# Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists



## skycloud86 (Jul 15, 2009)

> It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim.
> 
> Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.
> 
> ...


Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists | Science | The Guardian


----------



## MiriMiriAru (May 1, 2011)

I think these scientists have been watching/reading a bit too much science fiction.

I find it considerably unlikely that our planet would be being observed by extraterrestrial life forms, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, they would have to be pretty close to even _see_ our planet, let alone be able to do things like check atmospheric temperature and composition. We have to work out whether planets exist in extra-solar star systems by observing the gravitational effects of the planets on the stars they orbit. We can't see them. Granted, the technology of space-faring aliens is probably vastly superior to ours, but it's still unlikely that they could view something as small as the earth from such a great distance in any significant detail.

Secondly, it is unlikely they would be close enough to begin with. The nearest star to us, Proxima Centauri, is a little over 4 light years away, while the nearest star with a planet possibly capable of sustaining life, Gliese 581, is a little over 20. There is not a particularly great probability that intelligent life, let alone intelligent life capable of space travel, would have evolved there, and so they would originate somewhere even further away. That's pretty far away. It would take an incredible amount of time to travel that distance, so long in fact, that these aliens would have had to commence their journey before radio transmissions (which are supposedly responsible for attracting extraterrestrial attention in the first place) of any kind ever occurred on earth. It's possible that the journey could have begun for human civilisation even existed. But if this were the case, why would they have bothered coming here?

Thirdly, given the great distances involved, and time required to cross them, how could humanity be seen as a threat to anything beyond our solar system. Considering it would take _generations _to reach even the nearest star to ours, would we even bother? The odds of such a long distance voyage surviving to reach it's destination would not be too great, there are far to many variables involved.

Finally, the scientists are attributing very human motives to these hypothetical aliens. This is pretty silly as, while it's impossible to know what any alien life form would be like, I can be quite safe assuming that in every way, from their physical form, to their deepest desires and drives (if they have such things), they would be totally _alien_.


----------



## dusttrust (Mar 4, 2011)

In my opinion, alien beings could or would be more likely to benefits from collaboration with us. I think so because in nature collaboration will often bring good results, if not the best results. As above so bellow we say. I guess in space the same rule apply.

However there are cases like parasites or viruses which their benefits may come with the death or sickness of their victims. I guess this depends on a lot of things.

Take this as an exemple. If Herman Cortéz and other explorers would have had collaborate with amerindians, our own knowledge would have had increased, just as their. Even today, many centuries after, we miss a lot of their knowledge. Peruvian shamanism is a good exemple: They can heal with a lot of plants that we know no uses, and they are capable of emotional healing with psychedelics, which we still find hard to do.


----------



## RobynC (Jun 10, 2011)

Many those climate-change alarmists won't stop at anything in order to advance their objective. They'll contort and manipulate data, use relentless fear-mongering; now they're telling us _(quite interestingly, right after CERN carried out an experiment that showed climate change was affected by cosmic rays)_ aliens will destroy us to protect other civilizations from us? Does it ever end?


BTW: Does anybody here remember Paul Krugman saying that a fake Alien Invasion would help restore our economy? What's with all this talk about aliens lately?


----------



## ALNF1031 (Jul 27, 2011)

Well I remember a show or something where Stephen Hawking said that we only need to look at ourselves to see what intelligent life might be like, and also that if aliens do visit Earth, that it might be like when colonizers first met the natives, which, he says, didn't turn out so well for the natives.


----------



## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

Don't believe everything a scientist says. Not even Stephen Hawking (even though in this case he is probably right)

Run these things through a critical filter. Zombie Jesus above post is a prime example of how this is done.


----------



## ALNF1031 (Jul 27, 2011)

sprinkles said:


> Don't believe everything a scientist says. Not even Stephen Hawking (even though in this case he is probably right)
> 
> Run these things through a critical filter. Zombie Jesus above post is a prime example of how this is done.


I do. I found it logical to assume.


----------



## Donkey D Kong (Feb 14, 2011)

It would be illogical to assume that an alien race could even reach our planet. As Zombie Jesus said, the nearest star with planets that could sustain intelligent life is light years away. It would be basically impossible for them to reach our planet considering the amount of time it would take for them to get here, especially since it seems impossible to imagine that something could live for hundreds-of-thousands of years.


----------



## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

Axe said:


> It would be illogical to assume that an alien race could even reach our planet. As Zombie Jesus said, the nearest star with planets that could sustain intelligent life is light years away. It would be basically impossible for them to reach our planet considering the amount of time it would take for them to get here, especially since it seems impossible to imagine that something could live for hundreds-of-thousands of years.


Also by the time they found out we were here, it's quite possible that we won't exist anymore to begin with. And even IF they could detect us, and we were still here, what they are detecting would effectively be our distant past, and not our present.


----------



## MiriMiriAru (May 1, 2011)

Axe said:


> It would be illogical to assume that an alien race could even reach our planet. As Zombie Jesus said, the nearest star with planets that could sustain intelligent life is light years away. It would be basically impossible for them to reach our planet considering the amount of time it would take for them to get here, especially since it seems impossible to imagine that something could live for hundreds-of-thousands of years.


If some race of (from our perspective) immortal beings did show up, for whatever reason (although it would be unlikely to be to investigate our signals, for the reason @sprinkles mentioned), it would be unlikely they'd see us as little better than the other animals on the earth (although considerably more destructive than the other species). We'd be a curiosity, if that. I doubt that we'd even be able to communicate with such beings. Aside from the mechanics of such a task, our frames of reference would be so vastly different it would be effectively pointless.

In any event, contact with any alien species, intelligent or otherwise could be a potential disaster for all of humanity, for the reasons Stephen Hawking pointed out. But it is exceedingly unlikely. Unless we are talking microbes on meteorites or other planets. That's more likely, and more concerning.


----------



## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

Yeah. What's also interesting is that this works inversely, as well. 

For example, if a star is 4 light years away, and assuming that nothing can travel faster than light, this means that the information we have on it is at least 4 years old, _if not older_, depending on the type of information it is and the speed at which it propagates. 

This effectively means that a distant civilization could be invisible to us if the information sent from it is older than our own civilization. Some types of information could take longer than the age of the earth to propagate, depending on how far away it originated.


----------



## Nearsification (Jan 3, 2010)

Why is whenever scientist speak they get a story? Anyone could come up with these possiblites. Most Movies and TV shows already have.

They could destroy us...Or we could be friends! Nice theory. 

I mean was it a slow news week or something?


----------



## MiriMiriAru (May 1, 2011)

Nearsification said:


> Why is whenever scientist speak they get a story? Anyone could come up with these possiblites. Most Movies and TV shows already have.
> 
> They could destroy us...Or we could be friends! Nice theory.
> 
> I mean was it a slow news week or something?


Because the media loves to cause alarm. Scientists frequently like to discuss possibilities that relate to their work, but it doesn't necessarily mean they expect these things to eventuate. However, the media knows that the average person views science as a kind of magic, and will often take speculation as accurate predictions of the future.


----------

