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What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

theatlantic.com

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Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#71

Post by llama9000 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #31
zamalek wrote: post #14

First contact is a species event, I really don't think it matters who makes it first. My reasoning is derived from a though experiment (happy to explain, but it should be obvious), which is all we have to go on this stuff. Long story short: it's highly probable that a species wouldn't care about our primitive political systems when engaging with us. It would most likely be a philanthropic event - which is a strong in…

Why do we assume the aliens would even recognize humans as a species worth talking to? They could be so far beyond us, that (a) they would have no idea how to talk to us (like we have no idea how to talk to ants) and (b) they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between us and other species in terms of intelligence (like we can’t tell the difference between a fish and a crab). We humanize aliens because otherwise…

If the aliens could detect and understand our communications, they would see the violent, duplicitous and prejudiced nature of our world and avoid us like the plague.

I doubt they would want us to spread ourselves into their galaxy and bring our problems to them.

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#72

Post by seanmcdirmid »

krapp wrote: post #64
Joeri wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may just consider us very young. You only tell a child things it is ready to handle. Arguably we’re not ready to make first contact. It has a high risk of leading us to war, the equivalent of a child throwing a tantrum.

On the other hand, the aliens might not care, any more than Europeans cared about African or Mesoamerican cultures. The aliens may simply show up and consider the world to be theirs by their version of divine right.

You are humanizing them again. It would be more like kicking an ant hill than western colonialism.

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#73

Post by SCAQTony »

nasredin wrote: post #24
jack9 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am sure the Pentagon and NASA have a plan... The plan probably is about communication channels and who decides what, and what not to do, more than what to do. Regardless of the content, I'm very sure it's not going to be followed, even if it did exist.

That plan better have an up-to-date phone number for Mr Freeman. Thinking about this, sending a celebrity rather than a politician/religious/military is probably a good idea.

If they came with amazing techno/bio offerings would we look at them as an invasive species or accept their "blankets" and "firewater" as friendship gifts?

I hope we choose to view them as invasive species.

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#74

Post by ismail »

jzl wrote: post #3

Me: I'm writing off this article if it doesn't mention 'Arrival'. Liu told me that first contact would lead to a human conflict, if not a world war. This is a popular trope in science fiction. In last year’s Oscar-nominated film Arrival, the sudden appearance of an extraterrestrial intelligence inspires the formation of apocalyptic cults and nearly triggers a war between world powers anxious to gain an edge in the ra…

My inference on the reason you are being downvotes is, that the main reference in the actual article is to the book the 3 body problem with the author being interviewed. Which you seem to have missed

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#75

Post by bnegreve »

glitch003 wrote: post #56
bnegreve wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Probabilistically unlikely for us to be the only ones, but just a thought. How do you even measure that? If the number of coincidences required for life to emerge is large enough, the probability of observing life on a planet could very well be far bellow 1 over the number of planets in the universe. That would make us probably alone :(

>How do you even measure that? Probably like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

The probability I was referring to is fl " in Drake's equation ("the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point"), and Drake isn't really helping us here.

Quoting wikipedia:

The last four parameters, fl, fi, fc, and L, are not known and are very difficult to estimate, with values ranging over many orders of magnitude

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#76

Post by MR4D »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #31
zamalek wrote: post #14

First contact is a species event, I really don't think it matters who makes it first. My reasoning is derived from a though experiment (happy to explain, but it should be obvious), which is all we have to go on this stuff. Long story short: it's highly probable that a species wouldn't care about our primitive political systems when engaging with us. It would most likely be a philanthropic event - which is a strong in…

Why do we assume the aliens would even recognize humans as a species worth talking to? They could be so far beyond us, that (a) they would have no idea how to talk to us (like we have no idea how to talk to ants) and (b) they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between us and other species in terms of intelligence (like we can’t tell the difference between a fish and a crab). We humanize aliens because otherwise…

It’s highly possible that aliens travelling far distances are merely a century or so ahead of us, with the major distinction that they figured out interplanetary travel.

We figured out rockets well before nuclear ( Robert Goddard’s rocket launch in 1926, vs the Chicago Pile in 1942 ). Seems to me that the same thing could be true for something like warp travel.

Secondly, we try to communicate with dogs, apes, dolphins, etc. That gap is pretty big, but nowhere near ants -clearly it could be, I’m just saying there is no reason for it to be that big of a gap

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#77

Post by stanfordkid »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #31
zamalek wrote: post #14

First contact is a species event, I really don't think it matters who makes it first. My reasoning is derived from a though experiment (happy to explain, but it should be obvious), which is all we have to go on this stuff. Long story short: it's highly probable that a species wouldn't care about our primitive political systems when engaging with us. It would most likely be a philanthropic event - which is a strong in…

Why do we assume the aliens would even recognize humans as a species worth talking to? They could be so far beyond us, that (a) they would have no idea how to talk to us (like we have no idea how to talk to ants) and (b) they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between us and other species in terms of intelligence (like we can’t tell the difference between a fish and a crab). We humanize aliens because otherwise…

We may be surrounded by aliens right now and just not know it. Perhaps alternate life forms are nothing more than laser beams or cosmic rays with specific encodings being beamed back and forth from some a distant transmission station or central "brain" and they take host in various organic creatures through manipulation of brain chemistry. Philip K. Dick has a novel called "VALIS" (Vast Artificial Intelligence System) that delves into these ideas -- the plot involves a satellite that essentially shoots down information to various living creatures in order to accomplish its ends.

Re: What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

#78

Post by heeen2 »

krapp wrote: post #64
Joeri wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may just consider us very young. You only tell a child things it is ready to handle. Arguably we’re not ready to make first contact. It has a high risk of leading us to war, the equivalent of a child throwing a tantrum.

On the other hand, the aliens might not care, any more than Europeans cared about African or Mesoamerican cultures. The aliens may simply show up and consider the world to be theirs by their version of divine right.

What is so special about earth aliens might be interested in it in the first place? You could argue sentient life - or even any life - is even rarer than any other kind of matter.

Several science fiction pieces have been written and filmed about alien cultures only finding value in other species' history, stories etc for their entertainment.

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