Dumb Aliens?

[tkdguy]

A hypothesis on why alien contact has been so elusive: LINK

[L. Marcus]

Good article. Brought a LOL to my lips. ^^

 

For role playing, I've always been particular to the Kafer.

[Greywind]

Spaced Invaders ?

[L. Marcus]

"Dave's no here, man."

[Lawnmower Boy]

I don't get it. And the link can't be that important. It didn't have any Kardashians.

[L. Marcus]

You're not alien -- you're Canadian. A world of difference.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Any fan of hollywood science fiction knows that aliens are stupid. Either they come all the way to Earth and try to conquer it for a drink of water, (which they could get anywhere without a fight), or they try to conquer the Earth and fail to notice it's mostly covered in water... which is poisonous to them.

 

I've read a few stories about wars between humans and "smart" aliens. They were a bit one-sided!

[sinanju]

Eh, more seriously, I've often considered that while life may be very common in the universe, and that even intelligent life, it doesn't necessarily follow that all intelligent life will develop high technology. I mean, the Chinese had gunpowder long, long before the Europeans but mostly never did anything with it. The Romans had steam engines--as toys--and never did anything with them.

 

It may have taken a very specific combination of geography, politics, philosophy and economics to kick off the industrial revolution. Otherwise, western europe might have followed the same path China and Rome did, discovering interesting things but never really leaping forward so relatively abruptly and setting in motion the whole idea of constant progress. Maybe it would have happened inevitably. But maybe not.

 

There could be lots of intelligent species out there somewhere who spend their whole existence without ever inventing the sort of devices necessary to communicate with anyone else.

[Zeropoint]

Hey, SOMEone has to be the first intelligent species, the Precursors who leave mysterious and powerful artifacts for everyone else to find . . . why not us?

[Old Man]

Kardashians, that's why.

[Zeropoint]

Are you shaying those shpoonheadsh got there firsht?

[dmjalund]

Kardashians, that's why.

 

 

Are you shaying those shpoonheadsh got there firsht?

 

gee it's so hard to keep up!

[Tom Carman]

Any fan of hollywood science fiction knows that aliens are stupid. Either they come all the way to Earth and try to conquer it for a drink of water, (which they could get anywhere without a fight), or they try to conquer the Earth and fail to notice it's mostly covered in water... which is poisonous to them.

 

I've read a few stories about wars between humans and "smart" aliens. They were a bit one-sided!

And then there's Christopher Anvil's Pandora's Planet, in which Earth is conquered by not-so-very-bright aliens. Winning the peace afterward was a lot trickier...

[Lawnmower Boy]

Eh, more seriously, I've often considered that while life may be very common in the universe, and that even intelligent life, it doesn't necessarily follow that all intelligent life will develop high technology. I mean, the Chinese had gunpowder long, long before the Europeans but mostly never did anything with it. The Romans had steam engines--as toys--and never did anything with them.

 

It may have taken a very specific combination of geography, politics, philosophy and economics to kick off the industrial revolution. Otherwise, western europe might have followed the same path China and Rome did, discovering interesting things but never really leaping forward so relatively abruptly and setting in motion the whole idea of constant progress. Maybe it would have happened inevitably. But maybe not.

 

There could be lots of intelligent species out there somewhere who spend their whole existence without ever inventing the sort of devices necessary to communicate with anyone else.

That's if this vision of the history of technology is, in fact, accurate. We know less than one might think about the evolution of gunpowder, and rotary atmospheric steam engines are a quite different use case from condensor-equipped crankshaft types.

[Lawnmower Boy]

You're not alien -- you're Canadian. A world of difference.

 

Look, all I'm saying is that you can spend your time on silly things like travelling light years or beam message lasers at far away star system. Or you can curate the kind of sideboob slideshow that'll get people to click on the Ford ad. They're both great intellectual achievements, but only one will accumulate millions of human-years of open tabs open on every kiind of browser known.

 

 

(Except Internet Explorer. Those people haven't figured out what a "tab" is yet.)

[Old Man]

sideboob slideshow that'll get people to click on the Ford ad

 

 

Link?   

[Christopher]

A hypothesis on why alien contact has been so elusive: LINK

Here is a video explaing the Femi Paradox a bit better (or tries to answer the question if it will apply to us humans):

youtu.be/7NPC47qMJVg

 

Any fan of hollywood science fiction knows that aliens are stupid. Either they come all the way to Earth and try to conquer it for a drink of water, (which they could get anywhere without a fight), or they try to conquer the Earth and fail to notice it's mostly covered in water... which is poisonous to them.

 

I've read a few stories about wars between humans and "smart" aliens. They were a bit one-sided!

Aliens in Hollywod. Fly all the way to invade a Nuclear armed planet only to get - the most abundant resource in the Universe.

 

Hey, SOMEone has to be the first intelligent species, the Precursors who leave mysterious and powerful artifacts for everyone else to find . . . why not us?

What? I hope it's not us!

Precursors aways die out in some horrible way, leaving only garbeled message of doom and ancient technology behind.

[sinanju]

 

What? I hope it's not us!

Precursors aways die out in some horrible way, leaving only garbeled message of doom and ancient technology behind.

 

Or they move on to some other universe or state--like the Ancients in, you know, Stargate. They'll still out there, they just have better things to do than play in our sandbox.

[lemming]

Morons from Outer Space spawned the typical salute in most of our games.

[wcw43921]

This was a theme of sorts in the various Star Trek series--every now and again they would come upon the ruins of some advanced civilization that had developed some exceptionally tantalizing piece of technology, but had never developed warp drive or any other form of FTL travel.  Original Trek had "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" (androids), "Turnabout Intruder" (mind transfer), "The City On The Edge Of Forever" and "All Our Yesterdays" (time travel)--and that's off the top of my head.  Next Generation had "The Arsenal Of Freedom" (super-intelligent weapon system) and "Relics" (a Dyson sphere--but I doubt its builders called it that).  I'm sure there were examples on the other Trek series, but I'm afraid they do not come immediately to mind.

