What if China made first contact with aliens?

[jandl100]

If we are the highest form of life, the Universe is in real trouble.

I suspect that the universe will carry on just fine with or without the likes of us, actually!

I agree with Geoff () that life is just an accident, where we part ways is that I don't think it is that unlikely a fluke.
Life started here quite soon after the Earth coalesced from sun-forming debris, so it surely can't be that unlikely a set of circumstances.

[struth]

I think it is an incredibly unlikely set of circumstances that we did eventually appear. But with so many other potential places where this could happen in a similar way, there s a fair chance that it did at least once,at some time. its not just the huge amount of planets here but an immense timescale too. That doesn't just make it a must tho.

[jandl100]

Justin’s video on filters directly addresses this ... there are some big improbabilities without which at least out kind of life would never have emerged. String them together and that big number ‘filters’ down pretty rapidly. Well worth watching certainly were a few new ideas from my perspective.

I've just now watched that video - and with a growing amount of impatience.

A fundamental underlying assumption seems to be that, to put it simply, technology and technological progress is all about building bigger and better rockets.

That strikes me as very insular thinking based merely upon the current set of circumstances that we find our own society in.
After 200 years of technology we have built ourselves some fairly basic rockets.
We then assume that other civilisations which have existed thousands of times longer will have built, wow! HUGE rockets - and where the hell are they?
We have built some nifty cities and technology infrastructure - so extrapolate that a thousand fold and, once again WOW !! Just imagine. So where are they?

But that is very limited thinking based on the premise that 'progress' is linear, when in fact it is very far from that.
-- the next great idea comes along and ZAP the whole ball game changes.

Like Terry Pratchett put it when Earthlings complained about umpteen trillion tons of comet ice about to impact Earth and destroy us, the Creator responded by saying "What, are you lot still there, haven't you discovered Slood yet?"
Well, my premise is that there are a lot of Slood type things, which are game changers and which we haven't got a clue about yet.

So failing to detect bigger and better rockets or technological infrastructure is irrelevant. Although I am not in a position to give details about why as we haven't yet come across any Slood!

[walpurgis]

From my point of view, I'm quite happy to say that life does not exist anywhere else in the universe and as I suggested before, life on earth is merely a transitory accident that will cease comparatively soon in the grand scale of things.

Humans will never contact any non-terrestrial entity, 'cos there ain't none! Migration to other worlds is just a schoolboy imagining that can never occur. Eventually, long after humanity has disappeared, the sun will go supernova and engulf the earth, which will then become an insignificant cinder! (as opposed to the insignificant blob of mud, water and rock that it is now)

[jandl100]

Whoops - https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...rby-exoplanet/
Interstellar Message Beamed to Nearby Exoplanet - The radio signal directed at a world 12 light-years away included music and math lessons from Earth

Expect the alien invasion fleet to arrive in 25 years!

[alphaGT]

Whoops - https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...rby-exoplanet/
Interstellar Message Beamed to Nearby Exoplanet - The radio signal directed at a world 12 light-years away included music and math lessons from Earth

Expect the alien invasion fleet to arrive in 25 years!

That’s about right, in 25 years I won’t care one way or the other! Let them have it!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Macca]

Whoops - https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...rby-exoplanet/
Interstellar Message Beamed to Nearby Exoplanet - The radio signal directed at a world 12 light-years away included music and math lessons from Earth

Expect the alien invasion fleet to arrive in 25 years!

That is where we are going wrong. We are sending music and messages of friendship, the aliens get them and think 'They seem like pleasant people' and carry on with their own business. What we should be doing is hurling abuse and insults at them, that should have them round here and banging on the door in no time.

[Barry]

If they have any taste, aliens will, upon discovering the record aboard the Voyager satellite, no-doubt send a message: "Urgent, please send more Chuck Berry."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record

[jandl100]

Aliens? - so where are they?

Check out this article
http://nautil.us/issue/42/fakes/is-p...n-intelligence

[tapid]

Surprised to hear Dr B. Cox say that he s inclined to believe we are alone and life starting on earth was indeed a freak of nature.
Think myself he s probably wrong but interesting that a scientist has these views. If there is life out there wonder what the hifi s
like, sound staging could be immense with plenty of space around !