Stephen Hawking Wants To Find Aliens Before They Find Us (cnet.com)

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Stephen Hawking Wants To Find Aliens Before They Find Us (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on Thursday September 22, 2016 @09:30AM from the how-to-deal-with-aliens-101 dept.

Stephen Hawking is again reminding people that perhaps shouting about our existence to aliens is not the right way to go about it, especially if those aliens are more technologically advanced. In his new half-hour program dubbed, Stephen Hawking's Favorite Places, the theoretical physicist and cosmologist said (via CNET):"If intelligent life has evolved (on Gliese 832c), we should be able to hear it," he says while hovering over the exoplanet in the animated "U.S.S. Hawking." "One day we might receive a signal from a planet like this, but we should be wary of answering back. Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn't turn out so well." Hawking manages to be both worried about exposing our civilization to aliens and excited about finding them. He supports not only Breakthrough: Listen, but also Breakthrough: Starshot, another initiative that aims to send tiny nanocraft to our closest neighboring star system, which was recently found to have an Earth-like planet.

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You'd think someone as smart as Hawking ... by Nutria · 2016-09-22 09:37 · Score: 1, Interesting

would know that TV and radio -- except for AM -- transmitters are designed so as not to radiate energy where it's wasted (like, for example, towards the sky). Plus, of course, the transition to fiber optics reducing EM emissions even further.
If we figured that out pretty soon after inventing radio, it stands to reason that ETs would have also.

--
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
1. Re:You'd think someone as smart as Hawking ... by ArtemaOne · 2016-09-22 10:11 · Score: 2
  
  Satellite communications tends to shoot up a lot more directed radiation than reaches the satellites. Even as we move past Ka and into EHF, the more directed energy will suffer less from the inverse square law. That's a lot of energy being directed into space.
2. Re:You'd think someone as smart as Hawking ... by Nutria · 2016-09-22 10:25 · Score: 1
  
  That's a lot of energy being directed into space.
  The number of energy sources is great, but at what wattage are they sending them (I bet "low"), and how many are directed beam?
  Remember that of all the energy that stars send out (the Sun emits 3.8 x 10^26 watts), only a minuscule fraction of photons reach us. How many photons from a 1,000 watt source will arrive at Gliese 823?
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
3. Re:You'd think someone as smart as Hawking ... by ArtemaOne · 2016-09-22 10:33 · Score: 2
  
  7... But anyway, the earth is also spinning and revolving around the sun, so those directed beams are not always pointing in the same direction despite generally focusing on geosynchronous orbits. It's a mixed bag for sure. Since it is so focused, it might be able to be picked up at those particular moments of clarity when the orbits make the beams hit, but that will last a very short period of time. Not enough to make out the signal, but possibly long enough to make out the fact that it is modulated, unnatural.
4. Re:You'd think someone as smart as Hawking ... by taniwha · 2016-09-22 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  Oh for heaven's sake, the Hawking knows the planet is a sphere, if you use a vertical dipole sure you don't send a whole lot straight up, and you radiate more of your energy horizontally away from the antenna .... and while the photons head out in a donut away from that antenna, which is poking up from the surface of a sphere, as they move away from their source the ground falls away and any photons that don't hit anything ... radiate away into space in that same donut shape, inverse squaring to infinity (and beyond!)
5. Re:You'd think someone as smart as Hawking ... by Immerman · 2016-09-22 10:57 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I seem to recall hearing that, if an identical society to our own were currently orbitting Alpha Centauri, our current radio telescopes would probably be able to detect any high-power military radar sweeps that pass their horizon in our direction, but not much else. So for now at least it seems unlikely that we'll be able to detect planetary "radio leakage", regardless of vertical attenuation.
  And the radar point raises another good one: vertical attenuation probably wouldn't make a huge amount of difference for detection. Even if they somehow transmitted a signal perfectly horizontally, it would still head into space as the planet's surface curved away from it, and transmission frequencies would almost certainly be tuned to the most transparent bands in the atmosphere, so atmospheric attenuation probably wouldn't make a huge difference. We'd only get relatively brief, regular bursts of signal as the the transmitter's horizon aligned with Earth each day, but for detection that's all you need.
  
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  --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
6. Re: You'd think someone as smart as Hawking ... by hackwrench · 2016-09-22 11:03 · Score: 1
  
  All I know is something about radio waves bouncing off the ionosphere. HTH.
7. Re:You'd think someone as smart as Hawking ... by Z00L00K · 2016-09-22 16:38 · Score: 1
  
  Some of the radiation passes out into space over the horizon, so Earth is certainly visible, even if it at a distance only is detectable as a noise level change.
  The limit of many TV transmitters are caused by the fact that Earth is round, and only direct wave is considered. A lot of the radiation at higher frequencies slips out into space except when you have a phenomenon called tropo ducting where VHF and sometimes UHF can travel great distances along the surface of the Earth.
  Then we can always argue that one reason why we haven't seen aliens is because we scare them - the same way colorful animals usually are dangerous we radiate a lot and we are pretty aggressive when you look at us. For an amusing read on that matter I'd suggest Pandora's Planet.
  
  --
  If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
8. Re:You'd think someone as smart as Hawking ... by Z00L00K · 2016-09-22 16:40 · Score: 1
  
  And if we aren't alone but we are the first ones that have achieved a technological civilization? Is that also terrifying? Maybe, because then we might have the potential to repeat our history of colonization.
  
  --
  If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
9. Re:You'd think someone as smart as Hawking ... by ACE209 · 2016-09-23 01:00 · Score: 1
  
  Might be a Star Trek reference and not connected to actual military of today.
  
  --
  "we are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by gestalt_n_pepper · 2016-09-22 09:38 · Score: 4, Interesting

There's no possibility that aliens capable of FTL would find us remotely interesting. Once you get to that technology, energy and resource problems either have been solved, or become very easily solvable. In addition, given that FTL is far more likely to be developed using AI rather than human intelligence, space faring races (if they bother to be space faring) are more likely to be 2nd order intelligences (i.e. artificial intelligences),rather than 1st order, genetically based naturally developing intelligences).
Bottom line? To space faring AIs, we're squirrels. Our nuts are safe. Really.

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Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
1. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by aix+tom · 2016-09-22 09:42 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah. But what if we are *tasty* squirrels to them....
2. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by 110010001000 · 2016-09-22 09:48 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Uh, FTL travel is not possible. Ever. This is known already. Because, you know, physics. What you are describing is pure fantasy.
3. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Nutria · 2016-09-22 09:48 · Score: 1
  
  Squirrels *are* tasty. But more to the point... traveling 16 light years to catch some squirrels seems pretty expensive.
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
4. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by WillAffleckUW · 2016-09-22 09:52 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe it's more the thrill of the chase, or the other reason we travel to exotic locations ... the one that involves tentacles?
  
  --
  -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
5. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-22 09:56 · Score: 1
  
  It's not travelling faster than light that's impossible, it's accelerating to the speed of light. You can go faster than light, as long as your speed is never equal to the speed of light.*
  *Travelling faster than light may result in time travel.
6. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Spy+Handler · 2016-09-22 10:00 · Score: 1
  
  There's no possibility that aliens capable of FTL would find us remotely interesting.
  *No* possibility? And you know this how? Through an exhaustive analysis of all the sentient ET species in the galaxy?
  Now your arguments are reasonable and I agree that it's quite possible things will be like that. But then maybe not, we just don't know.
  I can easily imagine an alien race that is genetically driven to multiply and expand above anything else. Other races to them are just obstacles to be eliminated, kind of like how humans expand into new areas (e.g. Amazon rainforest) and destroy existing lifeforms that get in the way of what they wanna do (e.g. burning down the rainforest so they can use the land to plant crops). Even with FTL travel and advanced energy sources (fusion or anti-matter or w/e), exponential population growth would mean they are constantly looking for new planets to take over.
7. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by gestalt_n_pepper · 2016-09-22 10:00 · Score: 1
  
  Uh, yes, well I always suspected that the scientists doing those quantum entanglement experiments were just messing with us for fun.
  
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8. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by joe_frisch · 2016-09-22 10:00 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I don't think its possible to predict what a more advanced civilization might want. Are we squirrels? Are we rats to be exterminated? Are we dogs to be bred for cuteness? Is the relationship something we are not capable of comprehending?
9. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by kuzb · 2016-09-22 10:00 · Score: 1
  
  Christopher Columbus was far more advanced than the Native Americans, but that didn't stop him from a mass slaughter.
  For all our theorising about the number of available habitable worlds, we're still not really sure exactly how many there are or what their distribution is in the universe. For all we really know planets like earth might be incredibly rare. They may want to take earth simply because it has life sustaining properties. Or maybe slaughtering primitive species predator-style is a national passtime. Who knows. The point is that we can't guess at their disposition or their motives, and we can't count on the idea that their motives will even be similar to ours.
  
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  BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
10. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by gestalt_n_pepper · 2016-09-22 10:01 · Score: 1
  
  I'm hoping for cats, actually. Better lifestyle and all that.
  
