Stephen Hawking talks 'Independence Day'

A while back Stephen Hawking said that humanity has no future without space exploration. That statement contained a lot of wisdom and I had to agree with it 100%. However his more recent statement sounds rather like a plot of the film "Independence Day." This gives me a unique opportunity to say why I think the plot of the movie is crap, but let us first look at what Hawking's statements were, as reported by The Telegraph:

'To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational...'

'The real challenge is working out what aliens might actually be like.'

'We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet'

'I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.'

'If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the American Indians.'

Let me get straight to the point and explain why I believe that the idea of 'rapacious space nomads' all eager to 'colonise' our tiny planet, as featured in Hawking's statements and the film Independence Day, is flawed. There are several levels to it:

1) Our planet is not as resource-rich as some might think. A civilisation with an advanced technology of space-travel is able to extract resources from other heavenly bodies in vicinity of its home-planet. If countries like the US were smarter and didn't fight pointless and costly wars, and financing all kinds of other nonsense, they might invest in space-travel and do exactly what I just described. Titan, one of the moons of Jupiter, for instance has large lakes of hydrocarbons. Metals could be mined from asteroids that form the Asteroid Belt. Of course there are much more resources that can be brought from space, if only we had the means and the will to do it.

2) A civilisation with advanced technology permitting space-travel might also have the means to terraform neighbouring planets to make them habitable to its species. They would not need to search for another planet of their kind.

3) And who says our planet is exactly what a hypothetical super-advanced Alien civilisations wants to colonise? Humans developed in a habitat specific to Earth, the Aliens developed in a habitat specific to their planet. One of my interests is fish-keeping. Every fish requires a different quality of water and other conditions in the tank in order to survive and reproduce. There are cases of invasive species but they still thrive in their new-found home because certain conditions for their habitation were met. And here we are talking about Earth species. It all depends on the kind of natural habitat, and we should treat the Earth as a habitat unique to Humans. If one looks into space-travel research in the US or Russia, it is very much concerned with creating conditions in space in which humans might survive. Who says our planet will be hospitable to a life form completely alien to it?

This argument is tied to the statement Hawking made about the unfortunate Amero-Indians who met Christopher Columbus. We must understand that the Mezoamerican civilisations sat on fertile land and met with landless veterans of Reconquista. I recall I once spoke to a Japanese guy in one the university bars here who told me how the Japanese eradicated the Ainu, I replied that the Russians never eradicated the Siberian natives. One of my friends at the table asked if I have an explanation for that. My reply was:

Because they are the only people actually willing to live there. 

Hat tip The ExileD

Comments

[Misha]

Here in the colonies, the History Channel aired a recent documentary dealing with the American Revolution.

In the documentary, it's said that the British went against the desire of some American colonists to expand westward; for the purpose of not seeking conflict with the Indians, in accordance with previous agreements. This point was used to explain why a good number of Indians sided with the British during the American Revolution.

This matter reveals contradiction on the part of the British and the colonists opposing them. Given what transpired elsewhere, one has to assume that the British (if victorious against the colonists) would've eventually expanded westward when they saw fit to do so.

Interesting how the other powers reacted to that conflict. France had its reason to oppose the Brtish. Catherine the Great rejected a British request to use Cossacks. At the time, she had her own domestic problems, while having shown some sympathy for liberal ideas (keeping in mind what was evident at that point in history).

[Andrew Green]

It does sound like a plot from "Independence Day". And yes, if only the government could end those costly wars (which doesn't seem to end) and invest the money instead on space exploration to gather whatever we can find useful. We're running out of resources and humans are more preoccupied with territory, borders, and pride.

Andrew Green
Great Blog Site