Hawking Says Looking for Aliens Won't End Well

Old news, glad to see someone on here grabs articles off of msn.

now all we need to do is create the Nation Security Council for Alien Encounters and make him the head of it and we will be all set

i knew this would end up on toms. there are such things as life forms on other planets the universe is too big for us to be the only ones.

As long as Will Smith is alive, any aliens that cause some shit will get their ass kicked.....

As long as that shit is only caused in the States

Hawking said something like because humans are like that.
Actually..who knows...perhaps we are the only ones who are aggressive and greedy..

I watched his TV show last night on Discovery, and he openly states that inviting ET to Earth could be catastrophic. (Big surprise, right?)

For an intelligent species to get here, they will have to possess far, FAR greater technology than we do. That said, what's to prevent them from farming the Earth, and us, as we farm crops, mines, and livestock now? If they don't come in peace, we're screwed!

Hawking has the right idea. I doubt the aliens would have any more regard for us than we would have for an insect. We'd just be a nuisance in their way..

Thankfully the huge distances in space and limits to the speed of light should keep them away from us if they are out there (they probably are). However if they do happen to find a way to distort space time then we are royally screwed- they WILL find us eventually... In which case I say crack out the nukes! - and Will Smith

If there was intelligent life with technology that greatly surpassed ours then I think they would find us whether we liked it or not.

Why would they want our ressources? There's billions of planets richer than Earth but how many of those planets have life on them? Destroying life for pebbles and rocks make no sense at all. I think they would probably far more interrested studying us or at worst us enslaving as pets or whatever an E.T. would do with a human.

Well duh. Why else did Xenu put us here.

Yeah, because they just drove how many miles just to say hi...

Who knows? Just about anything might happen.

thank you Mr obvious, What, people all around the world are trying to make direct contact with alien life? Not even trying to make it so we just spy on them first?

Albert Einstein "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."

Suddenly: District 9

Maybe the fact that if they are from other planets, they might not find our resources valuable. How do we know they are even going to breathe oxygen. What if our planet is SO toxic to them it isn't worth the effort of conquering us? --- There is also the chance of that.

gais we'll be ok. they'll get sick and die much like the aliens from war of the worlds

Screw Will Smith. Long before Will Smith, Rowdy Roddy Piper was kicking alien ass and not even bothering to take names (see: They Live! Nothin like Bulldogging an alien through a coffee table. Guess using the Sleeper Hold didn't make much sense).

Anyway, I agree with the insect hypothesis. Any aliens technologically advanced enough to travel to earth won't care that we can talk, we'll just be insects to them. It was always odd that in Star Trek: TNG, the Prime Directive only seemed to apply to human-like alien species. Beaming down and blasting some ooze-creature with a phaser was never unacceptable. Strange.

Life itself is a very selfish "Force". All life wants is more, is something in return. Life thrives on receiving, everything we do is for ourselves. We give money to a friend expecting a thanks, credit, and if you dont receive it you get upset. You try and get that job so you get paid, if you dont get paid you get upset. You turn on the TV to be entertained, if you're not entertained, you get upset.

So with this said, If an alien species came to earth, this automatically tells us they're far more advanced then we are because they're able to travel and sustain their species through long travels in space. So, this means we have nothing they'll want when it comes to intelligence, so what else would they want? Well, our resources.

But then, if you think about it, the basic resources like water, fuel, etc is all over the galaxy, in every solar system, there are many different types of resources. So, this being the case why would an advanced alien species purposely destroy our planet, the species on it for a bit of resource they can get from Europa, Jupiter, the moon, mars etc?

I personally don't think an Alien species will take the resources off our planet, specially at their level of intelligence. The only thing I can see them doing is using us for experimentation or as something else. Not as slaves, because again, at their level of intelligence one would expect them to already mastered AI, robotics can do work much more efficiently and quickly as us.

So, again, with all this said... would they even bother with us? We have nothing to offer them at all.