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  Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
11. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Narcocide · 2016-09-22 10:04 · Score: 1
  
  There's no possibility that aliens capable of FTL would find us remotely interesting.
  I think you meant remotely interesting... [conversationalists].
  Plenty of people in our own civilization study insects and vermin all day long, as a profession, for science. We're far more technologically advanced than ants and rats yet there is still much we can learn from them without their consent...
  What makes you think we'd be any different to aliens?
12. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-22 10:04 · Score: 1
  
  Err no.. FLT implies time travel. Period. you can't have relatively and FTL travel without also violating casualty. We have a *lot* of data backing up relativity.
13. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by gestalt_n_pepper · 2016-09-22 10:05 · Score: 1
  
  I'm making what seem like reasonable guesses based on the assumption that we're completely ordinary as tool using, sentient species go and while individual differences exist, physics and the nature of the problems to be solved will impose very similar restrictions on any sentient species seeking to engage in space travel.
  
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14. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Nutria · 2016-09-22 10:06 · Score: 1
  
  9,000 miles (London to Cape Town, a month on a steamship) isn't too comparable to interstellar travel.
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
15. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by FatdogHaiku · 2016-09-22 10:06 · Score: 1
  
  Traveling 16 light years to catch some squirrels, pretty expensive.
  Traveling 16 light years to set up a self sustaining squirrel farm, priceless...
  
  --
  You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
16. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by kuzb · 2016-09-22 10:08 · Score: 1
  
  There are other theoretical ways to travel that don't involve travelling at or beyond the speed of light. These theories have existed for over a century and have a strong basis mathematically.
  At one point flight was not possible, ever. At another point travel to the moon was not possible, ever. Seeing a bit of a trend here? There are many things which were once considered fantasy which are now a reality.
  
  --
  BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
17. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Archangel+Michael · 2016-09-22 10:11 · Score: 1
  
  Christopher Columbus was far more advanced than the Native American
  There are two ways to look at this, technically and genetically. From a Technical point of view, he was marginally better off than the Natives, genetically not so much.
  So, the only thing we need to fear are aliens with better weapons that we currently have. And our weapons, while seemingly nasty to us, are probabably like pop guns to any alien who could find us out.
  Lets hope "To Serve Man" isn't a cookbook
  
  --
  Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
18. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Nutria · 2016-09-22 10:17 · Score: 1
  
  As long as my offspring get to transmit their DNA in relative peace and prosperity...
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
19. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Shane_Optima · 2016-09-22 10:17 · Score: 1
  
  By the same logic, there's no reason we should find bacteria interesting or useful. But we do.
  
  It's useful to see what mother nature has done on a molecular level. We can't just simulate it all away. The construction of proteins or certain other chemical are non-trivial problems that are daunting even with huge advances in computing technology.
  
  Also, plenty of human are interested in studying bacteria (or squirrels), just for the sake of studying them. And we aren't particularly scrupulous about their feelings in the matter.
20. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Shane_Optima · 2016-09-22 10:19 · Score: 1
  
  In physics, nothing can be stated for absolute certain until we have a quantum theory of gravity. Space warping techniques have not been definitively ruled out even with our current understanding.
21. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by FatdogHaiku · 2016-09-22 10:24 · Score: 1
  
  There's no possibility that aliens capable of FTL would find us remotely interesting. Once you get to that technology, energy and resource problems either have been solved, or become very easily solvable...
  Yes, you go find some squirrels and take their nuts, except for selected docile breeding stock.
  Then you teach the now well behaved squirrels to gather and or produce whatever it is you want or need.
  Maybe hit the town once in a while to get your tentacles wet doing some probing on the townies...
  Being technologically advanced does not imply being kind, compassionate, empathetic or in any way moral.
  The fact that they got off their hunk of rock implies they are willing to struggle and sacrifice.
  
  And often sacrifice is easiest when you make someone else do it...
  
  --
  You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
22. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by sexconker · 2016-09-22 10:25 · Score: 1
  
  Humans find goldfish interesting.
23. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Tablizer · 2016-09-22 10:26 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah. But what if we are *tasty*...
  "Here Mr. Blipzerg, have a Trump Steak. It's made out of real Trump."
  
  --
  Table-ized A.I.
24. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by sexconker · 2016-09-22 10:28 · Score: 1
  
  To a lion chasing down a zebra or whatever isn't too comparable to crossing the Atlantic ocean.
  The lion doesn't have any clue how to cross the ocean, but people do.
  We don't have any clue how to cross large distances in space, but aliens may.
25. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by gestalt_n_pepper · 2016-09-22 10:30 · Score: 1
  
  If they can, and they're interested, they are probably already learning about us without our consent. I'm sure we'll make a tidy little entry in a very large database and be used for comparison purposes in some starving PHD candidate alien's thesis. We may even appear near the top of the bibliography.
  
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  Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
26. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by gestalt_n_pepper · 2016-09-22 10:33 · Score: 1
  
  But we are rarely moved to conquer the entire globe spanning goldfish empire. We might, if they got in our way, but we wouldn't go out of our way to do so.
  
  --
  Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
27. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Nutria · 2016-09-22 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  We don't have any clue how to cross large distances in space
  Sure we do. It (generation ships) just takes *lots* of money and a *lot* of time.
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
28. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by smooth+wombat · 2016-09-22 10:41 · Score: 1
  
  traveling 16 light years to catch some squirrels seems pretty expensive.
  
  Maybe, as we humans have done on numerous occasions, they've eaten all the squirrels in their immediate area and have to search further afield.
  
  Also, if they do have FTL, 16 light years might be the same as you or I taking a short trip to the grocery store.
  
  --
  We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
29. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by evilviper · 2016-09-22 10:43 · Score: 1
  
  Uh, FTL travel is not possible. Ever.
  Except when it is possible... Hawking believes worm-holes are likely, which would make both FTL and even backwards time-travel possible, at least in theory.
  For the record I'm a complete skeptic of backwards time-travel.
  
  This is known already. Because, you know, physics.
  Current physics is just one theory, based on observed evidence, and we already know there are big, gaping holes in it (dark matter, dark energy to name but two). It's more than just possible that a better theory will come along, which might leave open the possibility of FTL travel with some method. The only thing we really KNOW about the subject (from actual experimentation), is that just putting more energy into propulsion won't ever get you there. That doesn't mean there's no possible alternative way to do FTL.
  
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30. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by gcswt · 2016-09-22 11:00 · Score: 1
  
  That's like saying humans wouldn't be interested in an insect. Science and curiosity would certainly be traits of a civilization that existed long enough to travel among the stars. As production grows exponential, the arts and entertainment seem to grow with it. Studying the basic philosophy of existence could also become the primary reason for exploration for powerful beings that have mastered the physical sciences. In other words, there would be a lot to be gained in communicating with other intelligent beings for art and perspective, if not far more than that. Your viewpoint is heavily influenced by the pop culture view of what alien life would/could be. I do believe Hawking is a bit crazy on this subject though. I don't think we have anything to fear from intelligent beings because as intelligence and rationality grow, war and violence decrease. A violent culture would likely destroy itself before becoming advanced enough to travel anywhere distant.
31. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by kuzb · 2016-09-22 11:10 · Score: 1
  
  I guess you missed the first line that says:
  "There are other theoretical ways to travel that don't involve travelling at or beyond the speed of light. "
  Take particular notice of "don't involve".
  
  --
  BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
32. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by uvajed_ekil · 2016-09-22 11:13 · Score: 1
  
  There's no possibility that aliens capable of FTL would find us remotely interesting.
  It is impossible for me to get behind a statement like that given that we have (to my knowledge) not learned anything about any such aliens. We can't make such broad generalizations while being completely in the dark.
  
  Perhaps some species capable of FTL travel might find us interesting to hunt, or maybe they'd like to get their hands on Earth for resources ("natural" or labor) or as an outpost near something or someone else they are interested in. Not finding us particularly sexy doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't have any interest at all in contact, even if they might not have strongly altruistic intentions or want to trade technology. Who knows, maybe even FTL travel has limits and we happen to be firmly in the middle of someone else's neighborhood.
  
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33. Re: With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by hackwrench · 2016-09-22 11:13 · Score: 1
  
  Well the common version I've seen involves both people with life spans in the thousands of years and suspended animation. People to whom pretending to be your non-existant equally long-lived daughter to your son you left in the care of your planet-bound non-long lived husband isn't a big deal.
34. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Immerman · 2016-09-22 11:21 · Score: 1
  
  You're making several big assumptions:
  1) that FTL would be a far more advanced technology than what we have, rather than a the product of a fundamentally alien physics model,
  2) that FTL would necessarily be accompanied by similar advances in energy and resource acquisition
  3) that FTL exists and is relevant at all - plenty of ways to cross between stars without it. Just because they won't get here for decades or millenia doesn't mean they couldn't be a huge problem for humanity when they do.
  4) that they don't care about naturally habitable planets (even a team of anthropologists or biologists from a far more advanced civilization might be a huge problem for human civilization)
  5) that control of our solar system would be the point. A xenophobic civilization might simply want to wipe us out as potential threats or ideological abominations, which would be much easier than conquest. for example a single self-replicating nanobot would be relatively easy to accelerate to a substantial fraction of lightspeed, and probably quite capable of exterminating us in any number of ways shortly after it arrived.
  And historically, any squirrel could tell you that humans were a great danger to their nuts.
  
  --
  --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
35. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by uvajed_ekil · 2016-09-22 11:22 · Score: 1
  
  Squirrels *are* tasty. But more to the point... traveling 16 light years to catch some squirrels seems pretty expensive.
  Buying and maintaining a loaded full-size V-8 pickup truck just to drive half a mile to Dairy Queen for some fake ice cream seems pretty expensive too, but people who buy them for other reasons still stop at the drive-through for a sundae when they feel like it. And maybe aliens don't develop FTL with the main purpose being to visit Earth, but that doesn't mean they won't ever drop in when they have some free time or a spare star cruiser. Maybe some are colonial and think we would obviously put up little fight if they deduced that Earth would make a suitable location for a new home. It is reasonable that any futuristic technology will have multiple uses, lead to other developments, and perhaps be used by people with less than pure intentions.
  
