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> Aliens being non-peaceful fails so many logic tests though. I've seen this sentiment expressed before, but it's never seemed persuasive. Seems to me that the

> Aliens being non-peaceful fails so many logic tests though. I've seen this sentiment expressed before, but it's never seemed persuasive. Seems to me that the only inherently peaceful alien race would be the one that never had the evolutionary pressure to compete for resources - and that seems like an impossible occurrence.

gremlinsinc 5y ago
What resource could we have they could possibly want? I mean there's a HUGE universe out there and resources are EVERYWHERE, every element. All over the place. Seems our only use is the same as we'd have: Zoo.
yumraj 5y ago
> Seems to me that the only inherently peaceful alien race would be the one that never had the evolutionary pressure to compete for resources - and that seems like an impossible occurrence. Not only that, but the moment that peaceful species encounters a non-peaceful species it would be wiped out, as evidenced by numerous extinct, or in the verge of being extinct, species on planet Earth. So peaceful species are going to be short lived and may not last much, in Universe times, to have too much contact with other species.
- userulluipeste 5y ago
  The history in this case may not be the best teacher. The previous instances of wiped species happened when self control was not part of the setting. Space travel has a high bar to enter and is forcing any contender to achieve a high degree of self control. Any further action from someone like that will have to have either deliberate or unnoticed consequences.
gfodor 5y ago
Some resources are more scarce than others. If you have effectively infinite matter and energy, the scarce resources shift to things like conscious attention, low-entropy regions, and time-co-locality. Almost none of which are attained by invading and destroying another civilization. On the contrary, doing so actually would arguably evaporate resources you care about.
ryandvm 5y ago
Maybe it's a Great Filter kind of thing. Most civilizations probably continually decimate themselves in a never-ending series of self-inflicted cataclysms every time they build up their energy capability. If you've mastered enough energy to arrive at another solar system in force, you already had to figure out how to live peacefully with many billions of individuals.
- krapp 5y ago
  Billions of individuals of their own species. There's no reason to assume they would feel empathy towards other intelligent species. We coexist with intelligent animal species on Earth, and at best we consider their intelligence a novelty. If other apes began to speak and reason as we do, do you think we'd grant them property rights and a vote? No, we'd probably just slaughter them. It seems more likely to me that an advanced alien species would see us the way we see animals, rather than as like themselves.
userulluipeste 5y ago
Yes, we are resource hungry, and yes we inadvertently wiped out species, but as resource pressured as we are, we also managed to intentionally allocate some to prevent that undesired effect in the future. We did some bad stuff when we were younger (as a species), but we grew since then. We're more considerative now (or at least that's what we'd like to convince ourselves of). Maybe, in the same line of thought, we'll get the same benefit from others even more mature than us?
swader999 5y ago
If a species can master interstellar travel, then they can probably harness enough energy to change elements at the atomic level - alchemy. They won't need us for our resources or even earth. And if they did, they would have taken us already.
- krapp 5y ago
  >If a species can master interstellar travel, then they can probably harness enough energy to change elements at the atomic level - alchemy Not even advanced aliens can get around the laws of thermodynamics - that would take far more energy than any resource it creates could possibly be worth. But, they wouldn't even need to, because they can find abundant supplies of whatever resources they wanted anywhere. Even in our own solar system, they would be far better off mining our asteroid belt and Jovian planets and not even acknowledging our existence.

gremlinsinc 5y ago

What resource could we have they could possibly want? I mean there's a HUGE universe out there and resources are EVERYWHERE, every element. All over the place. Seems our only use is the same as we'd have: Zoo.

yumraj 5y ago

> Seems to me that the only inherently peaceful alien race would be the one that never had the evolutionary pressure to compete for resources - and that seems like an impossible occurrence. Not only that, but the moment that peaceful species encounters a non-peaceful species it would be wiped out, as evidenced by numerous extinct, or in the verge of being extinct, species on planet Earth. So peaceful species are going to be short lived and may not last much, in Universe times, to have too much contact with other species.

userulluipeste 5y ago
The history in this case may not be the best teacher. The previous instances of wiped species happened when self control was not part of the setting. Space travel has a high bar to enter and is forcing any contender to achieve a high degree of self control. Any further action from someone like that will have to have either deliberate or unnoticed consequences.

gfodor 5y ago

Some resources are more scarce than others. If you have effectively infinite matter and energy, the scarce resources shift to things like conscious attention, low-entropy regions, and time-co-locality. Almost none of which are attained by invading and destroying another civilization. On the contrary, doing so actually would arguably evaporate resources you care about.

ryandvm 5y ago

Maybe it's a Great Filter kind of thing. Most civilizations probably continually decimate themselves in a never-ending series of self-inflicted cataclysms every time they build up their energy capability. If you've mastered enough energy to arrive at another solar system in force, you already had to figure out how to live peacefully with many billions of individuals.

krapp 5y ago
Billions of individuals of their own species. There's no reason to assume they would feel empathy towards other intelligent species. We coexist with intelligent animal species on Earth, and at best we consider their intelligence a novelty. If other apes began to speak and reason as we do, do you think we'd grant them property rights and a vote? No, we'd probably just slaughter them. It seems more likely to me that an advanced alien species would see us the way we see animals, rather than as like themselves.

userulluipeste 5y ago

Yes, we are resource hungry, and yes we inadvertently wiped out species, but as resource pressured as we are, we also managed to intentionally allocate some to prevent that undesired effect in the future. We did some bad stuff when we were younger (as a species), but we grew since then. We're more considerative now (or at least that's what we'd like to convince ourselves of). Maybe, in the same line of thought, we'll get the same benefit from others even more mature than us?

swader999 5y ago

If a species can master interstellar travel, then they can probably harness enough energy to change elements at the atomic level - alchemy. They won't need us for our resources or even earth. And if they did, they would have taken us already.

krapp 5y ago
>If a species can master interstellar travel, then they can probably harness enough energy to change elements at the atomic level - alchemy Not even advanced aliens can get around the laws of thermodynamics - that would take far more energy than any resource it creates could possibly be worth. But, they wouldn't even need to, because they can find abundant supplies of whatever resources they wanted anywhere. Even in our own solar system, they would be far better off mining our asteroid belt and Jovian planets and not even acknowledging our existence.