The Discovery of Intelligent Alien Life! Now What?

[ruksak]

Bear with me, this is a convoluted presentation that I will try to simplify as best as possible.

Discovering intelligent alien life on an inhabitable, Earth-like planet. The stuff of science fiction, rooted in what many would term as plausible or even probable, given enough time.

For the purpose of a smooth discussion, let us assume that we have the technology to reach this Alien Earth within a reasonable time frame. I don't want to get caught up in the technological aspects of this.

It is always inferred in science fiction, be it Hollywood or otherwise, that intelligent alien life would be advanced. This plays on human fears thus the reason for this inference in science fiction entertainment. But not here in this scenario. For the purpose of this exercise, they are well behind us, technologically speaking.

We are parked outside of the orbit of their planet, with our scopes observing them as best as we can. This planet is inhabited by intelligent human lifeforms. They look like us. They walk like us. They are human by all outward appearances. Their technology is comparable to what ours was in the 14th century. As many creatures do, they have borders, they have societies that compete for resources, they have wars, famine, disease....all sorts of infliction and troubles, as we have had and continue to have on our Earth.

What now?

The ethical questions are many.

There are no radio waves or transmissions that we could intercept because their lack of technology doesn't allow for this. So we cannot learn their language so we could communicate with them unless we intrude directly. Anything we learn about them would have to be done on a very cursory level.

I'll propose several possibilities/issues in moving forward;

1) Do we have a scientific obligation to observe them?

2) If so, how do we move forward?

3) If they see drones/landing craft, this could be catastrophic for their people. Chaos would likely ensue as word spread of Alien invaders.

4) Given what we know about our civilizations history and how they may have reacted to such news, the religious implications alone are immense. The words "magic" and "gods" are inescapable.

5) The bio-organism threat alone, for both sides, brings many ethical questions.

6) If we could establish first-contact, work out the "bugs" (gratuitous pun), what are the ethics involved in what would bring sweeping socio-evolutionary change to their world.

7) We could undoubtedly cure many of their diseases. We could solve famine issues. Pasteurization. Antibiotics. Our positive contribution brings a seemingly endless list.

8) We could undoubtedly introduce new ways for them to kill each other, new ways to poison their air, their water. The dark ages runs head long into the industrial age, which collides almost instantaneously with the digital age and beyond.

9) The risk of purely clandestine observation is incredible. What if our drones or a manned stealth ship crashes to the foot of their castles and village walls? What terrible thing have we now done for the purpose of interstellar voyeurism? They have no Area 51 to keep it secret. They have not the intellectual ability to contain or understand what they have discovered on their Earth.

Or do we quarantine their sector of the universe from contact? But wait! If they're indeed human, doesn't this provide us with a missing link to our own existence? How do we justify ignoring such a find? How do we justify the intrusion for our own knowledge?

Is it possible that the greatest discovery of our species becomes a taboo pursuit because of the ethics involved?

From an ethical platform; What now?

[Muckraker]

From an ethical platform; What now?

Open a McDonalds

I don't really see a problem with setting up shop and changing the course of their development as long as our mission doesn't involve exploitation. Misery is not an aspect of a time or culture we should be worried about preserving.

[minorwork]

1. Do they taste like chicken?
2. Make slaves of them all.
3. Leave them alone. Like we do with remote Amazon tribes.
4. Choose one our masochist guys to be Jesus. Let him announce our presence as gods.

I choose curtain number three.

[ruksak]

Open a McDonalds

I don't really see a problem with setting up shop and changing the course of their development as long as our mission doesn't involve exploitation. Misery is not an aspect of a time or culture we should be worried about preserving.

The gold. The oil. How could we not have a piece of the pie? The dumb cunts wouldn't know what to do with much of it.

[ruksak]

Do they taste like chicken?

They taste like people. I've heard nothing but good things.

Make slaves of them all.

I would imagine this could offend our moral code. Politically, we would not all be cool with this.

Leave them alone. Like we do with remote Amazon tribes.

Amazon tribes do not present us with such a scientific gold mine.

Choose one our masochist guys to be Jesus. Let him announce our presence as gods.