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36. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Ken+McE · 2016-09-22 11:25 · Score: 1
  
  We don't need FTL to travel between the stars. We only need FTL to make it easy to write entertaining S.F. For actual travel you just wind up your ship to .9 C and hibernate. Expensive, and seems slow from the outside, but violates no known laws of physics.
37. Re: With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by hackwrench · 2016-09-22 11:26 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, the only thing about what he said that made it clear what he meant was the distress in his voice. I hope "To Serve Man" is a cook book filled with delicious recipes to serve to man because I can actually interpret the different ways all the vague statements made in that episode can be given meaning.
38. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Immerman · 2016-09-22 11:32 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe not, but we hardly *know* that. Physics is an iterative approximation to reality, not divine truth.
  We know our current understanding of physics is imperfect - current QM and GR theories have some fundamental incompatibilities. And we know even small imperfections can contain vast new fields of science - all of QM grew out of some minor unexplained oddities in the behavior of light.
  We have also already invented several different theoretical FTL techniques that are completely consistent with our current theories of physics. They rely on exotic matter or energy configurations that might not exist (nor be possible to create), but as yet that's a complete unknown. And we may eventually dream up techniques that don't require such exotics.
  
  --
  --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
39. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by FatdogHaiku · 2016-09-22 11:36 · Score: 1
  
  As long as my offspring get to transmit their DNA in relative peace and prosperity...
  They may get some teriyaki flavor spliced in...
  
  --
  You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
40. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Immerman · 2016-09-22 11:42 · Score: 2
  
  Not quite. FTL implies the *potential* for time travel - not the inevitability of it. Fly to Andromeda and back in an afternoon, and there will be no time travel involved, you have to jump through extra hoops to accomplish that.
  And you're also assuming Relativity is *perfect*. Yes, we have a *lot* of data backing it up, but we had a *lot* of data backing up Newtonian mechanics too, before minor anomalies in extreme situations proved it was flawed, openin the door for GR to replace it. And frankly, we already have really huge anomalies in GR, in the form of the "here there be dragons" kludges of Dark Matter and Dark Energy.
  
  --
  --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
41. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Lehk228 · 2016-09-22 11:50 · Score: 1
  
  unless they are degenerates and just want to rape/torture/eat us for entertainment. less close encounters aliens more Firefly Reavers. They didn't even have to start out that way, take a few thousand beings, set out on a mission for peace, suspended animation systems fail critically and they go stir crazy, after a while food storage and production falters because it was only meant for the awake rotation not for everyone, and so the overtaxed systems start failing in ways that take too long to fix so the food runs low and they end up eating each other for a while before either the population stabilizes or technicians get additional food production jerry-rigged from spare parts. after 90 years of this (ship time) they arrive, nearly totally mad and full of hate for the squirrels they were sent out to greet, and they know they can never go back, because they aren't from a society where that behavior is accepted, they would all be imprisoned or executed, so they take out their frustrations on us earthlings.
  
  --
  Snowden and Manning are heroes.
42. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Nutria · 2016-09-22 11:51 · Score: 1
  
  1) 90% of our cells are bacteria.
  2) The other 10% have endsymbionts (aka mitochondria) in them.
  3) Much of our DNA has been "infected" by viruses.
  4) Most people on the planet are content to live like sheep (do what their fathers did, and their fathers before them, while happily following a strong leader).
  Baa-aah.
  
  --
  "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
43. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-22 11:58 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  It is also impossible for us to hide from them. It requires an immense leap of faith to think that an advanced alien civilization would require us to send an intentional radio signal for them to detect, rather than being detectable from the (much stronger) signal that is the change in the Earth's atmosphere over the last 200 years. If they are even a few centuries (cosmically, a blink of an eye) ahead of us technologically, they will have imaged the Earth and seen our atmospheric nuclear tests in the last century. All it takes is a space telescope at a scale that we can already design (a mirror a few miles in diameter), and enough curiosity to catalogue and observe planets with life on them (again, detectable from atmospheric composition with near-future technology).
44. Re: With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by hackwrench · 2016-09-22 12:02 · Score: 1
  
  Well if tunnelling electrons are anything to go by, you might be able to go faster than the speed of light, but what happens from the outside observer's perspective is that you wink in and out of existence am ng the path.
45. Re: With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by hackwrench · 2016-09-22 12:04 · Score: 1
  
  That sentence pattern was a thing before Game of Thrones was a thing. I think I have had someone say that to me before 1995 at least.
46. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by amicusNYCL · 2016-09-22 12:10 · Score: 2
  
  In fact, we achieved a manned trip with a successful return less than 1 lifetime after we first achieved controlled, powered flight.
  I think about that a lot, I think it's pretty crazy that humans have had some form of civilization for tens of thousands of years, and we only learned how to build a machine capable of controlled powered flight just over 100 years ago, and it was only a little more than 50 years after that when we put people on the moon. It took so long to get the understanding and technology needed for the first steps, and after that it just took off (literally!). It's pretty amazing. It's also pretty amazing that there are people out there who think we know everything by now.
  
  When people say FTL isn't possible, time travel isn't possible, etc. they do so because they know what they're talking about.
  Just like everyone thought that Newton knew what he was talking about, until Einstein came along. We're always going to have people who are capable of thinking about things in a way that no one ever has, and those people are going to once again figure something out that no one else had before. Maybe one of those things is going to concern moving from one place to another in less time than would be possible if you actually traveled that entire linear distance.
  I'm not going to try and argue with you whether or not any human today knows how to travel large distances through space quickly, but if you're going to try to argue that the things that we know today are never going to change then I think your entire premise is stupid and ignorant of history. The amount of things that we don't know about the universe is staggering. Any scientist worth their salt will tell you as much.
  
  --
  "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
47. Re: With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by hackwrench · 2016-09-22 12:11 · Score: 1
  
  I don't plan on being a wretched human being forever so the various mes that are variations on a common theme that have descent from me in a similar fashion as I do to anything formerly me should be just fine.
48. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by kenai_alpenglow · 2016-09-22 12:25 · Score: 1
  
  anthropomorphizing the space aliens a bit, there are folks here on this planet who go to hard-to-get-to remote & dangerous locations--to find a new worm or something. And enjoy it. Why wouldn't a space alien do the same?
49. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Oligonicella · 2016-09-22 12:31 · Score: 1
  
  Goldfish are carp. Carp are everywhere. We already *have* conquered their empire.
50. Re: With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by limaxray · 2016-09-22 12:54 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, FTL is 'possible', maybe - we have observed other galaxies moving away from us FTL, although this is because spacetime is expanding FTL. Theoretically one could locally distort spacetime to allow them to travel multiple times the speed of light without actually accelerating - aka warp drive. This is mathematically *possible* given our current understanding of physics, but it would require an extremely large amount of mass-energy, to the point where our models and understandings might break down. So, it might be possible, we just don't know enough about the universe to know for sure.
51. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by rubycodez · 2016-09-22 13:12 · Score: 1
  
  no, not if you drag a bubble of space-time with you. there is no velocity limit in that case either.
52. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by rubycodez · 2016-09-22 13:15 · Score: 1
  
  wrong, most of the universe is receding away from us at faster than light speed.
  And drop your religious belief in science, physics is a man-made set of useful models, that we already know don't apply to all situations. We don't know what the laws of nature are. We don't know that making a craft that goes FTL is impossible, in fact our understanding of GR says it IS possible.
53. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by swb · 2016-09-22 14:03 · Score: 2
  
  That's probably true, but we don't know.
  FTL may wind up being possible due to some unknown property of physics but it may only be useful for movement through spacetime and not necessarily for the production of useful energy.
  I'd wager an FTL capable but also not a free energy civilization is also a civilization that is resource hungry and would likely be exploiting sources of easy to obtain resources. It could also turn out that the atomic elements aren't well-distributed in the galaxy and that one all the min-maxing of options is done ends up being the easiest place to get them.
  The challenge for Earth is that any civilization capable of easy space flight only needs to drop a couple of rocks into our gravity well to neutralize our civilization. They don't need a massive energy surplus or a lot of advanced technology beyond a useful FTL to get to us and wipe us out.
54. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Wycliffe · 2016-09-22 14:55 · Score: 1
  
  Science and physics once said fusion and fision were impossible and the sun couldn't possibly exist as it produced more energy than physically possible.
  It also couldn't explain how the honeybee flew or heavier than air travel.
  One thing that helped with these was that we had working examples that proved it was possible even if we didn't know how but just because we don't have a known working example of ftl travel it doesn't make it impossible.
  We already have working theories on bendIng space. Currently they require an enormous amount of energy and likely destroy stuff in it's path but that doesn't make it impossible. It would be simple enough to stop before your destination and travel the last part of the journey the traditional way.
55. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Applehu+Akbar · 2016-09-22 15:02 · Score: 1
  
  "... FTL is far more likely to be developed using AI rather than human intelligence..."
  Or assuming there is no FTL, then AI will be needed for the small, long-endurance probes. If you think that the latency problem in operating Mars rovers is hard, what are latencies measured in years going to be like?
56. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Rei · 2016-09-22 15:28 · Score: 1
  
  A lot of the atrocities committed on the natives were indeed for forced labour or resources. But a lot were also committed in the name of religion.
  We can certainly speculate on what sort of philosophy aliens might live by, but it would be nothing more than speculation.
  
