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The technology required to invade another star system is advanced enough that there's no good reason to invade Earth. Our resources are pitiful compared to what's available out in space, we're not advanced enough to be viable trading partners, we're not dangerous enough to pose a threat to them, our physiology is so different from theirs that there's no possible hope of using humans as laboratory test subjects for any sort of research, and really the only ones who'd be interested in us at all are scientists who specialize in alien life forms, who would choose to observe us via long-range unmanned probes rather than enter our solar system themselves.

The most likely scenario for Earth being attacked by aliens would essentially require a species so vast and numerous that in order to survive, they need to eat pretty much everything that's alive on entire planets and still need more food. Our technology is hopeless against such an enemy, as we do not have enough firepower to stop them. Nuclear weapons do not have blast radii large enough to dent their armies enough to even deter them from attacking anything, they'd simply start running their troops over the blast site the moment it cooled off enough for their troops to survive, and their numbers would be so vast that they wouldn't bother with the concept of body armor since they can simply take pretty much any number of casualties and keep sending troops in.

Their ranged weaponry would be incredibly advanced compared to ours. The anti-vehicle weapons their infantry carry would probably go through an Abrams the long way, and our most advanced body armor wouldn't stop their more common weapons.

We could kill them, yes. They'd be biological life forms who die when enough damage is inflicted to their bodies. But we don't have enough bullets to stop them, and they don't really care how many of them we kill, so they don't really do things like "suppression" and they opt for something called "human wave attacks" better described as something akin to the WH40k Ork green tide, only, um, they'd outnumber Orks.

However, that's an extremely unlikely scenario. Most civilizations that develop interstellar capabilities will end up being fairly peaceful, as the more violent ones will tend to wipe themselves out before getting that far. Humans are borderline in this regard, we might wipe ourselves out, we might not, so most aliens that are out there will be less bloodthirsty and violent than humans, and we're likely to be the warmongers of the universe if we manage to get out there.

There are still plenty of doomsday scenarios that can kill us. Supernovae and Hypernovae could wipe out all life on Earth at any moment with no warning if they happen close enough to Earth. The Grey Goo doomsday scenario involves malfunctioning nanites reproducing out of control and simply turning every scrap of matter on Earth into more nanites, which would result in our entire planet becoming nanites. Climate change is melting the polar ice caps as we speak, and the amount of water that will be added to Earth's oceans will flood a lot of coastal regions, which will severely damage a lot of cities like New York. Meteorite impacts remain an everpresent threat, and our tracking systems don't catch everything, but we do have the technology to shift an asteroid's trajectory so that it will miss Earth if we discover that a dangerous one is on a collision course early enough. There's always the threat of a serious pandemic that can kill a lot of humans. Our machines gaining sentience and trying to kill us is unlikely, as our computers are not THAT advanced yet and we purposefully build our machines so that humans are not killed when they malfunction, and actually launching nuclear weapons requires a human military officer to turn a physical key in a process that no computer can override, so all that computers could do there is display information to try to convince our military to launch the nukes, but the EMPs from nuclear weapons are incredibly destructive to computers but harmless to humans, so if they killed us, they'd kill a lot of themselves, too. A black hole could wander into our solar system and disrupt our planet's orbit in a way that sends Earth out of the solar system, causing us to all freeze to death as we drift helplessly out of the habitable zone.

In regards to AI specifically, I think a more likely thing that would happen if something like The Internet became sentient, is that it wouldn't try to wipe out humanity in a direct assault. It would probably try to change our species for the better by subtly manipulating us into a less offensive species, since, well, the Internet can't exactly survive without humans being around, and we like our technology too much to simply shut it off, and something like the Internet is more likely to be further advanced and improved upon than replaced, so humans would be willingly providing it with upgrades and continued existence, so we wouldn't be a threat to it.


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 timetowaste85 wrote:
Aliens don't wanna get involved with us. We're like that hot and crazy chick. You know it would be fun, but you just don't stick your alien dick in crazy. Besides, humans are the gonorrhea of the universe.

More than likely we'll kill ourselves. Hopefully it's after my future grandkids are no longer around either so they don't have to deal with it.

