Alien Contact - Too Risky?

[The Intransigent Faction]

So, I was browsing around reading random articles to put my mind on better things than OCD, and I found this. The sci-fi geek in me thought it was interesting:


By: Seth Borenstein The Associated Press, Published on Fri Feb 13 2015


SAN JOSE, CALIF.—Astronomers looking for alien life have sat for decades by their telescopes, waiting to hear from E.T. It didn’t happen, so now some of them want to beam messages out into the void and invite the closest few thousand worlds to chat or even visit.
Others scientists, including Stephen Hawking, think that’s crazy, warning that instead of sweet and gentle E.T., we may get something like the planet-conquering aliens from Independence Day. The consequences, they say, could be catastrophic.

But calling out there ourselves may be the only way to find out if we are not alone, and humanity may benefit from alien intelligence, said Douglas A. Vakoch, whose title is director of interstellar message composition at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and until now it’s been mostly a listening-type thing.

This dispute — which mixes astronomy, science fiction, philosophy, the law, mathematics and a touch of silliness — broke out Thursday and Friday at a convention in San Jose of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

And this week several prominent space experts, including SpaceX founder Elon Musk (http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/04/25/teslas_elon_musk_paid_70000_last_year.html) and planet hunter Geoff Marcy, started a petition cautioning against sending out such messages, saying it is impossible to predict whether extraterrestrial life will be benign or hostile.

Vakoch is hosting a separate conference Saturday at the SETI Institute on the calling-all-aliens proposal and what the messages should say.

The idea is called active SETI, and according to Vakoch would involve the beaming of messages via radar and perhaps eventually lasers.

There have been a few small and unlikely-to-work efforts to beam messages out there in the past, including NASA sending the Beatles song (http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2008/02/01/nasa_sends_beatles_tune_into_space.html) “Across the Universe” into the cosmos in 2008. NASA’s Voyager probe recently left the solar system with a “golden record” created by Carl Sagan with a message, and the space agency’s New Horizon probe will also have greetings on it by the time it exits the solar system.

But what scientists are now talking about is a co-ordinated and sustained million-dollar-a-year effort with approval from some kind of science or international body and a message that people agree on.

It’s an “attempt to join the galactic club,” Vakoch said. He assured a crowd of reporters: “There’s no danger of alien invasion from active SETI.”

But as a science fiction author, as well as an astrophysicist, David Brin thinks inviting aliens here is a bad idea. Even if there is a low risk of a nasty creature coming, the consequences could be extreme.

“I can’t bring myself to wager my grandchildren’s destiny on unreliable assumptions” about benevolent aliens, Brin said.

Brin noted that European explorers brought slaughter and disease to less technologically advanced people in the Americas more than 500 years ago. He called for the science community to put efforts on hold for an ethical and scientific discussion.

As Brin, Shostak, Vakoch and others sparred at a news conference, 84-year-old Frank Drake sat in the back quietly. Drake, a pioneer in the search for extraterrestrial life, created the formula called Drake’s Equation that scientists use to estimate the chances that other life is out there. More than 40 years ago, Drake and Sagan beamed a message into space to look for aliens, a first for Earth.

It was a short message from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and it was aimed at a star cluster called Messier 13. It will take 25,000 years to get there, Drake said.

“The probability of succeeding is infinitesimally small,” Drake said.

So why did he do it? Curiosity, Drake said. And it doesn’t matter if our civilization is gone by the time E.T. answers, if he does.

“We get messages from the ancient Greeks and Romans and Socrates all the time, long since gone. Still valuable,” Drake said. “We’re going to do the archeology of the future.”

As the article said, the probability of successful contact is infinitesimally small. Furthermore, there are obviously more immediate practical concerns for those of us on Earth.

Still, the implications of this are interesting. This cynical attitude seems premised on an anthropocentric view of potential alien species. It's fear of the unknown taken to its utmost degree.

