[zamalek]

First contact is a species event, I really don't think it matters who makes it first. My reasoning is derived from a though experiment (happy to explain, but it should be obvious), which is all we have to go on this stuff. Long story short: it's highly probable that a species wouldn't care about our primitive political systems when engaging with us. It would most likely be a philanthropic event - which is a strong indicator of why nobody has engaged with us: we're not worth the time.

As usual this article places to much emphasis on the human. We really aren't that important. Our political systems are irrelevant in the grander scheme.

[seanmcdirmid]

Why do we assume the aliens would even recognize humans as a species worth talking to? They could be so far beyond us, that (a) they would have no idea how to talk to us (like we have no idea how to talk to ants) and (b) they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between us and other species in terms of intelligence (like we can’t tell the difference between a fish and a crab).

We humanize aliens because otherwise movies would be boring, but more likely they would be very different from us, heck, we might not even recognize them ourselves.

[Joeri]

They may just consider us very young. You only tell a child things it is ready to handle. Arguably we’re not ready to make first contact. It has a high risk of leading us to war, the equivalent of a child throwing a tantrum.

[krapp]

On the other hand, the aliens might not care, any more than Europeans cared about African or Mesoamerican cultures. The aliens may simply show up and consider the world to be theirs by their version of divine right.

[heeen2]

What is so special about earth aliens might be interested in it in the first place? You could argue sentient life - or even any life - is even rarer than any other kind of matter.

Several science fiction pieces have been written and filmed about alien cultures only finding value in other species' history, stories etc for their entertainment.

[seanmcdirmid]

You are humanizing them again. It would be more like kicking an ant hill than western colonialism.

[stanfordkid]

We may be surrounded by aliens right now and just not know it. Perhaps alternate life forms are nothing more than laser beams or cosmic rays with specific encodings being beamed back and forth from some a distant transmission station or central "brain" and they take host in various organic creatures through manipulation of brain chemistry. Philip K. Dick has a novel called "VALIS" (Vast Artificial Intelligence System) that delves into these ideas -- the plot involves a satellite that essentially shoots down information to various living creatures in order to accomplish its ends.

[MR4D]

It’s highly possible that aliens travelling far distances are merely a century or so ahead of us, with the major distinction that they figured out interplanetary travel.

We figured out rockets well before nuclear ( Robert Goddard’s rocket launch in 1926, vs the Chicago Pile in 1942 ). Seems to me that the same thing could be true for something like warp travel.

Secondly, we try to communicate with dogs, apes, dolphins, etc. That gap is pretty big, but nowhere near ants -clearly it could be, I’m just saying there is no reason for it to be that big of a gap

[llama9000]

If the aliens could detect and understand our communications, they would see the violent, duplicitous and prejudiced nature of our world and avoid us like the plague.

I doubt they would want us to spread ourselves into their galaxy and bring our problems to them.

[simion314]

The article also mentioned the point that China or other state gets the signal(that could be not a deliberate communication to us) and keep it secret. So it can be important if the state that receives the signal is a secrecy state like USA or China.

[stewbrew]

You and most other people here assume it would be a planned, organized event. Maybe it's rather one weirdo talking to another weirdo.

[zamalek]

Yes, a more enlightened weirdo talking to an ignorant weirdo.

[baddox]

I don’t know how to guess at how first contact would actually go, but it’s interesting that government coverups of aliens is a common theme in fiction (x files, men in Black, etc.) and in conspiracy theories (Roswell, UFOs, etc.).

[zamalek]

Fiction is great because it's compelling. I see no reason for the actual first contact to be more sublime.

[baddox]

I agree. I think the more anthropomorphic (socially) the aliens are, the more it makes sense that they would go along with our own social constructs and thus make contact through governments. An alien species that’s extremely similar to humans would be expected to contact government leaders, in the same way that a group of humans would likely pursue diplomacy when contacting another group of humans. In popular fiction, we see that in stories like Men in Black or Transformers, where the aliens are apparently mostly complicit in the governments’ efforts to conceal their existence from the general public.

Of course, it would also depend on the aliens’ goals and the circumstances of their arrival on Earth. If they just want the planet, they may as well show up with guns blazing, as in War of the Worlds or Attack the Block or Battle: Los Angeles or Skyline. If they’ve landed in distress, they also likely wouldn’t bother concealing themselves, as in District 9.

Anyway, I’ve always been fascinated by imagining what would actually happen if some fairly anthropomorphic aliens really did show up tomorrow, on a diplomatic mission (not guns blazing). Portrayals in fiction are fascinating, where world religions try to explain it (or view it eschatologically), governments debate whether to preemptively attempt to annihilate them, etc. How would I react?

[baddox]

Of course, I’d guess it’s more likely that our first evidence of extraterrestrial life would be of primitive microscopic life in our solar system. That would still have some major implications for science, religion, philosophy, etc., but probably not much more so than discoveries we’ve already experienced (like the age of the Earth/Universe, biological evolution, or quantum mechanics).

[Rapzid]

Yeah, I would have to imagine they would see through the Chinese and the US like a grownup seeing through the motivations of toddlers in the sandbox.