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To: Rockingham
The notion that in the vastness of The Milky Way Galaxy, with millions of galaxy's and billions and billions of stars(hat tip to Carl Sagan) that some alien civilization is going to notice our rather common garden variety sized star is remote at best, and even more remote happen to notice this little smote of dust and water.

And if some civilization is out there, and no doubt there is, why would they want to bother with us? Mankind has a disturbing predilection with it's own destruction. Were I some advanced civilization I'd avoid this place. And if some advanced civilization did happen to notice us they might not come with benign motives. They might come here and kill us all and harvest what they want from the planet.

10 posted on 05/19/2020 4:46:15 AM PDT by jmacusa (If we're all equal how is diversity our strength?)
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To: jmacusa
Under observation by advanced telescopes, our solar system would beckon as having an unusually stable set of planets orbiting in resonance. The Earth would be especially attractive because of its abundant water and green chlorophyll indicating the presence of life.

I believe that the reasons to visit Earth are: (1) scientific curiosity; (2) the potential for useful DNA and whole biological specimens; and (3), as a waystation and base for further exploration. Similar reasons impelled and guided exploration throughout human history.

12 posted on 05/19/2020 5:09:14 AM PDT by Rockingham
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To: jmacusa

With that line of thinking, we might as well believe that we’re the only form of life in the universe.


13 posted on 05/19/2020 5:18:59 AM PDT by wastedyears (The left would kill every single one of us and our families if they knew they could get away with it)
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To: jmacusa
They might come here and kill us all and harvest what they want from the planet.

On a nerdy tangential note: the internal consistency of fantasy/sci-fi plots is of passing interest, and the same goes for the alien speculation game in real life. The idea that a race of aliens capable of interstellar travel would arrive to loot Earth presupposes the idea that Earth has something so rare and valuable that looting it would be worth the effort. If you stop to think about it, this pushes back in the direction of "rare Earth" theorizing, which militates against the likelihood of aliens in the first place.

In all the vastness of the universe, what makes Earth so special? Water? We think water is special because we depend on it. An alien race might not share that dependency -- but if it did, it is difficult to imagine that it would not have solved its own water problems long before it attained interstellar travel. Or that it would not have learned to melt ice. Or to combine hydrogen, oxygen, and an appropriate energy source. A water dependent star-faring race would probably understand the chemistry.

So what else does earth have that is found nowhere else, or that is exceedingly rare? It's hard to think of anything other than life itself, which as far as we know (so far) is still unique to Earth.

That leaves us with something on the order of dilithium crystals, which Star Trek technobabble tells us are exceedingly rare and -- surprise, surprise -- cannot be replicated. The latter is important because, in a sci-fi universe in which almost anything can be easily synthesized or replicated, the problem of scarcity has to be artificially reinvented so that it can be mined for plotlines. (Without scarcity problems, scriptwriters are reduced to sex, power, and insanity, which are all well and good but which tend to get stale after awhile). So: where are our dilithium crystals?

14 posted on 05/19/2020 5:26:55 AM PDT by sphinx
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