Poll: Do you think that we will go to war with aliens?

[careful]

haha if by we you mean America then of course. think of all the money to be made by manufacturing space ships and lazer weaponry. lets see how many wars in modern American history have not been about money or the result of lunatic war-mongers? alternatively if they aren't fit for enslavement most likely we'll just cleanse them. for their own good of course. my only hope is that if they came with peaceful intentions, that they do not suffer in the endless ways humans suffer.

here's how the war will start: it will start in space. that way you can better control how much information actually reaches earth about the aliens and the war. hell, most Americans didn't see really anything of what went on in Iraq. there won't be any pesky journalists from Alien Rights Watch up in space with their annoying cameras, they can't afford it. less than .000001% of population will be in charge of convincing the rest of the population through planetary media that the aliens have nuclear weapons and that they need to erect factories for the new war effort. maybe the manufactured space ships can just be sent off into space, doesn't matter what you do with em once their built. with technology as it will be, doubtful that actual human beings will need to pilot anything.

if the aliens come in peace, and we want to embrace them, then stop working. don't help build photon torpedoes after your job reassignment.

 

[M K Ultra]

Logically the answer is no. The galaxy is a very large & silent place. The odds of 2 different intelligent species coming into contact is close to zero. Both intelligences would recognize contact as hitting a universal jackpot & would spend time & resources trying to understand each other. Even if there was some misunderstanding where one delegation ate the other that would not be enough reason to war on each other. The price of being able to communicate between intelligent species that developed light years apart would be worth many lives.

 

[MammothBlade]

Actually, there is an undeclared (or cold) war going on between humans and extraterrestrials. They interfered with nuclear warheads.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8026971/Aliens-have-deactivated-British-and-US-nuclear-missiles-say-US-military-pilots.html

We should be glad that the extraterrestrials are holding back. Most of them are neutral. There are an unethical few who have experimented on and tortured humans. They do not represent the entirety of alien society just as Charles Manson or Mao Zedong do not represent humanity as a whole.

 

[Terminate421]

Some dick-hole from another country would do it.

Then they might use him as an example and wipe us out.

 

[Coffeejack]

We may not have to, even if we were so inclined. It would be interesting to see what part our foreign diseases would play.

 

[Bvenged]

Surely there's enough planets, asteroids, nebulas, stars, etc, in the space between our two species that we don't need to reap from each others' colonised worlds? I doubt first contact would lead to war unless there's some fanatical clash - IE the covenant in the Halo games.

I think we will be able to maintain long-range communication at FTL one day, but I doubt we'll ever meet aliens first-hand so no, I doubt there will ever be war with aliens.

 

[cojo965]

The only other possibilities for conflict are if we shot first (which would be stupid. I'm pretty cynical, but I'd think, and hope, we're not that dumb) or if the aliens took offense to us for some religious or idealogical reason.

My policy for them taking offense for that reason: show them WBC then get the fuck out of the way. HA! God's judgement isn't so great now is it you collection of retarded ass-hats. (I came up with that on the fly OH, MAN! I'm going to Hell.)

OT: We have a hard enough time getting along with each other imagine if something not human turned up on our planet.

 

[Olas]

Yes, based on the fact that if a human can shoot something, it will.

Oh please, that's bullshit and you know it.

For all we know we could end up being the most peaceful advanced race in the Galaxy. We have nobody else to compare ourselves to right now, but the fact that we've had world ending weapons for over half a century and are still here I think deserves some credit.

 

[pppppppppppppppppp]

If we ever find alien life, odds are it'll be much more or much less developed than we are, in which case it wouldn't be much of a war. It'd be like us going to war with turkeys, or vice versa.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I can't answer just yes or no to this. It depends.

If the aliens come to US, unless the aliens want to take us over there will be no war. Why? If they can travel billions of lightyears to get to us, then they're probably smart enough to observe us before making themselves known. And they would probably realize that if they revealed themselves to us, there would be war. Thus, they would move on and not even bother with a species as violent as us. Now, if the aliens WANT to take us over, yes, there would be war. And we would LOSE.

If WE came upon the aliens, there would PROBABLY be war. Humanity is aggressive as hell. If the aliens are weaker than us, they would find themselves abused by humanity. If we were equal, we'd probably start a fight with them just to make sure that they can't backstab us later. >_>

Of course, if we found the aliens first, then perhaps human greed would take over. I doubt it though. Once we have far reaching space travel, why the hell do we have to go for the inhabited planet's resources?

Why? Because MONEEEYYYYYY!!!!!

I mean, the current attitude of most large companies is: "Why do honest business and make X amount of money...when we can cheat, lie and screw over our clients/workers and make DOUBLE the money?!".

So if we space traveled to another planet and we were technologically superior? I have no doubt whatsoever that we would abuse the hell out of whatever lived on it. Unless by that point humanity had undergone a huge enlightenment.

