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We'd ignore them, and a bunch of people on HN would militantly deny that they couldn't possibly have navigated the vast distances across space to get here. The

We'd ignore them, and a bunch of people on HN would militantly deny that they couldn't possibly have navigated the vast distances across space to get here. Then we die from their space smallpox.

gruez 6y ago
>and a bunch of people on HN would militantly deny that they couldn't possibly have navigated the vast distances across space to get here. This is a mischaracterization of their position. What those people probably meant is that given an unexplained phenomena, the chances that an alien involved is small, therefore we should look for more benign and more likely explanations. It doesn't mean that if an unambiguously alien ship showed up on earth that they'll deny its existence.
kiba 6y ago
Then we die from their space smallpox. Unlikely we will die from their version of smallpox, because they aren't likely to share human DNA. Remember, we are literally surrounded by viruses. We eat them all the time. The vast majority are completely harmless anyway. They have their specific targets.
- cgriswald 6y ago
  I don’t share your confidence. We’d be exposed to multitudes of new viruses any one of which could potentially find a host in us. We’d have no specific defenses and they may have novel (to Earth life) means of infecting hosts.
koolba 6y ago
Don’t forget the part where instead of trying to create something useful from the vast technological advances that they’d provide, we instead use it to compute cryptographic hashes slightly faster than the week prior.
platz 6y ago
What if they are like a space fungus.
dang 6y ago
Could you please follow the site guidelines when posting here? They include: "Don't be snarky." "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- King-Aaron 6y ago
  Oh, okay :)

We'd ignore them, and a bunch of people on HN would militantly deny that they couldn't possibly have navigated the vast distances across space to get here. Then we die from their space smallpox.

gruez 6y ago

>and a bunch of people on HN would militantly deny that they couldn't possibly have navigated the vast distances across space to get here. This is a mischaracterization of their position. What those people probably meant is that given an unexplained phenomena, the chances that an alien involved is small, therefore we should look for more benign and more likely explanations. It doesn't mean that if an unambiguously alien ship showed up on earth that they'll deny its existence.

kiba 6y ago

Then we die from their space smallpox. Unlikely we will die from their version of smallpox, because they aren't likely to share human DNA. Remember, we are literally surrounded by viruses. We eat them all the time. The vast majority are completely harmless anyway. They have their specific targets.

cgriswald 6y ago
I don’t share your confidence. We’d be exposed to multitudes of new viruses any one of which could potentially find a host in us. We’d have no specific defenses and they may have novel (to Earth life) means of infecting hosts.

koolba 6y ago

Don’t forget the part where instead of trying to create something useful from the vast technological advances that they’d provide, we instead use it to compute cryptographic hashes slightly faster than the week prior.

platz 6y ago

What if they are like a space fungus.

dang 6y ago

Could you please follow the site guidelines when posting here? They include: "Don't be snarky." "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

King-Aaron 6y ago
Oh, okay :)