Way OT: - SETI finding could be on the order of "the discovery fire" - Michio Kaku

[mn78psu83]

This one is probably appropriate for the junk bin of wild speculation. The link is below.

LINK: Aliens might exist, but why they ain't landing on the White House lawn

This could have been written by M. Felli:

We are arrogant to think that we are so interesting, extraterrestrial beings would travel thousands of light years just to visit us. We’re just not that interesting.

 

[jj410]

This one is probably appropriate for the junk bin of wild speculation. The link is below.

LINK: Aliens might exist, but why they ain't landing on the White House lawn

This could have been written by M. Felli:

We are arrogant to think that we are so interesting, extraterrestrial beings would travel thousands of light years just to visit us. We’re just not that interesting.

Worse, we may be interesting to them in the ways a bug or a steak is interesting to us.

 

[LionDeNittany]

This one is probably appropriate for the junk bin of wild speculation. The link is below.

LINK: Aliens might exist, but why they ain't landing on the White House lawn

This could have been written by M. Felli:

We are arrogant to think that we are so interesting, extraterrestrial beings would travel thousands of light years just to visit us. We’re just not that interesting.

The better question is do we want them to notice us? Stink bugs do OK until they pop out onto a wall. Then they die. Original Day the Earth Stood Still for example.

LdN

 

[step.eng69]

This one is probably appropriate for the junk bin of wild speculation. The link is below.

LINK: Aliens might exist, but why they ain't landing on the White House lawn

This could have been written by M. Felli:

We are arrogant to think that we are so interesting, extraterrestrial beings would travel thousands of light years just to visit us. We’re just not that interesting.

Maybe WE ARE the sheeple being farmed by the politicos for future sacrifice to the aliens
double agent Felli

 

[mn78psu83]

Maybe WE ARE the sheeple being farmed by the politicos for future sacrifice to the aliens
double agent Felli

Wouldn't it be really cool if M. Felli - The HUMANIST - was really an android to boot. Back into the old android becoming more human and compassionate than the biological humans theme. Good stuff. What if Franklin_Restores were his master? Man!

 

[mn78psu83]

Too weird, I brought up this very thing a month ago when Felli posted something regarding global warming... I mentioned Fermi Paradox and Civilization Types and then the thread got deleted.

FWIW, I find the Fermi Paradox, Civilization Types and Dr Kaku really interesting. Cool stuff.

So do I. Have you ever looked at the Kardashev Scale?

LINK: Kardashev Scale

 

[Op2]

What I find interesting is how people think aliens could come all the way to Earth and then crash in the desert. I suspect any beings that can come to Earth have technology so far above ours they can get around Earth without crashing as well as easily go undetected if they choose.

Here on Earth we have stealth planes and scientists are working on invisibility cloaks that bend light waves. And the farthest we've travelld is to the Moon, which is roughly 0.0000003 light years. The closest star to Earth is 4 light years away, or about 120,000,000 times farther than humans have traveled.

 

[Blueblood4eva]

What I find interesting is how people think aliens could come all the way to Earth and then crash in the desert. I suspect any beings that can come to Earth have technology so far above ours they can get around Earth without crashing as well as easily go undetected if they choose.

Here on Earth we have stealth planes and scientists are working on invisibility cloaks that bend light waves. And the farthest we've travelld is to the Moon, which is roughly 0.0000003 light years. The closest star to Earth is 4 light years away, or about 120,000,000 times farther than humans have traveled.

How did we get a Romulan on the BOT where they bend the truth and not light waves? Invisibility cloaks can't come soon enough.

 

[hagberg]

I'm not a big fan of scientists as celebrities. Kaku makes a silly statement comparing ETs coming to earth to us coming upon an anthill, and science groupies swoon. The similarities between those two scenarios barely exist, if at all.

Now, I will retract my criticism is I ever happen to see ants who are wearing some type of clothing, building communications structures that allow them to communicate over distances that traverse the earth, or inviting one another over to the house for a barbecue while they watch the big game.

Personally, I'd be completely stunned to hear that anyone discovered life, as in sentient beings, elsewhere in the universe that resemble us in even an infinitesimal way. However, I'd expect someone with as much renown as Dr. Kaku to explain his position in a much more scientific way rather than with pithy soundbites.

 

[PSU87]

I'm not a big fan of scientists as celebrities. Kaku makes a silly statement comparing ETs coming to earth to us coming upon an anthill, and science groupies swoon. The similarities between those two scenarios barely exist, if at all.

