Why I'm getting more and more pecimistic about 'little green men'...

[LoSTBoY]

Scipi70 - If our galaxy was teaming with other civilizations some would be tens or hundreds of millions of years old, have capabilities beyond our comprehension, and be without a doubt space fairing. They would have spread across the galaxy... Why are they not here? Why would they want to touch such an uncivilized greedy race like us. All they have to do is pick up the daily news and see that we are not worthy of their company.

[capncnut]

If our galaxy was teaming with other civilizations some would be tens or hundreds of millions of years old, have capabilities beyond our comprehension, and be without a doubt space fairing. They would have spread across the galaxy... Why are they not here? I have a gut feeling that the odd are not in little green mans favour. As I said before maybe the odds are not just throwing a pair of sixes, but infact akin to throwing ten sixes with ALL the dice needing to land one piled on top of the other... So even if handful of species do exist in our galaxy, maybe space travel is so difficult they've stayed at home... Maybe it would take the nearest inhabited neighbour 20,000 years to get here even when travelling at fast speeds? Maybe the nearest inhabited neighbour has a 200,000 year life-span? Maybe our nearest inhabited neighbour is in fact a newly formed planet where a civilisation is growing for the 2nd time ever in the entire history of the universe? Maybe we're the aliens that have got to do that 20,000 year trek? Do I believe in aliens? Maybe.

[axlish]

I find it odd that anyone can look at the sky at night and think of anything but limitless possibilities. Odds play no role when dealing with a lack of limitations. There is also the possibility that we may not be worth visiting.

[Mike70]

Scipi70 - If our galaxy was teaming with other civilizations some would be tens or hundreds of millions of years old, have capabilities beyond our comprehension, and be without a doubt space fairing. They would have spread across the galaxy... Why are they not here? I have a gut feeling that the odd are not in little green mans favour. As I said before maybe the odds are not just throwing a pair of sixes, but infact akin to throwing ten sixes with ALL the dice needing to land one piled on top of the other... So even if handful of species do exist in our galaxy, maybe space travel is so difficult they've stayed at home... i don't think the galaxy is filled with sentient life at all. i think that advanced civilizations are probably quite rare and spread quite far apart. life, however, is probably quite common but the number of planets where that life evolves advanced intelligence is probably quite small. the number of these advanced intelligences that destroy themselves during the evolutionary process (as we have been close to doing before) or are destroyed by a natural process (asteroids, comets, a star passing too close by and throwing the planets orbit off) probably makes the number smaller still. we have been lucky (so far) the nothing on the extinction level has happened to earth while humans have been evolving. we were close about 80,000 years ago when the tuva supervolcano went off and reduced to the human population to about 3,000-10,000 in the entire world. so luck would play a part in any species development. the universe as a whole is a quite different matter. the sheer numbers of stars in the universe puts the odds of sentient life existing in many places in the universe as quite high. you are talking of the so-called "fermi paradox" this is a pessimistic, human centric idea that a species would share our basic traits and be as curious and as driven to explore as we are. species that evolved on another planet might be so different from us that they would have no basis for even dealing with us, let alone understanding us. others simply might not care. interstellar travel would be quite difficult but i think that more that know about quantum mechanics tells us that it is not impossible by any means. like you said some of these civilizations could be millions of years old - given that what possible interest would they have in a childish race whose favorite pasttime is murdering one another in the name of politics/religion? we are still infants. our speices is only about 200,000 years old and fully modern humans are only about 80,000 years old. there is still a lot to discover.

[HLS]

Well i do not think we have the technology yet to say what is for sure but I do believe life is out there somewhere. The Universe is so vast.

[DVW5150]

Why would aliens be gay? Gay ? (Not that theres anything wrong with that) Little green men do not exist , they are G R A Y ... Damnit ! GRAY ! A light shade of black ... sheesh ... Doesnt anybody get it ? GRAY ! Little Green men are something started by B-rated sci-fi comics and movies ... GRAYGray GRAY ...damnit ...