[Darklordabc]

Screw the prime directive! Lets get in there and shake things up.

[Thanatos]

Open a McDonalds

I don't really see a problem with setting up shop and changing the course of their development as long as our mission doesn't involve exploitation. Misery is not an aspect of a time or culture we should be worried about preserving.

I find it hard to imagine capitalists in space finding a less-advanced civilization and not exploiting them. The west isn't that nice to human beings in other parts of the world.

If we trade with them, we're also going to trade microbes. Robots and radios are safer for everyone involved.

[GiveMeABreak]

Let me suggest an illustration.

You sail across the ocean and find a long lost forgotten land mass that is populated by a species that looks just like you. They walk like you they look like you they eat food like you. But they are different they are not the same. What do you do? Oh you obviously bring them the modern world. We will teach them the things they do not know. We will do it for God, Gold, and Glory and not necessarily in that order.

Need I go further to show that we as human beings seem to think we will bring someone who is less advanced to us freedom. But many times all we bring is pain, suffering, and atrocities. I say quarantine them until they advance enough to join in the rest of the technologically advanced universe. Let them develop on their own. After all they seem to have gotten to a 14th century level without any help from us.

[notthecheatr]

1) Do we have a scientific obligation to observe them?

I think science is a desire, not an obligation. I tend to think most people would succumb to curiosity and say "yes."

2) If so, how do we move forward?

Like cultures in the 14th century just meeting each other for the first time did? Minus, hopefully, the enslavement and treachery. Exchange gifts, study the language, and perhaps profit from resources they neither the means nor the necessity to acquire with their limited technology.

3) If they see drones/landing craft, this could be catastrophic for their people. Chaos would likely ensue as word spread of Alien invaders.

You're assuming they would respond as humans would. Besides, there's a pretty good chance they wouldn't spot such a thing, especially if it landed at night or in an unpopulated area.

4) Given what we know about our civilizations history and how they may have reacted to such news, the religious implications alone are immense. The words "magic" and "gods" are inescapable.

Assuming they're as superstitious as we are.

5) The bio-organism threat alone, for both sides, brings many ethical questions.

I would assume by that time we would have a way to detect it before there was any danger, or to combat it.

6) If we could establish first-contact, work out the "bugs" (gratuitous pun), what are the ethics involved in what would bring sweeping socio-evolutionary change to their world.

Biggest thing I can think of is our corrupt political systems. Though since you seem to be assuming they would pretty much be identical to earth, maybe they would have the same problem. If anything, we might be able to help the people take the government out of the hands of the monarchy.

7) We could undoubtedly cure many of their diseases. We could solve famine issues. Pasteurization. Antibiotics. Our positive contribution brings a seemingly endless list.

Certainly.

8) We could undoubtedly introduce new ways for them to kill each other, new ways to poison their air, their water. The dark ages runs head long into the industrial age, which collides almost instantaneously with the digital age and beyond.

As bad as all that might sound, I'd still take today over the dark ages any day. Higher standard of living and lower mortality rate come to mind. Though of course I don't know yet how the future is going to turn out. Maybe we ARE going the wrong way.

9) The risk of purely clandestine observation is incredible. What if our drones or a manned stealth ship crashes to the foot of their castles and village walls? What terrible thing have we now done for the purpose of interstellar voyeurism? They have no Area 51 to keep it secret. They have not the intellectual ability to contain or understand what they have discovered on their Earth.

I'm not sure I see the problem.

Or do we quarantine their sector of the universe from contact? But wait! If they're indeed human, doesn't this provide us with a missing link to our own existence? How do we justify ignoring such a find? How do we justify the intrusion for our own knowledge?

Not really a "missing link" but certainly a tantalizing study in how life developed in other parts of the universe. And once you've found it, good luck ignoring it. Not going to happen.

Is it possible that the greatest discovery of our species becomes a taboo pursuit because of the ethics involved?

Incredibly improbable.

From an ethical platform; What now?

I don't know. But I know we'll probably do what we as humans always do: blunder into it like a drunk blunders into the wrong house and deal with the consequences for generations after.

[ruksak]

I think science is a desire, not an obligation. I tend to think most people would succumb to curiosity and say "yes."

True. We have examples aplenty of how curiosity trumps ethics. There seems to be a time limit on how long a grave can lay before it is considered the domain of science..i.e Digging up graves and absconding with the bones to a laboratory, only to store the remains in a box for all time.

Like cultures in the 14th century just meeting each other for the first time did? Minus, hopefully, the enslavement and treachery. Exchange gifts, study the language, and perhaps profit from resources they neither the means nor the necessity to acquire with their limited technology.

They would certainly be frightened. Assuming they would have their own firmly held religious beliefs, even the best of explanations on our part would have a difficult time convincing them that we weren't demons or demigods. Imagine spacemen trying to convince the 14th century Catholic monarchy that we weren't of evil origin? The problem is, our presence says to them "Your beliefs are bullshit". A hard pill to swallow, indeed. Their primitive minds would draw their own conclusions.

You're assuming they would respond as humans would. Besides, there's a pretty good chance they wouldn't spot such a thing, especially if it landed at night or in an unpopulated area.

I'm not a believer, but I giggle due to the obvious parallels to our own UFO sightings and conspiracies. What would a 14th century dumb-fuck think of a smoldering hunk of metal with blinking lights? What sort of wizardry is this?

As bad as all that might sound, I'd still take today over the dark ages any day. Higher standard of living and lower mortality rate come to mind. Though of course I don't know yet how the future is going to turn out. Maybe we ARE going the wrong way.

Awesome point. Having your leg sawed off due to stepping on a nail would suck. Very suck.

I'm not sure I see the problem.

Panic. I imagine many of them would fight tooth and nail as opposed to accepting the science behind our arrival. Our own ancestors imprisoned people for starring at the stars for too long.

Not really a "missing link" but certainly a tantalizing study in how life developed in other parts of the universe. And once you've found it, good luck ignoring it. Not going to happen.

This is why I stipulated specifically that they are, by all outward appearances, human. Be it Mestizo, Caucasian, Negro, Asian. What we know of evolution would infer an extreme unlikelihood for the same species to evolve with the same physical characteristics on two planets that have been entirely cutoff from one another by thousands of light-years.

From a scientific standpoint, this would be an unprecedented quandary. One that would seem to need an answer. The baseline question would be; Are we related, is there a direct connection? The greatest minds on Earth would cream their jeans over such a proposition.

The risk of clandestine observation is immense. One mistake, one goof, and ....enter the butterfly effect. Akin to traveling back in time and touching something with your bare hands, changing ecological evolution in a drastic manner.

[Muckraker]

The gold. The oil. How could we not have a piece of the pie?

Perhaps if we instantly acquired the ability for the proposed travel today. But I don't see many scenarios where space-faring humans would be in need of much of anything. At that time I think it would be kind of like saying we wanted to steal their technology.

[Muckraker]

Need I go further to show that we as human beings seem to think we will bring someone who is less advanced to us freedom. But many times all we bring is pain, suffering, and atrocities. I say quarantine them until they advance enough to join in the rest of the technologically advanced universe. Let them develop on their own. After all they seem to have gotten to a 14th century level without any help from us.

But there is a major difference here. Historical examples are primarily of ass-backwards groups of people "helping" other ass-backwards groups of people. When you look at the history of technological advancement, Europeans in 1492 were not that much more advanced than the Native Americans. It was like a seventh grader helping a fourth grader with math.

The hypothetical here involves humans that are exponentially more advanced than we are even today. Today, are we likely to accidentally wipe out a remote tribe on the Amazon by giving them blankets infested with a disease we had no idea even existed, let alone how to prevent or cure? History shows that humans did exactly that but I doubt many people would think we are just as likely to do the exact same thing right now.

Is finding their own way really so important that we would stand by while they dealt with their own black plague or Holocaust? If we can press a button to end mass misery, with no strings attached, I think we are obligated to do so. I see no reason to think an exponentially advanced human race will stumble over the same strings that humans from 1492 were tangled up in.