Stephen Hawking warns us to stop reaching out to aliens before it's too late

[benjipwns]

http://www.sciencealert.com/stephen-hawking-warns-that-we-might-not-want-to-reach-out-to-aliens

Well, according to physicist Stephen Hawking, we should probably stop trying to contact them at all, because reaching out to advanced civilisations could put humanity and Earth in a pretty risky situation. And the bad news is, we've already been broadcasting our location to the Universe for years.

Hawking’s warning comes in a new online film called Stephen Hawking’s Favourite Places, which shows the famed scientist in a CGI spacecraft called the SS Hawking exploring his favourite places in the Universe.

"As I grow older I am more convinced than ever that we are not alone. After a lifetime of wondering, I am helping to lead a new global effort to find out," Hawking says in the film while exploring Gliese 832c, a planet that lies 16 light-years away and might foster alien life.

"The Breakthrough Listen project will scan the nearest million stars for signs of life, but I know just the place to start looking. One day we might receive a signal from a planet like Gliese 832c, but we should be wary of answering back."

Despite Hawking’s extraordinary effort to find intelligent life in the Universe, he is one of the most outspoken critics of actually trying to communicate with them, an act that he says would potentially endanger humanity, because a distant alien civilisation might view us as inferior, weak, and perfect to conquer.

"If so, they will be vastly more powerful and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria," he says in the film.

Hawking often uses the example of Columbus’ expedition to the America’s to describe what could happen if an advanced civilisation gets word of our existence, saying that that initial meeting "didn’t turn out so well".

Hawking’s warning is rooted in the idea that an alien civilisation, especially one that can pick up our signals and understand where they’re coming from, has the potential to be billions of years more advanced than us, making us an easy target to overthrow or invade.

Hillary's Galaxy.

[recursivelyenumerable]

Why would this mega-advanced alien civilization even bother conquering us specifically though, vs. just hoovering up all the stars and planets they can? I doubt they'd care about having a planet in the habitable zone or whatever (if their biology is even remotely similar enough that that would apply to them), they are just going to be breaking it down to raw materials for building their own better planets to their own spec anyway.

[CatsCatsCats]

Could see us as a primitive threat, we might not be able to create like them but our ability to destroy could be considered an unacceptable risk


So yeah, I guess in my mind it's less likely they conquer us, more like swiftly and utterly destroy us

[Great Rumbler]

Like finding an ant bed in your backyard. Dump the poison, walk away.

[brawndolicious]

They can fusion and fission whatever raw materials they need and obviously they can just crack open the planet before we even see them. Our real estate and weapons are rather limited really.

The worst case scenario is if we come across a single species that is super advanced rather than a federation. Then you can bet that if they want to enslave us as pets and hunting trophies then we're gonna get fucked. So fucked. The odd thing is that you can bet that some alien civilization has seen us from afar already and either can't or doesn't want to say hi.

Probably because they think we're too ugly.

[Rufus]

Like finding an ant bed in your backyard. Dump the poison, walk away.

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

This explanation implies that the Visitors may not have paid any attention to or even noticed the human inhabitants of the planet during their "visit" just as humans do not notice or pay attention to grasshoppers or ladybugs during a picnic. The artifacts and phenomena left behind by the Visitors in the Zones were garbage, discarded and forgotten without any preconceived intergalactic plan to advance or damage humanity.

[Joe Molotov]

Also, maybe we want to be conquered by an hyper-advanced alien civilization? Trickle down economics.

[Raist]

Why would this mega-advanced alien civilization even bother conquering us specifically though, vs. just hoovering up all the stars and planets they can? I doubt they'd care about having a planet in the habitable zone or whatever (if their biology is even remotely similar enough that that would apply to them), they are just going to be breaking it down to raw materials for building their own better planets to their own spec anyway.

Because they can.

[Great Rumbler]

It's highly likely that Earth has already been visited by aliens and also been the butt of some wicked frat alien pranks.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I think its more dangerous if they are just a bit more powerful vs a whole other league

[benjipwns]

You people are why we lost in NAM.

