Is Humanity Ready for First Contact?

[Excited Penguin]

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?

Let me start off by congratulating you on starting a great conversation topic. I've been looking forward to you starting just such a one for quite some time now. You are a very educated and highly intelligent invidual and I'm glad to have the opportunity to exchange some ideas with you on a variety of things, not least of all the one you're introducing right now.

I think, if this hypothetical alien civilisation partakes even slightly in our wonderment about the universe, our search for our place in it and for an overarching meaning to our very existence on this plane, then yes, there's a very likely chance they would welcome such an educative opportunity as soon as one might present itself for them.

My criteria for what I would do in their stead are the following:

•      I would first devise a method for reliable and joint communication. This would be a key point, and not to be overlooked under any circumstances. Given failure to accomplish this, the whole project would have to be abandoned until significant progress on this one front would be (re-)established in lieu of pursuing what would surely become a diplomatic inter-civilisational fiasco absent this one most foundational component to the whole enterprise.
  
•      Then, I would concern myself with expressing my own civilisation's best intentions going forward in the most mutually agreeable and reassuring manner possible. A symbolic gesture of goodwill in the form of sharing some initially small amounts of beneficial technology and scientific progress with the corresponding scientific counterparts of the visited world would go a long way on achieving this, and it would have to be very carefully administered so as to maximize the alleviation of fears and minimize the apprehensive and hostile attitude that one might foresee on the part of the intended recipients of said gift.
  
•      From here on out, one can only imagine what the situation might call for. Certainly, diplomatic relationships would have to be formally established and nurtured with great care and the corresponding officianza of government(s) would have to be implicated in the process in order for them to have the opportunity to build on that crucial bond together with the interstellar guests and so that every party involved, on the side of the inhabitants of the Solar System( id est, -- one assumes the unchanged future location of our civilisation for the purpose of this discussion), gets the best deal being thrown on the table, whatever that deal might imply for their future, so long as it would be a conceptually good future that would conceivably have to be weaved.
  

Humanity might or might not meet the criteria for successfully pulling this off given the chance. I like its chances nevertheless, if only you allowed me to add a couple of centuries of advancement to its current state of affairs at the very least. So, then, I believe it is relatively ready, but I would prefer it if we made definite progress on at least some of the more dire issues that lie heavy on our collective conscience as a technologically enhanced species at this very moment in history by the time we will have been able to send ships for interstellar missions of finding out and connecting with fellow civilizations hiding among the ever elusive, but nevertheless promising and awe inducing stars decorating some future astronautical explorer's sights.