Should We Really Tell ET Our Problems?

Here’s what went wrong:

July 2006, the aliens intercept Pioneer correctly decode the message, and set off in the right direction.

August 2006, the IAU declassifies Pluto.

September 2006, the aliens turn up, take a look, see that there’s one less planet than on the Pioneer plaque, decide this can’t be the right place, and zoom right on by.

IAU, what have you done?

How about you get over yourself? It seems you’re reading my words with some imagination of a man sitting there screaming this stuff. Don’t. Relax, read slowly, imagine kicking back in a lounge chair in the living room having a beer with the guy saying these things in a thoughtful, conversational voice with the game on in the background. I could get into the fact no I don’t take medication, but that’s always been such a pathetic jab for one stranger to take to another with no actual personal knowledge of one another. I, given yes I’m an atheist and do pay attention to people & the things they do as well as give attention to world events, do see quite clearly how humanity treats itself daily. And that treatment, like – say – someone actually taking time out of their personal life to use false claims and personal insults in a sad attempt to do nothing more than denounce an individual’s personal view on a subject, pans out into a building hurricane of self destruction as time for our species goes on. Absolutely. I can appreciate the good in life with the best of them and do. I find the good in everything from my marriage to a good meal out, from the joy of my son to a good laugh with some stand up comedy special, from walks through the park to the honor of helping a person in need. But just because there is good doesn’t somehow negate the bad in life or humanity, nor should it make one willingly blind to it. But, perhaps I’m wrong and there is no such thing as war, or rape, or murder, or falsehoods throughout or world from the dawn of our history. What a wonderful reality you must live in be it that the case.

The idea of aliens coming to save us is fiction. Hypothetical fiction in relation to the subject of the article at hand. I pray to no one and nothing, never been a hope for the best after asking thin air for favors kind of guy, no. I do sincerely apologize if my ideas have offended you, or if in your haste to scan through my typings you skipped here & there thus making the text seem illogical & irrational (which it obviously isn’t on either account). But I would like to point out that with your confirmation of “Yes to all the above” you’re stating that you are bothered (to a disturbing degree) that we should (or that someone thinks we should) broadcast openly about or world to the far reaches of space for better or worse, that it would be a likely possibility (or that someone thinks it would be a likely possibility) that a race of beings advanced enough in their technology to travel through space with ease might have the technology to solve a number of crisis on Earth be it biological, environmental or social, that the universe is (or that someone thinks the universe is) BIG enough for the Earth to at best be a grain of sand on a beach by comparison, and that humanity is (or that someone thinks – rightly – that humanity is) a destructive species.

I am glad we seem to agree that the universe is vast (even though that prior mentioned all of the above would seem to indicate otherwise, but I get it, you were just attacking blindly, it happens – especially on the internet). Very vast indeed. The epitome of the word it would seem. But, given the track record of man’s use of resources, exhausting them before moving on to the next with some worry but rarely an action toward consequence, yes I imagine that were man to ever spread somehow beyond our Earth, to other stars, such behavior would continue. I don’t think it a threat to the entire cosmos, only what we would eventually come into contact with. But, then again, I don’t see such a scenario as a liklihood at all given the limitations set on space travel.

Truth be told, I don’t think humanity will ever experience alien contact of any kind, certainly not face to face. Were we to run with the idea that life (as we might recognize it and compare it to ourselves similarly) is so low in its chance at occuring, given there are billions of stars in our galaxy alone, and that the universe are accumulated into many layers of organization beginning with star clusters, which coalesce in galaxies, which are members of galaxy clusters, which are in turn members of superclusters, which are in turn members of super-superclusters, all the way up to one of the largest features in the universe, a galactic supercluster, and taking into account that all we’ve seen from images taken in space is merely what visible light is available to us at our position in the cosmos, a worst case scenario would put any low estimate of other life out there into numbers that could still wow us. Yet due to the limitations on space travel, the distances we’re talking to the next star much less another system that would house intelligent life, even a high number of possible other civilizations would probably be forever out of our reach, and vice versa.

