You have supplied a pretty good answer to your own question. Welcome to the forum. :cool:

Yeah, we're ready for "extraterrestrial life".

We may never be "ready" for (the tender mercies of spacefaring) extraterrestrial intelligence, however, especially so long as we remain a mostly Earth-bound species.

Thanks! :smile:

It depends on whether the aliens have any resources that we can exploit more cheaply than from anywhere else. For example, if we need minerals, we might get them more cheaply from the asteroid belt. But if the aliens have a miracle plant that streamlines manufacturing, the question becomes: Does the cheapest way to manufacture those products involve getting that plant directly from the alien planet?

If the import costs are not prohibitive, and it's not cheaper to import seeds and grow them artificially on earth, then the aliens had better be technologically superior to us. Otherwise, it will be the 19th and 20th centuries all over again.

I believe there's a fantasy novel called Orconomics that deals with themes like these.

Did you know that the Saudis used to control a tiny state in the desert that was repeatedly beaten back until they made a deal with Western powers? Now they control Mecca, and they have broken Islam all over the world. Before that, the British Raj used to stay in power partly by allying themselves with the most conservative elements of Hindu society.

Either way, I'm sure there will be tons of humans who romanticize alien society and wish they were born there.

The above possibilities are not comprehensive. Eg. I have ideas to write a science fiction novel where humans take over an alien civilization that we're allied with against a stronger alien civilization because we are paranoid about our allies betraying us. We settled that problem by betraying them first.

It depends on whether the aliens have any resources that we can exploit — absoluteaspiration

Or would it be more likely that they come to exploit whatever they can find here? Somehow they will have achieved technology that we can only dream up to have gotten here in the first place. Many episodes of early Star Trek demonstrated in thought how vulnerable we might be with our primitive brains and machines.

IMHO, there is nothing Earth has that an interstellar spacefaring ETI cannot acquire – without conflict with "the natives" – in exponentially greater abundance between here and wherever they come from (or simply engineer themselves). ETI will only take notice of us, I think, iff we somehow appear to be an existential threat to them, which, at Earth civilization's current level of technoscientific development by comparison to ETI's interstellar spacefaring technoscience, would be analogous to an anthill compared to a team of earthmovers or a coral reef compared to an aircraft carrier group. Apply the mediocrity principle. Here in the exurbs of an approximately twelve billion year old Milky Galaxy, it's quite reasonable to assume that h. sapiens is johnny-come-lately 'intelligent' species and that the ETIs out there roaming the stars are descendants, or autonomous artifacts, of xenospecies tens of thousands / millions of years older than us.

It depends on whether the aliens have any resources that we can exploit more cheaply than from anywhere else. — absoluteaspiration

It could come down to that and it is very likely we obsess over their energy science(s).

Or would it be more likely that they come to exploit whatever they can find here? Somehow they will have achieved technology that we can only dream up to have gotten here in the first place. Many episodes of early Star Trek demonstrated in thought how vulnerable we might be with our primitive brains and machines — magritte

Considering their advanced knowledge and science there wouldnt be all that much we would have to offer them (back) in the first place. Perhaps the best we could hope for is for such visitors to be non-invasive scientific explorers who actually come in peace.

Considering the way humans generally behave towards different cultures and beliefsystems I'm having serious doubts about our level of maturity and I actually wonder if we ever get to a (collective) maturity level fitting for such a contact. — Seeker

I think tribal aboriginal people can handle making contact with ETs just fine. And there are already myths in many tribes of encountering ETs.

I think most people could handle it, actually.

The problem is the Power Obsessed wouldn't want to lose their status, so there is a chance they would spread mass hysteria about the ETs.
Think about how governments banned psychedelics.
Why should they be made illegal rather than regulated? Who benefits?

The majority will believe whatever their leaders tell them about the coming ETs, and the ETs would probably contact the leaders first before revealing themselves to the masses. This has likely already occurred and it was agreed to not happen.

Ready? As in prepared for? Against what? Keeping our sanity or defending ourselves?

Benevolent or malevolent, I see a problem.

Why do you assume that they found us in this scenario? We have programs actively trying to locate ETs.

Even if they found us, there are many possibilities you've overlooked:

1. Maybe the group of aliens that actually found us is not the one we target for exploitation. We could use the first group as a channel to locate the second.

2. You're underestimating what can happen in the timespans involved in interstellar travel. Many Asian societies were more advanced than Europeans when the first explorers arrived.

3. You're underestimating the drive of corporations to turn a profit. The advanced Asian societies were left behind because they were mainly focused on internal matters. Meanwhile, immense wealth poured into Europe from the various East India companies.

