Aliens Are Like Us

Oannes, Specimen

You both seem to agree that if aliens wanted anything from us, they could have got it long ago.

But what if they only acquired the power of interstellar travel a few years or centuries ago? What if they only learnt of Earth's existence, or came within striking distance of it, quite recently?

I also think you're being rather unimaginative about what they might want from us. Gold, 'resources' and slaves... really?

Well, 'resources' covers a fair bit of ground, at least. Maybe Earth is chock-full of the alien version of unobtainium. But that aliens should share the neurotic human love of gold, or that a civilization with the technology to cross interstellar space should require vast amounts of manual labour for any purpose is rather hard to credit.

I think their reasons would be otherwise. Lebensraum is the first that springs to mind, since our own history is full of migrations, land-grabs and colonies. Trade, meaning economic exploitation along mercantilist lines, is another—how come none of you ever seems to think of that? Maybe they want to turn Earth into a plantation, or make fortunes selling their equivalent of beads to the natives.

Has anyone read The Man Who Fell to Earth, or watched the movie? The alien hero in that story becomes a multimillionaire by patenting and selling his civilisation's technology to Earthlings. What if our hypothetical aliens come along with a longevity pill that really works, or a cure for cancer, and we end up bartering our planet for it?

Or maybe they will have a 'drug'—some device or process that produces blissful, instantly addictive ecstasy. Remember how the British, with some help from other European powers and the Americans, got the Chinese Empire addicted to opium? Imagine that happening again, this time with something far more potent than opium, and on a global scale.

Or maybe they will come as tourists, and turn the entire population of Earth into innkeepers, waiters, prostitutes, guides and touts. Maybe they will be big-game-hunting tourists and we'll be the game. The British did something like that in Tasmania (literally exterminating the locals) and to a lesser degree in Australia, while the Germans did it, I believe, in the Namib.

Then there are the irrational motives: Religious proselytization: 'and He charged them to preach the Good Word to all intelligent beings throughout the cosmos'—which they then proceed to do, with fire and sword (or tractor beam and death-ray). Xenophobia: 'rid the Universe of these imitations of the True Race, these filthy, vile, crawling, mud creatures'—and down they come again with their tractor beams and death rays. Religious awe: 'The Earthlings hold the secret of true salvation'—whereupon they turn us into the equivalent of sacred cows or Vestal Virgins, robbing us of our freedom and destroying our civilisation.

You'll notice that every one of the above possibilities has already been realised in the course of human history—many times over in some cases. Some of them are happening right now. If aliens are just like us, which is the thesis of this thread, we are justified in expecting most kinds of human skulduggery from them, including all of the above.

I have left the most obvious danger for last. If interstellar travel is not only possible but economically worthwhile, then you may be sure that interstellar war is also possible, and worthwhile at least for the victors. It may well be the case that our visiting aliens require a position from which to outflank their enemies, a base from which to refuel or resupply, allies among the barbarians or some such, so that we become embroiled in their wars. I don't suppose I need spell out all the possible consequences of that.

reply to post by Astyanax


That maybe possible. However, I'm more pro into Ancient Astronauts, and I would ASSUME that space travel been over and done with a long time experience on their part. It possible that an alien civilization may have just discovered us with a millennial. Then again Im pro AA(not so much the show, but the hypothesis itself)

Unimaginative, not really. I doubt they would have a lust for as our species does, and besides if they did, they would put to much better use then a common person could. Some just wanna make them selves look shiny cause, so by all means let em. I have no use for gold. Also gold dropped in value recently.

If they have advanced method in chemistry, engineering, and quantum physics they basically make they're own resources. As for drugs, we did that ourselves.

A plantation highly unlikely. Considering how bad we polluted our ozone, oceans, and land with various chemicals(fires), accidental leaks, and nuke testing would only possibly lead them to conclude not suitable. And if they could rid the land of such ailments, it would take double or triple the amount work, time, resources then blowing us up.

What would be the point of them allowing us to harness the power of the atom, unless they wanted our species to feel a certain techno logic responsibility, or techno logic fear.

As far as religion goes, not caring.

Xenophobia...lol, this whole planets xenophobic.

reply to post by Specimen


Although I can see what your talking about if it were a type 1 civilization just beginning to colonize other planets within a 100 years of space travel could be a viable suggestion. Also if they have just started plotting out their star charts, information on planets, etc. If they were desperate for resources, and just want aggressive expansion then it would be a threat. However, it would take considerable time to get around solar system to solar system.

