MagikVenom said:
SOME of them would not think twice about killing me and committing what ever other crimes they could get away with.
That's a pretty angry post there, brother - putting 'peace' at the end of it doesn't change the tone...
Initially, I thought you were derailing the thread - changing it from an interesting conversation about the nature, physics and intentions of any possible extra-terrestrial civilization to one about immigration in the southwestern United States.
But weirdly, there is a link: the experience of illegal immigrants you describe, while not necessarily racist, is without doubt
xenophobic - a word which means 'fear of strangers', which is precisely what Hawking is talking about.
I'm sorry that your experience has brought you to a place where you are so angry you want to shoot people. I read it as a response to what you perceive as gross injustice.
The mistake I believe Hawking is making, though, is that he is assuming any alien/extra-terrestrial civilization will exhibit human traits. He is also making a false comparison with the European destruction of pre-Colombian culture in South America - the technological gulf between the South American civilizations and the European invaders was large; the latter had mastered the oceans and gunpowder. They also had a thirst for conquest and treasure.
Any civilization that could actually make it's way across the hostile vacuum of space would be so far beyond us in terms of understanding, it doesn't bear comparison with the conquistadores.
Using a model of human behaviour to try to understand the intentions of an alien civilization that had mastered space and time is a
category error, a basic failing of logic, and it is anthropomorphic - in the same way that we try to apply human morals or relationship structures to the animal world: it's not science, its Disney.
MagikVenom said:
Sorry Dude but I do not believe in Aliens from Outer Space.
I suppose it is a matter of belief for many people, as there is an absence of evidence. But as has been said before, an absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence.
The truth is we simply do not know if there are any other intelligent life-forms out there.
The universe is pretty big, and statistically, it's more likely there is than isn't - that would be the
Drake equation. But then there is the
Fermi paradox - if it is likely there are other life forms out there, where the hell are they?
We just don't know - that's the bald fact of the matter. And it's a shame that this issue, like many, degenerates into hardened positions where people feel they have to take a firm stand on one side of the speculation or other, because they cannot seem to accept the simple truth of uncertainty - we don't know if there are intelligent extra-terrestrial lifeforms, and that remains the case whatever anyone
believes.