  --
  "You abandoned me! You abandoned my hatred!" "I... I have cuttlefish..."
57. Re: With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Rei · 2016-09-22 15:34 · Score: 1
  
  Certainly not in the present, or the anywhere-near future. But geological timespans are long. Ultimately, making antimatter comes down to taking plasma, getting it up to high speeds, and colliding it in an environment to extract antiprotons from the resultant "debris". Space has no shortage of energy sources (even plasma sources) of scales numerous orders of magnitude larger than we deal with today.
  Antimatter spacecraft anytime remotely soon? Not the slightest chance. But at some point in the future, over geological timespans? That's an awful lot of time... so long as we don't kill ourselves first.
  
  --
  "You abandoned me! You abandoned my hatred!" "I... I have cuttlefish..."
58. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by joe_frisch · 2016-09-22 15:49 · Score: 1
  
  Probably true. OTOH, we have no idea of their motives. Why would the humans care if ants eat some of the spilled sugar in the cabinets?
  I just think that its better to be the guys on the ships rather than the guys on the shore.
59. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Rei · 2016-09-22 15:59 · Score: 1
  
  Except when it is possible... Hawking believes worm-holes are likely, which would make both FTL and even backwards time-travel possible, at least in theory.
  I'm not sure what Hawking's current view on wormholes is, but I know that he is not a believer in backwards time travel. Indeed, it seems to proclude macroscopic stable wormholes, period, since they seem to inherently imply a capability for backwards time travel. They also seem to inherently represent either unfathomably large amounts of energy to form and operate, or a source of unlimited free energy - the latter of which would be highly doubtful, the former of which would be in effect useless.
  
  Current physics is just one theory,
  Physics is anything but "one theory". And the fact that there exist things that are poorly understood doesn't mean that you can just make up whatever you want and pretend like there's realistic odds of it existing. Nobody knows what's 1000 meters underneath Meridiani Planum, does that mean that we should start speculating that it might be fairies, because hey, there's still things about Mars we don't know? All evidence that humans have encountered, from all fields, from the tiniest of scales to the most distant of astronomical observations, shows that nothing moves faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. Yes, space itself may inflate, gravity can warp space, but for a given reference frame, c is the limit.
  
  --
  "You abandoned me! You abandoned my hatred!" "I... I have cuttlefish..."
60. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Rei · 2016-09-22 16:18 · Score: 1
  
  Science and physics once said fusion and fision were impossible
  Alchemists spent most of early human history trying to change elements into other ones. The concept of the nucleus was discovered at roughly the same time as the discovery that it can change (aka, radioactive decay) - around the end of the 19th century - which immediately launched searches into the possibilities of various means of transmutation. There was no point in time in which the nucleus (aka, a fundamental requirement for either fusion or fission) was known where there was any sort of acceptance that it could not be changed. There was a period of about 75 years where the nucleus was unknown, but the concept of atoms was known. However, fission and fusion wouldn't have made much sense as concepts without the concept of a nucleus.
  
  the sun couldn't possibly exist as it produced more energy than physically possible.
  Nobody every believed "the sun couldn't possibly exist". There was a period before the discovery of fusion where there were disputes between geologists and astronomers, with the former believing that the world was older and the latter believing that it was younger (they knew that stars could be powered by collapse - and indeed, they are during their formation - but not of a continued power source). This was a well known dispute and was treated as an unsolved problem, not a "gee, we were all wrong" thing.
  
  couldn't explain how the honeybee flew
  
  There was never any sort of mystery among scientists about how honeybees flew. People can't even track down the origin of this widely cited myth precisely, although there's a number of different theories crediting it to different individuals. A likely source is from a French entomologist, Antoine Magnan, citing secondhand off-the-cuff calculations from an assistant (and had nothing to do specifically with bumblebees). There was never any sort of "scholarly mystery" debated among mystified scientists about impossible-flying bumblebees.
  
  or heavier than air travel.
  You're citing Lord Kelvin, but he also had a lot of crazy ideas about things being impossible, even things that had already been invented. During Lord Kelvin's day, there were many respectable teams working on heavier than air aircraft. Not to mention that nature had already more than demonstrated that it was possible, given a sufficient power to weight ratio.
  
  We already have working theories on bendIng space.
  Yes, if you can make a continuous chain of black holes along the entire path, for example. Gravity bends space. Inflation bends it in the other direction. We know of nothing else that bends space, and have good evidence that nothing else does.
  
  --
  "You abandoned me! You abandoned my hatred!" "I... I have cuttlefish..."
61. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by evilviper · 2016-09-22 16:36 · Score: 1
  
  the fact that there exist things that are poorly understood doesn't mean that you can just make up whatever you want
  No, indeed, but it makes it foolish to clutch on to the current theory as an infallible cornerstone.
  
  All evidence that humans have encountered, from all fields, from the tiniest of scales to the most distant of astronomical observations,
  Humans have encountered a trivially tiny amount of evidence about the universe, and are prone to misinterpreting or rationalizing what little we do see.
  
  shows that nothing moves faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.
  Except for, you know, numerous things in Quantum Mechanics, like quantum entanglement, virtual particles, etc... Which is why folks like Einstein worked so hard to find alternative theories and disprove quantum theory.
  
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  Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
62. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Gavagai80 · 2016-09-22 16:38 · Score: 1
  
  Fleshlings eat other fleshlings. Machines probably eat other machines for spare parts. They might land, steal our phones and leave.
  
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63. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Gavagai80 · 2016-09-22 16:45 · Score: 1
  
  There are no theoretical limits on subjective speed. You can travel to Andromeda in a day, in theory. There's only a rule that everybody will be long dead when you get home.
  
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64. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Z00L00K · 2016-09-22 16:45 · Score: 1
  
  At least given what we know today. But loopholes have been found before in other stuff that was thought impossible to break.
  
  --
  If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
65. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Gavagai80 · 2016-09-22 16:51 · Score: 1
  
  Columbus' motivation was that he wanted to enslave everyone to make money for him. Advanced aliens are certain to have machines that will make better slaves than we can.
  
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66. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by someoneOtherThanMe · 2016-09-22 18:38 · Score: 1
  
  So we should keep our Samsungs just in case?
67. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by thinkwaitfast · 2016-09-22 23:06 · Score: 1
  
  4) Most people on the planet are content to live like sheep
  It's a validated strategy that has worked for billions of generations
68. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by thinkwaitfast · 2016-09-22 23:09 · Score: 1
  
  What are the odds of developing ftl travel before developing food replicator and holodeck technology?
69. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by thinkwaitfast · 2016-09-22 23:16 · Score: 1
  
  Machines don't need land. In fact land would be a liability.
70. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by ACE209 · 2016-09-23 01:06 · Score: 1
  
  We may even appear near the top of the bibliography.
  Dammit we should have named our Planet after something beginning with A.
  Or underscore maybe. :)
  ALIEN: So you are from _Earth? Strange name.
  HUMAN: Yeah, we know. PR reasons. Don't ask.
  
  --
  "we are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
71. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by HBI · 2016-09-23 01:32 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, he was genetically far better off, and this explains why he was able to spearhead a European domination of the Western Hemisphere. All that inherited resistance to crowd diseases from Eurasia - smallpox most significantly, but all the rest of them, too. In fact, the only areas Europeans didn't dominate in the Western Hemisphere were areas where indigenous diseases prevented their dominance, such as the Amazon basin.
  
  --
  HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
72. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by swillden · 2016-09-23 01:50 · Score: 1
  
  Which is why folks like Einstein worked so hard to find alternative theories and disprove quantum theory.
  Albert Einstein was one of the co-founders of quantum mechanics. Indeed, he arguably created the field when he originated the idea that energy can exist only in discrete quanta in his paper on the photoelectric effect, for which he received the Nobel prize. He never tried to disprove quantum theory. He was uncomfortable with some of the implications, particularly quantum entanglement, and spent a lot of time seeking a way to fix quantum theory so that it would obey his notions of locality, but he never tried to disprove it.
  
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73. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by strikethree · 2016-09-23 03:21 · Score: 1
  
  Even more, I would argue that such a "species" would not want to live in a gravity well anyways. I would suspect that advanced species would place their "habitats" in nebulae and asteroid belts and such where resources are plentiful and movement is easier. Once you are on a planet, it takes insane amounts of energy to move away from it.
  
