Extra terrestrials: hostile, or friendly? What do YOU think?

[youve_been_killered]

@ Golden- That is only one source, and doesn't nearly represent the whole book. The parts they claim are fraudulent make up for less than half the book. And as the maps, I am not sure where you are going with that. And it's bullshit to claim map-making isn't hard. To have to reproduce the Earth in its entirety, mountains, ocean depths, and size EXACTLY and put it onto a flat surface without altering the the size of the image? Not to mention, Piri Reis made his maps in 1513, and only could base his map on what he saw. But his maps are too close to a satellite image (Way up viewing the whole Earth, not just a continent) to be based on that. Not to mention he mapped things that were not visible with the technology at that time.

[Golden Dysprosium]

youve_been_killered

@ Golden- That is only one source, and doesn't nearly represent the whole book. The parts they claim are fraudulent make up for less than half the book. And as the maps, I am not sure where you are going with that. And it's bullshit to claim map-making isn't hard.

It's not, unless you have crappy spatial sense and artistic ability. It's selling our ancestors short and using moronic explainations.

Quote:

To have to reproduce the Earth in its entirety, mountains, ocean depths, and size EXACTLY and put it onto a flat surface without altering the the size of the image? Not to mention, Piri Reis made his maps in 1513, and only could base his map on what he saw.

Piri Reis was a sailor and a cartographer. He sailed the world and made maps of the world for the purpose of sailing. How would a man like that know enough about geography to make maps? Hmmm......

Quote:

But his maps are too close to a satellite image (Way up viewing the whole Earth, not just a continent) to be based on that. Not to mention he mapped things that were not visible with the technology at that time.

Your magic map. In color.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Piri_reis_world_map_01.jpg/435px-Piri_reis_world_map_01.jpg
And some more explaining why that's crap.

[youve_been_killered]

Thanks for finding the in-color one. Now everyone can see what I am talking about.

[Golden Dysprosium]

youve_been_killered

Thanks for finding the in-color one. Now everyone can see what I am talking about.

You should probably include this:
A corresponding note by Piri Reis reads:

Quote:

"This land is uninhabited. Everything is in ruin (barren?) and it is said that large snakes are found here. For this reason the Portuguese infidels did not land on these shores and these are also said to be very hot."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Antarctica_6400px_from_Blue_Marble.jpg/600px-Antarctica_6400px_from_Blue_Marble.jpg

[youve_been_killered]

Snakes and hotness? Don't see what that has to do with anything. Unless you are talking about....Never mind.

[Golden Dysprosium]

youve_been_killered

Snakes and hotness? Don't see what that has to do with anything. Unless you are talking about....Never mind.

The little bit of the map that all the mystery lovers think is Antarctica? Yeah. That's exactly what it was about. It was also customary to put some arbitrarily formed land mass at the bottom, based on the reasoning that one must have existed. Your buddy is also a mere author (not a single degree, it seems, but he sure does have a criminal record for fraud), who's been brutally refuted by actual scientists.
Oh, and here's one for the Daniken fans:

Quote:

"The Mayas were intelligent; they had a highly developed culture. They left behind not only a fabulous calendar but also incredible calculations. They knew the Venusian year of 584 days. . . " (p.55)

Meanwhile, NASA says:

Quote:

The Venusian year (orbital period) is about 225 Earth days long, while the planet's rotation period is 243 Earth days, making a Venus day about 117 Earth days long.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=Venus&Display=OverviewLong

[Sweet Clara01]

If their advanced enough to travel here, lets hope they don't look at the whole "we're afraid of what we don't understand" and stay away for fear of being disected.

[Golden Dysprosium]

I like this one:

The Zodikosis

This is all, of course, assuming that the life out there is smarter than us. I don't know why everyone assumes that intelligent life in the universe MUST be more advanced than humans. It is very well likely that there is a race of aliens out there that is like us but not as advanced, just as it is likely that there is a race of aliens out there that is more advanced than us but not so much that they can travel faster than light or communicate across such vast distances. This would very well explain why no contact has been made.

