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I re-watched "The Day the Earth Stood Still" this afternoon. I still think it's a darn good film, even if it is deeply flawed on several levels.
It got me thinking though. It was (and is) heralded as the first film to positively portray ETIs. Prior to that, aliens were typically portrayed as monsters chasing around scantily clad women. Instead, these visitors were as enlightened as they were helpful.
In fact, the portrayal of ETIs in this film is quasi-messianic and filled with wish-fulfilment overtones (the nuclear age world in the midst of the coldwar -- "ET, God is dead, save us from ourselves!").
This movie reinforces in my mind the idea that we have replaced God with ETIs. Just look at the Raelians, for example, with their promise of extra terrestrial salvation and eternal material life.
Since "The Day the Earth Stood Still," both film, public sentiment and even science have supported the idea that ETIs are enlightened, friendly, and potentially helpful. Carl Sagan argued, for example, that ETIs would *have* to have those characteristics, otherwise they wouldn't have survived the nuclear age.
Ultimately, the question I want to ask is this: is all this just naive wishful thinking? Is the assumption that ETIs are benevolent just another variant of religion, messianism and new age thinking? Should we assume that aliens and their artifacts are potentially dangerous?
It got me thinking though. It was (and is) heralded as the first film to positively portray ETIs. Prior to that, aliens were typically portrayed as monsters chasing around scantily clad women. Instead, these visitors were as enlightened as they were helpful.
In fact, the portrayal of ETIs in this film is quasi-messianic and filled with wish-fulfilment overtones (the nuclear age world in the midst of the coldwar -- "ET, God is dead, save us from ourselves!").
This movie reinforces in my mind the idea that we have replaced God with ETIs. Just look at the Raelians, for example, with their promise of extra terrestrial salvation and eternal material life.
Since "The Day the Earth Stood Still," both film, public sentiment and even science have supported the idea that ETIs are enlightened, friendly, and potentially helpful. Carl Sagan argued, for example, that ETIs would *have* to have those characteristics, otherwise they wouldn't have survived the nuclear age.
Ultimately, the question I want to ask is this: is all this just naive wishful thinking? Is the assumption that ETIs are benevolent just another variant of religion, messianism and new age thinking? Should we assume that aliens and their artifacts are potentially dangerous?
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Re: Arguing Alien Intentions
Mon, September 5, 2005 - 11:40 PMI think the only sure thing one can assume about ETIs is that an interaction with them would be unlike anything imagined before. One cannot be sure the terms "benign" or "malevolent" are even applicable to ETIs. -
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Re: Arguing Alien Intentions
Mon, September 5, 2005 - 11:42 PMIn short, assume nothing. I mean, how can one have expectations about aliens?
All that being said, I think erring on the side of caution would be a good credo to follow during an initial encounter with ETIs. -
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Re: Arguing Alien Intentions
Tue, September 6, 2005 - 3:50 PMI fully agree. The analysis that ETIs must be nice to have not killed themselves off may or may not be valid. The opposite argument where we compare technologically different societies meeting (Conquistadors and the Aztecs, Incas, Mayas) are probably just as much of a shot in the dark. They may not have compatible senses that can see in what we call the visible light spectrum. They may not have auditory communication. Their concepts of societal or personal interaction may be so wildly different that communication would be just as difficult as it would be between us and a fish.
After all, fish have interactions even though they're operating on instinct. But don't we do the same to a degree? We're talking about a society that has been around long enough to operate with energies that can alter the known laws of physics by coming here. In all that time, how different could they have become from the creatures that they evolved from?
All of our anthropomorphism of aliens in our popular culture has sort of 'levelled the palying field' in a way that is probably inaccurate.
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Re: Arguing Alien Intentions
Thu, September 8, 2005 - 2:24 PMFunny I just watched that moved last month.
I don't think we can make an assumption one way or another. There is no experience in our world. We are a war mongering race (most of the so called "civilized world has started and seen many wars) so we skew our perceptions toward war and danger.
First contact will skew our perceptions again. -
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Re: Arguing Alien Intentions
Thu, September 8, 2005 - 9:53 PM<<We are a war mongering race>>
We also engender fear, paranoia, distrust and prejudice- all huge political and emotional factors that will shape the (potential) outcome of first contact. -
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Re: Arguing Alien Intentions
Fri, September 9, 2005 - 2:06 PMAye, aye. "They" might not even recognize our level of "intelligence" as true sentience. As in "Enders Game" and as in the first Star Trek movie, they may wish to repopulate our planet after wiping out the "carbon life form infestation".
Then again, maybe they're already here. I mean, can Steve Forbes REALLY be a human being? I think not.
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Re: Arguing Alien Intentions
Tue, September 27, 2005 - 8:14 AMSome people do for sure. Most of the UFO/etc enthusiasts do.
But i think we CAN expect somet things from ETs... like for example if we recognize them as intelligent they will too if they interact with us enough (in other words intelligence/sentience is really a measure of humanity, we decide how much something posseses the qualities that distinguish us from other animals). We are "the measuring stick". So by definition if they are intelligent they have things in common with us (saying we are not intelligent and they are is something that has no meaning)
Also we can expect them to act in their own interest, that no matter how advanced or different, they will pursue their own specie's survival. If they didn't they wouldn't survive long enough for us to meet them.
We can expect them to do the things life does (reproduce, produce energy from some kind of source - "the food", etc..)
Which means their benevolence or malavolence must be suported by that strategy having an advantage. You have to explain why being (generally rather towards your own group/species) very altruistic benefits your society, when evolution as we know it is based on competition.
In the end i think at universal scale we can't argue alien intention until we meet them. I don't think technological development is in any way correlated with attitude towards what is basicly competition - us, although you probably do need some level of social cooperation (=altruism) inside the society itself. -
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Re: Arguing Alien Intentions
Tue, September 27, 2005 - 9:48 AMI've argued for about 20 years that any intelligence that can transport itself between the gulf of stars; does not need to worry itself over such things as a need for a planet to invade in order to survive.
Let alone involve itself in the affairs of a barely (if at that) space faring race...
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Re: Arguing Alien Intentions
Mon, October 3, 2005 - 8:35 PMInclude the fact that such an intelligence in indeed "alien;" means that their reasoning is quite unlikely to be in synch with ours...
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Re: Arguing Alien Intentions
Wed, October 12, 2005 - 12:06 AMThis question is why I like the idea of the Wraith in Stargate Atlantis.
Why would an alien race even seek to concern themselves with us if 1) we werent some sort of imminent threat to their survival or 2) we didnt have have anything of value to exchange in terms of either technology, knowledge, or tradable goods?
Answer: To eat us, of course!