I've heard some arguments to the effect that spacefaring technology implies a certain level of civilization wherein issues of scarcity have been overcome, but that doesn't seem necessarily true. Technological advancement alone doesn't necessarily bring an end to imperialistic ideology or bring about a classless society. Still, it seems wrong to suggest we should do the galactic equivalent of staying locked up in our homes all day for fear of dangerous people in the outside world.

What say you, RevLeft? Assuming for the moment that it is practical, that there are alien civilizations out there which would hear messages sent from Earth, and that humans or some evolutionary descendant(s) will exist to be contacted and/or visited, is it a good idea to try to contact those aliens, or would it put posterity in danger?

[Slavic]

It is literally impossible to know what a space-faring civilizations' intention would be if confronted with a civilization such as ours that is still for the most part only able to orbit its own body.

The analysis though that such an alien civilization would just harvest us seems to stem from us projecting our human condition on such aliens. We conquer and exploit those weaker then us, so naturally we expect a more advanced alien civilization to do the same to us. This doesn't really take into consideration that an alien civilization could have radically different views or modes of existence then us humans.

I personally say fuck it, beam the information. I'm curious what an alien response would have for the human race.

[Futility Personified]

Well, the way the planet is going at the moment it's not like our grandchildren are going to be doing fantastic anyway. It's not as if human societies over the course of history have done things that can't be any more terrible than what an alien species can do.

There was a strip in Vice the other day that finished with communist aliens who received a beam from the USSR, just thought i'd drop that in here.

[Slavic]

Well, the way the planet is going at the moment it's not like our grandchildren are going to be doing fantastic anyway. It's not as if human societies over the course of history have done things that can't be any more terrible than what an alien species can do.

There was a strip in Vice the other day that finished with communist aliens who received a beam from the USSR, just thought i'd drop that in here.


Just what we need. Alien Stalin cloning vats.

[Futility Personified]

True equality is when all of us deserve the gulag.

[bcbm]

i think it would make more sense to expand our presence in the solar system and develop more powerful technologies making full use of the energy available to us before trying too hard to contact other intelligent species. i think the odds are slim they will come knocking given what we know of how long distance space travel could potentially work, but i don't think its a thing to hedge bets on. we should be in a more advanced position before taking such a risk.

[Redistribute the Rep]

I don't think it will put as in danger, why would they even want to meet us if they're far more technologically advanced? It'd be like traveling 10000 miles to see an ant hill

[Klaatu]

Nine out of ten alien-genre books and films depict them as hostile. But then, that may be just our projection of ourselves and our own behavior on to them.
I think it is more likely that they (if 'they' exist) would be not only benign, but even benevolent. And they probably are, if they are a more advanced society.

[Ele'ill]

they might already be here among us (Roswell, etc..)

[Klaatu]

I am basing the assumption of benevolence on the fact that advanced societies are intellectually, scientifically, politically and culturally advanced, thus are more likely to be civilized and friendly. It is the primitive societies that are war-like. And a primitive society will not have been sufficiently scientifically advanced (if at all) to have invested in electronic communications nor space travel. Therefore, they would not have the ability to intercept our signals in the first place! More likely, we may be first to travel to their planet, sometime in the future, and we may even find them to be primitive war-like savages. In this case, we ourselves may be the marauding invaders?

That's why they used the 'prime directive' on Star Trek.

[Slavic]

they might already be here among us (Roswell, etc..)

Professor █████ ███████, from the SCP Foundation would disagree with you and like to inform you that supernatural beings have never been kept in ████, or other containment sites.

[Tim Cornelis]

"I've heard some arguments to the effect that spacefaring technology implies a certain level of civilization wherein issues of scarcity have been overcome, but that doesn't seem necessarily true. Technological advancement alone doesn't necessarily bring an end to imperialistic ideology or bring about a classless society."

How's that? If they have the technological capabilities of interstellar travel then it would be a very safe bet that they have a post-scarcity society based on automated production, asteroid mining, using renewable resources, and mass recycling. All those would be more practical, enjoy higher priority, and more feasible than interstellar flight. Even taking class out of the equation, such a civilisation would have developed communism.

