It's Time To Seriously Discuss Aliens - For Serious
 

I pretty sure I already proved the existence of aliens with extensive youtube video references a few months back.

Really, I was just going off this and Sphere. I was wondering what actaully meeting with them would be like - if they're intelligent, according to the linked picture, or if they're simple and child-like, like the being in Sphere.

They'd be fundamentally different from us and we'd be lucky if we could ever understand them EVER.

More than likely we'd end up going to war over an obvious misunderstanding, or some shocking difference between our cultures.

Here's a great example.

More than likely there will be countless alien races out there at all levels of evolutionary and technological development. There are too many planets out there for there to be only a handful of lifeforms in the whole universe and not all of them will be at the same level.

So basically they could be anything and everything. The problem is of course how do we ever make contact across such vast distances, or even locate them to find out what they're like?

Also relevant

There is a dude whose job it is to work out how to contact aliens if we meet them. I read an interview with him once and he was a massive cunt. Also completely deluded- he was like "We'll use the universal language of maths" which is like "We'll use a system that is demonstrably a human brain construct and thus is uncertain if it would evolve in other species tot alk to them because I live in the 1800s where rationality was certifiably the universal constant. Also I probably read Ayn Rand."

This is an extremely interesting work of fiction.
Thank you for linking that.

Aliens would most likely develop technology in different directions then us. To even invent space travel you'd have to have a species that wants to travel in the first place. Most animals on Earth for example are content with getting their territory and never leaving it, especially since unlike humans they are too restricted in their food to be motivated. If one of those species became sentient they'd never wish to go into space.

Speculating, assuming technological growth and time spent is the same, humans would probably be the most threatening species. We inherently want to explore, communicate and eliminate threats. That means we focus on transportation, telecommunication, and weaponry. So while their efforts might be in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, mathematics, ours is based on getting to where we want, telling people whats there, and killing whatever we deem a potential threat.

When it comes to non-human species, and often even human species, humans are more conquistadors then explorers

That's assuming spacefaring aliens would be peaceful explorers.
Or non-spacefaring aliens would be more animalistic, content with their territory.

What if these aliens evolved like us? Not physically, but mentally.
Exploring and conquering. Different still, probably, but similar enough to bring guns to a first encounter.

I dont doubt it, I just doubt you can get much more-so then us. We kill something moment we think it might even be a potential threat. Not to mention our fascination with power. While you could argue that humans are in a perpetual cold war with itself, fact of the matter is nations build weapons "just 'cause".

Look at our nuclear weapon stockpile and neurotoxin, we have enough to kill every living thing on the planet, TWICE. How fast it develops might be situational, but we have this odd compulsion to always want more killing power even when its far beyond any practical use