Don’t talk to aliens, warns Stephen HawkingThe aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact...
...Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses them to lead on to a serious point: that a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity.
He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”
Sir Hawking is dead wrong.
Any race advanced enough to master intergalatic light speed travel or travel through wormholes, has the technology to create energy without consuming massive resources. Heck, even our comparatively primitive civilization will never completely consume all of Earth's resources.
Man develops technology as he finds ways to conserve his resources, not consume more of them. Burning peat moss for heat and light gave way to whale oil and coal because they provided more energy with less mass. Whale oil gave gave way to petrochemicals, which wasw more plentiful and provided more energy with less mass. As technology advances, nuclear power is replacing petrochemicals because they provide more energy with less mass.
An alien race roaming the unconceivably expansive universe finding planets to completely strip of all resources, when it would be technologically easier to find ways to create energy and needed resources out of common matter, or to simply reconstitute spent resources? That's just silly.
And any alien civilization advanced enough to master the technology necessary for intergalatic travel would easily be advanced far beyond using premptive violence. Again, even we are almost to that point.
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Well put, Stephen Hawking weighing in on something like sociology is laughable at best. The man is a genius when it comes to physics and astronomy, let alone a multitude of other things, but people need to know that this doesn't qualify his opinion to be taken seriously on all topics of discussion. You would think he would take a least a LITTLE bit of time to contemplate the type of evolution a society would need to attain space colonization, let alone deep space travel.
ReplyDeleteHis analogy referring to Columbus and the New World is horribly misguided, not to mention an alien race capable of deep space travel would have little need to 'colonize' Earth, what with there being an entire UNIVERSE at their disposal. Furthermore, the colonization of America was not a black and white issue of Native Americans getting screwed over, as the French, for instance, were quite civil with the Native tribes, whereas the English were not. YET AGAIN, furthermore, this particular situation can be traced back to the Iroquois control of the Fur Trade, who favored the English due to the French's backing of their rival warring nation.
His analogy of an alien spaceship being as amazing to today's civilization as a 'rocket ship to a caveman' is equally hilarious. This implies that today's society has no concept of aliens, yet we're talking about them RIGHT NOW?! Our imagination has run incredibly wild in the realm of Science Fiction, and while I'm not saying that we'll run into an alien civilization that will come close to mimicking any facet of Science Fiction produced thus far, some of our own technological advances can be traced back to the original Star Trek series in terms of conception.
Stephen Hawking may be a brilliant man, but he's certainly shown that he is indeed an idiot when it comes to understanding a society or the individuals therein.
Yes...they exist in a dimension where time does not exist. It is called heaven and its where God lives.
ReplyDeleteWhen you spend time praising and praying to him; for some reason he shows up with his peace and presence. Funny science cannot seem to understand this nor can it explain where a siguarity comes from. Oh, they can make up something, but that is exactly what it is ... made up. Just like God created the earth; he has the abilty to make material, energy, etc... - man does not. Heck, man cannot even predict the weather 100% accurate within three days.
Stephen Hawking is lost in his own mind maze.