A species capable of highly advanced civilisations would need to be social, collaborative, and have a relatively high degree of empathy (otherwise it'd be torn apart by war and infighting). Additionally, it's also likely they have developed and applied genetic engineering. Many people here say that 'we are just too greedy' while at the same time recognising the value and virtue of friendliness, empathy, caring, etc. so if genetic engineering were applied it would be likely used to enhance these traits.

Stephen Hawking is a physicist, not a sociologist. An Independence Day scenario is more than incredibly unlikely. A locust species would never develop agriculture and therefore never civilisation. Even if they did it would make zero sense for such a sentient locust-type species to stop with the aggressive 'gathering' means of subsistence, start agriculture and develop civilisation to the point of interstellar flight (a process of tens of thousands of years likely) and then once they've done that allow their locust-type instincts to kick back in and go around harvesting and depleting planets then moving on the next (as opposed to focussing their energy far more cost-effectively on automation, recycling, using renewable resources, and asteroid mining). That makes no sense. And even if they would do that for some inexplicable reason they'd be far more likely to choose to go to uninhabited planets so as to prevent any hassle with the primitively but still armed inhabitants.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Maybe they'll be like the Tau and try to get us to accept 'The Greater Good'. In which case, I'll happily accept our new alien overlords.

[Culicarius]

I think that if a species were advanced to the point in which interstellar or even intergalactic travel is possible, they're likely to not be violent and war-like. It's probably more likely that any alien civilization out there hasn't contacted us (or just observes us) because we glorify violence and have a society full of prejudice, discrimination, and aren't exactly pristine examples of civility. While they have achieved a much more stable society.

They probably have their own version of communism.

[consuming negativity]

i don't think anybody in the universe gives a shit about us

if aliens kill us it will probably be by accident like stepping on some ants

"en estimated one thousand worlds per day go extinct due to galactic capitalism - worlds we will never see again. we must unite the interstellar proletariat!"

"yeah but oh well what did all of those earthlings - hypothetical earthlings - have to do with my practical life? besides, it's not like they'd care if the situation were reversed"

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Both of these concepts - the projection of either hostility or some benevolence upon a hypothetical alien species - are necessarily anthropocentric, since all projects will be based upon assumptions made on the basis of our human understanding, even though these life forms might operate in ways we could not possibly fathom. Perhaps they would be indifferent, or sadistically amuse themselves tormenting us from afar...

[Q]

People that are concerned about SETI sending beams to aliens don't realise we have been doing this in all directions for the last century or so, since we started using global radio communication. Quite a bit of this is leaked into outer space and Earth currently its at the center of an ever expanding sphere of these communications that is currently about 100 lightyears big. No SETI communication beam is going to outrun that in any case.

Second, given the extremely small timeframe humans have been around on Earth, it is highly unlikely that we find aliens that are even remotely close to us in terms of evolutionary level. Either we find bacteria or beings that are so advanced they might as well be considered gods. Either way it doesn't matter.

[The Intransigent Faction]

"I've heard some arguments to the effect that spacefaring technology implies a certain level of civilization wherein issues of scarcity have been overcome, but that doesn't seem necessarily true. Technological advancement alone doesn't necessarily bring an end to imperialistic ideology or bring about a classless society."

How's that? If they have the technological capabilities of interstellar travel then it would be a very safe bet that they have a post-scarcity society based on automated production, asteroid mining, using renewable resources, and mass recycling. All those would be more practical, enjoy higher priority, and more feasible than interstellar flight. Even taking class out of the equation, such a civilisation would have developed communism.

A species capable of highly advanced civilisations would need to be social, collaborative, and have a relatively high degree of empathy (otherwise it'd be torn apart by war and infighting). Additionally, it's also likely they have developed and applied genetic engineering. Many people here say that 'we are just too greedy' while at the same time recognising the value and virtue of friendliness, empathy, caring, etc. so if genetic engineering were applied it would be likely used to enhance these traits.

