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Ask HN: What reading material would you provide to a visiting alien being?

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21–28 of 28 posts

Re: Ask HN: What reading material would you provide to a visiting alien being?

#21
The first 5 pages of digg perhaps? I mean, they will find out about it eventually, might as well warn them up front right?

But seriously, I think an encyclopedia would be a good bet but the very first message we send should probably be one the reiterates peaceful intentions. With our history of warfare anything such as a dictionary or Encyclopedia given without context could be seen as a threat of further violence.

Re: Ask HN: What reading material would you provide to a visiting alien being?

#22
- The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History, 1973 (Douglas North, Robert Thomas): Nobel Economic Historian North explains how institutions and property rights determine how human beings got along with each other through history; this is important, so they don't think we're mass murderers by design

- some school biology book on natural selection, evolution

- The Princeton Companion to Mathematics

- Goedel, Escher, Bach: introduction to the "weirdness" of the human brain

- the little prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry): human beings and their quirks

- Several editions of Popular Mechanics

Re: Ask HN: What reading material would you provide to a visiting alien being?

#24
I'd probably want to gauge the aliens' true intent first. If it seems to be good, then I'd carefully select their media exposure so that they'd feel guilty for not taking me and my family with them to their advanced corner of the galaxy when they decide our planet isn't worth the effort.... :)
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