Pathetic Fallacy

Ray Walston,
--My Favorite Martian

--You fiend.
--I, a fiend? I am a soldier of our planet.
I, a fiend? We did not come here as enemies.
--Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

Heeere's Johnny!
--The Shining (1980)

I don't know which species is worse.
You don't see them fucking each other over
for a goddamn percentage
--Aliens (1986)
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I like Stephen Hawking, but his latest pronouncement is disheartening. Sunday's UK TimesOnline says Mr. Hawking warns us off of talking with aliens. No, not our friends South of the Border, but the sort they're seeing each week in Cleveland (Don’t talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking.)

Hawking reasons that some aliens could be intelligent, thereby posing a threat, and believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity. He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”

He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

Sounding much like the 2008 Pixar animation Wall-E of rapacious and enervated earthlings-turned-scavengers, Hawkins vision is either shockingly limited in its anthropocentrism, or he is waging an ideological challenge. Has he been tainted by the terrorist bug, too? Is he Hobbesian, and is it really a war of all against all?

Have the Somali pirate tales gotten to him? Can he honestly believe intergalactic pirates would wish to plunder our paltry bounty?

One thing is certain: This is a message guaranteed to curry favor in certain quarters that would disfavor expansion of the space program. It panders to an us-against-them mentality, and can be used by those who wish to safely draw in their borders.

Stephen Hawking, this doesn't seem to be your finest hour.

[Cross-posted at Big Brass Blog.]