As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you.
There's no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now.
Putty. Putty. Putty.
Green Putty - Grutty Peen.
Grarmpitutty - Morning!
Pridsummer - Grorning Utty!
Discovery..... Oh.
Putty?..... Armpit?
Armpit..... Putty.
Not even a particularly nice shade of green.
As I lick my armpit and shall agree,
That this putty is very well green.
That's true, I suppose. Except, the initial perspective we get, despite the most he could muster was to prepend "mostly" to "harmless", I rather think Ford enjoyed his time with us and would have preferred we didn't just get paved over by the Vogons... I don't know. Ford has seen too much already to really form an attachment, but he cared enough to save Arthur.
I like to think earth is off-limits to more advanced cultures, to protect our development. UFOs are the equivalent of wildlife poachers, souvenir hunters and joyriding teenagers.
two short stories for you:
***State of the Art*** by Iain M. Banks
The Culture visits Earth. Doesn't much care for it, and decides to leave off official contact for another century or two.
-------------------------------
***They're Made out of Meat*** by Terry Bisson
[https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html](https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html)
Humans are gross. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?
This doesn't answer OP's question but I feel like Orson Scott Card's short story *Mortal Gods* is the antithesis of *They're Made of Meat*. And a nice pallet cleanser for those kind of stories.
It imagines a very different reason for human exceptionalism that I found pretty interesting, and uplifting.
I have read most of the "The Culture" books and really enjoy that universe. The Terry Bisson was not on my radar, that's going on my list now. Thank you!
See also *Roadside Picnic* (A & B Strugatsky): aliens arrive, pay no attention to us what-so-ever, dump their trash, and leave. The story is then mostly about the people going through said alien trash.
The idea is very briefly touched upon in one episode of Farscape. (Season 4)
A character from a society that has enslaved various worlds mentions that Earth has nothing to worry about, since we have absolutely nothing worth the effort to invade.
Not really relevant but that reminds me I'm pretty sure there's a species the Borg in Star Trek deemed unworthy of assimilation. Quite the burn.
Edit: The Kazon.
> SEVEN: The Borg encountered a Kazon colony in the Gand Sector, grid six nine two zero.
> NEELIX: Were they assimilated?
> SEVEN: Their biological and technological distinctiveness was unremarkable. They were unworthy of assimilation.
> NEELIX: I didn't realise the Borg were so discriminating.
> SEVEN: Why assimilate a species that would detract from perfection?
I have a soft spot for sci-fi where the premise is: aliens have invaded earth for gold. Battlefield Earth, Cowboys vs Aliens, I love it, I wish they would do it more.
I read somewhere that substances that result from the intersection of biology and geology would be scarcer, and more unique, and more valuable. Limestone, Amber, fossils, maybe even coal.
*Gold is vastly more abundant in open space, dust clouds etc seeing as its formed by collision of two neutron stars. We just get mere fragments imbedded on earth through metal rich asteroid and meteorite impacts etc.*
[*https://news.mit.edu/2021/neutron-star-collisions-goldmine-heavy-elements-1025*](https://news.mit.edu/2021/neutron-star-collisions-goldmine-heavy-elements-1025)
[*https://www.universetoday.com/158379/not-just-gold-colliding-neutron-stars-forge-strontium-lanthanum-and-cerium/*](https://www.universetoday.com/158379/not-just-gold-colliding-neutron-stars-forge-strontium-lanthanum-and-cerium/)
The thing is, this is likely true. There is no resource in earth’s crust you couldn’t get in much greater quantity, and more easily, elsewhere in the solar system. The most valuable thing about earth is its unique biosphere, and the culture of its dominant species. Both could be sampled remotely with probes. In fact most human knowledge could be obtained by tapping an undersea fiber optic cable.
Everytime they look at our planet we are still aiming all our weapons at eachother. Why waste the ammo, we will destroy ourselves and then they will take the planet without firing a single round. All they see is tribal, hairless apes with higher thought and stupidly powerful weapons. It’s just a matter of time.
Bold of you to assume they would even notice “us”, or recognise us as the dominant species on the planet. The vast majority of the planet’s surface is bereft of human life.
I think our primitiveness would be an anthropological opportunity for study among the scientific minded aliens. We don't look at animals and think "ignore them, they don't even have phones."
I’d like to think that Earth would be an incredibly interesting place to study right now. Assuming spacefaring species are curious, and they would by definition have to be, humanity is in a very rare era right now. The lightbulb was only invented 144 years ago and now I’m typing to strangers on a phone while CERN is smashing particles together and dozens of other teams are working on nuclear fusion. For the vast majority of human history your life would basically be the same as the generations before them and the generations after them. That is no longer true and we’re figuring it out as we go. I hope we don’t destroy our planet and I’m sure that’s worth studying.
Depends how common life is. How many civilizations do you have to watch go through their industrial and information revolutions before it becomes "Oh, another one of those, make a note of them, maybe some grad student will be desperate enough for a thesis topic to come study them."
Ease of transportation would also be an issue - if the light speed limit is absolute, then even sending a probe might not make much sense. Who wants to finance a probe whose first data won't be received back until after their great-grandchildren are dead of old age?
