Is Humanity Ready for First Contact?

[Anomalocaris]

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.

In my opinion any technological civilization much more advanced than ours would certainly have carried out extensive genetic and cybernetic modifications to its individuals to allow something like a borg like thought and data interchange, as well as to tailor or enhance health and other desirable attributes.  Such life would be much more complex than the pure biological organisms from which they were made.

They would therefore be a higher life form.

I suspect very advanced civilizations would consist of just a few super individuals, each consisting of a vast interconnected network semi-biological amd cybernetic nodes.  Each biological nodes might be a highly edited and modified versions of an individual from the original biological species that gave rise to this advanced civilization. These now form something similar to cells in the super organism.

[Kernel Sohcahtoa]

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

Its amazing.  If you watch the video Chimp posted, then you might be convinced that Klaatu's intentions are negative. 

However, if you watch the 1st video, you'd see a different scenario. 

Klaatu's arrival

[Cyberman]

Ah, The Day The Earth Stood Still.

AKA The Day The Electricity Went Off For Half An Hour, according to director Robert Wise.

[Aoi Magi]

[ohreally]

30% of people already think there are aliens here on earth living amongst us and influencing our lives so if we found out IRL we came in contact with another life form I think it would be no different than now. It's not like everything is peachy now, billions of people have mediocre to shitty lives.

[Aoi Magi]

We are frequently discovering new species almost every few days, if we do encounter aliens, I doubt it'd be much different!

[Bunburryist]

Here is a true to life first contact, and it's amazing.  How we can project this into our frame of reference, I can't imagine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd0I1xAICOc

[Arkilogue]

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.

When was the last time we discussed morals with amoeba or the dangers of commercialism with cows?
We don't. we just use them for our benefit. Pray whatever advanced specie that shows up is kinder to us than we are to lower life forms...and even each other. They could just as easily enslave and decimate us just to teach a harsh lesson about cruelty and karma.

[EruptedCarcassBloat]

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?

No, humanity is not ready for contact with aliens. We're too tribalistic and we would probably just start a war with them for no reason and get annihilated. I actually pray to aliens every day that they will save me from this planet to be honest. I like to imagine there's some alien mother brain out there that is so advanced it senses my thoughts through the universe. It's like my own alternative to god that I imagine for myself.

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

In my opinion any technological civilization much more advanced than ours would certainly have carried out extensive genetic and cybernetic modifications to its individuals to allow something like a borg like thought and data interchange, as well as to tailor or enhance health and other desirable attributes.  Such life would be much more complex than the pure biological organisms from which they were made.

They would therefore be a higher life form.

I suspect very advanced civilizations would consist of just a few super individuals, each consisting of a vast interconnected network semi-biological amd cybernetic nodes.  Each biological nodes might be a highly edited and modified versions of an individual from the original biological species that gave rise to this advanced civilization.  These now form something similar to cells in the super organism.

Gotta ask...why would you thnk that?  Nothing you've just described is actually -beyond- vanilla biological systems.  There's no need or reason to engineer yourself as such, in and of itself....and ofc you could simply, biologically, be as such.

How do we apply the "higher" title? Just sounds different, but not as much as some think...to me.