How do you see alien cultures?

ChrisIB

Honorable
With their immense experience and data, all arguments will probable have long since been resolved.
They will have all the answers and never be wrong. Perhaps discussion won't exist just rules.
Alternatively they may turn out to be a little boring, like a rather moribund, jaded older relative with little to do but visit evolving planets. But I suppose their AIs could be fun.
If we develop FTL will they restriction us? say it can't be used until there have been no wars for a hundred years?
Might have our history have condemned us?
 

nivek

As Above So Below
You are assuming all alien species out there are more advanced than us?...Or are you referring to those who come visiting here?...

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Rick Hunter

Celestial
I don't know any aliens personally, so all I have to go on is witness accounts. Seems to me like they are alot like us though. Many civilizations and groups, some good, some bad, some in between.
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Not sure that the logic that says 'if they got here they must have it all worked out' is sound. I'd hope so but all it means is that got here somehow. The idea of interstellar conquest doesn't seem practical but again that's an assumption. Harry Harrison had his (very clever and funny) opinions about all that.

Also an assumption that the concept of conquest even applies to them.
 

Rick Hunter

Celestial
Not sure that the logic that says 'if they got here they must have it all worked out' is sound. I'd hope so but all it means is that got here somehow. The idea of interstellar conquest doesn't seem practical but again that's an assumption. Harry Harrison had his (very clever and funny) opinions about all that.

Also an assumption that the concept of conquest even applies to them.

I would guess they have long figured out that it is much easier and effective to devise ways to get what you want from a civilization or place without total conquest. They have been coming here for thousands of years and have intervened at times in our history but never decided to set up shop and take over completely.
 

ChrisIB

Honorable
I reckon once we get out there knowledge will be as common as hydrogen which will have led cultures to homogenize.
A bit like the high street, wherever you go the same chain stores.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Its only an assumption that advanced species are communicating with each other in a positive way and possibly even sharing knowledge, we just do not know that to be so, this is adding a human element in the hypothesis...It might seem logical and common sense but that is our human perspective which may not be applicable to alien thought processes...

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SOUL-DRIFTER

Life Long Researcher
How I see an alien culture...?
That would depend on many different things.
We have had encounters where the contactee had been told by the UFOnauts that they had gone through war either with their own species or another, so not all advanced visitors come from a culture or world of Utopia or a social paradise.
I do believe those that have avoided such things will end up with a free society where machines do most the work. Population is strictly controlled so that waste and resources can also be so controlled. Space and other universe exploration being the big thing to many of them...perhaps.
IMHO
 

Dejan Corovic

As above, so bellow
Science can offer some general idea about aliens, as long as they are locals. It is implied here that they are coming from Milky Way, which we mapped out to a finer detail and whose evolution we understand quite well.

(I'll use here "B" as abbreviation fro Billion)

Milky Way is about 12B years old, while universe is about 13.4B years old. So Milky Way is among the oldest of galaxies in the universe. It took 4.5B years for intelligent life to evolve on Earth. That means that Milky Way should be teaming with intelligent life by now.

Same as we have planetary habitable, Goldilock, zones around stars, we have a galactic habitable zones.

On a scale of solar system the main life creator would be planet, but on a galactic scale it would be a supernova. When supernova goes bang, two things happen, one is that they throw out lots of rocks, second one is they release lots of radioactivity. Lots of rocks is great for life because rocks form into planets, but as we know, radiation is a really nasty show stopper.

So main question here is a balance between good and bad that supernovae produce. Closer to the center of Milky Way stars are packed very close to each other, so much so, that if Earth was located there, at night, the nearest stars would be as bright as street lamps. High star density near galactic center means that when supernovas explode there are lots of nearby planetary system that get completely sterilized by the radiation. So, at the best, near the Milky Way's center life is constantly going through start-stop cycles. Approximately speaking and counting from the center, first third of Milky Way's radius is pretty much dead zone.

Further away from the galactic center, say from the end of the first third of the radius all the way to the rim, conditions for life gradually improve. About 2/3 of radius away from the center, conditions for life are nearly perfect. There is still lots of rocks to form planets, but supernovas are spaced out so far that planetary sterilizations with radiation is not anymore a big deal. And this zone is quite wide, stretching out just a bit less than the whole 2/3 of radius.

