A thought on alien contact scenarios

[lady_*nix]

My biggest fear about alien contact isn't that they'll be genocidal towards us.

It's that they'll want to help us out, but get completely fucked up ideas of our nature and needs and situation. And try to implement solutions based on that which fuck us up even further.

If you've read Octavia Butler's novels you know the kind of thing I'm talking about. Also imagining
- Asexually reproducing aliens who can't wrap their brains around human gender/sexual politics
- Biologically eusocial aliens who don't understand how human leaders or ambassadors can not represent their people
- Aliens who don't experience death the same way we do (e.g. share memories the way bacteria share plasmids), and so don't understand its enormous primacy in human lives and culture

Basically I'm thinking less a "Aztec first contact with the Spanish" scenario, and more "NT adult adopting a severely autistic child and having no idea how to raise them."

[Rommie]

I confess I long ago concluded the most likely alien contact scenario is that it'll be boring. Namely, we will have some evidence of aliens (think phosphine on Venus style), it'll be debated for years, and then people will slowly accept it. Then for the contact part, well, for the most part those conversations would take generations just because of the speed of light.

People get mad at me when I argue this point though because we are culturally led to believe that discovering life will be this huge dramatic moment, because it always is in movies and stuff. In actuality, though, most science plays out this way. There was never one moment where we knew there was water on Mars- we first found a little evidence, then more compelling evidence, and years later everyone agrees there's water on Mars. But that doesn't play well with Hollywood's need for a deus ex machina, or humanity's need for someone dealing with us and how that would change us (for better or worse). It can be tough sometimes to look in the mirror and conclude that in actuality you're all you've got.

But yes, I'll agree that in large part "we don't know what to do with them" is a big reason it won't be dramatic. Just establishing a shared language and vocabulary and going beyond basic really scientific things would be so damn hard!

[SciFiFisher]

I confess I long ago concluded the most likely alien contact scenario is that it'll be boring. Namely, we will have some evidence of aliens (think phosphine on Venus style), it'll be debated for years, and then people will slowly accept it. Then for the contact part, well, for the most part those conversations would take generations just because of the speed of light.

People get mad at me when I argue this point though because we are culturally led to believe that discovering life will be this huge dramatic moment, because it always is in movies and stuff. In actuality, though, most science plays out this way. There was never one moment where we knew there was water on Mars- we first found a little evidence, then more compelling evidence, and years later everyone agrees there's water on Mars. But that doesn't play well with Hollywood's need for a deus ex machina, or humanity's need for someone dealing with us and how that would change us (for better or worse). It can be tough sometimes to look in the mirror and conclude that in actuality you're all you've got.

But yes, I'll agree that in large part "we don't know what to do with them" is a big reason it won't be dramatic. Just establishing a shared language and vocabulary and going beyond basic really scientific things would be so damn hard!

Hollywood realizes that things really do take decades and in some instances centuries. But, when you make a movie they have to speed things up a lot to keep them from being bored. I mean, who wants to take a 5 year intermission while they wait for the movie to get to the part where we decipher the alien cookbook?

[Sigma_Orionis]

I confess I long ago concluded the most likely alien contact scenario is that it'll be boring. Namely, we will have some evidence of aliens (think phosphine on Venus style), it'll be debated for years, and then people will slowly accept it. Then for the contact part, well, for the most part those conversations would take generations just because of the speed of light.

People get mad at me when I argue this point though because we are culturally led to believe that discovering life will be this huge dramatic moment, because it always is in movies and stuff. In actuality, though, most science plays out this way. There was never one moment where we knew there was water on Mars- we first found a little evidence, then more compelling evidence, and years later everyone agrees there's water on Mars. But that doesn't play well with Hollywood's need for a deus ex machina, or humanity's need for someone dealing with us and how that would change us (for better or worse). It can be tough sometimes to look in the mirror and conclude that in actuality you're all you've got.

But yes, I'll agree that in large part "we don't know what to do with them" is a big reason it won't be dramatic. Just establishing a shared language and vocabulary and going beyond basic really scientific things would be so damn hard!

Well, sure. If an alien ship appeared in earth orbit all of a sudden like in most Hollywood productions, it would be pretty dramatic. But, your scenario is much much more probable.

[Thumper]

Good post Rommie, but wait.
lady_*nix, you have multiple fears about alien first contact? I'm not trying to be a dick although I probably am, of all the other things that you and we have to fear or work through. I think I would put aliens enslaving/eating us fairly low on the list (like not even on it.)
If I missed the point of this thread and you were just posting for a fun discussion, then I apologize, carry on.