This whole article and (what should be) discussion on the matter is a logical consideration on an improbable imagining. My original post in this commentary section was meant to be insightful, challenging, and honestly grim, but done so humorously. Since you’ve taken it the wrong way, as though it’s some praying to an alien God to come kill us all and meant quite literally – its sole purpose for existing to be an offense against you to the point of you posting commentary like “seriously dude, get help” & “who pissed in your Coco Puffs”, again I apologize. With that said, cram it.

And for the record, I prefer Cookie Crisp. Piss free.

This is how I imagine it. The visitors see us with special telescopes from far beyond. They use time in a way we do not understand, and are now within our television transmissions from our first broadcasts. They get cold feet, and decide to hang out at the edge of our reach. The last person they would want to talk with is our public servants. They pick some homeless person, and focus a radio transmission to the TV in the store window as this person passes by. No one believes this person when he/she tells others. So they move the spaceship just above earth, with shields up. Send a small team to pick up this homeless person to be brought to the ship. Here the truth comes out. They learn about our emotions, who we are really deep inside. They then find out that our children are pure, and good; that is before we adults make them bitter. The aliens see our condition as a disease. They give us truth in slow doses, and the people here on Earth begin to see again. Some of us are asked to go back with them; while some of them stay. We find a better way to use our energy here on Earth. We evolve by use of this symbiotic relationship as all nature evolves.

Then you look at the clock, and see it is late. You turn off the TV.

No serious, this is a great exercise for humanity. How would you judge yourselves. Would you change if hope was tangiable.

Thanks for your thoughts guys, oh and just for the record, I prefer, hearing voices puffs, no piss, with handfuls of meds washed down with a tall glass of crazy juice. haha.. This is a touchy subject but the questions are the greatest of all questions. It’s the 900 lb. gorilla in the room. Leave it to us humans to think we are at the center of the question.

Of the two of us, very honestly, you’re the troll that hopped into a topic with nothing to offer but offense to someone, so if you feel the need for one of us to go, get lost yourself. Fantastic how you ignore more and more what was said, whittling down to less and less to complain about. I’m very serious when I say that you have issues. I’m not nuts, nor a moron, or a liar, and yes I’m believing more and more that you are, unfortunately.

No, indeed, I did not in black, white nor any other color call out to the heavens saying “Please alien Gods! Come and judge us!”

I said, in black & white, “OR, natch, they COULD just zap us to bits which, and I mean this (when the full view of our history and current events concerning rape, murder, patriotic murder, molestation, lies, incest, ignorance, intolerance, torture, abuse, bigotry, religion, hate, infidelity, anger, anger and more anger, mutilation, theft, etc), would probably be for the best. The human race, despite any perceived global good intentions and kind little acts performed occasionally by neighbors or friends or family, is very self-destructive & hateful to one another. We’re a cancer to ourselves, a cancer to the planet, I see no immediate reason to assume we’d be otherwise on the cosmos. ZAP!”

Which was “meant to be insightful, challenging, and honestly grim, but done so humorously”. I cannot help but wonder if you realize the nature of the subject in this topic, and of the presence of other posts on the matter. It seems you wandered onto a website at random, ignored the article, glued eyes on a few words of a random post without actually reading it and attempting to get the tone, took it too literally (perhaps a bad perception of reality on your part, especially what with the whole apparent thing about you not being able to acknowledge the evils of the world as said prior) and commenced to spend your personal time typing up ignorant, unfounded, dimwitted insults that have zero comprehension concerning the posts they’re attacking.

You want a liar? Check the nearest mirror.

Chuck R.: What irked you exactly? *examples given*

Bosco: Yes to all the above.

*later*

Bosco: Your ideas don’t offend me.

In just a few posts I see quite clearly you’re quite ignorant, socially inept, contradictory, quick to offense & offend, and have little grasp of reality, maybe even a reading deficiency. While your prior “get help” jab was a lame attempt at an attack, I offer the same advice back, but as actual advice.

And since we’re quoting ‘old’ stuff, here’s one for the road. “Since you’ve taken it the wrong way, as though it’s some praying to an alien God to come kill us all and meant quite literally – its sole purpose for existing to be an offense against you to the point of you posting commentary like “seriously dude, get help” & “who pissed in your Coco Puffs”, again I apologize. With that said, cram it.”

