Stephen Hawking; Aliens Likely to be Hostile.

[jimmy olsen]

Take that Neil!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20003358-71.html

April 25, 2010 2:54 PM PDT
Stephen Hawking: Aliens might hate us
by Chris Matyszczyk


I know many of you cannot wait for the day when we encounter little green people over a beer, or perhaps even turn into them.

However, one of the world's most celebrated scientific brains, Stephen Hawking, wonders whether aliens and humans really can co-exist.

According to the Times of London, Hawking has made a new documentary, "Stephen Hawking's Universe," for the Discovery Channel, which is scheduled to be broadcast in May. In this film, which took three years to make, Hawking offers his view of what really might be out there.

He doesn't paint an entirely attractive picture. Though he has no doubt that, because of simple mathematical deduction, there are other beings in the galaxy, he doesn't imagine they might be either especially pleasant or especially bright.

In the documentary, Hawking isn't optimistic that too many alien beings will be intelligent or even particularly dangerous, but if humans ever came into contact with them, he really fears for us rather than them.

"If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans," the Times quotes him as saying.

And just in case your stomach begins to churn, even without an alien inside it, Hawking expanded: "I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach."

Indeed, these might be extra-terrestrial Visigoth yuppies who would just come here for our Priuses and our In-N-Out burgers.

I do so wish someone could offer us some heartening hope that aliens might arrive and help us to emerge in an uplifting way from the supreme domination of Earth's oppressive triumvirate of Goldman Sachs, the Gosselins, and the New York Yankees.

[Neil]

Take that?

It's not particularily convincing, unless you're writing a sci-fi movie.

[DGuller]

Hmm, interesting take on it.  Has the possibility of the visiting aliens being hostile to humans ever been explored in some works of fiction?

[Darth Wagtaros]

I think it's a given that any aliens encountered will almost certainly be hostile. And if they aren't our brutal attempted betrayal and subjegation will ensure it.

[Neil]

I'm sure Carl Sagan would refute him if he wasn't dead.

[Josephus]

How the hell would he know? What is he, a rocket scientist?

[alfred russel]

The smartest animals tend to be social predators.

[Neil]

The smartest animals tend to be social predators.

Interstellar spaceflight has different requirements.

[Jaron]

It would be so delicious if these people landed in Europe first and fucked them up. After that though it wouldn't be funny anymore.

[Fate]

Oh man. SETI. Threat to SOLAR SYSTEM security.

[CountDeMoney]

I do so wish someone could offer us some heartening hope that aliens might arrive and help us to emerge in an uplifting way from the supreme domination of Earth's oppressive triumvirate of Goldman Sachs, the Gosselins, and the New York Yankees.

Toss in the New England Patriots and the PLA, and I for one would welcome our new interstellar overlords.

[grumbler]

Aliens might hate us.

What an insight!  No wonder he is hailed as a genius! 

Surely this bit of news makes up for all the inane trivia and blindingly obvious "news flashes" Tim has started threads about in the past.

[Caliga]

The thing is, I expect us to encounter intelligent machine life first, and since we have no true examples of a society populated by AIs, it's hard to say how they'd behave.  I think it's likely that they would view us as insects and be primarily interested in harvesting our mineral resources, though.

[grumbler]

The thing is, I expect us to encounter intelligent machine life first, and since we have no true examples of a society populated by AIs, it's hard to say how they'd behave.  I think it's likely that they would view us as insects and be primarily interested in harvesting our mineral resources, though.

Given that machine AI is a fantasy right now, you are correct to say that it's hard to say how they would behave! 

I cannot think of a single reason why a machine AI would have a survival instinct, so i am not concerned about meeting them.  If we were going to encounter machine "AI," we just as likely already did, in the form of von Neumann-style machines that have come and gone.

[Josquius]

I find it very bizzare that someone so smart can come to such an unlikely conclusion.

I think its quite a given that the opposite is true. Any aliens we encounter will be peaceful.
Just imagine if somehow we are out exploring space today (impossible but...yeah) and we stumble across a alien civilization. Are we going to go all Independance Day? Of course not. The press is bad enough when the military kills a few Arabs let alone wiping out an entire civilization.
It would be an amazing discovery which changes the way we look at the universe. We aren't going to destroy them just for the hell of it.
And thats our far from perfect modern civilization which still has a lot of the violent animal in us. Starflight is a few hundred years of development out of our reach at least- either we continue to become less violent or we destroy ourselves before we get anywhere.
Just imagine if spaceships were freely available today. There would be bound to be some nutter who decides to smash into earth at relativistic speeds.

Analogy to the past- doesn't work.
People say 'yeah but Earth has resources, the aliens will want those!'- not really.
Earth is a insignificant remote little skerry which is damn difficult to land on. We're the Faroe Islands (only relocated to the middle of the Indian ocean or something), not the Americas. If the aliens want resources they can get them far far easier in space itself with asteroids and comets and the like.