What if We Discovered an Alien Civilization Less Advanced Than Our Own?

[rangerrebew]

What if We Discovered an Alien Civilization Less Advanced Than Our Own?
By Corey S. Powell | May 10, 2017 11:47 am
 

Readers of this blog know that I’m a big fan of Quora, because it lets non-experts raise the kinds of speculative questions that don’t normally come up in formal scientific discussions. One frequent theme that comes up is the issue of what we would do if we found intelligent life on a planet around another star. A recent posting in particular caught my eye: “What would we do if we found an Earthlike planet with intelligent life that is 500 years behind us in technology and advancements?”

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/2017/05/10/alien_civilization/#.WRRJRsa1t0i

[Oceander]

Planet 51!

[Cripplecreek]

We would be doing them a favor by bringing them up to our level.

I don't believe in a "prime directive" and see nothing noble in it.

[Smokin Joe]

We would be doing them a favor by bringing them up to our level.

I don't believe in a "prime directive" and see nothing noble in it.

I do. Stay out of the way. Give them a chance to develop an intelligent culture.
Technology alone does not make for being 'advanced', either, so a lot would depend on how you defined 'advanced'.
Considering that pretty basic terms like "wall", "healthcare", etc. seem to be so hard to agree upon, "Advanced" should be a fun discussion.

[Gefn]

It depends on the situation and the people.

Yes to indoor plumbing, electric lights, printing presses, medicine, things to make their lives easier.

But no to splitting atoms. I would not want to be responsible for that.

[Cripplecreek]

People 500 years ago were perfectly modern humans completely capable of comprehending our modern technology. In fact Cro Magnon man were modern men in all but technological advances.

Obviously you would want to take care in how you introduce the technology. Maybe plow fields for them and start introducing modern farming methods to them. Start teaching them to teach each other.

[Cripplecreek]

Harry Turtledove's "The Road not taken" really broke my brain on this sort of thing.

[Smokin Joe]

It depends on the situation and the people.

Yes to indoor plumbing, electric lights, printing presses, medicine, things to make their lives easier.

But no to splitting atoms. I would not want to be responsible for that.

If you are going to give them electricity, skip the printing press. They'll just print money, anyway.
Go directly to internet, conserve resources.

Learn from their medicine, first. It may appear (and may be) "primitive" but it has evolved over their cultural existence and to some extent that means the things that work best are in use. They may have subtle methods and indigenous remedies and cures we know nothing about, and could learn from. A tremendous amount of indigenous herbal lore was lost by assuming tribal medicine men and women were just 'witch doctors' . Instead of feathers, masks, and paint, ours dress in scrubs and white lab coats and invoke the standard chants to the antitobacco god. (plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose).

[Wingnut]

Nuke em from space and steal all the planets resources.

[Smokin Joe]

Nuke em from space and steal all the planets resources.

It might be a kinder fate than well-intentioned meddling, and safer than letting them prowl the galaxy on a Saturday night all hopped up on Kerbango or something.

[Wingnut]

It might be a kinder fate than well-intentioned meddling, and safer than letting them prowl the galaxy on a Saturday night all hopped up on Kerbango or something.

Nothing in the universe can be made worse until you inject a human into it.

[Cripplecreek]

It is kind of interesting that there have been hints of resentment that have been pointed in the direction of the Vulcans on the various Star Trek series over the years.

They were far more than 500 years advanced of humans but were draw to a warp signature which signaled mankind about ready to leave the solar system. They controlled and restricted humanity for many years. It showed up most in the Star Trek Enterprise series where Captain Archer accused the Vulcans of keeping us on a leash.

[Smokin Joe]

Well, I heard the whole "advanced culture" thing put this way.

When the white man got to the New World, he encountered cultures where the women skinned game, prepared the food, tanned and rendered supple the hides, and made clothing from them, tended gardens and small children. 

The men went hunting and fishing, and occasionally went to neighboring tribes to raid or trade, and no one complained when they got a new bow, knife, or lance.

Think about all that improvement, guys.

[Polly Ticks]

Nuke em from space and steal all the planets resources.

 

[Wingnut]

Well, I heard the whole "advanced culture" thing put this way.

When the white man got to the New World, he encountered cultures where the women skinned game, prepared the food, tanned and rendered supple the hides, and made clothing from them, tended gardens and small children. 

The men went hunting and fishing, and occasionally went to neighboring tribes to raid or trade, and no one complained when they got a new bow, knife, or lance.

Think about all that improvement, guys.

Man I miss the good old days!

