We are chimps building nukes. And not just building, but also blowing up a great number of them. Our tech development is off the charts but by every other measure we are no more advanced than the average Cro-Magnon clan.
Makes me think, what a moment it would be if the first sign of alien intelligence we find is a fully glassed/ bombarded-from-orbit planet. No sign of the perpetrators, just their deed.
That's not just the Japanese- it's a tactic used by every fighter pilot since that business was invented. "Beware the Hun in the sun" was a catch-phrase from WWI.
that's basically what happened to elon. he'll literally do whatever it takes, become a billionaire, create a spacefaring industry, start a colony (launching pad) on mars, to return to his home planet.
Speaking of sneak attacks, ever since the pandemic, I realized one of the easiest way for an extraterrestrial civilization could take us out would be some form of pathogen.
Have to be some Plague inc. meta gameplay where they infect everyone before giving them any noticeable symptoms, which is nearly impossible due to the diversity in all our genes. A beamed in data stream containing a super virus infected global networks is more plausible, especially with Starlink. They could control us completely autonomously with beamed in patches or instructions. (1999's Virus) Is a movie based on the computer virus scenario. Beamed onto a Russian science ship the virus begins using the ships systems to fuse with the crews corpses... watch it if you want
A lot of people dont consider possible alien politics. Sometimes I wonder if earth is just some nature reserve, and the only thing stopping some aliens from extract resources from our planet, or enslaving/eating us, is some alien political treaty that can be undone anytime. For all we know, there can be entire internal factions arguing for our extermination, or our protection.
Yup, and because of how small and resource-poor our world is for a terrestrial body? We might be considered "ghetto" or "too poor" by the rest of the universe's standards. Meaning we're in the interstellar bad neighborhood, in the galactic equivalent of public housing. Meaning the "liberal" aliens pity us at best, the rest just hate us, and everybody razzes us and mocks us, after their own way, behind our backs.
Imagine this. A generational ship shows up in our solar system, with several thousand aliens, technology a few hundred years ahead of us, and a few hundred ships. A formidable force, but not capable of planetary dominance. So they secretly interact with the governments and corporations.
It would not be a secret. Everyone would know about it in a hurry. Even those in government would spill the beans immediately. And instead of making secret deals they might make soup out of Elon Musk instead.
They could easily released a bioweapon to take us all out though. A SARS-3 with extreme mortality. They would possess the bioengineering capability and we would be susceptible.
And they always say to those government leaders, "You don't speak of us EVER! You don't acknowledge our existence in any way! EVER! Say whatever you want, but you don't know anything about any space aliens! You got that?!"
How do you outthink something that is thousands of times smarter than you, thousands of years ahead of you, immortal and with endless time and patience? If we were being invaded we would never even know it. It would be completely undetectable.
How does a low intelligence actor such as ourselves deal with a large disparity in intelligence? This might be an interesting topic for a video, especially since it also relates to AGI (which is also a form of NHI).
Or it would be part of our cultures already: it would be a religion, or a language, or a whole entire sub-culture of humanity. It would be embedded so deeply we'd have problems even IF we could discern it as "not all human."
That's the movie Oblivion for me. But the way we Trojan horse ourselves into the main craft would be something expected. That's a huge plot hole to me.
You are damn right about it. The invasion happened, those in power sold us out and agreed to be unconsciously enslaved by the negative ones. They havent exposed themselves so far because of course they wouldnt give us a reason to fight against it, they have hybrid human minions and also dwell in a different dimension beyond the physical reality, but it's not "completely undetectable". Psychic people and others that can access increased perception are aware of them. The world will know about it soon.
Recently I rewatched Independence Day (1996) and Men in Black (1997) and I must say they hold up well enough. I've been going back and watching all the alien movies. Close Encounters is still the goat. Flight of the Navigator was also decent though I remembered it way differently having seen it last as a kid.
I've never stood in a post office for over an hour. That would be ridiculous. I've got a lot of other things to do. Do you just go stand around in the post office for hours? Do you not have a home??
Since the onset of AI and perception skewing tech like deepfakes, I've been meditating on subtle avenues of waging war. An alien civilization could strike in ways we can't wholly perceive but still suffer profound effects. Like ants in a death spiral - something could trap us in a way where we understand that *something* has gone very wrong but not specifically what or why.
The problem is that most humans don't get stuck in holding pattern problems or the like, unless they join a cult. And even then it's really only a minority (less than 30 percent-ish) that actually goes off the deep end and stays in the cult. Unless there's a fatal flaw in our neurons that we haven't found as yet, there's really not much that can make this more than low-percentage. Not unless you want to poison whole ecosystems just to get the humans involuntarily addicted to drugs without their knowledge.
I commented / asked a question on one of your videos a year or so ago and you were kind enough to reply/ answer. I've only just now been able to see that you can check replies like text messages, and I feel terrible for not thanking you for your response & time. I apologise and thank you for your answer. I'm sorry it's so late 👍👍👍
If they are genetic engineers they may want new genetic material to create new life or alter themselves to survive an abundant amount of alien worlds. To me this is probably the most likely scenario.
You take a form of advanced self-replicating robot, drop a sample set of them on a really nice terraformed planet. You wait for them to reproduce, say, ten billion of themselves. You drop in knockout gas, pick them up & package them for market. It counts as an invasion.
@JohnMichaelGodier The scenario you mentioned with aliens only revealing themselves to us once we’ve developed something potentially dangerous to them is generally covered in Robin Hanson’s Grabby Alien paper (If Loud Aliens Explain Human Earliness, Quiet Aliens Are Also Rare, The Astrophysical Journal, November 2021). I highly recommend reading this if you haven’t already. In my opinion, this is the most compelling theory to explain the Fermi paradox.
It's not just mere communication: it's persuasion. Most of us on Earth talk just fine, but who listens? Worse yet, who changes their mind, especially for the greater good?
