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Canadian Ex-Minister Calls For Serious ET Study
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Nov 25, 2005 06:26 PM
from the just-your-average-day-in-canada dept.
from the just-your-average-day-in-canada dept.
Nom du Keyboard writes "A former Canadian Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister wants Canada to hold public hearings on Exopolitics - relations with Extraterrestrials - to avoid the possibility of intergalactic war. Unfortunately he also proposes starting a 'Decade of Contact', which seems to mean spending a whole lot of public money on UFO education. Is he on the right track here, that we can't afford to ignore the rest of the Universe any longer?" From the article: "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning ... The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide."
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"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow... a new low. The aliens must be laughing themselves sick at our hubris. The possibility that our weapons might prove a threat to a culture capable of mere interstellar travel (let alone "intergalactic") is about the same as an ant colony against the U.S. Army.
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:2)
Having a vehicle that goes real fast (or folds space, or whatever) doesn't mean it will be durable. Those NASCAR cars are a great example of this concept; sure, they go fast, but they're made with fiberglass bodies that shatter upon touching anything at normal operating speeds.
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
So if you intend to protect the planet, you have to protect the entire sphere. If you want to take the attack 'away from home' as would be advisable if using a huge nuke as you suggest, then you have to move the defence sphere outward. As you move it out, you increase the surface that you must protect exponentially. It's virtually impossible (virtually... don't hop down my back about a general statement) to defend yourself against a space offensive due to this feature of battle in space. The only way to win is to be on the attack.
Parent
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you're spotted, it's nothing but your delta-v against his, a classic battle of maneuver that even ancient, primitive humans like Sun-Tzu could tell you about.
Basically, the scenario you're talking about is similar to what happened in the US Civil War; with railroads, etc. allowing for rapid movement of forces, as fast or even faster than your scouts could report back enemy movements, battles tended to happen around fixed locations where the attacker wanted to go (otherwise something would have happened to the Army of Northern Virginia somewhere between Sharpsburg and Gettysburg). However, since then we've improved upon the hot air balloons used in the Civil War with radios, airplanes, and even satellites, all mitigating the advantages of hiding your movements behind terrain. Pearl Harbor happened only because nobody could see over the horizon at the time.
There is no terrain in space. You might gain some sort of surprise coming in with the sun at your back, but first you have to get to the sun undetected.
Parent
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
You raise a good point - defence in depth is a wonderful thing. However, it's also very expensive in terms of forces, for the very reason you point out. This is why trench warfare was so common back in the day - manning every square mile of no-man's land would require far too many troops. In practice, the standard strategy was to man a fixed thickness of perimeter (the area of which would t
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. But only a few miles thickness of trench was manned, iirc. See my earlier comment about this. There's no point manning a trench 200 miles away from the actual warzone.
There were also troops and hospitals and such behind the trenches.
Yes. But their prevalence was a function of the area of the trenches, not of the area the trenches were protecting. And, as I already mentioned, the area of the trenches was approximately a linear function of the length of the defended area's perimeter. There were occupation forces inside cities in there. Couldn't one view planets as being equivalent to such cities, only stragegically far more important because of the difficulty of the intelligence task of analyzing a planet's stragetic stance?
There's no good short-term military reason to hold cities. The main short-term reasons for attempting to hold them are a) it makes for bad PR to lose them and b) it's a bitch to win them back (city warfare 0wns). Neither of these reasons apply to dead planets (no-one cares even if you do nuke the bastards). Planets with a large population will be able to support their own defence force. The only slight complication is lines of supply, but planets would tend to be far more self-sustaining than cities. Obviously in the long term cities are essential sources of high-tech products, but shipping raw materials to, and finished goods from, another planet is not terribly plausible (and unnecessary if the planet is dead) so this reason evaporates.
Planets are not the cities of space, they're the lush valleys. Wonderful places to live, but relatively indefensible and not worth fighting over if they're not occupied.
At that point, you'd have to argue that your occupation expands as a band across your holdings, or am I still missing something here?
On the whole, the concept of "holdings" in space isn't very useful. Yes, you could build bases on asteroids and the like but, if you made it too difficult for enemies to drive you off, they could just nuke the hell out of you with no real repercussions.
Given the cost and time lag of transporting stuff in space (assuming no warp drives, which would open up an entirely different tactical bag of weasels), the areas you'd be defending would be a limited number of high-density, almost entirely self-sufficient population centres which would be extremely remote from each other. Rather than defending these as a group (i.e. trying to protect the entire solar system) it makes much more sense to defend them individually, in which case the problem reduces to the 2D defence previously discussed.
The only exception I can think of to this approach is stuff like asteroid belt mining and so on. With these, you'd effectively just have to accept that your operation was indefensible and attempt to move with extreme stealth, relying on the massive volume of the belts to protect you.
Parent
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
If there was the slightest chance we were building up towards a war with an offworld power we'd need much more advanced technologies and we'd not be hearing about them in the open press. That should go without saying for all but the most deluded.
I'm not sure which is crazier... the idea that we could use known technology to fight an alien power capable
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, you're all forgetting all we'll need is a copy of Sasser on a diskette! Wait -- they're an advanced civilization, after all... better make that a flash drive.
Parent
Re:So, they figured it out (Score:5, Insightful)
So just because they might have "figured out simple fission/fusion weapons" doesn't mean they can deal with a few gazillion joules of energy suddenly appearing 50 meters off the port quarter of their space ship.
"Suddenly appearing", huh? Exactly when did we develop teleportation technology? Oh, that's right...we haven't.
Any culture capable of interstellar travel should be more than capable of detecting and either sidestepping or shooting down whatever we lob at them with our pathetic chemical rockets.
Parent
Re:Otherwise known as "stealth" (Score:3, Interesting)
To advance as far as they have, the species in question probably had to exterminate all competitors, just as our species out-performed, out-fought, and out-bred all the other competing hominids in our race's infancy. We're bloodthirsty and competitive because these traits enabled us to win the evolutionary race, and there is no reason to suppose that alien species didn't have to undergo a similar 'baptism-by-fire'.
Re:So, they figured it out (Score:3, Interesting)
What they lacked was unity. If all native american tribes worked together against European invaders, the settlers would have been kicked off the continent. However, the Europeans were able to take the country piece by piece. Now of course modern mankind is all united and could never be susceptible to one fact
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
That is, magic in the sense that the term is used in Clarke's Third Law.
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
That Movie (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
All sci-fi geeks should read it [baen.com]. Considering it's around 60 years old, you have to forgive a bit of old technology, but the story holds up really well.
It's a very interesting "what if" story about first contact.
Parent
Many of the top authors (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, this last one is significant even if there are no aliens within contactable distance of Earth. There are extremely few positive cases of advanced human societies mixing with less advanced societies. The response has ranged from "cargo cults" to extermination campaigns to the utter collapse of native culture, followed by extreme chemical dependencies and other addictions. More than a few of the troubles in the Middle East, for example, have been due to extreme, prolonged culture shock. Many of the islands visited by Captain Cook, described as paradise at the time, are now little more than brothels with an ocean-front view for the rich.
So, whilst I don't regard the call for an Interstellar protocol to be particularly useful in and of itself, IF we take this opportunity to look at how to communicate with others without causing damage, I would consider it a worthy investment of time and effort. If it leads to the undoing of the mindless destruction inflicted in the past, so this world can be the richer for the cultures that still exist, then it will have paid for itself many times over.
If all it does is deter people from questioning how they treat others, then we'll keep paying an absurdly high price from something only a tiny handful will ever get anything from.
Parent
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:5, Funny)
If they laugh themselves sick, are they eligable for treatment in the Canadian free health-care system?
Parent
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
I served in the US military on a weapons test platform built on a
old DLG destroyer renamed a CG cruiser class, think vietnam era .
The ship was nearly 25 yrs old and in bad shape .
Needless to say we are not anywhere near a 100% target rate .
Taking it a step further, if we have had more than one shuttle blow
up just trying to fly we are in VERY sad shape if a alien race
did decide to take us out .
I think what you see in "War of the Worlds" would be a friggin joke compared to
pinpoint strikes from space by a Instellar Battleship with multiple fusion reactors .
Cloaking technology maybe ??? I think if they didn't want us to see them they
could do that as well, even our gimp tech has stealth .
We have a weak version of the cloak due to a US general wanting the predator tech .
I think the might just bombard the earth with short lived radiation that affects certain
DNA strands and leave the planet completely unscathed but devoid of humans .
What they "could" do is so far and beyond what we can imagine, we would be stunned .
Hell one guy in scooter could fly by and release a bio weapon and we wouldn't even know,
imagine what their molecular biologists could design .
Poof bye humans !
We better hope that so called aliens that can wormhole across the universe are friendly or else
we are so very very screwed .
Ex-MislTech
Parent
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
The black government and real aliens (Score:4, Funny)
As for aliens? Do some research on the net. It will become very clear that what we are likely dealing with is a previously emmigrated human species, having left about 10,000 years ago after creating a nuclear winter right here. They come back, and for them it's like planet of the apes - the primitive tribes (sub-humans) of their time have risen up, built an oil-based economy and are in the process of riding the same rail-road of destruction that they did. Sound spectacularly crazy? Heh... Reality has a funny way of doing that sometimes...
Here is a decent place to start [peter-thomson.co.uk] to get a taste. From this neutral site, you can google around and go deep into tin-foil-hat territory, or alternatively, you can investigate the real evidence in a scientific manner. There is a lot of both on the net.
I am actually pretty surprised that here on Slashdot, this article recieves such a mocking response. Skeptisism is good, but laughing is simply playing into the black propaganda to keep you from looking there. Looking there is good and healthy, it just may change the way you see things.
Parent
Re:The black government and real aliens (Score:3, Funny)
If you accept the premise that aliens are, in fact, previously emmigrated human civilizations, then many interesting conclusions and questions can quickly be derived. Some of them I won't expand on in detail, but will leave to the reader to think about as an exercise.
Re:The black government and real aliens (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh.. yeah.. well, just because I read on average something like 5 books a month, and just because they're mostly science fiction, doesn't mean I actually think there's any other intelligent life out there - except for the slight possibility of other human life out there.
I am not an evolutionist. I believe the earth is only about 6,000 years old. Now, it's possible that people made space ships and travelled
Re:The black government and real aliens (Score:4, Funny)
There's nothing wrong with having religious beliefs, but it is important, in this day and age, to draw the line between mythology (which can be beautiful and moving, and has its place in every religion, but it is just that) and reality.
I sincerely hope I didn't hurt your feelings, but Slashdot is the one place I hoped not to have to read things like this.
Guess I'm gonna get my first ever flamebait mod for this, but this is a cause worth some sacrifice...
Parent
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:3)
Any civilization that could reach us wouldn't have to. It's not like we're a threat, or that we have anything they would need. Dead, terraform candidate planets would probably be a lot more attractive to them than this place. Why not just mine asteroids and build orbitals? Why send occupied craft at all? This crap is like religion--limited human minds conceiving of advanced intellects as being the same as us. Like the
Re:"Intergalactic war", huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are able to place yourself in space, at any relative velocity, at any location relative to another object (which is basically the definition of successful space travel, no matter what the means), then you should probably also be able to place an object, for instance a nice, dense lump of lead with a steel jacket, at any relative position and velocity to another object, in this case, let's say, Earth. Launch position may be arbitrarily distant, if you accept additional time-to-target.
So. Object (eventually, if you like) weighing, say, 1 kiloton (to give you some perspective, the USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier, is about 77 kilotons), comes into Earth's atmosphere at a relative velocity of, oh, say 1,000,000 K/sec, coming straight down (to minimize friction and time-in atmosphere.) Object impacts military target, for instance, the Pentagon. Washington, and large amount of the surrounding area, is now missing in action, and we have a large crater (probably a new opening on the sea, actually, thought I've not done the math) we should probably get around to dealing with. The radiation and blast effects may require a slight delay, perhaps, oh, I don't know, a few centuries.
Total cost to those accidental discovers of space travel? Some lead or other dense material, a steel or other relatively tough jacket, and whatever space drive resources it takes to get to where launching it delivers enough energy to target. But remember — if they can get here and arrange a relative stop, then they can just as easily get anywhere else in the solar system at any other relative velocity. If they decide we're toast... we're toast, and there isn't squat we can do about it.
Basically, the fact is if you assume interstellar space travel with any vehicle larger than a telephone booth, then you have to assume military superiority as well, and to a degree that is difficult to comprehend and requires no additional technology beyond moving inert materials around.
Sorry to burst your bubble. ;-)
Parent
Hmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Feh. (Score:2)
Money (Score:2, Insightful)
meh (Score:5, Funny)
The Minister needs his meds. (Score:3, Insightful)
-jcr
NOT a case of dementia. (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.disclosureproject.org/ [disclosureproject.org]
They're conspiracy theorists, and apparently they have followers around the world.
Let's remember that another UFO-believing group, the Church of Scientology, got famous followers like John Travolta, Tom Cruise, etc.
Cults happen.
Parent
Don't worry, SG-1 will save us (Score:4, Funny)
press release (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, we canadians have a sence of humor... (Score:4, Funny)
Christ... (Score:3, Funny)
Since my tax dollars are going to be wasted no matter what, I'd prefer they waste them on something more important -- such as money for Quebec ad agencies or corrupt government officials -- then holding parliamentary hearings on ET diplomacy.
Men in black (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr. Hellyer went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the
consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just
think I had to say something."
Let me get this straight:
Among the things this guy is persuaded of then is that aliens walk
among us already, that the US government knows about it and has
apparently enough alien technology in its possession to be able to
wage war between galaxies (a pretty amazing feat for one little
planet, wouldn't you say? Even with a base on our moon!), while still
being able to keep the general population persuaded that we have not
made contact.
Wasn't Will Smith in that movie? And here I was under the impression that
the US was no longer even capable of manned spaceflight (other than
hitch-hiking with the Russians).
All chuckling aside, even though according to his Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
biography the man has a long history of UFO advocacy, he's also 82
years old and I am inclined to think that despite a distinguished
career the question of senility has to be raised. Still, anyone
should count themselves lucky to be giving public speaches at 82 in
the first place.
Re:Men in black (Score:5, Funny)
That's not a moon... : p
Parent
Re:Men in black (Score:5, Insightful)
The existense of UFOs is not doubted, but claiming a UFO is extraterrestrial is unfounded.
While at it, there's no reason to claim extraterrestrial life is intelligent either when we're yet to communicate with any.
We have no reason to say that something intelligent necessarily is alive either. Our own development of AI should at the very least indicate this.
We have no reason to beleive a hypothetic extraterrestrial intelligence has biological needs we can relate to, so we can't assume they would act like we do. For example, we have no reason to assume that if they had any interest in this planet we would be the center of their attention.
Being a skeptic is all fine and dandy, but jumping to unfounded conclusions isn't, even when the jump is miniscule. There are lots of things we simply don't know yet, and we should absolutely not prentend we do.
Parent
Our Lax Pot Laws at Work (Score:4, Funny)
I like to think our superior recreational drugs (with the sadly missed exception of peyote) and excellent beer are the drawing cards for aliens throughout the 'verse.
It's good to know one of our retired politicians is projecting our world renowed good Canadian manners outward toward our interglactic neighbours.
"Intergalactic War" might do us some good... (Score:3, Interesting)
Bah who am I kidding.
Never... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Never... (Score:3, Funny)
Welcome to the club!
Speculation on ET is absurd. (Score:5, Insightful)
But yet when we even look at a Jellyfish it's extremely different from us (and even so, very similar in terms of underlying biology). Will ET have better technology (tools) than us? Well, based on our own experience with technology you'd think that anyone capable of solving the problem of inter-stellar travel certainly would have a far better understanding of physics than us. But I fear when I even say that I'm also probbably practicing the art of "making shit up".
The point is that planning for any of this is just absurd, and that's ignoring the fact that we have no idea if there even IS intelligent life elsewhere, much less life that's interested in coming here. I don't believe this kind of question is one of science, but of philosophy. That doesn't mean it's not an interesting or important question, but just one we can't find an actual answer to. Devoting money to it makes about as much sense as to devoting money to trying to find god.
I think a more sane approach would be trying to find out if there IS intelligence life elsewhere. That means putting more money into SETI searches for instance. I personally doubt whether UFOs (the alien spacecraft type) exist, but you'll never find them if you don't look. Because of this I think it's important for such a survey to have a dual purpose. Put money into mapping asteroids (and as a side effect maybe you can look for UFOs, or maybe other purely astronomical phenomenon).
Really and truly sad (Score:3, Insightful)
Obligatory Calvin and Hobbes Quote (Score:5, Funny)
The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes
Senility? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Excuse me, a WHAT base? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this serious? (Score:3, Funny)
*cough*religion*cough*
Re:You people are missing the point!! (Score:3)
Close... the truth is that many of us Canadians actually are Extraterrestrials. You just named a few examples yourself. "Men In Black" is based on a true story, from little-known Canadian history.
You may have heard of the Avro Arrow. In actuality, the Arrow was one of the first landing craft to arrive here, and the Avro Arrow "project" was started as a cover story. When it was determined to be too dangerous to have the craft still around and intact, the "pro