Aliens and Mankind a Question

Knowing what you know about mankind.

If you were the leader of an advanced alien race and stumbled upon Earth would you introduce yourselves to mankind? And If so, how and why?

If you decided to introduce yourselves how would you do it?

Who would you try and contact first? The Pope, The President of the US, The UN? Any of the industrialized 7? Some of the best and brightest at University? Would you study mankind first and then judge whether or not man is worthy? Or would you just plop your mother ship on the white house lawn or in the middle of the Super Bowl?

Or let your presents be known through movies, TV, video games slowly getting humans ready for some great disclosure. would you bother informing any of the above mentioned supposed authority figures or would you circumvent them?

Would you be concerned with him spreading his brutality among the cosmos? Would you try to get to know our history first then see our present situation and decide if mankind is even worth bothering with and just move on and place an intergalactic beacon warning that this part of space is infected.

Would you try to influence man and make changes to his way of thinking to bring him around to a more civilized way of thinking and acceptance?

Or would you just study them the way man studies insects and just consider them a scientific curiosity?

Or a study of alien archeology with no desire to make contact at all?

Or just say to heck with them let them blow themselves up?

if i were in that situation and had the opportunity to study, that's what i would do first.

after determining that a majority of humans were incapable of mentally handling my presence, i would try and slowly make myself known to a select few whom i had deemed stable, such as someone with a strong educational and scientific background. someone logical but open to belief in me. after that i would try and form friendships with them and explain why i am doing what i am doing, etc.

were i far enough advanced, i would offer them bits of technological information to help develop the entire population so that they may be further enlightened and possibly more able to handle the truth of my existence.

if races of alien beings do exist, i feel like it would take us earthlings a VERY long time before we were truly ready to handle something of that nature, as i feel the world would fall apart if they just showed up hehe

This is all assuming Aliens arent run by seedy politicians and military henchmen?

I think you might find any alien species would have its fair share of power elites and I think exploitation and subverios would be pretty high on the agenda of any such species.

Thankfully humanity doesnt have much to offer in a technological sense so assuming we are of no biological use to them they would most likely leave us alone and conduct the occasional science experiment in order to correctly catalogue the species.

Think of what a human science team does when we find species here, or how we study animal behavior and id guess the approach would be kind of similar.

If we were actually capable ofr roving around galaxies and presented a tangible threat im sure their politicians would deem us surplus to requirements...

My answer to this would be more or less the same type of thing. However time frame would be key here. It depends on when we came. If we were to visit now, we would likely not reveal ourselves initially, due to the hostility we may be met with. people would fight just as much as be interested in a new idea of life other than their own. We would try to interact in a mutually beneficial way. We would enjoy it if mankind were to express themselves. We freely and teach of respect and tolerance. We would not take over the lives they new, just enhance them. We would make it clear that we do exist. That it's OK to know that they are not alone in the universe. We wait for them to join us in the stars.

Whenever I contemplate this subject I need only go back to a short story by Philip Jose Farmer, originally published in 1964 but available in many anthologies of his work. The story is called "King of the Beasts".

I'm paraphrasing heavily from memory and it has been some time since I read the story.

There comes a time in the distant future where technology has advanced to the point where researchers are able to reincarnate extinct species from throughout the galaxy.

The curator of the living museum is giving his guest a tour of the facility until the guest stops in front of a certain display, totally aghast and demands of the curator how was he able to get permission to resurrect the most dangerous entity they had ever encountered and that society had allowed to die out centuries before. The curator responds that he was only allowed to recreate a single example and that it must have the highest security that the facility had ever conceived.

The sign on the front of the display read: Human

Kinda sums things up, don't you think?

What are YOUR answers/input to these questions...?

That way, I can flame you if your response lags, or star you for worthy input...

See...it's fun to respond!

reply to post by SLAYER69




1.- I would have to have a specific reason to introduce myself or let my presence be known. I would have to have certainty of a benefit for myself and my people, and most of all it would depend on my capacity to neutralize any aggression.

2. Introducing myself would also depend on calculation, my understanding of how earth works and is governed would be a major reason to do it one way or the other.

3.- I guess that my motives are the real issue here. Are humans a backward civilization to me?. Are humans advanced?. Do I fancy anything from this planet?. Do I have any sort of admiration of humans, or do I despise them?. Is it safe for me to make contact, are any other alien civilizations interested in getting a piece of earth, and if they are would they allow me to do what i intend?.


It is all relative to my (supposed) intentions.

Originally posted by Barathrum


were i far enough advanced, i would offer them bits of technological information to help develop the entire population so that they may be further enlightened and possibly more able to handle the truth of my existence.