A type two or three however, they could make space travel look like a walk in the park and would have immense knowledge of the milky way. They could easily travel from system to system, and would possibly do so in a few hours, or even minutes if they were type 3. So they would hardly care for our existence what so ever, and would view earth as no more then a planet with life. They would easily be neutral to our planet(hopefully), and could possibly just study us.

Type four however, I don't even wanna know, or try to fathom. They would have easy access to time travel, and could easily be intergalactic. Also their knowledge of quantum physics would be considerable.

Michio Kaku 3 types of civilizations.

Originally posted by Astyanax
The Kepler space telescope has found the 'most Earthlike' worlds to date, says this news item.

The successful quest for exoplanets has been going on for some time now. Hundreds have been found. Some are quite unlike those of our own solar system—very big, orbiting very close to their stars, and so on. But public interest is mainly in the Earthlike ones.

This, of course, is quite understandable: human nature, if you like. It will be just as natural, if we ever acquire the capacity for interstellar travel, to prefer visiting and exploring such hospitable worlds, rather than planets where life as we know it would not be able to exist. It's already happening; it's why our exploratory efforts concentrate on Mars and largely ignore Venus, for example.

Allow me to suggest that if intelligent aliens exist, it will be just as natural to them to behave the same way—to look for distant planets where they, or life as they know it, can survive and possibly thrive. And they, too, if they are able to travel among the stars, will probably visit similar planets first.

It follows from this that any aliens interested in Earth are likely to be from planets broadly similar to Earth—rocky and watery, with oxidising atmospheres, Goldilocks-zoned, and so on.

Life on these planets is quite likely to have evolved along similar lines to Earth—oxygen-breathing, with water-based organic biochemistries, etc. Broadly, then (very broadly), these aliens will be like us.

And being like us, they will have interests similar to, and quite possibly in conflict with, our own. They may even have plans for our planet that don't include us.

There was a time when, under the influence of science-fiction writers like Arthur C. Clarke, I believed that civilised aliens must necessarily be benign. Like the good Prof. Hawking, I now think this attitude is dangerously naive. Life everywhere must depend on natural resources to exist. Similar life-forms must depend on similar resources. I now believe that any aliens visiting Earth must want something from us or our planet, or they wouldn't be here in the first place. And what they want is not likely to be good for us.

edit on 18/4/13 by Astyanax because: it needed tweaking.

I don't believe that aliens visiting our planets HAVE to be wanting something from us. If we were to visit an alien world, I think it would probably be just to discover life on another planet. I don't know why other species have to necessarily be malevolent.

reply to post by Astyanax

Allow me to suggest that if intelligent aliens exist, it will be just as natural to them to behave the same way—to look for distant planets where they, or life as they know it, can survive and possibly thrive. And they, too, if they are able to travel among the stars, will probably visit similar planets first.

I'm positivity convinced that alien life exist by simple mathematical odds and what science has ascertained so far. But I do not see how anthropomorphizing alien life serves any purpose, granted for all we know the same basic imperatives for life will be there but even at that basic a level there is a very large latitude to ever consider that a good starting point.

So it is not natural at all to think that they will behave as we do, even that they reside in a distant planet that they have any special consideration for survival as individuals (imagine an insect hive, a collective or share their species culture and knowledge in other ways, for instance a race of clones, natural or otherwise) or that they have share our biologic imperatives (imagine a silicon based life-form that is sentient but that moves or thinks so slowly that it takes years or centuries to take the simpler action). The possibilities are so vast that your way of thinking is not at all a good starting point, except that you fallow the faulty path of homo-centrism ( humanocentrism), that we are special and should be given special consideration, even in our own blue marble that is a false proposition mostly based in human faith, beliefs even emotional needs.

reply to post by Panic2k11

I'm positivity convinced that alien life exist by simple mathematical odds and what science has ascertained so far.

I won't say I'm convinced—it's only a probability, after all—but I am almost certain. So we're practically in agreement on that.

I do not see how anthropomorphizing alien life serves any purpose, granted for all we know the same basic imperatives for life will be there but even at that basic a level there is a very large latitude to ever consider that a good starting point.