You are theoretically correct, but there are many practical exceptions. There is a large number of organic molecules, and they are not easy to synthesize. A civilization that can contact ETs need not be masters of chemical synthesis. Although it's not the most likely, it is easy to conceive of a situation where the cheapest method to obtain large quantities of the organic molecules required by their industrial machinery is to turn the earth into a plantation.

This situation is more likely if the aliens are also capitalist, capitalist-adjacent, competing with capitalists, etc. We don't know the likelihood of that happening, but we know that humans are and will remain capitalist in the foreseeable future.

Another scenario where we may be threatened by aliens is the one where they are so advanced that they require an entire block of galactic matter as raw material, and the solar system just happens to be included in it by accident. Imagine humans shoveling large quantities of dirt. Somewhere in it was an anthill that was beneath our notice.

I wonder if the aliens will share their energy sciences before they know they can trust us. Also, see the above.

A lot of fantasy "what ifs" ... which don't persuade me we have any more significance to interstellar spacefaring ETI than pond scum has to us.

Which aspects do you consider to be fantastic? If you think pond scum has no significance to us, you're much mistaken: https://youtu.be/jCZq0yWBQMk https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29999416/ We also kill pond scum all the time even if we're not planning to use it.

Considering their advanced knowledge and science there wouldnt be all that much we would have to offer them (back) in the first place. Perhaps the best we could hope for is for such visitors to be non-invasive scientific explorers who actually come in peace. — Seeker

Maybe we should expect little green intelligent robots built for the longevity of space voyages but who would come without superfluous morality chips. They would quickly learn to communicate with us leading to serious negotiations with our leaders. Then we would have to gauge the truth content of their utterances. Perhaps all they wish for is our labor for who knows what end and we wouldn't like to be trading our lives and efforts for handfuls of glassy beads they can freely manufacture onboard from atmospheric CO2.

I think tribal aboriginal people can handle making contact with ETs just fine. And there are already myths in many tribes of encountering ETs.

I think most people could handle it, actually.

The problem is the Power Obsessed wouldn't want to lose their status, so there is a chance they would spread mass hysteria about the ETs.
Think about how governments banned psychedelics.
Why should they be made illegal rather than regulated? Who benefits?

The majority will believe whatever their leaders tell them about the coming ETs, and the ETs would probably contact the leaders first before revealing themselves to the masses. This has likely already occurred and it was agreed to not happen. — Yohan

You are probably right as all tribal wisdom tends to get ignored in the name of 'progression' always. The morally wisest wisdom always seems to get shoved under whatever oppertunistic carpet.

There is a lot of factual truth to your words and which has been proven many times throughout history, our gullibility has always been used to keep us under and controllable to the likes of the power hungry. During whatever intergalactic contact politics most probably wouldnt be much different from what we allready know is occuring albeit on another scale entirely. Come to think of it, perhaps it also wouldnt be that hard for an advanced species to throw us into total chaos by eliminating the very same groups we so much depend upon.

Considering the way humans generally behave towards different cultures and belief systems I'm having serious doubts about our level of maturity and I actually wonder if we ever get to a (collective) maturity level fitting for such a contact. T — Seeker

I agree. You are very right to doubt about our maturity regarding this matter.

There are still places on the planet --inhabited by primitive communities-- where people are not ready to receive most of the technology existing and used in the civilized and developed world. (Some of them, e.g. consider airplanes passing over their territory as (threatening) huge flying beings.)

But even in developed countries, people are ignorant of things most of the rest of the world is aware of. It is known that Chinese people were among the last to know about Man walking on the moon, and they did after a few years thus had happened. Tis also known, that Chinese, even today, are ignorant about their neighboring countries.

It all has to do with education, government and living conditions. A lot of information is just missing or, in some regimes, even forbidden, from the education of people.

And when I talk about forbidden knowledge, I'm not referring to authoritarian governments, but to democratic ones too.

Since you believe that extraterrestrial life exists --which is very logical-- you might also believe that the US government had always hidden and is still hiding information about extraterrestrial life. Which, of course, gives food to conspiracy theories and ... mystery or horror movies! :smile: And this of course, creates mainly fear about extraterrestrials.

How can then one expect from people to be ready to accept and receive extraterrestrial life?

Extraterrestrial life must be included in the curriculum of Anthropology or other kind of courses in schools. And the governments must start to disclose to the public and inform it about any information on extraterrestrial life they have. Only in this way can people get ready to receive extraterrestrial life.

