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Always wondered this:

What if we found absolute proof that aliens existed in the universe? Absolute total proof that there was at least one other technologically advanced species in existence. What would the effect on society be?

Well to start with, a new genre of erotic fiction would be added to the internet.

Aside from that, I think it would come down to can we interact with them or are they 500 light years away and we just know of them. If we interact with them, who knows. Maybe new technologies and common purpose change society and economies. If we just know of them, they there would probably be very little effect on society.

It would get called fake news.

Unless they were close enough to have meaningful interaction with in the near future people would freak out, it would be a huge deal for 6 months to two years, then everything would pretty much go back to normal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lifeafter wrote:
Well to start with, a new genre of erotic fiction would be added to the internet.

Ehem, you do not get out much on the internet do you...

We'd have to shut the religious people up before they managed to trigger some intergalactic war and re-enact 40K IRL.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Always wondered this:

What if we found absolute proof that aliens existed in the universe? Absolute total proof that there was at least one other technologically advanced species in existence. What would the effect on society be?

Heavy flamer production intensifies.

Well they would look at our warlike ways and try to set up a neutral zone to keep us out.

oh I hate how everyone blames the religious for the wars....it does have merit and real historic basis....however....

Lets look a the US history alone:

French/Indian War (mostly secular)
Revolutionalry War (secular)
War of 1812 (secular)
Civil War (secular)
Spanish war (secular)
WW1 (secular)
WW2 (secular)
Korean War (secular)
Vietnam War ( definition of Secular)
The wars since then can be argued either way depend where you want to come from

Still with the Nazis and the Communists in just last century the amount of secular war kills far outstrips religious wars by many factors if not more than 10 fold.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Always wondered this:

What if we found absolute proof that aliens existed in the universe? Absolute total proof that there was at least one other technologically advanced species in existence. What would the effect on society be?

A: they are deemed a big enough threat that we for a second or tow get our gak toghether and start unifying and get gak done.


B: Nothing happens due to not beeing able to reach them in time for violent interaction. Except the Religious nutjobs declare it fake news like climate change etc.


C: We manage to interact with them on friendly ish terms

 admironheart wrote:
Well they would look at our warlike ways and try to set up a neutral zone to keep us out.

oh I hate how everyone blames the religious for the wars....it does have merit and real historic basis....however....

Lets look a the US history alone:

French/Indian War (mostly secular)
Revolutionalry War (secular)
War of 1812 (secular)
Civil War (secular)
Spanish war (secular)
WW1 (secular)
WW2 (secular)
Korean War (secular)
Vietnam War ( definition of Secular)
The wars since then can be argued either way depend where you want to come from

Still with the Nazis and the Communists in just last century the amount of secular war kills far outstrips religious wars by many factors if not more than 10 fold.

Yeah, it makes total sense to base an 'analysis' of religious wars on the modern history of a single secular state and two events from the last hundred years of world history.

 lifeafter wrote:
Well to start with, a new genre of erotic fiction would be added to the internet.

Aside from that, I think it would come down to can we interact with them or are they 500 light years away and we just know of them. If we interact with them, who knows. Maybe new technologies and common purpose change society and economies. If we just know of them, they there would probably be very little effect on society.

I agree with that.

To know there is another technically advanced species would be interesting scientifically and philosophically, but if there was no possibility of communication and contact, it would have relatively little impact on everyday life.

 Excommunicatus wrote:

 admironheart wrote:
Well they would look at our warlike ways and try to set up a neutral zone to keep us out.

oh I hate how everyone blames the religious for the wars....it does have merit and real historic basis....however....

Lets look a the US history alone:

French/Indian War (mostly secular)
Revolutionalry War (secular)
War of 1812 (secular)
Civil War (secular)
Spanish war (secular)
WW1 (secular)
WW2 (secular)
Korean War (secular)
Vietnam War ( definition of Secular)
The wars since then can be argued either way depend where you want to come from

Still with the Nazis and the Communists in just last century the amount of secular war kills far outstrips religious wars by many factors if not more than 10 fold.

Yeah, it makes total sense to base an 'analysis' of religious wars on the modern history of a single secular state and two events from the last hundred years of world history.

But Facts are still Facts.

If you have 2 neighbors that have been fighting for years.
First their is stone throwing and trashcan smashing
there is yelling and other uncouth behavior
Then recently they pull out their guns and knives and have at it.

