First Contact Strategy and Ethics
In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode, “Strange New World,” (2001) T’Pol attempts to caution Captain Archer and his crew about visiting the uninhabited planet they discover. She wants to take a number of days, just over a week, to complete scans from orbit and with probes. The lone Vulcan on the ship, T’Pol, will later […]
I recently listened to a SETI Big Picture Science podcast with Adam Frank, author of Little Book of Aliens, which I do own, but have yet to read (there is always one more book to read as one professor put it). Adam Frank was highly optimistic that we will detect technosignatures on exoplanets within the […]
Astrotheology takes on different meanings depending on who is doing the explication. It may range from Christian apologetics to a cycle of understanding creation with a potential discovery of life not on Earth. Now, more properly, this is related to astrobiology. This could be any type of life beyond Earth, not just little green men. […]
Music is a universal language. Well, that is not completely true. There is more than one standard of music theory depending on where you are from in the world. The point is, we can still understand another human culture’s music. We can even love and respect another human culture’s music. Now, in the spirit of […]
If we were to have First Contact with a species that, like us, had a Sainthood Complex, the result would no doubt be some type of escalated conflict. Of course, humans do have a Sainthood Complex. We each want to believe we are just and right and we go to great lengths to prove our […]
I am aware this is a website dedicated to the idea of First Contact and from that perspective it may seem and even be reasonable to assume that I am a conspiracy addict. Quite the opposite. I do not hold to any fervent belief that First Contact has already been made and that the powers […]
We must learn to see ourselves as alien. After all, the dream of first contact comes with the reality that to other species, we would be the aliens. With an internalized, objective directive and series of thought experiments for ethicists and philosophers, they could teach scientists and strategists to reframe our humancentric understanding and learn […]
I previously, jokingly, wrote The 5 Spatiotemporal Laws and posted it online, mostly for my own amusement with the added bonus of confusing who might come across it. However, the 5th Spatiotemporal Law, I feel, is legitimate. I wrote that, “The 5th spatiotemporal law states that time, ontology, biology and physics are all the same. […]
What is more novel than First Contact? Perhaps it should not be considered such a grand introduction. There is the very real likelihood that any species that advanced and with the motivation to contact us would understand us, and approach us, in more anthropological terms. They might see it as appropriate to contact us within […]
An ancient malady of modern humans is the weakness and pervasiveness of pride. It goes without saying that if First Contact is made with a species even more prideful than us many problems could arise. While this may be limited to diplomatic sensitivities, the potential for fallout is real. If miscommunication is too severe not […]
