Stephen Hawking is Wrong

Dr. Stephen Hawking

World-renowned theoretical physicist, Dr. Stephen Hawking, theorizes that the risks of contacting extra-terrestial (E.T.) life are too high as we might see a repeat of the terrible atrocities Christopher Columbus and his European fleets committed against Native Americans upon the breach of the Atlantic seashore centuries ago. Therefore, all attempts to contact intelligent life forms beyond our planet should be avoided at all costs. I say absolute nonsense! If there are indeed advanced civilizations that exist and functioning well beyond our own human comprehension, they must already understand the importance of universal cooperation ("co-operation") and co-existence.

Instead, I theorize that intelligent alien life will be peaceful and that this mode in itself is beyond the comprehension of humans. Why? Earth has not experienced world peace for any length of time according to understood and recorded history. Humans would literally have no idea how to respond to peace and what humans do not understand, they tend to "defend" themselves against, which creates ancillary problems. If there is anything to worry about, it is the human psyche in promoting war - an age old problem.

(2014 film, The Theory of Everything)

Now, if highly advanced alien life were to attack earth, they would certainly have the technology to transport across great distances to our planet, render all communications worthless, and subordinate the creatures of this entire planet. We would be as good as slaves or worse. What highly intelligent and civilized life forms would do is work on a way in which to introduce themselves as peaceful in a way us humans could understand such as diplomatic missionaries to indigenous people where missionaries make "peace offerings" such as introducing new technologies. Imagine trying to introduce yourself as peaceful in a cage full of baboons. Now, you might get the picture. If aliens appeared in public at all, governments would hastily seek to propagandize the situation into what might appear to be an alien invasion. This type of situation would put any neighbor in our universe in a very risky position thus the need to avoid the inducement of conflict by a more primitive species, humans.

Once humanity evolves enough to calm itself of its warlike ways and begins to cooperate with one another through peace treaties and further advancements, this might very well precipitate a comfortable enough situation for advanced civilizations to introduce themselves, their technologies and ways of life. How we treat our neighbors here at home is how we are going to treaty other life forms beyond our understanding. The first step? Understand and be patient with ourselves. Only then can we begin to understand and be patient with others.

(1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind)

UPDATE: On this date 7/20/2015, Dr. Hawking appears to have announced the reconsideration of his notion and now decided to team up with Silicon Valley's billionaire, Yuri Milner, in the quest for extraterrestrial life with a pledge in the amount of $100 million to find it.