Do You Want The Aliens To Show Up?

They really want to know....

The article is too long to post, so you can read it here.

I'd love for them to show up just for the sheer entertainment of watching the religious fundies heads explode.

Oh, and I want my own starship.

so if you're open to aliens showing up, why do you feel the message is horseshit? Just curious.

Huh. They've been monitoring us for years and laughing their asses off...

Can you blame them?

Not really. Though I question their taste in reality shows.

There are only two real questions alien contact will raise:

Can we fuck 'em and/or can we kill 'em.

I vote for the first one.

To your world view, maybe.

All right, then. Let's see you argue their validity.

One does not attempt to teach trigonometry to a First Grade math class.

So it's your perception that you're the Smartest Guy in the Room?

On this particular subject....without a doubt.

And your refusal to share your knowledge guarantees that you've managed to convince one person of the accuracy of that belief.

He says so! Why can't you be satisfied with that, huh? Why?

I'm not refusing anything. It's all out there for you to pick up and find on your way. I've already given you the tools, it's up for you to do the work to learn...if you want to.

I think it would be better if we learned about aliens through radio signals or somesuch. If they actually showed up, if we actually could interact, I think it would probably be disastrous for our civilization.

I'm not talking about the collapse of institutions or whatever. I'm sure our religious zealouts would immediately set about figuring out how the aliens are a lost tribe of Israel, or find some passage in the Bible that proves Jesus died for them, too. The economy would go on, though it would probably undergo a tremendous revolution. I think most people are already open to the idea of extraterrestrial intelligence, so I don't think we'd get mass suicides or the breakdown of society.

No, I mean the part where we gain a million years of knowledge and technological insight without having to acquire the discipline to attain it ourselves. Imagine handing Tiberius Caesar an atomic bomb, or nerve gas to Mohammed. That kinda thing.

But who's to say that would give us that technology? One could argue that any advanced civilization would instantly recognize that you don't give a more primitive society access to technology too advanced for them to learn and handle responsibly.

You don't give a nuke to a three-year old to play with.

That's a fancy way of saying "Google it yourself." And to think you're one of the principal proponents of the garamet meme...

Excellent assessment, but I'd throw in a couple of other thoughts.

First, imagine where our civilization would be without (A) the destruction of much of the Graeco-Roman scientific/mathematical/medical opus by invading hordes and (B) the subsequent suppression of the remnants of that knowledge by religion.

Second, wouldn't a technologically advanced species also have an advanced moral code - a Prime Directive, for want of a better designation? So while they might dazzle us with their advances, wouldn't they be inclined - mindful of how they themselves got there ("Vulcan, like Earth, had its aggressive, colonizing period...savage, even by Earth standards") - to dole out their knowledge in small increments?

Unless they really are just looking for new recipes.

One would hope so.

It's not hard to imagine that, if they developed spaceflight, they would--like us--be mindful of contaminating other worlds, so as to preserve the environment for accurate scientific study. And it's a small intellectual step from preserving the natural environment to preserving a cultural one. So, maybe they would have something like the Prime Directive.

But with an alien species, how can you be sure? They could think very differently than we do, with values and priorities we might not be able to imagine. Perhaps, because of their biology and vastly greater experience, they may have reasoning superior to ours, reasoning we might find very difficult to understand.

And, of course, there's always the possibility that we're what's for dinner.

If they were monitoring our TV and radio transmissions, they'd avoid us like the plague.

Who knows? Maybe they'd fine us "quaint."

Any species that has the tenacity to rise to the top of the food chain on its world, the ingenuity to harness and control nature, and the ambition to explore the stars will likely find much in common with us. I think it likely that any advanced civilization went through a period of development much like ours.

This all sounds so familiar. I swear someone made a movie about it once. And before that, there was even a novel...

Come to think of it...

The aliens already have shown up and they are taking our jobs.

Caspar agrees!