why do we beleive that an alien species is or would be more advanced than us

It is a common conceit of the human species to believe it is the "top of the line" because we are the rules of this planet.

And to the people who think we will be "attacked" by aliens, and we will somehow be able to '"defend" against such attacks, explain how and why a race sufficiently advanced enough to creat gravity distortions and or vibrate matter into energy would be so petty and "need" our physical resources somehow.

The only defense to that is if there is some completely retarded thing we somehow havent figured out that allows space travel with little or no refinement at all in technology.

I pretty much agree with what you've said. Until we have the technology to at least travel to their homeworlds wherever they might be, we don't stand a chance of being able to defend ouselves. The ability to travel here pretty much means that they have advanced weaponry and advanced....everything else. I really doubt that they would be coming to our world for resources, just wouldn't make sense to go through the hassle of taking over the planet just to get some gas (but then again, maybe the prices are ridiculously high where they are too ). Perhaps our planet is only one of a handful in the entire galaxy that is perfect for life.

[edit on 20-7-2005 by zhangmaster]

The odds are about two to one that any alien species is older than us, and therefore probably wiser overall as well as more advanced technically. Reason, Earth is about 4.5-5 billion years old, Universe is about 13.5-15 billion years old. Therefore, most will be older by about 2:1. Course they could be inherently dumber or smarter as well, which would speed up, or slow down, their rate of advancement, but the best bet is that they'll be more or less like us Earthlings in regards to intelligence. If one assumes a median civilization age of 7.25 billion years (less planetary cooling & getting life started phase) then the average alien level would be about 3 billion years further along than us and that's a long time even if you say it fast. An awfully lot can be learned, invented, etc. over that time.

It's interesting that we Earthlings have lately started looking at dust disks around young stars and speculating about the probable formation of planets, etc. Chances are aliens did/do this as well. Perhaps, aliens travel to such places and seed them with life (as they know it). It would make good survival sense and a hell of an experiment in evolution. They would not have to go there in person, they could send automated probes containing all the necessary ingredients for life to get started.

[edit on 20-7-2005 by Astronomer68]

[edit on 20-7-2005 by Astronomer68]

Just a little spanner i thought i would throw into this thread....
I dont know why people always try to even compare aliens to humans, they are beyond our level of comprehension and we are probably above the comprehension to them in other ways aswell. You people have this strange notion that aliens have taken the same technological path as us, and i use the term technological very lightly...
For all we know these aliens could have some sort of hugely powerful drug that can make them teleport intergalacticly. Some might not even exists in our realm of senses, and we dont exists in theirs. An alien could be walking past you right now and he doesnt know your there and you dont know his there.
What i am trying to get at is that the universe is more diverse than earth is, im sure there is plenty of new things we will learn when we can travel to other inhabital planets etc. Our minds are stuck here on earth, you are creating this image of aliens from what you have learnt from earth. They could be geneticly pascifists, who dont even know what a "weapon" is.
One person on here was saying they need to have advanced electrics, sheilding etc...how do you know that they do know power and navigate their craft with their minds?
When thinking about the universe, and space. You need to get your head of earth.

Originally posted by keybored
I'd like to make an analogy here about advancement.
If an internal combustion engine had its timing advanced to a fine tune, it does great work. If the firing were retarded up to a point, it would miss and it wouldn't work so well... beyond that point and it wouldn't work at all. On the other end, too much (rapid) advancement could similarly be a bad thing since the leaps and bounds would pass over things that might otherwise have needed to be learned/done (for stability sake)
Man has been retarded in that we only have a short technological history. If an alien species were here, perhaps there technological database had millions of years to draw upon instead of the couple of thousand mankind has.
Necessity is the mother of invention. If an alien species had survived for a million years, they would have needed (by logistics alone) to travel interstellarly in order to support their growing numbers (unless that growth were retarded by the likes of wars, famines, blundering, meddling, genetic mutations, (due to pollutants) star collapse/radiation etc. in which case they'd be concerned with survival rather than technology) ... I guess you get the picture, man is his own worst enemy from a development point of view. Our technology has always been advanced through weapons first research.... and what good is a bullet unless you fire it?
I'd like to think that we are just now starting to grow up. using diplomacy instead of bombs, uniting to solve common problems etc. Truth be told, we still use bombs instead of schools (which is really where any advancement would occur, through education). To be fair, once we blow the hell out of them we do build schools... sorry for my facetiousness.

you are so right about our technology being advanced through weapons and weapons platforms first research . the government is fanatical about it , why i know this is simple i am a former weapons contractor to the US Government . there are many cases where people have had technology they have invented taken away from them and classified so high the person could no longer work with their own invention . now with this in mind what do you think uncle would do about alien technology. i don't think any one will have to guess to hard on this question

Originally posted by Irma
The main one I guess is that they can get here but we can't get there, so they must know something we don't.

But, in reality, this doesn't necessarily make them more advanced. They may just be more advanced when it comes to space travel.

The public isnt free to buy space crafts and just up and leave so this whole debate is over, lol. The problem here on earth is a lack of options for any individual. Can't really say "we" pertaining to "our" advancement. Its just like saying, "the eagles are playing tonight, we are gonna win". wait, are you on the roster or something? eagles giving you a salary?

I dont know what "they" got but ill tell you if I get my hands on a space craft, I am the phuck out! All i wanna know is, who's coming with me man?

I believe there are billions of species more advanced than us, and i also believe there are billions of species that are not.

Point is, if a specie can travel to Earth at the speed of light or faster, they simply are more advanced. Not every alien race is more advanced per se.

well, I would assume they were flying UFO's while we were killing each other with rocks.

Originally posted by Anti-Evil
well, I would assume they were flying UFO's while we were killing each other with rocks.

Exactly. How anyone could think we are the most advanced civilisation in the universe... is mind boggling. The evidence shows otherwise.

reply to post by leader of men


I don't think they have to be, I'm sure there could be aliens that are less advance, or life forms that aren't intelligent at all. Just if there are ones that are visiting us they have to be more advance or they couldn't get here.

So when talking about UFO's and alien visitation it's a giving they are more advance, unless we have the ability to visit other solar systems and I just don't know it yet