Stephen Hawking Is Terrified Of An Alien Invasion, And The Reason Makes Nothing But Sense

[eridani]

http://www.upworthy.com/stephen-hawking-is-terrified-of-an-alien-invasion-and-the-reason-makes-nothing-but-sense?c=upw1

&feature=player_embedded

Neil deGrasse Tyson: We have a certain intelligence gap between us and the other creatures on Earth. You don't walk by the worm on street and say, "Gee, I wonder what he's thinking? I'll somehow have deep insight..." No! You step on the worm, all right? This is what we do as humans. So I wonder, if in fact, we have been observed by aliens, and upon close examination of human conduct and human behavior, they've concluded that there's no sign of intelligent life on Earth.

Let me tell you a couple of things. Earth, NASA says we go into space by launching into Earth orbit. Do you know how high above Earth the space station orbits? No, you don't know? I'll tell you, 3/8 of an inch. And we tell ourselves that that's space. Excuse me, that's just driving around the block. Right? And that dude who jumped out of a balloon...

Ohh, the edge-of-space jump. On this, if the Earth were this size, it'd be 1/16 of an inch above the surface. That's where he jumped, right there. See that? No, you can't see it because it's a 1/16 of an inch. So on this scale, where's the moon? It's 30 feet away. It's not in this office. It's three offices down. On this scale, where's Mars? It's a mile away. Where is the nearest star system? Forget it! So if an alien traversed that distance - and all we're doing is driving around the block - they're more advanced than we are.

And by the way, Hawking is all worried that aliens might suck our brains out. That concern comes from the fact that when any of us explore the world with high-technology ships and came upon a civilization less advanced, it was bad for the less advanced civilization. They either were completely wiped out or subjugated or enslaved or whatever. So I think his fear about aliens is a reflection of his actual knowledge about humans, how humans treat each other, not real knowledge about how actual aliens would treat us. So there you have it, Earth.

[still_one]

1. so are the republicans, different aliens I think

[LittleBlue]

2. We could be even less than worms

Whoever can master manipulation of space and time sufficiently for interstellar travel may be too advanced for us to interest them. Perhaps we're so insignificant that we'll be ignored, like amoebas.

[Louisiana1976]

3. Republicans act like their brains were already sucked out.

[mountain grammy]

48. That's funny, and kinda true.

[progressoid]

4. NdGT for the win.

[Scootaloo]

5. Actually it's nonsense from Hawking.

A society advaced enough for massive interstellar travel, is a society that has a near-infinite amount of resources at its fingertips. It would have to b, just to achieve that level of technology, and to maintain it. In addition there would be the plethora of worlds they have access to.

nearly every conflict between humans has been one of resources. Now the funny thing is, for most of human history, the planet has had more than enough to go around for the whole of the population, and the only limit has been access, really. In theory, arrangements could be made to bring plenty and prosperity to every human on the planet.

Now, imagine we had a second planet. Or even a third! Imagine having these worlds, with the distribution avenues open. It's taken humans a long-assed time to get to our current population levels on earth, it would take us a long time to fill up another world as well.

With our world-traveling technology, we find ourselves able to exploit uninhabitable worlds, as well. Scouring "iceball" worlds for water and hydrocarbons, perhaps, or rocky worlds for minerals. Gas giants would probably be beyond our reach, because even though gravity is a really weak force, it is implacable.

Basically, if we have the technology to extend our hands into the rest of our own solar system, we would have more resources at hand than humanity could use for hundreds of thousands of years.

Now? Imagine we add another solar system to that. or a third/ see how this is going?

Any starfaring civilization is so inordinately wealthy and well-off that it really has no conceivable reason to be interested in earth, than perhaps scientific curiosity. Coming to conquer us would be about as stupid as if you saw that worm on the sidewalk, and then hired an earth-mover to dig up all the dirt on the block in order to show the worm who's boss.

In fact now that i think about it? The vast amount of resources available within single solar systems kind of makes interstellar travel a senseless option. Really, once you've got the ability to take on your own star's neighborhood, you're set for the whole of your existence. of course there's the curiosity angle, bu sightseers don't have conquest on the mind either.

[0rganism]

7. their resources would certainly seem near-infinite to us

but rather than reveling in what we perceive as immense wealth, perhaps they have economies or other motivations beyond our meager conception that lead them to do things analogous to, as you say, digging up a large amount of dirt just to put an earthworm in its place. Either way, it's all quite speculative, mostly baseless.

