Stephen Hawking: Aliens probably exist, but leave them alone

[f. bandersnatch]

Tom- I saw that movie. It had William Wallace in it and was directed by the twist ending guy. It was mediocre.

Aliens- If you are listening, please start harassing people on the coasts. Based on every crazy person I have talked to ever, you obsession with the Midwest is totally out of control. We are not that interesting, and our women are not that attractive.

[Darwin]

and our women are not that attractive.

Perhaps the resulting sexual frustration explains the fascination with, and obsession for, otherworldly fantasies. After years of viewing the "pulchritude" on display in the typical grocery store or Walmart here in flyover country I can sort of understand wanting to believe in some kind of fantasy world, any kind.

To those offended by the above comment please accept my abject apologies. If your are a co-resident of flyoverville please accept my abject sympathies. Geez, looks like it's time for another extra sterk.

[Roo]

Shoutout to forum noobs f. bandersnatch and Darwin. Thanks for joining the forum guys, I already find myself clicking to see what you two knuckleheads write everytime. Smart sons of bitches, and a couple of gentleman. Nice to have you.

[Darwin]

Thanks Roo. If you're in the mood for a real solid dose of masochism and overwrought wordsmithery check out my modest blog which has been read worldwide by at least four or five people:

http://oiukm32.blogspot.com/

The subject o' snus is addressed in this recent post:

http://oiukm32.blogspot.com/2010/02/...tions-way.html

And who you callin' a "gentleman"? Why I oughta....

[Roo]

"In harm reduction's way" is a great read, I like your style Darwin. Thanks for posting that. Sorry to jack the thread sgreger, let's talk about aliens. Anyone read "The Sparrow" or its sequel, "Children of God"? It's about discovering extraterrestrial life and the Jesuit missionaries who are sent to investigate and spread the gospel. Crazy shit and intra-species rape ensue.

Edit: IntER-species rape, my bad. Alien-on-man action.

[texasmade]

discovering extraterrestrial life and the Jesuit missionaries who are sent to investigate and spread the gospel..

wouldn't the "discovering ET" sort of...you know....make religions fall apart at the foundation?

[Roo]

Read the book and find out, it won 6 literary awards. It came out in the late 90's, so I was your age when I read it, but I remember it well enough to recommend it for sure.

[Darwin]

wouldn't the "discovering ET" sort of...you know....make religions fall apart at the foundation?

Naah. The religious impulse appears to be one of the most durable behaviors of humans and the mere discovering of other species will merely serve as fodder for missionary zeal. I pity the poor bastard aliens who run up against the typical Terran religious establishment. The relentless circumlocutions of religionists may cause the helpless furniner's swollen shamrock colored heads to explode like Slim Whitman's yodeling did in Mars Attacks!

[sgreger1]

I had the sound turned off, but that video looks like some kid lost her grip on a fistfull of white balloons.

sgreger re: your theory. How could an advanced species invest so much time and resources to come all this way just to observe from a short distance? No way man.

Your completely right in saying that none of this would pass even the most basic logic test. Why would they spend time and resources to come here and just observe? If in theory aliens did exist, I would not have anywhere to beging to guess their motives. When discussing the possibility of life elsewhere, humans have a tendancy to do what they do with "God", by placing human characteristics on them. Who knows what their motives would be.


The science in me wants to say there is really no way they could get here and if they did they would be more active, but the UFO phenomena is something that touches every country and has been investigated by every major government. There is something to it, I just don't know what. I don't believe in reptilians or underground hollow earth species or any of that, but to dismiss the international UFO phenomenon away is something I can't do.



I really think that if there were to be life all over the place and it looked like star trek out in space, that the younger civilizations would not be able to be part of the group untill they themselves had figured out space travel and started leaving their little area, then they would have to be explained the rules of how things work in the galaxy as I imagine some system must be in place. We have bee seeing more and more UFO's every year since we started the world wars, and we are slowly learning new ways to travel in space and move around the solar system, so I could see how observing our actions closely could be of some value to them.


In reality, anyone who has the technology to travel FTL has probbaly already conquored the resources problem, and it probably does not take any real time or resources to come over here and look. It's just like if I flew on a plane to africa to observe some primitive tribe, how much preciouse time and resources did I really waste in teh grand scheme of things?

[truthwolf1]

I think the disclosure project is what really opened my eyes. We are way past this being a 1950's movie with laughs.

http://www.disclosureproject.org

[f. bandersnatch]

Roo- thanks for the shout out man, much appreciated. I am most certainly a gentleman, Darwin may speak for himself on that one.

Darwin- True that, my mid-western brother: there is no doubt in my mind that Fred Phelps would be first in line to blow a fist-sized hole in the cranium of any unfortunate blue-skinned humanoid that set foot on his beloved land of the free advice, home of the afraid.

And don't even get me started on Wallmart. They have the cheapest dog food, but when you factor in the cost of opiate painkillers these days, its just not worth it for me to even go near that place.

On the subject at hand:I personally believe that species are constantly emerging and dying off throughout the universe. Species, that is; intelligent life would be a whole different category and seems like it would be much more rare. Additionally, due to the constant of limited resources and the profound vastness of the universe, the probability of one intelligent species interacting with another seems like it would be very, very low. In fact, I think that a whole categorical dismantling of what we perceive as our most profound trait-consciousness-is much more likely. But none of this really leads me to believe that any of this is impossible, by any means.

Continue with the crazy talk of ancient mayans and flying metal cigars.

[Darwin]

Due to mind staggering distances involved and the low likelihood of a technological civilization within spitting distance plus the even lower likelihood that have cracked the light-speed barrier and the severe unlikelihood of them giving a tinker's damn about us I figure the odds of real star traveling aliens being anywhere near us is at best one in a billion and most likely far less. Heck I don't want all that much to do with us and I already live here.

[danielan]

Heck I don't want all that much to do with us and I already live here.

I don't really want that much to do with cows either, except to eat them.

[sgreger1]

@ Darwin.

Cummon Darwin, be realistic, I know we think of ourselves as nobodies and like to think no one would be interested, but if scientists today were to find intelligent life somewhere that we could reach, like say mars, don't you think there would be a profound interest in going and meeting them and learning about them/what they know?

Any civilization with enough science to create interplanetary travel would surely want to study another intelligent life form, that is of course unless intelligence is abundant and they have already seen it a million times. Scientists on earth spend their whole careers studying different types of fish and algae, what makes you think alien scientists wouldn't want to study other intelligent life?


@Tex: Re religion,

Dude you must have never been to church, when they say "faith" they mean it. I mean even though we are neck deep in evidence that the earth is several million years old, they still won't believe it. If aliens came and visited earth you would hear all the fundi's claiming that jesus foretold this event and that the aliens are the antichrist and they will find scripture to back it up lol.

[sgreger1]

Error. Not sure why it double posted.