I think Hopkins has been watching too many Sci-Fi movies

Believing in the golden-hearted alien makes for some interesting sci-fi (not to mention certain religious cults). But realistically, there is very little basis for it and it ultimately proves to be naive.

In nature, we have countless examples of the strong praying upon the weak. Yet, I can't think of a single example of a stronger species helping a weaker species (other than humans, but even that is a dubious example).

It is logical to assume that any species capable of interstellar travel is far more technologically advanced than we are. So right away WE would be the weaker species and totally at the mercy of any such visitors. If they are without mercy, then we're pretty much stuffed.

It is also logical to assume that every intelligent species will act first for their own self interest. So they may not be malevalent beings, but just acting in their own best interests and we may suffer for it. Really, about the best that we can hope for is for the aliens to have a sort of Prime Directive wherein they refuse to interfere with other races (especially inferiors races). In which case, there would be absolutely no reason to make contact with us. They would observe, but never reveal themselves or get involved.

The idea of benevolent, peace-loving aliens who just want to be our friends and maybe share their technology with us... that is, in all probability, pure fantasy. At best it is an extreme long-shot (and by that I mean, you'd have a better chance of winning the lottery several times in a row).

So, yes, I think Dr. Hawking is dead-on when he predicts that nothing good will come of attempting to contact any extra-terrestrial intellience.

Right... they would want earth's resources when they could mine our asteroid belts instead. (incidentally the most valuable resources were deposited here by large asteroid strikes).

Also, why use human slaves when robots would do?

Ever watched movie "Planet 51"?
Maybe we will be the "Aliens". That is if we pass 2012, lol.

You should've really stolen gizmodo's picture for this article. It is epic.

You would think an intelligent, handicapped person like Hawking would theorize a little more that we we're created by God. Mathematically, it all adds up. What doesn't add up is the ridiculous THEORIES that are layered on top of theories and layered on top of more theories about how, why and when life was created. We haven't even searched more than 1% of our OWN OCEANS! How the HELL can Hawking presume we aren't alone!? We are our own worst enemy. He acts like we are some paradise of humans that "cultivate" the land. Even on Tom's Hardware if "aliens" were to read the comments and base Earthly life on it, they would annihilate us, on the spot. We are an extremely destructive species that no "alien" would cater to. Come in peace? How about come and free the Earth from the virus we call Humans.

yes, because aliens want our resources, its not like they can get it ANYWHERE else. if they wanted to find us, they would have without us sending out weak radio signals and satellites. hawking just watched too many movies as a kid.

Do we have a clear understanding of the superior alien behavior and needs out there in the rest of the universe? How does someone knows that? Even Stephen Hawking.

This is the same thinking that produced most myth all over the human history: Some basic or limited knowledge and little or no facts. Sorry that it comes from a great scientist but this is not science. If we want to know about science fiction then there is a lot and more on the way.

They, the aliens, could be living in their spaceships in the deep ocean consuming a lot of resources and energy they need from "our" planet and we wouldn't know. Or we do?

"'To Serve Man'... It's a COOKBOOK!"

Actually, they might not be so violent. Perhaps the only way your society can ever get to the level of being able to develop interstellar technologies requires you to evolve past the basic instinct to blow the s*** out of each other.

I don't understand. Most of the resources found on earth can be found on other planets. I would imagine if they needed oxygen, they could produce it like we do for our space travel..and I'm sure they have better ways since they can travel light years. I'm sure they dont run their ships on fossil fuels so oil is out. Oh yeah, O + H2 = water.. I'm sure they know how to put those together. Minerals can be found on other planets.

I dont see how a vastly intelligent species that can travel light years would have any interest in our little planet other than a) eating us or b) learning about us.

Given the previous comments on this post about resources being everywhere, what else could an alien race want with humans... well, what did every other conquering army take first and foremost from an enslaved population?? THE WOMEN!!

Once you go cro-man, you never go back! Sliders!