  --
  "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
74. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by StormReaver · 2016-09-23 03:41 · Score: 2
  
  Uh, FTL travel is not possible. Ever.
  There are several ways in which that statement is both true and, at least potentially, untrue at the same time.
  True:
  1) We have discovered no way to break what we understand to be the highest velocity at which a particle can travel: light speed.
  2) No experiment we have ever conceived and/or tested has discredited (1) above.
  3) There are several more, but I don't want to articulate them.
  Untrue (or potentially untrue):
  1) Our best understanding is that matter in the universe moved faster than light during a time following the Big Bang. This invalidates your assertion that FTL is never possible. Otherwise, matter could not have spread as far as it has in the given time since the Big Bang. This suggests that the speed of light may not be an absolute limit, but that we have no way to reproduce it. See (1) under the True heading. A sufficiently advanced civilization may, hypothetically speaking, possess such technology. This, if it exists, is so far beyond the state of our knowledge as to be indistinguishable from magic.
  2) Reproducing the effects of FTL, without actually moving at FTL speeds, is an acceptable alternative. A sufficiently advanced civilization may, hypothetically speaking, possess such technology. This, if it exists, is so far beyond the state of our knowledge as to be indistinguishable from magic.
  3) Again, there are several more, but I don't want to articulate them.
75. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by bill_mcgonigle · 2016-09-23 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  There's no possibility that aliens capable of FTL would find us remotely interesting. Once you get to that technology, energy and resource problems either have been solved, or become very easily solvable.
  And if they care at all about things like us, they already have had probes in our system for eons, by all averages. It would be absurd to think they can't build self-replicating probes at our level of technology plus a few hundred years as a minimum. Once you have that, if you care about the galaxy, you map it.
  There's nothing we can tell them that they don't already know. They haven't destroyed us, so they won't.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
76. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by david_thornley · 2016-09-23 06:26 · Score: 1
  
  If you can go faster than light, there will be inertial reference frames in which you are traveling backward in time. If Special Relativity holds, you can go FTL in different reference frames and achieve time travel.
  Assume two spaceships, each with a properly tuned ansible (instantaneous communicator from LeGuin's science fiction). They pass each other at time T, moving at relative speeds so that the observed time dilation figure is 0.5 (about 88% of the speed of light). This means that, from the point of view of each ship, time is passing half as fast on the other. Both agree on what time T is.
  The guy on Ship A spills his coffee onto himself at T + one hour. He's annoyed by this, so he sends a message to Ship B saying what he did. When does Ship B get it? If it's instantaneous, then A should perceive it being sent at the time of transmission, which is T + one hour. He observes ship B as aging one-half as fast, so from his point of view his T+ one hour is Ship B's T + thirty minutes. The guy on ship B echoes the transmission at T plus thirty minutes. From his point of view, it is T plus fifteen minutes on Ship A, so the guy in Ship A receives a message at T plus fifteen minutes describing what will happen at T plus one hour.
  The above follows from the basic principles of Special Relativity. It is possible to imagine a Universe that doesn't work that way, but in that case Special Relativity does not hold. Very simply, if you have FTL and Special Relativity, you have time travel.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
77. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by david_thornley · 2016-09-23 06:37 · Score: 1
  
  Ways to travel between stars without going faster than light? There are some, but they're all pretty slow.
  A self-sustaining generation ship accelerated to 1% of the speed of light would arrive at the nearest star in a bit over 400 years. This is one way to spread through the galaxy, but you've got to be patient. Variations include some sort of suspended animation or sending genetic material to recreate the species at the other end or just being very long-lived and not easily bored (sufficiently advanced robots may qualify).
  Ways to get up to high speeds include using thermonuclear explosions to provide thrust (the 1960s Project Orion), something like solar sails with assist from the launch systems (makes slowing down at the other end a bit hairy), or having an extremely powerful and compact power source to accelerate reaction mass to ridiculous velocities (matter and anti-matter combining could work).
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
78. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by backwardsposter · 2016-09-23 06:45 · Score: 1
  
  We could all be Pokemon to a category 3 civilization out there
79. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by david_thornley · 2016-09-23 06:45 · Score: 1
  
  GR recognizes time. It's a dimension that's treated differently from space dimensions in certain ways We know of nothing that says that FTL (which is the same thing as time travel in SR) is impossible. There are reasons to believe it might require some form of matter with a negative mass, and while we have no knowledge of such a thing we know how it would behave if it existed, and there's no actual reason that we know why it's impossible.
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
80. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by iggymanz · 2016-09-23 06:54 · Score: 1
  
  GR says no such thing about impossibility of FTL. there are valid FTL space-time metric solutions in GR, for example Miguel Alcubierre's system. Again I remind you we already know most of the universe, that which is outside the visible universe, is receding from us at FTL and that is perfectly valid in GR too
81. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by bill_mcgonigle · 2016-09-23 08:24 · Score: 1
  
  This is known already. Because, you know, physics.
  Physics ain't done, son. Lots of stuff is deemed impossible before the next theoretical breakthrough.
  When we have a fully-working model of the universe, then we can declare it impossible. Until then, avoid being too certain. The history is science is littered with fools who made certain declarations based on current, incomplete theory.
  Based on what we know to date, FTL travel appears to be impossible.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
82. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Rei · 2016-09-23 08:37 · Score: 1
  
  None of those things allow information to move faster than the speed of light, despite how they've become a sci-fi trope for doing so.
  
  --
  "You abandoned me! You abandoned my hatred!" "I... I have cuttlefish..."
83. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by joe_frisch · 2016-09-23 08:40 · Score: 1
  
  If we see neutrinos generated by technology on another star system, its time to worry - a lot. It takes some effort to see neutrinos from a nearby SUPERNOVA
84. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by evilviper · 2016-09-23 12:23 · Score: 1
  
  None of those things allow information to move faster than the speed of light,
  No they don't, as far as we know right now. But they're observed phenomenon that are themselves capable of FTL, completely shattering your oversimplified claim that the limit of c is invariable. They prove there is room for something else...
  
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  Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
85. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by Rei · 2016-09-23 13:42 · Score: 1
  
  None of those things have anything whatsoever to do with information moving faster than the speed of light. You might as well have brought up monk seals or the color green; they have as much to do with FTL as quantum entanglement and virtual particles.
  
  --
  "You abandoned me! You abandoned my hatred!" "I... I have cuttlefish..."
86. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by evilviper · 2016-09-23 15:07 · Score: 1
  
  None of those things have anything whatsoever to do with information moving faster than the speed of light.
  Quantum entanglement IS information moving FTL (or else a violation of locality). It may not be useful for information exchange, but that's a different matter.
  
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  Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
87. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by KingBenny · 2016-09-23 17:24 · Score: 1
  
  There's no possibility that aliens capable of FTL would find us remotely interesting. Once you get to that technology, energy and resource problems either have been solved, or become very easily solvable. In addition, given that FTL is far more likely to be developed using AI rather than human intelligence, space faring races (if they bother to be space faring) are more likely to be 2nd order intelligences (i.e. artificial intelligences),rather than 1st order, genetically based naturally developing intelligences).
  Bottom line? To space faring AIs, we're squirrels. Our nuts are safe. Really.
  why not ... humans like antiques ... go through great lengths to film tribes that are "not infected" with the modern world i think they might possibly find this a superb tourist attraction ... what always bugs me is the fact that everyone seems to assume life would evolve as it has here homo-centrism i call it ... a bit like helio-centrism, yall here would know what i mean by the word. for instance , it might not be carbon based but something we can't even think about / imagine. It might be but it might, unlike humanity, not have stopped evolving. The way i see that is evolution is actually mutation and coincidence where first the fenotype adapts and the ones most suitable to new conditions have a chance at mutating and those mutations are actually the ones that should make it. Seeing as it's humans on top of the evolutionary ladder its obvious probability, not certainty SO They might not have stopped evolving because they might not have adopted technology as a substitute. Meaning actually the use of technology, be it the proverbial first stick to barsh that monkey skull with or your car or bicycle which removes the need for mutants with stronger legs or should i say the chance to be more likely to become next-gen. In which case they might not even need mechanical devices and have their own radio waves. dare i say some form of telepathy. Its alpha waves, they can be detected and measured so with an open mind i dont see how over the course of hundreds of thousands of years some kind of organ might not evolve that can decipher them over a distance so to speak alien life might simply be so alien that we have no way of detecting it i hope my crank ass makes some sense lol
  
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  Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
88. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by RockDoctor · 2016-09-24 01:50 · Score: 1
  
  What are the odds of developing ftl travel before developing food replicator and holodeck technology?
  Pretty close to zero.
  
  --
  Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
89. Re:With all due respect to Mr. Hawking and us... by kuzb · 2016-09-24 08:59 · Score: 1
  
  Cannons, guns, explosives, and swords vs crude bows, clubs, and spears? You'd have to be a complete idiot not to realize that the technical disparity here is huge.
  
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  BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Think about it by HangingChad · 2016-09-22 09:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

We got to the top of the food chain by being the grand champions of the solar system at killing shit. We're so good at killing things that we pass laws against slaughtering animals to keep us from wiping them out. The Dodo Bird and Carrier Pigeon are examples of species we've exterminated and we nearly killed off a bunch of others.
It makes sense to guess that the dominant species on other worlds got to the top of the food chain because they're also the most skillful killers. It's wishful thinking to suppose that a more technically advanced civilization would be more peaceful and tolerant. Just like it was wishful thinking for the Aztecs to give the Spanish gold and hope they'd go away.
He's right. We should be careful about broadcasting our presence around the 'verse.

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That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
1. Re:Think about it by kuzb · 2016-09-22 10:16 · Score: 1
  
  The Dodos didn't go extinct because we were so skilled at killing them, they went extinct because they were so very easy to kill and didn't adapt to the situation by learning to run away. This didn't make us amazing hunters, it makes them incredibly bad survivalists.
  Carrier pigeons on the other hand aren't extinct so that part of your statement makes no sense.
  
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  BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
2. Re:Think about it by BarbaraHudson · 2016-09-22 11:02 · Score: 2
  
  They probably meant passenger pigeon. Too tasty for their own good.
  
