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An advanced species with hostile intent, most likely to take our Planet's natural resources; Or a bacteria/virus that we would have no immunity to that hitches a ride on an asteroid/meteorite?
An advanced species with hostile intent, most likely to take our Planet's natural resources; Or a bacteria/virus that we would have no immunity to that hitches a ride on an asteroid/meteorite?
An advanced species with hostile intent, most likely to take our Planet's natural resources; Or a bacteria/virus that we would have no immunity to that hitches a ride on an asteroid/meteorite?
First, we have so little information on alien life - sentient or microbial - that it's almost impossible to make anything more than wild guesses on what is 'likely'. We don't even know that it exists, though our own existence certainly demonstrates that it is theoretically possible.
Second, bacteria and viruses are specific things that have evolved on Earth. As such, we won't find extraterrestrial examples of them. Analogues, perhaps, but not bacteria and viruses - any more than we'll ever find an oak tree, a hammerhead shark, or a wolverine on some distant planet.
An advanced species with hostile intent, most likely to take our
[1] Planet's natural resources; Or a [2] bacteria/virus that we would have no immunity to that hitches a ride on an asteroid/meteorite?
[1] There's only one thing unique about Earth that might attract E.T. -
GRANITE.
Granite is the signature rock of the continents. More than that, granite is the signature rock of the planet Earth itself. The other rocky planets—Mercury, Venus and Mars—are covered with basalt, as is the ocean floor on Earth. But only Earth has this beautiful and interesting rock type in abundance.
. . .
The continents "float" above the basalt, because not only is granite strong, it is lighter. All land, and land based life, is the beneficiary of granite’s properties.
. . .
All other elements are abundant throughout the solar system, so there's nothing special for E.T. to plunder on Earth.
[2] Can't say about microbiology. However, some consider that human beings are merely hosts for the billions of bacteria that ride within us. Perhaps they are the true rulers of the planet.
No threat IMO. Assuming they've never been here before with some secret previous trip to scope out the planet, then I would think they've travelled a long time to get here, and didn't come with some Army assuming they would just invade and destroy the entire planet. I think if these aliens were far advanced from us, enough to have developed the technology to travel distances we cannot fathom, then they are explorers too. Movies of evil aliens are great, but I just don't believe they are realistic.
Come, come, we flatter ourselves. We're an obscure little solar system on a distant edge of a great galaxy. Who would want to come here? Assuming there are advanced, alien civilizations capable of traveling across the galaxy, would they not have better things to do than land on this worthless orb and engage in primitive warfare with its savage, semi-civilized apelike inhabitants?
Consider that we humans have only been around for, say, two million years, and modern civilization with fire and tools and machines, a tiny fraction of that, let us say 20,000 years.
By the laws of probability, over the billions of years that the galaxy has existed, great civilizations have arisen and fallen here and there, and the likelihood that there is an alien civilization that just happens to pay us a visit right at the moment that we're sentient and technological, a period of some 20,000 years out of the Earth's 4 billion years, is vanishingly faint.
Even Mars, the most likely other sponsor of life in the solar system, clearly has not been able to support living things for a billion or so years. We missed that window a long time ago. There might have been oceans on Mars at one time, with an atmosphere, and perhaps even intelligent life, but it was gone by the time the first trilobites were wriggling around half a billion years ago.
An advanced species with hostile intent, most likely to take our Planet's natural resources; Or a bacteria/virus that we would have no immunity to that hitches a ride on an asteroid/meteorite?
advanced aliens millions of years more advanced than us probably have already visited numerous times and manipulated our entire biosphere, and genetics catalog. whenever they deem our population imbalanced or misbehaving, they probably sent out a plague or two.
outside of natural resources, like elements and energy, i would guess advanced lifeforms have little use for us. as if we discovered animals in our yard, we'll most likely just ignore it. a few of us may want to observe it and see it develop to *serve us* as cows, pigs and chicken do in our managed farms. i would guess that multiple aliens may have found value in our servitude, and even warred over it. this is found in many religious traditions via concepts of good/evil, etc.
Last edited by ControlJohnsons; 06-18-2016 at 11:58 AM..
I am not worried about microorganisms. Terrestrial microorganisms have spent a few billion year fine-tuning themselves for this environment - seems unlikely that some newcomer would have an advantage. If their biochemistry was remotely compatible, chances are that earth microbes would go: "Organic molecules with stored energy? NOM NOM NOM", and that'd be it. If somehow a completely new type of replicator molecule popped up, that would possibly be different - but again, we haven't seen that happening here on Earth (that we know of).
