Should we shut the f*** up?

[Risottia]

I dont think those alien space ships are going to care about a nuke.

A thermonuclear weapon produces a power density vastly greater than that of ordinary stellar core matter undergoing fusion. Keeping your ship together against what's basically a miniature supernova blasting on its surface would require that ship to be made entirely out of what... white-dwarf degenerate matter? Well, you can't build ships with that.

I am not a physicist but wouldnt a 1 gram dust particle being hit by a near light speed ship create an amount of energy far greater than a nuclear bomb?

Define "near"... and then reach it.
And anyway, yes, kinetic weapons are always the best choice. Always.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... JustBetter
See the "Real Life" section.
When you take ballistic weapons Up to Eleven, it turns out that an inert metal slug striking a sufficiently dense target at even a small fraction of lightspeed releases a phenomenal amount of energy. At a mere 3 km/s — one thousandth of a percent of light speed — any object contains as much energy as an equivalent mass of TNT. Firing anything at even one percent light speed turns it into a nuclear-scale destructive device. Of course, accelerating it to that speed involves its own brand of speculative technology, but at least they're not firing Frickin' Laser Beams.

And one thing is avoiding being hit by a random speck of dust in the interstellar vacuum... another thing is when an unpowered, near-undetectable slug has been aimed purposefully straight at you.

[Aclion]

3. They aren't scared of us. On a galactic scale, we're like some primitive uncontacted tribe on a remote island in the pacific. Can you imagine a technological superpower like the US bombing a tiny primitive tribe, no matter how violent, on the grounds that it might one day be a threat? It's a ludicrous idea. Even if they did think we could be a threat 10 million years down the line, they could keep us bottled up here indefinitely with minimal investment of resources.

Yes, Because in this situation the "tiny primitive tribe" is a species of murdermonkeys that went from simple firearms and horses to fusion bombs and ICBMs in a hundred years, and we won't didn't even know that for maybe hundreds of years after the fact. We're basically playing MAD but without early warming or second strike capability. Best to wipe them out now: since the first thing they did with fission is blow each other up, and for all we know the first thing they'll do is with near light speed is strap it to a 3000kg mass and throw it at our planet.

[Bombadil]

3. They aren't scared of us. On a galactic scale, we're like some primitive uncontacted tribe on a remote island in the pacific. Can you imagine a technological superpower like the US bombing a tiny primitive tribe, no matter how violent, on the grounds that it might one day be a threat? It's a ludicrous idea. Even if they did think we could be a threat 10 million years down the line, they could keep us bottled up here indefinitely with minimal investment of resources.

Yes, Because in this situation the "tiny primitive tribe" is a species of murdermonkeys that went from simple firearms and horses to fusion bombs and ICBMs in a hundred years, and we won't didn't even know that for maybe hundreds of years after the fact. We're basically playing MAD but without early warming or second strike capability. Best to wipe them out now: since the first thing they did with fission is blow each other up, and for all we know the first thing they'll do is with near light speed is strap it to a 3000kg mass and throw it at our planet.

Well quite, and sending signals to alien life also suggests these murdermonkeys are not just stupid but arrogant, really the worst type of being.

The idea that aliens would want to invade earth is idiotic. If they want resources there are countless other planets that don’t have a hostile species with nukes or they could trade with us.

You'll be president one day m'boy.

[Novus America]

That's why you don't launch just one nuke at them. If it comes to actual blows, you must strike so hard that you obliterate the problem.

>Implying patience and diplomacy is China, Russia, or the US' strong suit

Another thing I'd like to point out is the ridiculousness of the idea that humanity, a species that can barely make it to its own planet's satellite, would somehow have the ability to take down an alien vessel that's able to travel to other solar systems without much trouble. We are Bambi and they're most likely Godzilla.

Yeah, but Bambi does not want to meet Godzilla.

Most likely aliens are just as vicicious and brutal as humans, cats, dogs, chimpanzees, ants and the like. (Ants are the worst, seriously they make the Nazis look tame).

But the good thing space time is so huge and we are so small our chance of actually finding any are nil.

Should we actively try to communicate? No.
But more because it is a complete waste of money.

By the time a signal we sent reached them, assuming it ever did (and it is unlikely the signal would reach them intact) it will be millions of years from now anyways.

The chance of it actually reaching anyone, then being understood and traced is extremely unlikely.

We should not try to hide our existence, but spending money to advertise it is also silly.

[Salandriagado]

It doesn't matter, because it's far too late. Anybody that's looking for us (and capable of being a threat) can find us, and that isn't going to change.

More to the point, anybody capable of finding us and getting here, and willing to go all xenocide-y on the galaxy, is also capable of the much-easier task of simply firing a relativistic-speed missile at every potentially habitable planet in the galaxy.

[Free Arabian Nation]

I think it's far too late to stop...

We've been sending signals into space, both accidentally and purposefully, for decades now. Anyone within at least a 50 light-year radius probably already knows that we exist/there's some weird noise coming from a planet that they can't decipher, and that radius is growing.