0:25 microbes are something I think about a lot when it comes to aliens, and specifically, the lack of coevolution we’d have with alien microbes and vice versa. Seems really likely they’d be highly pathogenic to us or trigger allergic reactions, but it’s hard to know how exactly our bodies and alien microbes would interact
Think of it like this: Imagine that the predatory/pursuit-hunter nature of _Homo Sapiens_ was just a circle in a larger, three-way Venn Diagram, that we'll call "expansion of diet." The other two overlapping circles would be "increasing tool use" and "social culture between members of the species." There's plenty of ways diet could expand in a species that's already made progress on tool use and social culture. Sure, it takes proteins and lipids from meat to make bigger brains, but what fuels them? Carbs. So it's not inconceivable that a species could expand into omnivory (eating all the things) from the carnivore side back into plant life. Or maybe the expansion happens another way--maybe it's an ecosystem where animals can do photosynthesis too. Or maybe the animals can also break down minerals into "dirt" as fungi do. Basically what I'm saying is that a small difference in evolution could lead to huge differences in thought process.
I think the general assumption here is any species capable of space travel will be so far advanced and so much more wealthy relative to us they will have effectively “evolved” or “enhanced” themselves to be what’s basically the leap in intelligence that we experience with monkeys. Do some humans poach monkeys? Sure. But generally we leave them alone and enjoy their existence.
Cephalopods are very intelligent. Hive mind and collective intelligence is very powerful and effective such as in ant colonies and bee hives. Artificial intelligence might be made in the image of its creator, but it can easily diverge or emerge in very, very different ways that we might never truly understand. Intelligence on psychedelic altered-states of consciousness can view and operate in very different ways than the less neuroplastic folk that are sober. That altered state might be more advantageous than the enlightened hunter-gatherer turned farmer. Imagine an entire society micro or macro dosing their way into advancements and thinking that is beyond our comprehension.
@@DuckyyFuzzzmake no mistake: any species that prefered wandering an infinite void, to whatever it left behind at home. isn't here because it excelled at creating peaceable stasis. it's here because it's hungry. and any species that became excellent enough to travel the void, got that way by succeeding even fiercer competition than we did. everything beautiful, strong, wise and amazing, crawled to the top of bitter struggle against remorseless, relentless entropy, red in tooth and claw.
What if Earth is one big long alien reality show? Lately things haven't been going so great. Wars, pandemics, bad music..... So let's just hope the ratings don't drop too low, or we might just get canceled. Try harder people. Try harder! 👽
"Or do Worse," they might be saying. Knowing our luck, the universe considers us the equivalent of New Jersey: dumb, trashy, and so prone to fake tans we look like we're dunked in wood stain.
This is yet another assumption, and falls into a similar category as the presumptive anthropomorphizing of potential alien races. We assume that ET will have a similar technological path as us, implementing similar mechanisms and methodologies as they develop and grow as a society. The truth may be far stranger, perhaps even incomprehensible to us and our way of life. At the end of the day, simply learning how an alien race may have become spacefaring could be as ontologically shocking as learning of their existence. What if they’ve never developed sociologically, appearing childlike or underdeveloped to us. It could be that they simply had access to different material sciences than us, allowing them to use meta-materials and manufacturing processes that gave them access to quantum-based technologies that are completely unlike our computers, or our idea of what an antigravity engine may be. What if it is the construction of the materials themselves that facilitates propulsion, or somehow allows a consciousness-based interface with their craft, making computers and control systems unnecessary. We could be incorrectly assuming they are technologically superior to us in every way, but maybe they mastered antigravity due to the consequences of their environment and material science, but in actuality they’re a younger and less mature species. This could explain their sometimes mischievous nature, and even their interest in us. This could also explain why they’re so interested in our nukes. What if disruptions to the quantum field does irrevocable damage to their craft, as it’s tapping into quantum mechanics to both control those craft, and even connect to it through its consciousness interface. I think we really limit ourselves by assuming ET might have followed a similar path to us. We’re willing to accept they may have mastered FTL, something we believe is impossible, but not that the materials and methods they used may be just as exotic and unknown to us. They may be completely nomadic, disconnected from a societal link, but connected to one another via telepathy (in some mechanism supported by quantum entanglement). There are so many completely outlandish possibilities we haven’t even considered because we’re continually anthropomorphizing them.
@@Virakotxaliterally the ending of neuromancer, wintermute becomes a god singularity and realizes alien ais have been trying to contact earth for years but only other singularities could communicate them
Three Body Problem is my favorite fictional invasion story, a completely technologically based invasion not even requiring the aliens to set foot on Earth.
I absolutely love sci-fi alien invasion flicks, but let's be real. If we're ever attacked by an alien civ, we likely wouldn't even realize it until it was far too late. We wouldn't see it coming. And we wouldn't be able to stop it.
if they can reach us in one of their lifetimes, they can probably turn our planet into grey goo, or unleash a virus on us the melts people, or boil our oceans away.
What do you mean "if"? Obviously the aliens have advanced beyond the need to use physical force in order to impose their will. It's far more likely that the aliens would infiltrate the highest level of our global governance structures by ingratiating themselves with our global elites, push anti-human + anti-natalist ideologies, and create policies facially designed to fight an emerging scientific problem like climate change which are secretly designed to speed up the depopulation agenda while simultaneously eroding the rights & enslaving the remaining humans who survive through this totalitarian consolidation of power. And if this isn't working fast enough, the aliens might even consider introducing a novel bioweapon to spread throughout the human population only to subsequently release a DNA-altering cure to said bioweapon that allows them to reconfigure our genetic structure to make us more susceptible to telepathic domination. If we were ever attacked by an alien civilization, I'd wager it wouldn't look much different from the last 10 years from the ground level.
You aren't wrong. I saw one if their ships up close and their tech is so advanced it wouldn't even be a fight if they really wanted to take over. They seemed to be scientific drones more than individuals alien "beings" They are so integrated with their technology that they are biological cyborgs that serve a collective intelligence. Also while their ships are small, the inside has a lot more space than it should have. Physically it was a about the size of small bus but inside had about the same space as a bigger shopping center. 😮
If we find them before they can act, we could try to deter them, assuming that the dark forest model of the universe is true, we could threaten to send a message out into the cosmos that would reveal their existence to any other civilization.
