Why do we assume that aliens would be far more advanced than us?

[Angie7F]

it is always assume the worst and prepare for for it, dont you think?

 

[Shoggoth2588]

The advanced alien specie trope is a lot easier to think about when it comes to karma: Here's what I mean, if aliens come here and it turns out we can absolutely decimate their invasion force, there's nothing to stop us from going back to their world and 'taking the fight to them'. That's a bit more in our favor karmatically but what about when we go there and find a civilization stuck in what we would consider to be the middle ages? Or a pre-industrial society or something perhaps even more easily destabilized? Humanity doesn't have a Prime Directive at the moment and if the first civilization we find is definitely less advanced than us...and what if they're in possession of something we really need like stores of helium, lithium or something else, similar though far superior?

It's easier to imagine one's self as the victim to a greater force than a greater force I think.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Meaning, they're here. Not the ship. Them. The aliens on the ship. They arrive, alive, society intact... yes?

The state of their home-world society isn't really relevant.

The society on board the ship has regressed, I meant, not their original homeworld or us. The descendants of the people to leave are still alive in their space-going home, but they aren't as advanced.

There've been any number of sci-fi stories about civilisations that have forgotten their world is actually a generation ship en route to a new home.

 

[Fox12]

I was just reading the Wikipedia article on the "Wow" signal and it mentioned this:

Scientists say that if the signal came from extraterrestrials, they are likely an extremely advanced civilization, as the signal would have required a 2.2-gigawatt transmitter, vastly more powerful than any on Earth.

Now that strikes me as an odd conclusion to draw because it completely disregards the idea of sectionalized technological advancement.

I remember when the film "Battle: LA" came out, lots of people were like "that's unrealistic because if the aliens could travel through space to get here, they would be able to stomp us easily." Ditto with Independence Day, and any other alien invasion film you can think of.

I just don't get why that is such a popular assumption. I mean, sure they might be more advanced in space flight if they can travel through space, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have developed highly advanced military technology. Or with the Wiki article, just because they might have vastly more powerful radios doesn't mean they have developed computer technology to our level.

I guess what I'm saying is that because they are aliens, they will certainly have developed along different parameters than we have so their technology in one area might be far beyond ours but an area of ours might be far beyond theirs as well.

Thoughts?

Capcha: Hot sauce.

I agree. Our hot sauce technology sets the bar for everyone.

I can't imagine that a species capable of space travel wouldn't be vastly more powerful than us militarily. The shield technology required to travel to our planet alone (assuming they used some sort of wormhole technology) would basically guarantee we couldn't even touch them. It's possible they would be pacifistic, but I doubt it. They'd probably have weapons, even if they were friendly, just to protect themselves, and if they did any preliminary scouting, which I imagine they would just to be safe, then they'd see that they would probably require weapons before making contact with us. I mean, we're developing anti-matter now, so if they had, say, anti-matter weapons then we'd get curb stomped in a fight. Of course, I can't imagine the resources required to actually invade a planet (unless they used some kind of toxin to wipe us out or something). If they're like us then some of their species would probably have space ships and some would probably be living in slums.

 

[Doclector]

Well, it's likely that the technological advances required for space travel would not just be useful for space travel. I mean, you'd need a long running fuel/energy source, which would in turn effect the rest of society, you'd need good propulsion systems, which would obviously mean that other engines will be made as far smaller versions. You'd need advanced medicines to deal with any illnesses on the trip. You'd need some level of understanding of space, physics, chemistry, and biology, all of which would increase a society's generally technological level.

So yes, it is possible that an alien race saw escaping their own planet as a priority and had lesser technologies in other areas, but fact is, when working towards such a goal, it's inevitable that technologies are discovered that advance the rest of the civilisation as well.

 

[Shock and Awe]

It assumed when a group advances technologically all areas of technology advance in one way or another. Given the advances it would take to be able to power any FTL drive(as we know them) it could be assumed that such a species would also have more advanced military technology as well. Is it absolutely certain? No, but its about on the same level as a modern country equipping its military with spears and hoplons.

 

[KazeAizen]

Well, if they've developed highly advanced space travel technology, they'd be silly not to have developed highly advanced weapons technology too, to defend themselves.
If you're heading into the great unknown, you're gonna want to defend yourself.

