Making contact with an alien civilization has to be one of the most interesting and awaited events for us humans. We have been wondering about our place in the universe and asking why it is so lonely for centuries now.
Watching all those movies where we make contact with a highly intelligent civilization and the series of events that ensue make you wonder how it would happen in reality if aliens ever just showed up.
Well, it would depend greatly on whether they are malevolent or benevolent. If they bore ill will, well, nothing could stop our destruction, that’s for sure. But if they were friendly, which is more likely the case according to experts, then the possibilities of our own species could be endless.
Let’s suppose, for the sake of this post, that one day an extraterrestrial civilization show up in droves, that are hundreds of thousands of years more advanced than us and that they are friendly. How would that affect humanity in the long run?
Scientific and Technological Impacts
If a species of an alien race is able to reach us from its home planet, several light-years away from us, rest assured that the species will be highly advanced one. It would probably be thousands of times more advanced than us in terms of science and technology.
So, if such a species contacts us and shows an active interest in our development, we would definitely see an influx of scientific and technological knowledge that will transform our species within such a short amount of time that it would almost seem like we have time traveled into the future.
The only question is how much they would be willing to share with us. Just because they have that know-how doesn’t mean they would be willing to share it all. There could be several reasons for this. Maybe for some of that knowledge, we just aren’t “intelligent” enough or maybe if given to us, we could simply lose control and go nuts!
In any case, even a small percentage of their knowledge would be such a big boost to our civilization and maybe we would be able to solve the most difficult problems we have, like diseases, energy crises, poverty, global warming, etc. Plus, it would be so cool to know about where they come from and their part of the universe.
Cultural Amalgamation
There is no doubt that if the alien race becomes more involved with us and establish a permanent presence on our planet, in any of the various ways it can be done, there would surely be some form of cultural amalgamation.
At first, their way of life would give us a cultural shock which is not such a big deal because that happens when people travel to different countries as well, so it is obvious that would happen for an alien race from a different part of the universe.
But then as we become more aware of their culture, philosophies, ideologies, we would be more accepting of them and their culture and maybe we could see some of them being followed by a lot of people as well.
We have already seen it happen with our own race throughout history, so there is no reason to believe that such a thing won’t happen in their case. That would be the true beginnings of us feeling a part of a bigger universal/galactic family and it will be awesome!
It would be interesting to see. I don't think the level of advancement on the part of the Aliens would need to be so far beyond our level, if it was then what would the interest be in us other than for scientific study. Example would be Humans Studying the Great Apes of the world.
So I think any Alien interest is going to be from those that are only a little bit beyond our level. The ability to travel space in a timely manner may just be around the corner for us. It may have taken a long time to go from domesticating the horse, but once that was done, did it take that long to go from a riding a horse to a horse pulling a cart, then to a steam engine train transportation, to petroleum based automobiles to the current battery powered cars.
Cultural adaption kind of runs both ways, at least for human societies. If it ran the same for Alien Societies then our entry into space would be accelerated whether the Alien majority wanted it that way or not. I am sure there would be some aliens that would go native, just as there were European Explorers that went native.
Some people just have a need to share, I would like to think that an Alien culture would also have that need to share. So if the aliens are benevolent some would share knowledge, I really do not think though that any Alien race that is far beyond where we are in development would be any more interested in elevating us any more than we are interested in elevating the great apes.
Yeah, even tech advanced at an exponential rate. So, the next 100 years should be REALLY exciting for humanity. Proper space travel may become a reality sooner than people think.
If the alien race were to be even 1000 years ahead of us, it would be a major difference between the state of their technology and ours. So, we could skip a lot of steps in the evolution of our tech! That would be wonderful. As you said, I hope that aliens are benevolent and would be willing to share their tech.
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Thank you!