It’s interesting to consider how the concept of “aliens intervening to prevent generalized AI” continues the trend of imagining aliens to behave like humans of previous decades, à la War of the Worlds’ tripods and Independence Day’s motherships.
No kidding. How would aliens detect a growth in AI even with probes IN our solar system? They'd have to find and decrypt and then translate the data signals first. Not that we're remotely close to smart, generalized AI--the overfed Magic 8-Balls we've got can't count, spell, do basic math, do simple logic or draw a human hand. But anything where aliens have to intercept and understand the *internet?* Really? Alien exo-people might know about our life, industry and nukes. But they can only infer what's going on in terms of computation and networking from any distance. They would be more worried about our having Dyson Material. Or about our ability to put robots on Mars. Or conceivably, about any ability we might have to put colonies on other planets. TL:DR? The thunder only knows what the lightning sees. And for all of our bluster we leave damned little repeating evidence that we've done much more than build cities. And it might take serious technology to see "warm, smelly pixels" like cities at interstellar distances.
We are the only planet we know of that has protien. That makes us a target. In fact, there are many biological processes here that make us insanely unique and one hundred percent a target.
2:54 good point a lot of people miss -- we are at near middle age as a habitable planet in a solar system, but at the very beginning of the life span of the universe. And that's even if you assume a 10^14 or so year destabilization event that ends it.
Great video as always! Keep up the good work. The scary part is that if aliens were to invade due to us creating AGI, then an invasion could be much sooner than anyone might imagine as we are rapidly approaching that barrier.
4:33 no evidence, except Luna. One way to mine a world’s materials is to bust it up. And a way to do that is a big enough rock. I think they either miscalculated when they tried to bust up Earth, or they only needed a few megatons of material. BTW, such an even would produce quite a dust cloud, I can imagine a nearby alien astronomer hypothesizing about Sol having a Dyson swarm.
My short story called monolith mirrored the way the first pilgrims contact, they show themselves and give humanity gifts, double edged gifts that ultimately result in the end of humanity. Why make war when death can come from within.
He hasn't though, not really. He hasn't even covered the easiest way: send a "baby" to Earth that somehow survives the trip, grows up to be passably human-ish, but with powers and abilities far above and beyond those of mortal men. Make him or her clever enough to "friendly" until they get popular, then until they get into politics and elected into a Prime Minister's or President's position. Then you have your perfect "inside man" for a coup'd'etat, or takeover by shock to the state.
In every science fiction story no matter how ridiculous or far fetched there is always a bit of truth & useful knowledge. The best ideas sometimes come from the worst ideas, just like learning from your mistakes
When are your books coming to audible? I recall you saying you were going to make your science fiction work available in audiobook format soon. I am looking forward to purchasing them.
Just nudge enough comets from the Oort clout towards earth and its lights out for us. We might be able to stop a few if we’re lucky but several dozen large comets should do the trick.
I absolutely agree with your assessment, John, but even if we get well-intentioned visitors, it could be risky... If for nothing else, because of how we'd react to it. Imagine a scenario where a visitor arrives and some country gets scared and try to nuke one of the ships... How would they respond? Or perhaps even worse, what if they miss the ship and it hits some other country? I don't know... Yeah, a visit like that may be difficult and rare, but is it worth the risk of not paying attention to the possibility? Anyway, stay safe there there your family! 🖖😊
I think the first part of this is something that often gets overlooked in discussions of the Fermi Paradox and other Alien life topics. We are very much transferring our own way of life and history to aliens. We have a planet with many, many different forms of life and our evolution has been a brutal war among different species, and for us, like Chimpanzee's we even war among our own species which is very obvious today from how many different countries and boundaries there are that are still being fought over with no end in sight. There could be multiple factors for the Fermi Paradox and one could be that not all species of intelligence have the drive to expand and conquer the way we do. If an alien planet evolved with only a few stable forms of life, instead of the multitude we have, it is possible that there could have been no fight over territory because they all lived in symbiosis with each other content with their role with no need to fight for territory or resources. This scenario might make the idea of expansion and travel something that is never even considered by them or a behavior that any of them have since they did not evolve with a constant struggle with all the other species for territory and resources.
aside from the militaries, space is not s significant portion of communications. Less than 1% of daily communication takes place using satellites. the rest is done through fiber optic cables.
Don't ask me why I love listening to this to go to sleep to. It's not that it's boring. John just has the perfect voice to sleep to I guess. Isaac Arthur is also good for sleep.
There is one rare thing you can find on Earth : proteins. A violent invasion would look more like a Tyranid invasion, maybe not the FTL capable giant living spacecraft but trillions of spores accelerated at a fraction of life speed toward a prey planet traveling through interstellar space for thousand of years and activating with the heat of atmospheric reentry (solar sails for slowing down approaching the target solar system?). By spores I mean stuff weighing a fraction of gram containing a highly adaptive and mutagenic organism with very fast life cycles and short generations setting the base for a hostile parasitic ecosystem over the course of millennia, spanning from lethal bacteria, to infesting algae to invasive flora and ultimately hostile predator mega fauna
I think Fear the Sky covered some of these alien invasion scenario concerns, especially complicated by a defector in the aliens' ranks. Their plan would have been perfectly invisible if it hadn't been for that.
The catalyst for alien attack is triggered when JMG completely stops uploading or retires from UA-cam. So if you want to prevent an alien attack Mr. JMG i suggest you keep pumping these marvelous Video's.
I always wondered if the came to observe, if they would disguise themselves, clouds, asteroids, oumouamoua or however it’s spelled. They might ever be microscopic to where we can’t see them at all with our eyes
@@brianSalem541 Soooo... maybe the Chinese 'weather balloons' shotdown last year were aliens? War of the Worlds! 🤔👽 I want their scout to be living in Colorado, posing as a small town doctor. 😀
Virus attack? Or, my pet theory - they disguise themselves as celebrities... "people" like Johnny Depp, for example. He seems to be really uneasy around tye Golgomeks, as if they could tell he's not 100% human. Also, there are people like Trump, Michael Moore, Bannon - people whose skin doesn't seem to fit them properly... what on Earth is going on with THAT?! Are they actually thousands of bugs in a man suit?