[montanajoe]

Well I'd say some would be polishing up their beads and trinkets, some would be trying to register them to vote, and others would be sending missionaries...

[Smokin Joe]

Well I'd say some would be polishing up their beads and trinkets, some would be trying to register them to vote, and others would be sending missionaries...

Don't forget the government agents, vying for treaties for 95% of the planet's surface and minerals....and taxmen. :nometalk:

[Wingnut]

Don't forget the government agents, vying for treaties for 95% of the planet's surface and minerals....and taxmen. :nometalk:

And Land Grab...don't forget Haley Vs United States...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQZarDGRH1Q&ab_channel=TheOrb

[Smokin Joe]

And Land Grab...don't forget Haley Vs United States...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQZarDGRH1Q&ab_channel=TheOrb

Can't forget that. There are 1280 acres out of 10 million the government so graciously allowed my wife's people to keep (any else in tribal trust or private hands they had to buy back from the people who got it for 'back' taxes).

[bolobaby]

We would be doing them a favor by bringing them up to our level.

I don't believe in a "prime directive" and see nothing noble in it.

@Cripplecreek

Soooo....

I was at an amusement park with the kids recently, walking through the midway. Do you know what the prizes were for the games? I'm not kidding, here...



Yes. Stuffed poop. And stuffed poop hats. Some of the poop was in rainbow colors.

So next time you fantasize about bringing an "underdeveloped" alien culture up to "our level," grab your nuts - or whatever parts afforded you by one of 67 genders - buck up, and just walk that fantasy riiiiiight back.

We truly have become Idiocracy.

[the_doc]

@Polly Ticks
@Wingnut

Nuke em from space and steal all the planets resources?  No, no, NO!

(They might be tasty.  The Reptilians might taste like alligator tail.)

[rangerrebew]

What about the if?  We've already discovered a "civilization" less advanced than our own.  Its called Black Lives Matter.

[Sanguine]

This happened all throughout our history.  More advanced cultures "discover" less advanced cultures, and, generally, the less advanced disappear, adapt and/or assilmilate.

[Cripplecreek]

This happened all throughout our history.  More advanced cultures "discover" less advanced cultures, and, generally, the less advanced disappear, adapt and/or assilmilate.

Assimilation and adaption are preferable. Again, I just don't see anything noble in keeping primitive people primitive so we can study them and feel superior. I would encourage them to hold on to their history and useful parts of their traditional culture.

500 years ago people were fully modern humans who only lacked technologies and knowledge.

[Wingnut]

This happened all throughout our history.  More advanced cultures "discover" less advanced cultures, and, generally, the less advanced disappear, adapt and/or assimilate.

Except for Muslims. They have yet to disappear adapt or assimilate.

[EC]

Leave the sods alone until they are in the position to discover us.

If history has taught ONE thing, it's that a more advanced civilization discovering a less advanced one destroys the less advanced. Imagine how much worse it'd be if said more advanced civiliaztion literally descended from the sky.

[Gefn]

@Cripplecreek

Soooo....

I was at an amusement park with the kids recently, walking through the midway. Do you know what the prizes were for the games? I'm not kidding, here...



Yes. Stuffed poop. And stuffed poop hats. Some of the poop was in rainbow colors.

So next time you fantasize about bringing an "underdeveloped" alien culture up to "our level," grab your nuts - or whatever parts afforded you by one of 67 genders - buck up, and just walk that fantasy riiiiiight back.

We truly have become Idiocracy.

Or Mr. Hankey is famous!

[Ghost Bear]

@Cripplecreek

Soooo....

I was at an amusement park with the kids recently, walking through the midway. Do you know what the prizes were for the games? I'm not kidding, here...



Yes. Stuffed poop. And stuffed poop hats. Some of the poop was in rainbow colors.

So next time you fantasize about bringing an "underdeveloped" alien culture up to "our level," grab your nuts - or whatever parts afforded you by one of 67 genders - buck up, and just walk that fantasy riiiiiight back.

We truly have become Idiocracy.

[ABX]

We would be doing them a favor by bringing them up to our level.

I don't believe in a "prime directive" and see nothing noble in it.

So much of how we advanced as a civilization and species isn't the end result of our technology (or at least current state), it is the journey to get there.  Often, what the journey taught us was far more important than what we created in the end.

If said civilization was very similar to our own in terms of thinking, values, etc, we wouldn't be doing them a favor by just dropping advancement on them.

[240B]

We already have. There is a mysterious bacteria growing on interplanetary devices that no one can explain. They grow in space. As weird as this may seem, space seems to be full of life.

