What do you think about aliens?

[Anomalocaris]

I think, if they're truly intelligent, they'll steer clear of humanity entirely.

If they are truly intelligent, their steering would be totally unaffected by humanity just as your driving would be unaffected by ants.

---

Why many of us believe that aliens is hostile? i think that stupid (like Star Wars and Star trek idea of high-tech civilisations still fighting like angry monkeys). We just project our own primitive mindset on what we think high-tech civilisations (who left behind millions years of tech evolution, instead of ours few thousand). We become less and less violent, less wars, more politicaly correct with years tech evolution passed.  Now imagine highly intellectual aliens who just wanna kill us for fun. Its same like nobel prize laureates who likes kill people for fun after work in the lab. Ridiculous.
I think they exist of course (look up fo billions of stars and exoplanets), but if the even invent fast  way of travel - they dont wanna visit our primitive world with religious wars, they dont want to disrupt our evolution. We need to evolve for them.

Hostile attitude towards us from our perspective need not be any specific malicious intent towards us.  It most likely will be the result of Pursuit of expediency on their part without any notice paid to consequence on our part.

Such attitude with respect to us is not only not primitive nor unwarrantedly anthropocentric, it seem likely to be the default attitude most alien intelligence would adopt towards us.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

What puzzles me is that people always (or nearly always) seem to assume that ETs would be vastly ahead of us, technologically speaking.  Why?  Couldn't it possibly be that there aren't any species who have survived long enough to develop interstellar travel, and the ones that are left are too busy poisoning their own planets to bother with starships?  Sort of like, you know, us.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

What puzzles me is that people always (or nearly always) seem to assume that ETs would be vastly ahead of us, technologically speaking.  Why?  Couldn't it possibly be that there aren't any species who have survived long enough to develop interstellar travel, and the ones that are left are too busy poisoning their own planets to bother with starships?  Sort of like, you know, us.

Boru

Because even if the chances for any individual specie to survive long into technology age is slim, the number of technological species seems likely to be so large, that some small fraction of these that did by chance survived long into it would still likely represent a large number.

But I think it is plausible that with advancements in science beyond ours, other venues for gaining survival advantage and attaining aggrandizement that we have hitherto not dreamed of or at least not thought about seriously would become available, so brute interstellar travel and colonization by spaceships turn out not to represent a lengthy era or even important era in the history of the development of any technological civilization.

[vulcanlogician]

Why many of us believe that aliens is hostile? i think that stupid (like Star Wars and Star trek idea of high-tech civilisations still fighting like angry monkeys). We just project our own primitive mindset on what we think high-tech civilisations (who left behind millions years of tech evolution, instead of ours few thousand). We become less and less violent, less wars, more politicaly correct with years tech evolution passed.  Now imagine highly intellectual aliens who just wanna kill us for fun. Its same like nobel prize laureates who likes kill people for fun after work in the lab. Ridiculous.
I think they exist of course (look up fo billions of stars and exoplanets), but if the even invent fast  way of travel - they dont wanna visit our primitive world with religious wars, they dont want to disrupt our evolution. We need to evolve for them.

Pretty optimistic. The argument goes the other way too, though. Creatures that evolve intelligence/cunning are often predators. Even dolphins are cruel and violent from the point of view of their prey. Have you seen how we treat chickens and cattle? Are there any other "less intelligent" species that arange murder on such a scale as we? Also consider the depths of human cruelty. What guarantees that an alien species wouldn't treat us that way if it served their purposes.

And Star Trek isn't really about space and aliens. It's about human struggles; aliens and starships are just storytelling devices.

[ignoramus]

Great point Chuck.
The first priority for any species is to ensure its own survival.
So logically, find the nearest inhabitable planet and try to colonize it to protect from nasty space objects destroying the family home.

Once that is accomplished, go the the next nearest one and so on.

Trying to find other life out in the sticks just to compare dick sizes is probably on the bottom of everyone's list.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Or just build a ringworld and stay home.

[ignoramus]

Is there any theories about possible force fields like in Star Trek?
Or is it pure bs?

[AFTT47]

It is just to me, more reasonable that even if we find it, it will be stuck locally where it is at like we are.

Nope. New physics is not required for practical interstellar travel.

Google, "stellaser". It's a way to build a huge-ass laser directly powered by a star. No new physics required. One of these could push a spacecraft with a huge solar sail to at least 10% of light speed. You would send a robotic probe ahead of you to build a stellaser at the destination for slowing down.

You might think that's still too slow but not with life extension or for beings that have self-evolved into immortal machines.

Most sci-fi depicts interstellar travel using (as far as we know) non-obtainable tech because it is most convenient for good story-telling. The reality is that none of it is needed. There are multitudes of solutions to interstellar travel which are firmly grounded in known physics.

Any intelligent life form that has the desire to travel to other star systems will have the means to do this eventually. It's just a matter of time to develop those means.

[outtathereligioncloset]

I think they taste like barbecued chicken.

The babies are especially tender.

[GGG]

Why many of us believe that aliens is hostile? i think that stupid (like Star Wars and Star trek idea of high-tech civilisations still fighting like angry monkeys). We just project our own primitive mindset on what we think high-tech civilisations (who left behind millions years of tech evolution, instead of ours few thousand). We become less and less violent, less wars, more politicaly correct with years tech evolution passed.  Now imagine highly intellectual aliens who just wanna kill us for fun. Its same like nobel prize laureates who likes kill people for fun after work in the lab. Ridiculous.
I think they exist of course (look up fo billions of stars and exoplanets), but if the even invent fast  way of travel - they dont wanna visit our primitive world with religious wars, they dont want to disrupt our evolution. We need to evolve for them.

What exactly is your definition of "less violent"

After WW2 violence and war casualties count is declining exponentially. It's happening first time in our history, so im optimistic yeah. also wealth even in third world countries is going up (also first time in history such a grow).