Remember, Colombus came to the Indies first as a sightseer, then later returned as a brutal governor, by means (and for reasons) quite incomprehensible to the Arawak people who lived on the islands at that time.

[NickB79]

12. You're assuming they behave like humans with regard to resources

Given massive resources, humans have repeatedly shown their willingness to consume those resources until they are almost gone.

We HAD massive reserves of oil at the beginning of the 20th century; then we invented automobiles, plastics, etc and burned through it rapidly.

We HAD massive reserves of fertile soils and ground water; then we invented modern farming methods and aquifer drilling and used it up rapidly.

At every step in our development, we've taken what should be thousands of years of resources and found new ways to use them up at a blinding pace. Who knows what an alien race might do with their technology and resources?

Invent a warp drive that can move a massive ship between planets, but requires an entire planet be consumed for energy with every use? Oh well, there are MILLIONS of planets, right?

And that doesn't even take into account their potential population growth. Do they reproduce slowly and deliberately control their numbers, or do they breed fast? Do they have some type of religion or philosophy that encourages large numbers of offspring?

AND you're assuming the aliens are even biological. For all we know, they could have replaced themselves (or been replaced against their will) by machines: http://io9.com/how-self-replicating-spacecraft-could-take-over-the-gal-1463732482

The strength of Von Neumann's idea lies in the brute efficiency of exponential growth. Given enough time and patience, a single self-replicating probe (SRP) could produce millions upon millions of offspring; it would be like a massive bubble expanding outward into the Galaxy. Theoretically, these probes could occupy all four corners of the Milky Way in as little as half a million years – even if each probe were to travel at an average cruising speed of one tenth the speed of light (though, as I'll describe later, more recent estimates place it at 10 million years, which is still an incredibly short amount of time cosmologically speaking).

The fact is, we simply don't KNOW how an alien race would treat our species, and all opinions need to be considered until we have more evidence either way.

[cbdo2007]

17. The resource unique to Earth is humans and other organisms that have evolved here.

Life probably came to Earth as small cell lifeforms that evolved into all of the different types of animals and vegetation we have here now. While there are probably thousands of planets out there with lifeforms very similar to Earth, there are millions of others that evolved differently based on the environment of their own planets, which is likely very different from here. Thus we are what is probably unique to Earth and our brains, while may not be as technologically advanced as other alien civilizations, may be more advanced in other ways, which could be what they are seeking.

[Scootaloo]

26. Isn't that the plot to "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"?

[jtuck004]

28. " Coming to conquer us" < You are presuming they think like us. But maybe we are just food, and they

are the diners.

That infinite amount of resources may simply be scavenged as they travel through the universe. They might take us, or whatever, just for fuel. They may simply not care about war because their weapons could simply end us in a few minutes, just before they turn off all of ours, or we find out in some other way that our weapons just don't matter in the new "relationship". Then they take whatever.

Heck, some form of life we aren't aware of might develop a way to travel that we can't with the limitations of our bodies. Frankly, it's only arrogance that might lead us to think they would give a flying rat's ass about whether we survive after the encounter or not. We haven't cared about anyone else for a long, long time, except when we could profit from it.

Maybe it will be the Karmanians, bringin' it back to us.

[951-Riverside]

45. We just recently discovered radio waves, our technology is mostly Silicon and Carbon based...

Last edited Thu Sep 4, 2014, 03:11 AM - Edit history (1)

Yet all intelligent life on earth is biological based.

Our dreams, thoughts and very existence is controlled and contained in a wet mushy device we call the brain and we still haven't figured out how to duplicate it. Even the most powerful computers on earth cannot duplicate it. Hell, we can't even find the very thing that creates consciousness.

With that said, for all we know an alien force might not even have to use physical travel or telescopes to see other worlds.

What if they are able to turn their consciousness into light and travel across the universe in an instant and what if they have also figured out how to construct and control mass at the subatomic level?

In this instance they can easily manipulate the universe itself and be anywhere within a fraction of a second.

Meanwhile here we are with our mushy brains waiting for the next iPhone to come out and most of us using the device couldnt even explain how our voices travel a fraction of a second to another human cross the world.