Well in the discussion of their disputes the media will mostly focus on the 'big' event not the earlier and comparatively minor infractions. (Same with human wars recent and old. Even the 100years war-religious- by some accounts killed less than 100,000k. Allies fire bombing at night of tissue paper houses in Tokyo did more than that. Which is worse?)
consider most religiouls wars in the past had some real hard 'secular' driving forces. It is just people with and agenda like to look at history with a bias or at best subjective lenses instead of the facts.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 lifeafter wrote:
Well to start with, a new genre of erotic fiction would be added to the internet.

Aside from that, I think it would come down to can we interact with them or are they 500 light years away and we just know of them. If we interact with them, who knows. Maybe new technologies and common purpose change society and economies. If we just know of them, they there would probably be very little effect on society.

I agree with that.

To know there is another technically advanced species would be interesting scientifically and philosophically, but if there was no possibility of communication and contact, it would have relatively little impact on everyday life.

This.

Everyone would still have to go to work on Monday, pay their mortgages, mow their lawns, etc. This is why I just shrug at the SETI...unless said life is within our solar system, it really wouldn't matter to us beyond the 'knowing'.

Well, depends on the evidence.

I’d like to assume they are, or at least were, more technologically advanced.

If the former? Probably mass panic. Can you imagine what certain lunatics would do if they had actual others to bang on about, rather than trying to draw lines between melanin and cultural variances?

If the latter? Say we found a derelict craft? Pretty sure we’d do our usual filthy little tech monkies, and plunder it’s secrets good and proper, possibly propelling our technological advancement far further forward. Or we’d tow it back to Earth, and scientists would do a whoopsie, and blows us all to kingdom come.

Now that you mention it, are there any Sci-Fi books, movies or stories in which Earth has discovered and even contacted intelligent life outside our system, but due to lack of tech on BOTH sides, we're more like intergalactic pen-pals?

Would be interesting to explore the implications of knowing of each other, but not being able to actually meet in "person".
Surely there would be a race to advance so that we could meet which could unite use, but on the flip-side many factions would argue if we should, thus dividing us again.

-

 Galef wrote:
Now that you mention it, are there any Sci-Fi books, movies or stories in which Earth has discovered and even contacted intelligent life outside our system, but due to lack of tech on BOTH sides, we're more like intergalactic pen-pals?

-

Yeah, there was a film that covered the subject in a stimulating and thought provoking manner that deserves close attention. It was called "Species." I spent a lot of time scrutinizing that film.

Aren't we forgetting our science here? It's my limited understanding that because light travels at a certain speed, any info we got on this new planet or whatever, would already be out of date, because it would take hundreds of years to get to us or something. In that time, the Aliens might have become extinct due to war or a natural disaster or something.

I might be wrong. O Level Science was as far as I got.

They might only be 40 light years away, thinking all humans sport mullets.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
They might only be 40 light years away, thinking all humans sport mullets.

They still do in Australia

Even so, 40 light years is still a respectable distance in astronomical terms. It would take what, centuries to travel that distance by conventional means???

Thats around 37,840,000,000,000km. If we were traveling at 500kph, it would still take us over 86 million years to get there.

 lifeafter wrote:
Well to start with, a new genre of erotic fiction would be added to the internet.

Aside from that, I think it would come down to can we interact with them or are they 500 light years away and we just know of them. If we interact with them, who knows. Maybe new technologies and common purpose change society and economies. If we just know of them, they there would probably be very little effect on society.

this!

Kill. The. Xenos. Filth.

It would be, unless they are nearby and/or are able to interact with us

"Quite interesting"

 Grey Templar wrote:
Thats around 37,840,000,000,000km. If we were traveling at 500kph, it would still take us over 86 million years to get there.

86 million years

One hell of a distance. You know something, I absolutely believe there has to be, or was, another advanced civilization out there. In a galaxy this big, this infinite, there has to be.

But as the experts have pointed out, the distances are so vast, it's almost impossible we'll ever meet.

In many ways, that might be a good thing, if they're a Klingon stag party looking for a planet to trash

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Thats around 37,840,000,000,000km. If we were traveling at 500kph, it would still take us over 86 million years to get there.

86 million years

One hell of a distance. You know something, I absolutely believe there has to be, or was, another advanced civilization out there. In a galaxy this big, this infinite, there has to be.

But as the experts have pointed out, the distances are so vast, it's almost impossible we'll ever meet.

In many ways, that might be a good thing, if they're a Klingon stag party looking for a planet to trash

Unlikely, due to the nature of intwligent life.
I am refering to the "great filter"
, especially for individual action capable species it becomes an issue to get to the stage of spacefaring due to the nature of individual working species.