  --
  "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
3. Re:Think about it by blindseer · 2016-09-22 13:03 · Score: 1
  
  We should be careful about broadcasting our presence around the 'verse.
  I'm pretty sure we haven't and likely won't for a long time. I vaguely remember someone doing the math on how far out into space our radio signals could be detected from the noise of the sun and other radiation sources. As I recall no one is going to hear us if they are outside of the solar system.
  Even if that estimate is off by a few orders of magnitude that still doesn't get us a signal out very far. Then we'd have to get their attention long enough to be interesting. Just the time for the signal to travel will give us a long time to prepare for a response, assuming anyone is around with the technology to receive a reply.
  If we want to broadcast our position then we'd have to do a combination of a large enough signal and far enough from the sun so it doesn't get drowned out. We'd also have to do it in a way that the sun doesn't block the signal either, so that means launching more than just one. It will be a while before we have the technology to build such a beacon. It will also take time for the beacon to get into proper position. Then there is the time for the signal of the beacon to propagate. Then we'd have to be able to hear a reply, which would probably take another two or more listening posts outside of the solar system.
  I think we have time.
  
  --
  I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
4. Re:Think about it by Applehu+Akbar · 2016-09-22 15:16 · Score: 1
  
  " they went extinct because they were so very easy to kill... "
  The passenger pigeon species had a fatal flaw: it could survive only in large colonies. Man had only to do a halfass job of wiping out large, visible bunches of them resting in trees, and once the hidden tipping point was reached, the pigeon colonies collapsed. Most endangered species can hang on in isolated small colonies until there is a chance to repopulate.
5. Re:Think about it by houghi · 2016-09-23 00:18 · Score: 1
  
  We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.
  
  --
  Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
6. Re:Think about it by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-23 00:29 · Score: 1
  
  I think you're missing something, and that something is evolution -- and by no means have we reached the pinnacle of it. War is proof of that, as is any use of physical force outside of self-defense.
  Here's the dilemma. Human beings are just now entering the "era of reckoning" where they not only have the means, but also the inclination, to cause their own extinction. They have the means due to reaching a certain stage of evolution (technological evolution being a consequence of biological evolution), and they have the inclination due to not reaching a certain stage of evolution. It's an in-between stage of evolution where the inclination to kill -- having been there all along -- meets the ability to deliberately self-destruct, which is the exclusive domain of a technologically advanced species.
  The problem is that those two things don't mix, and eventually, one of them must go -- or the entire species goes. Therefore, either human beings must evolve out of the animal inclination to kill, or they must rewind their technological evolution to the point where they can't cause their own extinction. Since the second option is exceedingly unlikely, it has to be the first. The question is how much time it will take, and we can only guess at that.
  The consequence of this, in my view, is that hostile space-faring civilizations don't exist, because they would have caused their own extinction long before leaving their home planet. The ones that do exist have left the animal inclination to kill long behind, through natural evolution or otherwise. I do believe they would defend themselves if need be, but that would only be a problem with lesser civilizations, and my guess is that they have a strict "no contact" rule for lesser species -- like us.
7. Re:Think about it by swillden · 2016-09-23 02:28 · Score: 2
  
  It's wishful thinking to suppose that a more technically advanced civilization would be more peaceful and tolerant.
  I don't think so, for two reasons.
  The first is that our own history is one of increasing peace and tolerance. If you don't believe this, you should read Stephen Pinker's "The Better Angels of our Nature". I won't attempt to restate his arguments here, but there's very compelling evidence that we've become dramatically less violent and more tolerant in step with our increased technology.
  The second is that advanced technology is impossible without extremely high levels of cooperation. For one example, the massive, interlocking global supply chains that are needed to produce all of our more advanced technologies today (such as the computer I'm typing this on or the phone sitting next to the computer) are mind-bogglingly complex and involve a significant fraction of the world. Broad negotiation and cooperation requires empathy, the ability to understand the minds and goals of both your collaborators and your opponents, and that same empathy slowly -- but inevitably -- results in discomfort with violence and suffering.
  Indeed, we've become uncomfortable with violence to and suffering of even non-human creatures. Up to the 19th century cat burning was a popular mass entertainment in much of Europe. They'd hang a sack full of live cats over a bonfire, or douse a cat in oil and light it's tail on fire and chase it through the street. Although there were people who found these activities distasteful, the vast majority found them hilarious. Today, that would be reversed, and the vast majority would call such "entertainment" sick. In many jurisdictions, such animal cruelty is a felony.
  It's clear that we're rapidly proceeding further down this road. We devote large areas of land and resources to preserving other species. Vegetarianism and veganism are on the rise, and I expect that within a few decades we'll have good cultured meats and that we'll virtually cease killing other animals for food. As the human population declines (it's rising towards a peak but will then begin to fall) and our wealth increases we'll be better able to indulge our empathy and go ever further to minimize future killing and we'll work hard to try to repair the damage we've done to other species.
  Your argument is that it seems likely that advanced alien species would have followed much the same course that ours did. I agree, I think it stands to reason they'll have followed that course to become very peaceful and tolerant, particularly if they have achieved FTL travel which should completely eliminate any need to compete for resources. To reach the stars (assuming that's possible) will require openness and scientific inquisitiveness that are incompatible with violence and subjugation, and make them unnecessary.
  
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8. Re:Think about it by Errol+backfiring · 2016-09-23 04:37 · Score: 1
  
  The Dodos were perfectly adapted to their environment. In their environment, there was no need for them to run away. Then one Dutch ship came along, found those birds disgusting and wiped the entire species out - just for fun.
  
  --
  Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
9. Re:Think about it by dddux · 2016-09-23 23:26 · Score: 1
  
  They might also be very careful about broadcasting their presence to the universe, too. Maybe that's why we can't detect them? But also the technology gap could be so big that we currently don't posses means to detect their type of communication signals. Finally, playing a devil's advocate a little, what if FTL travel is not possible at all? That would make the universe a rather dull place, wouldn't it?
  
  --
  "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
Re:I am an alien by SailorSpork · 2016-09-22 09:49 · Score: 1

Whoah. I'm an alien. I'm a legal alien. I'm an Englishman in New York.
Likely cover story by WillAffleckUW · 2016-09-22 09:51 · Score: 2

We all know that "Mr. Hawking" is in fact an alien, residing on our planet to observe us.

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-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There we go... by RandomSurfer314 · 2016-09-22 09:53 · Score: 1

The answer to the Fermi Paradox: Alien civilizations are cowards, just like us.
Re:What a dumb-ass by kuzb · 2016-09-22 09:55 · Score: 5, Informative

He was the guy who basically married general relativity to quantum mechanics, and catapulted our understanding of stellar phenomenon forward by a substantial amount. Long after your bones are dust, people are going to remember him for his important contributions to science.

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BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Re:What a dumb-ass by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-22 09:55 · Score: 1

by being an "exotic" mouthpiece for mainstream propaganda
Re:What a dumb-ass by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-22 09:56 · Score: 1

How has he advanced science again?
Certainly not by this
Re:What a dumb-ass by Shane_Optima · 2016-09-22 10:13 · Score: 1

Black holes and big bang stuff. You know, obscure shit no one cares about.

"Dumbass" is a good description of anyone who believes aliens are particularly likely to be benevolent. The evolution of altruism is by no means universal, particularly altruism towards different species.
Re:What a dumb-ass by NicknameUnavailable · 2016-09-22 10:24 · Score: 1

If he wasn't crippled, you wouldn't have any idea who he is.
Bane/10.
Re:Proof smart people can be stupid by Shane_Optima · 2016-09-22 10:24 · Score: 1

Did you "not somehow get" that we have two different INCOMPATIBLE theories of physics (GRand QM) that haven't been reconciled? And did you also miss the bit about GR solutions that imply it may be possible to warp space?

Or do you just think you're smarter than the guy the wheelchair because you 'know' the solution to the Drake equation? What values did you select for the variables and how did you discern their values?
Aliens fear us by kanweg · 2016-09-22 10:26 · Score: 1

We're not quiet. Aliens will reason that we must have superior technology. They duck and hope we don't find them. Well, the truth is anyone's guess and this guess was mine.
Bert
Who at times thinks he hears aliens still laughing for a prank long time ago where they secretly pulled a dead corpse from a cave three days after he died.
1. Re: Aliens fear us by hackwrench · 2016-09-22 12:43 · Score: 1
  
  Just wait until you hear the one about the alien mother who left her son with his planet bound dad and her father with the story that she died then comes back pretending to be his half-sister with nonsense stories about how she nearly died when he asks how his mother died and all these alien girls want to marry him including his half-grand-aunt (same [great-grand]father, different mother) and one of his other alien relatives arranges for him to have a fiance. Meanwhile otyer alien relatives show up and know the truth about the mother and decide they also want to be referred to as relatives usually younger than their true relationship. (My take on the third season of Tenchi Muyo!)
Re:What a dumb-ass by Shane_Optima · 2016-09-22 10:29 · Score: 1

If you're referring to his lost "bets", my understanding was that he was purposefully making tongue-in-cheek bets against what his gut told him. He's probably not the most important scientist of his generation, but he's not lower-rung. Singularity theory is quite important because that's one of the main areas where our current science breaks down, and he's made some important contributions there.