The only real advancement we've made is with nuclear fusion but instead of studying how we can travel worlds using a huge amount of energy packed into small space, we turn this discovery into a weapon that WILL be used to destroy our very existence in the very near future.

Why on earth would a far more intelligent life bother visiting us primitives?

[jtuck004]

52. "Why on earth would a far more intelligent life bother visiting us primitives? " - Stock their zoo.

Or, maybe they come "To Serve Man"

(Thank you Damon Knight and the Twilight Zone for that memory).

[TransitJohn]

47. You forgot about their need for profit to pay shareholders.

Their economy must grow!

[UtahJosh]

53. I disagree, I think it's a completely sensible argument

You mention conquest or resource grabbing, but you're still assuming this is between relative equals.

What if they viewed us like we view sport fishing?

Or selected our sun as an energy resource because there was no significant life in the system worth saving?

There are a million other scenarios, and when you start to look at us the way we look at most other life here on Earth, it starts to make chilling sense.

It's not that they care about us one way or the other, but that we are made up of atoms they could be using for something else. Do you care about the fate of the microbes you kill every time you exhale?

[BlindTiresias]

6. Imo

Spaceborne societies are so wealthy they wouldn't even bother with planets, no reason to. Just in the main belt alone there are many times the resources that are available on earth. The real threat to human autonomy are extraterrestrial civilizations being ideologically driven to want more adherents and either instigating a civil war on earth or converting humans for their own good based on said ideological grounds.

[stevenleser]

11. I tend to agree.

The mastery of physics and other scientific disciplines necessary to achieve this would render anything the earth has as insubstantial.

At that level of advancement you would need a sophisticated energy source able to put out what to us is completely unthinkable amounts of energy and you would almost necessarily have the ability to manipulate energy and matter at will to create whatever items you would want to create.

I don't think taking over the earth would hold any interest for them.

[1StrongBlackMan]

16. But isn't it the height of human hubris to expect ETs to behave like humans? eom.

[IDemo]

37. Yes

The idea, apparently popular even among highly regarded intellects, that human behaviors will be reflected in most if not all other civilizations is absurd, unless you're George Lucas or Gene Roddenberry.

[stevenleser]

42. That's just it, I don't think they would behave like us at all. We wouldn't be like that.

At least not anywhere near how we behave at our current development.

[Dreamer Tatum]

8. Yawn, another look-how-stupid-people-are thesis.

We are dumb and provincial. Got it.

[hifiguy]

9. SF writer Robert Rankin was there long ago.

In his teddibly English way, of course:



Though I keep hoping that Gene Roddenberry's vision will out in the end.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

30. Hmm I don't think that I recognize that cover.

Is that the corgi edition? (Or am I actually missing that one? I know I've got most of the Barry the Time Sprout / Rex Mudi, etc al.sets, but maybe I missed that one somehow, and need to cruise over to thebookdepository.com)

[RoccoR5955]

10. I would better believe

They would be building an interstellar byway, and came here to blow up the earth so that they could construct it. Of course the plans for this would be posted at the regional agency, only about 8 light years away.

Then the only thing that could save us would be an infinite probability engine.

42!

[ProdigalJunkMail]

15. and the Magratheans who were rebuilding the earth anyway

Dent Arthur Dent (a real knee-biter, apparently) was simply along for the ride

sP

[hughee99]

19. Good thing I have my towel handy. n/t

[A Simple Game]

27. And this may be the one true theory, perhaps Adams could communicate with

the dolphins and they relayed the story to him. Does anyone know if Adams died or just left the planet?

Who knows? We aren't even sure of the scale of everything, planets may be electrons, solar systems may be atoms, and galaxies may be molecules. The real universe may be on a scale unimaginable to us mere insignificant parts of atoms. Can single cell organisms "see" humans?

[Hari Seldon]

13. There is no intelligent life in the universe

The reason we have not heard from them is because they are not there.

We are probably not the first.

The others did what we are about to do - they destroyed their own ecosystems before they could figure out a way to save them from pollution and warming brought on by a population that became too big and greedy for its own survival.

[GeorgeGist]

14. They'll just wait for us to destroy ourselves.

It's pretty much guaranteed.

[hughee99]

20. Why wait? Introducing a virus that kills humans but doesn't affect them should be sufficient

to meet their goals, without a whole lot of effort on their part. The interstellar version of "smallpox infected blankets".

