One of the greatest unanswered questions of humanity is: “Are we alone?”. This question has intrigued the earliest philosophers and is currently being tackled by today’s scientists. If intelligent life was discovered there would be excitement within the scientific community; however, it would most likely be devastating for mankind because if humans know extraterrestrials exist, they will know humans exist. The consequences of discovering intelligent extraterrestrial life are life threatening to humanity if we are not more powerful than the extraterrestrials. H.G. Wells’ The War of Worlds shows the threat of extraterrestrials through a variety of reasons. Firstly, the extraterrestrials can be searching for resources or a place to settle if their …show more content…
Intelligent beings feel safest when they are dominant over others. The article Cold War History reflects this point through the actions of the USA and USSR during the Cold War. With both sides desiring dominance, the struggle to the top brought forth conflicts that affected the entire world. As such, if humans begin to challenge extraterrestrials in more advanced technology and warfare, humans will be eliminated by them to remain the dominant power. This is further shown in The War of the Worlds when the newspaper headline says, “Remarkable Story From Woking,” (Wells, 52) which is a town in England in the year 1899. This headline is published hours before the Martians begin to slaughter humans within the town. In 1899, the British Empire is the most powerful empire in the world, which demonstrates that the Martians wish to eliminate their strongest opponent. This supports the statement that intelligent beings feel safest when they are the most dominant because instead of seeking refuge on Earth through peaceful communications, the Martians invade Earth and begin to decimate a small town before heading outwards to conquer more land. They are fearful of the advances Great Britain and the rest of the world are making in terms of technology and do not wish for any competition for possession of Earth. Overall, extraterrestrials would view humanity as …show more content…
By enslaving humans, extraterrestrials can task time-consuming menial labour to humanity so that they can accomplish other more important tasks. For example, individuals from Africa were brought to the USA during the seventeenth and eighteenth century as slaves to work in cotton and tobacco factories. By doing this, citizens of the USA were able to focus their abilities elsewhere, allowing the USA to become the most powerful country in the twentieth century. Furthermore, slavery is not the only use extraterrestrials have for humans. For example, the Martians in The War of the World have a blood diet and use humans they murder as food source. Moreover, the narrator says, “I think we should remember how repulsive our carnivorous habits would seem to an intelligent rabbit” (Wells, 144) which relates the behaviour of humans to Martians. This reveals that despite living on different planets and looking different, Martians and humans have the same views and beliefs, but the actions based on the beliefs are performed differently. For example, Martians and humans are both carnivorous but Martians do not hesitate on eating other intelligent beings that can feel pain. This demonstrates that intelligent life will behave similarly to how humans have behaved over human history. Therefore, if extraterrestrials do not eliminate humanity, they will use humans as slaves or other purposes
Man’s cruelty to man is another issue in the Martian Chronicles that is and was a problem in the real world. In the book, it shows up in three chronicles, “Ylla”, “The Off Season”, and “Way in the Middle of the Air”. “Ylla” and “The Off Season” are more of family cruelty, while “Way in the Middle of the Air” deals more with racism. Both are reasons that people get hurt and even die for no reason. Or for a stupid reason like color or gender.
During the period after the Industrial Revolution the rich Western nations of the world began their imperialist expansion, racing to colonize any “unclaimed” territories. All of the colonized regions had their own culture and government, but because the West was so much stronger, they were taken over. When these areas were finally freed from years of oppression, their society was left in shambles and much of their culture was destroyed. Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles explores this theme of imperial expansion as applied to the hypothetical situation of humans colonizing the planet Mars. In the novel, the humans who flock to the planet are portrayed as reckless beings with no care for their new home. They destroy ruins, clear the land, and rebuild a comfortable human society on Mars. The parallels between the Earthlings in the novel and imperialists today are made very apparent, exposing the reader to the idea that humans have been colonizing territories in the wrong way. Instead, Bradbury offers the correct solution by stating that the righteous way to colonize a new land is by preserving and adapting to the native culture of the land, and by becoming a foreigner, or Martian, themselves.
