Pretend you're an extraterrestrial for a moment.

Trivia question:

Anybody know the first television signal that escaped into space?

 

They'd probably be so much smarter than us, that they'd view us the same as we do tigers, bears and apes that we abduct for experiments and entertainment.

 

Well, I think they would be far more interested in learning about us than in changing the course of our history. They might be interested in learning about us biologically and psychologically. But I don't think they would feel compelled to advance our civilization, they might even find such an act to be immoral.

Think about a national geographic explorer reaching a tribe of natives in their natural habitat. The last thing you would want to do is to seriously disrupt their society by teaching them to build a generator and trying to sell them microwaves.

They might tell us a bit about their civilization and about space travel, but I don't think they'd be lecturing us at some university. They'd also have no idea where to find the Vatican. Establishing contact would be to learn about such things. They may also believe advances in physics and mathematics, having not been discovered by us yet, would be unnaturally beyond us.

 

Smarter than us, possibly. But it only takes so much intelligence for the natural progression of technology. How much smarter will we be by the time we accomplish interstellar travel?

Or here is another question, how much smarter are we than stone age humans? (The mayans were a stone age civilization for example) And yet, here we are on the intertoobs and landing on the moon.

They probably will think of themselves as much more intelligent than we are if human behavior is any indicator.

 

So Am I Bros.

 

Define "escaped".

While the common answer is the 1936 Berlin Olympics broadcast, lower powered TV signals were broadcast before that, and those signals would have leaked out as well. In reality, the 1936 broadcast couldn't have reached far either before it faded below background noise level.

Time now to give that shoutout for "Contact", one of my most favoritest movies ever, despite some minor technical flaws.

"If it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space."

"Hydrogen times pi!"

"CQ, this is W9GFO. CQ, this is W9GFO here. Come back?"

"Small moves, Ellie, small moves"

"Poetry! They should've sent a poet!"

"Do you know where I can find like a really great dress?"

"Dad, are you there? Come back? Dad, are you there? Dad, this is Ellie... "

 

Contact is your most favoritest movie ever? Well, at least someone liked it.

 

That is a very good point. But somehow I'm assuming that they'd genetically modify their own species to favor high intelligence, as will we.

 

Intelligence isn't necessarily a positive attribute. Studies have found that people with an IQ of say 160 have a very hard time relating and interacting with people with an IQ of say 100. Seeing as how we are a social species, a high intelligence can be a hindrance. But to some extent we are already doing this. People who are well educated marry others who are well educated and intelligent. The opposite is also true.

Additionally, it's said you only need about an IQ of 120 to do whatever it is you want to do. It just gets easier the smarter you are.

But I seriously doubt that in 1000 years we will be significantly smarter than the smartest among us. I think physiology limits us to some extent. We are still meat computers. Perhaps Newtons and Miltons will be more common, but that's it.

 

I'd say IQ tests are inconsistent with each other, let alone an accurate measure of general "intelligence". But a person with 50% more "general intelligence" than an "average" person, wouldn't be so unlikely to "get along" with other such people.

 

That would vastly simplify things. Kind of a best-case scenario, really.

 

They almost certainly wouldn't be able to easily learn to understand our language even if they were much more intelligent than us. They might not even be able to "hear" the pitches that our voice ranges tend to be.

 

We are communicating through binary right now. I just thought I would point that out to you.

 

Yeah but they'd have to be insanely smart to be able to figure out the patterns of these symbols we call "words" and be able to associate them with the concepts that are "behind" them..especially because their minds wouldn't have to work in the same ways as ours. Even within humans, some minds work differently than others

 

This is true, it would be very difficult to bridge the initial communication gap.

 

If they had minds that worked like humans', it wouldn't be *that* hard because it'd be a matter of using different symbols. But they probably wouldn't.

But I really don't know "how" the human "mind" "works"; I know that modern computers use Boolean logic using electric circuits, but the human brain is probably way weirder than that

 

Babies learn to speak in a matter of a few years, just by listening to people around them babble on about whatall.

In my opinion, it'd be a rather dumb race of aliens that made contact in person without learning our language first. What are they going to do, come down and start "Og neeble frun borp"-ing at us? We'd end up staring at each other like idiots for a while before calling the eggheads.

That's not how I'd want it to go if I planned it.

If they're just sending an EM signal, that would be different, of course. That's more like a "Hey are you there?" as opposed to coming in a ship which is more like "I've been looking forward to meeting you."

If I were visiting Earth though, I would 1) make sure the stupid humans got through the next 5 or 10 years without killing themselves, and 2) I'd probably visit a university or historic site to emphasize non-political interest. However, I most certainly would avoid religious sites . . . don't want to be seen favoring one faction of fanatics over another . . .

 

Well I doubt they, or I, would make much of an attempt to communicate.

 

The sun must be shining for you daily if you rely on the internet to let you know which way east is.

Most people use a compass.

 

LOL


Who use compass nowsdays? I haven't look at the book map for years. Most people rely on GPS.

 

Interesting view.

Both should be learned? why only rely on one form of information. I must admit sometimes i fall into that trap with a dependance using modern technology but they are just gadgets. Usefull ones yes, although a over dependancy will erode other skills.

 

This seems like a more logical criteria than I thought at first. Going to the most powerful and 'in charge' person, if that means the person that the most other people listen to, the person that has the most influence and ability to facilitate the communication, has the advantage of efficiency.

So who would you judge to be the most powerful and in charge?

I'd like to think, intellectual exchange. But for the purposes of the original question, it's not really important, you've just been assigned that task. Really, why does anybody contact anybody?

 

I suppose that if that's within your technological capability, it's actually more efficient than the previous answer of whomever has the most people doing what they say. If your job is to contact humanity, then why not contact all of it, if you can.

 

Lots of us, I suspect!

 

"Who would you judge to be the most powerful and in charge"

Now this is the very thing which would erupt planet earth into the next world war if aliens visited. Every nation asking that question and answering with themselves.

A more sane goal would be to form a collective representation of a council showing every nationalistic group possible.