[IDemo]

18. Hawking's perception of 'they' is very likely wrong

along with most who comment on the topic. The idea that any civilization far enough along scientifically and technologically to traverse vast interstellar space would still be existing as natural life forms is ludicrous. It has been seriously proposed by at least one prognosticator that humans will reach a tipping point this century and become increasingly linked with computer-based thinking, along with other superhuman capabilities. Whether that happens this century or anytime within the millennium, it would dramatically alter such motivations as resource wars or conquests for religious purposes.

It makes sense to know that any, any civilization would realize that their continued existence would be vastly better served by choosing to migrate into a machine state without the hazards or resource requirements of biological life. And it is entirely within reason that a very advanced civilization would have discovered even more elegant methods of existing and exploring the universe.

The concept of tentacled aliens piling into the intergalactic SUV and charging forth to vacation in or invade Earth makes for a few good chuckles on the Simpsons, but it's too cartoonish to be taken seriously.

[hughee99]

21. Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

25. That's assuming faster than light travel is impossible....

Here's a thought,...we are insignificant.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

22. If aliens can change their appearance the smart move is for the commander to look like Reagan,...

....and the crew to look like the Swedish Bikini Team.

[joshcryer]

23. The intelligence gap is the dumbest argument.

[PeoViejo]

24. ...

[Mz Pip]

29. We aren't worms.

An advanced alien race would certainly notice our technology. It may be primitive in their eyes but it is technology none he less.

[roamer65]

38. I would tend to believe they would limit contact with us in our current state.

We have crossed the thermonuclear threshold, yet still are extremely xenophobic. Both warning signs to limit contact or stay clear. I agree with Mz Pip.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

31. I try not to step on worms. Or other bugs I can see.

I'm not Jain, but I admire them for their principles.

I can hope that other advanced societies have advanced farther than us morally.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

41. .

[Shankapotomus]

49. ^This

Any alien civilization scientifically advanced enough to cross the Universe would probably be incredibly peaceful.

In order to create such technology you'd have to get your planet's resources under a unified direction. And in order to do that you'd have to overcome competition on your planet for those resources so they can be managed effectively. That means your species has long stopped wasting its resources on wars competing for them and its efforts all go to non-military scientific research and development. A peaceful civilization, one cooperating on a global scale and in peaceful management of its resources, is going to be what it takes to organize and direct technology for interstellar travel.

Such a civilization would be used to existing on that cooperative level and would probably be afraid to contact us as we are afraid to enter a gorilla exhibit at a zoo. They would conclude we do not know enough about cooperating to interact with us.

[LiberalElite]

71. Me too -

[madokie]

32. Neil deGrasse Tyson is one awesome dude

the ease he can put in perspective where we are as a species is astonishing

[jonjensen]

33. will they be illegal aliens?

Paranoia strikes deep into you heart it will creep comes when your always afraid the man come and take you away. for what its worth.

[dougg]

34. Aliens watching Earth

(old joke) The proof that there is intelligent life out there is that they don't bother with the earthlings.
.
.
two aliens looking down on earth:::::
alien #1... I see that the dominant life form on Earth has developed space weapons.
alien #2... Does that mean that they are an emerging intelligence?
alien #1... I dont' think so. They have them aimed at themselves.
.

[freshwest]

60. +1

[RufusTFirefly]

35. As usual, we flatter ourselves

I believe the statistical evidence for alien life forms is almost irrefutable.

To believe that were are the only life forms in the universe is an example of our pathetic Earthly exceptionalism that follows in the fine tradition of believing we were in the center of our solar system, in the center of our galaxy, and in the center of the universe.
To believe that those other life forms would be in the least bit interested in visiting us is yet another example.

We continue to flatter ourselves.

[lovemydog]

36. I hope I get to meet at least one alien who looks like

that History Channel guy with the big hair from the show Ancient Aliens.

[roamer65]

39. I like a quote from Arthur C Clarke

"Two possibilities exist: We are either alone, or we are not, and both are terrifying."

[hunter]

40. Meh. Once you figure out how to create your own custom universe, you leave.

Or you stay harmlessly at home and enjoy life.

By my math the custom created universes are possible, but the warp drives and even the sub-light-speed exponential expansions of cultural beings are not.