-If they are friendly or not.
-If Friendly what bacteria/virus they might give us that might be quite detrimental to the human race.
-If warlike....
-If our bacteria/virus are detrimental to them.
-Eventually there be a "why now.."

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Thats around 37,840,000,000,000km. If we were traveling at 500kph, it would still take us over 86 million years to get there.

86 million years

One hell of a distance. You know something, I absolutely believe there has to be, or was, another advanced civilization out there. In a galaxy this big, this infinite, there has to be.

But as the experts have pointed out, the distances are so vast, it's almost impossible we'll ever meet.

In many ways, that might be a good thing, if they're a Klingon stag party looking for a planet to trash

I mean, sure, space is really really big and all that, however I'm reasonably sure that if we ever do manage to get our gak together and figure out practical ways to leave the solar system, we won't be puttering along in a modern commercial jet plane. It is hypothetically plausible to achieve a significant percentage of C with technologies we know about or think we know about now, it's a question of solving the bits we don't fully know yet and making the tech efficient enough to be functional outside of simulations and labs.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Now that you mention it, are there any Sci-Fi books, movies or stories in which Earth has discovered and even contacted intelligent life outside our system, but due to lack of tech on BOTH sides, we're more like intergalactic pen-pals?

-

Yeah, there was a film that covered the subject in a stimulating and thought provoking manner that deserves close attention. It was called "Species." I spent a lot of time scrutinizing that film.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_(film)

There are some scenes worth scrutinizing closely I imagine

And the new Slaanesh models aren't even out yet!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 admironheart wrote:
Well they would look at our warlike ways and try to set up a neutral zone to keep us out.

Or they could show up and be shocked that any species would be so non-violent as to think peace was an ideal state. Because with no comparison we have no idea if our 'warlike ways' are warlike at all; we could be extremely peaceful on the galactic scale.

 lifeafter wrote:
Well to start with, a new genre of erotic fiction would be added to the internet.

I think you'll find that genre already exists.

Aside from that, I think it would come down to can we interact with them or are they 500 light years away and we just know of them. If we interact with them, who knows. Maybe new technologies and common purpose change society and economies. If we just know of them, they there would probably be very little effect on society.

Bah. I expect riots in the streets (especially outside religious institutions) and murder/suicide rates to spike severely. And that's on 'just know of them.' Actual contact will spark full scale wars. If we're very lucky they'll be directed outwards, regardless of our inability to get there.

Voss wrote:

Aside from that, I think it would come down to can we interact with them or are they 500 light years away and we just know of them. If we interact with them, who knows. Maybe new technologies and common purpose change society and economies. If we just know of them, they there would probably be very little effect on society.

Bah. I expect riots in the streets (especially outside religious institutions) and murder/suicide rates to spike severely. And that's on 'just know of them.' Actual contact will spark full scale wars. If we're very lucky they'll be directed outwards, regardless of our inability to get there.

I think you vastly overestimate the human capacity to overreact about things that do not impact their lives directly, right now. When it comes to larger philosophical questions or long-term possibilities humans trend heavily towards apathetic in their actions. To use modern democracy as an example* many people will not spend a single day of their lives every few years to go vote even though that is tremendously important to their future. Because it does not have an immediate impact in their lives, right now.

*I am not trying to get into politics here, at all. The example just illustrates the point effectively and in a way everyone can understand.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Voss wrote:

Aside from that, I think it would come down to can we interact with them or are they 500 light years away and we just know of them. If we interact with them, who knows. Maybe new technologies and common purpose change society and economies. If we just know of them, they there would probably be very little effect on society.

Bah. I expect riots in the streets (especially outside religious institutions) and murder/suicide rates to spike severely. And that's on 'just know of them.' Actual contact will spark full scale wars. If we're very lucky they'll be directed outwards, regardless of our inability to get there.

I think you vastly overestimate the human capacity to overreact about things that do not impact their lives directly, right now. When it comes to larger philosophical questions or long-term possibilities humans trend heavily towards apathetic in their actions. To use modern democracy as an example* many people will not spend a single day of their lives every few years to go vote even though that is tremendously important to their future. Because it does not have an immediate impact in their lives, right now.

*I am not trying to get into politics here, at all. The example just illustrates the point effectively and in a way everyone can understand.

That would be correct if you talk about representative systems of modern democracy.

We here have a comfortable 80-90% of interested people in it.