Well that sounds kind of dangerous if you ask me.
There is no telling how Industry or the military complex would twist any advanced technology into a more efficient way of killing ourselves.

However maybe through selective education we could advance further along a peaceful development of social equality and environmental harmony.

In theory if we solve most of mankind’s needs we would spend more time on social and spiritual development

Originally posted by silver6ix
This is all assuming Aliens arent run by seedy politicians and military henchmen?

I think you might find any alien species would have its fair share of power elites and I think exploitation and subverios would be pretty high on the agenda of any such species.

Thankfully humanity doesnt have much to offer in a technological sense so assuming we are of no biological use to them they would most likely leave us alone and conduct the occasional science experiment in order to correctly catalogue the species.

Think of what a human science team does when we find species here, or how we study animal behavior and id guess the approach would be kind of similar.

Assume nothing!

I never said that you were a peaceful race just very advanced.

Would you contact them and then exploit?

Originally posted by reticledc
My answer to this would be more or less the same type of thing. However time frame would be key here. It depends on when we came. If we were to visit now, we would likely not reveal ourselves initially, due to the hostility we may be met with. people would fight just as much as be interested in a new idea of life other than their own. We would try to interact in a mutually beneficial way. We would enjoy it if mankind were to express themselves. We freely and teach of respect and tolerance. We would not take over the lives they new, just enhance them. We would make it clear that we do exist. That it's OK to know that they are not alone in the universe. We wait for them to join us in the stars.

Ahhh.

Enhance them how?
Knowing humankind, What’s good for one group may not be perceived good for another. And now we have a conflict of interests this would work however if all of human society was on the same page so to speak, that all of our beliefs would accept a new way of thinking and living.

How would you go about this change I understand you said slowly but what steps exactly?





[edit on 15-10-2008 by SLAYER69]

Originally posted by zlots331

The sign on the front of the display read: Human

Kinda sums things up, don't you think?

Exactly I’m not sure I would want to get involved with the human race if I had learned their past.

Too much violence and racial hatred. Not enough understanding of their place in the world not to mention the Universe. I’m not sure what would man need to do to prove himself worthy of being a member of a greater awareness.

Originally posted by chapter29
What are YOUR answers/input to these questions...?

That way, I can flame you if your response lags, or star you for worthy input...

See...it's fun to respond!

Very good question

I have been giving this some thought for a while. I hate to plagiarize Star Trek but I guess If I were that advanced and traveling through the galaxy I would have figured out that sooner or later a situation similar to this would eventually arrive.

The Prime directive

A set of guidelines that would qualify man as ready to join the big leagues as of yet I seriously doubt we are ready for the BIG picture. No not just Warp travel. I would study mans history and see what potential he has for advancement I would not come right out and expose ourselves to humankind.

I agree that would cause too much chaos. I would not even think of contacting anybody but slowly start to influence mans intellectual development in a manner that would bring about a more humble being one that would not fight amongst themselves.

But before that I would look at human history and try to find a similarity to our own past and see at what junctures would an intervention be of most value.

I hate to say it but If I traveled here at the height of WWII I would have turned right around and said forget this place.

Originally posted by Camilo1
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

1.- I would have to have a specific reason to introduce myself or let my presence be known. I would have to have certainty of a benefit for myself and my people, and most of all it would depend on my capacity to neutralize any aggression.

2. Introducing myself would also depend on calculation, my understanding of how earth works and is governed would be a major reason to do it one way or the other.

3.- I guess that my motives are the real issue here. Are humans a backward civilization to me?. Are humans advanced?. Do I fancy anything from this planet?. Do I have any sort of admiration of humans, or do I despise them?. Is it safe for me to make contact, are any other alien civilizations interested in getting a piece of earth, and if they are would they allow me to do what i intend?.


It is all relative to my (supposed) intentions.

Good point why are we traveling through the Universe, are we explorers, or invaders are we exploiting planets resources or are we just doing scientific research?

I would guess in this scenario we are explorers. if we are really that advanced finding planet Earth today would be like stepping back in time for them and seeing how their own planet was say 5 to 10 thousand years previously.


At that point it would be out of archeological curiosity. Because at that point it would be like a a modern advance warship going back in time and coming across a Polynesian crossing the Pacific in his outrigger with not too much in common other than being on the ocean what would we have to offer him?

Propellers?

Nuclear reactor technology?

A rubber dingy?

And what would he have to offer us other than a glimpse of our past.