Yes, he has some extra celebrity because of his medical condition. So what? I wouldn't begrudge him that.
send nanocraft, and one drone by Provocateur · 2016-09-22 10:42 · Score: 1

Let them shoot down the drone.
Earth declares war
Earth sends nanocraft with We come in peace post-it
Earth-base prepares 10 megaton warhead for 'signature required priority overnight' delivery

--
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Re:To late .. they are already here by sexconker · 2016-09-22 10:48 · Score: 2

So basically Hillary pulls off the mask and goes from President to Reptillian overlord?
Re:What a dumb-ass by PopeRatzo · 2016-09-22 10:54 · Score: 1

Hawking is on the lower rung of great scientists
He's a mess and he has low ratings. He's a loser and at least an 8-handicap golfer. Sad! And what's with that voice, right? [imitates Stephen Hawking]
When I'm president, you can bet the aliens will know where we are.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
We are likely to be studied regardless by UpnAtom · 2016-09-22 10:56 · Score: 1

We are a threat to ourselves and in a hundred years (if we survive them intact) a threat to everyone else in the galaxy. Much of Star Trek on this is plausible. They are likely to intervene at least before we become a threat to them.
Then there's the question of what they might want from us. Do we have any resources here that they might want? Any data? That is harder to understand but we cannot rule it out. For that reason, I agree with Hawking. Why take the risk?
Resolution of the Fermi Paradox? by shanen · 2016-09-22 11:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

I actually started my analysis of the Fermi Paradox from the other side. What if some civilization wanted to be noticed? Turns out to be a relatively minor problem, which strongly indicates that no one wants to be noticed. Alternatively, they tried it and got shut up quickly. Bottom line is that no one is trying right now (where now includes the 100,000 years it would take to span our galaxy--still an extremely small value of "now" on the galactic scale).
My position has evolved over the years, but I'm basically standing on the position that the synthetic intelligences (ASIs) that replace the naturally evolved intelligences like us are amused. They are watching and probably gambling quatloos on whether we create ASI successors before exterminating ourselves. Longer version at:
https://ello.co/shanen0/post/v...
Again hoping for "funny" or "insightful" comments at Slashdot, but it's a young article, soon to become an obsolete article...

--
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
1. Re:Resolution of the Fermi Paradox? by AmiMoJo · 2016-09-22 18:59 · Score: 1
  
  The flaw in these arguments is always that they assume a species will act as one. Even on Earth, we have idiots broadcasting adverts for unhealthy snacks into space as publicity stunts.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
2. Re:Resolution of the Fermi Paradox? by shanen · 2016-09-22 20:03 · Score: 1
  
  I think you are talking about non-directional radio and TV broadcasts, but those signals will become unintelligible within a few light years. They would only lead to our detection by a civilization that had seeded the galaxy with detectors, and such a civilization would surely find it easier and more interesting to simply monitor the life-bearing planets more directly and close up.
  My analysis assumes a large electromagnetic beacon (probably radio or laser) deliberately focused across the sky in a search pattern and with something on the order of a million watt power plant driving it. That kind of beacon would be detectable with roughly our level of technology and would permeate the entire Milky Way within 100,000 years.
  And yet, we haven't detected any.
  
  --
  Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
3. Re:Resolution of the Fermi Paradox? by 0111+1110 · 2016-09-23 18:13 · Score: 1
  
  What has happened to slashdot? It scares me that you think you know what you are talking about. Go solve the link budget equations for your two examples and get back to me. I am so sick of people who quite literally have no idea what they are talking about, but think they are experts.
  
  --
  Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
4. Re:Resolution of the Fermi Paradox? by shanen · 2016-09-23 19:46 · Score: 1
  
  Well, I think you are projecting quite a bit there, but I certainly would admit to not being an expert in anything, though most of my career was spent supporting them.
  However, before I waste any time on a probable troll, why don't you present your "link budget equations". At this point you have to convince me you have any credibility.
  
  --
  Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Too late... by fustakrakich · 2016-09-22 11:02 · Score: 2

Some of them are just catching "I Love Lucy" and "Abbott and Costello". Maybe it will keep them occupied for 50 years or so... If they were more advanced than we are, they won't be for long.

--
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Re:What a dumb-ass by uvajed_ekil · 2016-09-22 11:05 · Score: 5, Interesting

No they won't. They'll remember him for being a cripple that speaks with a monotone robotic voice machine.
Hawking is on the lower rung of great scientists, a lot of this theories have been debunked. He just throws out so many that when a couple turn out right, we all give him a standing ovation. If he wasn't crippled, you wouldn't have any idea who he is.
I wasn't sure if you were joking or not, then I noticed you posted this garbage anonymously, so I must assume you were indeed joking. Hawking's greatest achievement may not be his scholarly work but instead the great success he has had in communicating arcane science to the masses and convincing them to think about matters like this in an intelligent, inquisitive way. Guys like Hawking, Tyson, Sagan, and even Bill Nye and Don Herbert have arguably had as big of an impact on society as have Einstein, Bohr, or Tesla. They make otherwise dense and dry topics exciting and interesting, and if there's one thing we need it's more people of all ages maintaining an interest in science, and being open to learning and continuing to investigate the workings of the universe.

You could have said your piece in a less offensive way, too.

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This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Re:Proof smart people can be stupid by Shane_Optima · 2016-09-22 11:12 · Score: 1

Go ahead and move the goalpost if you want, but they're more likely to be malevolent than benevolent or indifferent if they do exist. I don't think a tremendous amount of resources should be devoted to hiding ourselves from them (should they exist) but I don't think Hawking said that, either.

Hawking said something perfectly reasonable based on fair assumptions (although it's hard to judge the amount of time or resources that should be spent on it.) You made a bunch of unsupported assertions and changed the topic when challenged.
Re:To late .. they are already here by Tablizer · 2016-09-22 11:20 · Score: 1

So basically Hillary pulls off the mask and goes from President to Reptilian overlord?
The debates will be between Mrs. Gorn and Donald the Hutt.

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Table-ized A.I.
Re:To late .. they are already here by uvajed_ekil · 2016-09-22 11:24 · Score: 1

So basically Hillary pulls off the mask and goes from President to Reptillian overlord?
You are making a few large assumptions that pro-Trump wackos automatically reject.

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This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Re:To late .. they are already here by Tablizer · 2016-09-22 11:30 · Score: 1

Will they finally teach you the difference between to and too?
Noh, thay weel reefaktr Eenglish speleeng tu bee fohnetik and lojikul.

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Table-ized A.I.
AIien AI may well have fought its creators... by UpnAtom · 2016-09-22 11:31 · Score: 1

... and thus consider all biological lifeforms inherently dangerous.
Re:To late .. they are already here by newcastlejon · 2016-09-22 11:57 · Score: 1

We could do worse. I'm sure our saurian masters will be pleased when they learn that humans have been tinkering with mice for so long that we can genetically modify them to be twice the size and ten thousand times as tasty before you can say "Sssss'Sthss".

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If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Re:What a dumb-ass by AchilleTalon · 2016-09-22 12:12 · Score: 1

Where physics meets religion.

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Achille Talon
Hop!
Re: Proof smart people can be stupid by hackwrench · 2016-09-22 12:22 · Score: 1

What do you mean "may be" possible. It is a fact. Mass warps space, or rather spacetime. You may mean to the degrees possible for faster than light travel, but many people are unaware of or forget the initial situation, so this is my blunt way of drawing attention to the fact. All the stuff about GR that is generally poorly understood and poorly communicated being that way is a continuous source of frustration for me.
We are animals by nowsharing · 2016-09-22 12:25 · Score: 1

Hopefully they'll treat us better than we treat lower life-forms. Especially if we happen to taste good to them.
More alarmist nonsense from Hawking by Sqreater · 2016-09-22 12:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

The likelihood that another life form traveled the 4.5 billion year path to intelligence, as we did, is close to zero. It assumes that there is a bias toward intelligence in evolution, of which there is no evidence whatsoever. The dinosaurs ruled the Earth for hundreds of millions of years and probably still would if the Chicxulub asteroid had not hit the Earth 65 million years ago, part of a very particular series of events over 4.5 billion years. Chimpanzees, who share 99.9 percent of our DNA are not us. They build no cities, write no great books, land on no moons. Hawking has a teenagers' science-fiction understanding it seems outside of Black Holes. And as far as the "Fermi Paradox" is concerned, it is not a paradox at all. We are not living on the Earth, we ARE the Earth. We are not going to settle the Galaxy, or even the Solar System. We can live nowhere else. We are not mere visitors to the surface of the Earth. We are an intrinsic part of the Earth. It would be the same for any "intelligent species." End of question.

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E Proelio Veritas.
1. Re:More alarmist nonsense from Hawking by Rei · 2016-09-22 15:22 · Score: 2
  
  You have a strange definition of "intrinsic". And "are", for that matter. Particularly given that as you speak there are humans orbiting over your head.
  
  --
  "You abandoned me! You abandoned my hatred!" "I... I have cuttlefish..."
2. Re:More alarmist nonsense from Hawking by eaglesrule · 2016-09-23 04:25 · Score: 1
  
  With that kind of self-declared mastery of the nature of the universe, you should start your own religion.
Indians meeting Columbus? Hardly. by argStyopa · 2016-09-22 12:37 · Score: 1

Logically, the encounter between us and a more advanced society would be less like "Indians and Columbus" and more like "single-celled bacteria and humans".
Assuming the universe is ~15bn years, and the earth's existence to-date (including the evolution of our stellar system, and the giant star from whose planetary nebula we formed) took about 6bn years to evolve from essentially nothing, that means that a more advanced civilization could be anywhere from 0 to 9bn years ahead of us. Let's assume conservatively they're "only" a billion or two years ahead.
On earth 2bn years ago we were in the age of multicellular microorganisms.
So my guess is that they won't even notice us, nor we really even comprehend them, much less "try to communicate".
It's entirely possible that things we've rationalized away, that we simply don't really understand, may be the result of their activity on an incomprehensible scale. When some bored pre-sociopathic kid steps on an anthill, do they have great elaborate ant-scientist rationales for "tectonic migration" to rationally explain why the catastrophe?