The question is more whether human and alien biology is even compatible for enjoyable relations. Also, will humans even find aliens the least bit appealing sexually? Our fiction displays aliens as very, very human-like, but it's pretty much only because human actors are required in some way and it costs more money to create creatures for movies that aren't human-like, and the further away from humans you go, the more expensive it gets.

An interesting thought is how humans will react to aliens. There are likely to be a great many religious groups who will be somewhere between surprised and infuriated that any religion aliens have does not line up whatsoever with any human religion beyond the kinds of parallels used to "prove" that Nostradamus' vague predictions predicted things... you know, after they already happened and people start connecting the dots.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
It appears you're a bit off on that and looking at an action that was taken back in September for specific varieties in Hawaii. The wild bumblebee species mentioned for listing was once prominent throughout half of the lower 48 and parts of Canada, but now it's numbers and range are in dramatic retreat.

Also, as the article posted below points out, these bees are not domesticated, commercial honey bees. Their numbers are not what is being discussed here.

Ah, fair enough, this is a new species in addition to those hawaiian species already noted as endangered. Still you will take the correction that it is a single bumblebee species that is in danger, not all bumblebees, as you previously said.

 sebster wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
It appears you're a bit off on that and looking at an action that was taken back in September for specific varieties in Hawaii. The wild bumblebee species mentioned for listing was once prominent throughout half of the lower 48 and parts of Canada, but now it's numbers and range are in dramatic retreat.

Also, as the article posted below points out, these bees are not domesticated, commercial honey bees. Their numbers are not what is being discussed here.

Ah, fair enough, this is a new species in addition to those hawaiian species already noted as endangered. Still you will take the correction that it is a single bumblebee species that is in danger, not all bumblebees, as you previously said.

I'm impressed by your concern for the potential extinction of one species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

Human activity is causing an ongoing mass extinction event comparable to only five others in Earth's past. Remember learning about the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs? Have you heard about the time Earth got a hard hit from a gamma ray burst from a supernova?

That's the kind of destruction we've been causing to our planet's biosphere, and are continuing to cause.

We are driving the Great White Shark and uncounted numbers of other species into extinction without even making an active effort to do so.

Hmm....on the alien lifeforms thing....that's assuming that, quite unlike our own species, they're not completely and utterly insane.

Seriously. As a species, we're utterly Hatstand. We prey on each other, deny each other basics when we ultimately live in an abundant society etc.

Who's to say alien life forms aren't similarly unhinged, and won't come visiting just for the lol, or start a war we can't possibly win as their take on frying ants with a magnifying glass?

Just because your technology is advanced, doesn't mean you're rational.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hmm....on the alien lifeforms thing....that's assuming that, quite unlike our own species, they're not completely and utterly insane.

Seriously. As a species, we're utterly Hatstand. We prey on each other, deny each other basics when we ultimately live in an abundant society etc.

Who's to say alien life forms aren't similarly unhinged, and won't come visiting just for the lol, or start a war we can't possibly win as their take on frying ants with a magnifying glass?

Just because your technology is advanced, doesn't mean you're rational.

Humans barely managed to avoid starting a global nuclear war. A species more bloodthirsty than humans would end up wiping itself out when it entered the atomic age and wouldn't survive long enough to become a spacefaring civilization.

I suppose it's theoretically possible that an alien species somehow decided to just be complete jerks to all alien species and go around wiping out inhabited worlds.

However, we'd have no way to resist such a species, and their technology would be capable of destroying all life on Earth without any hope of us retaliating.

Essentially, experts examine the situation, and come to the conclusion that if an alien vessel ever shows up in our solar system, we're all about to die, or worse. There is no reasonable scenario where aliens show up in Sol in the modern era and humanity does not suffer immensely or go extinct as a result.

It's not like we can do anything about it, though.

I dunno.

We're also pretty good as thievey-little-tech-monkies.

If an Alien ship did crash, we'd soon have it hot-wired and reverse engineered. Then god help the galaxy....

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I dunno.

We're also pretty good as thievey-little-tech-monkies.

If an Alien ship did crash, we'd soon have it hot-wired and reverse engineered. Then god help the galaxy....

Yup.

