Stephen Hawking; Aliens Likely to be Hostile.

Started by jimmy olsen, April 25, 2010, 09:14:59 PM

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Caliga

0 Ed Anger Disapproval Points

Jaron

Spore was awful.

It was:

1) Eat meat or plant
2) Kill or befriend other species
3) Kill or befriend other tribes
4) Kill or befriend other cities
5) "Explore" the galaxy

SNOOZE
Winner of THE grumbler point.

garbon

Quote from: Josephus on April 26, 2010, 03:54:42 PM
No, no...Spore,  I remember now. What ever happened to that?

And I was describing what Spore wasn't. :mellow:
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

garbon

Quote from: Neil on April 26, 2010, 05:20:22 PM
Sim Earth.  Now there's a game I'd love to see updated.  There aren't many programs I can run to simulate a prehistoric Earth.

Spore had originally been marketed as a bigger and better Sim Earth, but somehow they left it out. :(
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

garbon

Quote from: Jaron on April 26, 2010, 05:42:31 PM
Spore was awful.

It was:

1) Eat meat or plant
2) Kill or befriend other species
3) Kill or befriend other tribes
4) Kill or befriend other cities
5) "Explore" the galaxy

SNOOZE

And you didn't really get to explore, seeing as how every few minutes you had to go stop pirates or save a planet from an ecological disaster.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Agelastus

While it is a virtual certainty that alien civilisations have existed and will exist in the Milky Way, the odds of two technological civilisations sharing the same timeframe are vanishingly small.

As for the logic of "peaceful aliens", I am spectacularly unconvinced by it. Colonisation or the hunt for resources seem to me to be the two most likely reasons for interstellar travel. And if it is sublight travel, given the cost and resources that would involve, an alien species could not afford to be nice.
"Come grow old with me
The Best is yet to be
The last of life for which the first was made."

Fate

#111
Quote from: Agelastus on April 26, 2010, 05:57:49 PM
While it is a virtual certainty that alien civilisations have existed and will exist in the Milky Way, the odds of two technological civilisations sharing the same timeframe are vanishingly small.

As for the logic of "peaceful aliens", I am spectacularly unconvinced by it. Colonisation or the hunt for resources seem to me to be the two most likely reasons for interstellar travel. And if it is sublight travel, given the cost and resources that would involve, an alien species could not afford to be nice.

I don't understand you space Columbus freaks. What does the Earth have that makes it desirable enough to spend 10,000 years traveling on a space ship? Really, unobtainium doesn't exist. Second generation and greater star systems with heavy elements are a dime a dozen. Avatar lied to you.

jimmy olsen

Quote from: Fate on April 26, 2010, 06:47:23 PM
Quote from: Agelastus on April 26, 2010, 05:57:49 PM
While it is a virtual certainty that alien civilisations have existed and will exist in the Milky Way, the odds of two technological civilisations sharing the same timeframe are vanishingly small.

As for the logic of "peaceful aliens", I am spectacularly unconvinced by it. Colonisation or the hunt for resources seem to me to be the two most likely reasons for interstellar travel. And if it is sublight travel, given the cost and resources that would involve, an alien species could not afford to be nice.

I don't understand you space Columbus freaks. What does the Earth have that makes it desirable enough to spend 10,000 years traveling on a space ship? Really, unobtainium doesn't exist. Avatar lied to you.
Lets not exaggerate, a fusion powered space ship would cut journey times to a few decades. Throw in cryostasis or a simply long lived species and it's certainly doable.
It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

Fate

Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 26, 2010, 06:52:02 PM
Quote from: Fate on April 26, 2010, 06:47:23 PM
Quote from: Agelastus on April 26, 2010, 05:57:49 PM
While it is a virtual certainty that alien civilisations have existed and will exist in the Milky Way, the odds of two technological civilisations sharing the same timeframe are vanishingly small.

As for the logic of "peaceful aliens", I am spectacularly unconvinced by it. Colonisation or the hunt for resources seem to me to be the two most likely reasons for interstellar travel. And if it is sublight travel, given the cost and resources that would involve, an alien species could not afford to be nice.