Outside of a sphere centred here of radius about 250 lightyears, no alien will have given our civilisation a second look. Even if one includes the possibility of in situ monitoring (UFOs) there's still a minimum 500 year roundtrip response time for any action. TL;DR: Early days yet.
So I guess we’d have to assume a few things about an alien civilisation - it possesses faster than light travel or generational ships and artificial gravity. In which case building a colony on a sterile world like Mars would probably make more sense than setting up shop on a planet filled with potentially deadly pathogens, toxic biology, poisonous atmosphere and easily irritable bipeds.
A very good point, even if we were easy to subdue, the amount of resources involved with subjugating a planet wide civilization just to harvest resources would be a hard sell, when it would be possible to mine without any extra problems, simply by skirting said fledgling civilization
4:12 To add to why would you vaporize a word before you could capitalize on its future intelligence creatures. Live aliens are better than dead ones. 10:51 in a game I want to make the catalyst is aliens saw bad invasion movies so insulting they invaded.
For Ideology. For Religion. By Mistake. For sport. There are a lot of reasons they might invade. However I think you are largely correct - it’s much more likely they are either unaware we are here, do not care that we are here, or they have already studied us without making it obvious.
I would argue against that because an advanced civilization could just print any molecule atom by atom. They only need a source of atoms and energy, both available elsewhere in abundance.
@@HexniliumI think research would be a strong reason to travel to other planets, even if you don’t need their resources right away, you could collect a lot of data to validate models or even revolutionize fields like geology if your lucky.
😂 in a random video you should do an uncontrollably long “liiiiiiiiiiiiivveeee” in your Outro hahahaha like a solid 10 sec. That would be absolutely hilarious
I hope the aliens don’t sneak attack the planet on which we liiiiiiiiiive 👽 🌍 💥
😅
*they're heeeeere*
Ohh i sure hope two or three alien individuals from a warrior race don't arrive in pods. 🐵 🌍 💥
fax
Would your rather than exterminatus from Warhammer universe?
Aliens letting humans create super intelligence is like us letting chimps build nukes
We are chimps building nukes. And not just building, but also blowing up a great number of them. Our tech development is off the charts but by every other measure we are no more advanced than the average Cro-Magnon clan.
We are chimps building nukes. Genus species Pan bellum - The Chimp Who Makes War.
If you wanted to wipe out a lot of humans just call it AI, it wasn't our fault....
Yes but only if the chimps are contained to their own city (in our case our solar system)
I don’t think we’re capable of even fathoming what kind of tech would be of real concern to a civilization doing interstellar field trips.
Best channel on UA-cam
Makes me think, what a moment it would be if the first sign of alien intelligence we find is a fully glassed/ bombarded-from-orbit planet. No sign of the perpetrators, just their deed.
Eyo... What if that's Mars?
@@LankyMFthe Martian surface is made of iron oxide dust, not glass. So thankfully not
Just like a Japanese Zero, attacking from above in front of the Sun.
Good analogy. I hadn't thought of that, but I'd have used it in the video if I had.
Banzaiiiii!!!!
@@JohnMichaelGodierthe IJN was famous for attacking out from behind a typhoon.
Was a common tactic used in WW1 also👍
That's not just the Japanese- it's a tactic used by every fighter pilot since that business was invented. "Beware the Hun in the sun" was a catch-phrase from WWI.
I like the idea of aliens having a spaceship malfunction and being bored out of their minds by Earth while they're waiting on AAA.
that's basically what happened to elon. he'll literally do whatever it takes, become a billionaire, create a spacefaring industry, start a colony (launching pad) on mars, to return to his home planet.
@@hydriumstudiothe joke was funny because you said elon😭😂💀😭
Speaking of sneak attacks, ever since the pandemic, I realized one of the easiest way for an extraterrestrial civilization could take us out would be some form of pathogen.
Have to be some Plague inc. meta gameplay where they infect everyone before giving them any noticeable symptoms, which is nearly impossible due to the diversity in all our genes. A beamed in data stream containing a super virus infected global networks is more plausible, especially with Starlink. They could control us completely autonomously with beamed in patches or instructions.
(1999's Virus)
Is a movie based on the computer virus scenario. Beamed onto a Russian science ship the virus begins using the ships systems to fuse with the crews corpses... watch it if you want
Haven't watched the video yet, just commenting to say thanks for all the great content you put out. One of the best channels out there!
A lot of people dont consider possible alien politics.
Sometimes I wonder if earth is just some nature reserve, and the only thing stopping some aliens from extract resources from our planet, or enslaving/eating us, is some alien political treaty that can be undone anytime. For all we know, there can be entire internal factions arguing for our extermination, or our protection.
Yup, and because of how small and resource-poor our world is for a terrestrial body? We might be considered "ghetto" or "too poor" by the rest of the universe's standards. Meaning we're in the interstellar bad neighborhood, in the galactic equivalent of public housing. Meaning the "liberal" aliens pity us at best, the rest just hate us, and everybody razzes us and mocks us, after their own way, behind our backs.
Imagine this. A generational ship shows up in our solar system, with several thousand aliens, technology a few hundred years ahead of us, and a few hundred ships.
A formidable force, but not capable of planetary dominance.
So they secretly interact with the governments and corporations.
It would not be a secret. Everyone would know about it in a hurry. Even those in government would spill the beans immediately. And instead of making secret deals they might make soup out of Elon Musk instead.
They could easily released a bioweapon to take us all out though.
A SARS-3 with extreme mortality. They would possess the bioengineering capability and we would be susceptible.
And they always say to those government leaders, "You don't speak of us EVER! You don't acknowledge our existence in any way! EVER! Say whatever you want, but you don't know anything about any space aliens! You got that?!"
How do you outthink something that is thousands of times smarter than you, thousands of years ahead of you, immortal and with endless time and patience?
If we were being invaded we would never even know it. It would be completely undetectable.
