Life Looks for Life

Yeah, pretty much this.

I feel that if we are superior to them, we may end up experimenting with them and ruin them, there's no surety that it'll happen, but there's a chance that it may happen, if you ask me.

While if we are inferior to them, we'll either be killed or conquered, I think.

One of the biggest problems I see is the bacteria issue. On our planet, we've encountered countless little organisms that operate solely to destroy us. If we begin to even think about making contact with other species, we have to consider that they will probably have had to deal with their own Black Plague or their own Cancer which we have no immunities to. what if a meeting would unleash a deadly disease on both parties and I mean "The goddamn Horseman of Disease has just simultaneously descended on both our worlds." type of disease?

Life looks for life.

Someday, many, many years later (hope I'd still be alive by then) we'd be venturing into space once we figure out the puzzle of manned space traveling farther than the moon and strong enough to endure small meteorites. Sure, we'd be able to find it.

But how to make contact with them is another story. History has a lot to teach us about how us humans have treated first encounters in the past, and a lot of them has been, well, messy. But we have improved on it for the better, and hopefully if we do again make first encounters in space, we won't resort to the primitive ways in treating them.

Sending scouts would be appropriate - look at the place, see if it's conducive for humans ecologically and physically, and make the first contact with the new species. Gather information, if you will. Hopefully we have advanced to the point where we could send remotely-controlled robots, but if that's not the case we should take caution - and make steps in to which we gradually could determine safety, and any sign of hostility should be treated with importance. Kind of like picking a good apple. We'd come into bad apples, but if we have the patience to look for good signs, we'd see the good apples.

For the time being, humanity is simply not ready, technologically or mentally, for any sort of open contact with aliens.

Much less that I see any sane alien species visiting us except to exploit our natural resources (including humans themselves). In the future...who knows? Perhaps we will have enough wisdom by then to not shoot or hate everything unknown, or to exploit everything beneficial to us without limit.

But an alien contact proper raises more problems then that. How are we going to communicate with them? Math seems like a good answer, on account that it's laws seem nearly universal...but even then, would those creatures communicate with us? By sound? Would they see us? Or would they use some other sort of communication we don't even know of?

And above all, would they share the same "concepts" as us? Would they share our understanding of what is peace, war, trade, friendship or even life itself? It might be the case that alien life will be so alien to us that we won't be able to comprehend it - or perhaps even see it as life.

If alien contact does take place, I think the best option would be a period of "limited" contact, so that we could at least gather some most basic data on the aliens. Getting them to send a kind of "diplomatic party" to learn from would be ideal, but I doubt first contact would be as lovely as that.

Sending in some sort of scouts, like jmason pointed out is probably an optimal strategy.

But of course, first, we need to get off the Earth and settle our own mess.

My opinion is expressed quite nicely by this image:


On the subject of xenophobia, I think that if we actually discovered alternate intelligent life, we humans would actually become more united as a race. This however would come at the cost of placing all our bigotry upon alien life.

Essentially the question here is, if we discover other sentient life form, will we approach them as an aggressor or peace maker? I say half and half. Human hardly united as a species. We are individualistic. So realistic, I believe some of us will make peace, some will preapre for war, and some will try to exploit the alien. Hollywood and video games industry cover quiet a large amount possible scenarios of encoutering extrateestial. Personally I like the "Mass Effect" scenario the best.

I like this question, but it rises another one for me, how would the contact be made? I'm not talking about the technical obstacles, but about the way it will happen. We are used to try and communicate, with diplomacy usually, before taking any action. What if we are in the very appareciated by sci-fi writers and hollywood directors scenario of an invasion? We would react in a defensive way, obviously, and that wouldn't be great for any of the species. Moreover, if we're unable to communicate, how would we communicate? We would be very defiant of a race we don't understand, even if they do have a type of language in any form close to our ways of communication.





I think we are a bit past this point. Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I think in general, occidental/northern organizations or States are all very aware that we are clever enough not to go to war for such a reason. I'm not saying other reasons are good, but regarding a possible contact with extra terrestrial species, we should be able not to brainlessly attack them.
However, I agree that there will be a renew in every xenophobic,hardcore religious beliefs movements, and humanity will fall once again in the dark ages of global intolerance. Not that it's not the case right now, but less.




