Extraterrestrial First Contact: Those Who Scream the Loudest

There will be plenty of conversation in the wake of alien First Contact. It could range from simple debate to heated confrontations. If there is one thing we have learned about discourse in the last 30 years, it is that those who scream the loudest are often given the most attention by the news media. The reason is simple: controversy. Controversy is the life blood of the news business and the parts of social media not dedicated to cats. Take a look at what is trending on Twitter. It is most likely a controversy. Do a check list next time you watch TV news- aside from murders and disasters, what takes up the most TV time? Controversy. We love the stuff. Controversy can usually be seen on a spectrum with poles on either end. Let’s take the Colin Kaepernick football kneeling debate. People with opinions on one pole support his efforts, believing that it is important to highlight police shootings of black Americans. Individuals on the other pole think that kneeling during the National Anthem is an affront to Veterans and the entire nation. Both sides scream quite loudly. And it is a legitimate debate. I am not implying that the people on opposite sides of an issue should not be paid any attention. However, I do think that their rhetoric often drowns out more moderate viewpoints. Those moderate considerations could provide a better path to understanding, and perhaps a resolution.

Alien First Contact is likely to be controversial. At the very least, there would be people who are concerned about such contact, fearing an alien attack or extraterrestrial dominance of humans. Others would likely consider Frist Contact our salvation and welcome aliens with open arms. The people at both of those opposite poles would likely scream their view points, perhaps in public protests. Violence could erupt. Many parts of human society could be brought into the debate, including politics, religion, culture, and economics. That would make for quite a bit of noise. What would happen to moderate, perhaps majority, opinions in such a situation? They would likely be washed away in the flood of controversy. Media outlets won’t want to cover the quiet majority. They will focus on the raucous polar extremes.

In the wake of high-information First Contact, there would need to be an effort to find out majority and minority nuanced views. It will have to be an intentional process, since there is no ready mechanism in place for gathering such information. The media usually responds to the latest debate laid out before them. Journalists are not very good about applying introspection and context. Taking the pulse of humanity would be a job for survey science and sadly, survey science is dying. The primary culprit is changing communication mediums. Telephones were once the established base of survey science. However, as cell phones took over, the public listing of phone numbers disappeared, taking away access to contacts that could easily be randomized. Human attitudes towards opinion polling also suffered from abuse. Politicians began using push-polling to influence voters under the guise of a survey. Web polls are tough to make scientifically accurate. The old method of telephone polling was done in a way to ensure a representative sample. It is tough to do that via the Internet. There are very few opportunities for random selection of subjects.

Academics would need to rally in the wake of alien First Contact. It would be critical that humans know what other humans are thinking. And not just for one country or a few countries. We would want to know what humans across cultures and geographical areas are thinking about alien First Contact.  Colleges and universities can be found in just about every nation on Earth. Academic leaders could take the opportunity to conduct emergency surveys in whatever methods could best be used. Data mining of the Internet could be a huge help. Research groups could monitor search words and other Internet data. What is trending on Twitter could be a good guide for what needs further study.  I have often said that social science would need to lead the way if Direct First Contact does occur. Political leaders would need to know what their constituents are thinking. World leaders could use the information to listen to the people, and then take the steps to carry out the public will.  We could even use the results to better communicate with humans. There would likely be a great deal of misinformation After First Contact. Polling could help determine where there was misinformation, confusion or unnecessary worry. Once identified, a plan could be developed to respond with factual information.

Listening will be critical if First Contact does occur someday. For social science academics, this would be a drop everything and respond moment of emergency research. That’s not how higher education institutions and research think-tanks usually operate. To be relevant, they would need to adopt the position of emergency research first responders. Get the data and get it out to the public. Peer reviews, and the resulting debate, would have to be done on the fly. I understand that is problematic, but in the first weeks, months and years of First Contact, a necessary evil. We won’t want crappy research, but simple and effective research done quickly. That quick response doesn’t preclude social scientists carrying out more careful long-term research that would follow the usual route of academic journals and peer review. That will still be important.

The reputation of those colleges and universities could cause the media to pay attention to these quick response studies and surveys. Perhaps then, a balance could be restored. Listening to extremists would be important. However, not at the expense of drowning out the majority of humans. Knee jerk responses and dangerous actions could harm humans for many generations to come. A rational discussion would be necessary to plot a path forward.

I have suggested that the United Nations, and each individual nation, would need to have a group of professionals assigned to listening to the public. They could bring in such poll results and other research to help the UN, Security Council, and individual General Assembly nations set the agenda for response.

We won’t be able to rely on our usual ways of doing things in a high-information First Contact situation. We will have to respond quickly to immediate needs and also keep looking forward. That will take both organization and significant effort.

Photo by Iñaki del Olmo on Unsplash