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  #31 (permalink)  
Old 29-February-2004, 12:44 AM
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Quote:
Originally posted by Sphinx@Feb 27 2004, 02:51 PM
Just speculating but perhaps in the not so distant future every child born will have implanted into their heads a chip that shuts down all aggressive behaviors.
Don´t you think that without our aggressive nature (under control) we would be a poorer species? After all its often the motor that gets things done <_< How many times have we done something through anger that we might have put off for some other moment or would not have done at all?

Our aggressive nature needs some of the curbs imposed on it by society - otherwise it would be absolute anarchy - but to go as far as implanting a chip to control it is going too far. Have you read Audious Huxley´s book "Brave New World"? That´s the sort of society we could end up with if we were to go down that road! : :blink: ph34r:
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  #32 (permalink)  
Old 29-February-2004, 04:40 AM
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LOL Spacemad. I never said I thought that this would be a good idea. But, the idea seemed to fit this conversation and it eludes to a point. Not only is it possible, but it would also be a really quick fix. The question as to whether or not the effects of riding a society of it's aggressive tendencies would be desirable can be debated. If you take the contrast between American business philosophy and the Asain business philosophy you get a similar comparison. Where the American businessmen are very aggressive the Asain businessmen are rather passive and reserved. Both are said to rival eachother. I think your idea of our species "needing agressivness to get the job down" is some what ethnocentristic.

To be honest, going to far down this road is opening up a whole can of worms. Most people signing on to this forum are science buffs and everyone knows that the math and science buffs are typically lacking in the humanitarian areas. We should leave these kind of debates for the philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, social anthropologists, and what not.

We should do what we know best. Argue the statistics. Speculate based on numbers, not philosophy.

I say this with a very light heart. I just don't want to go to far down this tangent.
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  #33 (permalink)  
Old 03-March-2004, 11:18 AM
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true, things may go bad.

contact with another alien race should not be looked at lightly.

Contact with foreign DNA? With a simple species we still have the possiblitty of things going wrong without any war or conflicts. We have the change that non-native DNA will be introduced into the earths ECO system. European dutch elm disease, SARS, the European thistle, Mad cow, the Asian wood beetle have damaged North Americas farming, health and food sectors and cost countries billions. What would alien DNA from outside the earth do to us?


With an advanced race, we must consider that mankind must do its best to maintain good relations, while preparing for a worst case scenario. When we polute or own planet, always fights wars and used crucifixion as a form of punishment. What will aliens think of a race of human who aldready used Atomic weapons on their own people?
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Old 03-March-2004, 06:57 PM
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Well, I certainly think that learning about the existance of aliens is better done sooner than later. On the other hand, I'd like to be a bit more advanced as a species before we contact them.
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  #35 (permalink)  
Old 03-March-2004, 07:47 PM
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I don't think I would be scared but excited very excited, but would like to see how peolple will react to such a discovery.
I meen, our civilisation's oldest question, 'are we alone' is still the most challenging to be asnswered.
I really don't how people of this earth will react, it may be a joyfull day when it happens, but again people may be scared and angry of what the discovery would do to their believes and religion.
Who knows, but hopes that, that day will come sometime in my lifetime.
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Old 15-March-2004, 03:08 AM
evdog2k2 evdog2k2 is offline
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i think if we found life similar to earth, george bush would invade them because of threats that they have "weapons of mass destruction"
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  #37 (permalink)  
Old 31-March-2004, 08:15 PM
Mettalica1 Mettalica1 is offline
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How I would react is that I would love it to know that were not the only ones in the universe or that is a lot of wasted space
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  #38 (permalink)  
Old 02-April-2004, 04:24 AM
imported_General Zod imported_General Zod is offline
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Here's a little fodder for the mind.

Given that the universe is several billion years older than our solar system even, what are the odds that we will find a civilization similar to ours in our level of technical advancement? Odds are if we looked at enough systems, we will eventually find one, but what if we picked up radio signals from a planet
just 300 light years away? That would mean that that civiliation has already advanced 300 years further than ours, providing that their technological advancement proceeds at a similar pace to our own. Uh oh. In that situation, we would have advance warning, as our little radio wave bubble is still 200 years away from their planet(s). Let's just hope any galatic neighbors are peaceful, and that they dont have some method of transportation that isnt restricted by relativity. But thats off the point. Im rambling.

Odds are that we will find life without sentinence first, perhaps next door. I mean, it took Earth billions of years to form intelligent life. And hundreds of thousands of years to harness electricity. Either that, or we will find the other extreme, hyper intelligent life with knowledge beyond our wildest ken, technological or biological capabilities we would only be able to associate with as godlike. They would be unstoppable if they deemed our planet as valuable for their needs.

On the upside, if a sentinent race were that far advanced, odds are that violent tendencies would be bred out. After all, with that kind of power they would have an incredible ability to destroy themselves, and probably eventually would, given enough time. A lot can happen in a billion years.

Here is another point to consider. If aliens were hostile to our presence, they could have easily done whatever they wanted at any point in our history before the 1950's and we would have been powerless to stop it. At least now we have incredibly powerful nuclear bombs that would render our planet useless to them anyways, so why bother us at all? Nothing to gain, in my opinion.

We ARE probably being watched by something, somewhere. Every time u look up at the stars, you could be looking at whole planets or systems teeming with life. I seriously doubt, from a scientific point of view, that we are so special. I just want to live long enough to see my beliefs vindicated by discovery.
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  #39 (permalink)  
Old 02-April-2004, 02:12 PM
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In the thread: Universe Today Forums -> Everything Else in the Universe -> The Science of Consciousness , I presented ideas with some guesses as to how sentience will evolve and I believe it has happened and will continue to happen in many locations throughout t he universe as time marches on. In other threads I have pointed out that we don't really know how long it took the universe to manufacture enough oxygen and other essential elements in sufficient density to provide enough water and other essential chemicals for life to begin to proliferate throughout the universe. It is probable that we are among the first sentient critters (if the universe is only 13.7 billion years old). It is fortunate that the spacing between stars in our neck of the woods will keep us isolated from competition until we are better equipped including an appropriate adoration and practicing of benevolence.

To the extent that we are not among the first, it becomes ever more urgent that, in order to survive the inevitable competition, we accelerate our technological development. A convenient impetus for driving us to excellence would be to seriously design and execute capabilities for interstellar transportation which phrase is worth googling.
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  #40 (permalink)  
Old 04-April-2004, 11:42 PM
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I dunno. I've read recent articles showing that astonomers are finding surprisingly large amounts of heavy element signatures in the spectrums of the earliest forming galaxies. I expect that we will find that quasars are, due to their active natures, helping form supermassive stars that live their lives in the fast lane, then go out in a supernova, dispersing their heavy elements into their surroundings a lot earlier in the universe's life than we currently expect. Therefore, the essential elements could have been abundant enough in certain areas for life to have started fairly early on. We will see.
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  #41 (permalink)  
Old 24-April-2004, 02:14 PM
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Then again, if our current mindset is primitive, then there just like us :huh: .
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