by Sarah Parrish

Created on: May 16, 2010   Last Updated: May 10, 2011

Unfortunately for our collective ego, there's obviously a good chance Stephen Hawking is right when he says that if we encounter alien life, there's a possibility they're more technologically advanced than we are.  There's no reason to think we're the only ones in the universe.  You can use probability and statistics and the size of the ever-expanding universe to arrive at this conclusion.  If you're more of a creationist or if you come at the idea from a religious perspective, you can approach the idea by realizing that while we might be God's children, he might have had more than one.

We do exist.  And since there's a good chance others exist, there's also a chance that they're more intelligent than we are.  Given two random populations in isolation, what are the chances one is smarter than the other?  The chances are even.  50% chance it's the Native Americans, 50% chance it's the European conquerors.  But what's the one thing we know about the European conquerors?  Their technological advancements allowed them to travel to the place where the Native Americans live.  And they had a reason to go there.  They wanted something.

Same is true of the Aboriginals in Australia and wars brought by Roman conquerors and the Huns.  Throughout history, the group with greater technological advancement tends to be the visiting team.  They also tend to come in and conquer the home team because this greater technology with which they travel doesn't just affect traveling abilities but also warfare abilities and weaponry.  And they come for a reason.  All this means is that if we're the ones being visited, there's a good chance we're also the ones who'll be conquered.  And maybe we shouldn't go around making a bunch of noise in the cosmos since that only ends up helping them find us.

There's always some silver lining, though: at least from the perspective of international world politics, if the aliens are only slightly more technologically advanced than we are and we put up a good fight, those last few moments of our existence will most likely be the most friendly international moments in world history.  A common enemy tends to unite.

We can at least hope for one thing: that the aliens, given they visit us, given they're more technologically advanced than we are, and given they might also have used their intellectual capabilities for philosophical advancement, have a more "humanitarian" outlook than humans have as we've proven repeatedly by conquering the less technologically advanced among us.  They might not want to conquer us.  They might want to be friends.  In the meantime, let's hedge our bets.

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