Is Humanity Ready for First Contact?

[abaris]

From your perspective, is humanity ready for first contact?

No. In all probability we would try to nuke them.

Humanity isn't even ready to share this planet among each other. We're still chimps at heart, always ready to fight for our territory teeth and claws.

[LostLocke]

I don't worry too much about "first contact", because while I believe intelligent life does exist elsewhere, I also believe we'll never meet them prior to our own extinction.

[Kernel Sohcahtoa]

Suppose there is a broader community of sentient life-forms who are remarkably advanced (socially and technologically). Do you think they would be interested in learning about humanity?  

Yes. I think curiosity and intelligence go hand in hand. Even if our intelligence is like an amoeba by comparison to theirs they would be interested for the same reason we would be interested in an amoeba civilization.

Your observation reminds me of the Star Trek original series episode 'Errand of Mercy'.  In this episode, Mr. Spock makes the following analogy: "the Organians are to us as we are to amoeba."  The development of the Organians was definitely a blow to Kirk's pride.  Thanks for your post, sir.

[Edwardo Piet]

IMO any intelligent life form would be interested in us because despite us being lower forms of life they would be curious for the same reason we are curious of other lower forms of life. Intelligence goes hand in hand with curiosity.

I also think that it may be possible that no other intelligent life forms will ever be aware of us for 2 reasons:

1. Very very very very very very big universe. 2. very very very very very very rare intelligent life.

Too distant and too rare for there to ever be any contact. But if they could contact us they would be interested.

[Arkilogue]

I'm sure they would be curious about us and probably run experiments on petri-dish earth.

Look what we do to every other "lower" life form.

SCIENCE!

[Angrboda]

If there's alien life, and they have the means to get here, they'd probably show up, but just to get drunk and throw beer bottles at us.

[Anomalocaris]

Suppose there is a broader community of sentient life-forms who are remarkably advanced (socially and technologically). Do you think they would be interested in learning about humanity?  If you were in their shoes, then what would be your criteria for making first contact? What are your observations of humanity and does humanity meet your criteria?  From your perspective, is humanity ready for first contact?

We are still so very early in the potential full paths of scientific progress. We are only 400 years removed from theory of gravity, there are likely billions of years yet to go in the possible progress of science.

As a result we are still almost totally ignorant of majority of the possible manifestations of just those laws of nature we know of. Consequently observing other life on earth still constitute almost the only way we can know anything about them. Hence our curiosity to get into their presence and interact with them.

However, diverse and complex as life on a planet might be, the degree of diversity and complexity is not infinite. It seems reasonable to me that sometime in the not too distant future in our scientific progress, say within the next 1000 years or 10000 years, our mastery of the physical laws and ability to deduce how they can manifest themselves would have progressed so far that from a fairly distant observation, it would be possible to analyze and deduce almost the entire complexity of a planet's biosphere to an very high degree, far higher than we can to hands on with our own biosphere now.

When this happens, curiosity no longer need direct interaction to be satisfied.

This I think explains the Fermi paradox much better than there being no other intelligent lifeforms.

[Edwardo Piet]

See, I really think this whole notion of the "Those super smart aliens won't wanna contact us until we're more advanced" thing is a fallacy... because if it were the case that intelligent beings didn't want to study beings far below themselves then us humans wouldn't study single celled organisms.

I think the "They won't wanna contact us yet" thing is just a thing that people say. I think it doesn't really have any merit.

I think the real case is they are unable to contact us either permanently or temporarily.... or they are so significantly advanced that they can monitor us from a distance without us knowing and see it as a waste of energy to actually show up.

[I_am_not_mafia]

What does it mean to be a higher form of life? It doesn't mean that you are from a civilisation that is more technologically advanced. We are still the same species that existed 1,000 years ago. We're not a higher form of life compared to our medieval ancestors. We still have the same base instincts, drives and emotions. We're both apes walking around on two legs. Think of an alien, they'll be an animal too evolved in a similar way for a specific environmental niche.

A higher form of life is something more biologically complex with a larger hierarchy, in the same way that a multi-cellular organism is a higher form of life than a single celled organism, and a mammal is an even higher form of life. We already contain lower forms of life within us, like gut bacteria, or mitochondria DNA. Higher forms of life already exist on this planet. They're called corporations.

[chimp3]

The really big robot that stands in the background is really a sommelier. His job is to select a wine to serve when they eat us for dinner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6iF5sINVns