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Looking at the level of interest/affection we have for intelligent animals on our own planet isn't exactly reassuring. We know/strongly suspect dolphins/whales
by roc 13y ago
Looking at the level of interest/affection we have for intelligent animals on our own planet isn't exactly reassuring.
We know/strongly suspect dolphins/whales/etc are intelligent. But we don't care enough about what they might have to say to really try to communicate them.
And we know gorillas are intelligent. We even know we can teach them to communicate on a simplistic level -- but we don't really do it. We just don't care to. Occasionally we take one from captivity, establish communication aaaand... leave it as a curiosity for some sub-set of under-funded researchers.
No-one's going into the jungle to liaise with the gorilla tribes, help them through their troubles, educate them, present them with technology, medicine, etc.
The best we've managed on either count, on a species-to-species level, is to start to try to raise their perceived value to a level greater than that of slight inconvenience. (To halt the wanton slaughter we were previously, casually and without much remorse, engaged in.)
So would aliens ever come to Earth to stock up their zoo or fill out an encyclopedic survey of the galaxy and its life? On-Earth experience suggests that part is near-guaranteed if they ever swing by.
Might they ever establish communication with a handful of such subjects, mostly to see if it could be done? Again on-Earth experience suggests that's also plausible-to-likely.
But would they ever establish "contact" as our culture defines it? On-Earth experience makes that look less likely than their visiting in the first place.
The only real hope we have for contact, is if the Aliens perceive themselves to be only marginally more advanced than ourselves [1]. But for that to be plausible starts to eat into the requirement/assumption that they be significantly more advanced than ourselves.
[1] more along the lines of Spaniard/Native American interactions, than human/gorilla.
- ebbv 13y agoI wasn't arguing the aliens would treat us well. They very well might not. But they'd probably make some form of contact with us. That was my only point. I think it's guaranteed. Just think about if we got that technology. If suddenly magically a ship capable of zipping around the galaxy appeared in NASA's hands, other than disassembling it and trying to replicate it, what would we use it for? Looking for other life and inhabitable planets. No reason to think aliens wouldn't do the same. It's obvious, IMHO.
- roc 13y agoBut the "some form of contact" that's most likely is rudimentary communication with whatever small cross-section of people they kidnapped for study/captivity. The rest of us would never know and just go on wondering "where is everybody".
- electic 13y agoIt is not obvious. If aliens are smart enough to get here, they are also smart to observe that contacting us will cause great chaos. We are simply to primitive. We have famine, racism, wars, and overall a lot of issues that do not warrant contact at this time.
- danielweber 13y agoUnless there is one galactic hegemon, there's going to be someone who says "fuck it" and decides to come visit. Unless there's no one.
- apalmer 13y agoI think the argument is that the 'fuck it' level is not necessarily contact in terms of communication with the entire world but may be filled by simply picking up a couple specimens/pets and rolling onwards...
- andrewflnr 13y agoWhich, interestingly, is well within some people's model of current alien contact.
- blacksmith_tb 13y agoI think there's at least some reason to be a little more optimistic. Aliens technologically capable of visiting us are likely to have progressed through much of the same social development we have, and more (assuming that the pattern that has held for our species is common, which seems reasonable). We are still doing terrible things to each other, but not as often as we used to; I think it's likely that aliens would be kinder than we are. Then again, it's also possible that they might accidentally harm us - even a gentle child can crush an ant without meaning to...
- iamthepieman 13y agoI don't think it's reasonable at all to assume that the pattern of our species is universal or even common. The problem with the assumption is that our sample-size, as far as our species is concerned, is one. The very concept of society may not exist for an alien that is a single collective intelligence or for one that has simply developed a very advanced set of instinctual responses without higher-level thought.