Aliens

[Teuthida]

I highly doubt contact has already been made. With as advanced as we currently are, we wouldn't have a chance against an alien species that has the technology to reach our planet. So I hope we make contact when the playing field is more even and our species grows up and matures some. Perhaps there's a StarWars-esque council of planets out there already. We have no place there right now.

[KillerGremlin]

Do they exist? Probably. The thing is, if the universe is 13 billion years old, and huuuuuuuuuugeeeeeeeee, life has probably existed at some point in time other than our own.

Was that life sentient? That's a whole other question.

Will we ever find it? Fuck no. We won't even get out of our galaxy. Obama cut the NASA program, people seem more interested in blowing each other up and arguing over the economy than actually advancing as a species. I wager that mass extinction or war kills us before we advance enough to leave this galaxy, let alone explore the universe to find life.

[Typhoid]

I was watching a show with Steven Hawking where he raised the best point about why we'll never really leave our galaxy.

He said that since it would take so long it would have no actual payoff for the generation who begins it.

That is a hard thing to commit to for a government. How can you tell your people "We're going to spend billions of dollars, and send hundreds of people deep into space where we will never ever ever know what happens to them - because we will all be long dead before they get to where they're going."





Edit: I also don't believe we're going to destroy ourselves. Humans have a great desire to live. nearly each and every one of us wants to live. I don't think the world will ever be destroyed by humans. I just think humans like to try and control other humans by threatening total destruction and the like.

[Combine 017]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

Perhaps there's a StarWars-esque council of planets out there already. We have no place there right now.

Replace Star Wars with Mass Effect and thats my view on that.

Originally Posted by Typhoid

I was watching a show with Steven Hawking where he raised the best point about why we'll never really leave our galaxy.

He said that since it would take so long it would have no actual payoff for the generation who begins it.

That is a hard thing to commit to for a government. How can you tell your people "We're going to spend billions of dollars, and send hundreds of people deep into space where we will never ever ever know what happens to them - because we will all be long dead before they get to where they're going."

I dont think Stephen Hawking ever mused the idea of a slip space drive or warp drive. It would still take a long time to reach another solar system, but it would be much faster than just flying there. And whos to say structures like Stargates(not portals, more along the lines of Mass Relays) cant be constructed. Or maybe we can harness dark energy and that will do something cool? But I dont think humans will ever make it that far, we're to damn busy blowing ourselves up. So the next best bet to get into space would be aliens providing advanced technology, but that is also highly unlikely. A man can dream though, a man can dream.

[Ginkasa]

I read an article that said as soon as telescope become advanced enough SETI will stop searching for radio waves (their thought: our radio signals are fading as technology advances, so they figure any other advanced civilization will be the same and nearly impossible to find via radio waves) and will instead look for signs of artificial light on other planets.

I thought it was cool.