[geek tragedy]

43. worth worrying about only if one thinks that travel at several hundred times the speed of light

is possible.

[RoccoR5955]

44. no need to travel at those speeds

You simply have to bend space around you, creating many folds in it, to travel long distances, in what seems to be short amounts of time.

[Rex]

46. I am too...woa...when did that happen?

Billions of planets, somebody out there has to be a bigger dick than us and probably enjoys destroying innocent civilizations. Probably dam good at it by now.

[kentauros]

50. That's a lot of assumption for a scientist.

I thought doing that kind of thing was a big no-no?

Perhaps Hawking and Tyson need to read more Stanislaw Lem to get a better impression of how incomprehensible advanced alien life is likely to be. For any alien species to "understand" us by observation alone, they'd need context of our actions, including our thoughts, emotions, and our full lifetime of personal environment (social, and physical.)

It's a common mistake I see online everywhere. To overlay human emotions and thought processes onto something not at all human, to predict how the non-humans will react. We have no way of knowing, and it's absolutely wrong to assume we have any inkling of understanding.

[MisterP]

59. I might add that Lem is *very* Continental (even if he inspired, what, half of Futurama?)

WAY too many in the Anglosphere are content to keep themselves within limits set down in 1910--in history, theology, philosophy, even scientific theory

[kentauros]

64. I don't see what that has to do with anything.

I brought Lem up strictly for the concept that aliens would be incomprehensible to us, including their motives, just as we'd be pretty incomprehensible to them.

Hawking, et al, seem to have an unreasonable fear of aliens, and I'd be more apt to question their mental health than go in lockstep with their opinions.

[MisterP]

73. hmm, what I was thinking was that the willingness to acknowledge incomprehensible aliens

is much stronger on one side of the Channel than the other

Hawking's writing/declarations often have very strange archaisms that better fit an era when Wells could cheerily predict a classless, faithless, Anglophone world state by 1960, then turning outward to settle the Moon, Mars, and a lush, swampy Venus--it's almost touchingly anthropocentric: Mary Midgley has a great work on how this sort of SF even obstinately creeps into science textbooks' first or last chapters (warning, it's a whole book--www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPSASV&Volume=0&Issue=0&TOC=True)

buuut I still feel I have to mention that Sagan/Tyson's side of the debate still shares a lot of assumptions with Hawking's: the latter might be more humane (if that's the word) and reject conquest of the galaxy in favor of merely settling for the solar system, but they even use the same list of "science martyrs," recycling *1880s* legends of Hypatia and Galileo and Giordano Bruno and Hero of Alexandria and, I dunno, Cecco d'Ascoli

so the debate cannot remain stuck between two viewpoints that are less widely read than they should be

I dunno

[Kalidurga]

51. We have no proof that aliens aren't already here.

Or which universe they might have come from.

[lovemydog]

58. I've gotten into that line of thought lately, too.

A buddy told me about the Ancient Aliens show. I watched the first dvd of it, I think about four episodes from the first season. I've read some sites that debunk it all, but I still find it really interesting.

[Alkene]

54. I, for one, welcome...

Well, you know.

[Romulox]

55. Surprising dumb, coming from Hawking. Every SF novel struggles to figure out, just WHAT

do these aliens want with humans, to make it worth traveling through inter-galactic space.

To educate us, or eat us, or to make batteries from us (!) are the types of answers we've come up with. It's not too compelling of a reason to defy the laws of physics as we know them.

[Heidi]

56. What would a more advanced life form want with _our_ brains? (nt)

[lovemydog]

57. Spare parts?

Food?

I don't know, but it's fun speculating.

[colsohlibgal]

61. This Was Broached In "Contact"

When Ellie is describing plans sent from aliens, she thinks it might be a transport. The paranoid national security guy questions the safety of building anything from them. Ellie says we should not fear them, it would be like us knocking over a couple of anthills with microbes or something like that in Africa. Her boss then replies that her point is interesting, then asks pointedly just how guilty would we feel if we killed a few microbes in Africa?

[Hugabear]

62. There is a huge logic hole in his reasoning

First of all, Hawking is making the comparison to humans vs ants. However, even on that level, we recognize that ants are a highly organized species. We also recognize intelligence among many other animal species.

Similarly, I would imagine that any alien species studying earth would recognize that we are a somewhat advanced species, capable of communicating, launching various spacecraft, etc.