Then again, it's possible they might be a 100% pacifist alien civilization, and the entire concept of battle and combat is completely foreign to them.

For the love of God let those be the aliens that show up. I'm in a big city and essentially a nobody. That means when whatever invasion or apocalypse happens I get red shirted pretty fast.

 

[Arkaijn]

Well, if they've developed highly advanced space travel technology, they'd be silly not to have developed highly advanced weapons technology too, to defend themselves.
If you're heading into the great unknown, you're gonna want to defend yourself.

Then again, it's possible they might be a 100% pacifist alien civilization, and the entire concept of battle and combat is completely foreign to them.

Defend yourself from what? The odds of the galaxy being populated with dozens of advanced civilizations are so minimal. Realistically, a space faring civilization would only need weapons capable of destroying natural threats like asteroids and possibly for fighting other members of their own species, neither of which would require Death Star planet lasers. On the off chance you did encounter an alien species, you both would likely be too interested in studying each other to just start shooting.

Unless they're the Covenant in which case we're boned.

In our solar system there are three planetary bodies that either have, is currently or will in the future be able support life, that's just one solar system in a universe made from billions of galaxies that houses millions of stars, each with planets in their orbit.

The odds of the galaxy being populated with just a dozen space faring alien races, extremely possible

 

[Glongpre]

Well, if they've developed highly advanced space travel technology, they'd be silly not to have developed highly advanced weapons technology too, to defend themselves.
If you're heading into the great unknown, you're gonna want to defend yourself.

Then again, it's possible they might be a 100% pacifist alien civilization, and the entire concept of battle and combat is completely foreign to them.

This is basically the Forever War by Joe Haldeman. Which is a good book by the way.

OT people assume it because the technology is more advanced and also that they have a similar history to humans, ergo, that aliens are also very violent.

Edit: read the topic again, people would assume they are more advanced because usually the aliens find us first, through space flight. In your example, it is alright to assume they are more advanced because we do not have anything capable of that power, so we assume everything else must be as advanced.

 

[hermes]

That is actually a good point. We often assume aliens to be more advanced than us in general because they developed interstellar travel, while we are still locked on our system. Even in fictional cases when humanity has interstellar flight, they are often the last in the block to develop it, so we open the galaxy to lots of races that had been doing it for centuries.

But your point is totally valid. If a race/nation focuses its technological expertise on space flight, it might found less advanced than us in terms of agriculture, medicine, architecture or weaponry (as is often the case with conquered nations in the old world).

It reminds me of a science fiction story (the name eludes me at the moment) told from the perspective of an alien race that discovered fairly early in its history the basis of unpropelled levitation and, practically, anti-gravity, so they developed and used that technology to colonize space... Until they came to Earth and were baffled by our resilient to be conquered, mostly because its more advanced weapons were at the level of cannons and bayonets, while we had modern military.

 

[EvilRoy]

I think part of the problem is that people are assuming that the technology needed to destroy us is much more advanced than is the actual case. In reality all they would need to do is drop rocks on us from orbit.

Look up the kinetic bombardment AKA "rods from god" weapon theory. The original idea, if I recall, was simply to get some telephone pole sized tungsten rods into high orbit, and then just drop them on targets. They calculated the force from kinetic impact would equal about 11 tonnes of TNT, just short of Little Boy.

So, realistically, all they would need to do is show up, grab whatever dense elements they could mine from the asteroid field, move into orbit and then just drop it on us.

Alternatively they could just "push" asteroids into us from the belt without ever actually revealing themselves.

And neither of those options requires technology more advanced than what would be required to travel between solar systems.

 

[hermes]

It'd be like if Columbus (or whichever European really set foot on the Americas) came to the Americas and found a vastly superior civilization that had no idea of the Eurasian landmass.

But it did happened. Not in the case of Columbus (although many argue the civilization they found has great architectural and agricultural knowledge that was unknown to the Europeans at the time), but with countless conquered civilizations as well.

When the European (or the Persians) faced the Mongols, it would have been easy to identify the "more advanced" civilization. We had castles, and fortresses, art and math, armors and crossbows, etc. They lived in tents, fight with bows and arrows, had barely any concept of agriculture and didn't even wear armors. Yet they mop the floor with us every single time. Why? Because, while we developed some of the concepts listed before, they focused their entire development in the art of war, and in that sense we were like toddlers to them.