And finally, on the very rim of the Milky Way, stars are spaced out so far from each other, that there is simply not enough rocks to form planets and dead zone starts again, this time stretching out into the intergalactic space.

Now, so far that was a nice geometric picture of where the best place for life is. Close to the galactic center is bad, about 2/3 away is just perfect. That's great, but we have to take into the account that 12B passed since Milky Way started forming. Life formed on Earth rather quickly and intelligent life formed after 4.5B years. That tells us that there was plenty of time for intelligent life to evolve all over the Milky Way. Actually, after about 3B years, around that 2/3 spot, conditions for life became almost perfect.

Now all the above was simplified, just to make it easy to understand. When all the maths is crunched and both location along the galactic radius and the galactic history are taken into account, it turns out that 77% of intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way are 3.5B years older than ours. This scientific study was done quite recently, so it means that the best and the most accurate data and the most tried and tested mathematical models were used.

And that is very, very bad, because it tells us that we are far behind the most of Milky Way's intelligent civilizations. We are far more primitive relative to an average Milky Way civilizations than say, Amazonian uncontacted tribes are relative to New Yorkers, since there is only about 15,000 years between these two and 3.5B years between us and aliens. 3.5B years is a lots of time for creation unbelievable technology and discovery of a new scientific principles.

By the way, it's interesting to ask where are we on the galactic radius. Are we any close to that balmy 2/3 of the radius? Unfortunately, here we are completely out of a luck. Sun's planetary system is just outside the central lifeless galactic zone, somewhat on the periphery of the galactic habitable ring. Essentially, as Milky Way got older, less new stars were formed and less supernovae exploded, so the galactic habitable zone started spreading out a bit. We just stroke it lucky because Milky Way aged a bit.

Now enough of science.

Understanding of the evolution of the habitable galactic zone creates a context that leads us to some unpleasant and unexpected conclusions related to UFOs.

First, on the galactic scale, we are worst off than Hilly Billies. So marginal that we have nearly zero negotiation power.

This clearly shows why aliens are arrogant at worst and patronizing at a best when communicating with us. This bigger scientific picture, described above, strongly supports idea of alien abductions. From alien point of view, they would have opportunity to look deep into their own past and the first thing they would like to do would be collecting genetic samples.

Lets say, that situation was reversed, would we do abductions? I would say yes. And even worst, we would most likely hunt and kill them just for sport and than show the chase on reality TV. If we captured a living Neanterthal (or lets say Sasquatch ;-) wouldn't we scoop his skin samples, stick needles and insert tracking devices into him, while it's still alive. Sure we would. Would we cut him into pieces and display him in a museum. Absolutely. Republicans would just say that the captive was an animal, not a human and Democrats would say that he's an important scientific specimen needed to advance our knowledge ;-).

And just for fun, here is a list of supernovae candidates closest to Earth. Nearest one is 150 light years away.

Keep watching the sky ;-)
 
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Kchoo

At Peace.
Personally, I look at the concept of where did WE come from?

If we evolved from scratch, then the previous post was pretty thorough.

But IF we were PUT here, either on purpose to see what would happen, or maybe as a goolag... or a failed attempt at colonizing by otherworlder humans, maybe that would explain a few things, like the somewhat sudden appearance of mankind on Earth...

Perhaps we devolved into cavemen from an advanced but incompatible to Earth state of existance... and re evolved into what we are today.... perhaps we are no longer compatible, but we still look alot like them.
 

spacecase0

earth human
the cycle of civilizations on earth keep us from getting much of anywhere
there is some progress anyway, but then something like a volcano or ice age or end of the ice age wipes it all away again
so at the hard points on earth, I bet the ones that figured out space travel left,
they are likely now back as the aliens.
figure that some of the other planets don't have a species like humans that are prone to the cycle of civilization.
maybe they are a a herd animal, so they just keep developing and get to space way more often than animals like humans
can you imagine what a group like that would think of humans ? They would likely get upset just watching us.
 
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