Reappraisal of the Viking Mars Mission and the possibility of life

[Josquius]

ET intelligence has a much greater potential to be harmful than helpful.

Disagree to the highest degree.
Hostile aliens are closer to impossible than likely imo.

As to where are the aliens...just because life is common (assuming it is) doesn't mean intelligence is. Just look how long it was before humans somehow managed to appear. And then how long it took us to to team up with the dogs and figure out the whole idea of civilization.

-we should eventually terraform Mars (hell, why don't they start right now, it will take some godawful much time), and if it's full of unique snowflake microbes, The Public will not let it be done ("OMG think of all the bacteria!!!!")

Agreed, that sucks. But...if life is absolutely everywhere then the significance of Martian bacteria will drop off. I'd think practical thinking would throw them into a few national parks.
And hey. This must be pretty hardy life. What is to say it can't co-exist with earth-life? Might it not thrive given better conditions?
Heck. We're talking far future stuff here. Might we not evolve it a bit into forms that are useful to us.

[Tamas]

I was kidding on intelligent aliens of course.

It is my theory that the odds of them being hostile are pretty big.

Mostly because I think, for advancement you need Earth-like competition in evolution, and also the agression-driven competition within our own species. Hippies do not build stuff.

[Josquius]

I was kidding on intelligent aliens of course.

It is my theory that the odds of them being hostile are pretty big.

Mostly because I think, for advancement you need Earth-like competition in evolution, and also the agression-driven competition within our own species. Hippies do not build stuff.

Hostile aliens with the power to travel between the stars would have long since wiped themselves out.
If humanity today with all of our problems and conflicts were to somehow get out into space and discover aliens we wouldn't invade. And even peaceful little us came pretty close to killing off our civilization.

[Eddie Teach]

ET intelligence has a much greater potential to be harmful than helpful.

Disagree to the highest degree.
Hostile aliens are closer to impossible than likely imo.

Even if aliens had only a 1% chance of being hostile we're talking destruction vs. getting a few techs a little sooner. It's not a good gamble.

[Tamas]

I was kidding on intelligent aliens of course.

It is my theory that the odds of them being hostile are pretty big.

Mostly because I think, for advancement you need Earth-like competition in evolution, and also the agression-driven competition within our own species. Hippies do not build stuff.

Hostile aliens with the power to travel between the stars would have long since wiped themselves out.
If humanity today with all of our problems and conflicts were to somehow get out into space and discover aliens we wouldn't invade. And even peaceful little us came pretty close to killing off our civilization.

This is not simply a matter of flat-out invasion and genocide. Look at the american natives accross the continent. We would be the aztecs, and the aliens are the white men (they might have a slave race to fill in for the black slave labor)

[Eddie Teach]

I'm not sure there's much point for organic slave labor for a star-faring civilization.

[Razgovory]

The idea that aliens would be peaceful "because otherwise they would have wiped themselves out", is just laughable.  Even if we had a full scale nuclear war here on Earth, a few of us would survive.  Civilization might collapse, but humanity would likely still be kicking around.  And those survivors would breed and multiply and build a new civilization (which might also destroy itself again).  I think it would take a lot to destroy the whole human species.

[Tamas]

I'm not sure there's much point for organic slave labor for a star-faring civilization.

I was joking, goddamit

[Josquius]

The idea that aliens would be peaceful "because otherwise they would have wiped themselves out", is just laughable.  Even if we had a full scale nuclear war here on Earth, a few of us would survive.  Civilization might collapse, but humanity would likely still be kicking around.  And those survivors would breed and multiply and build a new civilization (which might also destroy itself again).  I think it would take a lot to destroy the whole human species.

Doubt they'd be able to get into space after wiping their civilization out though. And if they haven't changed whats to stop them just doing it again.

[Tamas]

We keep savagly killing each other and exploiting everything there is to exploit, while constantly growing in population, level of advance, and energy reserves to tap from the planet. Granted, with a few dark ages here and there, but there is no sign pointing to our dissappearance as a species.

[Josquius]

We keep savagly killing each other and exploiting everything there is to exploit, while constantly growing in population, level of advance, and energy reserves to tap from the planet. Granted, with a few dark ages here and there, but there is no sign pointing to our dissappearance as a species.

We've came bloody close even despite being a peaceful species.
Imagine the typical aliens from alien invasion sillyness where Hitler would be counted as a hippy and...the outlook is not good.
Also, fighting over resources in space is just insane. Even if we're in the star trek universe with sentient species in every other system there's still a lot of space out there

[Eddie Teach]

We've came bloody close even despite being a peaceful species.

When was this?

[Neil]

The idea that aliens would be peaceful "because otherwise they would have wiped themselves out", is just laughable.  Even if we had a full scale nuclear war here on Earth, a few of us would survive.  Civilization might collapse, but humanity would likely still be kicking around.  And those survivors would breed and multiply and build a new civilization (which might also destroy itself again).  I think it would take a lot to destroy the whole human species.

Yeah, but we don't do interstellar space travel.  And because the technologies of space travel would make it trivially easy to wipe out all life on a planet, the aliens have clearly found a way to not be wiped out.

Besides, once a high technology species falls back to pre- or early industrial technology, they can't recover on their own.  How would they get energy?

[Neil]

We've came bloody close even despite being a peaceful species.

LOL and LOL.

[Eddie Teach]

Besides, once a high technology species falls back to pre- or early industrial technology, they can't recover on their own.  How would they get energy?

From their star.

There's no reason the second industrial revolution has to take place as quickly as the first one.