[_liam_]

i wouldnt hold your breath, even we aren't that advanced. we spend 8 hours a day unconscious and get this ; try to visualise infinity. you can't! were so ****. i agree with terran,think i said all this somewhere else, what are the chances of *planet size *contents of the planet (gases, matter etc) *distance from sun *size of that sun *age of planet being REMOTELY similar enough on another planet to produce something that we would even recognise as a living being? skin, blood, eating, communicating, even just having your own body are EARTH concepts. that's why i remain dubious about flying saucers & abductions - theyve invented flying vehicles?! way too many paralellss with earth technology to be true. also humanoid aliens? the chances of that actually occurring...think about it! it's ridiculously unlikely. "the blob" and the 82 "the thing" were the only realistic aliens! unless you believe in that seed theory, where life on a bunch of different planets (including our own) was seeded by one other source... anyway yes it's people from the future,stick this in ye pipe and smoke it; evolution will never stop, we will evolve and evolve until we are the perfect survival machines.maybe even beings of light that never die, who knows. the universe will eventually be swallowed up by a myriad of black holes, that in turn eat each other, until everything is compacted into a single point. then our being of light-super evolved descendants, who have been hiding in a "baby universe" that they created, will instigate the thingummyjig that makes the point expand, causing the big bang and the whole of the history of the universe to transpire again exactly as it did before. from time to time they visit earth in their craft... maybe not

[Arcades057]

I heard it said onc before on a TV program. As men, we don't walk past an ant hill and have the urge to stop and teach the ants the art of modern industry and space travel; we either keep walking or kill the ants so they don't bite our kids. Or we hold a magnifying glass over them and burn them for fun... The point is that if a race far more advanced than ourselves were to happen upon us, we can't simply assume that they'd even stop, let alone decide to be friends with us. They would know how badly we treat each other most of teh time; do they think they'd get different treatment? Personally I do think there is intelligent life out there. It would be vain to assume that this entire universe is merely here as a toy for our amusement. I don't know how much sense this makes, but I used this as an example in a conversation about this with a friend... Earth is a planet that is at just the right distance from our sun to allow life to breed. Venus is too close, Mars is too far; we're perfect. Now, there has to be a center of the universe. Whichever method of creation that you believe in, there must be a center. Let us say now, because of this center, there is a very large amount of energy left over from the "bang" that prohibits life of any known kind developing on planets that reside in galaxies close to this center, but it gives out enough energy that allows life to develop on planets in galaxies farther away, but not too far. By that example, the galaxy that houses Earth would have to be within this ring that is habitable; but there will be other galaxies out there that will have no life, nor will they be able to sustain it. I admit, to me this is one of the bleakest thoughts about the universe, but I, like Neil, am starting to fear that there are not nearly the amount of the other-worldly races out there that I had at first hoped. Instead I see now seas of planets of nothing but rock; some of them valuable rocks, but rocks nonetheless. There would be other galaxies around this ring, however,where there would be life. By my example we would have to plot the center of the universe and judge our distance to see just where the livable ring would begin and then go from there to decide where we might best find our neighbors. Again, it's just an idea. Pretty bleak, but still an idea.

[_liam_]

and develop a way of travelling fast enough to make it worthwhile, or it would be like that haldeman book where were at war with an alien race noone on earth has seen or knows anything about cos its so far away,we just send "ark" ships breeding armies out to fight them. but yeah, very interesting points. personally i believe that the earth is the spark that all life in the universe will stem from and that there are currently no aliens, but it's just my opinion and much more arguable than your point about the hospitable ring.

[Marie]

Why would aliens be gay? From all observations they only have one sex, so we assume they're gay. Even Dr.Who was Gal-Afraid. M_

[_liam_]

hey...he had a grandaughter in the early ones and was a father once...plus he pulled daphne ashbrook & billie piper... I REFUSE TO BELIEVE MY HERO GETS NONE! he's got two hearts...what else has he got two of?

[Danny]

zing.

[capncnut]

he's got two hearts...what else has he got two of? Sonic Screwdrivers?

[_liam_]

there's a "it's bigger on the inside than the out" joke in here somewhere, but im not sharp enough to figure it out...

[Marie]

In all seriousness, think about what happens, even if intentions are benign, when an advanced culture meets a less advanced one in earth history. I'd imagine alien cultures had similar experences in their advancement, and learned from it. M_