[Ghost Bear]

I'm surprised no one has yet suggested the obvious things we should do:

Fly our spacecraft over their major cities until they scramble the alien equivalent of fighter jets, and then zip out of sight;

Visit some rural farm, butcher some of the meat animals horribly, and leave the carcasses in a field for the alien farmer to find;

Visit another farm and cut strange symbols all through the crops;

Find some alien wandering along some back road, grab it, and subject it to "scientific experiments" of an extremely personal nature, then release it (physically) unharmed;

And of course, while doing all of these things, film them all so that they can be broadcast on the future version of "Punk'd" and/or "Candid Camera".   

[ABX]

I'm surprised no one has yet suggested the obvious things we should do:

Fly our spacecraft over their major cities until they scramble the alien equivalent of fighter jets, and then zip out of sight;

Visit some rural farm, butcher some of the meat animals horribly, and leave the carcasses in a field for the alien farmer to find;

Visit another farm and cut strange symbols all through the crops;

Find some alien wandering along some back road, grab it, and subject it to "scientific experiments" of an extremely personal nature, then release it (physically) unharmed;

And of course, while doing all of these things, film them all so that they can be broadcast on the future version of "Punk'd" and/or "Candid Camera".   

Also, make sure that all of our spacecraft have flashing lights on them, but use some method to always make them appear like a fuzzy dot.

[Ghost Bear]

Also, make sure that all of our spacecraft have flashing lights on them, but use some method to always make them appear like a fuzzy dot.

Yes! Imperfect cloaking... not quite enough to make our ships invisible, just enough to make it difficult for recording devices to get a clear picture.

And we should send scouts down among the aliens, always in pairs, disguised as aliens but not quite well enough to really pass without notice, and dressed all in black. 

[IsailedawayfromFR]

What if We Discovered an Alien Civilization Less Advanced Than Our Own?

Impossible if we let them first view Mexico.

[Oceander]

Give them the most wicked set of conflicting religious traditions we can come up with, complete with animal-headed gods and goddesses and flaming bushes.

[Smokin Joe]

Assimilation and adaption are preferable. Again, I just don't see anything noble in keeping primitive people primitive so we can study them and feel superior. I would encourage them to hold on to their history and useful parts of their traditional culture.

500 years ago people were fully modern humans who only lacked technologies and knowledge.

So, invent a time machine and give Genghis Khan AK-47s Or the Saracens 155s or the Crusaders Air to Ground capability...okay, that's 700 years ago, but you might get my point. 500 would only take them from the age of sail and draft animals to ICEs and Spacefaring with energy weapons instead of muzzle loaders.

I see great potential for disaster in delivering technologies into the hands of those who are still developing philosophically as well, not to mention the bias of individuals or their naivete seriously affecting the outcome, the future of the planet, the race/species, and the potential for that to have deleterious effects on the whole galaxy. In just the last 100 years (half that, actually) we have gone from being highly tolerant of massive collateral damage to attempt to achieve a military objective to filling JDAMs with concrete instead of explosive and using them as a kinetic weapon to eliminate a targeted building in a dense neighborhood.
Before, we'd have just wiped out the town (shells or bombs), even before air power.
Our philosophies have changed with out technologies, as we became more capable, as we became more capable of destruction. Not to say there have not been beneficial effects, but the same technologies used for peace can be adapted for conflict, and where not, they teach principles which can.

Not to mention the possibilities for proxy wars, planet by planet, system by system, etc.

 Behind it all, we still haven't decided the criteria for "advanced".

Who are we to mess with a planet which has existed without conflict, in harmony with its own ecosystem, in a stable society, with primitive technology?

In many ways they are far more advanced than we are, they just don't have fancy gadgets--which might end up destabilizing and destroying a culture which in other ways was far superior.

Let them chart their own course, unless they are a threat to others. Spare them being told how to run their planet by their "betters".  We get the same sh*t all the time in the hinterlands...

[montanajoe]

So, invent a time machine and give Genghis Khan AK-47s Or the Saracens 155s or the Crusaders Air to Ground capability...okay, that's 700 years ago, but you might get my point. 500 would only take them from the age of sail and draft animals to ICEs and Spacefaring with energy weapons instead of muzzle loaders.