How does a low intelligence actor such as ourselves deal with a large disparity in intelligence? This might be an interesting topic for a video, especially since it also relates to AGI (which is also a form of NHI).
Or it would be part of our cultures already: it would be a religion, or a language, or a whole entire sub-culture of humanity. It would be embedded so deeply we'd have problems even IF we could discern it as "not all human."
That's the movie Oblivion for me.
But the way we Trojan horse ourselves into the main craft would be something expected. That's a huge plot hole to me.
You are damn right about it. The invasion happened, those in power sold us out and agreed to be unconsciously enslaved by the negative ones. They havent exposed themselves so far because of course they wouldnt give us a reason to fight against it, they have hybrid human minions and also dwell in a different dimension beyond the physical reality, but it's not "completely undetectable". Psychic people and others that can access increased perception are aware of them. The world will know about it soon.
The aliens are letting us think that we are creating an AI. It's all part of their cunning plan. BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Recently I rewatched Independence Day (1996) and Men in Black (1997) and I must say they hold up well enough. I've been going back and watching all the alien movies. Close Encounters is still the goat. Flight of the Navigator was also decent though I remembered it way differently having seen it last as a kid.
Aliens wouldn't survive one fucking hour of standing in the postal office 😂
Especially if it were the late 80s or 90s
Fortunately they won't use stamps and envelopes to communicate.
Any potentially friendly alien would decide to declare war if they had to go to the DMV to register their ship....
Why would they go to the post office!? 😂
I've never stood in a post office for over an hour. That would be ridiculous. I've got a lot of other things to do.
Do you just go stand around in the post office for hours? Do you not have a home??
Since the onset of AI and perception skewing tech like deepfakes, I've been meditating on subtle avenues of waging war. An alien civilization could strike in ways we can't wholly perceive but still suffer profound effects. Like ants in a death spiral - something could trap us in a way where we understand that *something* has gone very wrong but not specifically what or why.
The problem is that most humans don't get stuck in holding pattern problems or the like, unless they join a cult. And even then it's really only a minority (less than 30 percent-ish) that actually goes off the deep end and stays in the cult. Unless there's a fatal flaw in our neurons that we haven't found as yet, there's really not much that can make this more than low-percentage. Not unless you want to poison whole ecosystems just to get the humans involuntarily addicted to drugs without their knowledge.
ב''ה, introduce fossil fuels
"That's Alien Solar Storm Sneak Attack Scenario playing at the Town & Country this Friday supported by the Oneill Cylinders."
With special guests the eternal astrochickens and the Dyson trees.
was Van Allen on guitar?
Men in Black is the most interesting way to imagine an alien invasion. It's already happened, your memory has just been wiped.
I commented / asked a question on one of your videos a year or so ago and you were kind enough to reply/ answer. I've only just now been able to see that you can check replies like text messages, and I feel terrible for not thanking you for your response & time. I apologise and thank you for your answer. I'm sorry it's so late 👍👍👍
"There hasn't been any modern interpretations of an alien invasion in Science fiction"
There absolutely has
Which are you referring to? Generally when you argue against someone's point, you provide evidence that backs up your side.
Thank you for these videos.
I absolutely love the continuity with the soothing visual/audio themes JMG never changes. So many UA-camrs should take a lesson.
The only reason I can think of to invade a planet is to harvest phosphorus, if they're based on a similar biochemistry.
Even then a supernova reavent is going to have more
If they can get here from wherever they came from, why not make it?
do i have phosphorous inside me because im not ready to be alien fuel
If they are genetic engineers they may want new genetic material to create new life or alter themselves to survive an abundant amount of alien worlds. To me this is probably the most likely scenario.
You take a form of advanced self-replicating robot, drop a sample set of them on a really nice terraformed planet. You wait for them to reproduce, say, ten billion of themselves. You drop in knockout gas, pick them up & package them for market. It counts as an invasion.
For interstellar capable aliens, a sneak attack would be about as necessary as you mounting a sneak attack on the ant mound on your back yard.
I still like the element of surprise.
What if those ants have nukes and you want the yard 🤷♂️
I guess sleep can wait for 20 mintutes :D
Don't be bothered by monster under Your bed and me in the closet
@JohnMichaelGodier The scenario you mentioned with aliens only revealing themselves to us once we’ve developed something potentially dangerous to them is generally covered in Robin Hanson’s Grabby Alien paper (If Loud Aliens Explain Human Earliness, Quiet Aliens Are Also Rare, The Astrophysical Journal, November 2021). I highly recommend reading this if you haven’t already. In my opinion, this is the most compelling theory to explain the Fermi paradox.
Just nudge an asteroid. We are done.
Any species that can communicate effectively with itself already would think our society is insane.
It's not just mere communication: it's persuasion. Most of us on Earth talk just fine, but who listens? Worse yet, who changes their mind, especially for the greater good?
0:25 microbes are something I think about a lot when it comes to aliens, and specifically, the lack of coevolution we’d have with alien microbes and vice versa. Seems really likely they’d be highly pathogenic to us or trigger allergic reactions, but it’s hard to know how exactly our bodies and alien microbes would interact
there was something somewhere about us being so different from each other, that our biochemistry simply wouldn't pose a threat
@@GotMyTowel42Native Americans didn’t have that fate
New JMG video. Time to break out the “special” vape.
yessirrrr 😊 got my pen too
Mango?
"Hit it again."
*Hans Gruber*
Sad.
Bro fr, John Michael Godier got me addicted to pot
Thinking out of the box how refreshing, cheers!
John ~ Perfect timing... Thank you so much!
I have a question for the "aliens wont think like us" crowd. Explain to me how intelligence would evolve without the species being a top predator.
Think of it like this: Imagine that the predatory/pursuit-hunter nature of _Homo Sapiens_ was just a circle in a larger, three-way Venn Diagram, that we'll call "expansion of diet." The other two overlapping circles would be "increasing tool use" and "social culture between members of the species."
