Would aliens be cool?

[Madcat]

There's been a rash of threads lately like: "Do you believe in aliens, are they etc. etc. blah blah blah." this seems to be missing the point. The real basis of a thread like that (and most science) is: "Hey! Look at this cool thing! Isn't it cool?"

Now aliens real or imagined might be cool, but I'm not so certain. Now lets think about this for a moment.

1) Star Wars was cool.
2) The thirties were cool. Jazz is cool, Fedoras and Tommyguns are cool, and so forth.
3) Propeller driven fighters (as seen in the Sky Captain trailer) are very cool.
4) The Beatles were cool.

Lots of stuff. All cool. Now think about this:

1) New Star Wars is not cool.
2) Britney? Outkast? David Hasselhoff? This isn't cool. This isn't even music.
3) We don't even put people in our new fighters. How "cool" is that? Not very.
4) Many of the Beatles are now dead.

We are just not as cool a species as we used to be.

Therefore, I create Madcat's Four Principles of Cultural Evolution:

1) The coolness of Star Wars movies produced by any given civilization decreases with time
2) The coolness of music popular to any given civilization decreases with time.
3) The coolness of combat equipment available to any given civilization decreases with time.
4) The number of Beatles available to any given civilization decreases with time.

Assuming that convergent evolution also applies to life on other planets, I think it is likely that the age of a civilization is inversely proportionate to its coolness. We might find aliens, but they will be really boring.

Any thoughts?

[wedgebert]

I disagree with #3. Sure, the number of fighter pilots (who are, by definition, cool) decreases with time, it doesn't mean the equipment gets less cool.

The Predator drone is much cooler than a WWI Biplane. The OICW assault rifle is much cooler than a flintlock pistol. Nuclear submarines are much cooler than guys in rowboats flinging rocks at each other.

I'm willing to be that when we take our wars into space (not if, but when) the stuff we fight with will be cooler as well.

The problem here is that the cooler a civilization's war making ability becomes, the less likely that civilization will survive.

[Madcat]

Perhaps that is principle #5. Still, it argues that we are more likely to meet aliens that will not be cool.

The same could be said of aliens with large internal combustion engines. They are less likely to have V-8 driven sports cars and such.

[Humphrey]

But if you really think about it most engineers, astronauts, and spaceship builders are frankly nerds and geeks like us. So would it not be very plausible that the first aliens we meet will be the geeks and nerds of their species. So would we be meeting a real representation of the universe? Would our first words be: "So how fast is your microprocessor?"
Will our common language be laugthing snorts?
Will they have tape to repair our eyeglasses?
Do they also like Star Trek?
Have they also wondered why the popular aliens never hung around with them?
Do they have anoying nagging mothers?
and Most importantly: How many digits of Pi can they count to?

[Madcat]

And in what base? :)

[xbck1]

Your base.

[Waarthog]

All of which belongs to us

[beck0311]

3) We don't even put people in our new fighters. How "cool" is that? Not very.

Just a tiny nitpick, we most certainly do put people in our new fighters. The F-22 needs a pilot. And the newest fighter the F-35, which hasn't even begun developmental flight testing yet also requires a pilot. Things like UCAV will take over armed reconnaisance (sp?).

As far as the Beatles go I have noticed a pattern:

Cool Beatles:
1. John Lennon
2.Paul McCartney

Less Cool Beatles:
3. George Harrison
4. Ringo Starr

Now, the pattern so far is cool Beatle, less cool Beatle. I predict that this pattern will continue and that Ringo will live for about seventy more years.

[Madcat]

http://www.angelfire.com/nc/shiningtime/images/stskids.jpg

[Richard of Chelmsford]

No, I expect aliens would actually be quite warm.

[Sever]

And what if they're cold blooded?

[Madcat]

Bah. Surely you mean ectothermic? :)

[Astronot]

I predict that this pattern will continue and that Ringo will live for about seventy more years.

He's married to Barbara Bach, that would shorten my life by many years, but what a way to go.