Are Americans Poised for an Alien Invasion?

[nivek]

Poll: Are Americans Poised for an Alien Invasion?

Many Americans (68%) think there is intelligent life on other planets, up from 52% in 2005. Nearly three in four residents with that belief (74%) say those extraterrestrials are at least as intelligent as human beings. In fact, this includes a plurality (46%) who think the intelligence of extraterrestrials exceeds that of the human race. These results have changed little in more than a decade. But, are these otherworldly beings coming to get us?

A majority (55%) say they will find us before we find them.


Interestingly, Americans under the age of 45 (74%), including 79% of those under 30 years old, and men (72%) are more likely than older Americans (62%) and women (64%) to assert there is life on other planets. Younger Americans (60% of those under the age of 45) are also more likely than older residents (51% of those 45 and older) to think interstellar beings will discover human beings before we find them.

 

[Toroid]

I've found from listening to and reading about people's experiences with aliens that the younger generation is more receptive to the topic.

 

[Caeldeth]

I know that there is intelligent life out there for sure. But I do not exactly believe that there are many civilizations out there that are more advanced than us. There is always a turning point for every advanced civilization, that turning point is war. I believe most advanced civilizations killed themselves off and are extinct. I'm afraid humans will share a similar fate.

 

[nivek]

There is always a turning point for every advanced civilization, that turning point is war. I believe most advanced civilizations killed themselves off and are extinct.

I don't think so, we are only seeing things from a narrow human perspective, there is quite possibly thousands of highly advanced civilizations out there that had no issues or problems with wars, at least not wars against their own species...There could be wars against other advanced civilizations for other reasons we cannot fathom...

 

[humanoidlord]

we arent even dealing with aliens to begin with

 

[nivek]

we arent even dealing with aliens to begin with

Any creature not of this planet can be considered alien...

Do you really think every planet in our universe is devoid of intelligent life?...

 

[humanoidlord]

Any creature not of this planet can be considered alien...

Do you really think every planet in our universe is devoid of intelligent life?...

no, but they will never reach us

 

[CasualBystander]

I've seen estimates that civilizations only last 100,000 years.

In the case of earth if we hadn't started burning fossil fuels animal life would have died off in about 20 million years.

I'm willing to give intelligent life 1,000,000 years as an average.

But that means there isn't much life out there.

Unfortunately interstellar war is far too practical.

You just need to throw rocks at the enemy.

Orbital bombardment is also effective.

 

[nivek]

I've seen estimates that civilizations only last 100,000 years.

In the case of earth if we hadn't started burning fossil fuels animal life would have died off in about 20 million years.

I'm willing to give intelligent life 1,000,000 years as an average.

But that means there isn't much life out there.

Unfortunately interstellar war is far too practical.

You just need to throw rocks at the enemy.

Orbital bombardment is also effective.

So then to survive an advanced species would have to travel in space and relocate to another planet or develop technology to keep thier planet in check...

An orbital bombardment of big rocks is an effective way to get rid of an enemy or get rid of the native life to repopulate it with their own...

 

[CasualBystander]

So then to survive an advanced species would have to travel in space and relocate to another planet or develop technology to keep thier planet in check...

An orbital bombardment of big rocks is an effective way to get rid of an enemy or get rid of the native life to repopulate it with their own...

Hadn't really thought about it but here goes...

Problem is that a successful species would want to set up a galactic empire of hundreds of worlds. But there is a problem.

As is obvious by now, there is about only one habitable world for every 1 million cubic light years. And even that might take some terraforming.

The "Goldlocks Zone" planets that NASA toots are more like "Evil Stepmother" planets.

Mars is as good as anything else they have found so far. And Mars will take a lot of terraforming.

Where does this leave us???

Nobody has a space fleet (like Star Fleet) because unless you have incredibly cheap superluminal travel there is no trade or real planetary interaction.

At those distances, having to travel 100 light years or more to the next planet, about the only thing you send out is colony ships.

And the colony ships are heavily armed. When they arrive if there is a civilization on the planet, they dust them with rocks and then move in.

Now if there is cheap superluminal travel, and these UFOs are it, whatever the drive is it is compact and fits in a small vessel. Or these UFOs are just landing craft and there is something huge parked in Deep Space - such as around Jupiter.

But at one planet 10**9 light years with a Milky Way that is about 3*10**13 cubic ly, there are only about 30,000 habitable planets.

There either aren't many galactic civilizations, or the war for real estate is pretty fierce, or there are a lot of "space only" civilizations.

Don't know what the answer is - but contacting Aliens looks like a bad idea.

 

[nivek]

Yeah intentionally contacting aliens is a bad idea, it's upsetting there are scientists taking it upon themselves to do just that by sending out radio signals to promising planets, even though the signal will take a very long time to reach its destination those scientists could be sealing the fate of humanity on this planet but in the future if we are still around and haven't killed ourselves off yet...

 

[CasualBystander]

Are Americans Poised for an Alien Invasion?

No, of course not. We won't be invading Aliens anytime soon.

Going 100 light years to pester someone is hard to justify, if they haven't pestered you first.

And even if we have a space fleet - there is no sign we have a good space drive.

Yeah intentionally contacting aliens is a bad idea

Unintentionally contacting Aliens is a bad idea too!

 

[nivek]

No, of course not. We won't be invading Aliens anytime soon.

Going 100 light years to pester someone is hard to justify, if they haven't pestered you first.

And even if we have a space fleet - there is no sign we have a good space drive.

Unintentionally contacting Aliens is a bad idea too!

Sadly we don't have the means to stop any invaders either, our computer viruses aren't sophisticated enough nor are our most powerful weapons...If they hurled 3 or 4 big asteroids at our planet we would be doomed...