Do you think there are aliens?

[A Nerd]

One would hope that such an advanced society would not resort to such ancient notions of conquest and subjugation. That seems to be a human trait.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

I think advanced alien civilizations exist somewhere in the Universe.
And even if they watch us I doubt they want to reveal themselves to us currently.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Well the pyramids didn't build themselves...

[LittleGrizzly]

Well the pyramids didn't build themselves...

lol, various youtube video's are coming flooding back to me....

Whilst I never put much stock in it I always liked the idea of Aliens interacting with us thousands and thousands of years ago, maybe even being involved in our evolution and teaching the first langauge ect.

I think there has to be Aliens out there somewhere in the vastness of space whether they have the means to get to us from where they are is another matter and whether they would want to, we wouldn't have much to offer a speicies that can traverse huge distances of space in little time, except maybe slave labour, resources would be easily accessible from other planets I imagine.

[Subotan]

We can only Hope

[A Nerd]

The only thing that concerns me is that scientists have been looking for earth like planets orbiting nearby stars for some time now and all they have found are gas giants. No earth-like planets. I do realise that the technology is in its infancy and small planets like earth are incredibly hard to see (I am taking the vastnes of space into account), I guess it just depresses me. Limited technology and the lack of anything substantial within fathomable distances. Perhaps those Star Trekie things like worm holes and wrinkles in time and space are indeed plausable. I read somewhere (don't quote me) that the creator of Star Trek had some good ideas in theroy. Or was that Jules Verne? Again, don't quote me.

[KukriKhan]

the creator of Star Trek had some good ideas in theroy. Or was that Jules Verne?

Rodenberry Gene Rodenberry. Verne = about 100 years earlier.

[Viking]

Which is no less exotic, I'm sure. Seriously: hibernation is not an option if you want to survive your travels: one needs to eat in order to hibernate; and in order to eat one needs to wake up. So at best you merely prolong the eat-sleep cycle, which incidentally makes hibernation only practical for small-ish aliens because you cannot tend any crops or similar whilst hibernating.

EDIT: There are various other interesting Health & Safety issues regarding to hibernation & space travel, too. Chief among which is that you no longer have the environmental sanity-checks of seasons, gravity, etc. etc. to trigger interrupts in your hibernation, and keep your organs healthy.

It's less exotic because hibernation does exist, and so do multiple generations. You may need to eat, but I think that the idea here is that the amount of energy required to sustain the crew is lowered dramatically. Also, it is not so that all of the crew must be in hibernation mode at the same time. I believe that we could introduce gravity with a spinning space craft without too much trouble? Little friction in space to slow the spinning down.

The only thing that concerns me is that scientists have been looking for earth like planets orbiting nearby stars for some time now and all they have found are gas giants. No earth-like planets. I do realise that the technology is in its infancy and small planets like earth are incredibly hard to see (I am taking the vastnes of space into account), I guess it just depresses me. Limited technology and the lack of anything substantial within fathomable distances. Perhaps those Star Trekie things like worm holes and wrinkles in time and space are indeed plausable. I read somewhere (don't quote me) that the creator of Star Trek had some good ideas in theroy. Or was that Jules Verne? Again, don't quote me.

To my knowledge, the lack of smaller planets is at this time nothing at all to worry about. The smaller the planets are, the more precise must the instruments be; so essentially, the lack of instruments that are precise enough is the sole reason at this point in time.

Not to mention even if you did travel to an alien world in hibernation at the speed of light, by the time you returned to earth or vice versa thousands of years will have passed. The founders of the project will be long dead and the space traveler will be out of place and lose his/her understanding of the civilization he/she left.

The nearest alien solar system is just about 4 light years away, and within a radius of 50 l.y. you can find quite a few more, I believe. Though yes, things like that are problematic; and the reason why I wanted to introduce hibernation is because we didn't want to try to travel near the speed of light.

[Jolt]

Well the pyramids didn't build themselves...

Of course not, the egyptians had Caustic Soda and Mineral Geosynthethis knowledge already, making building pyramids a heck lot easier, and not needing alien help.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Usually, we do not allow a thread started by a single word or phrase to live. The Collective has ruled on this.

In this case, permission is granted to continue. This will help maintain the fantasy that you are actually free-thinking individuals.

Resistance, it should be noted, is futile.

[KukriKhan]

This will help maintain the fantasy that you are actually free-thinking individuals.

LOL. We appreciate the indulgence. I, for one, appreciate my backroom brothers' speculation on this matter. It brings me thoughts I haven't thunk for awhile.

[gaelic cowboy]

One would hope that such an advanced society would not resort to such ancient notions of conquest and subjugation. That seems to be a human trait.

One would hope so but it is not a thing I would bet the house on to quickly notions of peaceful aliens would be human trait too the chance is maybe 50/50 of death by contact.

In any closed eco-system the introduction of an exotic species will mean the extinction of the weaker one. This extinction is not necessarily caused by predation one may be better at using the resources at there disposal to survive hence leaving none for the weaker one.

[A Nerd]

One would hope that interaction between established civilizations would include some capacity at reason that lower species, like animals, lack. This coupled with our own understanding of the evolution of human nature and all its vices would lead me to believe, hopefully, an encounter not by chance would lead to some formal conversation that could benefit both civiliazations. Even if one is less developed than the other, for the more advanced culture made perhaps a huge effort to reach the lesser developed one. It would seem the more advanced civilization from across space would not invade another merely for slaves or resources (considering the benifits of occupied and unoccupied worlds and there being so many of them). Maintaining an empire on such an enormous scale just seems impossible and pointless. There are diseases to concern oneself with, but with the capacity to effortlessly span space one would think that disease wouldn't be too much of a problem either. But I digress, erratication of the lesser civilization would be swift anyway, again due to the before mentioned.

edit: apologizes, I posted before I read the one above.