# Science Fiction Debate: Ethics and best practices of contacting other, less-developed civilizations **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 17, 2019, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573 "2019-11-17T13:44:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/21 "2019-11-18T03:07:14Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > So the consensus is becoming ‘do not contact’? > > Because we’re the ones being given the choice here. The found civilization we’re discussing is about 1800s at best. They’ve no real ability to know we’re out here looking down and checking them out. > > On the other hand, would it be different if it were say, 500s equivalent? Or 500BC? > > Think of the deaths that could be prevented through the simple application of basic sanitation, much less modern medicine or vaccinations (presuming such work in an alien eco-system…which I’m willing to postulate). > > What responsibility do we bear, as a more advanced society, for failing to prevent those deaths? What do we owe to those weaker and less scientifically advanced than ourselves? Not familiar with the novel in question, but why wouldn’t you establish embassies, trade, regular travel, etc., with the newly discovered planet? I am assuming this would be done in the normal way and not some colonialist way that causes the civilization to “implode”. All the stuff about “less advanced” and “weaker” people sounds like it was taken straight out of the colonialist playbook (which may be the setting of the novel, if the “advanced” civilization is your basic Roman Empire or Spanish Empire), but otherwise such disparities would of necessity tend to disappear over the course of a generation (unless, again, in the book it turns out modern sanitation and medicine cost plenty of space bucks which the new planet naturally doesn’t have) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/22 "2019-11-18T06:46:09Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > So the consensus is becoming ‘do not contact’? > > Because we’re the ones being given the choice here. The found civilization we’re discussing is about 1800s at best. They’ve no real ability to know we’re out here looking down and checking them out. > > On the other hand, would it be different if it were say, 500s equivalent? Or 500BC? > > Think of the deaths that could be prevented through the simple application of basic sanitation, much less modern medicine or vaccinations (presuming such work in an alien eco-system…which I’m willing to postulate). > > What responsibility do we bear, as a more advanced society, for failing to prevent those deaths? What do we owe to those weaker and less scientifically advanced than ourselves? We’re Star Fleet, and we’re here to help? What if the improvement in sanitation leads to a decrease in the death rate which leads to the population growing faster than the available food supply? Do we then teach them advanced agriculture? Genetics? What if the civilization is nasty and is about to kill themselves off? Do we save them and create a technologically advanced civilization which is still nasty? The only reasonable solution is to observe only. The Prime Directive in TOS is nonsense since contact is interference, no matter how the contact is made. What if aliens come down and say that they have proof of the lack of any gods? Some of us might find it awesome, but it would be significant interference. And no one should make such a decision without reading _The High Crusade_ first. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/23 "2019-11-18T07:39:12Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Do we have an ethical duty to assist an alien civilization into interstellar space? Do we not? If so, why or why not? We do, from a purely conservationist point of view. A single-planet species is in a very fragile basket. Helping them spread around (responsibly!) reduces the risk of a single disaster wiping them all out. Plus it gives us friends to share the universe with. > [@](#): > > It may be, given our history, that less-developed societies implode on contact with a more developed one. But that’s the history of colonialism and conquest. I’d argue any human interstellar civilisation is likely to be post-scarcity, so wouldn’t really have any cause to set off the same kind of disaster. > [@](#): > > So what are the ramifications? You’re in charge of the world council. Exploration ships have located a civilization that is not yet capable of space travel and may or may not be warlike. Do you order first contact or do you avoid it and allow the new civilization to develop as it may? I’m going to qualify my initial answer and say it depends on how advanced they are. I’d only really announce ourselves to Bronze Age or later civilisations. Warlike shouldn’t be a concern, although we do have to be careful of not enabling conquerors. But again, once we start taking some of them along on our voyages, the usual needs for war should fall away. Of course, this is SF, so there may be a “biological imperative to war” or some such pseudoscience bullshit. In which case, we just let them know that the Space Gods don’t like their warlike ways…possible through an object lesson. Nothing says “war is futile” like a glassed city or two… ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/24 "2019-11-18T07:47:08Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > It’s interesting that everyone seems to be assuming that “capable of space travel” and “more advanced” are synonymous The opposite is the premise of _The Road Not Taken_ by Harry Turtledove. Great short story. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/25 "2019-11-18T15:41:10Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > So the consensus is becoming ‘do not contact’? > > Because we’re the ones being given the choice here. The found civilization we’re discussing is about 1800s at best. They’ve no real ability to know we’re out here looking down and checking them out. > > On the other hand, would it be different if it were say, 500s equivalent? Or 500BC? > > Think of the deaths that could be prevented through the simple application of basic sanitation, much less modern medicine or vaccinations (presuming such work in an alien eco-system…which I’m willing to postulate). > > What responsibility do we bear, as a more advanced society, for failing to prevent those deaths? What do we owe to those weaker and less scientifically advanced than ourselves? How is our record of trying to fix problems in other societies without screwing them up and/or over? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/26 "2019-11-18T16:47:41Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > So the consensus is becoming ‘do not contact’? > > Because we’re the ones being given the choice here. The found civilization we’re discussing is about 1800s at best. They’ve no real ability to know we’re out here looking down and checking them out. > > On the other hand, would it be different if it were say, 500s equivalent? Or 500BC? > > Think of the deaths that could be prevented through the simple application of basic sanitation, much less modern medicine or vaccinations (presuming such work in an alien eco-system…which I’m willing to postulate). > > What responsibility do we bear, as a more advanced society, for failing to prevent those deaths? What do we owe to those weaker and less scientifically advanced than ourselves? There seems to be an awful lot of anthropomorphizing there – assumptions about aliens with human-like biology, with human-like values and ethics, and an earth-like ecosystem. But just to take an example right from this planet, what if they were more like an ant colony, where there’s no sense of identity or individual life? What do we owe a planet of ants the size of labrador retrievers who don’t care about their own individual lives? Even if it turns out that evolved intelligence all has similar human-like values, the history of colonialism, the history of modern wars, and the extreme difficulty of communication with the aliens and finding appropriate solutions to our perception of their problems all argue for leaving them alone. Maybe they’re happier just the way they are, as indeed perhaps we were in simpler times before technology overwhelmed us. There’s an interesting earth-based version of this very question right here: [North Sentinel Island and the Right to Be Left Alone](https://www.sapiens.org/culture/sentinelese/) The official position adopted by the UN – which some don’t agree with – is this: The once-common opinion that their best option is to modernize and integrate with the dominant society has lost legitimacy. Thanks to the efforts of Indigenous advocates there is now an agreement, enshrined in the 2007 U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), that they have a right to self-determination and autonomy. In the case of uncontacted peoples, this is interpreted to entail the right to be left alone. Based on this consensus, it is generally understood that governments, researchers, and other actors, no matter how well-intentioned, should respect such tribes’ apparent unwillingness to engage with the outside world and refrain from making contact. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/27 "2019-11-18T17:08:08Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > The opposite is the premise of _The Road Not Taken_ by Harry Turtledove. Great short story. Found that online; thanks. Yes, that idea from the other direction; though the cultures still seen as very similar in a lot of ways. People here are talking about things like “Bronze Age” civilizations as if intelligent species of any sort on any planet would have to follow the same course of development, through the same levels, as we happened to. What if we came across people who had, perhaps, become really really good at biology, but without ever developing metalworking technologies? If they went in for fighting, their weaponry and their defenses would be biological; and all these disease transmission concerns would have to go in the other direction, our problem, not theirs. How about people fantastic at psychology, including psychology of multiple species because they paid a lot of attention to everybody they were sharing their own planet with, but who never got all that interested in space travel? If they went in for fighting, they might be attacking our will to fight them and encouraging our tendencies to fight each other, possibly with techniques we’ve got no conception of. I can probably think of more options, if I keep trying – and we have no way to know what options an actual alien race might have thought of, over the past who knows how many years. Maybe we’d do a whole lot better to go in with the attitude of ‘what can we learn from each other, while trying to prevent doing more than minimal damage to each other’? instead of with the attitude of ‘we’re the ones who travelled here, so we must be the Advanced In All Ways Species that needs to decide whether to Protect the Poor Benighted Natives.’ ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/28 "2019-11-18T18:05:03Z")
That’s an interesting approach, and likely useful, but it’s not likely how it would go. Still, the question is really ‘do we contact’ because contact will come with interference. I don’t see a way around it. We sit there in orbit, undetected, and decide whether to land and say hello. Is that, in any way, an ethical act? Is it grey? Likely, but if so how do we establish protocols to avoid causing any deviation from their own decision-making? I don’t think that will be an easy thing. I’m not sure the Sentinelese are a decent parallel to draw as they’re clearly aware of outsiders and have made their wishes pretty clear. These other-intellects are not aware that there are options and even letting them KNOW there are others in the universe is to throw a pretty heavy punch at their society. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/29 "2019-11-18T18:14:41Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Still, the question is really ‘do we contact’ because contact will come with interference. I don’t see a way around it. We sit there in orbit, undetected, and decide whether to land and say hello. Is that, in any way, an ethical act?. Considering the whole of human history, it may be the most ethical act. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/30 "2019-11-18T18:25:16Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > … What is our ethical position vis-a-vis discovering new civilizations that have not gotten into their equivalent of low-earth orbit? Do we have an ethical duty to assist an alien civilization into interstellar space? Do we not? If so, why or why not? … I don’t think I’d use the word “duty”, and I don’t think we’re obligated to help them, but there’s something of a natural human desire to help, and I suspect that’d come into play here. Just think of all the humanitarian missions to Africa and South America here on Earth, some of them sponsored by private organizations or even individuals, doing things like setting up clean drinking water or treating cleft palates or whatnot. > [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > … So what are the ramifications? You’re in charge of the world council. Exploration ships have located a civilization that is not yet capable of space travel and may or may not be warlike. Do you order first contact or do you avoid it and allow the new civilization to develop as it may? My decision would be to contact them (with appropriate safeguards to protect the contacters and contactees) and see if they’d be interested in exploring trading relationships, partnerships, more engagement, etc. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/31 "2019-11-18T18:34:55Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > That’s an interesting approach, and likely useful, but it’s not likely how it would go. > > Still, the question is really ‘do we contact’ because contact will come with interference. I don’t see a way around it. We sit there in orbit, undetected, and decide whether to land and say hello. Is that, in any way, an ethical act? Is it grey? Likely, but if so how do we establish protocols to avoid causing any deviation from their own decision-making? I don’t think that will be an easy thing. One comment : interstellar declaration burns and ascents after landings are going to be extremely bright. Probably a visible star in the sky during deceleration, which would take several years. (Fusion pulse emits visible light as it’s like setting off a constant series of small nukes, I assume an antimatter engine would also be obviously visible) Primitive civilizations wouldn’t have star charts but some of the earlier human astronomers would have seen the arrival. This of course assumes engine technology based on known physics. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2019, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/32 "2019-11-18T20:21:31Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Found that online; thanks. Yes, that idea from the other direction; though the cultures still seen as very similar in a lot of ways. > > People here are talking about things like “Bronze Age” civilizations as if intelligent species of any sort on any planet would have to follow the same course of development, through the same levels, as we happened to. The OP used the specific word “civilization”, which excludes quite a lot of what you’re saying and implies, at the very minimum, cities. Something _like_ a Bronze Age is then a given. It doesn’t \*have \*to be bronze, it may be smelted metallic hydrogen or refined Tulgywood Root syrup or processed Jubjub testicles, the idea is the same - tools for changing the environment made from something more than just the base materials as found in nature. And I didn’t say all species \*would \*pass through that progression, I just think it’s a good filter for species we \*could \*get along with, because they would be more like us. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2019, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/33 "2019-11-19T16:31:09Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > That’s an interesting approach, and likely useful, but it’s not likely how it would go. Considering human history, I’m afraid that you’re right. But taking that approach would be a whole lot safer for us, as well as for the contacted species. > [@SamuelA](#): > > One comment : interstellar declaration burns and ascents after landings are going to be extremely bright. Probably a visible star in the sky during deceleration, which would take several years. (Fusion pulse emits visible light as it’s like setting off a constant series of small nukes, I assume an antimatter engine would also be obviously visible) > > Primitive civilizations wouldn’t have star charts but some of the earlier human astronomers would have seen the arrival. > > This of course assumes engine technology based on known physics. It also assumes that the species we were considering visiting can see what goes on in the sky at least as well as we can; which seems to me rather a large assumption. – plus which, throughout most of human existence up to maybe the most recent hundred years or so, the appearance of something that looked like a new star in the sky wouldn’t have led people to conclude ‘That must be an extraterrestrial ship!’ > [@MrDibble](#): > > The OP used the specific word “civilization”, which excludes quite a lot of what you’re saying and implies, at the very minimum, cities. Something _like_ a Bronze Age is then a given. It doesn’t \*have \*to be bronze, it may be smelted metallic hydrogen or refined Tulgywood Root syrup or processed Jubjub testicles, the idea is the same - tools for changing the environment made from something more than just the base materials as found in nature. > > And I didn’t say all species \*would \*pass through that progression, I just think it’s a good filter for species we \*could \*get along with, because they would be more like us. Yes, the word “civilization” does literally mean more or less “that thing that people do who live in cities.” I hadn’t realized that people were using it that literally; but maybe some are. In any case the point I was trying to make wasn’t ‘intelligent species won’t learn to make tools for changing their environment’. I think that intelligent species – at least those that have developed hands or equivalent appendages – will do so, yes. (What about species similar to whales? We don’t know that the brain may not become equipped even though the body isn’t – maybe the need for ability to understand the ongoing conversation can drive brain development evolution even without the capacity of making tools.) But the point I was trying to make was that “bronze age” techniques of metal working may not go along with human ideas of “bronze age” understanding of medicine, or of psychology, or of agriculture, or of areas of understanding that humans may not have gotten into enough that we’ve even hung a name on them. Other species may be way ahead of us along some lines even if they’re way behind us on others; whether or not they’re living in cities. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2019, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/34 "2019-11-19T19:29:01Z")
I’ll give the same answer my wife does when I see an especially attractive woman: “Look, but don’t touch.” Sure it would be tempting to meet them, learn to communicate with them, maybe try to guide them, but it is likely to turn disastrous in ways we cannot imagine. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/35 "2019-11-19T19:36:45Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I’ll give the same answer my wife does when I see an especially attractive woman: “Look, but don’t touch.” Sure it would be tempting to meet them, learn to communicate with them, maybe try to guide them, but it is likely to turn disastrous in ways we cannot imagine. What if we weren’t humans and we arrived during the Black Death in Europe. Suppose, despite our differing biology, we stealthily take samples, work out how to manipulate earth biology, and could secretly cure stop the disease if we wanted. Do we just watch instead? What if we could make Hitler suffer a mysterious heart attack, as well as all the other officers in high command, once they began the Holocaust but before they killed many? We just watch as well? One thing is that on Earth today we basically ignore uncontacted tribes. We don’t have the tech to watch them from up close without them knowing. But such tech is likely possible. (Smart dust basically that self destructs. Some of the dust can detect single photons or audio, you reconstruct what is happening by blanketing areas with dust and analyzing the data) ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/36 "2019-11-20T02:40:58Z")
