boo_lives: > Really interesting paragraph to think about. Though I think it might > be more likely that neither the alien visitors nor humans would view > each other as part of a nice family upon meeting. The history of > human exploration into new worlds here on earth has been one of > violence and genocide, so imagine what would happen when similar > exploration among worlds with alien species takes place. One can > imagine that the technological sophisticated that enabled an alien > race to get here would be accompanied by some sort of higher > consciousness as well, but again here on earth the development of > technology has not produced a higher consciousness, in fact the > most advanced technologies we have are those used for warfare.
Rick: > Yeah. I had always hoped that some sort of built-in safety mechanism > would necessitate a close correlation between higher consciousness > and interstellar travel technologies, but as you point out, there's > no precedent for this here on Earth. I think that the last word on this is from Monty Python, in the "Galaxy Song" that Eric Idle sings in "The Meaning of Life:" Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding, In all of the directions it can whiz; As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light, you know, Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is. So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth; And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth! My feeling is that the answer to the question of why so many believe in UFOs lies in the word "pray" in this verse of the song. Nothing they have seen on planet Earth should lead them to believe that other sentient beings are any more intelligent or less warlike than the humans around them. And yet they persist in believing not only this, but that they will be the "saviors of mankind." Duh. The clue is in the word "savior." It's a way of saying, "I don't believe that we as humans can fix the problems that we have created. We need someone or something *else* to do it for us." That someone/something else can be a messiah figure, or a God, or little men from outer space, but what- ever form the messiah seems to take, he/she/it is always "out there" somewhere in the future. They never show up. My feeling is if the benevolent, highly-evolved "space brothers" really *are* "out there," they're probably waiting for us to clean up our *own* mess before they choose to visit. Visiting barbarians probably wouldn't be their idea of a cool vacation. The "built-in safety mechanism" that Rick speaks of may be that no such being would bother appear- ing to a species so backwards that it spends more of its time and resources finding new and better ways to kill its members than it spends feeding them.
