Please STOP using the "Aliens --> Humans / Humans --> Ants" Analogy - it's weak!

You hear it all the time: Any lifeform capable of reaching us must be far more evolved than we are. If a mothership really is set to touch down, why on god's green earth would they want to help such a violent and primitive species as ourselves? That would be tantamount to suggesting that I help the ants in the backyard ant mound. Would I really take time out to help them advance? No. I'd be more inclined to kill them. To suggest that an advanced lifeform is somehow invested in our positive progression as a species is a little silly, IMO. It would be a waste of time on their part. It would be far more likely that they'd travel here to either eliminate us or use us for their purposes.


I've never been a fan of the 'Ant Analogy' - for several reasons:

So, let's get the easiest one out of the way, first. YES, I am amazed by ants, and there must be more like me, otherwise ant farms wouldn't exist as a toy/form of entertainment. (But, If you're familiar, I think better comparisons might be the station locker scene in MIB (Will Smith), and the South Park sea monkey episode, if those even make sense to anyone)

Next, are ants capable of humor, sarcasm, love, highly complex thinking and strategy? They can certainly become agitated, but are they truly experiencing emotion? Anger? Sadness? Delight? Are they curious? Are they looking for intelligent (or, the meaning of) life, themselves? Probably safe to say, not. (obviously, this list could go on and on)

But, the big one is simple - A little thing called, development. That's right, an intellectual, a socialogical, technological, and even spritual 'evolution' over time.

Ants are doing the same thing today, that they were 10 minutes ago, that they were 10 hours ago, 10 days ago, 10 weeks ago, years ago, thousands of years ago... see?

I would tend to think that an advanced civ. looking down at us would be quite impressed.

_____________________

And finally, if you subscribe to the ancient astronaut theory (which I do, it makes more sense than evolution or creation, imho), then we'll be a LOT closer to them than ants to us, because, you know what?! They likely ARE us. And, they do have some vested interest in how we progress.

____________________

Aliens or not, people are going to have to start acknowledging something on the heels of Leslie Kean's new book that's getting a lot of attention, "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On Record that discusses the 5% of still not explained phenomena - and, that the 5% represents 1000s upon 1000s of reports, of 'technological entities', performing manuevers and speeds that are absolutely impossible by anything we know of, it will be time for our governments/militaries to start admitting that we do in fact have a LOT of supressed technology, including renewable energy. Can't have both ways, asses!

Okay, now, I'm really done.

Note: to those that think facelift is being funny below: pay attention - he was so caught up in trying to be humerous no one realizes that his post is completely irrelevant! Someone. ANYone, please find another thread where the ant analogy is discussed (not just referenced) - I don't believe there IS one, 'cause THAT is the subject of this thread. His link is merely to another thread about Leslie Kean, which as you can see, was only an afterthought to this thread.

What a bunch of lemmings - commenting/rating something they don't even understand the connection (or lack of) - what has this place turned into?!





[edit on 9/2/2010 by SquirrelNutz]

reply to post by SquirrelNutz


people are going to have to start acknowledging something





Yes, they are...and let's start with acknowledging the search bar.


www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'll fix it:

Aliens : Humans :: Humans : Strange Quarks

A bit stronger now?

reply to post by SquirrelNutz

I'm not so sure. Are you sure ants aren't intelligent?

Are Ants Intelligent?

Is it possible that ants are intelligent? The idea may seem preposterous to some - after all, how can something so small, with the brain the size of a pin head be smart?

Humans only started domesticating cattle and livestock relatively recently in geologic time, while ants have been farming their livestock perhaps before humans even existed (They farm creatures called aphids and "milk" them in a fashion similar to the way we raise and milk cows). So the way I see it, humans have been behind ants in livestock farming for probably millions of years. You have to give ants some credit.

if we look closer, we can see that ants exhibit many of the characteristics and behaviours that we associate with intelligence and civilization. In fact, if ants did not exist on Earth but we encountered them on, for example, Mars I am sure that we would wonder if we had encountered an intelligent alien race that builds cities, farms, raises animals, and organizes itself into a complex society complete with social ranks such as nobles, soldiers, workers and slaves. I am sure that we would conclude that these aliens were in fact intelligent.