I think you may have neglected to read or understand the opening post in full. In it, I give the reason why I think any aliens who come to Earth (or that we shall perhaps discover on our own future interstellar voyages) will be like human beings. That doesn't mean all intelligent aliens have to resemble or act like humans.

The possibilities are so vast that your way of thinking is not at all a good starting point, except that you fallow the faulty path of homo-centrism ( humanocentrism), that we are special and should be given special consideration, even in our own blue marble that is a false proposition mostly based in human faith, beliefs even emotional needs.

I dislike being patronised by people who obviously haven't thought about a matter as hard as I have, but let it go for the present. My point of view isn't anthropocentric (that's the word you were looking for) but is based on conclusions drawn from observing all life on this planet, including parthenogenetic species (those that reproduce by cloning) and colony organisms of various kinds—not only the anthills and termite mounds you mention, but also bacteria, slime moulds, corals, sponges and so on. My viewpoint also takes into consideration the vast variety of imaginary aliens created by science-fiction writers.

It holds for them all, and it is based on some simple, straightforward, largely uncontroversial ideas. The first is evolution by natural selection, which imposes certain rigid imperatives on the behaviour of organisms. The second consists of the limits imposed by resource limitations and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The third is simply that organisms, especially intelligent ones, will preferentially gravitate towards environmental conditions that are hospitable to them.

Thank you for your post; it represents a fairly common viewpoint that had not yet been fully articulated on the thread. By expressing it, you have given me the chance to address it. I hope you understand my argument a little better now.

reply to post by eyesontheskies

I don't believe that aliens visiting our planets HAVE to be wanting something from us. If we were to visit an alien world, I think it would probably be just to discover life on another planet.

Then you would be going as a tourist, and what you would want from the aliens and their planet would be all the things a tourist wants: exotic scenes and customs, natural beauty, security, convenient access and egress, creature comforts, entertainment, good customer service and so on. Those things could only be provided at the expense of the alien people you visit.

I live in a country that is a popular holiday destination for travellers and have observed the deleterious effects of tourism at close quarters. See my earlier remarks about 'innkeepers, tour guides, prostitutes and touts'. If Earth were to become a holiday resort for aliens, the results would be dire.

I don't know why other species have to necessarily be malevolent.

They wouldn't necessarily have any ill-will towards us; conflict of interest would be enough to do the damage. That's my whole point, actually.

reply to post by Astyanax

That goes, perhaps, a little further than I intended. Don't forget that conditions on Earth have produced millions of different lifeforms, including several apart from Homo Sapiens that are quite intelligent. When I say 'aliens are like us', that doesn't rule out their looking like hippos, breathing water, or having exoskeletons like crayfish.

haha yup. People need to use a bit more imagintion. Implying like us he was not refering to appearence but more or less our motives. And yes they are not good motives.

reply to post by Astyanax

I won't say I'm convinced—it's only a probability, after all—but I am almost certain. So we're practically in agreement on that.

For someone that is not convinced jumping I think you are misrepresenting (intentionally or by error) your position and attempting to make a point where one does not seem to exist with you...

I give the reason why I think any aliens who come to Earth...

I do believe that they exist by scientific facts we know, law of probabilities and a bit of faith...

As for believing in aliens and accepting alien visitations that would probably lead us into the discussion of the definition of aliens. In that regard I only accept the possibility of visitations by local aliens (even fellow Earthlings, fellow Sol inhabitants or local but from extra-dimension/universe with decreasing probability).

I would see FTL visitations as a very remote possibility not only due to technological requirements (that includes their civilization time and chance of survivability) but also the low chance that they would chance in finding us here.

reply to post by Astyanax

I dislike being patronised by people who obviously haven't thought about a matter as hard as I have, but let it go for the present.

It wasn't my intention to be patronizing (the word derives from patron, or supporter) and is meant to indicate a condescending acquiescence and incentive. That was far from what I expressed, in most part I've expressed opposition to your proposal.

As I read it I got the distinct impression that you were measuring any alien by human standards and expectations, that was what I defined as homo-centric (synonym to anthropocentric or humanocentrism, anthropos is Greek for for human or man. Homo is Latin and the genus that includes modern humans and species closely related to them.)

