If alien life can detect us and we can't detect back is it worth it for them?

I was wondering if we have been detected and or visited by beings more advanced than us. After seeing the level of technology we currently possess they will not interact with us until we are at least more closer to their level of tech. Kinda like college the seniors know there are freshmen but have nothing to do with them due to the difference of knowledge. Well you can see what i am trying to say. Would like to hear some responses or theories on if this is a possible scenario.

Roger

As I noted in another thread on a different topic here just a few minutes ago..oddly enough.... I think Aliens, if there are any (and I think there are myself) would have sensors spread around to detect specific things.

Specific signatures to show milestones of technology. I think we crossed one of those with Nuclear and it set off a flurry of alien activity to our little corner of the galaxy for awhile. I think we may have set off another with CERN. Perhaps a BIG one there, considering the sheer oddness of the story to how it's been stopped, repaired and restarted so many times. (I wish it weren't finishing a run on the 21st..what timing)

reply to post by swampcricket


lol i dont see how college seniors and freshman have to do with Aliens not wanting to contact us. But it all depends on the situation. If were are digestable they might come and try to eat us or study us. I dont see why they would just completely ignore us unless there is something we dont understand..which there is obviously

reply to post by swampcricket


I somehow get the feeling they look at us the way we look at Ant Colonies. We, like the Ants are organized and very good at engineering our local environment but are we aware of the kid with the magnifying glass?

The magnifying glass can be used for both good and bad. Either to get a good close look or to burn. Thankfully they haven't burned us to a crisp.

I used to look at the night skyline of our modern cities and think that we would be considered advanced to some Alien race but in reality it's probably not going to be our level of tech achieved or tall skyscrapers that will impress upon them that it's time for contact but how we treat ourselves, other human beings, the planets animals and the environment etc etc etc..

We aren't even close to their league yet.

reply to post by BacknTime


The college thing was just saying hey these guys got a lot to learn still I'm not going to gain anything for kicking it with them. Just trying to put it in a scenario so people can understand what I am getting at.

reply to post by swampcricket


If I was to put myself in an extraterrestrial's shoes, why would I need to come to Earth? Especially if the cost of travelling enormous distances between solar systems outweighs the benefit of contacting us.

It basically boils down to their level of technology and a legitimate reason for travelling to Earth.

Edit: Most of us yearn for first contact, but are we truly prepared for it?

Originally posted by IEtherianSoul9
reply to post by swampcricket

 

If I was to put myself in an extraterrestrial's shoes, why would I need to come to Earth? Especially if the cost of travelling enormous distances between solar systems outweighs the benefit of contacting us.

It basically boils down to their level of technology and a legitimate reason for travelling to Earth.

Good point but once again it goes back to the tech issue. If they had that capability to get to earth the "cost" to them might not be much at all depending on how they travel folds in space time and things like that. But who knows.

I suppose there could be ETs that know of us and don't want to come say hello or arnt interested in us due to our tech levels. But I think that there is enough life out there that unless there is a gallactic rule that govens interactions between different planets there would also be ETs that would come visit and say hello and maybe help us out in the technology front if they discovered us.

Question is, is there a galactic rule that states a certain level of tech is needed by a planet in order for contact to be made, and if not, where are the ETs that would come say hello to us???

Originally posted by kogll
I suppose there could be ETs that know of us and don't want to come say hello or arnt interested in us due to our tech levels. But I think that there is enough life out there that unless there is a gallactic rule that govens interactions between different planets there would also be ETs that would come visit and say hello and maybe help us out in the technology front if they discovered us.

Question is, is there a galactic rule that states a certain level of tech is needed by a planet in order for contact to be made, and if not, where are the ETs that would come say hello to us???

And who makes the "galactic rules" that these other ETs follow and why aren't we informed about them?

reply to post by swampcricket


i get it, well if that's the alien mentality then I wouldnt want to kick it with them either. We already have arrogant people on this Earth, why would we want arrogant aliens telling us that they are too smart and too good for us. screw them if thats the case

reply to post by swampcricket


I think you are anthropomorphizing aliens interest badly, you could make a better comparison on how we go into deep jungles and recondite places in attempting to find our own species members that still live in the stone age (or very near). We certainly do not do this to their benefit, in fact strict protocols exist to avoid cultural corruption before everything possible is cataloged from social quirks, cultural divergences from our known ancestry to hidden and lost knowledge especially dealing with medicinal (and other types) plant use to poisons.

Now, take that and even as an anthropomorphic as it is consider that we would be the aliens, and we made contact with another civilization that was below our own technological threshold, what would you think would happen... (seen Avatar ?)

I do also think that alien life is almost a certainty and intelligent life is highly probable, just looking to fellow Terran animals we could in a few generations uplift some species in our image (this would be doable today) but would be not only dangerous but moral and ethically questionable, in any case I see many interesting things an alien culture would gain by keeping us under observation, from cultural gains to even technological paths that they hadn't fallowed there is much to gain...

reply to post by swampcricket


If we knew about the galactic rules we would have made contact

I was basically saying that with the amount of life I think there is out there, that unless there are galactic rules about contact it seems it is either imposible or very hard to travel the stars.