Technically advanced cultures generally destroy their weaker encounters. Watch out when ET phones home. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/37 "2019-11-20T02:55:29Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > How is our record of trying to fix problems in other societies without screwing them up and/or over? Pretty well. People assume 'fixing other nations problems" means invading them to obtain their natural resources or to get involved in long standing wars over various forms of identity (politics, tribalism, religion, race, etc). That may not work. But paving the way for scientific and technological advances has worked pretty well. When China industrialized they didn’t have to reinvent the last 2 centuries of science and technology. They just studied the books written by people who figured it out the first time. After germ theory was discovered in the 1860s there was no need for China to reinvent it in the 1980s. So dropping off a library full of medical and scientific information in a society that is less advanced would have massive impacts on that society, mostly beneficial. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/38 "2019-11-20T06:45:56Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > What if we weren’t humans and we arrived during the Black Death in Europe. Suppose, despite our differing biology, we stealthily take samples, work out how to manipulate earth biology, and could secretly cure stop the disease if we wanted. The Black Death, by killing so much of the nobility, led to the rise of something like the middle class and the end of feudalism in Europe. Do you want them to keep those things going? > [@](#): > > Do we just watch instead? What if we could make Hitler suffer a mysterious heart attack, as well as all the other officers in high command, once they began the Holocaust but before they killed many? We just watch as well? While this seems clearer, the bomb would have been developed whether or not WW II happened - though possibly later. With the evidence from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we knew what an atomic war would look like, a lot more than if we just blew up unoccupied towns in Nevada. Maybe without this there would have been an atomic war. The aliens wouldn’t know for sure, but why would they want the responsibility - even if they had the full knowledge of what was happening on Earth, which is unlikely. > [@](#): > > One thing is that on Earth today we basically ignore uncontacted tribes. We don’t have the tech to watch them from up close without them knowing. But such tech is likely possible. (Smart dust basically that self destructs. Some of the dust can detect single photons or audio, you reconstruct what is happening by blanketing areas with dust and analyzing the data) Since when do we do that? I think there are very few truly uncontacted tribes left, and that would have to include no contact from neighboring but contacted tribes. I was on a cruise ship which got stuck in the middle of the Orinoco river, far from anywhere. The locals came out to meet us - with Nike T-shirts and outboard motors.“Civilization” spreads. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/39 "2019-11-20T08:34:53Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > But the point I was trying to make was that “bronze age” techniques of metal working may not go along with human ideas of “bronze age” understanding of medicine, or of psychology, or of agriculture, or of areas of understanding that humans may not have gotten into enough that we’ve even hung a name on them. Same was true even here - a civilization could be Bronze Age and yet not have the wheel, or Iron Age and not have the concept of zero. That wasn’t my point. My point was that there’s a level of sophistication in a civilization at which I think they’d be culturally sophisticated enough for contact to be mutually beneficial. “Bronze Age” is just a label for that, and doesn’t dictate any more specific attributes other than “civilized, environment-shapers” > [@](#): > > Other species may be way ahead of us along some lines even if they’re way behind us on others; whether or not they’re living in cities. Sure. All the more reason to make them our friends/emotionless allies\* and take them with us into the Universe. - Yes, I’ve read Cherryh’s _atevi_ books. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2019, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573/40 "2019-11-20T11:35:43Z")
Would ‘Bronze Age’ be enough, though. Seems to me there’d be a ‘before and after’ level of development that would work for. Early enough - essentially hunter-gatherer - contact with a technologically advanced spacefaring species would be fairly straightforward. The early culture would just adopt that of the more developed culture and move forward, essentially being subsumed into the larger world in a gulp. On the flip side, though, a more developed culture with technology but no real spaceflight, might be able to handle and adapt to the news that another, more tech-advanced culture is out there and begin learning as fast as they can while maintaining their own unique culture. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-debate-ethics-and-best-practices-of-contacting-other-less-developed-civilizations/843573.md?page=3)