The first is evolution by natural selection, which imposes certain rigid imperatives on the behaviour of organisms. The second consists of the limits imposed by resource limitations and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The third is simply that organisms, especially intelligent ones, will preferentially gravitate towards environmental conditions that are hospitable to them.

Agree that these would be constants, with the remark that evolution is dependent on environment and competition, so speculating on that subject will probably be futile. Even our present understanding of evolution is incomplete. It is the best theory we have, but we can't even fully account on why we are as we are or create life from scratch.

by people who obviously haven't thought about a matter as hard as I have

Please do not make assumptions, if you find a fault on my rational expressed I would like to you to have the consideration to express your disagreement as I did of yours, for our mutual benefit and productive communication.

Interesting thread ... S&F!

It's inspiring to imagine their perspective on 'alien' worlds (eg. Earth) while assuming aims & strategies that are similar to ours, provided that they had actually evolved in a similar way.

However, I have doubts concerning their potential hostile attitude. Even if taking into account the struggle for resources and survival of their race, I don't think they would come here to exploit the planet (but perhaps I'm just naive).

I am almost convinced that a sufficiently advanced intelligent species would have developed a sufficiently advanced ethical view on life in the universe. This may imply the conclusion that any kind of contact is to be avoided in the first place, because chances are that any kind of interference will lead to a conflict regarding interests, resources, desires, fears etc. I could imagine this being even more of a problem if the other species is considerably inferior. Accordingly, they may want to have evaluated the risk of such contacts and ultimately decided to restrict their actions to pure observations. I'm aware that I am excluding factors like, for example, their natural curiosity and a potential desire for power but I think that, ultimately, they may think that all other arguments bear too many risks.

With regards to their resources: Why should they come to Earth for that reason? Wouldn't they be likely to have developed instruments to exploit nearby solar systems or other celestial bodies to fully cover the supply needed to sustain their civilization? Apart from that, I imagine that invading an alien world (like ours, from their point of view) purely for economic reasons would only be the last possible option in case all other resources have already been exploited. And that's a scenario I couldn't imagine ...

On the whole, I'm not very much in favor of playing the "alien scare card", but as mentioned above: perhaps I'm just being too naive, who knows?

reply to post by jeep3r

And a star for your post in return. Yes, I can imagine several reasons for intelligent aliens (like us or otherwise) being keen on giving us a miss. It follows, however, that we shan't be meeting those particular aliens, so they needn't figure in any practical handbook of extraterrestrial diplomacy.

As for their being after natural resources of any kind, I am as sceptical about that possibility as you are. In the topmost post on this page I offer a list of other reasons why aliens may wish to have intercourse with us. They are all taken from human history, so there's nothing original about them; but then, that follows naturally enough from the premise of this thread.

What makes you/us think even for a second we are alone....
We are new to the universe as it were...5 billion year old sun.

Other galaxies are twice or three times older, meaning life whould be vastly advanced from us.

This means I would NOT want to meet aliens ... Not Ever.
We would be like a hamster to them, fit to play with or kill at will and there would Nothing we could do about it...just sayin

reply to post by Astyanax

So much... :-)

I'm not sure it is possible for anything to be smarter than a human being. The average intelligence of an alien species might be higher than ours, but how much smarter than a Leonardo or an Einstein or a Gautama Buddha is it possible for any individual entity to be? We are the smartest things we know of by a very long lead.

Where is that imagination of yours Astyanax? I am smarter than my cat. I say this with some confidence. You might want to argue - but since you don't know my cat - you'll just have to take my word for it. Is it just my ego or vanity that needs to make me out to be smarter? I have no idea what my cat thinks - about me, or himself - but I imagine that he's just less smart enough to not be able to comprehend how much less smart he really is

Still - he actually is smarter than me about some things - nature is funny like that. So there you go. How do we compare and rate intelligence?

If necessity is what drives us and also forms us, imagine an environment that required a special kind of intelligence to survive it. Imagine :-) We're only now beginning to unravel the puzzle of our universe. What if the puzzle solvers down the street figured it out first because they experienced, then understood it from a different angle?

And anyway, if not smarter, better educated and experienced would (almost) amount to the same thing.
If they're smart enough to get here - factoring in time and distance and all that - then, just sayin' - smarter than us.

