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I see so many new pictures of space, planets, black holes and Mars and NOT one alien... NASA is holding back . And they ask for one way ticket holders for an alien destination cruise ? HMM
Let's see now. MY 'assertion' has "no basis", then you offer two other 'assertions' that you consider as being perfectly acceptable. What's your criteria? Again, why do you have problems with my speculating here in this speculative thread? It's as if you're trying to quash the discussion.
You make the accusation that other people would have trouble accepting aliens, but like everyone else that believes in aliens you exclude yourself. You think it makes you special.
Guess what Aliens appearing before man would not be the first time a similar situation happened. There still are tribes that have limited to no contact with modern civilization and they do not just give up when they meet modern, outside, people.
You are making the ascertain. It is on you to prove that people could not accept it.
Maybe ... maybe not. The basis of any economic system will be satisfying needs, acquiring wants, availability or scarcity of the things that are needed and wanted, and the difficulty of acquisition. Even very alien species are going to work within these economic constraints, because they're objective constraints not dependent on the nature of a society.
If they can travel to different star systems, my guess (and that's all any of us are doing here) is that they will reach a point in a star system where the resources are being outstripped by the system population, and a portion of them will move on to the next system. The notion that they'd ship resources like iron or ice between star systems doesn't seem very likely, but other things that are scarce in most systems (like certain metals used in tech) will become commodities worth shipping between systems. And systems that are relatively rich in some rare item will become wealthy because of it.
My guess is that you will have some systems in a post-scarcity state, but if there's a galactic culture there will be other systems where this isn't the case.
An economy is not the same as "dollars", and the notion that having a very advanced society that's post-scarcity (and usually in SF stories, peaceful because they've outgrown violence) is itself a human notion, since for centuries we've been imagining utopias. I think what you'd end up with is a patchwork of cultures, some post-scarcity, others not; some violent, some peaceful; some driven by religious or ethical principles, others driven by selfish motives.
An erg is an erg, so it's hard for me to imagine how a device that's not hundreds of miles wide might gather enough energy in a day to power a car or house for a week, let alone a year. The numbers just don't add up so I'd say this scenario is inconceivable on logical grounds. However, post scarcity cultures in the galaxy might be possible.
Again, I'd argue there are general economic principles that would apply across all intelligent cultures, but who knows?
Well we could apply another economic rule - diminishing returns. We see from our own societies that once a certain level of societal wealth is reached, consumption flattens and population actually declines. Then you start focusing on sustainability. Our economics is highly correlated with our culture, I think an alien culture would also have alien economics - something far different than anything our ape brains can imagine at this point. To master colonizing or utilizing the resources of even a star system, let along traveling to other star systems, would necessarily require some kind of global economic coordination.
It's not that hard to imagine - just look at past human societies - their economics were driven partly by their religious ideas, caste ideas, hereditary class traditions, racism, among other things. Very alien to us. American capitalism has a lot to do with the Protestant work ethic, something not all cultures share.
Imagine how differently extra-terrestrial aliens might think. Native Americans are probably the best example we have - their lack of a "property ownership" concept like Europeans had was difficult for both sides to comprehend or reconcile. For us, the concept of property is essential to our economic system. Natives did not conceive of themselves as "poor" because they did not measure their well-being like Europeans did.
We're already seeing a movement in the world's richer societies that values "less." Turns out there is a limit to how much McMansions and LED TV's make people happy.
Last edited by redguard57; 01-26-2016 at 04:46 PM..
To master colonizing or utilizing the resources of even a star system, let along traveling to other star systems, would necessarily require some kind of global economic coordination.
Coordination and colonization like ants and bees do?
You see the roots of economic cooperation in various animal species that are not closely related to the apes ... and one might argue, in plant species as well. You also see the rudiments of aesthetic behavior: the valuing of things for qualities that are not directly related to their practical value. Here are some examples:
* Male bower birds decorate their bowers with various items because they make them more attractive to females.
* Fish will allow cleaner species to clean their teeth; they get clean teeth, the cleaners get a meal.
* Nursery web spiders give wrapped food gifts to females in exchange for mating (they also sometimes "cheat" by giving empty packages, and by the time the female finds she's been cheated he's long gone)
* Some ants keep "herds" of aphids, carrying them around, and in exchange for protection they "milk" them for their nectar
* There are various examples of symbiosis between fungi and insects as well as fungi and plants (each side getting something out of the relationship)
* Many animals store food for the hard seasons -- a primitive "savings account" one might say
What's the point? It's premature, I think, to claim that the economic motivations of an alien intelligent species will be purely cultural since we can point to biology to explain many of the roots of human behavior. Which suggests a biological basis for economic systems, earthly or alien, although there will also be the cultural factors.
Finally, we have an example of an economic exchange in a species of bird in this little girl who feeds the crows and started receiving "gifts" or "payment" in return (crows BTW are highly intelligent animals):
What's the point? It's premature, I think, to claim that the economic motivations of an alien intelligent species will be purely cultural since we can point to biology to explain many of the roots of human behavior. Which suggests a biological basis for economic systems, earthly or alien, although there will also be the cultural factors.
I agree that it's premature to claim economic motivations of intelligent aliens. It's also premature to claim cultural motivation as well. That was the main reason I mentioned ants and bees. When the population of a hive or colony becomes too large, they often split up to form new colonies or hives.
With respect to intelligent aliens, assuming there are any, and that's still unknown, it would be pure speculation to assume they must be biological lifeforms. Distances to travel between stars is still mind-bogglingly vast. I would suggest that such "aliens" might not be biological entities at all. They could just as easily be intelligent machines, and therefore have no need for economic or cultural motivations. If seeking mineral resources is an objective, perhaps to build more machines, there's plenty of resources around to be found in vast rocky accretion belts of solar systems. No need to waste efforts with a rocky planet.
there are many other planets out there and many other solar systems, but not many are capable of sustaining life, many of them are just bare rock.
even if there is alien life out there, which I doubt, they could be so far away that travel here would be impossible, probably just as well as we don't know their intentions.
there are many other planets out there and many other solar systems, but not many are capable of sustaining life, many of them are just bare rock.
Actually, it would be closer to the truth to say: There are many other planets out there and many other solar systems, but not many that we have yet found are capable of sustaining life as we know it.
My points being: We have only scratched the teeniest tiniest surface of what's out there. And life may well have evolved in ways completely alien to how it evolved on Earth. We just don't know.
Actually if you understood the physics of long distance travel and traveling at the speed of light and relativity then youd realize that it is extremely illogical for a species to travel through deep space simply for the hope of encountering other species. By the time it visited one, then left and came back again they would all be nearly extinct.
A TV show I was watching a few nights ago presented an interesting take on aliens, and their technology that the " government" supposedly acquired from the crash of the alien craft in Roswell. The protagonist in the story proposed that our government has had this technology for years, and plans to create a diversion with it during a "police state" takeover of our populace to make it seem as if it is an alien invasion when, in fact it is not. The idea would be to disorientate the population who would likely be panicked at the sight of "alien" craft around them, then, at their weakest moment the militia would contain everyone into total submission.
I thought it was an interesting take on Roswell, but it would be hard to imagine that this sort of technology could be kept totally secret all these years.
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