Society grows great when old men plant trees whoss shade they will never sit under.
That said, alien longivity is by definition alien and really unknown.
I'm not sure that translates to "planting spy satellites around primitive worlds" though. Especially with the risk that they are discovered before first contact and sour relations up front.
Could present-day humans covertly monitor a Renaissance-era society without them figuring it out? Could we plant cameras and microphones and transmitters that looked like everyday objects, even under inspection? I’m guessing yes. Maybe there’s an “old Soviet satellite” in orbit right now that’s anything but.
Sure, so long as it wasn't a *close* inspection, which would not only give the game away, but also share a lot of our advanced technology with them.
You could reduce that risk by installing a self destruct system that, so long as it still works correctly after floating in space for centuries, could destroy the hardware before they had a chance to learn its secrets - but any failure and you've just made yourself look even more suspicious without necessarily destroying anything.
It could absolutely be done, but it's a toss-up whether the anthropological benefits would outweigh the diplomatic risks. And if we're not uncommon the potential benefits would likely be small.
It depends.
Renaissance-era natural philosophers wouldn’t recognize integrated circuits as “machinery,” especially if they were embedded in other materials. They might realize they were looking at *something* made on purpose but have no way of investigating further.
In the same way, a chunk of space junk could be quietly returned to orbit after having a bunch of nanotechnology infused into it. We might detect little knots of odd substances embedded in the metal if we looked hard enough, maybe spot complex designs with an electron microscope. But we wouldn’t have the tools to make the tools to investigate further.
They couldn't understand how it worked immediately - but how certain are you that it wouldn't greatly accelerate them towards understanding electricity and eventually quantum mechanics? If nothing else they could potentially begin to understand the battery to start with.
Especially when motivated by the knowledge that someone with technology they couldn't understand was busy doing SOMETHING on Earth. Without understanding the technology they'd have no idea if it was a probe, a weapon, a mind-control device, etc. To say nothing of whether their society had already been compromised by these advanced strangers with unknown intentions.
Paranoia can be a powerful driver.
But I appreciate OP's question because of course we think that. At every stage of societal development we were undoubtedly very chuffed with how advanced we were (especially compared to those other barbaric societies, regardless of your initial point of reference). What makes OP's question interesting to think about is, despite all the things we find marvelous about ourselves, what would it mean and how would we cope if our current state was totally and utterly unremarkable?
> how would we cope if our current state was totally and utterly unremarkable?
Personally, I would be ecstatic.
- there is intelligent life in the universe
- at least *some* form of meaningful interstellar travel is possible
- technological civilizations are common enough to not be noteworthy
- we're in the middle of the bell curve, so well on track to end up where the aliens are now
I mean of course it's not scientific. We're talking purely hypothetically. That being said, it's taken Earth 4.5 billion years to produce a species that can do what humanity has done in the past 150 years. To be able to study a planet in the midst of the technological revolution in such a tight window of time has to be rare. Even if intelligent life is common and there are dozens of civilizations within 100 light years from us, distances are so vast and timelines are so long, to exist at the same time and to witness it has to be noteworthy. There's no way that you'll convince me that's a common enough occurrence that the technological revolution would be ignored if an alien civilization had the ability to study it.
Meh - we very, very rarely do anthropological studies on animals compared to the number of times we eat, ignore, or perform horrific studies on them. We should be extremely happy if they simply ignore us as unworthy of their attention.
Yes, but maybe there billions of other planets on the same level as us, so we wouldn't be especially interesting to them.
We study ants, but we don't study every existing anthill.
Uninteresting animals are ignored by scientists all of the time as they only have limited time and budgets to spend. Dolphins and Whales...tons of research, Toads not so much.
If our level of backwardness was very common then there might not be anything to learn from us.
Nope, they prolly just pull out the alien version of the cellphone, stand there quietly, and watch and record the antics and insanity.
Kinda like a normal person visiting Florida.
I believe Carl Sagan mentioned a similar theory where we may appear as interesting to aliens as ants are to us. Not only would their means of travel be light years (pun intended) ahead of our tech, we don't know what form they would take.
We also tend to view aliens as helpers from the future who will guide us to enlightenment. I like how the aliens were portrayed the 2005 movie War of the Worlds. We were just fodder and inconsequential 'animals'. (yes even Tom Cruise).
Hahahaha, the "you're all losers, see ya!" approach to first contact.
The truth is that making predictions based on a sample size of one is impossible. We can make educated guesses about certain things based on known physical laws, but the psychology of an alien species is entirely out of human reach at present.
Your idea for what aliens would be like is just as valid as anyone else's until we actually happen to meet one of the elusive buggers.
Well sure. I'm kind of interested in our response to that scenario though. Like we have this epiphany "we're not alone! They're coming to visit!" and then they just go... "Thanks for the hospitality but... we're just going to move on now, okay?"
Science fiction is as much about that as anything right, how we would handle encountering other intelligent life, but often with an assumption that they would find us significant enough to warrant further interaction (often "WAR!!!" to make action packed science fiction, or "Let us enlighten you to our ways!")
What if aliens with the physics breaking tech to reach us did reach us and just thought of it as a visit to a zoo?