In the meantime, science fiction --which also plays a role in our education-- must get more mature on the subject of extraterrestrial life and start presenting it from a logical aspect. For example. why would a much more advanced civilization than ours would travel that far a distance to destroy or even occupy our planet, which is on the verge to be destroyed by itself? Would we have done that if we were in their place? Is this the spirit in which Man regards space exploration? And so on.

I guess the analogy is lost on you ...
Consider: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/380306 :nerd:

We're never going to encounter extra terrestrial life face to face (assuming there is none in our solar system) so it doesn't matter whether we are ready for it or not. We may see a mossy rock through our telescopes and have reasonably good evidence it really is full of life. We might get a signal but civilizations will come and go in the span of time needed to say hello.

Space is too vast. Consider just 1 light year; that is just too long for us. If we move 5 miles per second, it'd take 37,200 human years to cover that distance, or so says google. Only 4.25 light years to our closest star.

Imagine seeing an old planet rich with life but which stands in it's own time long annihilated.

We're never going to encounter extra terrestrial life face to face — Nils Loc

The odds are categorized as "impossible" due to the infinitesimally small chance.

:nerd: :up:

Clearly, if Einstein is correct, light speed/faster than light speed travel is impossible (set aside worm holes for the moment). All we can hope for and should expect from aliens is their consciousness/minds - encoded in powerful lasers - to do all the travelling across the vast distances of space (vide Michio Kaku). What's interesting about this theory is that it might've already happened/is happening as we speak. :snicker:

Clearly, if Einstein is correct, light speed/faster than light speed travel is impossible ... — Agent Smith

Old Uncle Albert is correct and yet it's physically possible (not yet demonstrated to be technically possible) to travel at – not accelerate to – the speed of light e.g. the proposed Alcubierre drive.

:nerd: NB: I think AFAL propulsion (my guess – (somehow) negating the Higgs fields around a spacecraft effectively making its atoms massless like photons / neutrinos) is far more plausible than FTL propulsion (SR suggests sends the spacecraft back in time); also, that STL velocities at or greater than .2C transforms the interstellar vacuum into extremely "hot" plasma, so significant relativistic speed transits will have to be "around" rather through spacetime. "Warp drive" or "stargate" or "hyperspace" (à la Kip Thorne's idea in Interstellar) – some "sufficiently advanced technology ..." – so if and when ETI show up any millennium soon in this solar system (let alone in Earth's orbit) their starship will be almost certainly "indistinguishable from magic" to us (or our descendents). Think: Monolith :monkey:

Oh! Interesting stuff, eh?

Speculative physics trying hardta keep it real! I like that! Heads up in the clouds, yeah, but feet firmly planted on the ground. Way to go, science guys & gals! These are privliged times we live in, oui mon ami?

For example. why would a much more advanced civilization than ours would travel that far a distance to destroy or even occupy our planet, which is on the verge to be destroyed by itself? Would we have done that if we were in their place — Alkis Piskas

Perhaps only if 'they' consider us a threat in which case we most probably would never see their 'face' as they would merely send us any mass destruction weapon of choice.

Extraterrestrial life must be included in the curriculum of Anthropology or other kind of courses in schools. — Alkis Piskas

But only if based on facts rather than assumptions. For now we have only myth, legend and anecdotal reviews to work with but the fact that even some former US government employees have produced such anecdotal reviews paves the way for the acceptance of any truth that may arise in that particular field.

We're never going to encounter extra terrestrial life face to face — Nils Loc

Since humans have merely started scratching the surface of what is possible in a(ny) scientific sense such an assumption has little to no value in the light of progression, days are gone when the earth was still flat.

Are we ready for ET? — OP

If you mean have we anything to brag about?, no! If you mean, can we defend ourselves from an invasion?, still no! In the latter case, they (little green men) maybe counting on us not being ready in any sense of that word!

you mean, can we defend ourselves from an invasion?, still no! In the latter case, they (little green men) maybe counting on us not being ready in any sense of that word! — Agent Smith

Completely agree :up: I want to share an interesting opinion from Liu Cixin:
The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds another life—another hunter, angel, or a demon, a delicate infant to tottering old man, a fairy or demigod—there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them.

I want to share an interesting opinion from Liu Cixin:
The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds another life—another hunter, angel, or a demon, a delicate infant to tottering old man, a fairy or demigod—there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. — javi2541997

There's truth to that but from a (human) military point of view and without taking any other variables into account.

:up: Gloomy Guses & Negative Nancies please converge on this post by javi2541997.

Superb!

Yes that's right. But I guess that the appearance of an extraterrestrial life would makes us to stay alert and probably to act in the military way.

:up: