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I tend toward a similar pessimism. Hawking has said that we need only look at the history of inter-species relationships on our planet (let alone race relation
by mark_integerdsv 14y ago
I tend toward a similar pessimism.
Hawking has said that we need only look at the history of inter-species relationships on our planet (let alone race relationships) to get a hint of what exopolitics might look like. He goes on to mention that in terms of the search for alien life, we'd do best to keep our heads low.
- Wintamute 14y agoIt's too late for keeping our heads low. There's a sphere of EM radiation travelling at 3x10^8 m/s that started expanding out from Earth about the time that we turned on the first radio set. It announces our presence to anything capable listening.
- superrad 14y agoAfter a few light years non focused radio/tv transmissions will drop off into background noise. Active SETI is what's needed to send a signal to other planets
- vacri 14y agoHistory up until... when? The last 60 years has seen considerable advances in inter-race politics, and it's improving all the time. Why wouldn't exopolitics be an advanced form of this?
- chii 14y agoexcept of course, when the "advanced" species wants something that the "lower" species has. What if liquid water is a rarity, and the earth happens to have a lot of it?
- rsheridan6 14y agoSixty years is not a long time, and there's no reason to believe that this trend will continue forever.
- vacri 14y agoThere's also no reason to believe it won't, unless you're aiming for bias in the analysis.
- rsheridan6 14y agoI would not deny the possible that, for reasons I don't understand, any species advanced enough to be capable of interstellar travel behaves like a cross between Bono and Peter Singer. But I would not stake the survival of my species on it. And there is a reason to believe that they probably won't be - they will be the product of Darwinian evolution, just like us, which is really not a very nice thing.
- vacri 14y agoI completely agree on not staking the survival of the species on it, I just think that it's an overly cynical view. Same as I think most people are good people, but I still lock my car because a very few of them are thieves.
- gbog 14y agoThe strong assumption here is that the is no divide between intelligent and non intelligent life forms. I don't think it is the only view. I'd rather compare alien encounter with something like Marco Polo going to China: he didn't wish to kill them all, was impressed by some achievement and inventions but was also disgusted by the Chinese diet. Came back and wrote a book, and it was so foreign most readers didn't believe him.