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Supposing we did find life on another planet in our solar system?

All Acting Regiment

20:09 / 07.01.04

What do you think would actually happen if we were to send a probe thingy to another planet in our solar system, and found life of some kind? I know its v. unlikely, but they think that one of neptune's moons is a giant sea world under the ice, so who knows?

I'm guessing we need to take into account whether the things we find are sentient or not, i.e., "animals" or "people". And also, whether human beings are actually mentally capable of comprehending life from another planet?

22:03 / 07.01.04

If unintelligent: copyright it and sell it. I intelligent: enslave or destroy it.
Not my preference, but I think that would be the most likely outcome. Of course, the general public would never be told that any life had been found, especially if it was intelligent.
Alternatively they could be used as an external threat, to make people stop complaining about loosing civil liberties. Just like terrorist organisations.

18:04 / 08.01.04

Give us (i.e. humanity) some credit! If we ever do find life out there (and I hope we do), it'll spark one hell of a debate as to our place in the universe, which might be exactly what we need...

All Acting Regiment

19:57 / 08.01.04

Yup. It would be interesting to know which "side" of the whole order/chaos, archons/invisibles divide the alien life would fall on (assuming it was sentient). Would they be on the side of freedom or control? Or maybe some strange, completely alien concept?

I can see many of our powerful folks would probably have a go at enslaving/slaughtering the aliens. Imagine Bush deciding to destroy the sentient Neptunians and then getting hauled in front of a galactic UN for war crimes?

Cheap. Easy. Cruel.

16:54 / 09.01.04

Should we find that we aren't the only sentient beings in the universe, it will be interesting to watch the Fundamentalist Christians melt down. Their view of reality does not allow for that, the rethink would be interesting.

02:49 / 10.01.04

Unless the aliens somehow contact us, I really don't think we would ever be told. The military would have its hand deep in any mission that found sentient life and would not allow anything to slip out to the public. Couldn't have that people started to panic or worse, started to feel guilty if we had to blow the aliens up and started to protest.
Any way you look at it, they Powers that Be have every reason to keep such a find a secret.

And I'll give humanity credit when it starts to earn it.

18:07 / 10.01.04

If there is any life in our solar system - on Europa, say - then it is almost certainly going to be microbial. Looking for life further afield is some way into the future, though I'd say that we already have the crude technology to explore within 10 light year radius with generation ships. Lots of problems with that, of course.

As to what would happen? Surely it depends on what we find? We've all read sci-fi imaginings that have humans as slaves or masters to an alien species. At the moment we are still wondering if there is anything at all out there.

That said, I can't imagine that people would be able or willing to cover-up the discovery of alien life. I just don't believe in conspiracies of that nature.

But we should bear in mind that any alien life anywhere near us is almost certain to be very advanced or not advanced at all. This is a bit speculative, of course, but the lack of radio signals puts to rest the possibility of any alien worlds with a development similar to our own in this bit of the Milky Way. Unless the Thargs are blocking the transmissions, of course.

19:37 / 12.01.04

Yeah, chances are it'll be some kind of mildly interesting sludge, which we'll process and analyze in much the same way we do with rare tropical rainforest plants or those sulfur microbes around the deep sea vents... see if we can get some medical or commercial use out of it, maybe study the life cycle, and try to preserve the environment before we pave it over to make hydrogen mines and rocket fueling stations out of its home planet.

12:53 / 13.01.04

hey riesco!
most scientists believe that life is most likely to be found on one of neptunes many avidly named moons (n1, n2, n3, etc)
i guess that a war will break out over which country discovered the life first and if that doesnt kill us then the life, which by then will have learnt to handle numerous weapons such as a nine and some grenades will try to kill us aswell
well thats what i think

UP SUHZA!
THE BUS DRIVER ABUSER!

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

22:05 / 14.01.04

There seems to be a common belief that, should even very simple life be found, that it would alter our world at a fundamental level. Wave the cynical stick at me, but I don't think most people would be really that arsed about finding any form of alien life short of ray-gun wielding amorphous energy-beasts called Fweb.

If, say, a microbe were found within Martian rocks I honestly don't think the excitement would extend much beyond a few E.T. related headlines before life returned entirely to normal again. We're generally such jaded creatures that a single-cell organism millions of miles away would barely do more than cause a few interesting coversations here and there.

Personally, I'd be delerious with joy for days, quite excited for weeks, then think about it only occasionally for the rest of my life. Having said all this, it would be fucking amazing, though, wouldn't it, knowing that suddenly the odds on there being sentient life out there had just gone through the roof?

My fervent belief is that there almost certainly is intelligent life out there somewhere, but that it's also almost certain that it's so far away that we'll never see it or contact it.