About your examples - yes, cream of the crop for sure...but how is it not possible to be smarter than any one of them? You say you're not sure that it's possible - but I think you're grinning when you say it

Buddha? :-)

Remember, nature teaches no moral lessons; there is nothing we can learn from her that would make us kinder, more compassionate, gentler or more truthful. On the contrary, nature teaches us that moral scruples, admirable as they are, have neither meaning nor value in the grand scheme of things.

How is it we're here discussing morals at all then? :-)

What a useless word - for a non-essential thing. Benevolence is a figment of our imagination?

So - the humans are freaks. We are weird. We have needs and desires that feel real, that we value, that we treat as valuable. We name these things, examine and work to maintain them - but nature has no need for them. We do - but nature doesn't

Interesting :-)

I wonder if it's possible that an alien race might possibly place even more importance on these things than we have - because of their unique circumstances. Even if nature doesn't require them, sometimes survival does. Maybe that's what makes our hypothetical aliens smarter than us. Maybe that's what makes them (hypothetically) nicer

I have not noticed that intelligent people are, on the whole, morally superior to unintelligent ones. Their ethics may be more advanced or sophisticated, but that doesn't necessarily translate into better behaviour

True - we're as good as mink to trappers then

I don't see how selective pressure could drive us in such a direction. Biological evolution is the ultimate in selfish processes. Cultural evolution might do it, but it might just as well push us the other way. There's no telling.

How is cultural evolution separate from biological evolution? If it's all about survival then any way we look at it selection happens one way or another - all towards surviving. I honestly don't see how we can talk about one without including the other - especially when it comes to people

We would never stand for it. Our alien keepers would get their hands bitten mighty fast.

I didn't mean they would keep us. I meant they might tend us - and we might not ever even know. Just as the elephants (probably) don't know. How can we bite what we can't see? Alien conservationists - in my fantasy :-)

Nonsense. We would fight them tooth and nail, and since it is our world not theirs, we would stand a very good chance of winning. Short of complete annihilation, of course; but I imagine that would greatly complicate whatever plans they might have for us or our planet.

We would fight them if we can. But if they're more advanced they might be able to take us out before we understand we're even under attack

Either way, peaceful or not, if they get here first before we can get out to meet them we'll be at a disadvantage. I don't assume they'll be hostile - but I have to admit - they could be. Like I said - as long as I'm guessing I'm gonna guess nice. We can't work out a defense against something we don't even understand. We're still trying to work out a defense against the bird flu

Maybe that's them right there :-)

Why do so many of these bloody "researchers" and "scientists" keep using that term "earth like planets" ? Just shows how self centered and vain we are, not giving anything new or different a chance. who's to say life couldn't evolve a different way from how it apparently did and does here. And this thing about an extra terrestrial race most likely being a version of us? I'd feel really bad for them if that was the case. Just shows that people are still only comfortable around something new if its like them.

reply to post by Irishwolfhound


maybe because they're earth-like?

They're specifically looking for planets that are similar to our own, so...

:-)

I understand that, but why focus on them solely? It could stop them finding something completely new, a planet where our scientific needs for life don't apply, some scientists are already beginning to understand that our ingredients for life might not always be needed to start life elsewhere.

Originally posted by Irishwolfhound
I understand that, but why focus on them solely? It could stop them finding something completely new, a planet where our scientific needs for life don't apply, some scientists are already beginning to understand that our ingredients for life might not always be needed to start life elsewhere.

Because humans supposedly hold the secrets of immortality in our flesh. This is why.

And every owl alien, every reptillian. Will either flee or be devoured/Consumed by holy flames.
Get ready for movies to come to life. The god eaters are awakening. And their wrath is absolute.

I think you've already brought an alien movie to life with your comment there! ha ha

reply to post by Astyanax

Aliens Are Like Us

There is a kind of irony possible here because... well, there may be no such thing as aliens at all.

It's an old concept where we have a universe that is whole. That means that every asteroid, every moon, every planet, every sun and solar system... every arm of every galaxy in every corner of an eternal universe, is connected.

But even before we get there, we know that the 'stuff' that makes up our universe is common if not constant. The blueprint of life follows the same trails using the same material in each setting.

Earth is neither unique or alone. The only thing that may make it stand out is a rather unusual satellite (moon) and a species that has risen from the dirt to aim itself back into the same via self-determined-extinction.

There are no aliens. There are no angels. They are one in the same and we... we are an experiment that we are about to fail of our own choosing.