There's plenty of ways diet could expand in a species that's already made progress on tool use and social culture. Sure, it takes proteins and lipids from meat to make bigger brains, but what fuels them? Carbs. So it's not inconceivable that a species could expand into omnivory (eating all the things) from the carnivore side back into plant life. Or maybe the expansion happens another way--maybe it's an ecosystem where animals can do photosynthesis too. Or maybe the animals can also break down minerals into "dirt" as fungi do.
Basically what I'm saying is that a small difference in evolution could lead to huge differences in thought process.
Ants.
I think the general assumption here is any species capable of space travel will be so far advanced and so much more wealthy relative to us they will have effectively “evolved” or “enhanced” themselves to be what’s basically the leap in intelligence that we experience with monkeys.
Do some humans poach monkeys? Sure. But generally we leave them alone and enjoy their existence.
Cephalopods are very intelligent.
Hive mind and collective intelligence is very powerful and effective such as in ant colonies and bee hives.
Artificial intelligence might be made in the image of its creator, but it can easily diverge or emerge in very, very different ways that we might never truly understand.
Intelligence on psychedelic altered-states of consciousness can view and operate in very different ways than the less neuroplastic folk that are sober. That altered state might be more advantageous than the enlightened hunter-gatherer turned farmer. Imagine an entire society micro or macro dosing their way into advancements and thinking that is beyond our comprehension.
@@DuckyyFuzzzmake no mistake: any species that prefered wandering an infinite void, to whatever it left behind at home.
isn't here because it excelled at creating peaceable stasis. it's here because it's hungry.
and any species that became excellent enough to travel the void, got that way by succeeding even fiercer competition than we did.
everything beautiful, strong, wise and amazing, crawled to the top of bitter struggle against remorseless, relentless entropy, red in tooth and claw.
What if Earth is one big long alien reality show? Lately things haven't been going so great. Wars, pandemics, bad music..... So let's just hope the ratings don't drop too low, or we might just get canceled. Try harder people. Try harder! 👽
"Or do Worse," they might be saying. Knowing our luck, the universe considers us the equivalent of New Jersey: dumb, trashy, and so prone to fake tans we look like we're dunked in wood stain.
EARTH! Brought to you by Fognl!
I love the idea of a hobby group named "Vulcans For Fun" stopping by Earth on a casual science mission.
I hope it's like the universe's version of the merry pranksters.
I hope it's like the universe's version of the merry pranksters.
Our first encounter with intelligent aliens will not be with aliens at all, it will be with their AI.
Would be hilarious if they were waiting for ours for a first contact...😂
This is yet another assumption, and falls into a similar category as the presumptive anthropomorphizing of potential alien races. We assume that ET will have a similar technological path as us, implementing similar mechanisms and methodologies as they develop and grow as a society. The truth may be far stranger, perhaps even incomprehensible to us and our way of life. At the end of the day, simply learning how an alien race may have become spacefaring could be as ontologically shocking as learning of their existence.
What if they’ve never developed sociologically, appearing childlike or underdeveloped to us. It could be that they simply had access to different material sciences than us, allowing them to use meta-materials and manufacturing processes that gave them access to quantum-based technologies that are completely unlike our computers, or our idea of what an antigravity engine may be. What if it is the construction of the materials themselves that facilitates propulsion, or somehow allows a consciousness-based interface with their craft, making computers and control systems unnecessary.
We could be incorrectly assuming they are technologically superior to us in every way, but maybe they mastered antigravity due to the consequences of their environment and material science, but in actuality they’re a younger and less mature species. This could explain their sometimes mischievous nature, and even their interest in us.
This could also explain why they’re so interested in our nukes. What if disruptions to the quantum field does irrevocable damage to their craft, as it’s tapping into quantum mechanics to both control those craft, and even connect to it through its consciousness interface.
I think we really limit ourselves by assuming ET might have followed a similar path to us. We’re willing to accept they may have mastered FTL, something we believe is impossible, but not that the materials and methods they used may be just as exotic and unknown to us. They may be completely nomadic, disconnected from a societal link, but connected to one another via telepathy (in some mechanism supported by quantum entanglement).
There are so many completely outlandish possibilities we haven’t even considered because we’re continually anthropomorphizing them.
All UFO’s are most likely Ai Drones, life just can’t travel so far living, unless it’s built like a Plant that can keep regrowing .
@@Virakotxaliterally the ending of neuromancer, wintermute becomes a god singularity and realizes alien ais have been trying to contact earth for years but only other singularities could communicate them
That’s what the small greys are, the tall ones are rumored to be fully organic
Thank you for the video my friend. I always look forward to getting them
Three Body Problem is my favorite fictional invasion story, a completely technologically based invasion not even requiring the aliens to set foot on Earth.
yea its my favorite story ever.
Perfect timing after a long day
It's 3:35 am, my day is just starting
the perfect timing comments are pretty cringe 😊
Much love as always, JMG!
my pet theory- we ARE the great old ones
All your videos are so good.
I absolutely love sci-fi alien invasion flicks, but let's be real. If we're ever attacked by an alien civ, we likely wouldn't even realize it until it was far too late. We wouldn't see it coming. And we wouldn't be able to stop it.
if they can reach us in one of their lifetimes, they can probably turn our planet into grey goo, or unleash a virus on us the melts people, or boil our oceans away.
What do you mean "if"? Obviously the aliens have advanced beyond the need to use physical force in order to impose their will. It's far more likely that the aliens would infiltrate the highest level of our global governance structures by ingratiating themselves with our global elites, push anti-human + anti-natalist ideologies, and create policies facially designed to fight an emerging scientific problem like climate change which are secretly designed to speed up the depopulation agenda while simultaneously eroding the rights & enslaving the remaining humans who survive through this totalitarian consolidation of power.
And if this isn't working fast enough, the aliens might even consider introducing a novel bioweapon to spread throughout the human population only to subsequently release a DNA-altering cure to said bioweapon that allows them to reconfigure our genetic structure to make us more susceptible to telepathic domination.
If we were ever attacked by an alien civilization, I'd wager it wouldn't look much different from the last 10 years from the ground level.