Stephen Hawking is a physicist, not a sociologist. An Independence Day scenario is more than incredibly unlikely. A locust species would never develop agriculture and therefore never civilisation. Even if they did it would make zero sense for such a sentient locust-type species to stop with the aggressive 'gathering' means of subsistence, start agriculture and develop civilisation to the point of interstellar flight (a process of tens of thousands of years likely) and then once they've done that allow their locust-type instincts to kick back in and go around harvesting and depleting planets then moving on the next (as opposed to focussing their energy far more cost-effectively on automation, recycling, using renewable resources, and asteroid mining). That makes no sense. And even if they would do that for some inexplicable reason they'd be far more likely to choose to go to uninhabited planets so as to prevent any hassle with the primitively but still armed inhabitants.

I pretty much agree with this, actually.

Obsessive Star Wars fan that I am, I still find the notion of spacefaring monarchies to be illogical and between that and interplanetary corporations and a banking clan I'm pretty sure George Lucas created the ultimate dystopia.

Still, to play devil's advocate, my way of thinking was that, certainly, space-age technology allows for an overcoming of actual and artificial scarcity, but that's technological advancement of a kind, not merely a degree. I.e. a replicator would sure be useful...a slightly faster instant coffee machine or an electronic jump rope, maybe not so much. Is it necessarily true that class consciousness will match the pace of technological advancement or potential? If it were, well, we already have the technological capacity for post-scarcity economics, or at the very least far more worker involvement in economic decision-making than is occurring at this time, no?

Maybe at the level of spacefaring technology, postscarcity economics would develop out of necessity in a way they haven't yet.

[Klaatu]

People that are concerned about SETI sending beams to aliens don't realise we have been doing this in all directions for the last century or so, since we started using global radio communication. Quite a bit of this is leaked into outer space and Earth currently its at the center of an ever expanding sphere of these communications that is currently about 100 lightyears big. No SETI communication beam is going to outrun that in any case.

Second, given the extremely small timeframe humans have been around on Earth, it is highly unlikely that we find aliens that are even remotely close to us in terms of evolutionary level. Either we find bacteria or beings that are so advanced they might as well be considered gods. Either way it doesn't matter.

Another thing is that, considering the inverse-square law, diminishing intensity of propagating radiation, it is unlikely that any signals broadcast from this planet would be strong enough to detect (above background noise) from a distance of more than a light year or two. We can see stars millions of LY distance, but consider that these burn with an intensity of trillions of trillions of times greater energy than even our most intense electromagnetic communications signals.

[The Disillusionist]

Both of these concepts - the projection of either hostility or some benevolence upon a hypothetical alien species - are necessarily anthropocentric, since all projects will be based upon assumptions made on the basis of our human understanding, even though these life forms might operate in ways we could not possibly fathom. Perhaps they would be indifferent, or sadistically amuse themselves tormenting us from afar...

Well, actually, our projection of certain strategies onto hypothetical alien lifeforms is not at all unreasonable. Humans have been shaped by evolutionary processes, as has all other life on this planet. If it exists on other planets, life there will be subject to evolutionary processes as well. As a result, it is actually fairly reasonable to suggest that, psychologically, an alien race would operate in a manner that was at least somewhat familiar to us. Evolution is all about the cost-benefit analysis. If it benefited an alien race to destroy us, without a significant cost, then that would be a likely outcome. On the other hand, if destroying us would be more costly than beneficial, then they could let us live. Of course, culture could play a role, but the basic framework would be there.

[Ele'ill]

we are the aliens we would search for, if we were able to conceptualize that as a less advanced or capable species in its infancy that was looking forward, nobody and nothing can save us we can only hope for a graceful death

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Well, actually, our projection of certain strategies onto hypothetical alien lifeforms is not at all unreasonable. Humans have been shaped by evolutionary processes, as has all other life on this planet. If it exists on other planets, life there will be subject to evolutionary processes as well..

But the major driver of the evolutionary process - once life has been introduced and is not, you know, made totally extinct for whatever reason - is the environmental context of the organisms, which means that, should these life-forms be radically different and inhabit a world radically different from those we know of, with a significantly diverging evolutionary trajectory, then there is no reason to assume that they would be like us (just as humanoid aliens are the dumbest thing ever).

