3. Alien Inquiries
What would happen if an alien ship actually visited us one afternoon? Picture it, a gleaming ship the size of a building just materializes in a very large field off the highway. Social media erupts, and daily life transforms into a sci-fi movie scene. With a flurry of shock, disbelief, and fear, our world is awash with panic, dread, and awe.
After the initial chaos, we would begin to get a grip. I am sure we would first prepare a military response. We’d swagger pompously to show them how powerful we are. I have a feeling that these aliens would be up to the challenge, and our military maneuvers would not accomplish much. These visitors, with their materializing technology, would surely have the upper hand. Before long, we would realize just how out of our league we are and try to talk to them.
Communication would be difficult. Maybe we use our most advanced AI tools to interact with them. Pattern recognition is a strength of AI, so it may accomplish the task. What would we say? We could start with a question about them and their world, but I have a feeling we would open with a declarative statement, something like “Surrender, aliens!” That would be a very sad interworld opening line. What would the aliens say back to us? After declining to surrender, they may inquire about who we are as a species. They may have said something like “What do you value most and how do you engage with one another? Is there a common code of behavior for how you interact?”
This may be an unusual question, not typical sci-fi words, but this question makes sense. They would want to interact in a way that keeps them safe. It would be wise for them to learn what we value, to find our common moral code for how we treat one another. I think they would want to get to know who we are as a species, and there is no better way to know someone than by learning what they value and what codes they live by.
However, if they are as smart as it would seem, materializing here that afternoon, they might not engage with us or ask us any questions. They might just watch, point their sensors, and study us. That is what I would do. Imagine what they would learn during just one day of observation. They would see widespread misinformation, greed, threats of violence and maybe actual violence, profiteering, deceit, and arrogance. Maybe I am being harsh toward our home team, but I suspect we wouldn’t put our best foot forward. Instead of approaching our first interplanetary dialogue as a privileged interview, we would treat it as a spectacle. For some, it would surely be a profitable one.
We would be lucky if they asked us about our values instead of inferring our values based on our behavior. Let’s hope they don’t access social media. We’d be doomed.
Anyway, assume that we were at our best on that first contact day. Sweet and charming, we impress them enough that they open up to us and ask us about how we interact with one another. They ask about our code of conduct. What principles or values do we build our moral foundations on? If that was their question, we would be speechless. We don’t have an answer for them.
Maybe we send in a team of religious leaders to speak about our values and morals. In robes, the clergy march to the ship carrying symbols, raising holy books, praying as they approach. Incense and music fill the air. Their tone is warm but authoritative. Certainly, there would be some overlap in what our various religious leaders say. The word cloud from their answers would contain “love one another,” centered in large font, and “be kind” just below that, but then the cloud would bloom out to cover behaviors honoring God, worship, and proscriptions around faith. They would speak of the lure of sin, the devil, and the need to honor the Sabbath. Some would point to the Ten Commandments as the ultimate code of conduct. I can imagine an earnest minister touting the Ten Commandments as God’s law. In their view, this is the simplest answer to the question the aliens posed. I doubt the aliens would find that convincing. Killing, stealing, and coveting, all prohibited actions in the Decalogue, are widespread.
The aliens may nod their multiple heads, but after a while, the inconsistencies and supernatural inventions would be bothersome. The preached ideas of heaven and hell would surely confuse our visitors. Our spiritual leaders would offer a wide variety of directives, some indications about who we are as a species, but nothing the aliens could truly take as common human values or rules. Sadly, this set of representatives offers our guests no real reassurance.
We could ask our most successful business leaders to present their values and their codes of conduct to the aliens. The focus and drive of the speakers, the clarity and passion of their words, might impress the aliens. Our business leaders would speak about the values of freedom, hard work, and integrity. Several would point to their company codes of conduct as solid examples. This is not a bad approach. Many companies have developed thoughtful codes of conduct for their employees. The word “integrity” is common among them. “Trust” too. These vary across businesses so are not exactly the common code or set of values the aliens had in mind.
Someone might offer our state and federal laws as a code, but those are not consistent across states nor dutifully followed. Terms like “shareholder value” and “ROI” may require explanation. All this would give the alien visitors something to chew on, but it would likely not be enough to ease their concerns.
What are the codes that govern how we interact? There is no suitable answer. Humanity does not have an agreed-upon set of essential core values or a commonly regarded code of behavior. We have no “howality” or common view of how we aspire to behave.
There it is. We don’t agree on a common set of values or codes to live by. Each of us has unique values and views about what “doing the right thing” is. As individuals, we curate a vision of who we endeavor to be and adopt behavior boundaries to help us live up to that ideal. This vision differs from person to person, sometimes widely. We are missing the element of commonality. As a species, we have lots of variety, which is often beneficial, but variety is not necessarily helpful when trying to reassure aliens about whether we will abuse, betray, or harm them. We would love to hand them a succinct set of commonly held values and codes we teach our children and strive to live by, but we can’t. We have not produced this over our thousands of years of human existence.
Missing also is a personal commitment to our core values. We aspire to follow our personal values and codes, but we will make exceptions if we need to. Between our inconsistent set of ethics guidelines and our semisoft commitment to them, the aliens will have seen enough. Our visitors will conclude that although humans value certain principles, we are not consistent across the population. Plus, even when we agree on a moral element or virtue, we don’t fully commit to following it. Our alien guests will conclude that dealing with us is loaded with uncertainty. The moral terrain here is unstable. A human-run Earth is dangerous. It would be smart for them to lift off or disperse back to their home.
With a whoosh, they are gone. Bye, aliens! Thanks for stopping in to see us. We wish we could reassure you! Come back someday, but give us some time first. We need it to sort out what our core values are and how we really want to live as a species.
