I find it interesting (and a bit sad) that there is a common belief that Humans as a whole would be considered by alien intelligence to be are violent and unworthy of contact. I think partially this is because it makes for a good story prop, but I think it also reflects many peoples lack of self worth.

I like to see the flip side of this, and look at the amazing achievements that the species have achieved in a little under 100000 years.

We've gone from intelligent animals living lives a little different from any of the other intelligent animals to creating a civilisation that has a rich culture. We've created art that expands upon our physical experience, have developed science that is asking (and answering) questions that delve into the intimate workings of the universe, have perused and created challenging answers that address "why we are here" and are on the cusp of becoming a multi planetary species. All the while we have battled our animal natures and so far, seem to be doing a pretty good job of surviving the worst we can create. Not perfect by any measure, but we're doing a damn good job for a bunch of naked apes that on cosmic timescales just crawled out of the sludge.

So lets challenge ourselves, when asked how we would react to an encounter with alien civilisations, instead of putting up the "danger, stay away" sign, how about we roll out the best our species has achieved and take some pride in what so far has been an amazing ride.

Fast forward maybe another 2-5k years in human progress and let’s make the humans the aliens and some creatures perhaps like dinosaurs or maybe early intelligent like pre-historic cave men but “beneath” human progress on a habitable planet somewhere within a 100ish light years from earth.

What would happen? We will have sent our automated probes to their planet, programmed to find moving objects, large/small and observe them. We will measure all aspects of their habitat.

Then what? We will sit down for tea and compare our feelings of pride? We will attempt to teach them something they don’t know?

I don’t get it. It seems super binary to me, alien life will either be so advanced they are tourists or scientists observing us on our “nature preserve” ... or they will have eyes on our real estate. I don’t see romantic in-betweens as remotely realistic and never have.

There's an old short story by Alan Dean Foster touching on that idea. Earth is isolated behind a force field because it's considered so dangerous until an alien empire under pressure from an undefeatable foe has no option but to ask for help. No spoilers but it's a good story...

With Friends Like These

https://archive.org/details/withfriendsliket00fost

Another great story from that collection inspired the board game "Car Wars".

Hard agree on both counts. I think people on the internet tend to underestimate how religious most people on earth still are. I know a person that's convinced that ufo sighting could potentially be "angels." And this is a fairly intelligent person with a first world education. I can only I imagine the havoc that an alien encounter would wreak on other parts of the world...

I think you are extrapolating from your personal experience.

If I were to to do the same I'd be saying that there are no religious people around anymore and the church's only exist to interfere in politics, the people involved only having "faith" in as far as it justifies there actions.

If we had a large and verifiable alien encounter, there would be three types of reaction.

Denial - it's a fake, Panic - Run for the hills, Acceptance - Ok, it's what it is, how do we move forward with it.

There would be of course be people from each of these groups trying to profit from the event in whatever manner is possible.

I think the reaction to the pandemic shows how communities react to uncomfortable events, and I think the difference in reactions from different communities/countries give a pretty good indication on how they would react to an alien encounter. Some countries would react well, others would just dissolve into chaos.

eye roll ugh I am SO sick of this bizarre prevailing narrative that religiousness and spirituality is like some sort of unintellectual defect present only in inferior humans. Step off your high horse for a second a realize that you have absolutely no clue about what lies beyond human cognition.

You realize that anything that a human believes to be true is rooted, fundamentally, in a faith-based assumption, right? science is faith in the human ability to percieve; religion is when this faith is based on the ineffible.

Science is good for practical matters. Religion is good for moral matters.

They are not at odds. The human connection to the logical and their connection to the spiritual have walked hand in hand throughout history. Our spirituality has guided our science, and vice versa. To lose our religiousness would be to lose a full half of our capability for reasoning.

Why is it that many highly innovative and prolific scientists throughout history have been deeply religious?

Furthermore, EVEN IF religion was complete fiction, which I believe it is not, it is so very obviously a useful and deeply insightful fiction. It allows us to interrogate the inner workings of the human psyche, the natural moral law, gives us a sense of purpose, motivates charity and kindness, creates community and social trust. Abd you cab miss me with that Sam Harris, "but we can do all that without religion, cause ultimately religion also causes problems of bigotry" - Bo, we cannot, it is precisely the illogucal nature of religion that makes it useful for moral reasoning. Logical deduction about morality leads to highly undesirable consequences. And yes, sone religions propogate bigotry : not all, though. For example, Christianity does not promote any sort of judgement of others. While there are christians who do so, they do it in spite of the word of the bible, not because of it.

Okay, hopping off my soapbox now, but really guys, you ought to be more sympathetic to the religious among us, you might learn something and become a better person in the process.

Sorry for the typos. On mobile and this app sucks, trying to correct the typos is a massive pain.