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-Styopa
Re: Stephen who cares? by hackwrench · 2016-09-22 12:45 · Score: 1

Yawn. Well, some of us have no intention of remaining a wretched human being forever.
Re: What a dumb-ass by hackwrench · 2016-09-22 12:49 · Score: 1

I wonder how many people are a little miffed about these people getting credit for their innate curiosity and how many give them credit for giving them the curiosity that was in them all along.
Don't worry. by fahrbot-bot · 2016-09-22 12:52 · Score: 1

... shouting about our existence to aliens is not the right way to go about it, ...
I heard that Trump is going to build a Space Wall. Not sure who's going to pay for it though. :-)

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It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
1. Re:Don't worry. by Rei · 2016-09-22 15:24 · Score: 1
  
  Come on, you know the answer to this one ;)
  
  --
  "You abandoned me! You abandoned my hatred!" "I... I have cuttlefish..."
Re:What a dumb-ass by rubycodez · 2016-09-22 13:09 · Score: 2

No, he did nothing of the sort. No one has successfully "married general relativity to quantum mechanics", that is beyond present day physics.
He has applied quantum thermodynamics to certain aspects of a black hole, but that is not the same thing.
Re: Proof smart people can be stupid by Shane_Optima · 2016-09-22 13:14 · Score: 1

Yes yes, I understand that GR is modeled as a distortion of spacetime and those distortions are measurable and have been repeatedly measured. I meant warping to an extent that fast travel is possible, be it FTL or otherwise.
Re:What a dumb-ass by Shane_Optima · 2016-09-22 13:16 · Score: 1

Which bit? Black holes, the likelihood of intelligent life evolving on other planets or the evolutionary stability of universal altruism towards conscious creatures? None of these things involves, invokes or borders on religion.
Re: What a dumb-ass by sound+vision · 2016-09-22 14:03 · Score: 1

Or, how many people have curiosity as an innate characteristic, but would have never tapped it to useful ends were there not voices like Hawking's in our society.

They could have, instead, become curious about the Kardashians' dinner or something.
Re:What a dumb-ass by Applehu+Akbar · 2016-09-22 14:50 · Score: 1

"Hawking is on the lower rung of great scientists, a lot of this theories have been debunked. "
Bow before the recipient of the Anonymous Internet Keyboard Prize! Okay, now explain to us why Kepler was a chump, and how the orbit of Jupiter can be explained in epicycles.
Re: What a dumb-ass by Applehu+Akbar · 2016-09-22 14:54 · Score: 1

To make America Great Again, we should send all the crippled back to -- where do they come from, again?
Right at the moment, Brazil.
Re: What a dumb-ass by hackwrench · 2016-09-22 14:54 · Score: 1

Useful ends... now that's where knowing about Ecclesiastes and Nietzsche come in handy. I decide for myself what I find useful and fully impose upon the world to bring that about. If a God created me, he built those things into me. If a God is perfect then he wants for me what I want for me only is better at knowing the whole situation. If aliens come, I will be useful to them in some form and they will share resources with me. Of course there is the possibility that this me will die, but the universe is a big place and I feel there is much certainty that another such as me will crop up. A portion of the universe will reflect my will.
Re:Breakthrough: Starshot by Rei · 2016-09-22 15:18 · Score: 1

"Tactical sanity"? I don't know enough about what you're saying to even be able to tell if it's a joke or not.
If you're not making a joke... no, there's no realistic way for "swinging around a star" to just reverse the direction of a relativistic craft like Starshot. Even with a very close flyby, gravity's effect on its trajectory would be minimal.

--
"You abandoned me! You abandoned my hatred!" "I... I have cuttlefish..."
Re:Proof smart people can be stupid by Applehu+Akbar · 2016-09-22 15:19 · Score: 1

"Or did you not somehow get that E=MC2 obviously has not been beaten and the immense distances that we cant reach with fesible technolgy in the next 1000 years?"
The infeasibility of interstellar travel absent wormholes or other unknown shortcuts has nothing to do with the existence of other species. It only affects our ability to find them.
Re:Smarter Aliens by Rei · 2016-09-22 15:26 · Score: 1

Because? Do you think interstellar civilizations are based around burning coal?

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"You abandoned me! You abandoned my hatred!" "I... I have cuttlefish..."
Stephen Hawking Wants To Find Aliens by Clean+Perth · 2016-09-22 16:11 · Score: 1

Very true.
If aliens exist the odds are that they are by pjv936 · 2016-09-22 17:15 · Score: 1

far more advance than we are. We have been using radio for a century or so. So for us to find aliens less advance than we are they would have to be between 10 to 100 years less advance than us. On the other hand the aliens could be billions of years more advance. That is a far bigger space. So the odds are the aliens are far more advance.
solid advise by Tom · 2016-09-22 17:19 · Score: 1

Whenever I'm out of my mind enough to look at the world as an outsider, I would advise any aliens to take off and nuke the site from orbit. Though they certainly have some way to just kill off the human species and let evolution try again. Come back in a million years (surely you've managed age) and check if earth intelligence v2.0 is better.
We definitely want to find them first, so we can check if we can conquer, enslave and economically exploit them. If not, to buy us time to improve our military until we can. We didn't claw our way to the top of the food chain for no reason, right?

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Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
If THEY are more technologically advanced ... by Ihlosi · 2016-09-22 22:31 · Score: 1

If THEY are more technologically advanced than we are, THEY already know about us. Or at least they know that there's something peculiar about the third planet around our sun, with its nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere and such.
1. Re:If THEY are more technologically advanced ... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-22 22:54 · Score: 1
  
  Us humans are only just now realizing dolphins appear to speak to each other in words and sentences. Us humans are only just now realizing horses can understand abstract symbols and can express "I am wet and/or cold, please put the blanket on me", "please take the blanket off me", and "I'm ok the way I am so please don't make any changes." Perhaps aliens DO know about us but perhaps they don't yet realize we have some form of language where we can communicate to each other. "Oh look, it appears as if this one human made noises and the other one responded with some other noises and then they started to move objects around together. Yes, I know this sounds crazy but perhaps the grunting and clicking noises these humans make are a primitive method of communications."
Does he understand what billions means? by DirkDaring · 2016-09-23 00:22 · Score: 1

As in, the age of the universe? If aliens existed, they would be so far advanced that he, you and anyone else could even fathom it. Now lets put it this way, would we as humans go our of our way to step on a a tiny ant colony in the middle of the desert in Australia?
1. Re:Does he understand what billions means? by guruevi · 2016-09-23 00:50 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. Whether it is for a food source, survival, power, leisure, sport or science we do all kinds of odd things. There wouldn't be tourism or exploration if we didn't.
  
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Predators by StikyPad · 2016-09-23 01:41 · Score: 1

You know who tries to locate someone without being noticed? Predators. This sounds like a good way to make aliens wary of us, especially if we're unsuccessful. And it stands to reason that we would be unsuccessful if they're more technologically advanced than us. If they're not, then we have little to be afraid of anyway.

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https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Re:What a dumb-ass by Khashishi · 2016-09-23 03:47 · Score: 1

He did a lot of work on Black hole thermodynamics, such as predicting Hawking radiation.
Re:What a dumb-ass by Jamu · 2016-09-23 05:08 · Score: 1

You could have said your piece in a less offensive way, too.
Hello, and welcome to the internet.

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Re:To late .. they are already here by UnknownSoldier · 2016-09-23 06:22 · Score: 1

What conspiracy? To keep people in the dark? That's a fact, not a theory.
You can see NASA's own evidence of UFO's, Edger Mitchell's own testinomy, many Government officials, researchers, time and time again admit this.
Lastly, 12 years ago I met an alien -- but you can keep trying to label other people's experiences that don't fit within your myopic perspective.
Only the ignorant stick their head in the sand and ignore a problem. The truth is:
We were never alone.
In roughly 8 years this fact will be public. You can either accept it now or later. Your choice. But all the wishful thinking won't change fate.
Re:To late .. they are already here by UnknownSoldier · 2016-09-23 06:45 · Score: 1

When are you going to grow up and realize yelling doesn't make your question any more valid?
See proof here:
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Re:Smarter Aliens by Rei · 2016-09-23 08:38 · Score: 1

How does the periodic table imply "burning through all of one's resources"? Your argument thusfar is "Because 1 + 1 = 2, then banana."

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Re:Smarter Aliens by Rei · 2016-09-23 08:43 · Score: 1

To put it another way: the total mass of the universe is about 180000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 kilograms, which is the mass equivalent of 16200000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 joules. There is no shortage of "resources" in the universe. Even the rarest of "resources" is available in unthinkable abundance to any entity that has a range broader than a single planet. Not like it's particularly easy to actually exhaust resources on a given planet; you just move from the easiest ones to the much more abundant, but harder to access ones (while simultaneously your technology advances with time, making resources in general more accessible; prices are based on the competition between these two factors, but in the long term generally follow a downward trend)

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"You abandoned me! You abandoned my hatred!" "I... I have cuttlefish..."
30 years if that EM drive works by UpnAtom · 2016-09-23 09:57 · Score: 1

And don't hide behind AC if you want another reply.