We show up to the universe armed with a single vessel that was too damaged to stay in orbit properly but somehow survived re-entry with enough systems intact to figure out it was a spaceship, and not only that, but we can understand every part of it. We repaired it with our current know-how and general lack of understanding of how the systems work or any sort of comprehension of the alien language the computers work in. Magically we develop the capability to produce similar ships of our own.

Then we encounter an alien military vessel, and initiate an attack because humans are jerks like that.

At which point, the military vessel hails us and questions what we're doing.

At which point we find out we reverse-engineered a civilian spacecraft with minimal defensive capabilties.

Oh, wait, you mean you think we managed to shoot down one of their military spaceships while they're attacking Earth?

Adorable. But no, that's not gonna happen. That's the kind of thing you can do when you have weapons that are actually a threat to alien military spacecraft, and, well, we do not.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I dunno.

We're also pretty good as thievey-little-tech-monkies.

If an Alien ship did crash, we'd soon have it hot-wired and reverse engineered. Then god help the galaxy....

If conspiracy history is to be believed all we'd be getting are advanced forms of velcro, tin foil and pens that write upside down. Maybe a test bed of aircraft that spin...then blow up.

Advanced speculums are a possibility.

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I dunno.

We're also pretty good as thievey-little-tech-monkies.

If an Alien ship did crash, we'd soon have it hot-wired and reverse engineered. Then god help the galaxy....

If conspiracy history is to be believed all we'd be getting are advanced forms of velcro, tin foil and pens that write upside down. Maybe a test bed of aircraft that spin...then blow up.

Advanced speculums are a possibility.

Right now, our technology is lagging way the hell behind our science. We know how to make some pretty god damned powerful things, but we lack the resources and production capacity to actually make them.

For example, we have a pulse laser device which, if we could make enough of them and provide the electrical power to have them operating continuously, would convert our planet's atmosphere to plasma and cause enough damage to the Moon to push it out of Earth's orbit.

We also have theoretical ways of attacking planets which, erm, well, it's not so much that it wipes out civilization in one shot, it's more that the entire planet explodes into a rapidly-expanding cloud of plasma brighter than the Sun which scours the surfaces of Venus and Mars clean when it reaches them, and the explosion sends debris out into the universe which is detectable hundreds of light years away. We may in fact have had some such debris impact our own atmosphere with extremely catastrophic results, which no one really noticed because the debris consists of about 11 protons thus far. Though actually, come to think of it, those protons were from exploding galaxies, not exploding planets.

The concept of a galaxy that explodes is, erm, interesting.

I particularly favor the concept of a nuclear wasteland similar to (madmax/bethesdas fallout) where a war spirals out of control with escalation of force leaving decimated continents, people mutated beyond recognition and having devolved to a piracy/raider tribal society for any who are left. On a note much closer to real possibility, the book One Second After is not only an excellent read but an eye opener as well.

naxium wrote:
I particularly favor the concept of a nuclear wasteland similar to (madmax/bethesdas fallout) where a war spirals out of control with escalation of force leaving decimated continents, people mutated beyond recognition and having devolved to a piracy/raider tribal society for any who are left. On a note much closer to real possibility, the book One Second After is not only an excellent read but an eye opener as well.

I love that book! It's pretty scary though, since it is something that could happen. We are so dependent on high technology these days, as well as things like cars, supermarkets full of food, drug stores, and a lot of other things. Take all that away, and we're back to the 1800s, except law and order will have broken down as well, possibly leading to the rise of various local warlords and roving gangs of barbarians. Either way, most people who die as a result of an EMP attack will most likely die of starvation and disease.

 Pouncey wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
It appears you're a bit off on that and looking at an action that was taken back in September for specific varieties in Hawaii. The wild bumblebee species mentioned for listing was once prominent throughout half of the lower 48 and parts of Canada, but now it's numbers and range are in dramatic retreat.

Also, as the article posted below points out, these bees are not domesticated, commercial honey bees. Their numbers are not what is being discussed here.

Ah, fair enough, this is a new species in addition to those hawaiian species already noted as endangered. Still you will take the correction that it is a single bumblebee species that is in danger, not all bumblebees, as you previously said.