Freakin’ nutter.

“We have zero data on ETs, and I suspect chances are fair to decent data will remain zero permanently.”

Exactly. In the end I don’t believe what any individual might feel we should broadcast, given any estimation of distance for a hypothetical alien world I doubt any signal produced by man would ever reach them, period.

“The space alien is a modern version of an anthrotype, or projection of ourselves onto the world or universe. Flashing light in the sky were thought to be angels in the medieval world, now people see UFOs.”

Perhaps. I do feel the subject of theorizing on extraterrestrial life has its place in science & logic, with religion being anything but. Still, given the limitations on any possibility of transversing the galactic expanse for us or another imagined species, that would make those UFOs just that. Unidentified flying objects and not space aliens visiting n’such, which would make one wonder if another ideal will be imprinted on such & similar unexplained phenominon in, say, another thousand years, and what that ideal would be.

Bosco: Whatever the case is it gives anything else you might have said zero value.

LOL, what a pathetic cop out to owning up to everything else he poignantly said. You took something in the wrong light and continue to do so for little more than the sake of throwing some immature fit directed at someone you don’t even know. Going back reading the four or five posts of yours here it seems like your just a reprehensibly whiny douche. I hope you’re nicer to people in your offline life since I can’t see anyone putting up with you otherwise. YOU grow the hell up man, or woman, who the hell knows or even cares.

Tony: How would you judge yourselves. Would you change if hope was tangiable.

Farfetched as your scenario is, I think anyone’s honest judgement of themselves or their fellow man would be harsh. I did say “honest judgement”. But hellz yeah, if their were a TANGIBLE hope at hand I think anyone would jump at the chance for change, for something better than what they have.

Speaking of which, while I love the SETI program and what it hopes to achieve, I will be amazed if the human race ever lives to see a signal, period. Our own piddly radio transmissions are, what, one hundred light years out by now? You know how friggin ginormous THE UNIVERSE is?? Yeah I totally think theres life other than our own out there. In fact I think the universe is teeming with it. TEEMING! But the small radius our signals will achieve? Yeah don’t hold your breath. Even if our signals are flying out there in every direction, strong as the day they were broadcast and totally discernible from any other detectable “noise” the universe is putting off, the odds of those signals hitting something that WILL detect it are nil. Of all the stars our very first radio signals may have had a chance to reach by now, there’s a low chance any of those few just happen to be habitable. But let’s say eight of them are, right? Just for example, nothing more. Eight of them. Fine, so three of them bear favorable planets for life, but its all still in a primordial state when our signals begin passing. Well, they’re more than a few millions of millions of years away from being estimated to even have the possibility of technology and mind to LOOK for our signals. We could all be dead by then, then they’ll wonder if there’s anyone out there and why they can’t hear their signals if there were. Then you got a couple of opposites going on. One, the species entirely destroyed themselves and their surface world with war the likes of which I hope mankind will never see. THEY ain’t looking for radio signals. Then there’s the other one of those couple where famine and plague are just about done rendering their race extinct. Maybe it was something they created that got out of hand, maybe the planet just wiped them out with a new strain of biological toxin, who the hell knows. All I know is they aren’t searching for a “WOW” signal like we are. One of the last remaining three is in their stoneage, signals just passing on by a sentient species never to be detected because Aungerasok the three armed green barbarian is busy hitting Lanuth mongrels with rocks. And the last two? One, advanced to the point of us but either not looking, or not listening in the right spot. Maybe they swung their “ears” in just the right direction at just the right time one day to catch a faint remnant of one of our stronger signals, had THEIR own “WOW” moment, and somewhere on their worldwide communications system there’s fellas talking just like us, doubting our existence and that of Aungerasok as well, wondering what they should say back to us should the chance ever come. Hell, maybe the “WOW” signal was theirs? And the last one? A highly advanced culture. They were visiting the other worlds of their solar system while T-rex was still chomping dinomeat here. They’ve come up with technological advances our science fiction can only dream of. They detected our first signals the moment they made their way into their system. And they don’t even care. They have themselves, they have balance, they have each other, why would they care about us?

Food for thought.