There would be some who would stubbornly insist it was all CGI or “crisis actors” in rubber masks.
But as an added twist, they’d insist the elaborate hoax involving crisis actors was just a coverup for an even more elaborate coverup, ie, that the aliens have been here all along, or at least since Nixon was elected, and that they had to have a “fake” first contact to more overtly establish their presence now that they’re ready for phase VI of their plan.
What, you didn’t think they spent all that time since Vietnam on phase I, did you?
There is still MORE dust on the cover.
blows
**How to Cook For Forty Humans **
Are we ready without it causing major upheaval? No probably not.
My opinion is intelligent life is rare enough that the odds of 2 contemporary intelligent civilizations being close enough to effectively communicate with each other, let alone reach each other, is virtually nil.
I do not believe FTL travel is possible.
I think we have had contact in the past. And they are staying away now.
To Serve Man is a tennis manual.
Ten years ago,I might have said yes.
We have devolved significantly since then, however.
I’m nowhere near ready. I’d need to at least run the vacuum first.
Do we really need contact with a space faring foreign power.
Posit that a ship sails into the solar system and makes contact, it has goods to trade and sends a list of stuff that we might be interested in. As long as they are not taking liberty on the planet, its not like the general public needs to know. Some one always trots out that old saying that they are not gonna travel 40 light years to invade us, also makes sense that they are not going to travel 40 light years to a market that is not mature enough and their tech base is no longer tooled up to supply us, with the exception of an artisan cottage manufacturing base.
We have no beacons in the solar system that I know of that tell any foreign visitors that we own the solar system and all planets there in. The visitors can’t be stopped if they want to tank up at Jupiter, or mine one of the outer planets. While we may not be able to do anything about said activities, the legal framework should exist for seeking damages with an offworld foreign office.
Getting ready for first contact does not have to start with the linguistics department.
It probably won’t matter.
I’m not. I have softball tonight. I would ask them to wait around, but it’s a double header.
In some sci fi worlds other planets in our solar system like Mars have intelligent life and eventually go to war with Earth such as “War of the Worlds”. Thankfully we are quiet in this solar system. However it would only take some microbe found on say Mars or on the moon to wipe us all out.
In the Battlestar Galactica universe different planets of humans fought many interstellar wars.
So I dont see alien contact doing any good.
Are *they *ready for us?
No one has written seriously about technologically advanced intelligent life in the solar system for over 50 years. (Not counting retro stories trying to bring back the fun of Planet Stories.)
And War of the World was not about Martians and humans - it was about British imperialists and the people they took over.
Who, other than you, thinks that?
No. We can’t even agree on whether the world is round, if vaccines are healthy, if we should keep guns away from people displaying red flags, etc.
To paraphrase Terry Pratchett: “black and white will have to get along… and beat up on gray.”
(I recall reading a sci-fi story where this specifically did not happen… as the aliens were themselves racist! The upper caste aliens were black and the lower caste were white… so they restructured human society the same way. Although this was almost a game for them, since they planned on wiping out humanity after a plot-spoiler. In the Worldwar series the aliens were disgusted at the Nazi industrialization of murder.)
I recall a story from an anthology – pre-1990, I would imagine – wherein the aliens (or descendants from humans), returned to Earth saying, “If you’re still white, you can be cured.” I was never really sure whether this meant only white people could be saved and brown/yellow/red were would be cast aside, or something less nefarious.
Hell, no. We’re savages. If there are one or more highly advanced and peaceful alien races observing us, they must be horrified at what they are seeing, which is a race that is over populating, destroying its environment, and exploiting/subjugating/killing one another in droves.
I suppose any broadcast we radiate to the rest of the universe calling for peace, love, and understanding are drowned out by our actions speaking louder than words.
I agree. They are probably thinking that they dont want this race to get hold of warp speed or interdimensional travel technology.