I suppose that could be true. But might it not be the case that a civilization thousands or millions of years ahead of us evolutionary might just have a better understanding of reality?

Who knows, maybe they would respect everyones free will not to believe...

Msybe they are our star brothers and sisters and want to reunite the family...

Double post...

Being from the "It's a cookbook!" generation, I'm with Hawking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_(The_Twilight_Zone)

I do not appreciate MS13 .......Gang members who have no desire to integrate coming to my community selling crack and perpetrating random crimes with no regard to society what so ever. Do you need more proof I can find many examples of these sorry excuses for Human Beings.

What would you say if you were a retired man jogging with his wife when a couple of these MOTHER FUCKERs murdered you and raped your wife. I do not appreciate such things nor shall I tolerate it.

If I did happen to live in Arizona and they crossed the border on my property I would give one verbal message in Spanish and a warning shot over there heads. If they did not compile I will shoot them down in a heart beat. Because I know many of them would not think twice or give a verbal warning or a shot over my heads.

SOME of them would not think twice about killing me and committing what ever other crimes they could get away with. Sorry Dude but I do not believe in Aliens from Outer Space. I know about the ones I have seen and most of them are criminals they are not honest imigrants to my county who want a better life. They come here to PREY on me and other Americans.

If you think that makes me racist so be it, you dont have a CLUE about reality. You need to go back to the shrink and get another past life regression because the last one was obviously not successful in finding the truth.

Peace

That's a pretty angry post there, brother - putting 'peace' at the end of it doesn't change the tone...

Initially, I thought you were derailing the thread - changing it from an interesting conversation about the nature, physics and intentions of any possible extra-terrestrial civilization to one about immigration in the southwestern United States.

But weirdly, there is a link: the experience of illegal immigrants you describe, while not necessarily racist, is without doubt xenophobic - a word which means 'fear of strangers', which is precisely what Hawking is talking about.

I'm sorry that your experience has brought you to a place where you are so angry you want to shoot people. I read it as a response to what you perceive as gross injustice.

The mistake I believe Hawking is making, though, is that he is assuming any alien/extra-terrestrial civilization will exhibit human traits. He is also making a false comparison with the European destruction of pre-Colombian culture in South America - the technological gulf between the South American civilizations and the European invaders was large; the latter had mastered the oceans and gunpowder. They also had a thirst for conquest and treasure.

Any civilization that could actually make it's way across the hostile vacuum of space would be so far beyond us in terms of understanding, it doesn't bear comparison with the conquistadores.

Using a model of human behaviour to try to understand the intentions of an alien civilization that had mastered space and time is a category error, a basic failing of logic, and it is anthropomorphic - in the same way that we try to apply human morals or relationship structures to the animal world: it's not science, its Disney.



I suppose it is a matter of belief for many people, as there is an absence of evidence. But as has been said before, an absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence.

The truth is we simply do not know if there are any other intelligent life-forms out there.

The universe is pretty big, and statistically, it's more likely there is than isn't - that would be the Drake equation. But then there is the Fermi paradox - if it is likely there are other life forms out there, where the hell are they?

We just don't know - that's the bald fact of the matter. And it's a shame that this issue, like many, degenerates into hardened positions where people feel they have to take a firm stand on one side of the speculation or other, because they cannot seem to accept the simple truth of uncertainty - we don't know if there are intelligent extra-terrestrial lifeforms, and that remains the case whatever anyone believes.

Hummmmmm, MajikVenom, I do happen to live in Arizona and I am extremely relieved you don't.
Buenos dias.
---Chal

As opposed to black gangs, or asian gangs, or white gangs, or corporate gangs, or mixed race gangs, or mafia, or drug cartels? Gangs are gangs and rarely integrate with the community, and usually in fact destroy it. It is a function of gangs/crime, not of a particular race.



Nothing, I'd be dead.



To claim that most illegial immigrants are criminals is just plain ignorant. The opposite is in fact the truth, most of them abide by the law, come here for a better life, and many even pay taxes. So to say that they come here to specifically prey upon you and other Americans is most certainly Xenophobic, and not even close to reality.



Maybe as 88 said it is more Xenophobic than racist, but misappropiating blame to a particular segment of a population when it isn't the only one commiting the acts you describe is better categorized as racist. Sorry that's the reality of the situation, and I have a far better clue about it than you do since you lack an understanding of your own thought processes. You assume I judge, I do not. Just calling it as I see it. You are who you are, just accept it or change.

Where did that past life comment come from and what relavance does it have to the discussion at hand? Obviously I touched a nerve for you to become so defensive and lash out.

Your attempt to insult me has failed.

Namaste

http://www.cnn.com/2009/...lanets.kepler/index.html

There may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, or one for every sun-type star in the galaxy, said Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution and author of the new book "The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets."

In a paper published recently in the International Journal of Astrobiology, the researchers concluded that based on what they saw, at least 361 intelligent civilizations have emerged in the Milky Way since its creation, and as many as 38,000 may have formed.


They're here...

Sounds like something Robocop would have said to ED-209.




I never knew Mexicans came decompiled.

You really lost me with this one, MagikVenom. I've tried to give you the benefit of the doubt in the past, but I think you're kinda ugly on the inside. It's difficult to have a lot of respect for you and your point of view.

Pls explain.
I think you are kind of black-white minded sometimes, but i dont think you are racist.
That would be stupid. And you know it.

So you just having a bad day?

Okay... Stating that some illegal immigrants are a pain in the ass is not racism. But stating that most immigrants, most Mexicans, or most anything else is a pain in the ass, that is damn close to racism. And stating that most Mexicans are member of some criminal gang, THAT IS racism.

Even though you are walking on the border (pun intended) here, MagikVenom, I would appreciate if you could moderate your statements. We have a diverse multi-cultural society in here, so let's take extra care to not step on anyone's toes. Of course you should state your viewpoint, but there's no need to do it with so damn much hate. I could have written pages with hate about Americans and directed it against you, but as I know an individual don't necessarily represent the group he belongs to, I refrain from doing that.

So why are we assuming that on other inhabited planets they're not having the same sort of issues that prevents any intergalactic cosmopolitanism from ever emerging?

There may be many inhabited planets, but i doubt that there are many civilisations that have evolved to the level of starfleet federation stuff.

Most of the time, by the time your civilisation starts to evolve into some sort of serious technologically advanced group of people, you get hit by some asteroïd or the big supervolcano erupts again.

Can there realy be any civilisation in the universe that exists for longer than a few hundredthousand years?

I think not.
I think there are many inhabited planets, but they're all the same pathetic bastards as us.

And what about the DMT entities then? Well it's obvious. Haven't you seen it on those TV commercials? they come from the world inside of the coca-cola machines.

To me, it seems as if some vital part of the psychedelic experience has eluded you. That was some ignorant shit.

"I know about the ones I have seen and most of them are criminals."

"If you think that makes me racist so be it, you dont have a CLUE about reality."

The above two statements, when considered together, would be laughable if not so troubling. I'm very puzzled at how someone with such a lowbrow reality tunnel ever got this far.

Repost, in light of latter posts:

I think its glarlingly obvious why he has never encountered entities.

Not so for me. Why is it obvious?

How many people here realy believe that the U.S. government has kept extra terrestial lifeforms in custody in area 51 after the roswell incident?

I gues stephen hawking does not take that story seriously, otherwise he wouldn't have warned over not contacting aliens. He would have said something like:"spend all your money like there's no tomorrow, because guess what...there'll be no tomorrow, we're all doomed".

Deleted: Statement out of context.

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