As for intelligent life, that's a different kettle of fish. If they have interstellar travel, they've beaten us in the technology race, hands down. That'd make them the guys in the caravels, while we'd have canoes. On Earth, that rarely ends well for the guys in the canoes. But we cannot possibly know what their psychology and motivations are. Perhaps we have nothing they want (or can't get easier) and we're not worth the stop. Perhaps they're under a religious obligation to not disturb those who can't get out of their solar system. Perhaps they're fanatics bent on eradicating all other life and they just haven't gotten around to us yet..
In fact, the opening of Douglas Adam's books seems eerily apt: Humanity gets eradicated by aliens because Earth is in the way of a construction project. Until then, Earth was filed under "Harmless".
Come, come, we flatter ourselves. We're an obscure little solar system on a distant edge of a great galaxy. Who would want to come here? Assuming there are advanced, alien civilizations capable of traveling across the galaxy, would they not have better things to do than land on this worthless orb and engage in primitive warfare with its savage, semi-civilized apelike inhabitants?
Consider that we humans have only been around for, say, two million years, and modern civilization with fire and tools and machines, a tiny fraction of that, let us say 20,000 years.
By the laws of probability, over the billions of years that the galaxy has existed, great civilizations have arisen and fallen here and there, and the likelihood that there is an alien civilization that just happens to pay us a visit right at the moment that we're sentient and technological, a period of some 20,000 years out of the Earth's 4 billion years, is vanishingly faint.
Even Mars, the most likely other sponsor of life in the solar system, clearly has not been able to support living things for a billion or so years. We missed that window a long time ago. There might have been oceans on Mars at one time, with an atmosphere, and perhaps even intelligent life, but it was gone by the time the first trilobites were wriggling around half a billion years ago.
I love your first paragraph, and agree wholeheartedly with it :-)
Whenever I'm feeling demoralized by some of our human savagery to each other, weather it be war, or a murder I've heard about, or neighbors arguing to the death about a fence that isn't 6 inchers off the property line, or people back stabbing and stepping over others to climb the corporate ladder to even more stress and less time at home with the family....this is the exact thing I think about.
What would an observer from another galaxy (most likely far advanced and evolved compared us if they can travel and observe us) think if they were watching this behavior ? Would they wonder why they are killing our own kind ? Why are they despoiling their own environment ? Why are they usually so cavalier about the suffering all around them ? Why do they need such big homes when they are hardly ever there ? Why are there such big fancy homes in one area, and near by they live under bridges ?
I really think they would be perplexed and think we need a few more millions of years to evolve. I don't actually know this, but I feel it, that in relative terms of evolution in regard to our behavior and what we place importance on....we're about 2 years old in terms of human age.
As for intelligent life, that's a different kettle of fish. If they have interstellar travel, they've beaten us in the technology race, hands down. That'd make them the guys in the caravels, while we'd have canoes. On Earth, that rarely ends well for the guys in the canoes. But we cannot possibly know what their psychology and motivations are. Perhaps we have nothing they want (or can't get easier) and we're not worth the stop.
I tend to be skeptical of interstellar travel for material benefit, given the cost in energy and time. Rather, the likeliest explanations for it would be curiosity and expansion, both of which are plausible motivations for an civilization that has developed the technology. I imagine such beings would want to have a look around, in the same ways that some human beings devote their lives to things far simpler than ourselves - like ants or barnacles or algae.
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Perhaps they're under a religious obligation to not disturb those who can't get out of their solar system. Perhaps they're fanatics bent on eradicating all other life and they just haven't gotten around to us yet.
Both are proposed explanations for the Fermi paradox.
The first suffers from the problem of uniformity of action. For some other beings to stumble across Earth strongly implies that the galaxy is relatively dense with civilizations capable of interstellar travel, and while it's entirely plausible that one or some would follow the avoidance strategy, it's a greater stretch to assume that there would be some sort of galactic consensus on such behavior.
The second is, rather disturbingly, one of the few explanations for the paradox that fully comports with the observational evidence (where is everyone?) and does not rely upon uniform behavior by myriad interstellar-capable civilizations. If a xenophobic civilization arose that adopted a survival strategy of annihilating any form of advanced life it came across so as to ensure that said life would never challenge its supremacy - doing so either directly or through something like self-replicating Van Neumann probes programmed to that end - it could quietly and effectively be the king of the galactic hill, never letting anyone else get so much as a foothold.
Or maybe everyone just inevitably blows themselves up sooner rather than later, or is brought down by an ecological holocaust of their own making.
Or maybe we really are alone, or effectively so (maybe the interstellar-capable civilization density is less than one/galaxy).
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