Since we only know well life on this planet, we have no real alternative perspective that isn't just hypothesis, which is naturally limited by the context we do have (even abstract theorising will be shaped by the present environment - much like the evolution itself).

[BIXX]

I am basing the assumption of benevolence on the fact that advanced societies are intellectually, scientifically, politically and culturally advanced, thus are more likely to be civilized and friendly. It is the primitive societies that are war-like. And a primitive society will not have been sufficiently scientifically advanced (if at all) to have invested in electronic communications nor space travel. Therefore, they would not have the ability to intercept our signals in the first place! More likely, we may be first to travel to their planet, sometime in the future, and we may even find them to be primitive war-like savages. In this case, we ourselves may be the marauding invaders?

That's why they used the 'prime directive' on Star Trek.

Excuse me, but your claim that primitive societies are the warlike ones is untrue, or at least does not follow from the evidence we have.

[The Disillusionist]

But the major driver of the evolutionary process - once life has been introduced and is not, you know, made totally extinct for whatever reason - is the environmental context of the organisms, which means that, should these life-forms be radically different and inhabit a world radically different from those we know of, with a significantly diverging evolutionary trajectory, then there is no reason to assume that they would be like us (just as humanoid aliens are the dumbest thing ever).

Since we only know well life on this planet, we have no real alternative perspective that isn't just hypothesis, which is naturally limited by the context we do have (even abstract theorising will be shaped by the present environment - much like the evolution itself).

You are absolutely correct. However, the process of evolution itself tends to influence the strategic decision making processes that organisms can adopt. An alien organism would not likely be just like us, but it would likely follow the same overall behavioral framework in that it would seek to maximize its evolutionary fitness.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I've been reading Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem recently, and it actually brings up this very question. It actually uses historical materialism to make the case that when a more advanced civilization (in this case, aliens), seeking resources, encounters a more primitive, resource-rich civilization (in this case, us skin monkeys), then the logical conclusion will be colonization and exploitation of the latter by the former.

But as Taka and others have already pointed out, this is a rather anthropocentric view. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that a civilization needs to reach socialism before it achieves advanced space travel.

[The Intransigent Faction]

On the other hand, I'm not convinced that a civilization needs to reach socialism before it achieves advanced space travel.

Could you elaborate on this a little? I find Tim's argument appealing, and I've heard it somewhere before (probably another RevLeft thread). Certainly it makes sense based on our conceptions of what space travel might look like to suggest some post-scarcity system would be necessary. That said, I think perhaps there is a case to be made that class consciousness is not necessitated by technological advances.

[BIXX]

I've been reading Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem recently, and it actually brings up this very question. It actually uses historical materialism to make the case that when a more advanced civilization (in this case, aliens), seeking resources, encounters a more primitive, resource-rich civilization (in this case, us skin monkeys), then the logical conclusion will be colonization and exploitation of the latter by the former.

But as Taka and others have already pointed out, this is a rather anthropocentric view. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that a civilization needs to reach socialism before it achieves advanced space travel.

To add on, I'm not convinced their society would follow any of the same social structures that we have in place. I highly doubt that we have conceived of all that is possible with social structures, and I'd put money on the idea that aliens probably my occupy some of the social structures we have never and will never come up with.

[Lily Briscoe]

Could you elaborate on this a little? I find Tim's argument appealing, and I've heard it somewhere before (probably another RevLeft thread).

Posadas? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Posadas#UFOs

[Tim Cornelis]

I've been reading Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem recently, and it actually brings up this very question. It actually uses historical materialism to make the case that when a more advanced civilization (in this case, aliens), seeking resources, encounters a more primitive, resource-rich civilization (in this case, us skin monkeys), then the logical conclusion will be colonization and exploitation of the latter by the former.

But as Taka and others have already pointed out, this is a rather anthropocentric view. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that a civilization needs to reach socialism before it achieves advanced space travel.