I'm impressed by your concern for the potential extinction of one species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

Human activity is causing an ongoing mass extinction event comparable to only five others in Earth's past. Remember learning about the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs? Have you heard about the time Earth got a hard hit from a gamma ray burst from a supernova?

That's the kind of destruction we've been causing to our planet's biosphere, and are continuing to cause.

We are driving the Great White Shark and uncounted numbers of other species into extinction without even making an active effort to do so.

On the point of humans killing other species without the intention to do so is my point about aliens. What if they do something that effects our planet or solar system with no serious ill intent or malice but rather lack of care or knowledge of what they're doing?

With the case of a species more bloodthirsty than humans i think you underestimate other animals. I remember hearing some of the smarter animals though scavengers were also apex predators. In fact most successful species are actually pretty freaking violent and intelligent. They also form societies. I think it was said by Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal that most species are actually cruel and if they're not you should be worried as that's a byproduct of another species (such as dogs being human pets i'm sure). I think the end statement was there are nice species around....i call them food (as aggressive species like humans tend to eat them).

Saying that alien species are peaceful by nature is in my opinion wishful thinking. Besides just because humans want to preserve themselves doesn't mean they're not violent. If a result ended in mutual destruction humanity would stop dead in its tracks from initiating said war or stop the war cold (long as we're talking nuclear annihilation). People would probably find a way around it to benefit their side (like the devices the usa is making to counter nukes shooting off or misguiding them or whatever). People are violent this is the norm. It's part of who we are and many species are just like this. I mean look at the most successful of the human nations. How much do those nations go to war (russia, usa, china)? I think it's safe to say it's actually pretty normal for powerful nations to exert their military power from time to time. Empires partly existed to trade and science but without military how would they become such a powerhouse or defend their nation from other nations?

As far as conquering Earth i don't think an alien species would particularly want that. Perhaps they don't care about our resources, our tech or even consider us a potential threat. This might be a long shot being they developed on another world but the fact another world harbors life could mean it's a habitable planet with an atmosphere that they can live on. Perhaps they would terraform the planet to their liking but i think a world with habitable life is beneficial for them even from a scientific standpoint. It's hard to say.

@Mad Doc Grotsnik: "Seriously. As a species, we're utterly Hatstand. We prey on each other, deny each other basics when we ultimately live in an abundant society etc."

I realize it's a jerk thing to do but constantly trying to compete makes humans successful. Sure the end result is a lot of people get screwed over but that's kind of how we've evolved. Competition often ensures the strong win (whether through dirty dealings or straight up legitimately fair fighting or as fair as it can get). I mean sure we have societies and all but to an extent competition makes us a successful species so i can't entirely crap on it. Competing and knowing how to better your own situation. That's not to say good things haven't happened. I think many of us would prefer democracy or some similar form to monarchy or dictatorship. That said it's natural that the successful push their way to the top or at times hold others down to further their own ends.

----------

Ok so new crisis possibility. What about the fact our antibiotics and similar are becoming far less effective? I hear doctors and similar are worrying because things we can easily handle now due to antibiotics will be going backwards and we can't really handle situations if they become useless.

I realize that perhaps we'll figure something out as we always seem to. However it is still an issue. Perhaps this will make things like immunization even more important in the future as well as finding a way to maybe somehow make our antibiotics more effective somehow.

@falmingkillamajig

I touched on disease earlier ITT

Our overuse of antibiotics is what is causing the issues. we feed cattle and foodstock antibiotics by the bucketful. Doctors often feel forced to prescribe the drugs for what are common viral infections, patients often never complete the courses they are given which leads to resistance.

We are not producing new antibiotics fast enough to have a buffer or breathing space against resistant diseases.

Drug resistant Step and staph are now common in hospitals.

There could be a point where common place, simple, operations see mortality rates rise due to drug resistant infection.

Nature always finds a way.

 Pouncey wrote:
I'm impressed by your concern for the potential extinction of one species.

Yeah, because my post was all about how it was totally okay that species were dying. Good reading there. Great job.

To explain it very slowly, my post was that bees as a whole, and particularly the bee species most essential to pollination, are not in danger of extinction, and therefore using recent extinctions is not an argument in favour of a near future apocalypse at this stage. This doesn't mean it is okay for any species to go extinct. That should have been obvious to you.


