Would Visiting Aliens be Benevolent or Malevolent

[Lung]

That's "nice or "mean", to those of you still in high school

I'm sure this has been posted here in the past, but Lung just had a brainstorm, and it was typically brilliant

It has been said,that any visiting alien species would be more technologically advanced than us by virtue of the fact that they were able to get here from beyond our current means of space travel. From this it was deduced, quite logically, that they would therefore be less barbaric and be harmless to us. I thought that was a fair assumption, but that was before my brainstorm

[Q Classic]

quite possibly. but then again, what would make them think we were anything other than vermin, taking up space and resources that would be better suited to their benevolent programs of exploration?

[BustaMike]

The little kid in Signs explains all the possibilities in a short, timely manner.

[Alexander's Horse]

I think they'd point and laugh a lot.

[The Mad Monk]

If I were visiting aliens, I'd try to be benevolent.

[Lung]

Even if you could take whatever you want? What a saint you are

[yavoon]

manifest destiny of the galaxy I imagine.

[The Mad Monk]

The poor things would be shocked enough as it is -- humans? Here?!

I wouldn't want to be cruel...much.

[Lancer]

First I suppose they would be dissappointed the planet is populated. Or, they might be glad there were slaves at hand, or a ready source of meat.

If they wanted the planet the fact that we are trashing it would be a good excuse to cull the herd...or rid the planet of the harmful species. Or, they might just force us to hand over all the blueberries, and leave us wondering.

[FrustratedPoet]

I expect they would simply squash us like bugs and harvest our planet for what little resources are left.
Isn't that exactly what we would do if we were in their place?

[Lancer]

Assuming it took everything they had to get here I suppose they couldn't just leave. However whatever their fuel was we might not even be mining. They could eat little globs of silicone...who knows, they might not use what we use or like what we like. They might settle happily on Venus after dropping by to share their best silicone recipes.

[Skanky Burns]

They would probably treat the planet as a big zoo, charging their own kind huge amounts of money to come look at us, but not allowing us to expand to any other planets.

[Spiffor]

If they develop good enough machines to come all the way down here, they must be a highly scientific kind. I'm sure they will observe us before taking any steps (and observe Earth in general).

If we have resources they are interested in, they will calculate the cheapest thing to get them : either they'll trade us some worthless things, or they'll attack / enslave us.

[Jack the Bodiless]

I have reservations about the likely benevolence of aliens.

The argument appears to be "they would have destroyed themselves if they were aggressive". However, this assumes they don't have an evolutionary or cultural restraint against harming their own kind, and it's likely that they would. If so, they're free to be as aggressive as they want to be to other life-forms.

And I have a suspicion that many peaceful intelligent races would fail to make it into space, because of what I'll call "the spear principle". Humanity has produced many pre-industrial cultures, all well-suited to their environments. And there is nowhere on Earth where humans have been pushed down the food chain by a more advanced predator. With the exception of diseases, no land animal eats humans and survives for long: the locals, no matter how "primitive", will hunt it down and spear it to death.

So our own history tells us that we will always develop technologies which secure our position at the top of the food chain, but the spear is sufficient for supremacy over non-humans. More sophisticated weapons are needed only against human enemies. Many intelligent but peaceful races may have achieved supremacy over all other life forms on their planet, and then simply ceased developing beyond that point: their equivalent of "spear mastery". More aggressive races, however, would be more likely to get involved in an "arms race" leading to high technology, because they're always up against enemies comparable to themselves. They may be disproportionately more likely to become spacefarers if they DON'T destroy themselves.

[Flare]

Unfortunatly, I would pick either Neutral or Malevolent. The alen race would probably be decended from predators, & we ALL know how nice we are. However, the point could be argued both ways. ~Shrugs~ Let us go into space & find out, shall we?