If aliens call, what should we do? Scientists want your opinion.

[Brother Mythos]

What To Do in the Event of an Alien Call?

As per the article:

“In the age of fake news, researchers worry conspiracy theories would abound before we could figure out how — or if — to reply to an alien message.

The answer to this question could affect all of our lives more than nearly any other policy decision out there: How, if it all, should humanity respond if we get a message from an alien civilization?

And yet politicians and scientists have never bothered to get our input on it.
 
At long last, that’s changing. A group of researchers in the UK this week released the first major survey on the question. The responses could help inform an international protocol for responding to first contact.”
 
Here's the link: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/7/6/20680228/aliens-survey-seti-meti-scientists-extraterrestrial-message

I'm all for hiding behind the curtains, not answering the door, and waiting for them to go away.

Please Note:

Alien contact was discussed, earlier this year, in “The aliens haven't contacted us because” thread, as per this link: https://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,38575.0.html. I started a new thread because now we're getting Officially Sciencey about it.

[Cain]

Ghost them.

[TastyCle]

If they know where we live we gotta move.

[chaotic neutral observer]

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Alternative #1
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I encounter a colony of ants.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the ants become aware of my presence, agree on a course of action, decide on a first message, and present it in a form that I notice, recognize as an attempt at communication, and can actually understand.

I'm not going to take whatever the ants have to say seriously.  I'm just going to keep mowing.

Conversely, the notion that I would attempt to communicate with the ants is just silly.  They're just ants.

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Alternative #2
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Person A:  What if something BIG happened?  What would you do?
Person B:  Exactly what kind of thing are we talking about?
A:  I dunno.  This is all hypothetical.
B:  I'd find a scapegoat.  You can never go wrong with having a scapegoat.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Answer.

It's not like they're actually going to come here, what with the vastness of space. If somehow they have managed getting around the speed of light using physics we don't understand yet, they don't have any idea with how they will be able to tolerate Earth's millions of microbial species, since their immune systems didn't evolve to keep Earth microbes in check.

The ants analogy is somewhat of an inept one, I think. Aliens aren't necessarily going to be more advanced than us, especially if they can't manage interstellar travel, and if they're less advanced than us, we're not going to hear from them anyway

[chaotic neutral observer]

The ants analogy is somewhat of an inept one, I think. Aliens aren't necessarily going to be more advanced than us, especially if they can't manage interstellar travel, and if they're less advanced than us, we're not going to hear from them anyway

This thought experiment is predicated on the aliens contacting us.  I think that, compared to a species that can communicate and/or travel across interstellar distances, we would likely be little more than ants.  And even if they aren't very different from us in terms of intellectual capacity, they would likely view us as a primitive people purely because of the technology gap.  (And interstellar technology is a hell of a gap, compared to where we are now.  Larger than the gap from a stone hammer to a smartphone, I think).

Aliens that can't contact us aren't really in the scope of this thread.

[Frontside Back]

There's always the 0.000000000000000000342286% chance that alien equivalent of the Voyager probe just happens to fly by ISS window. Sadly it's still more likely to be the russians :c

[Nephew Twiddleton]

The ants analogy is somewhat of an inept one, I think. Aliens aren't necessarily going to be more advanced than us, especially if they can't manage interstellar travel, and if they're less advanced than us, we're not going to hear from them anyway

This thought experiment is predicated on the aliens contacting us.  I think that, compared to a species that can communicate and/or travel across interstellar distances, we would likely be little more than ants.  And even if they aren't very different from us in terms of intellectual capacity, they would likely view us as a primitive people purely because of the technology gap.  (And interstellar technology is a hell of a gap, compared to where we are now.  Larger than the gap from a stone hammer to a smartphone, I think).

Aliens that can't contact us aren't really in the scope of this thread.

The thought experiment has them contacting us which means they don't consider us like ants

[chaotic neutral observer]

The ants analogy is somewhat of an inept one, I think. Aliens aren't necessarily going to be more advanced than us, especially if they can't manage interstellar travel, and if they're less advanced than us, we're not going to hear from them anyway

This thought experiment is predicated on the aliens contacting us.  I think that, compared to a species that can communicate and/or travel across interstellar distances, we would likely be little more than ants.  And even if they aren't very different from us in terms of intellectual capacity, they would likely view us as a primitive people purely because of the technology gap.  (And interstellar technology is a hell of a gap, compared to where we are now.  Larger than the gap from a stone hammer to a smartphone, I think).

Aliens that can't contact us aren't really in the scope of this thread.

The thought experiment has them contacting us which means they don't consider us like ants

I guess I did not express my meaning clearly.  I meant contact in the sense of them sending a message we are capable of receiving, or in visiting this planet, not in the sense of establishing some sort of meaningful two-way communication.  Any message they sent would be intended for species they believed to be their equals, and I doubt we would qualify.

I have personally made contact with ants, and I still considered them to be ants afterward.  I do not think this contact was a positive experience from the ants point-of-view (if they can be said to have such a thing).

[Doktor Howl]

I can't decide if I want to answer aliens or not.

Option 1:  Fuck 'em.  We have enough assholes as it is.

Option 2:  Answer back with insults. 

Option 3:  Invite them in, fuck them up.

Option 4:  attached to this message.

[Doktor Howl]

Expanding on option 3:  Twilight Zone episode-ish.  We send them cordial invitations to visit, but then it goes all The Hills Have Eyes on them when they do.  Or maybe we just invite them in and describe our history in a really positive tone, like we're all proud of it.  Send them home with a complex.

Expanding on option 3 some more (this is pretty much repost):

"Come on down 'galactic space brothers', Doktor Howl has something for ya."

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Expanding on option 3:  Twilight Zone episode-ish.  We send them cordial invitations to visit, but then it goes all The Hills Have Eyes on them when they do.  Or maybe we just invite them in and describe our history in a really positive tone, like we're all proud of it.  Send them home with a complex.

Expanding on option 3 some more (this is pretty much repost):

"Come on down 'galactic space brothers', Doktor Howl has something for ya."

 

I seem to remember writing something here once describing humans in a way that would be terrifying to aliens, among which were things like, "they intentionally consume disinfectant for fun" and "they speak to entities that you cannot perceive" with the sense that humans are so convinced of their gods and ghosts that they *must* exist and it's the aliens' deficiency that they can't see or hear them

[Nephew Twiddleton]

The ants analogy is somewhat of an inept one, I think. Aliens aren't necessarily going to be more advanced than us, especially if they can't manage interstellar travel, and if they're less advanced than us, we're not going to hear from them anyway

This thought experiment is predicated on the aliens contacting us.  I think that, compared to a species that can communicate and/or travel across interstellar distances, we would likely be little more than ants.  And even if they aren't very different from us in terms of intellectual capacity, they would likely view us as a primitive people purely because of the technology gap.  (And interstellar technology is a hell of a gap, compared to where we are now.  Larger than the gap from a stone hammer to a smartphone, I think).

Aliens that can't contact us aren't really in the scope of this thread.

The thought experiment has them contacting us which means they don't consider us like ants

I guess I did not express my meaning clearly.  I meant contact in the sense of them sending a message we are capable of receiving, or in visiting this planet, not in the sense of establishing some sort of meaningful two-way communication.  Any message they sent would be intended for species they believed to be their equals, and I doubt we would qualify.

I have personally made contact with ants, and I still considered them to be ants afterward.  I do not think this contact was a positive experience from the ants point-of-view (if they can be said to have such a thing).

Why do you doubt that we would qualify? If we were capable of receiving, deciphering, and responding to their message, not only are we roughly their technological equals, but they're also thinking like us.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

One of the many things that I find fascinating about humans is the weird idea that we must be savages compared to alien civilizations, when we might very well be the most advanced species in the galaxy and that's why we haven't heard anything yet.

[Doktor Howl]

Expanding on option 3:  Twilight Zone episode-ish.  We send them cordial invitations to visit, but then it goes all The Hills Have Eyes on them when they do.  Or maybe we just invite them in and describe our history in a really positive tone, like we're all proud of it.  Send them home with a complex.

Expanding on option 3 some more (this is pretty much repost):

"Come on down 'galactic space brothers', Doktor Howl has something for ya."

 

I seem to remember writing something here once describing humans in a way that would be terrifying to aliens, among which were things like, "they intentionally consume disinfectant for fun" and "they speak to entities that you cannot perceive" with the sense that humans are so convinced of their gods and ghosts that they *must* exist and it's the aliens' deficiency that they can't see or hear them

I just tripped across that thread.  I shall try to dig it up this week.