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> ...any time a more technologically advanced civilization has come across a less technologically advanced civilization, it has never ended well for the less te
by zhdc1 5y ago
> ...any time a more technologically advanced civilization has come across a less technologically advanced civilization, it has never ended well for the less technologically advanced civilization.
This assumes resource competition, which isn't a guarantee. Colonialism was driven by the need for open markets, resources, and vanity satisfaction from a declining class of European elites.
It's very likely that we don't have anything that a technologically advanced civilization would actually need. In this case, the situation would be more akin to Amazon coexisting with brick and mortar coffee shops, and less like Netflix competing with video rental shops.
- atweiden 5y ago> This assumes resource competition, which isn't a guarantee. Colonialism was driven by the need for open markets, resources, and vanity satisfaction from a declining class of European elites. What about enslavement? Here Hawkings / Neil deGrasse Tyson make another interesting point: any civilization which could peacefully colonize a galaxy is not the kind of civilization that would colonize the galaxy at all. The very act of wanting to colonize self-selects for violence/exploitation. > It's very likely that we don't have anything that a technologically advanced civilization would actually need. In this case, the situation would be more akin to Amazon coexisting with brick and mortar coffee shops, and less like Netflix competing with video rental shops. Surely any civilization advanced enough to master interstellar travel would be better than we are at gathering intelligence and predicting humanity’s next move, which for all we know might threaten their interests. If extraterrestrials are silently monitoring humans, isn’t it more likely to be for intelligence gathering purposes than for altruistic reasons? If the monitoring were intended to be altruistic, where’s the proof of the altruism?
- throwaway316943 5y agoWhat would be the point of a galaxy spanning civilization enslaving other species? We’re single planet savages and we’re getting close to building universal robots that can perform all of our labor, at the most it will be another half century. At that point any non bioengineered organism will be slower, weaker, less durable and less replaceable. It’s much more likely that we just don’t have anything they want.
- zhdc1 5y agoI don't even know if we can argue that there is an economic point to enslaving other humans (look at rates of industrialism in ex-slave owning regions).
- krapp 5y agoThere are more people in slavery now than there were during the transantlantic slave trade. It's a multi-billion dollar trans-national black market economy. Neither the Industrial Revolution nor abolition have even slowed it down.
- adrianN 5y agoYou should adjust your numbers for population growth.
- zhdc1 5y ago> If extraterrestrials are silently monitoring humans, isn’t it more likely to be for intelligence gathering purposes than for altruistic reasons? Why? The Gulf War showed that a gap of ~eleven years of advancement was enough to lead to arguably the largest one-sided victory in the history of warfare. There is no need for an advanced civilisation to silently monitor us for nefarious purposes. All they have to do is show up. > If the monitoring were intended to be altruistic, where’s the proof of the altruism? If we are being monitored, the fact that we're not aware of it is likely sufficient proof that their intentions aren't inherently malicious. Whether or not this means that their intentions are altruistic is another argument. However, if we are in fact being monitored, it's far more likely that we're supporting a bunch of intergalactic Ph.D. theses - and maybe a documentary or two - than putting ourselves in the sights of some malevolent conquering race.
- zhdc1 5y agoSplitting my response into two comments. > any civilization which could peacefully colonize a galaxy is not the kind of civilization that would colonize the galaxy at all. The very act of wanting to colonize self-selects for violence/exploitation. This isn't necessarily true. Colonizing is simply the act of moving to a different piece of land. Violence and exploitation occurs when colonists are engaged in resource competition. It's not hard to imagine that, given high enough levels of technological development and the overall size of the universe, a colonizing civilisation can pre-select and coexist with existing occupants. To put it another way, two hundred years ago, if I wanted to move a bunch of Europeans to what are now Addis Ababa or Bangkok, I would have to "colonize" the area. Now, all I would have to do is buy (multiple) apartments, or a plot of land or two and build a gated retirement community.
- adrianN 5y agoWe have a planet that is quite suitable for carbon based life forms. Those might be worth something to interstellar intelligences.
- throwaway316943 5y agoUnlikely if you can just build your own habitat. Who wants to live at the bottom of an annoying gravity well on a filthy rock with uncontrollable weather and geological processes that’s infested with non-engineered microbes? Maybe for a weekend camping expedition but you wouldn’t want to live there.
- adrianN 5y agoMaybe you can't and all you do is send semi-autonomous drones containing DNA and sophisticated 3d printers.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y agoI think it's more likely that any sufficiently advanced civilization capable of monitoring earth, relatively undetected, has evolved beyond the types of problems that compose the way we view everything. Assuming that mundane explanations have been systematically and thoroughly refuted I'd posit we're the curiosity of the extraterrestrial version of something along the lines of a zoologist, student, or voyeur.