Also, for all we know, our planet suddenly shutting up could invite some unwanted visitors who think our planet is free real estate

[Risottia]

Yeah, but Bambi does not want to meet Godzilla.

Most likely aliens are just as vicicious and brutal as humans, cats, dogs, chimpanzees, ants and the like. (Ants are the worst, seriously they make the Nazis look tame).

That's why we should just stfu and create a serious defence-and-detection system in our Solar System.
At the very worst, it can be used to track and deviate dangerous asteroids.

[Ethel mermania]

I dont think those alien space ships are going to care about a nuke.

A thermonuclear weapon produces a power density vastly greater than that of ordinary stellar core matter undergoing fusion. Keeping your ship together against what's basically a miniature supernova blasting on its surface would require that ship to be made entirely out of what... white-dwarf degenerate matter? Well, you can't build ships with that.

I am not a physicist but wouldnt a 1 gram dust particle being hit by a near light speed ship create an amount of energy far greater than a nuclear bomb?

Define "near"... and then reach it.
And anyway, yes, kinetic weapons are always the best choice. Always.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... JustBetter
See the "Real Life" section.
When you take ballistic weapons Up to Eleven, it turns out that an inert metal slug striking a sufficiently dense target at even a small fraction of lightspeed releases a phenomenal amount of energy. At a mere 3 km/s — one thousandth of a percent of light speed — any object contains as much energy as an equivalent mass of TNT. Firing anything at even one percent light speed turns it into a nuclear-scale destructive device. Of course, accelerating it to that speed involves its own brand of speculative technology, but at least they're not firing Frickin' Laser Beams.

And one thing is avoiding being hit by a random speck of dust in the interstellar vacuum... another thing is when an unpowered, near-undetectable slug has been aimed purposefully straight at you.

You have confused me a bit but your second comments are kind of my point.

a ship designed to travel at say 295,000,000 meters per second and survive hitting that dust speck without being blown to bits, is going to be able withstand a nuke at 11,300 mps

Or am I confused again?

[Novus America]

Yeah, but Bambi does not want to meet Godzilla.

Most likely aliens are just as vicicious and brutal as humans, cats, dogs, chimpanzees, ants and the like. (Ants are the worst, seriously they make the Nazis look tame).

That's why we should just stfu and create a serious defence-and-detection system in our Solar System.
At the very worst, it can be used to track and deviate dangerous asteroids.

Well we should not be actively seeking to advertise (because it is a waste of money and more likely to do harm than good, despite being insanely unlikely to do either), but we should not be interfering with our current way of life either.

Given the minuscule to non existent chance of us actually being close in space time to anyone else, from a cost benefit analysis I do not see it particularly useful.

Spending trillions on something we cannot yet build, and probably cannot make work properly, and probably will not use does not seem a efficient use of resources.

We should however obviously keep an continue to improve the military we have.

But fighting aliens should be very low priority given it is so very unlikely.
Not because aliens are probably nice, (they probably are not).

But because space time is too big for use to be likely to encounter anything.

[Bombadil]

It doesn't matter, because it's far too late. Anybody that's looking for us (and capable of being a threat) can find us, and that isn't going to change.

Well.. first the universe is quite large for anyone to find anything they're not looking for especially if they're dealing with things they've already found. It's not that we're discoverable, its that no one's thinking to discover us or pinpoint down to the infinitely minuscule likelihood of discovering a silent life.

More to the point, anybody capable of finding us and getting here, and willing to go all xenocide-y on the galaxy, is also capable of the much-easier task of simply firing a relativistic-speed missile at every potentially habitable planet in the galaxy.

Well hence let's not invest in what is essentially advertising of our existence.

[Valrifell]

We don't even know if extraterrestrials exist and you're already ascribing potential motives to creatures of completely foreign biology and technology.

They could be ghosts for all we know.

[Andsed]

Yes, Because in this situation the "tiny primitive tribe" is a species of murdermonkeys that went from simple firearms and horses to fusion bombs and ICBMs in a hundred years, and we won't didn't even know that for maybe hundreds of years after the fact. We're basically playing MAD but without early warming or second strike capability. Best to wipe them out now: since the first thing they did with fission is blow each other up, and for all we know the first thing they'll do is with near light speed is strap it to a 3000kg mass and throw it at our planet.

Well quite, and sending signals to alien life also suggests these murdermonkeys are not just stupid but arrogant, really the worst type of being.

The idea that aliens would want to invade earth is idiotic. If they want resources there are countless other planets that don’t have a hostile species with nukes or they could trade with us.

You'll be president one day m'boy.

Well what reason would the aliens have to invade us?

[Ifreann]

If we stopped emitting radio waves today, what would stop aliens from being able to see us?

[Bombadil]

Well quite, and sending signals to alien life also suggests these murdermonkeys are not just stupid but arrogant, really the worst type of being.