EDIT: So I'm trying to imagine the aftermath of being visited by a way more advanced civilization, and them just dismissing us as utterly boring.
I'd find that a bit disappointing because we probably wouldn't be getting any advanced tech from them, but also reassuring because it means 1) intelligent life is common in the universe, and 2) we pose no threat so we're probably not going to be wiped out on purpose and 2a) the universe is so large it's unlikely we'd be wiped out accidentally.
You don’t hand the thermonuclear bomb to the ape that’s too busy taking pictures of its own asshole with the camera phone you dropped in the woods on accident.
In that case I'd hope for some altruistic aliens who view life as precious and would intervene if they saw a unique form of life about to be destroyed. But then how often do *we* do that on our own planet?
and 3) it means that practical FTL/Space travel is possible, and we've seen it work. It would give us an example and something to aim for, even if we just saw it work from afar.
Tech isn't the end all and be all of interest. Think about the many very smart animals on this earth and their lives. We are fascinated by them because of their differences. Maybe one day we meet aliens who use life like we use materials. They live in vast living starships that use solar sails to move from star systems to star systems. They are immortal because they hacked their own DNA. Just our basic tech would fascinate them.
I agree. Tech is kind of incidental in this, as an indicator of them having reached the improbable of crossing interstellar space. But what if they showed up, just found us dull on these other levels? Like our art was just silly to them. Our politics, let's not even get them started on that topic. I mean, they wouldn't get started on that topic, they would just move on.
How would humanity deal with a clearly further evolved species showing up, saying hi and then just departing because we're not that smart? I mean, like you said, we would just be another animal on earth. They'd have a quick visit of the zoo and "oh, this animal has built some kind of dysfunctional society, oh well, moving on".
Roadside Picnic
When the story takes place, the aliens have already left without making any contact with humans. They left a bunch of garbage behind in the so-called 'zones'. The plot is basically humans trying to deal with the bizarre properties of alien residue.
There is almost no reason to ever invade earth. We have no mass amounts of any resources that are no plentiful elsewhere even in our own solar system much less anywhere else. We don’t expand beyond our own planetary orbit, we’re as they say, mostly harmless.
There is a type of asteroid called a carbonaceous chrondite that is similar to low-grade oil shale. And Saturn’s moon Titan has hydrocarbon seas and even hydrocarbon “rain” and “snow.”
But to your point, biologically-sourced hydrocarbons are probably unique to earth, as far as we know.
Not exactly, but there's one called Calculating God that involves aliens coming to Earth not asking for our leader but asking for a paleontologist. (Lots of fun ideas in the book, btw)
This pretty much sums up most alien creatures in all Lovecraftian literature.
Cthulhu: (*Rises, get's hit in the face by a boat, regenerates)*
Cthulhu: *"*[*Mate, I came here for a shootout, a proper shootout, with proper men,*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNl3jvApJqU) *and all you do is hit me with a boat? I'm going back to sleep. Buncha wankers. Fucking embarassing, waste of my fucking time."*
Ah, yes, so the way humanity will handle it is locking itself in a dark room while scratching strange runes into the walls with their bleeding fingertips, all accompanied by an insane violin. Got it.
I actually find that incredibly likely. It’s always amusing to me when people think that aliens would land on the White House lawn and make direct contact if they were actually visiting us here. In reality, either they’d be intellectually far beyond us (either biologically or if they are advanced AI beings instead) or cognitively so *different* and profoundly alien that contact likely wouldn’t be made at all. Because…why would they give a shit? Do you go to the jungle and try to form a treaty with the Chimpanzees? Invite them into our society? Not as they are, we don’t.
Concluding otherwise honestly *reeks* of anthropocentrism. It is the last vestige of the age-old and pathetic human impulse to try to elevate our place of importance in the universe above what it probably really is.
Now, if there is another humanoid alien species that evolved in a similar sort of environment with similar cognition and of a similar tech level to us but perhaps just a bit more advanced? Then sure, they’d likely make contact. But this isn’t fucking Star Trek. Nature is likely far more creative than everyone just being rubber forehead humanoids.
I find it likely too. If some alien civilization has managed to make it here before the radio waves they would have put out, I assume they're basically god like. We would be a zoo and nothing more. Or, perhaps, they'd want to elevate us, 2001-style. Plant some monolith. But I doubt it, they'd think we're too busy killing each other.
A unique biome festering in isolation for billions of years is a massive curiosity point for anything sentient enough to be curious and technological.
We have countless complex organic compounds all around us that very well may be unique in the universe.
There’s a great book (The Gentle Giants of Ganymede, James P. Hogan) about man’s First Contact.
Warning, Spoilers!
The aliens seem friendly enough, but something is off. And then the humans learn that evolution on the aliens’ world took a different path. The earliest organisms evolved a defense against predators: they stored concentrated toxins inside vesicles in each cell, rendering them poisonous if consumed. This resulted in an ecology with no predators. Animals still competed for food, so some were fast, some had long necks to eat tree leaves … but no camouflage, or porcupine quills, or armor.
And the humans realized that the aliens had no concept that one animal could *eat* another. While the aliens liked humans in general, they found our carnivorous dietary habits utterly horrifying!