You have to realize that aliens probably won't have the same anthropocentric view of other intelligences that we do. We aren't quite sure what their view will be but as the name "alien" implies, it's not likely to be the same as ours".

Also the PETA movement is relatively recent. It wasn't that long ago that wearing fur coats was in style and mankind seemed to have little regard for other creatures on the same planet, and in fact we are still hunting whales which for all we know may harbor some type of as yet undiscovered intelligence. So if we are any example, you can't count on a lot of respect from other intelligences, even if you're an intelligent whale. In fact one researcher thinks aliens may communicate with whales before humans as I mention in this thread:

Which will aliens communicate with first? Humans, or ?

Ants in all probability are not the supreme beings we are searching for. lol

I remember Michio Kaku making reference to ants, while talking about aliens.
It might have been misinterpreted by the masses, leading up to your post.

I looked it up, you can hear it at 3 min. into this video,

Originally posted by facelift
reply to post by SquirrelNutz

 

people are going to have to start acknowledging something

Yes, they are...and let's start with acknowledging the search bar.


www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'm sorry, you're slamming me for an aside (re: Leslie Kean) at the very end of my post? (Clearly those who star'd you, must not have clicked your irrelevant link)

Focus, man.



[edit on 9/1/2010 by SquirrelNutz]

sorry, double post

2l



[edit on 9/1/2010 by SquirrelNutz]

reply to post by Arbitrageur

I'm not so sure. Are you sure ants aren't intelligent?

Nope. Not at all. I'm saying two things:

1) Ant are not nearly as intelligent as us.

2) The transitive property (or relative comparison) is not a good one.

Well Aliens do have an advantage on humans.

They know where we sleep.

And aliens eat people.

There have been a few unexplainable Human Mutilation cases.

Go to this link to see pictures.

BE WARNED THEY ARE GRAPHIC.

www.think-aboutit.com...

Now that you have seen the pictures, multiply it by the number of people that go missing without a trace.

www.trutv.com...

The above is a link to the number of missing people.

And what do you get a pretty well based theory on human farming.

Just my thoughts.

Meh, i think we should stop trying to pretend to understand anything about intelligent space faring aliens in the first place...we could have 100 billion different views and not one would be even vaguely close to understanding why aliens may do this or that or don't do this and that....maybe in a few thousand years we can ask them once we are able to traverse the galaxy.

[edit on 1-9-2010 by Solomons]

Great thread s+f....
I have always hated being compared to ants. We (mankind) are the greatest creation next to god. We adapt to any situation, we can manifest pretty much whatever we want. How many other species can say the same terrestrial or not? Why do we seem to think technology equates to intelligence? WRONG.............
what has our great technological empire ever created besides wars and inequality
at least ants work together.....
as for aliens or at least the ones we are somewhat aware of (greys) are not so intelligent as we give them credit....I mean, why if they are so advanced and have traveled light years to get here, are they constantly crashing there crafts. the only intelligence I see is the govt covering up these alien blunders for over 40 years

Originally posted by facelift
reply to post by SquirrelNutz

 

people are going to have to start acknowledging something

Yes, they are...and let's start with acknowledging the search bar.


www.abovetopsecret.com...

dude I rofl'ed irl ... classic man just classic

I'll be brief. See the first line of my permanent signature. That explains it all quite easily.

If you are still preplexed about why they would mess with us instead of exterminationg us, consider your beer-drinking squirrel (and consider that you did teach him table manners and to belch properly when drinking beer). Why did you do it? Not real enough? How about your dog? Did you teach you dog any tricks or behaviors you thought would help it in its life? Oh, I know! How about a child! Did you ever teach a child anything?

If your answer is yes to any of these, that is also the answer to you dilemma of why would aliens....

s.

reply to post by SquirrelNutz


I personally haven't heard the comparison of humans to ants in relation to aliens.

Ironic that you are the one that introduced this to me, huh?

reply to post by SquirrelNutz


Yeah, it is a weak anaology.

Any species smart enough to master Faster than Light travel or wormhole travel would be incredibly more intelligent than us and therefore ants aren't a dumb enough animal to choose.

Aliens are to humans as humans are to dirt. Better?

