02 May 10
Originally posted by AThousandYoungThe only problem with that stance is any race capable of conquering interstellar distances will have resources available that would not require them to strip our world of its resources. For instance, suppose they need water. The moon Callisto has more water than the entire Earth, it seems certain now that the Earth got its water from cometary and asteroid bombardment, because the Earth lost almost all its water early on and so had to have had it replaced from outside sources. Space faring civilizations would have access to all those resources without resorting to stealing it from us, for one thing because the extra-planetary resources are thousands of times more available than what exists on Earth and usually in a far more shallow gravity well to get at those resources. Besides, I would think if a space faring people came this way, the only resources they would need would be replacement of that which was lost on the long journey which would not require a whole planet full anyway. One nice sized nickel iron asteroid with a surface of ice and some volatiles would do.
Stephen Hawking thinks we should hide from aliens because they will invade and take our resources from their space ships! For realz!
02 May 10
Originally posted by sonhouseSuppose they need food... Or slaves... Or 'life-force'... Or warm-blooded hosts for their parasitic larvae...
The only problem with that stance is any race capable of conquering interstellar distances will have resources available that would not require them to strip our world of its resources. For instance, suppose they need water. The moon Callisto has more water than the entire Earth, it seems certain now that the Earth got its water from cometary and asteroid b ...[text shortened]... l anyway. One nice sized nickel iron asteroid with a surface of ice and some volatiles would do.
13 May 10
Originally posted by avalanchethecatAnd suppose their version of DNA is 4 sided quad helix with 12 letters, not much chance anything we grew would be consumable by these 4 headed behemoths, eh.
Suppose they need food... Or slaves... Or 'life-force'... Or warm-blooded hosts for their parasitic larvae...
The real problem having aliens who are anywhere near our level of technology, that is to say, maybe only 50,000 years ahead of us, is the actual noise recorded by existing radio astronomy scopes has shown that if a civilization exactly at our level were anywhere in the galaxy, we could pick up our own crap of RF.
The problem with that is, if we assume, say a 1 million year span of a civilization, a pretty far fetched possibility considering our own luck at making lasting civilizations, there has been about 10,000 such million year slices of time since this galaxy was made.
So say there were 500 such civilizations at random in that time frame, chances are very slim, any one of them would have heard anything from any of the others because after that million year spree of RF, IR, maybe gravity waves, etc., they would all fly by and be gone by the time another such civilization popped up.
In other words, if we want to truly have a chance at catching the waves of an alien civilization, we better have the use of a time machine to have placed detectors every few thousand years from ten billion years ago to now to have a chance at actually picking out one of them. That is a distinct possibility considering all the stars SETI had already checked out to no avail.
13 May 10
Originally posted by sonhouseThen they burn it as fuel.
And suppose their version of DNA is 4 sided quad helix with 12 letters, not much chance anything we grew would be consumable by these 4 headed behemoths, eh.
The real problem having aliens who are anywhere near our level of technology, that is to say, maybe only 50,000 years ahead of us, is the actual noise recorded by existing radio astronomy scopes h ...[text shortened]... at is a distinct possibility considering all the stars SETI had already checked out to no avail.
26 May 10
Originally posted by AThousandYounghttp://xkcd.com/114/
A thought just struck me as I studied the Paleolithic...
Anthropology is like the US Marine Corps: unnecessary but not harmful either; it's just another way to get the job done. The analogy here is USMC = Anthropology. USAF, US Army, USN are sociology, evolutionary biology, geology, etc.