That or the technological equivalent of “free blankets”…

Anyone read up on “How to serve man!”???

Think of an ET who is so technilogically advanced as to be able to travel here over vast distances. Think of how advanced a creature they must be. They must, firstly, have survived themselves as a species. They must have stopped going to war with themselves and stopped fighting and killing themselves. Their collective energies spent on the advancement of science and space exploration, either because they were forced to do so due to potential conditions at home that forced them to look outside their home planet for colonizing opportunities, or because they had the time and energy to spend towards such enterprises instead of self serving enterprises.

So, if the aliens that come to earth are here looking for a new home, they may be less than friendly and curious to get to know us better. If they are scientists and forthright thinking as a species, they may look at us as the primitive animal much like how we view Chimps and Apes.

The story was by Howard Fast, author of Spartacus, and called, appropriately, “The Large Ant.” Very good it is. I can also recommend “The First Men” and “The General Zapped an Angel,” which I read in the same collection.

“If the aliens have any kind of smarts at all, and have peaceful intent, they’ll make first contact from a distance.”

True, but the rules are still needed for eventual direct contact — assuming that’s possible. (If they breathe chlorine, or get chilly at 40°C, they’ll probably interact only with specialists.)

Tens of millions of women currently live as slaves. Nine million children die every year in poverty. A billion or so people can’t read. Look at how xenophobic people are towards people today. I fear our interaction with aliens would go more like “War of the Worlds” or “District Nine” than Star Trek. Our track record is not good.

Still gotta try to do the right thing, though.

If they can find and reach us, they are powerful enough to tell us what is what and if we find them, there isn’t a need to use hypotheticals since we already know how we react to the technologically backward who happen to be sitting on something we want.

Why would we afford aliens more rights than we do others of our own species? Are they not all sentient and all the other things listed as “mattering”? Since we treat them as chattel, why would we do otherwise just because they are from another planetary system?

As a practical matter, it is national governments who make and enforce laws. Anything supra-national has to go through some body like the U.N. And quite honestly, there are gaps in the U.N. you can drive a truck through (multiple reasons, let’s not get bogged down).

Also, some people in positions of authority look at stuff like this with a jaundiced eye. They think, “that’s esoteric and unlikely. Also, why should we give away some of our freedom to act, considering that we don’t know what the future will hold?”

The real problem here isn’t earthlings or extra-terrestrials. The real problem are the scientists (both earthling and ET). Scientists are the ones who always want to probe everything. Let the earth scientists and the alien scientists experiment on each other.

@JMW: Oy! That’s “Munkittrick’s Four Laws of Interstellar Diplomacy.” However, for mistaking me to be Phil Plait, you have sufficiently flattered me to earn forgiveness. All is well.