Why would they seek resources? And wouldn't interstellar flight be an unlikely candidate for the most cost-effective option for resource gathering?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I've been reading Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem recently, and it actually brings up this very question. It actually uses historical materialism to make the case that when a more advanced civilization (in this case, aliens), seeking resources, encounters a more primitive, resource-rich civilization (in this case, us skin monkeys), then the logical conclusion will be colonization and exploitation of the latter by the former.

Earth isn't particularly resource-rich, for one thing. Anything Earth has, uninhabited planets that are closer to the aliens will have more of, with the added bonus that there won't be crazy natives trying to kill them for taking their rocks.


But as Taka and others have already pointed out, this is a rather anthropocentric view. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that a civilization needs to reach socialism before it achieves advanced space travel.

It certainly needs to have some kind of social control of the productive forces, otherwise it wouldn't be able to organise the production of what are probably going to be difficult to build products requiring a serious investment in terms of labour-time and rare resources.

[Creative Destruction]

Why would they seek resources? And wouldn't interstellar flight be an unlikely candidate for the most cost-effective option for resource gathering?

I'd figure it would depend on how advance their technology is.

[Klaatu]

Excuse me, but your claim that primitive societies are the warlike ones is untrue, or at least does not follow from the evidence we have.

I will have to disagree. Have you considered Alexander the Great, The Roman Empire, the Vikings, etc?

I do not claim that every primitive society was war-like, I am saying that the more powerful groups were.

[Rafiq]

I will have to disagree. Have you considered Alexander the Great, The Roman Empire, the Vikings, etc?

I do not claim that every primitive society was war-like, I am saying that the more powerful groups were.

These weren't primitive societies in any meaningful sense of the word. Ancient, yes, but not primitive. They existed thousands of years after the Neolithic revolution as we know it began.

Studies suggest that Hunter gatherers are not predisposed large scale conflict, and that when conflict does occur, it is usually between few people and rarely concerns resources. Not to say they're such saintly societies, but that occurrences like war aren't natural urges we have to suppress but systemic and purposeful.

[Klaatu]

These weren't primitive societies in any meaningful sense of the word. Ancient, yes, but not primitive. They existed thousands of years after the Neolithic revolution as we know it began.

Studies suggest that Hunter gatherers are not predisposed large scale conflict, and that when conflict does occur, it is usually between few people and rarely concerns resources. Not to say they're such saintly societies, but that occurrences like war aren't natural urges we have to suppress but systemic and purposeful.

I forgot to mention Goths, Vandals, Barbarians, Huns, (Attila The Hun), plus Native cultures that practice cannibalism and human sacrifice, etc. The Romans kept slaves, let gladiators fight to the death, they fed people to the lions, etc. And this is an "advanced" society? I beg to differ.

But if they are neither primitive nor advanced, then a new classification must be created in order to fill the grey area, so to speak.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

You think the Roman Empire can be in the same category as hunter-gatherers?

[Rafiq]

I forgot to mention Goths, Vandals, Barbarians, Huns, (Attila The Hun), plus Native cultures that practice cannibalism and human sacrifice, etc. The Romans kept slaves, let gladiators fight to the death, they fed people to the lions, etc. And this is an "advanced" society? I beg to differ.

But if they are neither primitive nor advanced, then a new classification must be created in order to fill the grey area, so to speak.

None of these were primitive societies. Perhaps besides the native Americans, depending on who you refer to. For example, the Aztecs, Incas, etc. Were not primitive. They were civilizations.

[Rafiq]

The idea that war occurs by merit of contact is alone rather ridiculous. Even if in Hunter gatherer societies the law is all against all a la Mad Max, war as we know it today is not a logical extension of this: We don't even need a pre-Cartesian romantic fetishism of the savage to understand this. In a "state of nature", all of us being a bunch of stupid animals, why not? Who cares if there was conflict? It has nothing to do with evidence, the whole ideological edifice of some Communists relies on the notion of the peaceful savage and it shouldn't.