 

This is not to say that the civilizations in those episodes were "dumb"--although the Cherons from "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" could qualify as that.  Only that they had not developed the technology to leave their own world, with the result being that their civilization expired without anyone else in the galaxy knowing they ever existed.  The same fate could befall our own civilization--unless, like Commander Sinclair said on Babylon 5, we go into space and take it all with us. 

[Xavier Onassiss]

And then there's Christopher Anvil's Pandora's Planet, in which Earth is conquered by not-so-very-bright aliens. Winning the peace afterward was a lot trickier...

I love that novel. And it's a good case in point. Stories about stoopid aliens are hilarious.

 

Stories about really smart aliens...

 

...are difficult to write!

[Lawnmower Boy]

I love that novel. And it's a good case in point. Stories about stoopid aliens are hilarious.

 

Stories about really smart aliens...

 

...are difficult to write!

 

"My species may be dumber than yours," h/sh/t said, "But we're in charge, now." Slowly, he buttoned up the brand-new stain resistant dress white shirt, tucking the tails down into his pressed black slacks.

 

Your eyes are drawn to his shiny brown loafers. The colour doesn't go, and you're a little dubious about the chances of there being steel toes under the slim points. Run those over with power machinery? That's got to smart, even if you are an alien.

 

"And now that we're in charge," h/sh/t continued, "There are going to be some changes around here." H/sh/t unbuttoned the collars and folded them up, then examined the beaten-up shopping bag of actually quite nice thrift store ties. After some hesitation, h/sh/t pulled out one of those cheaters with a teflon join at the back, and settled it around h/sh/t's neck, then pulled the collars down. 

 

You notice that the break isn't on the fold on the right side. A teflon patch shows itself to the world in the gap between swatches of creamy, white fabric. You don't say anything. Serves h/sh/t for lobbing an asteroid at your home town. Crap as the hole was, you still hadn't got your comic collection out of your parent's basement, and now it's just ash contributing to the gloom of global winter. Also, you miss your parents. Plus that other couple billion. Point is, you won't be pointing out any fashion faux pas any time soon.

 

"Now, our first priority is a protocol for dealing with Vegan invaders."

 

You do not mention that a moment ago the number one priority was corporate profits.

 

"Vegan forces are constantly looking for weaknesses in our defence systems, and positive reinforcement is the best way of dealing with internal weaknesses." H/sh/t pulls out what looks like an oversized pad of Post-It Notes. "These are observation forms. Any time that you or your co-workers observe anyone doing something pro-system defence, you will fill out an observation form noting it and providing postive feedback." H/sh/t hands the pad of forms to you. You look at it. There's a space for your name, co-worker name, department, and a square where you will make your observation. Presumably, in handwriting. It looks like you could fit in about fifty words if you really cram. How good were conquering aliens at reading handwriting?

 

"Our first priority will be to make sure that enough observation forms are completed each work-cycle. Here is your quota."

 

Three top priorities, now.

 

"Well, what are you waiting for, you disgusting mammal?"

 

Five. You have five to do now. You wander the facility floor. You spot Alice hiding something under a console. Might be a fifth, might be a gun. Might be both, actually. You pull out your pen. "Observed Alice checking under server for Vegan scoutship. Good job, Alice!" You change "console" to "server" in case anyone checks. If Alice got some cool incentive like extra oxygen, she might be persuaded to share the fifth. This is easy!

 

IN the distance, you see the new boss explaining the new way of handing warheads to the Nuclear Decontamination crew. H/sh/t is leaning casually on a half-dissassembled apparatus. H/sh/t's bare hand rests on an exposed globe of semi-lustrous gray metal with small, precisely drilled hexagonal holes in it. It's a little hard to tell the details, but the globe might be hollow. H/sh/t is playing with a lighter. The Decon team keep throwing nervous glances over their shoulders, mentally measuring the distance to the nearest exit.

 

You know what? Someone is probably doing something observation-worthy on the next asteroid over. You should go see.

[Tom Carman]

I love that novel. And it's a good case in point. Stories about stoopid aliens are hilarious.

Although, one of the points of the book was that simply being smarter isn't always a good thing. The humans made a lot of trouble out among the stars, not so much because they were so smart but because they were good salesmen. And they were helped quite a bit by the fact that Centrans, having generally fewer highly intelligent people, tended to have a much higher respect for people with obvious intelligence. With a generally duller population and slower progress, Centrans also took a longer view in their planning (groundcars vs. the "iron road", "_Planned_ obselescence?!", etc.).

[Christopher]

Or they move on to some other universe or state--like the Ancients in, you know, Stargate. They'll still out there, they just have better things to do than play in our sandbox.

The other state of being. Where they have to police thier own kind from mucking up the world below (Non-Intereference). Where you have your dark ancestor/former ally types trying to kill you (Ori). Where the lower levels could deploy weapons of mass destruction to kill you all (Holy Grail).

 

Nope, that sounds shitty too.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Since the only "realistic" way to carry on an interstellar war is to hurl enough relativistic rocks at the enemy planets that some of them are guaranteed to hit, intelligent aliens would know better than to tick people off on other star systems. Otherwise they wouldn't last very long unless they reflexively hurled relativistic rocks at any species that was technologically advanced enough to eventually develop the capacity to hurl relativistic rocks at them -- and do it well before that capacity had materialized. the target would never know, in those last few seconds of habitability, why (or even that) they were being targeted. And they certainly would have no clue that anybody was even doing it.