The closest planet (that we've found so far) capable of sustaining life is Gliese 581, about 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra (one light-year is about 5.9 trillion miles). The diameter of the earth at the equator is 7,926.41 miles

[Black OPS agent Dracarys]

M u s i cDETECTED

If an alien civilization were to be hostile, I'm sure they would self-destruct before establishing colonies on other worlds. That is, if their social system is similar to a human one.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure. Social structures, if any, play a huge role in this. But I'm assuming most space faring alien civilizations would be benign. smile Because if they are at peace within their own social structure, why would they need to go destroy other civilizations?

It's interesting to think about, I see a lot of possibilities here.

If they were completely xenophobic they could be hostile. Look at ants for example. Ants will ruthlessly fight any other ants that enter their territory. Instinct? Perhaps. But look at society, humanity does instinctive things all the time based on their culture. A homogeneous space-faring culture could easily have a xenophobe mentality, causing them to wage war on any other intelligent races.

Or read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Spoiler: highlight! The Aliens in that had a hive mentality and thought nothing of killing a few 'drones'.

[JackWisps]

I would assume they'd be quite similar in attitude to us if they made it that far. Assuming they went through evolution to get to sentient beings, then they must have had to fight for their survival along the way, which would mean they would have animal urges like being territorial, striving for dominance, and more. However it is possible they evolved in such a way that they overcame, or never required, the qualities that would lead to fighting/competition, though it is unlikely in my mind (which is only guessing)(or 'guesstimating'! *gets shot*)(that actually shows up as a word on my spell checker. eek ).

Also, they couldn't be too aggressive or they would not cooperate enough produce the level of technology required. Again, it is possible they found a way around that, but it is less likely (in my mind). They would need to pass on memories, or only be only aggressive against things outside their own species, which works fine until you start being nice only to those within your family or city. Then you end up similar to us again, with wars and such, which if they got past their own conflicts means they must have calmed down a little, but who's to say they did? We're quite capable of continuing our wars while sending people into space, why not others?

So by that I conclude they'd be tempered similar to us. They may want to talk peacefully, or consider us lesser species and make us pets, or even make war with us for being on their land. Guess that's the trouble with having such a widespread of personalities lol which 'us' will they be like? And yet another possibility is they evolved the hostile tenancies after the technology. Which, if they didn't turn it on themselves, would allow some sort of 'Klingon' people that had technology, but was war oriented. But I still think odds are they'd think similar to us and more likely peaceful that hostile.

[kinerinninja1]

Basicly the same affect of a kid with a magnifying class and a trail of ants......... they would see us as a inferior race of low tech beings and try to innilate us because wer go against all their means of intelligent races because we r at war with our selves and we are killing our own home world they probably wouldn't hesitate to kill us in an instunte.....or maybe the reason we haven seen intellegent life is because they do not want anything to do with us

[Golden Dysprosium]

*sigh* this is what I always hated when people talk about "first contact". They always always assume that we're going to run into something like this:
http://www.futuregamez.net/movies/avp/avp3.jpg
A stereotypical hostile alien race, advanced millions of years ahead of us and coming to wipe us out, or this:
http://dangermagnet.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/et.jpg
the magical, yet still advanced, peaceful aliens looking to form a relationship which we eventually f'ck up.
The problem comes down to basic word association: when you think of aliens, you automatically think of some fantastic creature, advanced far beyond us that you saw in some movie or t.v show. The thing is, every planet had roughly the same starting point in time, so it's unlikely they're any further ahead than us. Hell, look at how many screw ups we've made just with orbiting spacestations, let alone intergalactic travel.

[Chainsaw Samurai]

Baby Fart McGee-zax......Thats all I have to contribute.... stare

[StandingOnTheMoon]

Really, aliens are awesome. You should just give them all your gold and items.

[That Foxy Martin]

There is absolutely no evidence for any of the three...which can only mean this is a thread full of worthless speculation.