What If Another Advanced Species Existed?
Hello and welcome back to Lifeís Biggest Questions, Iím Ron McKenzie-Lefurgey.
Ever since humanity first began looking to the stars, weíve wondered about the idea
of aliens.
Could there be other intelligent life out there?
What would it mean to us?
Letís explore.
If you enjoy this video, please thumbs up and subscribe to the channel down below.
Now get ready, itís time to ask the question: What if another advanced species existed?
Some believe that there absolutely is another advanced species already, simply due to probability.
With tens of billions of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy alone, it seems likely
to the point of near-certainty that at least one of these planets would be the home of
an advanced species.
However, one problem with this idea is time.
Humanity has only been around for a very short time relative to the universeís 14 billion
years.
When you take into account that the other advanced species would have to exist in the
same limited time period as us, it limits the options significantly.
Furthermore, distance plays a large factor.
While the odds of other intelligent life in our galaxy or universe are fairly high, they
would either need to be relatively close to us, or have developed some sort of faster
than light travel.
This significantly limits the number of possible aliens that we could run into, as they would
either have to be very close, or very advanced.
However, letís assume for the sake of argument that this advanced species did happen to exist
at this time, and was a reasonable distance from Earth.
How might we interact with them?
Many believe that this intelligent life likely wouldnít make itself known to us.
As Arthur C. Clarke once said: ìIím sure the universe is full of intelligent life.
Itís just been too intelligent to come here.î This is hard to argue with; if an alien looked
at the world now, with fighting within and between countries, war, poverty, struggleÖ
Earth doesnít exactly look like a vacation hotspot.
But letís not sell ourselves short; thereís a pretty good chance that they would, in fact,
come to visit.
The question is: how would this visit go?
Well, I think most of us would be rather apprehensive.
Humans arenít exactly the most welcoming of people, and thereís a good chance that
we would not accept the aliens, regardless of their reason for coming.
It could be that the military would attack them out of self-preservation, which could
lead to them leaving us alone, or an all-out war.
However, if the alien species was more advanced than us, thereís a good chance that we would
try to work with them.
You know what they say: if ya canít beat ëem, join ëem, and there is a great deal
we could learn from a species like that.
If they were interested in working with us, we would see incredible technological development
in the following years.
Of course, all our own good intentions would be nullified if the aliens had their own nefarious
intentions.
It could be that this quest to other planets is not exploratory, but one of domination.
If an aliens species was sufficiently advanced to make their way to our planet, they would
likely be capable of destroying us, and thereís a chance that this would be there goal.
Not every alien race would be benevolent, and it could be that their own biology would
cause them to distrust outsiders, and bring them to attack us rather than take a chance
with trusting us.
While many of us would love to be visited by the Vulcans or the Time Lords, it could
be just as likely that we would be invaded by a race like the Klingons, or the Krikkiters
from Hitchhikerís Guide.
On the other hand, they might not even realize weíre intelligent.
Thereís a good chance that a sufficiently advanced race would see us in much the same
way we see ants, and wouldnít even bother making contact.
It could be that Earth would simply be ignored by them, or worse yet, would be taken over
and wiped out to serve as an outpost.
From their perspective, this would be no different than humanityís destruction of natural ecosystems
in the name of industry.
And thatís a pretty terrifying thought.
Now we return to our question: What if another advanced species existed?
Well, if they did, thereís a pretty good chance that they would be too far away, or
would exist in a totally different time period.
They may not even wish to contact us, either due to the flaws in our society, or simply
because we are too stupid to bother communicating with.
If they did contact us, however, our races could learn a great deal from each otherÖ
as long as we donít kill each other first.
Thank you for watching Lifeís Biggest Questions, I hope this was interesting and informative,
and maybe even inspired you to look into it further on your own.
If you liked this video, please thumbs up and subscribe to the channel down below.
While youíre down there, let me know if you think there is other intelligent life out
there.
Until next time, Iím Ron McKenzie-Lefurgey with Lifeís Biggest Questions, wishing you
the best of luck, on your quest for answers.