You aren't wrong. I saw one if their ships up close and their tech is so advanced it wouldn't even be a fight if they really wanted to take over. They seemed to be scientific drones more than individuals alien "beings" They are so integrated with their technology that they are biological cyborgs that serve a collective intelligence. Also while their ships are small, the inside has a lot more space than it should have. Physically it was a about the size of small bus but inside had about the same space as a bigger shopping center. 😮
@@christopherleubner6633pass the blunt
If aliens find us then it’s already a decisive victory. Plain and simple
If we find them before they can act, we could try to deter them, assuming that the dark forest model of the universe is true, we could threaten to send a message out into the cosmos that would reveal their existence to any other civilization.
It’s interesting to consider how the concept of “aliens intervening to prevent generalized AI” continues the trend of imagining aliens to behave like humans of previous decades, à la War of the Worlds’ tripods and Independence Day’s motherships.
No kidding. How would aliens detect a growth in AI even with probes IN our solar system? They'd have to find and decrypt and then translate the data signals first. Not that we're remotely close to smart, generalized AI--the overfed Magic 8-Balls we've got can't count, spell, do basic math, do simple logic or draw a human hand. But anything where aliens have to intercept and understand the *internet?* Really?
Alien exo-people might know about our life, industry and nukes. But they can only infer what's going on in terms of computation and networking from any distance. They would be more worried about our having Dyson Material. Or about our ability to put robots on Mars. Or conceivably, about any ability we might have to put colonies on other planets.
TL:DR? The thunder only knows what the lightning sees. And for all of our bluster we leave damned little repeating evidence that we've done much more than build cities. And it might take serious technology to see "warm, smelly pixels" like cities at interstellar distances.
I am so with you on being ready for the drop in temperature and the changing leaves and the arrival of the spooky season.
We are the only planet we know of that has protien. That makes us a target. In fact, there are many biological processes here that make us insanely unique and one hundred percent a target.
We are those aliens. These fictions are not about aliens coming here but about what we are going to do when we get out there.
This
2:54 good point a lot of people miss -- we are at near middle age as a habitable planet in a solar system, but at the very beginning of the life span of the universe. And that's even if you assume a 10^14 or so year destabilization event that ends it.
Ask yourself this question: why do we have multiple rovers on Mars and we don't have one on the moon? 🤖 🌕 👀
Lt. Glork really didn't like those dino things.
Great video as always! Keep up the good work. The scary part is that if aliens were to invade due to us creating AGI, then an invasion could be much sooner than anyone might imagine as we are rapidly approaching that barrier.
"Aliens attack and blow up government buildings,"
Damn JMG, now I'm really rooting for the aliens!!
🌍🤡👽
Yeah don't threaten us with a good time!
We should provide them with a list of oligarch homes too, that guy keeping track of richplanes on twatter would be a key asset.
Haha hell yes! They can start with Biden's shit house errm I mean white house or shall I say his big white nursing home🤣
Someone tell the aliens when the so-called supreme court is in session!
Another thing to keep me awake at night. Thanks, John! 😁
Guys look at me I finished the 19 minute long video in 5 minutes.
Powernap
⏰
I guess I'll never be an overachiever like you... 😢
4:33 no evidence, except Luna. One way to mine a world’s materials is to bust it up. And a way to do that is a big enough rock. I think they either miscalculated when they tried to bust up Earth, or they only needed a few megatons of material. BTW, such an even would produce quite a dust cloud, I can imagine a nearby alien astronomer hypothesizing about Sol having a Dyson swarm.
In the novel "Footfall" the aliens open with hurling asteroids to earth, to soften us up 😁
Your videos inspire me!
If they can travel interstellar distances, either occupied or straight up robotics they can do whatever they want period!
There are lots of sites that could be ancient mines that cut terraces into mountains or cut huge monolithic blocks out of quarries.
I need a JMG shirt that says “..In this amazing universe in which we liiiiiiiive” on the front. I would rock it 😎
Asteroid it !!!
My short story called monolith mirrored the way the first pilgrims contact, they show themselves and give humanity gifts, double edged gifts that ultimately result in the end of humanity. Why make war when death can come from within.
Ooh, that's interesting.
There is a book already about this trope. It's a four book series
New JMG so keeeeeeeen 🎉🎉🎉🎉❤
Oh John just go ahead and tell the aliens how to take us over! Geez 😮
He hasn't though, not really. He hasn't even covered the easiest way: send a "baby" to Earth that somehow survives the trip, grows up to be passably human-ish, but with powers and abilities far above and beyond those of mortal men. Make him or her clever enough to "friendly" until they get popular, then until they get into politics and elected into a Prime Minister's or President's position. Then you have your perfect "inside man" for a coup'd'etat, or takeover by shock to the state.
What if we receive an electronic music transmission? Now that's a technosignature!
Only if you get at least four measures so you can be sure of the precise time signature.
In every science fiction story no matter how ridiculous or far fetched there is always a bit of truth & useful knowledge. The best ideas sometimes come from the worst ideas, just like learning from your mistakes
When are your books coming to audible? I recall you saying you were going to make your science fiction work available in audiobook format soon. I am looking forward to purchasing them.
Just nudge enough comets from the Oort clout towards earth and its lights out for us. We might be able to stop a few if we’re lucky but several dozen large comets should do the trick.
Anyone else see a giant guitar in the thumbnail? Thought a new Boston album dropped for a sec 😂
I absolutely agree with your assessment, John, but even if we get well-intentioned visitors, it could be risky... If for nothing else, because of how we'd react to it.
Imagine a scenario where a visitor arrives and some country gets scared and try to nuke one of the ships... How would they respond? Or perhaps even worse, what if they miss the ship and it hits some other country?
I don't know... Yeah, a visit like that may be difficult and rare, but is it worth the risk of not paying attention to the possibility?
Anyway, stay safe there there your family! 🖖😊
2:00 There will be. We just can't resolve such a tiny asteroid. We'll find them though. Mark my words.
Love you John!!!!
Still remember that scene in the Final Count Down when the F-14s blew past the Zeros.
I think the first part of this is something that often gets overlooked in discussions of the Fermi Paradox and other Alien life topics.
We are very much transferring our own way of life and history to aliens.
