's the classic 'God works in mysterious ways' fallacy. People start with the assumption that aliens/god/yetis/fuck knows what else are real and then construct their 'evidence' from there. The main problem with this is that it's almost impossible to argue against (and things like this have been coming up a lot here lately).

Any argument about alien visitation is pretty redundant, as like this and a couple of other threads show, it will just boil down to statements along the lines of 'you can't just assume they're not real', which doesn't really survive scrutiny as an argument for the existance of aliens.