We can only hope that if they are so technologically advanced, and have existed for hundreds of years longer, they reached the point where they got tired tired of colonization, they are a wise peaceful people that has reached ultimate happiness and wishes the same for us. But the ways those little bacterias evolve into, and the "what" they are, and "how" they do are all the mystery. Some theories are that, with the way nature works, if the environment is more or less the same as on Earth (water, warmth, oxygen blah blah the whole deal), if the conditions are reunited, we would be facing a species close to ours, if not humanoid, at least primate-like.
Wouldn't that make things easier?




I support space expansion too, but I doubt we will achieve that with the way our technology is going. We won't have enough energy, whatever renewable or not source we use, it will not be enough. So in the best scenario case, the other species has the most advanced technology, and they are willing to help us live on other planets. Or we find a new energy that is renewable, very powerful and non polluant. :D

I wish I could be there to see it. I think it would be like an ultimate test for humanity, and maybe tell us if we really are some sort of monsters incapable of accepting difference, or if this is just the mental construction of society, a group phenomenon that could disappear if the group itself was open-minded.

In the words of Agent Smith,
"There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."
What's to say that they are the same on their planet? or we are if we visit them? would we be much help to them other than being a nuisance?

I don't know for sure, I'd be interested on how that would play out, there's so many different outcomes that could happen depending on many variables of the situation.

If every si-fi movie ever is to be believed they want to take over our planet (for some stupid reason), and they have to kill us all to do it. So what I'm saying is yes, we would most likely try to kill each other, or use some of their technology against each other.

More than likely should we ever go off and find life on another planet, we will face problems with foreign, possibly pathogenic microbes. Since we are not exposed to these foreign microbes, we are prone to be somewhat to highly susceptible to them. We only have information about the microbes (obligatory Intracellular Parasites, Bacteria, phages, etc) on our planet, therefore we cannot be prepared for others, possibly advanced ones. So, that's one bad point about making contact with another planet.

Another is, we may possibly destroy the other species out of fear and others reasons that mankind had to destroy things in the past. ie. Native Americans, Environment, etc. If we make contact with another specie... It may coin a new term "Specism". =P Pretty inevitable. It can also be vice versa; they may attack us out of fear and such.

So. The answer is no. Not a good idea.

+1 love me some Carl Sagan and Sagan series.

Relevant videos you guys should watch.

well, i think that as a species human beings are naturally suspicious and violent. so if we did make contact with this alien race there could very well become a time when we are at war with them. now this is really only based on one thing. the power and advancement of the aliens. If the aliens are super advanced and really powerful then we won't make the first move. however our anxiety will become far greater we would worry if the aliens are planing to invade us, and we won't be able to stop them. That would lead to a lot of paranoia and eventually breed distrust between the species which might eventually lead to war. now on the other hand if we end up being more advanced then the aliens, we would most likely try to help the aliens by teaching them to be more "civilized" or something like that. but of course the aliens might also develop the same paranoia that we would have had therefor setting a path for conflict. now all of this is considering that the aliens are a sentient, intelligent race. if we were to locate aliens who are just ravenous beasts like the Tyranids from warhammer 40k. Then war would break out immediately as the aliens would understand nothing of diplomacy. we would be forced to fight for our continued existence as a species.

If there is other life in the universe, chances are that it would be far more evolved than us, and would not want to kill us. But at the same time, putting out a giant sign saying "WE'RE HERE!" probably wouldn't be the best of ideas. If anything, we should probably let us all become smarter and more peaceful as a society before trying to communicate with other life forms. I also think it would be a bad idea to find, even less evolved lifeforms on other planets, especially after seeing the kinds of things fundamentalist Christians and other highly religious people would do. Then again, maybe there is a giant, Star Trek like community of aliens, and all we have to do is make a rocket that can travel at the speed of light and we will be able to join them! That certainly would make things simpler.