Do you believe aliens exist

[marooned]

what are you on @William?

[marooned]

I don't explain myself to people like you, sorry. Have a nice day. Come again next time!

people like me?

[Aylen]

Hitttaaaa like srsly. I thought you of all people would appreciate the delicate intricacies and beauty of the penis and vagina. You think they are unique??? You don't think there are giant, alien-shaped penis rocket-ships flying through space in a distant galaxy, aiming to penetrate the giant black hole??

Lexx!

[wacey]

yeah, assuming the universe is infinite (and still expanding?) it could be possible that there is some "god-like" (by our standards) intelligent life form out there that has been evolving for billions of years - which would also make them a very hardy kind of life form that has managed not to go extinct for a very long time. but even if this life form exists, they may as well not know or care about our existence. we haven't been around very long, for one thing - only ~200,000 years (a tiny % the age of the universe, assuming 13.8 billion years). and i think it's very much an egocentric, human quality to assume others would want to go out of their way to contact us. considering the vast entirety of the universe, are we really that special? we may as well be a very primitive & uninteresting form of life.

another thing: humans are really a weak kind of life form, not equipped to handle extreme environments. we're physically frail, have evolved to survive in very specific conditions, only able to handle a very limited range of atmospheric pressure, air content, temperature, etc. and we need a continual supply of food/water to live or we die pretty quickly. considering that human actions are bringing on the sixth mass extinction (through deforestation, pollution, climate change, etc.), we may be sentencing our own species to death. any hope for our long-term survival will have to involve our ability to produce ever-more efficient and life-saving technology (which we're not entirely bad at, really.)

anyway, i guess what i'm saying is that our existence probably isn't very special nor long-lived. perhaps not enough for us to make contact with other potential life forms while we're still around. cockroaches and tardigrades will outlive us, just watch

Very precarious. Maybe there is an upper limit to how far intelligent life can evolve and develop? The genetic slate being wiped clean before the intelligent alien life form can develop technologies to survive the inevitable and arbitrary cosmic cataclysms. Any animal that survives these extinction bottle necks would need to be very, very lucky.

[Chae]

"The men in black told me I can't say anything"

[Zero11]

No because Heliocentrism is a Religion, it is a belief System. There is no proof that the Earth is spinning.

[maniac]

No. I think there are other planets to keep us humans on earth endlessly wondering, helps with philosophy too to bring humanity to higher levels

[Not A Communist Shill]

If life can arise on our planet, I am convinced that it almost certainly exists elsewhere.

[Jarno]

If life can arise on our planet, I am convinced that it almost certainly exists elsewhere.

I saw a documentary of how on the bottom of our oceans, where there is no sunlight, there are vulcano's that erupt.
They spill chemicals, and there are small animals that convert these chemicals into oxygen and other stuff that animals can use.
They have been there with small submarines and have seen there are a lot of tube like animals living out there, and other animals too, a very rich ecosystem.

So they now assume that life is very easy to start, if it can start, then it will start. Even a bunch of chemicals with water does the trick. No light is needed.

Most planets have a hot core, so...

[Capitalist Pig]

Yes, but they probably haven't been to Earth or made any significant human contact.

[ashlesha]

It's conceivable that we may be living inside a computer simulation, in which case the non-existence of aliens is a serious consideration in spite of the scale of our universe [due to the artificial parameters of the system], as is the possibility of what would effectively amount to a creator god or gods programming the simulation from outside. (If we're living in one, I hope it's a more exciting simulation than that).

God idk why this shit scares me more than the thought of giant insects landing on earth with lasers or whatever... It's not like it would make a difference in my life anyway but I hate it so much lol

[Chae]

Yes, but they probably haven't been to Earth or made any significant human contact.

...either because their vehicles suck or they think we're a hassle.

[Cosmic Teapot]

I want to think yes. Yes there are aliens out there but... "Where is everybody?"

From Wikipedia - Fermi Paradox :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

• There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are similar to the Sun, [...] older than Earth.
• With high probability, some of these stars will have Earth-like planets, [...] intelligent life.
• Some of these civilizations might develop interstellar travel, a step the Earth is investigating now.
• Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky Way galaxy could be completely traversed in a few million years.

According to this line of reasoning, the Earth should have already been visited by extraterrestrial aliens.

---
I hope we're not the first intelligent life form. That would be boring

[Not A Communist Shill]

It is possible that we originate from lifeforms that were introduced to this planet.

[Pallas]

This question is nonsense. Beyond where probes have gone, "outer space" is a theoretical construct, and not a well-understood one, given that it depends on science we don't really understand (such as relativity, quantum physics, and a ton of other models that contradict each other and are themselves not really entirely fleshed out). But people watch so much Star Wars and Star Trek that that's just how they think now. I could outline a ton of theoretical models of "outer space" that are consistent with observations and would render the question of "do aliens exist?" moot. For example, what if all the "other solar systems" are just some sort of distorted image in a cosmic hall-of-mirrors? No one's sent a probe there, just telescope images, and we all know how unreliable optics are. Space looks weird anyways, like IT'S EXPANDING and all that, and how is it expanding? And then physicists change things every few years, and then no one can even verify string theory, and some people call modern physics mathematical philosophy since no one can reasonably prove anything now, so I think it's goofy to ramble about the existence of things that might not even be coherent ideas (I mean, they might be coherent, but until you get to a point where it's feasible to do anything, it's a waste of time and energy to me).

[Not A Communist Shill]

I want to think yes. Yes there are aliens out there but... "Where is everybody?"

From Wikipedia - Fermi Paradox :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

• There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are similar to the Sun, [...] older than Earth.
• With high probability, some of these stars will have Earth-like planets, [...] intelligent life.
• Some of these civilizations might develop interstellar travel, a step the Earth is investigating now.
• Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky Way galaxy could be completely traversed in a few million years.

According to this line of reasoning, the Earth should have already been visited by extraterrestrial aliens.

---
I hope we're not the first intelligent life form. That would be boring

I just uncovered the name of a very good book I read semi-recently on this topic:
If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... Where Is Everybody?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life by Stephen Webb

[ApeironStella]

Yep. At this point, I think aliens are least crazy supposedly weird thing to believe in, as we all already believe in some crazy made up stories, including our own.

[Cosmic Teapot]

I just uncovered the name of a very good book I read semi-recently on this topic:
If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... Where Is Everybody?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life by Stephen Webb

A new book for me! Thanks

[Pallas]

I am disappointed that more people haven't put "I am an alien". Everything that exists is only different by degree, not kind

[ApeironStella]

I am disappointed that more people haven't put "I am an alien". Everything that exists is only different by degree, not kind

It is even more funny to me because in my first language, translation of "alien" is something more like "spacian"(as in, literal translation of it). So, I would often end up asking people why we humans (particularly ones in my country) have such a huge ego to think that we somehow exist "outside of space", as if it is like space vs earth.

[The Reality Denialist]

How do we define alternative life? I suppose molecular level machines with replication/ some mutation that harness outside of itself. So there is a requirement some level ecosystem. It would be freakishly interesting to know how those molecular machines work alternatively if we can define it as life.
Perhaps to produce hybrid life forms.

[The Reality Denialist]

...either because their vehicles suck or they think we're a hassle.

Yeah. If they have capacity to travel fast enough/have freakish life spans and technology. We come off as dust mites. Let's clean that place if we see it as productive enough.
WHAT???
That's actually very common attitude. Just look at expeditions. Those guys were even same species.

[jessica129]

I have seen some shit. They are real.

[The Reality Denialist]

^ mirror, mirror on the wall...