The point is that it takes a great deal of intelligence, and your species has to survive for a very long time, to find a way to overcome the vast distances of space and arrive here. Now it is possible that these aliens learned their FTL travel techniques from a more advanced species and in that way they might not be all that more advanced than us. The idea is that a fledgling civilization would be visited by a far more advanced one which then passes on its knowledge of faster than light travel. That way an alien species could have all of the technology without being "ready" for it. Sort of like letting a ten year old move up from a trike to an actual car in one step.

I am probably wrong and many will not read the rest of this post because of the first 4 words, but...

It seems psychological to me. Humans, we have a knack for being very self rightous and believing we are far superior to any beings we know of. Any being that would be smarter than us must be so much more advanced that they are approaching God-like status. They can't be similar to us, they have to be incredibly enlightened in their understanding of the universe to be deemed superior to us.

It isn't possible that they are actually more dumb than us as a whole, but have a few geniuses that have developed the technology they may use to traverse the universe? This is assuming they weren't born in interstellar space with the ability to travel in their natural environment in ways that would be impossible to us. There are just way to many uncertainties about what aliens even are to make any type of statement about them being more advnced or similar to us.

I do agree that hearing the comparison of A/H H/Ant has been taken too far and over used recently when discussing the possible comparisons of Aliens and Humans. Though it is likely they are extremely further along, technologically speaking, it is hard to imagine that we could not process and even hold the thought in our minds about what they are doing and how they are doing it once we are presented with the information about their technology or biological make up. This is again assuming they are technological beings in the first place.

reply to post by SquirrelNutz


I think it is a very apt analogy, however you have twisted it into a straw-man, so that you may attack it for not fitting your unimaginative, science-fiction influenced fantasies about aliens.

Originally posted by King Loki

Originally posted by facelift
reply to post by SquirrelNutz

 

people are going to have to start acknowledging something

Yes, they are...and let's start with acknowledging the search bar.


www.abovetopsecret.com...

dude I rofl'ed irl ... classic man just classic

And, thank you for proving my point...

I'm sorry, you're slamming me for an aside (re: Leslie Kean) at the very end of my post? (Clearly those who star'd you, must not have clicked your irrelevant link)

Focus, man.

His link has almost nothing to do with the subject of this thread. Thanks for paying attention.

Originally posted by DoomsdayRex
reply to post by SquirrelNutz

 

I think it is a very apt analogy, however you have twisted it into a straw-man, so that you may attack it for not fitting your unimaginative, science-fiction influenced fantasies about aliens.

Gonna hafta explain yourself there. I think my position is pretty clear, with sound explanations (whether you agree with them or not, but at least give a supporting argument)


And if by "unimaginative, science-fiction influenced fantasies about aliens" you are referring to my movie references, that was merely an effort to draw a better analogy to being interested in a civilization that would fascinate us, and we would watch/learn without interfering - nothing more.

I assure you, my views/opinions/beliefs on aliens/advanced civilization are COMPLETELY scientific and well researched. Try again.




[edit on 9/2/2010 by SquirrelNutz]

I don't think you've grasped what an analogy is. The comparison isn't intended to highlight similarities between humans and ants but rather the levels of interest between species of differing technological levels. Any 'lower' animal could have been used in the analogy. And don't forget any analogy will have flaws upon close examination.

Sure you may get some people who are interested in ants and study them - some aliens may be interested in humans but on the whole ants don't feature very highly on our collective radar.

The argument I think is to highlight the idea that aliens may not be visiting Earth for the sole purpose of communicating with humans. That's not to say they will ignore us but we may not be the main reason they are here.

Imagine for a moment you are an alien travelling the vast expanses of space and you see the Earth for the first time. What would be the first thing you notice about our planet? Humans? No.

Water. And lots of it.

Earth may be nothing more than a gas station for interstellar travellers. How do you behave when you stop at a gas station? You might talk to some of the other people there, you may ignore them. You may stop and stretch your legs for a while. You may go to the bathroom, buy a snack etc. There's lots of things you might do but the main reason you are there is to refuel.

That's the intent of the analogy - to make people realise that aliens may have other agendas other than talking to us and NOT to suggest humans are somehow ant-like.

Edit: Do you have a source for your first paragraph? If you've just made those words up then your argument is just a straw man like DoomsdayRex said.


[edit on 2/9/2010 by MarrsAttax]