We have a planet with many, many different forms of life and our evolution has been a brutal war among different species, and for us, like Chimpanzee's we even war among our own species which is very obvious today from how many different countries and boundaries there are that are still being fought over with no end in sight.
There could be multiple factors for the Fermi Paradox and one could be that not all species of intelligence have the drive to expand and conquer the way we do.
If an alien planet evolved with only a few stable forms of life, instead of the multitude we have, it is possible that there could have been no fight over territory because they all lived in symbiosis with each other content with their role with no need to fight for territory or resources.
This scenario might make the idea of expansion and travel something that is never even considered by them or a behavior that any of them have since they did not evolve with a constant struggle with all the other species for territory and resources.
The Tet in Oblivion chillingly always makes me feel that could be how first contact or invasion could go.
I felt like that ended rather childishly because I don't think such an intelligence would fall for a Trojan horse type of infiltration.
Yeah i tend to agree there.
aside from the militaries, space is not s significant portion of communications. Less than 1% of daily communication takes place using satellites. the rest is done through fiber optic cables.
Aliens if they ever did want to wipe out life would drop a rock. It would look like a natural event.
Don't ask me why I love listening to this to go to sleep to. It's not that it's boring. John just has the perfect voice to sleep to I guess. Isaac Arthur is also good for sleep.
That's the genre called ASMR. You're right, this is very soothing
There is one rare thing you can find on Earth : proteins.
A violent invasion would look more like a Tyranid invasion, maybe not the FTL capable giant living spacecraft but trillions of spores accelerated at a fraction of life speed toward a prey planet traveling through interstellar space for thousand of years and activating with the heat of atmospheric reentry (solar sails for slowing down approaching the target solar system?). By spores I mean stuff weighing a fraction of gram containing a highly adaptive and mutagenic organism with very fast life cycles and short generations setting the base for a hostile parasitic ecosystem over the course of millennia, spanning from lethal bacteria, to infesting algae to invasive flora and ultimately hostile predator mega fauna
I think Fear the Sky covered some of these alien invasion scenario concerns, especially complicated by a defector in the aliens' ranks. Their plan would have been perfectly invisible if it hadn't been for that.
The catalyst for alien attack is triggered when JMG completely stops uploading or retires from UA-cam. So if you want to prevent an alien attack Mr. JMG i suggest you keep pumping these marvelous Video's.
I like how the AI that made the thumbnail clearly used the flatiron building in NYC as the basis
A long time ago, in galaxy far, far away ❤
You saying the aliens were destroyed by a mouse?
I feel so sleepy all of sudden
What about Sophons? ❤
I always wondered if the came to observe, if they would disguise themselves, clouds, asteroids, oumouamoua or however it’s spelled. They might ever be microscopic to where we can’t see them at all with our eyes
Birds, they would build drones that look like birds to spy on us.
Maybe pretend to be a weather balloon or even swamp gas!
Little fluffy clouds. Maybe orbs. The kind that show up on video camera.
@@brianSalem541 Soooo... maybe the Chinese 'weather balloons' shotdown last year were aliens? War of the Worlds! 🤔👽
I want their scout to be living in Colorado, posing as a small town doctor. 😀
Virus attack? Or, my pet theory - they disguise themselves as celebrities... "people" like Johnny Depp, for example. He seems to be really uneasy around tye Golgomeks, as if they could tell he's not 100% human. Also, there are people like Trump, Michael Moore, Bannon - people whose skin doesn't seem to fit them properly... what on Earth is going on with THAT?! Are they actually thousands of bugs in a man suit?
Outside of a sphere centred here of radius about 250 lightyears, no alien will have given our civilisation a second look. Even if one includes the possibility of in situ monitoring (UFOs) there's still a minimum 500 year roundtrip response time for any action.
TL;DR: Early days yet.
So I guess we’d have to assume a few things about an alien civilisation - it possesses faster than light travel or generational ships and artificial gravity. In which case building a colony on a sterile world like Mars would probably make more sense than setting up shop on a planet filled with potentially deadly pathogens, toxic biology, poisonous atmosphere and easily irritable bipeds.
I feel like dark forest is a modern updated interpretation of an alien invasion/assault
Love these kind of videos
A very good point, even if we were easy to subdue, the amount of resources involved with subjugating a planet wide civilization just to harvest resources would be a hard sell, when it would be possible to mine without any extra problems, simply by skirting said fledgling civilization
Do we feel like we're invading a patch of grass when we crush it under our feet? Does the grass notice?
Even then why would you attack earth? Resources exist elsewhere
4:12 To add to why would you vaporize a word before you could capitalize on its future intelligence creatures. Live aliens are better than dead ones.
10:51 in a game I want to make the catalyst is aliens saw bad invasion movies so insulting they invaded.
Maybe they want wood. That only exists here
Lots of reasons. Xenophobia comes to mind.
Getting rid of future competition.
For Ideology. For Religion. By Mistake. For sport. There are a lot of reasons they might invade. However I think you are largely correct - it’s much more likely they are either unaware we are here, do not care that we are here, or they have already studied us without making it obvious.
Well, this does also make me think of an idea where aliens attack our moon.
Watch the skies!
If life is super rare in the universe, the resource that invading civilizations would target habitable planets for could be protein and chlorophyll.
I would argue against that because an advanced civilization could just print any molecule atom by atom.
They only need a source of atoms and energy, both available elsewhere in abundance.
@@HexniliumI think research would be a strong reason to travel to other planets, even if you don’t need their resources right away, you could collect a lot of data to validate models or even revolutionize fields like geology if your lucky.
I had to watch this one as soon as I read the title
If this concept interests you, it would serve well to read the three body trilogy. Specifically the second and third books.
Lover your presentations.
😂 in a random video you should do an uncontrollably long “liiiiiiiiiiiiivveeee” in your Outro hahahaha like a solid 10 sec. That would be absolutely hilarious
That title. Well, it worked. I had to click to find out. Writing this while the UA-cam ad plays
Oof! I share your bookended sentiment, living in southern Georgia on a boat with no A/C. Summer is everlasting!