Fermi Paradox According to Fox News

[Airbrush]

Recently I saw a piece on Fox News about the Fermi Paradox on the Greg Gutfeld show.  That caught my attention because they usually discuss politics and because astronomy and cosmology are my favorite areas of science.  Greg suggested that there is probably no intelligent alien civilizations out there because if there was they would have become obvious to us.  Here is what Wiki has to say about the Fermi Paradox:

"The Fermi paradox, or Fermi's paradox, named after physicist Enrico Fermi, is the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probability estimates^[1] for the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations.^[2] The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) and Michael H. Hart (born 1932), are:

• There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are similar to the Sun,^[3][4] and many of these stars are billions of years older than the Solar system.^[5][6]
• With high probability, some of these stars have Earth-like planets,^[7][8] and if the Earth is typical, some may have developed intelligent life.
• Some of these civilizations may have developed 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"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

This subject was raised as though it was a recent discovery in science, but many here know it has been around for a long time.  Some members of the panel made normal comments, but Greg Gutfeld said something like if aliens come to Earth "we could eat them".  He said we eat Earthlings (cows, pigs, chicken, fish, etc are Earthlings), "even vegetarians eat Earthlings because broccoli is an Earthling."  He was suggesting that since we eat Earthlings, we could eat aliens.  How likely is it that alien biology would be so consistent with our own that we could eat, or even WANT to eat an intelligent alien? 

I watch Fox News only when there are commercials on CNN and MSNBC.  I peek in at Fox News trying to understand the other side.  This show about the Fermi Paradox is an example of a stupid show.  The other cable news channels are not perfect, but they don't look quite as stupid as Fox News.  Why would anyone ever consider eating an intelligent alien that came to Earth?  This is very telling of Greg Gutfeld.

Back to the subject of the Fermi Paradox, how do you explain it?   To me it is easy, interstellar travel is more difficult than we can imagine.  Also intelligent aliens have nothing to gain by us knowing about them.

Edited July 1, 2018 by Airbrush

[Scott of the Antares]

Andromeda Fried (quasi) Chicken... yum:)

[YaDinghus]

19 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

Recently I saw a piece on Fox News about the Fermi Paradox on the Greg Gutfeld show.  That caught my attention because they usually discuss politics and because astronomy and cosmology are my favorite areas of science.  Greg suggested that there is probably no intelligent alien civilizations out there because if there was they would have become obvious to us.  Here is what Wiki has to say about the Fermi Paradox:

"The Fermi paradox, or Fermi's paradox, named after physicist Enrico Fermi, is the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probability estimates^[1] for the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations.^[2] The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) and Michael H. Hart (born 1932), are:

• There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are similar to the Sun,^[3][4] and many of these stars are billions of years older than the Solar system.^[5][6]
• With high probability, some of these stars have Earth-like planets,^[7][8] and if the Earth is typical, some may have developed intelligent life.
• Some of these civilizations may have developed 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"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

This subject was raised as though it was a recent discovery in science, but many here know it has been around for a long time.  Some members of the panel made normal comments, but Greg Gutfeld said something like if aliens come to Earth "we could eat them".  He said we eat Earthlings (cows, pigs, chicken, fish, etc are Earthlings), "even vegetarians eat Earthlings because broccoli is an Earthling."  He was suggesting that since we eat Earthlings, we could eat aliens.  How likely is it that alien biology would be so consistent with our own that we could eat, or even WANT to eat an intelligent alien? 

I watch Fox News only when there are commercials on CNN and MSNBC.  I peek in at Fox News trying to understand the other side.  This show about the Fermi Paradox is an example of a stupid show.  The other cable news channels are not perfect, but they don't look quite as stupid as Fox News.  Why would anyone ever consider eating an intelligent alien that came to Earth?  This is very telling of Greg Gutfeld.

Back to the subject of the Fermi Paradox, how do you explain it?   To me it is easy, interstellar travel is more difficult than we can imagine.  Also intelligent aliens have nothing to gain by us knowing about them.

Eating Aliens isn't that far out there. If they're carbon based,  there's a good chance that they store energy in a fashion that is compatible with our digestive system. If not ours, then some bacteria or funghi can certainly ferment it for us. Life has this incredible capacity of making use of chemical energy, and with photosynthesis also turn light into 'useful' chemical energy.

Thing is, if we can eat them, they can eat us, too (maybe with some extra processing in case we/they are poisonous to them/us). The latter is the traditional scifi trope...

I wouldn't however go around the galaxy eating alien intelligent life forms, of I had the means of travelling it decently fast. I would try and share in their cuisine if possible for cultural diplomacy reasons. But my basic assumption is that intelligence seeks out intelligence for the sake of communication and achieving even more fantastic intelligence

[Airbrush]

I am sure that eating intelligent aliens that come to earth would be a LAST resort for humans, only when all "Earthling-food" is gone!  It would be a very low probability.

Also remember "War of the Worlds" by Wells where the aliens were not immune to human microbes.  Maybe we are not immune to theirs?

Edited July 1, 2018 by Airbrush

[YaDinghus]

54 minutes ago, Airbrush said:

I am sure that eating intelligent aliens that come to earth would be a LAST resort for humans, only when all "Earthling-food" is gone!  It would be a very low probability.

Also remember "War of the Worlds" by Wells where the aliens were not immune to human microbes.  Maybe we are not immune to theirs?

Microbial pathogens are virtually impossible to get rid of completely in a space where biologicals lurk, so even the most advanced space aliens - assuming they're biological - would (have) to be familiar with the concept of vaccination. This is in fact a major resolution problem of Wells' "War of the Worlds" to my mind. Vaccination as a concept would even work of their immune systems worked radically different from ours, because exposure leads to death or tolerance, and so only the tolerant cells proliferate

+1 because you gave another blow to the anti-vaxxers by bringing HG into this discussion ;-)

Edited July 1, 2018 by YaDinghus

[Strange]

15 hours ago, Airbrush said:

How likely is it that alien biology would be so consistent with our own that we could eat, or even WANT to eat an intelligent alien?

One potential problem is that even if the basic biochemistry was the same, their molecules could have the opposite chirality (handedness) - this would make things like proteins inaccessible to us and possibly even toxic.

[Sensei]

16 hours ago, Airbrush said:

This subject was raised as though it was a recent discovery in science, but many here know it has been around for a long time.  Some members of the panel made normal comments, but Greg Gutfeld said something like if aliens come to Earth "we could eat them".  He said we eat Earthlings (cows, pigs, chicken, fish, etc are Earthlings), "even vegetarians eat Earthlings because broccoli is an Earthling."  He was suggesting that since we eat Earthlings, we could eat aliens.  How likely is it that alien biology would be so consistent with our own that we could eat, or even WANT to eat an intelligent alien? 

Fermi Paradox finally solved: extraterrestrial intelligent life forms are not revealing to extreme right wing members because they don't want to become their meal..

 

[Airbrush]

The absurdity of wondering if an intelligent alien, that has the technology to travel interstellar, was EDIBLE is off the scale!

First off there is no contest.  They have technology far beyond our own.  We would be helpless.  They would dominate Earth will little effort.

Imagine what they may look like?  Hardly TASTY looking I would dare to speculate. 

[Phi for All]

Before becoming an interstellar species, one must survive the discovery of nuclear fission. For a competitive species, it represents an enormous increase in destructive/constructive power. How many species before us in the galaxy have wiped themselves out, just on the brink of being able to move offworld?

Btw, for Fox to air this, it probably means extremist conservatives in the US want to defund some part of the space program, most likely to create a private investment opportunity.

[Airbrush]

Greg Gutfeld, in the segment about the Fermi Paradox in the opening post, was able to bring the second amendment to alien invasion.  The point Greg was making by asking if we could eat aliens that come to Earth, is a scenario where brave second amendment people with fire arms will be a resistance to the alien invasion.  They could hunt aliens with their AR-15s and roast them over a fire before dining on them.  How likely could Earthlings resist through the use of firearms?  Would a civilization that is capable of interstellar travel be so naïve as to underestimate Earthlings and fall victims to the armed bands of "Earth-resistance"?

[EWyatt]

Airbrush, I think your post was less about the Fermi Paradox than about your (leftist) politics.  Get a life.

However, Gutfeld should have spoken about something he actually had reasonable information on rather than just dorky blather.

 

EW

[Sensei]

On 8.07.2018 at 7:52 PM, Airbrush said:

Greg Gutfeld, in the segment about the Fermi Paradox in the opening post, was able to bring the second amendment to alien invasion.  The point Greg was making by asking if we could eat aliens that come to Earth, is a scenario where brave second amendment people with fire arms will be a resistance to the alien invasion.  They could hunt aliens with their AR-15s and roast them over a fire before dining on them.  How likely could Earthlings resist through the use of firearms?  Would a civilization that is capable of interstellar travel be so naïve as to underestimate Earthlings and fall victims to the armed bands of "Earth-resistance"?

Greg, according to wikipedia page, is comedian (or attempting to be comedian ).. and he made joke about eating aliens.. You treated him as regular non-comedian person, but he is joker.. The end of story.

 

Edited July 10, 2018 by Sensei

[Airbrush]

3 hours ago, Sensei said:

Greg, according to wikipedia page, is comedian (or attempting to be comedian ).. and he made joke about eating aliens.. You treated him as regular non-comedian person, but he is joker.. The end of story.

 

Yes a Joker, end of story.