[Phoenix Dark]

Hopefully they're as benevolent as the Africans who discovered America long before Columbus, treated the natives with respect, and formed bonds with them that ultimately led to the creation of hip hop years later.

[chronovore]

There are heaps of SF novels that run with this idea, or play with the concept that we're being shielded from interference until we're big enough to play in even the minor leagues.

But, yeah, I tend to think along Peter Watts' line of thought: even if there's no malicious intent, the alien organisms may be so out of alignment with what we consider intelligence that we may have no hope of communicating. Echopraxia was like this, to a degree. But Blindsight is a scary-as-hell story which will really get you queasy with worry.

[Cerveza mas fina]

There are heaps of SF novels that run with this idea, or play with the concept that we're being shielded from interference until we're big enough to play in even the minor leagues.

But, yeah, I tend to think along Peter Watts' line of thought: even if there's no malicious intent, the alien organisms may be so out of alignment with what we consider intelligence that we may have no hope of communicating. Echopraxia was like this, to a degree. But Blindsight is a scary-as-hell story which will really get you queasy with worry.

As if just looking at the sky at night isnt scary enough...

Will look these up

[Great Rumbler]

As if just looking at the sky at night isnt scary enough...

[chronovore]

There are heaps of SF novels that run with this idea, or play with the concept that we're being shielded from interference until we're big enough to play in even the minor leagues.

But, yeah, I tend to think along Peter Watts' line of thought: even if there's no malicious intent, the alien organisms may be so out of alignment with what we consider intelligence that we may have no hope of communicating. Echopraxia was like this, to a degree. But Blindsight is a scary-as-hell story which will really get you queasy with worry.

As if just looking at the sky at night isnt scary enough...

Will look these up

His "Rifters" series is also good, and also pretty scary. They're available for free download from his site, IIRC.

[Yeti]

I'm more concerned that if they came to visit we'd wipe each other out with foreign diseases because we and them wouldn't have built up immunities to the alien parasites infesting our bodies.

[CatsCatsCats]

Aliens over Trump, tho

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, Stephen Hawking probably doesn't need to be overly concerned about aliens.

[Madrun Badrun]

But why didn't he warn us about the Americans? 

[Huff]

Is it too late for us to call them aliens back

[Madrun Badrun]

Save me!  The anal probes weren't so bad!

[Freyj]

The Three Body Problem series and particularly the second book The Dark Forest deals with this issue in some really interesting ways.

[chronovore]

I'm more concerned that if they came to visit we'd wipe each other out with foreign diseases because we and them wouldn't have built up immunities to the alien parasites infesting our bodies.

We can assume that they'll know about germs and infection; the true danger will come from memetic infection.

[OnlyRegret]

There are heaps of SF novels that run with this idea, or play with the concept that we're being shielded from interference until we're big enough to play in even the minor leagues.

But, yeah, I tend to think along Peter Watts' line of thought: even if there's no malicious intent, the alien organisms may be so out of alignment with what we consider intelligence that we may have no hope of communicating. Echopraxia was like this, to a degree. But Blindsight is a scary-as-hell story which will really get you queasy with worry.

Checked Wiki about it.
It lost me at autistic vampires being characters

[OnlyRegret]

whatever, maybe ayy lmaos might be better than trump
:shrug:

[Rusty Shackleford]

Can't we just shut down or destroy our local mass effect relay if things get dicey with our interstellar neighbors?

[chronovore]

There are heaps of SF novels that run with this idea, or play with the concept that we're being shielded from interference until we're big enough to play in even the minor leagues.

But, yeah, I tend to think along Peter Watts' line of thought: even if there's no malicious intent, the alien organisms may be so out of alignment with what we consider intelligence that we may have no hope of communicating. Echopraxia was like this, to a degree. But Blindsight is a scary-as-hell story which will really get you queasy with worry.

Checked Wiki about it.
It lost me at autistic vampires being characters

Dude, I fully understand that reaction. It was mine, too. Vampires in SF? Do they sparkle? Watts manages to make it work in context; they're probably the scariest humanoids I've ever had depicted for me. And they're far from the main point of the story, because the aliens are even more frightening.