Are we ready for intelligent life from other planets?

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A lot of people always question if there is intelligent life on other planets or in different galaxies.  There was a movie made on this recently called “Arrival”. Chances are is that there are, considering the probability. But there is a chance of some of us coming to contact with other life forms. I want to know if we are mentally and/or physically ready if it were to ever happen. Without doing any research I would want to say no. I think that if there is a life form that is able to reach our planet, then we wouldn’t be on even similar intellectual levels. As for physical, if they happen to be an aggressive species than I would say that if all of the countries united as one, then I doubt we would stand a chance. But, I could be wrong because those are my opinions.

After doing some research into the matter I have learned a few things. According to Seth Shostak, who detects radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, there is a process you are supposed to follow when someone finds a radio signal. It is called SETI which stands for the “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence”. This was made in the 80s and it was designed to help the United States and the Soviet Union share information that they find about extraterrestrial life. This is just between those two countries though, as for our relations with any other country about aliens is not existent. There was one time in the 1997 where they think they found a signal that was promising. Seth kept waiting for government officials or a phone call from the pentagon, but they only call that he got was from The New York Times.

Phillip Davies, an astronomer at Arizona State University, said that people would most likely fall into two groups. The first one would be “Catastrophists” who would think that the world is over and the existence of humanity will seize to exist. The other group would be “millenarian enthusiasts” who would anticipate the exact opposite. They think that they would know how to cure cancer, solve the energy crisis, and make world peace. According to Stephen Hawking, he thinks that to make contact with alien life would be “a little too risky” and then continued to compare the event to when Christopher Columbus arrived in the New world. What we have already learned from that event in history is that the Native Americans got driven out of their own land due to lack of technology. He claims it would be a similar situation, and I agree with him. I think we shouldn’t be too eager to make contact with an unknown life form.

There is also an interesting video from a youtuber that I am quite fond of. The video is from Vsauce and he makes videos about things that you are already questioning. Things like how certain drugs effect us and what would happen to us if we were to enter a black hole.

 

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