Any idiot knows that to live by the sword is to die by it: most who have taken lives are more willing to die than others, it renders you waiting to die.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I forgot to mention Goths, Vandals, Barbarians, Huns, (Attila The Hun), plus Native cultures that practice cannibalism and human sacrifice, etc. The Romans kept slaves, let gladiators fight to the death, they fed people to the lions, etc. And this is an "advanced" society? I beg to differ.

But if they are neither primitive nor advanced, then a new classification must be created in order to fill the grey area, so to speak.

Barbarians are a nation like the Goths, Vandals and the Huns (which of the several? one presumes the Eurasian ones)?

The mode of production is determined by whether the practices of the society in question are palatable to a 21st century American?

The Romans had the same kind of society as hunter-gatherers?

What am I reading? Was there something in my chutney today?

[Tim Cornelis]

@Klaatu

"When you read about "warlike primitive tribes," or about indigenous people who held slaves, or about tribal cultures with gross inequalities between men and women, you are not reading about band hunter-gatherers.

Even today some people who should know better confuse primitive agricultural societies with hunter-gatherer societies and argue, from such confused evidence, that hunter-gatherers were violent and warlike. For example, one society often referred to in this mistaken way is that of the Yanomami, of South America's Amazon, made famous by Napoleon Chagnon in his book subtitled The fierce people. Chagnon tried to portray the Yanomami as representative of our pre-agricultural ancestors. But Chagnon knew well that the Yanomami were not hunter-gatherers and had not been for centuries. They did some hunting and gathering, but got the great majority of their calories from bananas and plantains, which they planted, cultivated, and harvested. Moreover, far from being untouched by modern cultures, these people had been repeatedly subjected to slave raids and genocide at the hands of truly vicious Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese invaders.[1] No wonder they had become a bit "fierce" themselves."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways

Although, as above, 'primitive' is probably accurate for tribes.

The classification you request:

"Anthropologist Elman Service presented a system of classification for societies in all human cultures based on the evolution of social inequality and the role of the state. This system of classification contains four categories:

Gatherer-hunter bands, which are generally egalitarian.
Tribal societies in which there are some limited instances of social rank and prestige.
Stratified tribal societies led by chieftains (see Chiefdom).
Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments."

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

[Hexen]

Another thing too to consider is the rare earth hypothesis and plus during the early eras of the universe Mass Extinctions were more common than they are now.

[Klaatu]

Barbarians are a nation like the Goths, Vandals and the Huns (which of the several? one presumes the Eurasian ones)?

The mode of production is determined by whether the practices of the society in question are palatable to a 21st century American?

The Romans had the same kind of society as hunter-gatherers?


I'll buy the statement that the Romans were much unlike the hunter-gatherer groups. But the Goths, Vandals, Huns, were more similar to tribal society than they were to Romans.

[Stirnerian]

I think it's entirely possible that an alien species-being would be genuinely alien, and possibly beyond any anthropomorphic motivations like 'anger' or 'love'. Concepts like 'benevolence' or 'imperialism' might not apply to a genuinely alien psychology; I would not expect any alien civilization to necessarily hew to an Earth-type class system at all, and not necessarily because I'd expect them to be space-communists. They might exist in such a state that the division of labor is radically unlike our own, if it existed at all.

Think of Sagan's giant-space-cows-floating-in-Jupiter's-atmosphere to see where I'm going with this.

[Rafiq]

I'll buy the statement that the Romans were much unlike the hunter-gatherer groups. But the Goths, Vandals, Huns, were more similar to tribal society than they were to Romans.

And why is that? Because they lacked centralized structures of power?

[Ele'ill]

we will discover that our own sentience is an alien species

[Sharia Lawn]

9URM_5R-vWk

[The Intransigent Faction]

I think it's entirely possible that an alien species-being would be genuinely alien, and possibly beyond any anthropomorphic motivations like 'anger' or 'love'. Concepts like 'benevolence' or 'imperialism' might not apply to a genuinely alien psychology; I would not expect any alien civilization to necessarily hew to an Earth-type class system at all, and not necessarily because I'd expect them to be space-communists. They might exist in such a state that the division of labor is radically unlike our own, if it existed at all.