I hope there are galactic rules because I don't like the idea that we won't be able to travel the stars.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I do not think I would opt by passive censoring, if I was technologically superior I would silently infiltrate their society and take control from within, reaping all the benefits and none of the downside of a first contact situation. Doing so even would permit to direct that civilization evolution toward my own goals, even if they were something as simple as integration in my own superior civilization.

Originally posted by Panic2k11
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

I do not think I would opt by passive censoring, if I was technologically superior I would silently infiltrate their society and take control from within, reaping all the benefits and none of the downside of a first contact situation. Doing so even would permit to direct that civilization evolution toward my own goals, even if they were something as simple as integration in my own superior civilization.

Kind of like the Chinese ) in all seriousness if they yet to have found anything to gain why bother.

reply to post by Panic2k11

Oh, once noticed, I agree. I'm just not sure we were noticed and paid attention to like we were worth even making the trip to see until the Nukes popped in Space and likely would be a thing advanced civilizations would be looking for around the galaxy. I'm assuming we aren't the only world in the vastness that may be around this level and so sensors spread out to see what might show up would be something I'll bet we not only would do....but WILL do if we survive this period of our development to get that far.

I would assume Nuclear would be a trigger because one of the weapons considered at Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project on their little chalk boards had a delivery system simply listed as "backyard". This, among those with 'bomb' or whatever else. Backyard was used because the power was so far off the chart, in theory, it wouldn't matter where on the planet it was detonated...it would destroy everything. Who knows if the theory I read about in what seemed like an endless audio textbook would have panned out and for obvious reasons, I'm glad no one knows. However........it suggests how the tech COULD be taken. Hence...Aliens would be watching, I'd say.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Absolutely the atomic age sent signals due to the amount and types of energy released in a nuclear explosion. Any advanced race with the knowledge and tools could detect a nuclear incident. Thing is that all those signals travel at or near the speed of light so there comes in how far away they were when detected and what mode of travel could be used to get here faster than light.

reply to post by swampcricket

I have a hunch Star Trek had a couple things close enough to accurate in how we might find it to be out there. Among those may be tricks of physics or entirely new understandings of how it all works to have communication at faster than light..or at least the appearance of it. I don't know..that's all at a level of schooling and in departments I get a headache just walking too close to.

I just think we're still learning to crawl ourselves so who knows? Maybe in the Asteroid belt is a lone little rock a little different from all the other rocks with a way to transmit a detection out half a century ago. Isn't space fun to speculate about? Anything is possible in a place with infinite size and truly unknown age.

(Voyagers are also detecting interesting energy flows...who knows what it really looks like when they are actually OUTSIDE the Solar System? I'm still waiting for that 'Objects are much closer than they appear' notice back from one of them.)

I think the universe would be teeming with life so any civ that has the ability to traverse the stars would find us unremarkable I imagine.

For us it would be huge and groundbreaking, for them.... Well were probably only worth a small story in one of their nature/science magazines.

I see the heading being something like this

SMALL INSIGNIFICANT CIVILIZATION DISCOVERED IN INSIGNIFICANT PART OF MILKY WAY

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Well that depends on what vision you have for the "aliens"...

If there is a civilization that is superior to us and capable of monitoring things like you propose (think about the distances and time of relaying the intel) it would be an extremely wasteful proposition.

We can even extrapolate looking to our own future Not the one in the path we are now, but the one that would be logical that we would be pursuing.

Life expands it colonizes, we should already be out of this rock and spreading (like a virus ) for at least half a century (the strange thing is that we aren't and have only half-baked plans to do so, most if not all being only pipe dreams that have no stand in reality, even China's proposal of a moon colony seems now to be dim). In any way if we extrapolated from what would "normally" occur is expansion from a planet based civilization to a solar civilization and so forth. (There are alternatives and shortcuts but as I said it depends on what type of alien we are talking about).

If we establish this a the normal path of evolution for a civilization that has universal ambitions, that includes the need you mention to monitor other contenders, the best path is to create or pollinate life itself and take control of the process, this reduces the need to monitor for it in the first place, to play a game of chance, if you create and manage life spread and evolution you can save yourself a lot of trouble.

In any case the dumbest thing to do is to announce other contenders of your own presence, like we did with voyager or with radio signals, there is a multitude of possibilities that would make our presence known a vary bad idea, even if the aliens would be well intentioned. The creation of monitoring stations would fit right in that category, not to mention that the work it would take and the technology that would permit it could do the seeding of life itself in every crack that would hold it.

Originally posted by IkNOwSTuff
I think the universe would be teeming with life so any civ that has the ability to traverse the stars would find us unremarkable I imagine.

For us it would be huge and groundbreaking, for them.... Well were probably only worth a small story in one of their nature/science magazines.

I see the heading being something like this

SMALL INSIGNIFICANT CIVILIZATION DISCOVERED IN INSIGNIFICANT PART OF MILKY WAY

I agree. In part. If the universe is teeming with life, wouldn't there also be the more inquisitive races of ETs out there that would want to visit and tell us we are not alone.

Everyone seems to believe that all other intelligent life would have the same goals and traits. I would think that if the universe is teeming with life there would be ETs that think we are not worth the speck of dust that we reside on, other ETs that would like to say hello and enlighten us to the ways of the universe, others that want nothing more then to take all of our resources and others still that want to enslave us or eat us.