Now, I will retract my criticism is I ever happen to see ants who are wearing some type of clothing, building communications structures that allow them to communicate over distances that traverse the earth, or inviting one another over to the house for a barbecue while they watch the big game.

Personally, I'd be completely stunned to hear that anyone discovered life, as in sentient beings, elsewhere in the universe that resemble us in even an infinitesimal way. However, I'd expect someone with as much renown as Dr. Kaku to explain his position in a much more scientific way rather than with pithy soundbites.

That's kind of a narrow viewpoint. Ants build underground structures that would seem complex to other animals.
The things you mention. ...clothing, communication, bbq....may seem equally as primitive to them as anthills are to us.

 

[LionJim]

I'm not a big fan of scientists as celebrities.

Ditto. Bill Nye's fine. But people like Richard Dawkins, who is a great scientist, a great evolutionary biologist, end up doing more harm than good because they turn people of faith away from science with their proclamations of their atheism. I have faith and I'm 100% invested in mainstream science but Dawkins doesn't help. He should be focused on the science, not the other stuff.

EDIT: here's a cut and paste from Dawkins' Wiki Page:

Dawkins's advocacy of atheism has been controversial, amongst atheists and theists alike. While some, such as writer Christopher Hitchens, Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto and James D. Watson, and psychologist Steven Pinker have defended the perceived stridency of Dawkins's stance towards religion and praised his work,[112][113] various others, including Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicistPeter Higgs, astrophysicistMartin Rees, philosopher of science Michael Ruse, literary critic Terry Eagleton, and theologianAlister McGrath,[114][115][116] have criticised Dawkins on various grounds, including the assertion that his work simply serves as an atheist counterpart to religious fundamentalism rather than productive critique of it, and that he has fundamentally misapprehended the foundations of the theological positions he claims to refute. Rees and Higgs, in particular, have both rejected Dawkins's confrontational stance towards religion as narrow and "embarrassing," with Higgs going as far as to equate Dawkins with the religious fundamentalists he criticises.[117][118][119][120] Atheist philosopher John Gray has denounced Dawkins as an "anti-religious missionary" whose assertions are "in no sense novel or original," suggesting that, "transfixed in wonderment at the workings of his own mind, Dawkins misses much that is of importance in human beings." Gray has also criticised Dawkins's perceived allegiance to Darwin, stating that if "science, for Darwin, was a method of inquiry that enabled him to edge tentatively and humbly toward the truth, for Dawkins, science is an unquestioned view of the world."[121]

 

[hagberg]

That's kind of a narrow viewpoint. Ants build underground structures that would seem complex to other animals.
The things you mention. ...clothing, communication, bbq....may seem equally as primitive to them as anthills are to us.

I understand your point, but the biggest difference (and I should have included this before) is that he's also comparing traveling light years and finding the "ants" to walking down a country road on our own planet and seeing something completely familiar to us. I tend to think any beings capable of travel on that magnitude would be quite interested in examining whatever it was they found. Do you think that if we were even able to travel as far as a planet in our own solar system and found anything that appeared to be some form of life, small or primitive though it may be, that we'd feel the urge to simply step on it? I don't.

 

[jj410]

I understand your point, but the biggest difference (and I should have included this before) is that he's also comparing traveling light years and finding the "ants" to walking down a country road on our own planet and seeing something completely familiar to us. I tend to think any beings capable of travel on that magnitude would be quite interested in examining whatever it was they found. Do you think that if we were even able to travel as far as a planet in our own solar system and found anything that appeared to be some form of life, small or primitive though it may be, that we'd feel the urge to simply step on it? I don't.

No, we would just conduct experiments on it.

 

[PSU87]

I understand your point, but the biggest difference (and I should have included this before) is that he's also comparing traveling light years and finding the "ants" to walking down a country road on our own planet and seeing something completely familiar to us. I tend to think any beings capable of travel on that magnitude would be quite interested in examining whatever it was they found. Do you think that if we were even able to travel as far as a planet in our own solar system and found anything that appeared to be some form of life, small or primitive though it may be, that we'd feel the urge to simply step on it? I don't.

Not if we'd found ants on 1000 other planets

 

[BlueBand]

I've always found the concept that the earth is a giant science experiment interesting. What if "aliens" have been here all along, and they have the patience to observe our evolution over millennia, and maybe even introduce challenges along the way. Maybe aliens travelled here long ago and never left (where are they hiding, however?). Or maybe they use wormholes to travel great distances. Did we evolve naturally, or was there genetic manipulation to jump start us (explaining the lack of a missing link)? Lots of interesting questions.