Giving this thread a small bump.

reply to post by SLAYER69


if a planet generated intelligent life what good reason is there to stay and muck everything up. You got plenty of space out there and with advanced technology it shoudl be easy. Planets that produce life may be "gardens" from which life emerges from and gains immortality.

I think that both evolution and creationism are evident all around us. Look what grotesque things we have done to the genetics of our domesticated animals.... just imagine whats possible.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
Knowing what you know about mankind. If you were the leader of an advanced alien race and stumbled upon Earth would you introduce yourselves to mankind? And If so, how and why?

I would introduce myself to mankind in a heartbeat if I had stumbled across this planet during my peoples travels. However as I drifted in orbit, my highly advanced suite of sensors and surveillance drones feeding me all I need to know about the people on the surface I would quickly know that things were not going well. I would know that a few held the majority hostage to debt and enthralled and terrified by war, fearful of imagined and created dangers all to keep the majority in fear and easily managed thus.

I would look deeper and see that though there are terrible acts perpetrated by terrible people I would feel a duty, an urge to try and help these people because from what I know of humanity is that if you take away the stress, take away the fear, the bitterness and allow us to realise our true potential then there is nothing we cannot do. From the arts to the sciences and everything in between, our emotions allow for such a diversity of thought and feeling that to come to this world, to see the pain and horror we do to each other because it was engineered thus by the black hearted, I could not just engage my “free lunch drive” (ballad of Halo Jones) and sail away into the heavens.

I could not look into a mirror and feel good about myself if I had done such a thing.

Originally posted by SLAYER69If you decided to introduce yourselves how would you do it?

I would be subtle because I would not wish to add further stress to the enslaved and the traumatised that my sensors and scouts continued to relay back to me. I would after much debate and planning with my own people go straight to the source and straight to the centre of the most powerful group on the planet. I would instigate contact via one of their satellites or leave them a message that could not be misconstrued as being of earthly origin.

If I had the ability of telepathy I might make my presence known via dreams and so this could not be mistaken as the side effect of a debouched week long party because prizes had just been given out in the name of peace through superior firepower I would leave a sign that could be linked to the dream.

Originally posted by SLAYER69Who would you try and contact first? The Pope, The President of the US, The UN? Any of the industrialized 7? Some of the best and brightest at University? Would you study mankind first and then judge whether or not man is worthy? Or would you just plop your mother ship on the white house lawn or in the middle of the Super Bowl?

I would first contact president Obama as the eyes of the world seem to be on him at the moment but I would also make contacts with religious leaders of all the major faiths and I would not be beating around the bush. I might show them a show of force and that show of force might come in the form of something that sends a message to the military but leaves the civilian populations oblivious. Sending a ship down to the centre of the super bowl might mean I am showing favour to a faction or country.

I would Switch off the nukes, switch off the machinery of war for an hour and then reinforce what I had just done by letting them know that if I so wished I could destroy half a continent with a word. However my displeasure would be felt in a less overt way by letting the leaders of humanity know that I would destroy all the planets military navies on the surface and below the surface instead because the military is the force that had allowed the crimes to be maintained and was the instrument of great pain on the world.

There would be no distinction between countries armed forces. They would all suffer the same fate. I would not like to have to do this but if I had to do this I would and though there would be much pain brought to the families of the dead in the wider context of humanity this would be acceptable to me and in the long term it would be acceptable to humanity.

Once that very necessary threat was out of the way I would tell them I knew their game and that it is a disgusting thing to do such things to their own people in the name of deceit and greed driven ego. I would tell them their time was up and they had better not get in my way because I was here for the people, the elite are secondary to my aims and that they should prepare for judgement because I would by now have been very busy educating myself to the misdeeds, the filth of their greed and the misery of the people they subjected to their whims.

I would be in no mood for compromise and though I might be highly enlightened and highly evolved the disgust inside me would be something that woke me up to a need to make the deceivers pay for their crimes - but not straight away.

Originally posted by SLAYER69Or let your presents be known through movies, TV, video games slowly getting humans ready for some great disclosure. would you bother informing any of the above mentioned supposed authority figures or would you circumvent them?

I would insist that Obama and all the leaders of the world got together in a single place and that there would be no exceptions. Any arguments and I would make threats again but this time I would kill an argumentative participant and his nearest and dearest with a message from god – an asteroid to the residence should suffice.

After that I would anticipate no more dissent to my intentions. The kid gloves are off because I just educated myself to the AIDS epidemic in Africa. I would have traced the source and known this was a disease of human making and my blood would be boiling. I would have seen the details of the wars fought for making money for the industrial military complex and I would have been biting at my lip in disgust and anger.





[edit on 13-12-2009 by SmokeJaguar67]

*Continued*

Originally posted by SLAYER69
Would you be concerned with him spreading his brutality among the cosmos? Would you try to get to know our history first then see our present situation and decide if mankind is even worth bothering with and just move on and place an intergalactic beacon warning that this part of space is infected.

Once the disclosure was done I would educate the newly freed humans that they had a choice. They could stay and my people would help them better understand their place and their responsibilities in the greater scheme of things.

I would give the power they needed to live but I would keep my weapons technology from them because the newly freed are still traumatised by the millennia of feudal rule and now they are traumatised by my people coming to them from the cosmos. I would allow them to leave or stay and I would furnish them with the means to travel but with warnings that there must be a time of acclimatisation and education to the rules that governed the pan galactic community.

To break the rules could bring dire retributions and there would have to be many tests and exams to be taken and passed before the levels of human advancement within the community could be realised but always with the carrot, never the stick. My compassion and my evolved state of mind would know that the stick does not work, it fosters only resentment and the humans are a volatile, emotional race that would need many decades or hundreds of years of being chaperoned by my people before they could truly take their place in the wider community.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
Would you try to influence man and make changes to his way of thinking to bring him around to a more civilized way of thinking and acceptance?

I would let humanity know through much education that warfare and humankinds love of it was not love, it was a lie and a design by the devolved to fool us into thinking that war was their natural state of mind when in fact it was a designed aberration, a false sense of reality crafted by black hearted people that had little place in the wider environments of the cosmos.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
Or would you just study them the way man studies insects and just consider them a scientific curiosity?

No, that fate would be inflicted upon the leaders of the human race that had enslaved their people and destroyed so much goodness through war and genocide. There would be no choice but to instigate massive criminal trials and the people would have a real voice this time and their word would be final. This type of sentient being could not ever be allowed to continue to live unless the people allowed them to either by forgiveness or exoneration, those found lacking during this time of purging of bad blood would be studied and then swiftly discarded and destroyed by fire.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
or just say to heck with them let them blow themselves up?

Humanity has such a capacity for beauty, we love so hard, we would die for an ideal or for the heart racing smile of a beautiful woman. We excel when we are not stressed through will and war. How could a sentient space race not see these things and contemplate leaving us to our fate? Much goodness out there so little time down here to realise our chance that we were destined for something better than the filthy buck, blinkered religion, bitterness and war for badly informed ideals of patriotism honour and heroism.

We can see the beauty in the elegant structure of an orchid and yet we can also admire the beauty that comes from splitting the atom – we are such a paradox!






[edit on 13-12-2009 by SmokeJaguar67]

reply to post by SmokeJaguar67


2 great posts but I would disagree that contacting the President would be the way to go.

Like raising children you can tell them something until you are blue in the face but until they believe it themselves nothing will change, and I think "they" would want change to come from within, maybe with a bit of prompting.

This simplifies things considerably but sometimes it seems to me to be a case of "we're out here, don't worry, just change that mind frame to this point and we'll anounce ourselves". I'm just not sure critical mass can be achieved in my lifetime on that front !

It is more likely that aliens discovered Earth before humans existed.

But if they showed up for the first time 60 years ago, then we would have detected their space craft coming towards our planet or entering our atmosphere.

One might of got shot down or simply malfunctioned and crashed in the Roswell Desert in 1947.

If you take the Ancient Alien theory verbatim then right there you would see how aliens would interact with mankind, or did for that matter.

but

Would those be the same aliens that crashed in the desert at Roswell?

Would our Ancient Aliens return in the future to make some deal for technology exchange?

reply to post by chunder


I agree with your post.

On the point you make regarding critical mass however I would say that it is entirely possible within our lifespan but that the critical mass would be brought about by a mass event - like world leaders getting on board the event and confirming the event was not of human making and that we were entering a new age of enlightenment.

Going under the assumption that extraterrestrials are highly intelligent, they would capitalise on this and make world wide broadcasts all media outlets from radio to internet to TV that they are here to break the habit of our species and help us make the next baby step into the wider community.

Yes I am in hope that such a thing exists and I hope this because I long gave up the hpe that we would end the need to wage war but it seems to be an addiction and what’s more many who wage it seem to expect others to not only hold them to high ideals and regard but to see them as the pinnacle of humanity.

I know I have just spun bad science fiction but I know there is something upstairs, I just have little idea what they are, what they want and why they do not come down here and bang our heads together.



[edit on 14-12-2009 by SmokeJaguar67]