Is Humanity Ready for First Contact?

[Kernel Sohcahtoa]

@ Excited Penguin

First off, I want to thank you for your thought-provoking, intelligent, and creative post.  I saw your post on Tuesday; however, I did not want to respond unless I could give you a meaningful reply.  As a result, I hope my following responses to your post will be meaningful, sir.

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 individual 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.

You're very kind and gentlemanly, Excited Penguin.  Thank you for your kind remarks.

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.

In my following responses, I will place myself in the imaginary role of a humanoid, alien observer (I realize alien life can be very complex and unfathomable; thus, I’m just picking one of many possibilities here) who is interested in meeting humanity. In addition, based on your post, I will pretend that you are a fellow colleague who wants to establish peaceful relations with the inhabitants of Earth.  I hope that you are okay with this; if not, then I have no problem formerly retracting my post.  Hence, I’m just trying to have some fun with this. 

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.

Agreed it would be vital to establish some means of reliable joint communication.  However, based on my observations, we cannot communicate with any one nation or group of nations.  IMO, our communications must be with representatives of Earth who can best represent their peoples’ unique and diverse interests.

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.

Well said, sir.  However, I think our progress with step number one, establishing reliable joint communication, would dictate how much technology or knowledge to share with humanity. Based on my research and observations of humanity, they are very cautious of visitors from other lands, especially when these visitors claim to come in peace and goodwill:  via human history, this behavior is often a prelude toward colonizing and conquering others.  In contrast to their potential suspicions and distrust, you and I genuinely want to make contact with these life-forms; however, we must accept the fact that they may solely interpret our arrival based on their experiences and sense-making processes; therefore, we can’t expect them to get outside of themselves and embrace the unknown. Thus, if we rush the process of giving them time to adapt to us, they could ultimately turn hostile, and we will fail in our quest to understand them.  More importantly, we cannot expect humanity to be swayed by our words and claims alone:  our genuine desire for peace must be exhibited through our actions and behavior; only then can our words gain more weight and meaning with them, which can ultimately aid us in gaining their trust and making them feel safe.

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.

We already know our interests and the interests of the interstellar community to which we belong. You and I are very used to putting the various negotiating issues and their accompanying underlying interests out into the open for all parties to rationally discuss and collaboratively brainstorm, so that all parties can uncover overlapping interests and reach a mutually beneficial solution. 

However, we have to keep in mind that we are outsiders to humanity.  Even when negotiating among themselves, they have a tendency to disguise their true underlying interests and concerns with substantive issues to which they may attach strong emotions.  Thus, we need to be very patient in our negotiations with them and do far more listening than talking. 

 I remember a wise negotiating principle from one of my teachers: understanding does not mean agreement.  As a result, we need to make sure that we understand humanity’s various positions and that they actually confirm that we understand them.  This may be harder than it sounds, because we will have to make sure that their non-verbal and verbal communication are both on the same page; if they are not, then we will have to slow down and listen more actively and carefully. Once we do understand them and they are engaging us rationally and safely, then we can present our interests and goals to them: interstellar peace and harmony; interstellar travel and exploration; preserving the individual uniqueness and ways of life of the occupants in space as we know it; encouraging interstellar diversity and engaging difference with goodwill and inquiry; valuing all forms of life, especially sentient lifeforms.

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.

Well said, sir.  I’d also like to say that I may have forgotten some of our interests, so please step in and modify what I have posted above.  In addition, if I have misrepresented your words and thoughts in any way, then please correct me.  IMO, it is absolutely important for us to fully understand each other in order for our mission to be a success.

Unfortunately, you may be right that humanity just might not be ready to join us: success is ultimately measured by how useful we have actually been and not by how useful we think we were.  If, in the end of our negotiating efforts, our goals are incompatible with humanity's goals, then we will ultimately have to walk away.  I hope it does not come to this, but imposing our interests of peace and friendship on humanity, could ultimately contaminate their culture and do more harm than good; thus, contradicting everything we stand for. 
 
Well, thank you for your correspondence, Excited Penguin, and I look forward to exchanging more ideas and thoughts with you about this marvelous opportunity to learn about humanity.  Yours truly, KS.