batwad said:
To all those that feel that there must be some other life out there, just because the universe is so big: why is it that you feel that way? Why is that more appealing?
Because Americans have no history to speak of, their creative fiction fantasies are science fiction based. They have nowhere to look backwards to, so they look forwards.
So a huge proportion of American fiction concerns space, because it allows infinite imaginative possibilities. This sounds obvious: science fiction means space fiction. Not so, look at "Metropolis", the earliest science fiction film. Or "Powder" a recent sf film. Science fiction can well be about man's ability to relate to man in an Earth-bound environment, but informed by technological or socialogical advances. But, mostly, it
is space fiction.
Because American entertainment media = the world, this means the bulk of our worldwide speculative science fiction relates to space.
And that, my friends, means aliens.
There is an undeniable extra layer of thrill or excitement for many people, when they watch "War of the Worlds" or "E.T." or "Alien" to think: this could happen.
To be able to think that they must be complicit in the belief that aliens really are out there.
batwad said:
Why is that more appealing?
Because otherwise that extra excitement is gone, and "E.T." is just made up kids' stuff.
And not even Americans want their fantasies snuffed out like that.
We have no proof either way of the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, and I don't consider a 2% slice of loopy, gape-***** Yanks to be any reason to revise that.
However there are, in fact, no intelligent aliens.
Just so you know.