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Stephen Hawking Thinks Aliens Likely
OMNIpotusCOM writes "Noted astrophysicist Stephen Hawking thinks that alien life is likely, albeit primitive, according to a lecture delivered at George Washington University in honor of NASA's 50th anniversary. It begs the question of if we need to consider a Prime Directive before exploring or sending signals too far into the depths of space."
You're absolutely right! We should definitely set hold back on all the space exploration we've been doing. Also, we should set physical limits for our transmissions to "expire" after a certain distance, so we don't send them "too far". In fact, that would be the only responsible thing to do for Masters of the Universe such as us.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
"Hello Mr. Alien. Welcome to our planet. Boy, you sure are more advanced than us!"
"Why, yes, we are, thank you. By the way, I couldn't help noticing that many of you still die from cancer."
"'Still die'? You mean you don't?"
"Oh, no, we cured that a long time ago. Same for that crooked politician thing you've got going. And war. Oh, and that thing you call 'Alzheimers', too. And global warming. We don't have any of that. They all turned out to be really simple to fix, in fact."
"Really? that's wonderful. Will you teach us how to solve these things."
"What? No, no, child, your culture isn't ready for all that. Besides, you're so cute the way you are. No, we'll just stay up in our ships and watch you figure it out. It will probably take several more generations, but that's OK, with our advanced medical technology, we will live long enough to see it... unless you wipe yourselves out in the process, that is. He he. You amuse us."
"Asshole"
Insightful and funny are really the same thing, except one has a punch line.
I would presume any such Prime Directive would ultimately be abused/ignored like it has been on Star Trek. International Law is only arbitrarily enforced. Let's first get a grip on how we treat our own people and the other species which inhabit our planet, then maybe we could think about how we would treat extra-terrestrial life forms (if in fact there are any). The only downside to idealism is reality.
Please? Please? Just ONE question? PLEASE?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
What this means is that in an infinite universe that has totally random initial conditions, every possible state will be realized somewhere. That means that somewhere in the universe, conditions very similar to our local conditions will be realized. Not only does this mathematically guarantee that life exists somwhere, but also that "copies" of Earth and you and me exist somewhere. All possible variants of matter organization are realized somewhere in the infinite universe (and in fact may be repeated over and over). Of course, the distances over which you will see a repeat may be fantastically large (much, much larger than the observable universe, for instance). Also, life-forms in causally-disconnected volumes can never communicate with each other. (So you may say... who cares?)
In any case, it's not known with certainty that the universe is infinite (or that the big bang was ergodic)... but our current theories allow for models where the multiple emergence of life (and all physically reasonable variants) is in fact mathematically guaranteed. Kinda interesting.
The best evidence for intelligent life in the universe is that it hasn't contacted us yet
(Paraphrasing Calvin)
The view that language is good enough as long as it is fairly likely to get the point across is - even putting aside that it is usually harder to parse incorrect, intelligible writing than correct prose - antithetical to the "standards" culture espoused on Slashdot. It is the permissive, lackadaisical Internet Explorer approach to HTML. And it is born, I fear, of the average nerd's mediocre ability in his own language, and his desire to change the rules to suit his own lack of interest in a discipline at least as complex, and millennia older, than his own - that of effective communication. Put down the Knuth, pick up the Fowler, and learn to express yourself as elegantly to your fellow man as you might to your computer.
Anyway, I've met no reasonably educated man who does not know the correct usage of "beg the question". A few minutes ago I was reading a book published in the last decade which employed it correctly. Had the author wished to indicate that a particular question was "raised", he would have done so. While I'm here:
Here endeth the rant.
You're that guy at parties no one wants to talk to because he's so damned pedantic.
Fixed that for you.
Nonsense. An unknown computer genius would write a virus for their vast computer system after three days of exposure to it, and then upload it by way of a MacBook, crippling their defenses and allowing a ragtag band of fighter pilots (very few of whom have actually flown the planes they've been given) to take down the invader's superweapons. Technology's got nothing on good old corporate-sponsored flag-waving feel-good heroic ingenuity.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
And liberation? Whose fault is it that the people of the world suffer tyrants and murderers ruling them, really? If all the people go together we could overthrow them without too much difficulty. But then, we'd have to overthrow the new tyrants who led the last revolution, and so on.
I'll have you know that I, as an enlightened being, have been liberating lesser beings for years. I have personally liberated hundreds if not thousands of civilizations of ants. I've also liberated civilizations of bees, wasps and hornets. I'll tell you... the totalitarianism they were subjected to would make a civilized person weep.
They must have been captives, because once I slew their rulers and set them free, they all left and I never saw them again. But I'm sure they were singing my praises, whatever happened to them.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth