Thanks to Henson Shaving for sponsoring today’s
video. Throughout human history, much thought has
gone into what alien life might look like. Sometimes they are depicted as grey-skinned
humanoids with large eyes, sometimes as strange, tentacle monsters. But ultimately, while this is an interesting
question to consider, it’s not really the most important one. For there is a far more pressing consideration
we need to talk about if aliens actually do exist. Namely, if we encounter aliens tomorrow, what
might we expect them to do? While this may seem like an idle question,
our survival as a species might depend on us knowing the answer, because if aliens do
exist, by the time they find us it will be too late to consider it. By then, it might be too late to do anything
at all. This is a question that determines our species’
destruction, or maybe our salvation. I’m Alex McColgan, and you’re watching
Astrum. Join with me today as we see what we should
do when approaching the search for alien life. Because depending on the answer to this question,
we have some vitally significant choices ahead of us as a species. And seeing as this is a question that scientists
and political leaders are not yet considering seriously, let’s have a go at it on this
platform. For this video, I will draw on some of the
ideas and knowledge that we’ve explored so far in the other videos in this series,
so if you haven’t seen them then you might want to check them out using the link above. If our speculations on the behaviour of hypothetical
aliens are to be useful to us, they need to be grounded in real observations as much as
possible. For instance, we know that life can arise
in the universe, because it did at least once – with us. We know that we can see no signs of any other
alien life – an idea we have considered with the Fermi Paradox. So, any behaviour we look at has to line up
with this fact. And we have considered how when species evolve,
form follows function. The same evolutionary imperatives that drive
us likely would drive other species too. In all probability, everyone needs to eat,
or reproduce one way or another, or they would likely all die out. So, although we don’t know for certain that
alien life is even out there, let’s bring these ideas together. In doing so, we gain some revealing insights. To begin with, though, let’s hold up the
mirror to ourselves. We are the only instance of life arising in
the universe that we know of. The great human experiment of civilisation
has been going on for thousands of years, and has produced many different types of society
– socialist, capitalist, hunter-gatherer, nomadic, and theocratical, to name just a
few. If we want to understand the behaviour of
alien civilisations, we need to consider societies. We thus have quite a few ideas to compare
when considering how aliens might behave. Broadly speaking, though, let’s examine
two great extremes, and see how they might influence alien civilisation. These two extremes are altruism, and aggression. Love and violence. We’ll start with violence. While this may be a pessimistic starting point,
it is sadly one we must consider, because as human civilisation has developed throughout
eras, different groups of humans have almost always clashed violently. This ties into the evolutionary idea that
competition always occurs when there are more organisms than there are resources. Humans are organisms, and we need resources
to live. And so, all too often, war throughout the
ages has been fought over resources. Agricultural land. People, and all the labour power and industry
they can produce. Oil. Gold. Even when a civilisation develops space travel
and reaches for the stars, this issue will still likely exist. After all, we are nearly at the stars ourselves,
and there certainly seems to be no shortage of violent conflict amongst us today. So, with a sample size of exactly 1, we have
to at least consider the possibility that other alien races are the same as us. Driven by a need for resources to support
an ever-growing population. Of course, when it comes to societies, there
are even more reasons why clashes might occur. For instance, religious or ideological differences. The cold war was largely fought between countries
that espoused different political ideologies, capitalism and communism, that threatened
each other. Alien civilisation might equally differ from
us ideologically (in fact, it would be surprising if they didn’t), and so it’s possible
they might feel their ideology is threatened in some way by ours. This could lead to conflict too. This is not even to mention the fact that
some cultures idolise violence itself, deeming themselves of worth only when they are winning
victories, such as Viking raiders or Spartan hoplites. Others seek to build empires, recognising
that it’s much easier to take wealth from others than it is to build it yourself. All these reasons are perfectly plausible
for an intelligent race that has mastered its planet, outcompeted other lifeforms there,
and likely feels good about doing so. Survival feels good. We enjoy feeling strong. But if this leads to conflict, what might
an alien conflict look like? Technology raises the stakes. We currently lack the technology to move objects
to other solar systems. Given the vast distances throughout space,
unless we intend to just throw insulting messages at each other through the void, actual fighting
cannot be achieved until we manage to solve speed of light travel, and probably something
faster than that. But it is possible that one day we might get
around this problem. And this instantly opens a dangerous possibility. It is theoretically impossible to move something
up to the speed of light, because of the link between mass and energy. The more energy something has, the more “mass”
it has, because the two are linked, and thus the more energy you need to increase its speed
further. This is only noticeable at relativistic speeds,
but it does mean that you’d theoretically need infinite energy to move mass up to the
speed of light. But if you throw an asteroid-sized object
at a planet at near light speed, then all that energy gets released in one go. This kind of strike can easily wipe out all
life on a planet, and the people on it wouldn’t even see it coming. Any intelligent race would be very aware of
the impact potential of objects such as this. For us, we only need to look at the dinosaurs. You don’t need nukes, or soldiers on the
ground, to fight an alien war. Just rocks thrown really, really fast. This opens up one possible answer to the Fermi
paradox. If alien civilisations exist, and any of them
proved to be willing to do this, maybe the other aliens realised that it was simply safer
not to communicate. Letting other races know that you are there
would simply place a target on your back. After all, if you could both do this, and
they wouldn’t see it coming, could they really trust you not to strike first? They could see us as a risk that they are
not willing to take. Known as the Dark Forest theory, this possible
answer to the Fermi paradox says that the only aliens out there are silent simply because
they don’t wish to be on the possible receiving end of these kinds of planet-buster weapons. Like hunters travelling cautiously through
a dark forest, they are all either quiet, or dead. They have been subject to this selective pressure. However, this is not the only plausible model
of behaviour that might still prevent us from seeing aliens. The second option is simply indifference:
With billions of years of history at play, it might not be the case that we are on technological
parity with all the other forms of life that might be out there. Alien life might simply be so far beyond us,
they regard us as dispassionately as we might an ant. They might not be talking to us because we
have nothing interesting to say. Why do you not try to talk to the insects
in your garden? The gap is too great. You understand what they want perfectly, and
they have no hope of understanding you. Communication would be frankly, pointless. That said, life might be rare in the universe. If they desire resources, and are that far
beyond us, they probably don’t need to mine our planet specifically. We may have value as a curiosity, something
to be left alone to flourish simply because they have decided we have some value as a
specimen in some kind of grand, cosmic zoo. And as any zookeeper will tell you, the closer
you can get an enclosure to look like an animal’s natural habitat, the happier that animal normally
is. While they may not care about us, perhaps
they do not wish to alarm us by stepping into our natural habitat. In fairness, this is a valid line of reasoning. Humanity would likely find it very distressing
to learn that we are in fact not at the top of the food-chain, and that our very existence
depends on the mild indifference of a vastly superior alien race. Of course, if this was true, we would need
to be careful. In my home, I was perfectly willing to live
and let live when I found ants in my garden, but when ants came into my kitchen, I quickly
got out the ant-killer. We would do well not to provoke them. Both of these ideas about alien behaviour
are bleak, so you’ll be glad to know there is one alternative to hatred and indifference. And in fact, it may prove to be the most realistic
for higher-levels of society. Cooperation. Cooperation exists within nature. Not all life competes. Within species, packs of wolves can cooperate
to achieve their goals, protecting those within the group even as they attack those outside
it. There are giant super-colonies of ants that
do this, working together and spanning entire countries, with each hill all considering
themselves as part of the same colony. Aggressive to those outside of it, but supportive
and even self-sacrificing towards those within. There are advantages to this, as we humans
are well aware. We would not have gotten anywhere if we hadn’t
learned how to work together. Knowledge pooled allows the creation of all
kinds of technology. Ironically, no-one really knows how to build
a computer from scratch. But there are some people who know how to
build a motherboard, other people who know how to build a screen, and other people that
know how to mine the resources. And all these people know that the other people
exist, and so can work together. Historically speaking, there is compelling
evidence that as time has gone on, we humans have become better at this kind of cooperative
thinking too. It used to be that groups of humans were localised
into small tribes, fighting other small tribes. However, that’s elevated to small kingdoms,
then big ones, then whole countries and alliances spanning across national borders. Following that to its natural conclusion,
at some point, a nation may exist that all humans in the world feel a part of. A unified planet Earth. But why is this a more likely outcome than
violence? Simply put, technology forces it. Not only do we remove barriers to communication
the more advanced our communication gets, but as our ability to destroy ourselves increases,
there simply isn’t an alternative except learning how to get along. Other than total annihilation, of course,
but that’s a pretty unappealing alternative... one would hope. And so, it’s possible that aliens developed
the same way. If they did, how might they behave towards
the universe at large? While they might still be aggressive to outsiders
initially, ultimately, they may have attempted to take this to the next level, embracing
new alien races as brothers and sisters, part of a great galactic whole. It’s just a continuation of the trend. With potentially millions of years of history
drilling the dangers of violence into them, they may actually abhor fighting, and there
may be millions of aliens of many different races, all cooperating peacefully under one
banner. Then, why don’t we see them? Well, perhaps they prefer to let us learn
our own historical lessons about the value of cooperation before speaking to us. An aggressive race would not benefit the galactic
community as a whole, so until we learn to get along, advanced alien races might not
want to share with us their ideas and technology. Particularly if such toys could then be used
by us as weapons. Perhaps they believe that we will either figure
out how to get along, or else we’ll wipe ourselves out. Either way, in the meantime it is better they
stay hands-off. As any parent will tell you, sometimes telling
a child something is not enough for a lesson to sink in. Sometimes experience is the only effective
teacher. There might be a galactic community out there,
just waiting to welcome us. Violence. Indifference. Benevolence. In theory, any of these or all of these in
some combination might be the reasons why we don’t hear from alien life. Ultimately, we would be wise to tread carefully. Meeting alien civilisations might sound exciting. But it would inevitably come with terrible
risks… and possibly fantastic rewards. Is it worth the gamble? We often hear about precision in regard to
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so I highly recommend it. Thanks for watching! Check out the rest of this series in this
playlist here. And thanks to my patrons and members for your
support. If you want to support too, check the links
in the description below. All the best, and see you next time.
