Don't Talk To Aliens, Warns Stephen Hawking

Megaport writes "Promoting his new series on the Discovery channel, Stephen Hawking has given an interview to the Times in which 'he has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all that it can to avoid any contact.' He says, 'I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach. ... If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans.' Personally, I've always thought that the indigenous people of the world really had no chance to avoid contact here on such a small planet, but is hiding under our collective bed an option for humanity in the wider galaxy?"

Comments

Security through obscurity?

[jolyonr]

Hiding will never work :)

Re:Security through obscurity?

[dotancohen]

Hiding will never work :)

But it might buy us the time to develop technology to defend ourselves. Having them nuke us from orbit (it's the only way to be sure) would not be so good for humanity.

Re:Security through obscurity?

[Teancum]

We can simply pass a United Nations resolution and sign a treaty to keep nukes or for that matter all weapons from space. Doesn't that work? Won't all spacefaring civilizations have such a similar attitude?

Re:Security through obscurity?

[JustOK]

Security through absurdity.

Re:Security through obscurity?

[thrillseeker]

We'd have to find some aliens before we didn't talk to them.

Re:Security through obscurity?

[Kjella]

Don't worry, there'll be this man in a blue box calling them up to tell them we're protected under the Shadow Proclamation.

Re:Security through obscurity?

[CarpetShark]

Hiding will never work :)

OMG, who said that?

Re:Security through obscurity?

[Nadaka]

Do you know what other species gets hopped up on fast food, nasty drugs and a sedentary lifestyle leading to obesity?

Cows. And they taste pretty damn good.

Re:Security through obscurity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hide?! I'm just looking for some Arcturian poontang!

Re:Security through obscurity?

[0xdeadbeef]

Pop quiz, hotshot. Garry Kasparov is coming to kill you, and the only way to change his mind is for you to beat him at chess. What do you do, what do you?

Re:Security through obscurity?

[jeremyp]

Name one thing that you can get on Earth that a species capable of interstellar flight can't get elsewhere much more easily (even within our own solar system) or synthesise.

The final episode of Single Female Lawyer.

Re:Security through obscurity?

[decoy256]

...if not something more exotic.

I read that as "something more erotic." Man, my mind is in the gutter today.

Re:Security through obscurity?

[mcgrew]

Maybe we'll be lucky, and due to a mass miscue of scale they'll be eaten be a small dog. If thye're Vogons, having the planet destroyed will be better than listening to their poetry.

Re:Security through obscurity?

[nospam007]

"The whole concept is one of paranoia."

Even if you suffer from paranoia, that doesn't mean there's nobody out there to get you.

Re:Security through obscurity?

[discord5]

Nuking and terraforming a planet with intelligent life is genocide.

I believe after the nukes drop, the first step in terraforming would be the aliens demanding us to "cry them a river"

Re:Security through obscurity?

[syousef]

Decimate us, huh? Thank goodness! You see, Decimate literally means "to reduce by ten percent", or "to kill one of every ten". If an alien asteroid attack on Earth is only going to kill one in ten, I'll take my chances.
Had you said we'd be annihilated, which means "to destroy completely", then I'd be scared.

Clearly the alien plot to drive us all insane with pedantry started years ago on slashdot.

Re:Security through obscurity?

[DESADE]

Don't worry fellas. I got this. I saved my Powerbook 5300c from years back. When they come, I'll be ready.

Re:Security through obscurity?

[socceroos]

Call IBM.

Re:Security through obscurity?

[Trogre]

Though if they decimated us 150 times we'd be left with $POPULATION*0.9^150, or 821 humans, assuming you start out with six billion.

Wow......

[xandercash]

That would make a really good science fiction movie....oh, wait.

Obligatory

[PlasmaEye]

I, for one, welcome our new aliens-in-massive-ships overlord.

But they're made of meat

[stox]

Humans, the other red meat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dk9z6Ul4X4

I'm not worried.

[sizzzzlerz]

I've got my towel.

Re:I'm not worried.

[zippthorne]

I'm pretty sure that the real guide has "Kindle" printed on the top...

But we have Powerbooks, right?

[droopus]

Jeez, come on the technology for defeating them came out in 1997! Didn't any of you see Independence Day? We already know from this fine documentary that all we need is a Wall Street G3 and we can easily penetrate their puny firewalls. Sure they have intergalactic travel capabilities, and ships that can hover over entire cities (without char-broiling them with hover-exhaust, mind you...) but WE have 14.4 modems, Mac OS and the Fresh Prince of BelAir.

What's to worry about?

Re:But we have Powerbooks, right?

[Yvan256]

There's a small problem with your plan. Of the two PowerBook Wall Street G3 avaiable on eBay, the first one is complete; however , it does not work, and the seller has no idea what the problems are. It could have multiple issues. And the second one is also complete; however it does not work and the seller also has no idea what the problems are. It could have multiple issues. Obviously the keyboard is bad.

We're doomed!

Dooooooooooomed!!!!!*

* extra !'s added for emphasis.

Greg Bear called

[gatkinso]

He wants his story back.

Re:You are missing the point

[Bandman]

Meh, it's habitable because we grew up here. Anyone else might not like it so much.

Sort of like Jersey.

Re:Buzz

[ph0rk]

It also leads to the conclusion we need to build SDF-1, thereby getting humans into space.

We need Zor's battleship to crash land on an island in the Pacific first.

Re:His Master's Voice

[martijnd]

• Entertainment value - A good game of sim earth is worth a thousand empty moons; especially if you have been cruising this arm of the milky way for a couple of million years and can stand any more re-runs of "I love Lucy". Options are "God Mode" , get the dumb natives to worship you and your shiny technologies. "Cloak and Dagger", play this with another out-of-world entity, try to move your favorite civilization into a position of supremacy, and if you fail try to wipe out the planet.

So far, nothing to see here

[sizzzzlerz]

I've been monitoring my Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic iPad application, bought from the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation and it hasn't indicated the presence of any spacecraft in Earth orbit for some weeks now. And if and when it does, I won't panic. I'll switch to the Guide app, with its large friendly letters and it will tell me everything that I need to do.