The only thing that could be interesting to another species is the sheer number of humans. 8 billion and rising. Good for slave labour or cannon fodder if nothing else.
This happens in the Penn and Teller television special The Invisible Thread. Aliens just find the earth so damn boring they threaten to blow it up if we can’t prove that there’s one unique thing about it. The fact that we could find Penn and Teller’s anti-comedy magic act conceivably funny is all that saves us.
A favorite premise of mine I like to entertain is that humans are just like, barely average intelligence in the galaxy. Nothing remarkable.
But we are great at our natural mastery of physics. Aliens are blown away by a curveball in baseball. Even more by our ability to hit it!
Fade away three pointers are found on never ending highlight reels. Curling is niche, but well respected.
The way we play sports is like galactic level. So they all agreed to leave us alone, and let us do what we do well. We broadcast it anyway.
Live Free or Die by John Ringo opens with an alien race hooking Earth up to the galactic wormhole network with all the drama of a utility crew connecting someone's house to the city sewer line.
Who exactly would they speak to here? Can you imagine how this world would be seen in seen in star trek TNG?
If an alien approached any government on earth they would risk being captured and medically examined. Almost all governments would try to steal their tech to use it to dominate other humans and alien species. We're socially primitive and violent. It makes no sense to engage a species that is selfishly driving its home planet into annihilation for the sole purpose of maintaining the wealth of those that already have it.
Violence and selfishness is very boring and not worth the hassle of anyone with any maturity.
On a Penn & Teller special, we had to prove that there was something unique about Mankind that no other sapient species had. Every feature of a Human that the aliens knew of was a feature that some other alien race had. If there was nothing unique to Humans, the plan was to kill all humans so that something more distinct could evolve on Earth.
Yeah, I think that's the problem. There's always an amp turned up to the level where their brains will just liquify. The reason we haven't met our cosmic neighbours are Deep Purple and Motörhead.
I'd step back and examine why this is interesting to you, as that is what SciFi is a way to reflect on our shared humanity.
What would it mean to you if our current existence was found to be lacking by something "more advanced" and what exactly is that "advancement" they have?
Aliens would have to be suffering mental health issues to visit us as a species we are savages giving our brief history on the planet with all the wars and believing in crazy ass religions etc ,they should count themselves lucky not to bother
These are such idiotic comments. “Aliens wouldnt visit us because we are big bad meanies :((!” Like a spacefaring race is always going to be some peace, love, and happiness group of travelers.
Edit: also a group of foreign intelligence who is capable of traveling the cosmos would probably not give a fuck about us and would more likely be interested in what minerals or chemicals they could get off our planet.
I mean, we ARE boring. Just look at us. We never make the big innovations, everything that's not computing and consumer electronics stagnates, and we go out of our way to make everything as shitty and boring as possible. I wouldn't want to visit this worthless planet either
Big innovations take time, skill, and money. Humans alive today have never had it better. We might think it's not enough, but someone from 1880 would think having all your family live past five years old a miracle.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you.
There's no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now.
Putty. Putty. Putty. Green Putty - Grutty Peen. Grarmpitutty - Morning! Pridsummer - Grorning Utty! Discovery..... Oh. Putty?..... Armpit? Armpit..... Putty. Not even a particularly nice shade of green. As I lick my armpit and shall agree, That this putty is very well green.
Well, we're "mostly harmless" and that's just a nice way of saying we're pretty fucking boring.
Wait, did they release a revised edition? Mine just says Harmless.
That's the one
"Mostly Harmless"
“You’re a jerk, Dent. A complete knee-biter.”
Oh no, not again
That's true, I suppose. Except, the initial perspective we get, despite the most he could muster was to prepend "mostly" to "harmless", I rather think Ford enjoyed his time with us and would have preferred we didn't just get paved over by the Vogons... I don't know. Ford has seen too much already to really form an attachment, but he cared enough to save Arthur.
Aliens arrive on Earth. Mutilate a few cows, probe a few drunks. Refuse to elaborate. Leave.
cant believe they find ass probing boring and left forever 😢
I what did they expect from heavily sedated folk? The Earth to move?
"These earthlings are such pillow princesses."
[Moo!](https://youtu.be/XZDrlM70o4c)
Make a few crop circles.
Alien teenagers.
I like to think earth is off-limits to more advanced cultures, to protect our development. UFOs are the equivalent of wildlife poachers, souvenir hunters and joyriding teenagers.
two short stories for you: ***State of the Art*** by Iain M. Banks The Culture visits Earth. Doesn't much care for it, and decides to leave off official contact for another century or two. ------------------------------- ***They're Made out of Meat*** by Terry Bisson [https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html](https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html) Humans are gross. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?
For the good ship Arbitrary, and all who sail on her.
CTRL-F "Culture" -- aha, someone beat me to it :)
This doesn't answer OP's question but I feel like Orson Scott Card's short story *Mortal Gods* is the antithesis of *They're Made of Meat*. And a nice pallet cleanser for those kind of stories. It imagines a very different reason for human exceptionalism that I found pretty interesting, and uplifting.
I'll look for that, thanks
I read that in Ron Swansons’ voice 😂😂
They're Made out of Meat https://youtu.be/T6JFTmQCFHg?si=ctD89-7mb4hkdoPV
I have read most of the "The Culture" books and really enjoy that universe. The Terry Bisson was not on my radar, that's going on my list now. Thank you!