 

[mechalynx]

Yes, based on the fact that if a human can shoot something, it will.

Oh please, that's bullshit and you know it.

For all we know we could end up being the most peaceful advanced race in the Galaxy. We have nobody else to compare ourselves to right now, but the fact that we've had world ending weapons for over half a century and are still here I think deserves some credit.

Well it wouldn't be our own backyard we'd be blowing up now, would it? Remeber that once upon a time there were men like Stalin and Lenin. I believe that men like those are still around today, too scared to start any serious shit. And we did use the said weapons.

I remember my high school psych teacher telling the class about how we used to perform horrible experiments on infants. If we can do things like that, I have very little doubt we wouldn't do it to a new and unknown race. It might be bullshit, but unless you can provide me some valid evidence of humans not sticking needles into new shiny objects for the sake of any kind of gain, I'll stick to my views on peace and human race.

 

[2fish]

Oh please, that's bullshit and you know it.

For all we know we could end up being the most peaceful advanced race in the Galaxy. We have nobody else to compare ourselves to right now, but the fact that we've had world ending weapons for over half a century and are still here I think deserves some credit.

But we have been taught to shoot the non-humans...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_extraterrestrials
So many dead aliens...

Ok you may be right but we will not know until we meet them and see if we hit it off or end up acting out of fear/greed and stupidity.

So many dead extras and cgi aliens.

 

[Fuzzed]

Absolutely. What else are we going to test our BFG on?

 

[beastro]

Not a matter of "if" to me.

We should~

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

It would be a war in the same way that you stepping on an ant hill would be a war.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Yes to everything. All things are possible and humans are...well, we like war. I know, I'm not George Carlin, this isn't the 90's but humanity is still into War to a degree that isn't exactly healthy. When humanity discovers an Alien species on a similar technological level to us, we will end up going to war eventually. When humanity discovers an Alien species beneath us, we will dominate the Hell out of them with many humans likely not even finding out about them as that race will likely be subjugated to extinction while we humans enjoy cars and, iPad-12's with battery lives and, fuel consumption levels that last DAYS instead of hours etc. When humanity discovers an alien race greater than we are...well, we'll be shitting ourselves and begging for mercy.

 

[Rawne1980]

Actually, there is an undeclared (or cold) war going on between humans and extraterrestrials. They interfered with nuclear warheads.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8026971/Aliens-have-deactivated-British-and-US-nuclear-missiles-say-US-military-pilots.html

We should be glad that the extraterrestrials are holding back. Most of them are neutral. There are an unethical few who have experimented on and tortured humans. They do not represent the entirety of alien society just as Charles Manson or Mao Zedong do not represent humanity as a whole.

This is one of those things that you hear people say and then slowly back away from the crazy person.

*Insert slowly backing away here*.

 

[RJ 17]

Depends on the technology differential. If their technology VASTLY surpasses our own (which it would have to for them to even get to our planet as our current understanding of physics has interstellar travel - let alone intergalactic travel - as nothing but a pip dream) then they'll likely be hostile, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He brought up the very good point of "Just look at the history of our own planet. Whenever a technologically advanced society encounters a less advanced one, the lesser of the two is either wiped out or completely subjugated."

What would REALLY be interesting, though, is if we're about on the same lines technology-wise as the aliens. That being the case I think the aliens might hesitate before launching the war, knowing that they really wouldn't have much of an advantage over us. I say that the aliens would be the one to start the war because, while I'm certain many leaders would have a "shoot first" mentality, I think the general response would be "Don't kick the fucking bee hive, they're not pissed off right now and we don't want to see what happens when they DO get pissed off."

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Yes. If they attack then we will fight and lose....maybe. Even if we met them im sure we would fight them. The Earth can not go 5 seconds without war within some corner of the world. Im sure al queda would attack aliens as an attack against islam. lol

 

[Jandau]

No. It's extremely unlikely.

First, there's the fact that it's extremely unlikely we'd ever find an alien race to begin with. Universe is REALLY big, not just in space, but time as well. By the time Earth was even created entire interstellar empires may have risen and fallen, and after humanity is extinct there will still likely be more than enough time for a ton more to show up. Not only are we hoping that we or they stumble across the right spot in the vastness of the universe, we're also hoping that it happens in what is honestly a VERY tiny time window.

Also, the odds are that if a civilization manages to develop technology to reliably and practically cover the massive distances between the starts and galaxies, it'll likely be so far above us to make any confrontation too one sided to be called a "war". Likewise, if we're the ones who develop that far and find alien life, it's unlikely to be at precisely the technological level that would end up giving us a fight.

If finding extraterrestrial life is like winning the lottery, finding extraterrestrial life at precisely the right tech level to allow for an actual war would be like expecting to win the lottery on February 13th and ONLY on that day...