Posted on 04/25/2010 11:08:20 PM PDT by nickcarraway
British physicist Stephen Hawking, the brilliant man who wrote "A Brief History of Time," says aliens probably exist and frets that if they discover Earth their intentions might be less like the film, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and more like the book, "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." In the book, alien bureaucrats determine the Earth should be demolished to make way for space highway and blow the Earth up. Sorry. Nothing personal. Prepare to die.
It's not such a crazy thought, says Hawking, in a Discovery Channel series. "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," he said.
Then, citing the example of Christopher Columbus' landing in the Americas and colonizing indigenous tribes, Hawking concluded efforts to contact alien races may well be "too risky."
"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet," he said. "I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach."
Sounds like the Vikings. Or Romans. Or, yes, Spaniards. [Read Hawking's biography.]
Meanwhile, enjoy this trailer from the "Hitchhiker's" film...
A speculation unknown in American literature for about 80 years. You know, those weird magazines with the women abused by the evil aliens.. or perhaps the folks from Grovers Corners might have an addition to this bit of obvious insight.
It’s a cookbook!!!
‘It’s a cookbook!!!’
LOL!
I’ve come to believe that if aliens are indeed visiting Earth, they’re probably not the benign “space brothers” that some believe them to be. More likely, they’re more interested in humans as specimens and breeding units. Maybe even slaves.
I’ve never seen a UFO, but if one landed in my back yard and the operators asked if I’d like to take a ride, I think I’d politely decline.
If they asked me to “take me to your leader”, I’d be happy to point them to where Barack Obama lives.
breeding units?
I agree with you. I have no doubts that alien life exists out there somewhere. However that being said, there is no reason for an enlightened, advanced society to come here at our present stage of development. Also, an advanced society doesn’t necessarily equate with goodness or morality and I’m glad Hawking makes that distinction, since it’s a relative concept. Consider that the Spanish were advanced and were considered gods by the natives, and look what happened to them.
Sure. UFO literature has loads of stories about that. Have a look...
However that being said, there is no reason for an enlightened, advanced society to come here at our present stage of development.
There's a case that can be made for the need to monitor savage civilizations who've developed the means of space flight, and have harnessed the atom.
Call it a containment mission.
I can see that. We have no idea how nuclear or atomic detonations affect others in the neighborhood so that is a possibility. I would argue however that an enlightened society would necessarily have a non interference policy, even if it meant letting us destroy ourselves.
“There’s a case that can be made for the need to monitor savage civilizations who’ve developed the means of space flight, and have harnessed the atom.”
We’re still confined to a small part of our solar system. When we overcome that, then I suspect we would be monitored very closely. Right now, I doubt we even raise alien eyebrows.
It would be similar for Aliens ...we would rue the day they came, and they would be here to colonize us etc etc etc ....but hopefully in the long run things would be better.
Caveat: Things only become better in the long run if it is the same species ...i.e. white man colonizes brown man, etc etc etc. However, when it comes to dissimilar species then the same does NOT hold. E.g. it is not 'man colonizes Dodo, but rather Dodo goes dead-dead.'
Thus, since the aliens are definitely not homo sapiens, they may see us as some sort of lower lifeform, in which case we could face mass extermination.
I agree with S.H ...we should NOT be trying to contact aliens, because any alien form that can HEAR us and be able to COME to us will NOT be benevolent ....they are not making that huge journey for fun and kicks. It is not prudent.
Let alone other issues like disease and who knows what else!
One of the great Gikuyu seers is claimed to have warned the Kikuyu to be ware of 'people dressed in clothes like butterflies who would be riding on a long iron snake,' but that 'once they come after the pain listen to them and learn all that you can and you will do well.' Well, I think he would say' be careful of the THINGS flying in metal plates, for they will EAT YOU.'
Have thought about that, seems if they were thousands or millions of years ahead of us, they would have no worry about us.
Then I thought, what if we are (due to computers and other high tech) on the verge of significant breakthroughs, we might be becoming a problem faster than we think.
Who says they're enlightened? Are third-world and muslim countries enlightened because they've come into possession of our modern technology?
Obviously not.
And who says there's only one race, or civilization watching us? There could be many, and they wouldn't necessarily all have the same code of ethics.
If you can believe many of the reports in the UFO literature, a lot of these ETs have no compunctions about interacting with humans, or with revealing themselves.
I always thought it was a bad idea to be broadcasting our location out to the universe. Man, we don’t know what the hell is floating around out there. We worry about the Russians, and Chinese. People that are roughly on the same scale with us. Now imagine if something came to earth that was a thousand years ahead of us. Time to pack it up, because guess what, We’re cattle.
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