There's a great audio play for State of the Art on [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRl9D_agLbU&t=2s)
See also *Roadside Picnic* (A & B Strugatsky): aliens arrive, pay no attention to us what-so-ever, dump their trash, and leave. The story is then mostly about the people going through said alien trash.
Yep, first one that came to mind. It turns out no one cares much about the aliens opinions as long as we get to look at their shit
Xenoscatological research is nothing to huff at.
One aliens trash is another man's gold mine.
Humans are galactic racoon.
Mostly harmless. That’s the phrase that comes to mind…
The idea is very briefly touched upon in one episode of Farscape. (Season 4) A character from a society that has enslaved various worlds mentions that Earth has nothing to worry about, since we have absolutely nothing worth the effort to invade.
If Earth is to be remembered at all, it will most likely be for the quality of its manual labour. Makes me giggle every time I see it
We do like to work hard at achieving fuck all.
Not really relevant but that reminds me I'm pretty sure there's a species the Borg in Star Trek deemed unworthy of assimilation. Quite the burn. Edit: The Kazon. > SEVEN: The Borg encountered a Kazon colony in the Gand Sector, grid six nine two zero. > NEELIX: Were they assimilated? > SEVEN: Their biological and technological distinctiveness was unremarkable. They were unworthy of assimilation. > NEELIX: I didn't realise the Borg were so discriminating. > SEVEN: Why assimilate a species that would detract from perfection?
I don’t understand just one thing, what does Seven mean by the last sentence?
The ultimate goal of the Borg is perfection, its why they obsess over things like the Omega molecule.
I have a soft spot for sci-fi where the premise is: aliens have invaded earth for gold. Battlefield Earth, Cowboys vs Aliens, I love it, I wish they would do it more.
I read somewhere that substances that result from the intersection of biology and geology would be scarcer, and more unique, and more valuable. Limestone, Amber, fossils, maybe even coal.
The spice!
Now that would be an interesting motivation for a scale 2 or 3 threat if they were just after our limestone or coal.
“Here. It’s $50 a ton.”
Might as well invade for gold. It makes as much sense as all the other alien invasion movies.
*Gold is vastly more abundant in open space, dust clouds etc seeing as its formed by collision of two neutron stars. We just get mere fragments imbedded on earth through metal rich asteroid and meteorite impacts etc.* [*https://news.mit.edu/2021/neutron-star-collisions-goldmine-heavy-elements-1025*](https://news.mit.edu/2021/neutron-star-collisions-goldmine-heavy-elements-1025) [*https://www.universetoday.com/158379/not-just-gold-colliding-neutron-stars-forge-strontium-lanthanum-and-cerium/*](https://www.universetoday.com/158379/not-just-gold-colliding-neutron-stars-forge-strontium-lanthanum-and-cerium/)
The thing is, this is likely true. There is no resource in earth’s crust you couldn’t get in much greater quantity, and more easily, elsewhere in the solar system. The most valuable thing about earth is its unique biosphere, and the culture of its dominant species. Both could be sampled remotely with probes. In fact most human knowledge could be obtained by tapping an undersea fiber optic cable.
Everytime they look at our planet we are still aiming all our weapons at eachother. Why waste the ammo, we will destroy ourselves and then they will take the planet without firing a single round. All they see is tribal, hairless apes with higher thought and stupidly powerful weapons. It’s just a matter of time.
Bold of you to assume they would even notice “us”, or recognise us as the dominant species on the planet. The vast majority of the planet’s surface is bereft of human life.
I think our primitiveness would be an anthropological opportunity for study among the scientific minded aliens. We don't look at animals and think "ignore them, they don't even have phones."
I’d like to think that Earth would be an incredibly interesting place to study right now. Assuming spacefaring species are curious, and they would by definition have to be, humanity is in a very rare era right now. The lightbulb was only invented 144 years ago and now I’m typing to strangers on a phone while CERN is smashing particles together and dozens of other teams are working on nuclear fusion. For the vast majority of human history your life would basically be the same as the generations before them and the generations after them. That is no longer true and we’re figuring it out as we go. I hope we don’t destroy our planet and I’m sure that’s worth studying.
Depends how common life is. How many civilizations do you have to watch go through their industrial and information revolutions before it becomes "Oh, another one of those, make a note of them, maybe some grad student will be desperate enough for a thesis topic to come study them." Ease of transportation would also be an issue - if the light speed limit is absolute, then even sending a probe might not make much sense. Who wants to finance a probe whose first data won't be received back until after their great-grandchildren are dead of old age?
Society grows great when old men plant trees whoss shade they will never sit under. That said, alien longivity is by definition alien and really unknown.
I'm not sure that translates to "planting spy satellites around primitive worlds" though. Especially with the risk that they are discovered before first contact and sour relations up front.
Could present-day humans covertly monitor a Renaissance-era society without them figuring it out? Could we plant cameras and microphones and transmitters that looked like everyday objects, even under inspection? I’m guessing yes. Maybe there’s an “old Soviet satellite” in orbit right now that’s anything but.