It was similar with the Vikings and the Byzantine. The Byzantine Empire would be considered, by a number of reasons, a "more advanced" civilization than the Vikings... but they didn't handle to well at the times they met. Why? Because, while it is truth that the Byzantine Empire was far more advanced in terms of economy, arts and science, the Vikings were more advanced in terms of sea warfare.

Those are just a couple of examples. The bottomline is, technology and civilization advances in branches, and even when we might assume another civilization would be more advanced than ours in some branches, that doesn't mean its more advanced overall.

 

[TheRookie8]

Agreed.

Especially since we have pantry doors.

 

[Something Amyss]

Agreed.

Especially since we have pantry doors.

And baseball bats.

Aliens' one true weakness: baseball bats.

 

[talker]

EDIT: I do remember, though, someone wrote a sci-fi story where space travel was very easily done, just not discovered by humans, who get invaded by pre-gunpowder aliens.

Really? What was it called?

We probably iamgine aliens as being far more advanced technologically because the human race isn't althogether that old, and if you imagine the technological possiblities we haven't really progressed much beyond clubbing each other to death in comparison.

Also because we're rather arrogant and we think that if we can't leave the solar system with our current technology, anybody who comes here must be really advanced because if we can't do it with the tech we have, those extraterrestrial bastards wouldn't be able to do it either, right?

 

[BNguyen]

I think, although I don't like to admit it, that technology improves by leaps and bounds during periods of war, and no one species can live upon a planet without having conflict and the need to defend themselves. When war has ceased, the species is able to take the developed technology and branch out into different areas of necessity with it.
I think what seems the mos unlikely with alien invasions is that a single group of aliens conquered their homeworld, formed a unified army (without internal conflicts which is the most unlikely unless they are a hive mind kind of species) and develop to the point of needing to advance to other worlds for conquest and whatnot.
I'm not sure how old our world is when compared to other areas of the universe, but assuming that our 4 billion year history is recent then it is likely that in another region of space a planet was born sooner than ours, even a couple hundred thousand years or so would be enough to put an alien species on that planet light
years ahead of us technologically.
You see, I don't think that we assume that all aliens are more advanced than us but that since we are alone in our little area that the only aliens we'll be encountering are either microscopic or advanced enough to have traveled here to find us

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

1) Scientists don't. They just acknowledge that at this point the only extraterrestrials they would have any hope of contacting would be those more advanced than us so they have no reason to look for anything else outside of our solar system at the moment.

2) People are obsessed with underdog stories so almost any movie you see will feature the aliens as being far superior to us in the easiest way representable by the film maker: technology. That isn't some special storytelling feature unique to alien invasions; look at all the other movies we watch. Karate kid was a wimpy little idiot who triumphed over the kid who was stronger, faster and more dedicated to honing his craft. Jason Bourne was one guy with only his wits and what little equipment he could gather against an agency backed by thousands of people and tons of money; in the most recent one they attack him with a predator drone and he gets away because he has a knife and a wolf. Indiana Jones was one guy versus the weight of the entire Nazi war machine; he defeated a tank with a rock while riding on a horse. 300, Rocky, Seabiscuit, Star Wars, The Hobbit, Skyfall, pick most any movie. We love our protagonists to be the plucky underdog who somehow wins. It's no different in movies where it's humanity against aliens.

The only movie coming out soon that might buck that trend would be The Forever War. But I highly doubt that Hollywood wont bungle it like they do every other good book.

 

[ghostrider409895]

I agree with your point on radio transmissions because there is nothing to suggest that they do not just have very advanced broadcasting. On earth there have been civilizations that had a breakthrough in one area, while just having rather poor advancements in other areas of research. However, if aliens have successfully figured out how to travel space, within a reasonable amount of time, then they clearly do have great advancements in travel and life preservation - or at least advancements much greater than our own.

On the idea of just "stomping us" with their advancements though, I feel it would greatly depend on why the aliens came to this area in the first place. Consider that we have people who would merely want to travel and explore - for scientific, or just plain normal curiosity. I do not think there were weapons brought to the moon when we went (although if I am wrong do tell me). We did not think we would encounter alien life; grant it, but the idea is possible that aliens might become advanced enough to just want to explore and look for more locations with intelligent life. There is no guarantee they will be ready to just "stomp us".