Whether or not that alien species would care or merely see us as an obstacle is an entirely different question, but they would no doubt at least recognize that there is intelligent life on this planet. Not necessarily as advanced as theirs, but still with some degree of advancement.

[zappaman]

63. I, for one, will welcome our alien overlords.

[ZX86]

65. Alien Agenda?

I think a lot of people are operating in a 1950's era idea of what an alien encounter would be like. Some explorers/ambassadors landing on the White House lawn looking to exchange cultural and technological information for mutual benefit. Others take a view that aliens would be so alien we would hardly recognize them and have nothing in common. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Aliens will definitely be humanoid (two arms, two legs, opposing fingers, etc.). Whereever they come from they will have a similar evolution as we do. Whether they evolved from mammals, reptiles, insects, whatever. They are not going to be coming from a square planet, eat with their butt, and defecate out their mouth. As alien as they are we still will have more in common than different.

The question will be what is their agenda. The answer will probably be various. Most likely several races of aliens have visited, each with their own unique agenda. Since the 1940's there have been UFO reports of ghost rockets, foo fighters, flying saucers, cigar shaped crafts, orbs, black triangles and boomerangs, etc. I doubt all of these crafts are operated by the the same beings.

It's not unreasonable to think that sentient beings hundreds to thousands, millions or billions of years older than ourselves would explore and map the known universe. However them coming here might not be about us at all. Maybe they just need water or a rest stop on the way to somewhere else.

I think a lot of people are whistling through the grave yard regarding alien visitation. It would mean that we are not at the top of the food chain. We may not even be in the top ten. This can be very unsettling. Sorta like all the BMOC's from middle school graduating to high school and instantly becoming insignificant nobodies.

Imagine aliens land and make official contact and instead of a cultural/technological exchange we're informed that Earth has been sold and they're the new owners but not to worry because we are a protected species. Not a pleasant thought. The truth is probably even creepier. If they just wanted our planet for it's resources they could easily kill us and just take our stuff. Introduce a virus, poison the water supply, or just sterilize us and we'd all be gone in a generation. But according to people who claim to have been abducted from aliens there is a human/alien hybrid program. They claim the aliens want to look like us and live among us. Basically a bunch of Single White Females from outer space.

[krispos42]

66. There's a good argument to make that there are damn few intelligent races in the universe...

...and that we might be the only one in the Galaxy.


The Fermi Paradox.... if our star is an average star, and our planet an average planet, then, given the lifespan of the universe, any civilization out there has had more than enough time to spread to Earth. So... where are they?

Basically, if goes that if intelligent life is common... humanity shouldn't be here. Aliens from however many thousands of light-years away have had millions or billions of years to get here, so given the time frame, they would have eventually found Earth and colonized us somehow.

Maybe frozen embryos in a space ship that lands here and grows the first generation in artificial wombs. They would be raised by computers and robots, at least the first generation, and then proceed to mate normally and fill the planet.

Maybe a shipload of colonists in cold sleep. Maybe a multi-generational ship. Or maybe they simply use the time-dilation effect of near-light-speed travel to travel vast distances in relative months.


Regardless of the method, they should be here already!

The fact that they aren't might mean that intelligent life occurs only once per galaxy... or maybe even less often.

We might be the only intelligent species for a million light-years.


It would only take a few million years for one planet to spread intelligent life throughout our Galaxy; our planet has been inhabitable for dozens of times that. So... where is everybody???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

[ZX86]

68. Perhaps they just use

birth control and don't feel the need to colonize other places?

[krispos42]

69. You'd need a culture to maintain this policy indefinitely.

And to not be curious about traveling to other star systems, also indefinitely. Like, millions of years indefinitely.

And supported by the entire population. No wanderers, no explorers, no restless souls, no scientists seeking to explore beyond their home systems.

Hell, that's enough time for evolutionary changes to be prominent. Political and social and economic change would be incredible during this time.

[MicaelS]

67. I remember a great short story...

In a black and white comic magazine (IIRC it was a Marvel publication). The aliens show up and surround the planet in a bunch of ships. Their main ship lands, and they step out.

They're Black.

[LiberalElite]

70. I actually try not to step on worms. nt

[Quayblue]

72. me too.

I don't know their world anymore than they know mine