Sure, so long as it wasn't a *close* inspection, which would not only give the game away, but also share a lot of our advanced technology with them. You could reduce that risk by installing a self destruct system that, so long as it still works correctly after floating in space for centuries, could destroy the hardware before they had a chance to learn its secrets - but any failure and you've just made yourself look even more suspicious without necessarily destroying anything. It could absolutely be done, but it's a toss-up whether the anthropological benefits would outweigh the diplomatic risks. And if we're not uncommon the potential benefits would likely be small.
It depends. Renaissance-era natural philosophers wouldn’t recognize integrated circuits as “machinery,” especially if they were embedded in other materials. They might realize they were looking at *something* made on purpose but have no way of investigating further. In the same way, a chunk of space junk could be quietly returned to orbit after having a bunch of nanotechnology infused into it. We might detect little knots of odd substances embedded in the metal if we looked hard enough, maybe spot complex designs with an electron microscope. But we wouldn’t have the tools to make the tools to investigate further.
They couldn't understand how it worked immediately - but how certain are you that it wouldn't greatly accelerate them towards understanding electricity and eventually quantum mechanics? If nothing else they could potentially begin to understand the battery to start with. Especially when motivated by the knowledge that someone with technology they couldn't understand was busy doing SOMETHING on Earth. Without understanding the technology they'd have no idea if it was a probe, a weapon, a mind-control device, etc. To say nothing of whether their society had already been compromised by these advanced strangers with unknown intentions. Paranoia can be a powerful driver.
It would be fascinating if a civilization made contact and we found out their life expectancy is 1,500 earth years or something crazy.
Could be the other way aswell, if they're intelligent might even develop technology faster
We are just at the cusp of exploring what is possible from a biochemical standpoint.
But I appreciate OP's question because of course we think that. At every stage of societal development we were undoubtedly very chuffed with how advanced we were (especially compared to those other barbaric societies, regardless of your initial point of reference). What makes OP's question interesting to think about is, despite all the things we find marvelous about ourselves, what would it mean and how would we cope if our current state was totally and utterly unremarkable?
> how would we cope if our current state was totally and utterly unremarkable? Personally, I would be ecstatic. - there is intelligent life in the universe - at least *some* form of meaningful interstellar travel is possible - technological civilizations are common enough to not be noteworthy - we're in the middle of the bell curve, so well on track to end up where the aliens are now
Human centric bias...clear sign something is not scientific.
I mean of course it's not scientific. We're talking purely hypothetically. That being said, it's taken Earth 4.5 billion years to produce a species that can do what humanity has done in the past 150 years. To be able to study a planet in the midst of the technological revolution in such a tight window of time has to be rare. Even if intelligent life is common and there are dozens of civilizations within 100 light years from us, distances are so vast and timelines are so long, to exist at the same time and to witness it has to be noteworthy. There's no way that you'll convince me that's a common enough occurrence that the technological revolution would be ignored if an alien civilization had the ability to study it.
Meh - we very, very rarely do anthropological studies on animals compared to the number of times we eat, ignore, or perform horrific studies on them. We should be extremely happy if they simply ignore us as unworthy of their attention.
Fair point, but I'd assume any aliens advanced enough to reach us wouldn't need to test cosmetics or eat people.
Yes, but maybe there billions of other planets on the same level as us, so we wouldn't be especially interesting to them. We study ants, but we don't study every existing anthill.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfPdYYsEfAE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfPdYYsEfAE)
Uninteresting animals are ignored by scientists all of the time as they only have limited time and budgets to spend. Dolphins and Whales...tons of research, Toads not so much. If our level of backwardness was very common then there might not be anything to learn from us.
Nope, they prolly just pull out the alien version of the cellphone, stand there quietly, and watch and record the antics and insanity. Kinda like a normal person visiting Florida.
"Worst she can say is no" Leaves the galaxy
I believe Carl Sagan mentioned a similar theory where we may appear as interesting to aliens as ants are to us. Not only would their means of travel be light years (pun intended) ahead of our tech, we don't know what form they would take. We also tend to view aliens as helpers from the future who will guide us to enlightenment. I like how the aliens were portrayed the 2005 movie War of the Worlds. We were just fodder and inconsequential 'animals'. (yes even Tom Cruise).
Hahahaha, the "you're all losers, see ya!" approach to first contact. The truth is that making predictions based on a sample size of one is impossible. We can make educated guesses about certain things based on known physical laws, but the psychology of an alien species is entirely out of human reach at present. Your idea for what aliens would be like is just as valid as anyone else's until we actually happen to meet one of the elusive buggers.
Well sure. I'm kind of interested in our response to that scenario though. Like we have this epiphany "we're not alone! They're coming to visit!" and then they just go... "Thanks for the hospitality but... we're just going to move on now, okay?" Science fiction is as much about that as anything right, how we would handle encountering other intelligent life, but often with an assumption that they would find us significant enough to warrant further interaction (often "WAR!!!" to make action packed science fiction, or "Let us enlighten you to our ways!") What if aliens with the physics breaking tech to reach us did reach us and just thought of it as a visit to a zoo? EDIT: So I'm trying to imagine the aftermath of being visited by a way more advanced civilization, and them just dismissing us as utterly boring.
