The Black Vault

I more or less agree with number 1, if by "independently" you mean that the system works without god's continuous manipulation. Its a machine. It works. Tick tock. I am undecided on the divine interference. I doubt it.

For number 2, identifying the hierarchy of life in the universe based on intelligence and power is not racist. It is merely seeing things as they are. Man is above the animals of the earth. That much, at least, is provable.

The U does not care if we do or don't create new life, but any potential alien competitors would. They seemed real interested in our obtaining nuclear weapons in the 1940's and 1950's.

I don't like factory farming. All they did was make the food taste like crap.

One of the first things they, Venter's team, turned their attention to once they succeeded, was the "off switch". It is a pretty obvious concern that we need to be able to neutralize any lifeforms created.

What makes you think any invention we have created was a want and that this one won't be a need? We seem to believe that oil is gonna run out or pollute the atmosphere enough to wipe us out, so obviously this technology is a need. Besides, humans never stop at needs.

Oh and pretty soon someone is gonna suggest life form rights, like pets and dolphins and birds. In the end I think it won't matter. When we create life it will do what any life does. It will try to survive, conquer territory, and assert its own rights, if it is intelligent enough to do so.

I think the off switch may be a fools errand. First, it won't work 100% reliably. Second, any useful life form will likely not accomplish what we want if we create an off switch. We'll create life and either co-exist with it or it will wipe us out.

Despite this being a UFO site, I'm not a supporter of the idea that aliens have come here other than microbes, I'm of the opinion that UFOs are from here either made by us or our hidden cousins.

Lifeform rights are already a reality.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Br ... ts-to-apes

I laugh at the idea that humankind is higher than animals, were out bred and less variant than most other animal families. In comparison we are more prone to extinction because of our genetics, the only things offsetting that are intelligence and prehensile hands both of which can be found in other families.

Governments today are koo koo and Spain is right there at the top. Animal rights is an immoral concept created by bureaucrats to decrease the rights of humans. Its just another way of separating citizens from natural resources.

Evidence of aliens visiting earth is extensive. If you choose to ignore it then that's your biz. I'm sure some ants deny the existence of whales.

You're confusing our possible cousins with EBEs and insulting humans as well. While I understand that space warping has occurred at MIT on small scale, meaning there is a possibility of an FTL drive being built somewhere out there or even eventually here you are missing a very important question "how did they find us in the first place?", It wasn't our radio signals those are barely a hundred years out and degrade with distance, it wasn't our nukes they've had even less time to be detected. We've got billions of stars out there and we've been listening and watching our local group for a long time with no luck. We aren't alone but no one lives near us.

I believe there is some technology being employed that is preventing us from detecting other civilizations. I think that governments prevent scientists from looking for ETs. Plus, when you consider the age of the universe and the fact that a civilization is probably only detectable over a span of say 200 years, that does not leave much time for us to hear them and we haven't been listening that long. Plus we are using technology that depends on the speed of light so we have to wait a looong time for planets far away.

Aliens most likely had spy satellites around the earth by the time the industrial revolution occurred. They knew about our nukes the moment the first one went off. And I'll bet they can transmit information FTL. They've been watching us for a long time. All they have to do is push buttons and they can make whatever they want to happen happen. I think that was the message they delivered in the 1950's.

Your age of the Universe argument that allows for Alien civilization to be ahead of us works BUT and I really must stress this because its important it ignores the 50000+ years before all our ancient "wonders" that led up to those creations it ignores we humans are actually smart and talented at doing such things. This is where the insult to humans is: that prejudgement that we can't do anything such as building pyramids ourselves. Note the false arches in pyramids vs the much much later true arch with keystone. You'd think Aliens with FTL technology could build a true arch out of stone or atleast tell us how to. Furthermore, we must assume that all Alien species on their native planets did not spotaneously say 'hey lets go FTL' they built up their technologies step by step and probably without Alien interference as well.

I did not say that humans couldn't build a pyramid. I said that humans did not build the Great Pyramid. All our ancient wonders were not detectable. Only since the invention of radio have we been detectable and we're already looking into methods of communication that would not be detectable by traditional means. There could be alien civs out their building pyramids and we'd never know. The GP was built to serve a specific purpose not to demonstrate how to build arches. The great span of time, billions of years, coupled with great distances, coupled with rapid acceleration of technology means that the length of time a civ is detectable using the technologies we have is very limited. The vast majority of aliens are likely either ahead of us and not detectable or behind us and not detectable.

Earth is an invisible speck of dust next to a very ordinary pinpoint of light amoung billions of pinpoints of light. Our detection method is based on star wobble and shadows yet it is still dependent onthe speed of light to reach the observor meaning everything has moved by the time it gets anywhere, some stars we see have already moved and died, A universal constant is hard to get around. However if one had an FTL drive that warps space , it may be possible that light and electromagnetic signals may pass through the warp corridor allowing for an FTL telescope. However they'd still have too spend centuries examing each star in turn and looking for planets.

Its far more likely our cousins are pretending to be aliens so we don't notice they are still here.

Its not invisible. I can see it. Its right there. But seriously, to bring this back on topic, if we can change our own DNA then we can alter ourselves and give ourselves greater capabilities. Add custom made lifeforms and we can remake the world, and beyond. This is serious business.