News NSA confirms alien contact

[Ricovandijk]

Ok. Telegraaf indeed :thumbsdown:.. The newspaper for the less intelligent lifeforms in our country.

 

[garyw]

I doubt that an entire species will be the same... They will probably have countries, ethnic groups, and other differences...

You can't know that. It's a very Earth-centric view to take. What happens if life evolved on the aliens version of Pangaea? No seperate countries to cause divisions.

 

[Ghostrider]

You can't know that. It's a very Earth-centric view to take. What happens if life evolved on the aliens version of Pangaea? No seperate countries to cause divisions.

One single landmass doesn't mean one single culture. Look at the variety we managed to get in Western Europe and it's a very small and compact piece of land.

 

[fsci123]

You can't know that. It's a very Earth-centric view to take. What happens if life evolved on the aliens version of Pangaea? No seperate countries to cause divisions.

Uh people have divisions with people in their own house... Geography dosnt matter just differences...

 

[Eli13]

If they had one hive they would go extinct and it would need at least a few thousand hives at least in order to keep gene pool stable... Still allowing some sort of culture to be retained and thus distinctions...

not unless if it was just the one hive 'invading' or sending a message. and culture wouldn't be exactly needed if they have evolved past that. of course thats beyond what any of us know and most of us dont even believe this article.

 

[T.Neo]

You can't know that. It's a very Earth-centric view to take. What happens if life evolved on the aliens version of Pangaea? No seperate countries to cause divisions.

That is pretty silly, super-continent does not equate to super-country, already it should be blatantly obvious to a three year old that singular continents can have a multitiude of countries in them.

As Ghostrider said, even western Europe has many different divisions. It might be dependant more on the nature of the terrain than whether it is connected or not, but you'll get divisions nontheless.

 

[Star Voyager]

Coincidence?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_alien_center_shutdown

 

[Eli13]

That is pretty silly, super-continent does not equate to super-country, already it should be blatantly obvious to a three year old that singular continents can have a multitiude of countries in them.

As Ghostrider said, even western Europe has many different divisions. It might be dependant more on the nature of the terrain than whether it is connected or not, but you'll get divisions nontheless.

Even smaller than that, just go about a mile down the road in the US and you get differences.

 

[T.Neo]

I'd also like to point out that any sort of... intelligent eusocial organism... would most definitely have differing sectors, 'tribes' and colonies. Just like there are different colonies of ants, that can go to war with eachother over resources.

In fact, in a sort of... colonial organism, differences, alliegances, and identities, could be far more ingrained than they are in humans.

Though I'm entirely unsure as to how or why a eusocial intelligence would evolve. Most likely, it would be pretty different from a human society, and the individual organsims wouldn't have an intelligence or psycology like an individual human does.

It would be pretty interesting, to have a species that 'evolves' new technology, rather than invents it. Such an organism, and even the hive-superorganism, probably wouldn't be sapient in the conventional sense, and their technological progression would be quite slow. I doubt they would evolve the such advanced technology that we have, but it might be a possibility... how they would do so would be pretty intriguing, as it could even take millions of years.

But of course, this is only one possibility.

 

[Eli13]

Or, It could be one guy with a robot army :lol: But i do agree with T. Neo it would be something to see. With one hive or collective mind there would be no war because there would be no differences and no disputes, and though we never truly want war, it is often where technology advances the most. Take a good look at aviation through WWII for example. At the beginning of the war they were little more than adequately powered monoplanes with a few machine guns on them. By the war's end they could carry rockets use jet engines and have pressurized cabins and many other advances were made. But thats just one example.

 

[T.Neo]

I'm not even talking about a "collective mind". Eusocial animals on Earth do not have some sort of "collective mind", they just work towards a common cause.

I don't see how you could have one hive only, unless one specific hive on the planet somehow got such a major edge over all the other hives that it exterminated them and established global dominance. Even then, you would then get differentiation of geographically distant groups, again... because a eusocial organism does not have much of a use for regular intercontinental transport.

 

[Eli13]

You know, i only said that for a different solution to begin with then again it could be one scientifically dominant hive, tribe, nation, or whatever you may have it sending out that message. Or a group of species sending it out, but who knows. Honestly, I don't believe that Sputnik picked that up. Oh well, good for the newspapers publicity (or bad for it) i suppose.... :hmm:

 

[fsci123]

Well any species that uses eusociality could have soldiers who are weapons themselves(like running to an enemy and exploding)
If they have eusociality farming could be highly developed and technology used to control workers such as radio activated pheremone receptors that link to the brain of a worker or soldier could be dominatn... Highways could be organic in nature and hives could be in the billions and have domains that stretch thousands of miles... Radio communication could allow transfer of info to and fro the reproducer/s which may seem to be hivemind like development...

 

[Ghostrider]

Why am I thinking of the Zerg now? Can't be more eusocial than that.

 

[T.Neo]

Well any species that uses eusociality could have soldiers who are weapons themselves(like running to an enemy and exploding)
If they have eusociality farming could be highly developed and technology used to control workers such as radio activated pheremone receptors that link to the brain of a worker or soldier could be dominatn... Highways could be organic in nature and hives could be in the billions and have domains that stretch thousands of miles... Radio communication could allow transfer of info to and fro the reproducer/s which may seem to be hivemind like development...

I don't want to think about the biological or evolutionary plausibility of biological explosives and radio antennas... :uhh:

 

[Eli13]

what i thought he meant was soldiers who have had surgical alterations instead of some sort of natural explosive, but thats just me.

 

[fsci123]

I don't want to think about the biological or evolutionary plausibility of biological explosives and radio antennas... :uhh:

Well if they are jellyfish like creatures who use less dense methane or hydrogen to float in a dense atmosphere they could have some type of ignition device just like electric eels... Radio antennas are technology not biological... They had to invent it...

 

[Ghostrider]

I don't want to think about the biological or evolutionary plausibility of biological explosives and radio antennas... :uhh:

Don't know about radio but a lot of animals can transmit information over great distances using either sound or scent traces. We need radio because we lack those means, just as we need to build ecolocators because we lack the marine mammals' abilities. As for explosives, why make big booms when you can use acids or mechanical means?

 

[Eli13]

yes but if they are jellyfish like then they most likely come from a smaller planet with less gravity or they might find our planet rather..... errr... heavy. Unless they come from a water planet of course.

 

[Ghostrider]

If they come from a water planet they'd feel right home on Earth because ours is mostly a water planet. Of course the salinity and pH of our oceans would also play a role but I seem to remember there was a Wyndham story about the Earth being invaded by alien ocean dwellers which used biotechnology to great effect.