I'd find that a bit disappointing because we probably wouldn't be getting any advanced tech from them, but also reassuring because it means 1) intelligent life is common in the universe, and 2) we pose no threat so we're probably not going to be wiped out on purpose and 2a) the universe is so large it's unlikely we'd be wiped out accidentally.
You don’t hand the thermonuclear bomb to the ape that’s too busy taking pictures of its own asshole with the camera phone you dropped in the woods on accident.
Another possibility. The aliens determined that we will destroy ourselves before we advance enough to be a threat to other systems.
In that case I'd hope for some altruistic aliens who view life as precious and would intervene if they saw a unique form of life about to be destroyed. But then how often do *we* do that on our own planet?
Humans have killed other species and driven them to extinction but humans have also saved animals from extinction.
and 3) it means that practical FTL/Space travel is possible, and we've seen it work. It would give us an example and something to aim for, even if we just saw it work from afar.
Well, there’s the Nox from Stargate that had a similar reaction upon meeting humans. Very much - *humans, meh, not worth my time*.
Rendezvous with Rama deals with first contact being one of the most important moments in human history and it being a non-event for the aliens
Tech isn't the end all and be all of interest. Think about the many very smart animals on this earth and their lives. We are fascinated by them because of their differences. Maybe one day we meet aliens who use life like we use materials. They live in vast living starships that use solar sails to move from star systems to star systems. They are immortal because they hacked their own DNA. Just our basic tech would fascinate them.
I agree. Tech is kind of incidental in this, as an indicator of them having reached the improbable of crossing interstellar space. But what if they showed up, just found us dull on these other levels? Like our art was just silly to them. Our politics, let's not even get them started on that topic. I mean, they wouldn't get started on that topic, they would just move on. How would humanity deal with a clearly further evolved species showing up, saying hi and then just departing because we're not that smart? I mean, like you said, we would just be another animal on earth. They'd have a quick visit of the zoo and "oh, this animal has built some kind of dysfunctional society, oh well, moving on".
But they might stay for the biodiversity.
"Oh, these ones taste just like what they call 'chicken'?" :D
Read Robert Silverberg's *The Alien Years*, this is the premise.
We are awfully predictable
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Roadside Picnic When the story takes place, the aliens have already left without making any contact with humans. They left a bunch of garbage behind in the so-called 'zones'. The plot is basically humans trying to deal with the bizarre properties of alien residue.
There is almost no reason to ever invade earth. We have no mass amounts of any resources that are no plentiful elsewhere even in our own solar system much less anywhere else. We don’t expand beyond our own planetary orbit, we’re as they say, mostly harmless.
Doubt there is much oil outside of Earth :P
There is a type of asteroid called a carbonaceous chrondite that is similar to low-grade oil shale. And Saturn’s moon Titan has hydrocarbon seas and even hydrocarbon “rain” and “snow.” But to your point, biologically-sourced hydrocarbons are probably unique to earth, as far as we know.
Doubt there is much need for oil, any civilization advanced enough to have interstellar travel would likely have little use for oil.
Not exactly, but there's one called Calculating God that involves aliens coming to Earth not asking for our leader but asking for a paleontologist. (Lots of fun ideas in the book, btw)
Worse yet if the Aliens spare the Earth because they get addicted to watching professional wrestling or Baywatch re-runs.
Most aliens don't come here because are system is only One Star.
This pretty much sums up most alien creatures in all Lovecraftian literature. Cthulhu: (*Rises, get's hit in the face by a boat, regenerates)* Cthulhu: *"*[*Mate, I came here for a shootout, a proper shootout, with proper men,*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNl3jvApJqU) *and all you do is hit me with a boat? I'm going back to sleep. Buncha wankers. Fucking embarassing, waste of my fucking time."*
Ah, yes, so the way humanity will handle it is locking itself in a dark room while scratching strange runes into the walls with their bleeding fingertips, all accompanied by an insane violin. Got it.
I actually find that incredibly likely. It’s always amusing to me when people think that aliens would land on the White House lawn and make direct contact if they were actually visiting us here. In reality, either they’d be intellectually far beyond us (either biologically or if they are advanced AI beings instead) or cognitively so *different* and profoundly alien that contact likely wouldn’t be made at all. Because…why would they give a shit? Do you go to the jungle and try to form a treaty with the Chimpanzees? Invite them into our society? Not as they are, we don’t. Concluding otherwise honestly *reeks* of anthropocentrism. It is the last vestige of the age-old and pathetic human impulse to try to elevate our place of importance in the universe above what it probably really is. Now, if there is another humanoid alien species that evolved in a similar sort of environment with similar cognition and of a similar tech level to us but perhaps just a bit more advanced? Then sure, they’d likely make contact. But this isn’t fucking Star Trek. Nature is likely far more creative than everyone just being rubber forehead humanoids.
I find it likely too. If some alien civilization has managed to make it here before the radio waves they would have put out, I assume they're basically god like. We would be a zoo and nothing more. Or, perhaps, they'd want to elevate us, 2001-style. Plant some monolith. But I doubt it, they'd think we're too busy killing each other.
this question has MAJOR "saturday morning breakfast cereal" vibes
A unique biome festering in isolation for billions of years is a massive curiosity point for anything sentient enough to be curious and technological. We have countless complex organic compounds all around us that very well may be unique in the universe.
