Hawking Says Looking for Aliens Won't End Well

[omnimodis78]

Makes sense. I always wondered why would we actually be funding projects like SETI - given that if one day we actually got a response of some kind, would we even be prepared? It would be one interesting First Contact...

 

[bebangs]

Hawking has been playing Crysis.

 

[zodiacfml]

this is just publicity, maybe for his new show on discovery. if there's alien life advanced enough to conquer us then it doesn't make a difference if we find or contact them first, because they found us first anyway...centuries ago.

[citation][nom]RazberyBandit[/nom]I watched his TV show last night on Discovery, and he openly states that inviting ET to Earth could be catastrophic. (Big surprise, right?)For an intelligent species to get here, they will have to possess far, FAR greater technology than we do. That said, what's to prevent them from farming the Earth, and us, as we farm crops, mines, and livestock now? If they don't come in peace, we're screwed![/citation]

 

[Supertrek32]

We can't even treat each other decently, how could we possibly expect aliens to?

 

[matt87_50]

"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."

now there's a shining endorsement of the human race by the smartest person in the world...

 

[hoofhearted]

This must be why Obama is shutting down Nasa

 

[Guest]

As in "Contact", they've been monitoring our radio and television broadcasts for years; that's why they've come... to shout "Turn that shit off!" and then cauterize the globe with nuclear fire. Like Ridley said "It's the only way we can be sure..."

 

[spks19]

Who is to say they aren't already here farming us. Where does money come from and how come we get taxxed so much? Anyway you look at it if you don't own your own business you are getting screwed... Am I right or am I right?

They invented starcraft to seek out the best resource farmers... they being the aliens dangit.

-spks19

 

[Santimun]

[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]Screw Will Smith. Long before Will Smith, Rowdy Roddy Piper was kicking alien ass and not even bothering to take names (see: They Live! Nothin like Bulldogging an alien through a coffee table. Guess using the Sleeper Hold didn't make much sense).[/citation]
He also coined the phrase "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum."

 

[knightmike]

I love Independence Day as much as the next guy, but it's not realistic. If an alien species is advanced enough to travel thousands of light years, I would have to believe they would be very green. Pun intended. They wouldn't consume resources like locusts and move on to the next planet. I'd like to believe they would have much to offer us in terms of technology, government, etc...

 

[rajangel]

I read an article somewhere (hell knows where) where the author stated that the chance that the alien civilization that discovers earth is within 5,000 years of our civilization is so small that we can't even consider it a possibility.

So if earth was ever discovered by another species... Well it would be precise to say that we might as well be slaves because if we fought it would be the same as sponges vs. nuclear weapons. Humans as the sponges.

 

[Moshu78]

Due to human nature (which can be easily observed) no one would pass us technology or knowledge. Because once we are their equals, sooner or later some of us or even all of us will wage war against them. It's in our nature even truth hurts. No one would be so foolish to give a crazy man a loaded gun. At best, they will stay away and observe as we kill each other and transmit it live as an inter-galactic show. Makes me think about all the UFO's sightings

 

[eddieroolz]

One only needs to look amongst us humans to see that us creatures are all the same at heart. We constantly kill each other over trivial reasons. If ETs function similarly to the way we do - then we're toast.

 

[whitecrowro]

should inject Vista in their systems, that would slow them down

 

[princeofdreams]

Everyone here is presuming that aliens will come to either "farm" us and our planet or to say "hi" and share their technology with us, personally I doubt it would be for either reason

If they haven't visited us already, and there is some evidence towards the fact they have. It is much more likely they will be here to observe us and to judge our nature, and that does not bode well for us...

Look at us as a species, while there is such a thing as human kindness, a loving side to our nature, it is far overwhelmed by our aggressive side, do you really think a superior race (and they would have to be superior to get here) would want a species like us travelling the universe? Look at how we treat ourselves, we can't even get along with our own kind, we can't even get along with the other animals on our planet, do you think they would want us getting technologically advanced enough to travel from star system to star system?

If they come here, it will be to stop us getting out there...

To paraphrase the film aliens, if they examine us they will just think "Take off and nuke form orbit, its the only way to be sure" We need to learn to live with ourselves before we encounter aliens, we are far to dangerous and aggressive for them to allow us out there

 

[marney_5]

If Hawking says dont, then dont!!!

 

[imageraiter]

If one day humans learn to stop fighting each other, maybe the aliens might come and invite us to the galactic order.

 

[gregor]

Princeofdreams - I think you've hit the nail on the head.

Maybe they are just like us behaviourally speaking, by that I mean there are countries that are tolerated by others, but you wouldn't want them to have nukes.
Maybe they'd think the same about us, fine while we are only crapping in our own backyard. The question then would be what they would be prepared to do to stop that happening?

 

[acadia11]

If there were Aliens and they could get here, likely means they could pretty much destroy our planet in a day at the most. I can't remember what they call that civilization scale but we are infants at level 0, any civilization that can travel the great divide of deep space, has command over forces and energy we have yet to comprehend, Hawkings is right on this one, except on one point where he says it would be like the Natives. It took a couple hundred years to destroy the Native population of the Americas by the Europeans, it would take a couple of minutes for any alien civilization that could get to earth to destroy ours.

 

[acadia11]

Oh and I doubt we could offer our woman to try and keep them calm.