Think of Sagan's giant-space-cows-floating-in-Jupiter's-atmosphere to see where I'm going with this.

Sure, aliens could be, or could experience, things beyond an anthropocentric comprehension. By that logic, the apparent emphasis on searching for worlds with H20 because they may be "capable of supporting life", for example, would be folly. So, is the attempt to conceive of potential alien civilizations as structured in humanly comprehensible ways just an anthropocentric approach disguised as 'objective' theory? That might be overly harsh. It makes sense that a search for, or even merely a conceptualization of, alien civilizations by humans at a given stage in history would begin with a foundation in our limited knowledge in that stage. Without that sort of foundation, all that's left is wild speculation of the sort reminiscent of Russell's Teapot.

As for the rare earth hypothesis and mass extinctions: Those are two things among many that make alien contact in our lifetimes incredibly unlikely in practical terms, but I suppose aside from that they also theoretically limit the alien civilizations with which we could come into contact even with interstellar travel. Assuming that a rarity of Earth-like planets means a rarity of life in the universe requires assuming in turn that planets must resemble Earth (or at least most likely would) in order to support life. My initial reaction was that this might be a hasty assumption, but there is reason for it that isn't necessarily reducible to arrogant presumptions.

[John Nada]

I think contacting extraterrestrials is way too risky, for them.:ohmy: If I were from another planet and I saw humans, I'd want to get as far the fuck away as possible.

[The Intransigent Faction]

I think contacting extraterrestrials is way too risky, for them.:ohmy: If I were from another planet and I saw humans, I'd want to get as far the fuck away as possible.

Even if you had the means to help the countless people dying of disease and starvation who've done nothing wrong to merit your fear? That sounds harsh!

[John Nada]

Even if you had the means to help the countless people dying of disease and starvation who've done nothing wrong to merit your fear? That sounds harsh!Humans can already to that, but we don't. That's what's scary.

Think about it. If they knew about all the wars, atrocities and crimes we do to ourselves, how would we greet them? The signals going out to space since the radio would tell stories of death. They wouldn't see us as nice people.

We wouldn't be humans, we'd be bald monkeys with nukes that have ate and killed everything in our path. Our concept of war would be totally foreign to them, beyond what they comprehend. We'd be the xenomorphs from Alien in their eye/s(or the equivalent). They'd see that movie and say,"How could they do that to a mom and her kids?":(

Humans may well be the most war-like race in the galaxy.:unsure:

[The Intransigent Faction]

I have thought a lot about it. I find indiscriminate treatment of all the victims of capitalism as being equally culpable for the crimes of the bourgeoisie rather disturbing...and just plain wrong. None of what you just said is reason enough to fear millions of starving people, however much it might be reason to fear the sociopathic tendencies of a few politically powerful people. Alien observers wouldn't be exclusively keeping watch over, say, the Objectivists' Club of America.

[John Nada]

Thing is, from there perspective, humans could be completely different from what they might have ever seen/sensed. Omnivores that throughout recorded history have waged war on each other. Even in prehistoric times there likely was murder, which will always happen, more or less. Imagine picking up radio signals from all the wars. That would scare the fuck out of them, particularly if they've never had one or got advance enough not to have them in centuries.

They could be herbivores where the capacity to eat meat isn't there. It'd be like being near wolves, tigers, sharks, bears and lions, all of which humans can and do eat. The vast majority of the time, even these predators will either ignore you or run away. The notion of eating dead animals might creep them out. They might even fear they will get eaten.!

There's also our appearance. If they're not familiar with something like mammals, they could react the same way many do to insects. Humans could look ugly, smell bad and make frighting noises from there perspective. It'd be like how a lot of people react to the insect. Humans could feel the same about them on first sight.

With an advance enough society, why would they waste resources to take the risk? Most humans are peaceful, but the few that aren't could fuck them up. Humans could be that barbarous alien invaders. Who's to say humans won't use them as slave or food, even after achieving full communism?

What I think would be trippy is if they looked and acted like humans. That would raise a lot of questions.:confused: