"We found your cat."
Posted on 04/23/2024 12:09:08 PM PDT by Red Badger
If there are alien civilizations out there close enough to pick up our stray signals, there's a non-zero chance that amongst the first transmissions, they could receive the opening of the 1936 Olympic Games, meaning our first contact with another species (in the unlikely event that they picked them up) could include a speech by Adolf Hitler.
"This wasn't the first broadcast, of course," senior SETI astronomer Seth Shostak explained to RealClearScience. "But it was at a high frequency that might make it through the ionosphere."
In the film Contact, this ended up being the first message humanity received from an alien civilization. The beings sent the signal right back at Earth, not realizing the impact sending broadcasts of Adolf Hitler from space would have on the species they were attempting to initiate contact with. It's a bit like if you said hello to a passing stranger, and in response they accidentally regurgitated a chapter of Mein Kampf.
Thankfully, we likely won't have to go through this scenario, with signal strengths too weak to be detected by alien civilizations.
"It would have been very low power, and with a non-directional antenna," Shostak continued. "The idea that aliens might pick it up is pretty far-fetched."
But, of course, we could end up receiving far more terrifying first transmissions, as people have been discussing over on X (Twitter) and Reddit.
At the moment, likely due to a recent TV series that will not be named, people mainly seem to be focusing on hearing warnings from other civilizations.
According to some solutions to the Fermi Paradox – or the question of "where is everybody?" – the answer is that advanced civilizations are deliberately hiding themselves, out of fear of their own destruction.
Another fear is of an ambiguous message; that aliens will give us few details, other than that they are on their way.
While not enough information is considered terrifying, people also appear to worry about alien civilizations that are overfamiliar with Earth.
There is one theory – known as the Zoo Hypothesis – along these lines. It proposes that aliens are aware of us but keep us isolated in a "zoo" to let us evolve and progress, just as humanity sets aside land as nature reserves and does not contact uncontacted tribes. According to this hypothesis, we could then be contacted when we have achieved sufficient technological and societal maturity, perhaps welcomed into a galactic community.
Despite the fear that contacting an alien civilization will likely involve (even if they are friendly, humans have a pretty solid track record of fearing the unknown), there may be one idea that is scarier.
Perhaps (though we'd bet against it) there are no aliens at all, and Earth contains all sentient life.
Read Arther C. Clark’s 2001 series: 2001,2010, 2065, 3001
Trump was right
For a lot of people the scariest message is no message at all.
“2025: President Hillary Clinton”
EVIL: When I have the map, I will be free, and the world will be different, because I have understanding.
MINION 1: Understanding of what, Master?"
EVIL: Of digital watches. And soon I shall have understanding of video cassette recorders and car telephones. And when I have understanding of them, I shall have understanding of computers. And when I have understanding of computers, I shall be the Supreme Being. God isn't interested in technology. He knows nothing of the potential of the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how He spends His time-forty-three species of parrot! Nipples for men!
MINION 2: Slugs.
EVIL: Slugs? He created slugs? They can't hear. They can't speak. They can't operate machinery. I mean, are we not in the hands of a lunatic?
MINION 1: Sir! Look!
EVIL: If I were creating a world, I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, day one. Sorry.
Haven’t there been a few scientists of note who have cautioned against sending out invitations hither and you to any aliens who might be listening? That we might live (or not), to regret having done so?
We’re here to help.
According to some solutions to the Fermi Paradox - or the question of “where is everybody?” Which implies there are no aliens.
This is not part of the Fermi Paradox: “the answer is that advanced civilizations are deliberately hiding themselves, out of fear of their own destruction”, but of the theory below.
The Dark Forest theory states that every one is hiding because to reveal one’s solar system is to invite death. Best stated in “The Dark Forest” by Cixun Liu. Proposed by Stephan Hawking.
The Zoo theory is nonsense on its face. Too much effort and resources for too little or no gain.
The most terrifying message would be “Don’t Reply”, inferring the Dark Forest theory is a fact.
Dark Forest Axioms:
It is the duty of every civilization to survive, thrive, and grow;
The Universe has finite resources.
Dark Forest Corollaries:
Suspicion of another Civilization’s motives;
A technological breakthrough could happen at any moment.
Dark Forest Implications:
Since no civilization, once aware of another, could trust the other’s motives, and because that civilization is a competitor for resources, and because that civilization, although inferior at the moment, could have a technological breakthrough that would propel it to a superior status, it must be destroyed quickly, without revealing the observing civilization’s location, using a casual strike from some distant point in space, allowing the observing civilization to remain hidden.
Thus, a super dense object could be propelled to near light speed and sent to a civilization’s sun, passing through it, causing a plasma ejection, making the sun nova.
Just because we cannot do something does not mean a civilization thousands of years or a million years older cannot.
That’s what I meant...I didn’t beat you. I guess what I wrote could be interpreted two ways.
Earth delenda est................
Read the trilogy: “The Three Body Problem” , “The Dark Forest” , “Death’s End” by Cixun Liu and the fan novel “The Redemption of Time”.
Update: Mostly harmless.
-PJ
Safe & Effective...................Oh, wait a sec.............
Maybe they have seen broadcasts of the ATTACK OF THE FIFTY FOOT WOMAN!
Their first signal to us might be...
“Take me to your ladder,
I’ll see your leader later....”
Any one remember that popular song in the 1950s?
saying their pronouns are zip,zap,zerp...
“Just because we cannot do something does not mean a civilization thousands of years or a million years older cannot.”
I read something by someone from the 1940’s who said (paraphrased) that ‘the arrogance of every generation is to assume that they will not be surpassed in any way by subsequent generations.’
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