The Shot Heard Around the World...
As is well known by now, Mr.
Stephen Hawking presented a statement regarding Extraterrestrial Life and whether or not we should continue pursuing a discovery of them.
Let me just say that although I think that Mr.
Hawking is a brilliant intellect and is the proverbial "it" in the world of physics, I found his statement to be a brash one that was egoic, arrogant and effetist, rife with suppositional anthropomorphization of human assumption that was blatantly wrong on so many levels.
Of course an Extraterrestrial Intelligent Lifeform would be expected to act just like us...
NOT! I am going to use Mr.
Hawking's own example of the Columbus Voyage to the New World in which he illustrates from his view, the probable mentality of the visitors should they come to Earth and how things didn't turn out so well for the Indigenous beginning with that fateful day in 1492.
It has been said that the Indigenous population of that little cluster of islands couldn't even see Columbus' small fleet of ships moored off of the beach as they did not have the referential archetypal imagery in their collective subconscious to even recognize the comparatively behemoth floating transports.
It was the Shaman that suspected that something was askew and not well with their world as he noticed that the ocean water was rippling inconsistently and oddly in the very place the ships were anchored.
He later was able to witness some structure which then alluded to the now famous discription of giant water birds.
If there is anything that we can learn from this is that history has a tendency to repeat itself if I am at all even prepared to entertain the slightest inkling of the possibility that there is some merit to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, which in my view is plausible but exceedingly thin in that same said plausibility.
We can get into all kinds of speculative trouble here, but I would hedge a guess that any visitors would easily be able to take advantage of this subconscious blind spot in our psyche in so much as any kind of stealth technology used to hide their appearance would simply be an innocuous act of redundant overkill.
I certainly do not think that they, were "they" here to "conquer" Earth and its inhabitants, would even bother to land but instead would probably do something analogous to what we would call Terraforming in which we would reformat the environment of the planet or other some such heavenly body to suit our biological needs.
A few well placed probes dispensing microbes and viral substances toxic to our systems and ecology would probably do the trick quite nicely and all we would know is that a mystery illness is killing us and the Earth's lifeforms off without even a hint as to whom had perpetrated such a deed.
This is just my own very simple idea of how easy it would be to conquer us with not much of a dent in their budget should they even have an economy which would just be another gross assumption.
How Mr.
Hawking came to this idea is complete mystery to me.
Surely he could see the error in his giving Extraterrestrial visitors or conquerors as it were, human psychological attributes.
I understand that we have only a human point of view to suss things from or do we? It is obvious that an attempt at looking past our own flawed reasoning and rationale wasn't even attempted here and Mr.
Hawking's statement just comes across as slap dash, last minute and flagrant which reminds one of the not so distant past's atypical thinkers of flatland mentality just a hundred plus years ago.
I do not mean to insult Stephen here, but I certainly felt that this statement needed addressing as Mr.
Hawking's authority and notoriety in the field of physics is globally known and so as a direct result, his opinion has a tendency to carry a lot of weight which in this regard I think could be disastrous.
We, as a global society, are a lazy lot and do not want to be educated or to pursue any kind of effort other than that which is the bare minimum for every day functionality.
Educating and thinking for oneself has become so blase faire that the global standard anymore is pretty much one of a marketable entertainment peppered with 30 second sound bites of compact and useless information just gleaning the surface of reality.
It is to this general population that Mr.
Hawking has thrown his perhaps very irresponsible statement and leaves one to wonder if it was made in earnest or was to generate popularity or perhaps some other unknown agenda.
The bottom line here is this: People will believe him! This I find to be a potential psychological societal tragedy in the making.
The seed has been planted.
Will the governments of the world use this statement from a Super Intellect speaking from well beyond his field of expertise to regenerate new interest in funding yet another stupidly arrogant Star Wars-like defense program? I know.
Out on a limb, but you see what I mean.
Mr.
Hawking's statement is so like us humans.
Who, in their right mind, would come here openly? We are not friendly.
Our Modus Operandi in every single aspect of our collective cultural past has been simply this mentality: It's different.
Kill it.
We have done this with everything and every race on the planet.
We kill stuff that looks and acts different because in our underdeveloped reptilian brain we fear difference and see difference as threatening.
Now, you can see where I find major flaw in this statement and why I think that there is possibly an alterior motive behind it.
Whom or what stands to gain anything from this statement? Is this statement societally preparatory in nature or is it just an innocuous off the cuff rambling from an aging brilliantine? Was he put up to it? If you ask me, it does seem way out of character for him.
I'm not going to give my guess or reasoning beyond what I have provided.
I want you to research and read and apply that research to your own mode of rationale and thus think for yourself! If you care.
Otherwise, just wait for the next Dancing With The Stars.
You have been placated.
Cheers, ~Erik~