by VorJack
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(via io9)
Making Contact
April 17, 2010 By 14 Comments
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Eh?
This supposes the aliens are way superior to us technologically, etc… But then we have to do all the work by figuring out how to communicate with them. Wouldn’t they have a better chance of figuring out how to communicate with us?
It does make a bit of sense to assume that extraterrestrials that would make it to our planet would be technologically superior to us. After all, the technology required to travel vast differences (in a reasonable amount of time) is far beyond our capabilities at this point. But your second point is spot-on, I think. Their advanced technology might also give them (please, let it be Vulcans!) the capacity to communicate with us. I’d hope that whatever advanced species out there would take some time and do some observation of us…of course, if they tap into our entertainment, they might decide we’re not quite ready to meet any advanced species.
That’s something which does actually worry me – that an intelligent alien species might have already had a look at us, caught some of the God Channel, laughed their motile appendage joints off and buggered off home.
With a little editing, this would be a great teaching tool for middle schoolers. Also, I wouldn’t be too quick to conclude that aliens were peaceful. They might decide, after a little more investigation, that we are an invasive species and need to be culled.
This is brilliant! A well-reasoned and well-written piece, thanks!
The first alien contact we will probably have is some dumb alien driving a space truck dumping illegal waste on our planet.
The flaw in your argument is that you assume aliens would be like us.
Do you mean that aliens have no waste problem?
Any who travels the back roads of the red-neck parts of this country should have a copy of this in their glove box for the inevitable night they get abducted.
“You’ll probably be killed”
“Reproduce as much as possible”.
I don’t whether it’s weirder to think of this after reading the parasitic wasp larvae bust out of a caterpillar’s body kept alive just for them (good going, God!);
or after remembering the science fiction short stories in which a human was used like the caterpillar;
or while thinking of the early European “settlers” starting America while some of the Native Americans thought we could all live in peace together with enough land for all, and couldn’t imagine overbreeding and overrunning it.
I saw an episode of South Park where the boys went in a spaceship to another planet, and it turns out that earth was just a l-o-o-o-o-ng reality show for the other planets. They put all kinds of species and races together and watched us fight & kill each other. Apparently, gets excellent ratings (although I suspect the entertainment factor has decreased since Dubya is out of office). Yeah, I think that’s about right. We’re just one big reality show, airing our dirty laundry for the other galaxies out there for their edification and entertainment…..
I loved this poster at first glance, but there are a few things in it that are starting to bother me.
First and probably above all else, I don’t believe the idea of the one person being a “spokesperson” for the aliens – I don’t think that will last for even five minutes. Besides the whole situation loses credibility if only one person has access to the aliens. People will justifiably suspect a fraud.
Also, I don’t see the person being killed – sure, I think your name will be remembered, like that of Neil Armstrong, but beyond that I think the interest in this person after things die down will be low-key. Do you know anything about the personal life of Neil Armstrong? I mean, compared to Marylin Monroe? Me neither.
Also people will be far more interested in the content of alien messages / encounters rather than their messenger. (Perhaps I should say, “In this day and age, I should hope that people will be far more interested…”) It’s hard to build a large, permanent, globe-spanning flock of suckers with fresh bullshit these days – ie: we’ll get new Scientologies and Christian Sciences but probably no new Buddhisms or Islams – and the messenger may be heralded as a prophet or messiah by a few, but probably only by the margins of society. It won’t catch on in the mainstream, and the human-alien communication will probably soon be many-to-many anyway, rendering this question moot.
Finally, I see the point of drawing a (crude) ellipse instead of a circle for the orbit of the Earth. Kepler’s realization that the planetary orbits are ellipses and not perfect circles is important – Copernicus’ time-honoured use of perfect circles is what kept his results from being far-and-away better than what was derived from Ptolemy. BUT… Earth’s orbit is only eccentric by a teeny bit – the narrow axis is 98.6% as long as the wide one. Unless your penmanship is *exceedingly* precise, you should draw a circle. You may also inadvertently give the aliens the idea that you think Earth’s seasons are caused by the slight difference in the Earth-Sun distance through the year (and while this does have a slight affect on climate, the axial tilt is by far the bigger factor – we’re actually that little bit closer to the Sun during Northern Hemisphere summer!), and if you do that they will surely enjoy a good-natured chuckle at your expense.
All this said, there’s a lot of stuff that I like. “Don’t use pop culture references,” especially. Spielberg doesn’t deserve that nod – nobody does. If you get a moment like this, in anything you do, make it your own!
Whoops, sorry, I mean NH winter! We’re closer in NH *winter*!