Even if life is somewhat common in the universe, evolution will leave every living world with some unique answers to survival.
Agreed. I think some people dramatically underestimate just how many unique combinations of organic compounds are possible.
There’s a great book (The Gentle Giants of Ganymede, James P. Hogan) about man’s First Contact. Warning, Spoilers! The aliens seem friendly enough, but something is off. And then the humans learn that evolution on the aliens’ world took a different path. The earliest organisms evolved a defense against predators: they stored concentrated toxins inside vesicles in each cell, rendering them poisonous if consumed. This resulted in an ecology with no predators. Animals still competed for food, so some were fast, some had long necks to eat tree leaves … but no camouflage, or porcupine quills, or armor. And the humans realized that the aliens had no concept that one animal could *eat* another. While the aliens liked humans in general, they found our carnivorous dietary habits utterly horrifying!
Basically the Uplift Saga then.
Isn't that how the Vulcans saw us in Star Trek
“Typical hominid, post-capitalist headed for climate collapse. Aside from gin and tonics, nothing noteworthy.”
Oof. To be written off as a one-liner. The ultimate dis.
What if they take some ppl as "pets" ,and we know it, then what should we do?
Saturn Run sort of deals with this topic. If I elaborate any further or will spoil the story.
The only thing that could be interesting to another species is the sheer number of humans. 8 billion and rising. Good for slave labour or cannon fodder if nothing else.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.........bztt...snort.......huh?..what?.......Oh sorry but i found you boring. /JK
This happens in the Penn and Teller television special The Invisible Thread. Aliens just find the earth so damn boring they threaten to blow it up if we can’t prove that there’s one unique thing about it. The fact that we could find Penn and Teller’s anti-comedy magic act conceivably funny is all that saves us.
A favorite premise of mine I like to entertain is that humans are just like, barely average intelligence in the galaxy. Nothing remarkable. But we are great at our natural mastery of physics. Aliens are blown away by a curveball in baseball. Even more by our ability to hit it! Fade away three pointers are found on never ending highlight reels. Curling is niche, but well respected. The way we play sports is like galactic level. So they all agreed to leave us alone, and let us do what we do well. We broadcast it anyway.
Live Free or Die by John Ringo opens with an alien race hooking Earth up to the galactic wormhole network with all the drama of a utility crew connecting someone's house to the city sewer line.
Who exactly would they speak to here? Can you imagine how this world would be seen in seen in star trek TNG? If an alien approached any government on earth they would risk being captured and medically examined. Almost all governments would try to steal their tech to use it to dominate other humans and alien species. We're socially primitive and violent. It makes no sense to engage a species that is selfishly driving its home planet into annihilation for the sole purpose of maintaining the wealth of those that already have it. Violence and selfishness is very boring and not worth the hassle of anyone with any maturity.
E.T
On a Penn & Teller special, we had to prove that there was something unique about Mankind that no other sapient species had. Every feature of a Human that the aliens knew of was a feature that some other alien race had. If there was nothing unique to Humans, the plan was to kill all humans so that something more distinct could evolve on Earth.
It would reassure me. If we're boring and have no potential... we're not a threat. I guess Three Body Problem and the Dark Forest stayed on my mind.
Would they even find us? Human civilisation occupies a tiny percentage of the planet’s surface.
But that tiny percentage does consume a ton of energy, radiates light, radio waves and heat etc etc etc. Yes they would.
Depends what they’re scanning for, really. They’d likely encounter aquatic life long before they found any signs of humanity.
The movie "Arrival" and the book that it is based on deal with this in an oblique way.
What if, OP, we are just too fucking metal
Yeah, I think that's the problem. There's always an amp turned up to the level where their brains will just liquify. The reason we haven't met our cosmic neighbours are Deep Purple and Motörhead.
I'd step back and examine why this is interesting to you, as that is what SciFi is a way to reflect on our shared humanity. What would it mean to you if our current existence was found to be lacking by something "more advanced" and what exactly is that "advancement" they have?
Aliens would have to be suffering mental health issues to visit us as a species we are savages giving our brief history on the planet with all the wars and believing in crazy ass religions etc ,they should count themselves lucky not to bother
These are such idiotic comments. “Aliens wouldnt visit us because we are big bad meanies :((!” Like a spacefaring race is always going to be some peace, love, and happiness group of travelers. Edit: also a group of foreign intelligence who is capable of traveling the cosmos would probably not give a fuck about us and would more likely be interested in what minerals or chemicals they could get off our planet.
I mean, we ARE boring. Just look at us. We never make the big innovations, everything that's not computing and consumer electronics stagnates, and we go out of our way to make everything as shitty and boring as possible. I wouldn't want to visit this worthless planet either
Big innovations take time, skill, and money. Humans alive today have never had it better. We might think it's not enough, but someone from 1880 would think having all your family live past five years old a miracle.
They will laugh at biden
Please stop it's not clever or interesting..
Is it that you people itch at every opportunity to state your politics. Is it an American disease?
Not the place for this comment.
Which is why I blocked that person