I see great potential for disaster in delivering technologies into the hands of those who are still developing philosophically as well, not to mention the bias of individuals or their naivete seriously affecting the outcome, the future of the planet, the race/species, and the potential for that to have deleterious effects on the whole galaxy. In just the last 100 years (half that, actually) we have gone from being highly tolerant of massive collateral damage to attempt to achieve a military objective to filling JDAMs with concrete instead of explosive and using them as a kinetic weapon to eliminate a targeted building in a dense neighborhood.
Before, we'd have just wiped out the town (shells or bombs), even before air power.
Our philosophies have changed with out technologies, as we became more capable, as we became more capable of destruction. Not to say there have not been beneficial effects, but the same technologies used for peace can be adapted for conflict, and where not, they teach principles which can.

Not to mention the possibilities for proxy wars, planet by planet, system by system, etc.

 Behind it all, we still haven't decided the criteria for "advanced".

Who are we to mess with a planet which has existed without conflict, in harmony with its own ecosystem, in a stable society, with primitive technology?

In many ways they are far more advanced than we are, they just don't have fancy gadgets--which might end up destabilizing and destroying a culture which in other ways was far superior.

Let them chart their own course, unless they are a threat to others. Spare them being told how to run their planet by their "betters".  We get the same sh*t all the time in the hinterlands...

  Dont have time to be on the board tonight but well put agree completely

[Frank Cannon]

Leave the sods alone until they are in the position to discover us.

If history has taught ONE thing, it's that a more advanced civilization discovering a less advanced one destroys the less advanced. Imagine how much worse it'd be if said more advanced civiliaztion literally descended from the sky.

I don't know. There are plenty of jungle tribes and the such that have never experience civilization before we discovered them. We check them out, study them and then we go on our way and they continue on theirs.

[EC]

To be completely fair, I should have said "the less advanced destroys itself." since our worldview doesn't get changed by these meetings and we do have no intention of destroying them. But no - the jungle tribes we meet and study are changed significantly by the meeting - followups decades later show that.

OF course, another factor to think of when and if we meet a less advanced species is - they are a different species. We're going to be wildly different from them. 500 years ago, if a strange, inhuman being descended from the sky, they'd have been either worshipped or killed as a demon, if they could speak. Just killed as "different" if they couldn't.

It's why I say leave them alone until they discover US. Put the ball in their court, so they find us when they are ready. Sure, watch them, remotely study them, hell, stick them on TV to pay for the costs of monitoring, but no contact.

[geronl]

We will convert them to Christianity of course

[geronl]

We will steal all of their best TV programs without paying royalties, because we are evil.

[Wingnut]

I think Serling had the right idea.....

[Gefn]

I think Serling had the right idea.....

That was  good episode. Serling died too young. He had so much great stories in him we missed.

[Taxcontrol]

If past human behavior is any indication, there will be a brief period of cohabitation, then passive domination via no violent means, then violence that results in subjugation and enslavement.  The path out of enslavement will only happen after the collective culture no longer sees the enslaved as a threat.

[Gefn]

@Wingnut

I just had a horrible thought!


What if an alien civilization came here, were nice to us, gave us technology and in the end alll they had was a cookbook?

[Sanguine]

@Wingnut

I just had a horrible thought!


What if an alien civilization came here, were nice to us, gave us technology and in the end alll they had was a cookbook?

Our goose would be cooked?

[Wingnut]

@Wingnut

I just had a horrible thought!


What if an alien civilization came here, were nice to us, gave us technology and in the end alll they had was a cookbook?

Our goose would be cooked?

Yep we would be Pattie Far Gwar for sure!

[Frank Cannon]

What if We Discovered an Alien Civilization Less Advanced Than Our Own?

I think we already found one...

[geronl]

Who are we to mess with a planet which has existed without conflict, in harmony with its own ecosystem, in a stable society, with primitive technology?

What planet is that? I doubt such a one exists in any galaxy.

[Cripplecreek]

What planet is that? I doubt such a one exists in any galaxy.

Actually its kind of funny. Conservatives overwhelmingly cried foul over the poor portrayal of humanity in the Avatar flick. Yet here in this thread its a near unanimous consensus that we would be exactly like humans in  Avatar.

While it stands in direct conflict with my reasons for not wanting an alien race to discover us, I still have no problem with us interfering with a minimally less advanced race. Sure it would change them but that doesn't mean it would be a great harm. More likely than not we would be the greatest thing ever to happen to them.

Look at the animals we consider to be very intelligent like dogs, horses, great apes, dolphins and whales. Most of us treat them with great compassion when despite their intelligence, they're millions of years behind us. If those same animals could sing an opera, write novels, or discuss quantum physics they would deserve and win the same rights as humans.

There's no reason to believe we wouldn't treat a slightly lass advanced race than ours with respect.