If aliens contact humanity, who decides what we do next?
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Hopefully they'll read its drivel and decide we're uninteresting and move on...
Poe's law strikes again, even I can't tell if the above is sarcasm.
Alien Mothership over NYC ? No folks, it was just a hologram.
This is a long winded way of saying “we don’t like competition, and allowing somebody that’s not us to do this could threaten our perceived legitimacy, therefore it must be suppressed at all costs.”
Any craft that can visit the Earth from outside the solar system is also capable of destroying civilization on Earth.
Literally that same craft. At relativistic speeds, any sizable piece of matter can become an extinction level event.
no classical weapons required, like using jetwash, or transsonic shock to cause extremely prejudicial complications
This would assume that the spaceship is emitting matter as part of it's propulsion mechanism, or it's somehow able to push matter in it's way away (rather than obliterating it).
otherwise, how does shockwave from relativistic speeds happen?
conceptual example, alcubierre warp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
very much like a boats bow/stern waves, or a jets acoustic waves, except much higher energy in a different substance.
but there's no such a substance in empty vacuum. If the speed was enough to generate gravitational waves somehow, and that gravitational wave is strong enough to disturb macro objects like the earth, we'd be a bit dead i suppose.
The disturbances of spacetime like the alcubierre warp is still theoretical - requires things like negative energy?!
the negative energy requirement was probably a fast and lose statement, its looking more like ...negative for us, energy is required. casimir plate devices and soliton wave functions are the newest idea.
It's more likely that they don't distinguish if they visit, because they're not here to study or make contact, but to extract resources or remove the solar system out of the way. Not too dissimilar to how clearing the amazon forest. There's no need to ask the native animals living in the forest for permission to clear it.
Completely in agreement with the second paragraph.
> “The bigger concern is to establish some form of international agreement to prevent capable individuals or private corporations from responding independently — before a consensus has formed on whether it is safe to respond at all, and what we would want to say as one planet,” he said.”
agree article is mostly clickbait. these guardian writers appear to get paid per article or per paragraph
anyway if first concept topic fascinates you or anyone else reading this, i suggest you read the “three body problem” by liu cixin. you in for real treat ;)