Discussion
So it happens
We have an interuption to the programming on TV and a senior figure in goverment comes on and announces that over the past month they have found an intelligent signal eminating from a distant planet.
We finally have the answer we are not alone.
What do you think happens ? How do you think it would go from there ? Would it be the biggest step for mankind ? would we rejoice or would we be terrified.
Ive always wondered what would happen if contact was made, if we finally got concrete evidence that we are not alone. If we even found out that there are millions out there.
What do you think the likelyhood is, do you think we will establish contact in the next 25 50 or 100 years ?
Or are we really an amazing fluke in this universe ? That we are genuinely alone. nothing out there to see.
We have an interuption to the programming on TV and a senior figure in goverment comes on and announces that over the past month they have found an intelligent signal eminating from a distant planet.
We finally have the answer we are not alone.
What do you think happens ? How do you think it would go from there ? Would it be the biggest step for mankind ? would we rejoice or would we be terrified.
Ive always wondered what would happen if contact was made, if we finally got concrete evidence that we are not alone. If we even found out that there are millions out there.
What do you think the likelyhood is, do you think we will establish contact in the next 25 50 or 100 years ?
Or are we really an amazing fluke in this universe ? That we are genuinely alone. nothing out there to see.
ruggedscotty said:
We have an interuption to the programming on TV and a senior figure in goverment comes on and announces that over the past month they have found an intelligent signal eminating from a distant planet.
We finally have the answer we are not alone.
What do you think happens ?
Nothing, for a few billion years.We finally have the answer we are not alone.
What do you think happens ?
It would be awesome, no doubt, but it would have next to no effect on the general public's day to day lives (after the initial furore died down). Although it might engender some amusing excuses from young earth creationists.
king everything over for a dollar, not to mention slaughtering everything on the planet.
I don't actually think I'm going out on a limb to say that we are not alone but... contact may be something else. To me Contact implys meeting or two way communication, the likelihood of this I speculate to be very low.
My suspicion is that there has been, is and will be intelligent life in numerous places but most will be too far away to detect, meet or communicate with. Closer to us we run into the issue of time, they would have to be at a developmental level able and willing to communicate at the same time frame as us.
We could imagine that our closest inhabited planet supported a vast a complex intelligent species for millennia, but if their civilization collapsed or was wiped out before say 1900 (our time) then any light and radio emissions from them will have passed us before we could detect them! We could be sat in the middle of a huge empire of deserted ruined planets and know nothing about it :-)
Alternatively our nearest neighbours might have started calling us already but he signal will arrive the day after WW3 starts and no one will be left to hear it... happy thoughts.
IMO our most realistic hope would be detection of alien life looking for complex non-organic signature in the atmospheres of exoplanets, we may never talk to our neighbours, but we might be able to sympathise with their greenhouse gas emissions or the glow of their sodium lighting from many light years away.
Lastly- will it change anything? No, I don't think so for the general public, afterall most of them believe Aliens took Elvis so actual confirmation would be nothing to them.
My suspicion is that there has been, is and will be intelligent life in numerous places but most will be too far away to detect, meet or communicate with. Closer to us we run into the issue of time, they would have to be at a developmental level able and willing to communicate at the same time frame as us.
We could imagine that our closest inhabited planet supported a vast a complex intelligent species for millennia, but if their civilization collapsed or was wiped out before say 1900 (our time) then any light and radio emissions from them will have passed us before we could detect them! We could be sat in the middle of a huge empire of deserted ruined planets and know nothing about it :-)
Alternatively our nearest neighbours might have started calling us already but he signal will arrive the day after WW3 starts and no one will be left to hear it... happy thoughts.
IMO our most realistic hope would be detection of alien life looking for complex non-organic signature in the atmospheres of exoplanets, we may never talk to our neighbours, but we might be able to sympathise with their greenhouse gas emissions or the glow of their sodium lighting from many light years away.
Lastly- will it change anything? No, I don't think so for the general public, afterall most of them believe Aliens took Elvis so actual confirmation would be nothing to them.
It is also worth pondering that straightforward radio of the type that would be an obvious "contact" signal is a relatively primitive mechanism for communication. Would we even see spread-spectrum type transmissions as anything other than background noise unless we were looking for them?
That also assumes that in 100 years there has not been another revolution akin to relativity and quantum entangled communications are the norm - or something else which our present level of technology cannot see any more than a caveman could perceive our radio transmissions.
That also assumes that in 100 years there has not been another revolution akin to relativity and quantum entangled communications are the norm - or something else which our present level of technology cannot see any more than a caveman could perceive our radio transmissions.
annodomini2 said:
One of the few lines they got right in the film Men in Black.
He was talking about Americans... why would actual Humans panic? There are some things on a planet 400lyr's away with a radio, so what? (Its not like they have 15mile wide black flying saucers equipped with only one gun in the center and are coming here to blow up national stereotypical landmarks and only The Fresh Prince of Bel Air can save us...)
Depends how far away the source is. The distances are so great that unless someone figures out how to communicate faster than the speed of light the "conversation" is going to take a very long time.
Gliese 832 is 16 light years away and is supposed to be the best potential harbour for intelligent life, so each message will take 16 years.
Gliese 832 is 16 light years away and is supposed to be the best potential harbour for intelligent life, so each message will take 16 years.
alock said:
Fermi Paradox
http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
it's a fair point, but there are several hypotheses as to why we have no observable evidence.http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
there is a fairly good idea in the atlantis trilogy by a g riddle, in that the atlanteans (aliens) block all incoming and outgoing signals so we are protected from less scrupulous races.
scubadude said:
annodomini2 said:
One of the few lines they got right in the film Men in Black.
He was talking about Americans... why would actual Humans panic? There are some things on a planet 400lyr's away with a radio, so what? (Its not like they have 15mile wide black flying saucers equipped with only one gun in the center and are coming here to blow up national stereotypical landmarks and only The Fresh Prince of Bel Air can save us...)
ash73 said:
It would make some people completely re-evaluate their lives. Were aliens also created in God's image? And where do they fit in the hierarchy of our "special relationship" with God? Of course religion is so vague they will re-interpret the story to fit, but it will raise some very interesting questions for most of the population.
On a more practical level, if their technology could dispatch colonisation probes at relativistic speeds, 400 ly won't seem far away at all. First thing we should do if we receive a signal is triple our defence budget, and rotate the nukes to point outwards not inwards.
Nukes already point outwards, just they come back down.On a more practical level, if their technology could dispatch colonisation probes at relativistic speeds, 400 ly won't seem far away at all. First thing we should do if we receive a signal is triple our defence budget, and rotate the nukes to point outwards not inwards.
Ballistic Missile
annodomini2 said:
Nukes already point outwards, just they come back down.
They would have limited range if they were just fired upwards. Generally, the ballistic missiles used for ground to ground nuclear attack would not have the oomph to launch their warheads into earth orbit, let alone further out into space.Eric Mc said:
They would have limited range if they were just fired upwards. Generally, the ballistic missiles used for ground to ground nuclear attack would not have the oomph to launch their warheads into earth orbit, let alone further out into space.
You'd be surprised - most ICBMs would easily put the warhead into orbit - the only reason they're "ballistic" is that their target is on earth. All you need is a change in the guidance software. You only have to look at North Korea, trying to test ICBMs under the disguise of satellite launches.https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htspace/20130903...
Back in the 60s a lot of early satellite launch vehicles were modified ICBMs.
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