Disarmament and A New Generation

[=sw=warlord]

Let me throw this out there: Global defense.

What happens if an aggressive alien species were to be introduced to our global theater of stupidity and petty squabbling? Wouldn't you rather the US & Russian governments band together and rise to the challenge of defending the mighty human race!? Against all odds, staving off annihilation at the hands of a voracious hoard!? Good God sirs, I challenge you to plan ahead; plan for the inevitable!

No but seriously, I think it'd be good to keep a large supply of nuclear weapons on hand. You never know.

If said alien species with interstellar technology were to somehow show up and decide they wanted us gone, what exactly makes you think we would have the technology to defend ourselves?
Seriously, if a alien horde were to show up knocking on our doors, then it would be obvious they would be vastly more technologically advanced than us, it would be like the Mongol throwing rocks and arrows at a challenger tank, just because nuclear weapons are the most destructive weapons we know off doesn't mean they are the be all end all and nothing can survive their use.

[Cojafoji]

Like I said, who knows. I'm merely posing a hypothetical situation. Would you rather greet that situation with a well stocked arsenal just in case, or would you rather we spend months refining uranium and plutonium if we found them to be effective? I prefer the former to the latter. Also, I never said anything about their being the end all be all of offensive weaponry, even though they are for us. It's better to be armed, then to be helpless.

[sleepy1212]

A new generation of weapons will arrive soon anyway and the "herp derp give peace a chance" crowd will cry "we should get rid of all these [fill-in-blank]"

[Warsaw]

If said alien species with interstellar technology were to somehow show up and decide they wanted us gone, what exactly makes you think we would have the technology to defend ourselves?
Seriously, if a alien horde were to show up knocking on our doors, then it would be obvious they would be vastly more technologically advanced than us, it would be like the Mongol throwing rocks and arrows at a challenger tank, just because nuclear weapons are the most destructive weapons we know off doesn't mean they are the be all end all and nothing can survive their use.

Think about it. If an alien species has interstellar travel, then they also know that energy is precious and that once you leave home, generally what you have is what you got. Why would these intelligent, space-faring aliens waste that precious energy on resource-expensive weapons when firing a bullet or missile as we do can get most jobs done just as easy? There's more to space travel and space combat than simply having fuel to get from point A to point B in a timely manner and having the biggest gun.

Sleepy, what are you on about? Last I checked, we've already developed all the WMDs: we have nukes, we have biological agents, and we have chemicals. Unless someone has an antimatter bomb or can somehow create a singularity to destroy the earth, I don't really see what else we can make.

[=sw=warlord]

Think about it. If an alien species has interstellar travel, then they also know that energy is precious and that once you leave home, generally what you have is what you got. Why would these intelligent, space-faring aliens waste that precious energy on resource-expensive weapons when firing a bullet or missile as we do can get most jobs done just as easy? There's more to space travel and space combat than simply having fuel to get from point A to point B in a timely manner and having the biggest gun.

Think about this then.
If an alien species has travelled that amount of distance to remove us and put that much effort behind what they hope to achieve their not going to just dive in for a little fist fight, they will have no doubt researched us, what our abilities are what our weakness' are.
They are bound to have a much more refined efficiency in their weapons usage because as you said, they would know about their own limitations.
The problem is, the person who engages in a fight will usually win as they will have had time to prepare for what they want to do while the ones defending will have to take time to realise what is happening and what needs to be done to respond, time lost while the attacker can move forward in their plans.

[DarkHalo003]

This subject is a really complicated one. On one side, the U.S. and Russia scale down the 1,000+ nukes we don't even need and supposedly promote the same for countries of the same caliber. However, now we have the groups and countries of a different caliber that revolve around obtaining the weapons for destruction and selfish needs. I think our country is doing a poor job at keeping these types at bay or even dealing with them, but hopefully nothing bad will happen before something DOES actually get done. Iran and NK are really what I'm worried about, Iran because they are INSANE and NK because they're obnoxious/unstable. However, Pakistan comes in a close third. They really worry me most of all with all of the fighting that goes on in that country.

[Warsaw]

Think about this then.
If an alien species has travelled that amount of distance to remove us and put that much effort behind what they hope to achieve their not going to just dive in for a little fist fight, they will have no doubt researched us, what our abilities are what our weakness' are.
They are bound to have a much more refined efficiency in their weapons usage because as you said, they would know about their own limitations.
The problem is, the person who engages in a fight will usually win as they will have had time to prepare for what they want to do while the ones defending will have to take time to realise what is happening and what needs to be done to respond, time lost while the attacker can move forward in their plans.

That is working on the assumption that they knew we were here and came specifically to remove us. They could stumble upon us by accident (i.e. they know the location of this planet and it happens to be their next stop, so they jump, and then find out that it's inhabited by an arguably intelligent species). Also know that if they enter anywhere in or near the solar system, we would have appreciable warning since I'd be willing to bet that they can't make another FTL jump without first gathering a massive amount of energy again, which is most likely why they would be here in the first place.

But still, what you say is also true.

DarkHalo003: can't go around bashing countries' doors in because we think they have WMDs. Yes, that's what we did with Iraq, and we all know how that's going for us now.

[Cortexian]

That is working on the assumption that they knew we were here and came specifically to remove us. They could stumble upon us by accident (i.e. they know the location of this planet and it happens to be their next stop, so they jump, and then find out that it's inhabited by an arguably intelligent species). Also know that if they enter anywhere in or near the solar system, we would have appreciable warning since I'd be willing to bet that they can't make another FTL jump without first gathering a massive amount of energy again, which is most likely why they would be here in the first place.

But still, what you say is also true.

Haven't you been watching Stargate: Universe? Ships obviously fly through suns to harvest energy into their FTL power reserves , and since Stargate is on the cutting edge of what we know about science and technology there's absolutely no reason they would stop at our insignificant chunk or rock!

[Warsaw]

Actually, Hawking himself said that's probably one of the reasons aliens might go from system to system. :v

But no, I've actually never seen SG:U. It looked shitty.

Yes I did detect your sarcasm.