You'll be president one day m'boy.

Well what reason would the aliens have to invade us?

Logically I don't have to know the reason, I just have to consider..

a. assume all aliens are benign
b. assume some aliens are not benign

..and consider whether I want to advertise my existence on a or b.

For all the points on radio waves and etc., whether what we've done or not is an issue we should simply stop attempting.

a. continue to devise means to share our existence
b. stop our attempts to share our existence

The simple answer is stop.

[Risottia]

a ship designed to travel at say 295,000,000 meters per second and survive hitting that dust speck without being blown to bits, is going to be able withstand a nuke at 11,300 mps

Or am I confused again?

Yep. NO ship can survive the impact of a dust speck at 0.99 c, because matter stays together through molecular and intermolecular bonds whose binding energy is just smaller than the energy that such an impact would yield.
It can survive by DODGING it.

[Andsed]

Well what reason would the aliens have to invade us?

Logically I don't have to know the reason, I just have to consider..

a. assume all aliens are benign
b. assume some aliens are not benign

..and consider whether I want to advertise my existence on a or b.

For all the points on radio waves and etc., whether what we've done or not is an issue we should simply stop attempting.

a. continue to devise means to share our existence
b. stop our attempts to share our existence

The simple answer is stop.

First off we can't assume anything about aliens since we know nothing about them. And second we can't just "stop." With all of our modern technology we are always making noise so unless we were to go dark we are not going to be able to stop making noise.

[Risottia]

If we stopped emitting radio waves today, what would stop aliens from being able to see us?

Decoherence of EM waves. After some lightyears, non-directed broadcasts turn into a mess which is disappears into the background noise of every other natural radio source in the universe.
Unless we keep blasting directed beams around, as in some parts of the SETI projects, we can't be seen from very far away - I'm not doing the math right now, but anything beyond 50 ly is rather out of range.

[Thermodolia]

Space faring organizations most likely don’t exist. And even if they did we wouldn’t be regarded as primitive people but as wild animals.

Basically the distances between systems is too great to travel for resources especially when many resources are in their own systems

[Ifreann]

If we stopped emitting radio waves today, what would stop aliens from being able to see us?

Decoherence of EM waves. After some lightyears, non-directed broadcasts turn into a mess which is disappears into the background noise of every other natural radio source in the universe.
Unless we keep blasting directed beams around, as in some parts of the SETI projects, we can't be seen from very far away - I'm not doing the math right now, but anything beyond 50 ly is rather out of range.

I guess we'll need a big curtain around the solar system.

[Ethel mermania]

Decoherence of EM waves. After some lightyears, non-directed broadcasts turn into a mess which is disappears into the background noise of every other natural radio source in the universe.
Unless we keep blasting directed beams around, as in some parts of the SETI projects, we can't be seen from very far away - I'm not doing the math right now, but anything beyond 50 ly is rather out of range.

I guess we'll need a big curtain around the solar system.

WE WILL BUILD A CURTAIN AND MAKE THE ROMULANS PAY FOR IT!!

it will be a nice two toned curtain with sliders so it is easy to open and close with one hand.

[Glath]

The most likely scenario is that the aliens will detect our radio noise, come to see if there's intelligent life here, and leave after concluding there isn't.

[Coruscanti Nations]

The most likely scenario is that the aliens will detect our radio noise, come to see if there's intelligent life here, and leave after concluding there isn't.

They will leave as soon as they find all of the dank memes that we have.

[Risottia]

Decoherence of EM waves. After some lightyears, non-directed broadcasts turn into a mess which is disappears into the background noise of every other natural radio source in the universe.
Unless we keep blasting directed beams around, as in some parts of the SETI projects, we can't be seen from very far away - I'm not doing the math right now, but anything beyond 50 ly is rather out of range.

I guess we'll need a big curtain around the solar system.

I see an Oort cloud and I want it painted black
No comets anymore, I want them to turn black
I see the aliens fly by in their cool FTL ships
I have to turn off radio until they are well gone
They see a line of rods and they're all painted black
With tungsten and uranium so they never come back
I see them aliens lose their heads and quickly boil away
Like a dying xenos, it just happens every day
I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my golden throne, I must have it painted black
Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts
It's not easy facing up when crazy gods come back
No more will my green sea turn a ultramarine blue
I can and do foresee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
Humanity will laugh with me over the Xenos' bones

[Valrifell]

Warhammer is going to seriously damage our capacity for intergalactic peace, isn't it?

[Mayadeva]

Look, the point is that there are two alternatives.

1. ALL alien life is peaceful
2. Some alien life is violent

It is far far more likely that alternative 2 is correct. On that likelihood then we should not be announcing our presence to them quite so naively.

1. Humans represent no threat to the aliens.
2. We have nothing to offer them. The universe has endless real estate and natural resources. There are actually lots of planets and asteroids with minerals in space.
3. They are already aware of us and have been observing us since we lit up the planet with electric light and radio transmissions.