In “The Great Silence” Ted Chiang presents the reader with the idea that humans and other intelligent species do live on earth. Communication between different species on earth can be difficult because they can’t express their thoughts to one another. According to a possible solution to fermi’s paradox, intelligent life would rather hide than to present themselves to potential enemies. Humans have a hard time trying to find other species to communicate with because they only focus on extraterrestrial life. Humans created the Arecibo observatory to send out signals into space and pick up any signals that could be sent by extraterrestrial life. Although Humans cannot speak directly to other species we are able to communicate with our actions and vibes.
War is presented in terms of doing one's duty as a member of a morally superior society. If 'they' are treacherous, then 'we' are honest; if 'they' are inferior' then 'we' are superior, and so on. The two approaches are directly proportional to one another. The more depraved an enemy, the greater the moral standing of those who try to annihilate them. If 'they' are uncivilised then 'we' must be more civilised by default, or so the thinking goes.
Bradbury developed the setting of the story similar to Earth as far aslandscape, atmosphere, and people in order to emphasize his intentions. Themartians are described as if they are American Indians at the time of theAmerican Revolution. For example, in the beginning of the story, Bradburydepicts Martians "they had the fair, brownish skin of the true Martian, the yellowcoin eyes, the soft musical voices." The trees, the towns in Mars, and the grassare all described like Earth landscape. Bradbury's Mars is a mirror of Earth.These plots raise moral issues and reflections of how history may repeat itself. Bradbury portrays Mars as humankind's second world, where we may goafter our Earthly existence. In the episode of "April 2000: The third expedition,"Captain John Black's mother said "you get a second chance to live" (pp.44).Lustig's grandmother said "ever since we died" (pp.40). Humans have a naturalfear of death. Some humans may even have a death wish. Bradbury reveals histhought of death through the connection between Mars and Earth. Through Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury warns us of ourfuture. In the episode of "June 2000: And the Moon ve still as bright," CaptainWilder said, "one day Earth will be as Mars is today...It's an object lesson incivilizations. We'll learn from Mars" (pp. 55). Throught the story, Earth man,especially American think that they are superior than the Martian. Earth mancan do anything and knows everyting. However, Bradbury's message is to tellthem it is not true. Earth man, here American people realize there are manythings that they can learn from others.
Obviously the whole book is about the struggle mankind faces, but it is not always with aliens, they are actually more of a good way to represent what Wells really believed. He believed man is dominant, yet should remember how big the universe is and that the possibility of life far more intelligent than ours is very great.
According to Twain, humans are the lowest of creatures due to their war-like natures. At first, this statement may seem shocking, but the points proven in Twain’s, “The Damned Human Race,” show that this hypothesis may not be far from the truth. Throughout the essay, Twain takes over a persona that compares the behaviors of various species of animals and of man in similar situations. The results show that man is selfish, cruel, and greedy. For example, Twain remarks, “Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren around him and goes forth in cold blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his kind.” This quotation sums up the idea of the essay because it explains how mankind is ruthless. As opposed to animals, man will purposely inflict pain f...
Over a 1950 summer lunch at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the great physicist Enrico Fermi asked his colleagues an unexpected question – “Don’t you ever wonder where everybody is?” Laughter went around the table as everyone immediately knew that he was talking about extraterrestrial intelligence [1]. If life arises fairly commonly, as Fermi believed, it follows that there should be advanced civilizations with the desire to visit and colonize Earth close enough to do so. However, there is no incontrovertible evidence of aliens on Earth, either now or in the past. This is called the Fermi Paradox. The lack of observational evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence is known as the ‘Great Silence.’[13]
The existence of life – Aliens, beyond our planet has been a controversial topic for several centuries, and is a debatable issue even today in the 21st century. What is our topic you may ask? Aliens, Do, Exist. According to theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, it would be improbable for life not to exist somewhere other than Earth. This is a bold claim, but there is evidence to support this statement. The evidence we seek is in the many Alien occurrences we have experienced throughout human history.
In War of the Worlds the humans are fighting for control where in District 9 the humans are fighting to keep control. Both struggles come with their own issues and it soon becomes clear that the struggle to maintain control is never ending. Be it with aliens or humans there will always be an opposition to any position. In District 9 some humans believe that aliens deserve equal rights and so they fight for them, this is contrasted by War of the Worlds as the humans all follow the same pattern of thinking…
Is there such thing as life outside of Earth? The building blocks of life are carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. Those ingredients condense to form all living things, new stars and even new planets! So, who’s to say those ingredients didn’t form other life on other planets? Think about how vast outer space is. There are millions and millions of other planets, stars and galaxies! It’s not that far out there to think that there might be other life in space, in fact, some people even have stone hard evidence that supports the idea of “aliens”. I personally believe there is such thing as extraterrestrials, and I believe they have visited earth before. As a child, I remember my dad and I would sit around all afternoon watching alien documentaries or shows about people hunting aliens and searching for UFOs. When it comes to aliens people have so many questions; have aliens been to earth before? Are they currently living on earth? Are they controlling us? Does the government know? If so, are they hiding it from the public? There are so many questions you can ask but, in order to answer them, you have to
Do aliens exist? For eons, mankind has pondered over this peculiar question and a revealing truth has yet to be answered. However, one thing is known for sure, the discovery of intelligent alien life outside of Earth would provide support to prove and/or disprove fundamental beliefs that have been held for centuries. In any case, the discovery would serve as a cornerstone for humanity to make the quantum leap in understanding the purpose of our existence. Based on numerous examples, it is impossible to deny the existence of extraterrestrial life outside of Earth. Reportings of sightings, ancient civilizations beliefs, and scientific proof from scientists and astronomers are all key factors that contribute to this statement.
Humans are living in an age of technological prosperity. Our species has invented automobiles, artificial intelligence, advanced medicines, and supercomputers. You are probably reading this message through an operating system. The truth is, we have done so much for the advancement of humanity that we tend to forget we are not the only species who live on this planet. We spoil ourselves rotten with inventions our globe has given us, and we torture and steal from animals only because we are able to.
Herbert George Wells English author and political philosopher, most famous for his science-fantasy novels with their prophetic depictions of the triumphs of technology as well as the horrors of 20th-century warfare. Wells was born September 21, 1866, in Bromley, Kent, and educated at the Normal School of Science in London, to which he won a scholarship. He worked as a draper's apprentice, bookkeeper, tutor, and journalist until 1895, when he became a full- time writer. Wells's 10-year relationship with Rebecca West produced a son, Anthony West, in 1914. In the next 50 years he produced more than 80 books. His novel The Time Machine mingled science, adventure, and political comment. Later works in this genre are The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, and The Shape of Things to Come; each of these fantasies was made into a motion picture. Wells also wrote novels devoted to character delineation. Among these are Kipps and The History of Mr. Polly, which depict members of the lower middle class and their aspirations. Both recall the world of Wells's youth; the first tells the story of a struggling teacher, the second portrays a draper's assistant. Many of Wells's other books can be categorized as thesis novels. Among these are Ann Veronica, promoting women's rights; Tono-Bungay, attacking irresponsible capitalists; and Mr. Britling Sees It Through, depicting the average Englishman's reaction to war. After World War I Wells wrote an immensely popular historical work, The Outline of History. Throughout his long life Wells was deeply concerned with and wrote voluminously about the survival of contemporary society. For a time he was a member of the Fabian Society. He envisioned a utopia in which the vast and frightening material forces available to modern men and women would be rationally controlled for progress and for the equal good of all.
Human beings, ever since its creation has never been alone on the earth. As we all know we share this planet with lots of different species of living creatures, such as animals, and plants. But even though we name ourselves the superior species due to our ability to think, make decisions and choose how we want to live our lives, we start to grow. Our growth ranges among many different aspects, such as infrastructure and lifestyle. This led to us somehow neglecting the fact that we are not alone in this planet. We start pushing other species out of the way, and we sometimes don’t realize that the impact felt by those other species has terrible and sometimes deadly consequences, and also we sometimes fail to understand that it can also cause harm to us.