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 Pouncey wrote:
Essentially, experts examine the situation, and come to the conclusion that if an alien vessel ever shows up in our solar system, we're all about to die, or worse. There is no reasonable scenario where aliens show up in Sol in the modern era and humanity does not suffer immensely or go extinct as a result.

It's not like we can do anything about it, though.

What experts? What possible field of study leads one to being an accepted authority on 'what happens if aliens show up in our solar system?'

And what line of argument was used? Why was the probability of aliens being interested in other lifeforms as a matter of scientific curiosity given a 0% chance of happening?

I'm just saying, for all we know aliens are as completely and utterly incompetent in real life as they are on TV;

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
With the case of a species more bloodthirsty than humans i think you underestimate other animals. I remember hearing some of the smarter animals though scavengers were also apex predators. In fact most successful species are actually pretty freaking violent and intelligent. They also form societies. I think it was said by Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal that most species are actually cruel and if they're not you should be worried as that's a byproduct of another species (such as dogs being human pets i'm sure). I think the end statement was there are nice species around....i call them food (as aggressive species like humans tend to eat them).

Saying that alien species are peaceful by nature is in my opinion wishful thinking.

You're working on an assumption that cruelty is inherent to the genes, that it can't be changed as a species builds its society and develops a more informed populace. We know humans are much less cruel today than in history. Historically cat burning was a thing - put a cat in a bag, hang it up in the centre of town and set it on fire. Today that is abhorrent, because we are less cruel as a society. It is likely that as we become even more informed we will become even less cruel, and it is likely that such a process would occur among other species as they build their societies.

This doesn't mean any space faring species is certain to be gentle and respectful of us, but it must have a high probability, and it is wrong to discount it entirely.

 Pouncey wrote:
For example, we have a pulse laser device which, if we could make enough of them and provide the electrical power to have them operating continuously, would convert our planet's atmosphere to plasma and cause enough damage to the Moon to push it out of Earth's orbit.

AKA "a flashlight". Anything can convert our atmosphere to plasma and destroy the moon if you set its power to an arbitrarily large number. That doesn't mean we "know how to make" such a thing in any meaningful sense, it just means that someone got bored and did some basic calculations.


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 Pouncey wrote:
That's the kind of thing you can do when you have weapons that are actually a threat to alien military spacecraft, and, well, we do not.

That's some interesting confidence behind that statement given the fact that we have no idea what the capabilities of this hypothetical alien military spacecraft are.


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 Pouncey wrote:
The most likely scenario for Earth being attacked by aliens would essentially require a species so vast and numerous that in order to survive, they need to eat pretty much everything that's alive on entire planets and still need more food.

Uh, no. Eating food is nowhere near enough energy density to get into orbit once you're done eating, and that's not even considering interstellar travel. Your "infinite horde" scenario might make a good scifi plot, but please don't pretend that it's realistic science.

Most civilizations that develop interstellar capabilities will end up being fairly peaceful, as the more violent ones will tend to wipe themselves out before getting that far.

{citation needed}

There's no way you can say this because we have a sample size of zero. And if you want to get into theoretical ideas there are plenty of ones where a violent civilization becomes a threat. For example, given the immense energy costs and engineering challenges of interstellar travel relative to travel within a solar system a hypothetical peaceful civilization might be content to exploit the near-infinite resources of its home solar system. On the other hand, a violent civilization might have a religious obligation to kill all those who do not worship their god and consider it worth the effort to build an interstellar spacecraft for the sole purpose of killing us. Or we could look at real-world history and how war has been a powerful force in driving technological development and speculate that a violent civilization's internal conflicts might produce the necessary breakthroughs for practical interstellar travel. Etc.

The Grey Goo doomsday scenario involves malfunctioning nanites reproducing out of control and simply turning every scrap of matter on Earth into more nanites, which would result in our entire planet becoming nanites.

It also ignores issues with thermodynamics and can't happen.