I don't understand you space Columbus freaks. What does the Earth have that makes it desirable enough to spend 10,000 years traveling on a space ship? Really, unobtainium doesn't exist. Avatar lied to you.
Lets not exaggerate, a fusion powered space ship would cut journey times to a few decades. Throw in cryostasis or a simply long lived species and it's certainly doable.

:mellow:

Yeah, let's not exaggerate. The galaxy is merely 100,000 light years in diameter. At warp 10 that'd only take five years (i saw it on voyager).

Agelastus

Quote from: Fate on April 26, 2010, 06:47:23 PM
I don't understand you space Columbus freaks. What does the Earth have that makes it desirable enough to spend 10,000 years traveling on a space ship? Really, unobtainium doesn't exist. Second generation and greater star systems with heavy elements are a dime a dozen. Avatar lied to you.

I notice you rubbished the resources part of my post, without touching the colonisation part.

We have an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. If you can provide evidence that every second star possesses such a world, I will raise my estimate for how likely "peaceful aliens" are. At the moment, we simply don't know how rare such worlds are.

Maybe I shouldn't have edited out the parts of my post that discussed the possibility of methane breathers, who would not want the Earth.
"Come grow old with me
The Best is yet to be
The last of life for which the first was made."

Eddie Teach

Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 26, 2010, 06:52:02 PM
Lets not exaggerate, a fusion powered space ship would cut journey times to a few decades. Throw in cryostasis or a simply long lived species and it's certainly doable.

A journey to Alpha Centauri perhaps. Highly unlikely that there are any advanced aliens anywhere near that close.
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

jimmy olsen

Quote from: Fate on April 26, 2010, 06:57:51 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 26, 2010, 06:52:02 PM
Quote from: Fate on April 26, 2010, 06:47:23 PM
Quote from: Agelastus on April 26, 2010, 05:57:49 PM
While it is a virtual certainty that alien civilisations have existed and will exist in the Milky Way, the odds of two technological civilisations sharing the same timeframe are vanishingly small.

As for the logic of "peaceful aliens", I am spectacularly unconvinced by it. Colonisation or the hunt for resources seem to me to be the two most likely reasons for interstellar travel. And if it is sublight travel, given the cost and resources that would involve, an alien species could not afford to be nice.

I don't understand you space Columbus freaks. What does the Earth have that makes it desirable enough to spend 10,000 years traveling on a space ship? Really, unobtainium doesn't exist. Avatar lied to you.
Lets not exaggerate, a fusion powered space ship would cut journey times to a few decades. Throw in cryostasis or a simply long lived species and it's certainly doable.

:mellow:

Yeah, let's not exaggerate. The galaxy is merely 100,000 light years in diameter. At warp 10 that'd only take five years (i saw it on voyager).
Why would anyone travel across the entire galaxy at once. You'd be travel to the nearest star, which is a few light years away.
It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

Neil

Quote from: Agelastus on April 26, 2010, 05:57:49 PM
While it is a virtual certainty that alien civilisations have existed and will exist in the Milky Way, the odds of two technological civilisations sharing the same timeframe are vanishingly small.

As for the logic of "peaceful aliens", I am spectacularly unconvinced by it. Colonisation or the hunt for resources seem to me to be the two most likely reasons for interstellar travel. And if it is sublight travel, given the cost and resources that would involve, an alien species could not afford to be nice.
'The hunt for resources' really isn't that important.  Colonization of a modern, industrialized planet would be rather difficult.
I do not hate you, nor do I love you, but you are made out of atoms which I can use for something else.

Viking

First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

grumbler

Quote from: Neil on April 26, 2010, 08:03:12 PM
'The hunt for resources' really isn't that important.  Colonization of a modern, industrialized planet would be rather difficult.
Indeed.  There are many ways to get resources that would be cheaper and more reliable than wandering around the galaxy trying to conquer alien species.  Hell, limiting demand would be cheaper, one would think.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!