Monday, April 26, 2010

NEVER TRUST AN ALIEN (Stephen Hawking said so)

I have to admit I missed the Discovery Channel show Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking, but I will definitely be looking for an “encore presentation”, since MrMR sent us the item below and both Valerie and x_S commented on it. (See yesterday’s Space Opera post.)

“British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking says aliens are out there, but it could be too dangerous for humans to interact with extraterrestrial life. Hawking claims in a new documentary that intelligent alien lifeforms almost certainly exist, but warns that communicating with them could be "too risky." The 68-year-old scientist says a visit by extraterrestrials to Earth would be like Christopher Columbus arriving in the Americas, "which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans." He speculates most extraterrestrial life will be similar to microbes, or small animals — but adds advanced lifeforms may be "nomads, looking to conquer and colonize." (Click here for more)”

Although I hardly have the ego to bracket myself with Stephen Hawking, I would point out that I explored similar ideas a few months ago on the LOWFI website…

“At this point I need to fill in a few peripheral thoughts I’ve had on the subject of visiting aliens. The very fact that they are visiting here makes them explorers of some kind – whatever else they might be notwithstanding. And on that very basic level, explorers are not to be trusted. They have a ruthlessness that invariably bodes ill for the inhabitants of the places they explore. On Earth, the outstanding explorers – the Dutch, the Spanish, and the English in most recent human history – have cultural roots in piracy and mayhem, and are descendants of buccaneers and long-ship raiders.” (Click here for the whole thing)

Click here for Sheb Wooley

3 comments:

Mark Haspam said...

HUMAN explorers are not to be trusted.

roldo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
roldo said...

Odds are that alien physicists and bloggers are saying the same thing.