Also, will humans even find aliens the least bit appealing sexually? Our fiction displays aliens as very, very human-like, but it's pretty much only because human actors are required in some way and it costs more money to create creatures for movies that aren't human-like, and the further away from humans you go, the more expensive it gets.

Given the sheer diversity of species that humans have had sex with I think it's a safe bet that yes, someone is going to the aliens.

 sebster wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
With the case of a species more bloodthirsty than humans i think you underestimate other animals. I remember hearing some of the smarter animals though scavengers were also apex predators. In fact most successful species are actually pretty freaking violent and intelligent. They also form societies. I think it was said by Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal that most species are actually cruel and if they're not you should be worried as that's a byproduct of another species (such as dogs being human pets i'm sure). I think the end statement was there are nice species around....i call them food (as aggressive species like humans tend to eat them).

Saying that alien species are peaceful by nature is in my opinion wishful thinking.

You're working on an assumption that cruelty is inherent to the genes, that it can't be changed as a species builds its society and develops a more informed populace. We know humans are much less cruel today than in history. Historically cat burning was a thing - put a cat in a bag, hang it up in the centre of town and set it on fire. Today that is abhorrent, because we are less cruel as a society. It is likely that as we become even more informed we will become even less cruel, and it is likely that such a process would occur among other species as they build their societies.

This doesn't mean any space faring species is certain to be gentle and respectful of us, but it must have a high probability, and it is wrong to discount it entirely.

Scientists have been determining if infants have sense of right and wrong and seems they do. Which is why I'm hopeful eventually humans will actually learn to live with each other. We have inner tendency toward right.

tneva82 wrote:

Scientists have been determining if infants have sense of right and wrong and seems they do. Which is why I'm hopeful eventually humans will actually learn to live with each other. We have inner tendency toward right.

Yes, we have a natural affinity for cooperation as a species. Yes, we can also be irrational and that irrationality can lead to us doing things which go against that affinity.

Charlie Chaplin appealed to these ideals of peace and cooperation almost 80 years ago and his speech is just as powerful now as it was then.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I dunno.

We're also pretty good as thievey-little-tech-monkies.

If an Alien ship did crash, we'd soon have it hot-wired and reverse engineered. Then god help the galaxy....

Thats what the eldar thought!

"Every thing was great until the Mon-Keigh got a functioning warp drive. Then it all went to sh..."


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tneva82 wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
With the case of a species more bloodthirsty than humans i think you underestimate other animals. I remember hearing some of the smarter animals though scavengers were also apex predators. In fact most successful species are actually pretty freaking violent and intelligent. They also form societies. I think it was said by Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal that most species are actually cruel and if they're not you should be worried as that's a byproduct of another species (such as dogs being human pets i'm sure). I think the end statement was there are nice species around....i call them food (as aggressive species like humans tend to eat them).

Saying that alien species are peaceful by nature is in my opinion wishful thinking.

You're working on an assumption that cruelty is inherent to the genes, that it can't be changed as a species builds its society and develops a more informed populace. We know humans are much less cruel today than in history. Historically cat burning was a thing - put a cat in a bag, hang it up in the centre of town and set it on fire. Today that is abhorrent, because we are less cruel as a society. It is likely that as we become even more informed we will become even less cruel, and it is likely that such a process would occur among other species as they build their societies.

This doesn't mean any space faring species is certain to be gentle and respectful of us, but it must have a high probability, and it is wrong to discount it entirely.

Scientists have been determining if infants have sense of right and wrong and seems they do. Which is why I'm hopeful eventually humans will actually learn to live with each other. We have inner tendency toward right.

Thos scientists evidently did not hang around any actual children.

tneva82 wrote:
Scientists have been determining if infants have sense of right and wrong and seems they do. Which is why I'm hopeful eventually humans will actually learn to live with each other. We have inner tendency toward right.

Children and many animals have been shown to have innate ideas of right and wrong, yeah.

On your second part... we do live with each other. We have built large and complex societies in which we live with each other. Don't just look at the instances of conflict, look at the whole.

 Peregrine wrote:
Given the sheer diversity of species that humans have had sex with I think it's a safe bet that yes, someone is going to the aliens.

I might just have to put that in my sig! Have an exalt!

In my opinion Rule 34 only exists because humans are that damn curious