If we ever do encounter alien life that we can communicate with, and can coexist, I am sure we will find alien life that is both above and below us in intelligence and advancements. I am sure we will find groups and races whose advancements do not match that of ours, but run in parallel with our discoveries - just through different means like different power sources, or different alloys.

 

[happyninja42]

I was just reading the Wikipedia article on the "Wow" signal and it mentioned this: Scientists say that if the signal came from extraterrestrials, they are likely an extremely advanced civilization, as the signal would have required a 2.2-gigawatt transmitter, vastly more powerful than any on Earth.

Now that strikes me as an odd conclusion to draw because it completely disregards the idea of sectionalized technological advancement.

But I don't really see much in the way of sectionalized technology. At least not to the extreme you are positing here. Suggesting that a culture would have INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL licked, yet would somehow be at what, 17th century level warfare technology? Or maybe at just the 19th century level of warfare? That just doesn't make any sense.

I just don't get why that is such a popular assumption. I mean, sure they might be more advanced in space flight if they can travel through space, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have developed highly advanced military technology. Or with the Wiki article, just because they might have vastly more powerful radios doesn't mean they have developed computer technology to our level.

Technically this is true, but the likelihood that the technological advances they have made as a species are restricted to just those individual inventions is unlikely. Now granted, all we can do is compare our personal species advancement, since we have nothing to compare it to. But whenever we as a race have made an advancement in one field, it almost always has spillover into other disciplines. New advances in metalurgy don't just make construction different, it effects military, business, agriculture, etc etc. So if they've developed technology to the point that they have defeated the difficulties of interstellar travel, that level of technological advancement, would very likely mean that every other aspect of their culture would be similarly advanced.

I guess what I'm saying is that because they are aliens, they will certainly have developed along different parameters than we have so their technology in one area might be far beyond ours but an area of ours might be far beyond theirs as well.

Again, this is technically possible I guess, but can you name one culture on this planet that has got a significantly superior edge in one area of technology, that is somehow still back at say the stone age in everything else? I'm not talking about cultures that have bought tech from others, I mean a culture that has actually developed some form of technology to a superior level, yet somehow didn't similarly develop other areas at the same level. I can't think of any that have, for example, 21st century medicine, yet 15th century everything else. I find it unlikely that you could even be able to advance one area of technology that far, without the necessary infrastructure in other fields being on similar caliber. That would be like expecting a production plant using Industrial Revolution level technology, churning out space age, computerized, high performance equipment. It's just not likely, if even possible at all. The advances they make would spill over into every aspect of their society, just like ours have.

Thoughts?

It's all speculation really. In entertainment aliens are either Super Violent or Super Peaceful. You're above speculation that you could have an interstellar society that isn't as advanced in warfare is based on an assumption that they aren't as prone to conflict and violence, or simply dangerous environments as we are, and were thus never forced to develop methods of defending themselves. Yeah sure that's possible, but given how harsh the universe is, I find it unlikely. We just simply don't know one way or another.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I think part of the problem is that people are assuming that the technology needed to destroy us is much more advanced than is the actual case. In reality all they would need to do is drop rocks on us from orbit.

Look up the kinetic bombardment AKA "rods from god" weapon theory. The original idea, if I recall, was simply to get some telephone pole sized tungsten rods into high orbit, and then just drop them on targets. They calculated the force from kinetic impact would equal about 11 tonnes of TNT, just short of Little Boy.

So, realistically, all they would need to do is show up, grab whatever dense elements they could mine from the asteroid field, move into orbit and then just drop it on us.

Alternatively they could just "push" asteroids into us from the belt without ever actually revealing themselves.

And neither of those options requires technology more advanced than what would be required to travel between solar systems.

As it happens, bombarding from orbit isn't that great an idea. A missile can be launched into orbit from anywhere on the planet, from various warships, planes, submarines, bases etc. You could have one concealed in a truck if you wanted.

If you're in orbit, you're sitting there in a big empty space with nothing to conceal you.

OTOH, striking from further out, deflecting objects without ever coming to orbit would be much safer, though I think you couldn't do so without revealing yourself, you'd just be too far away to touch.