Extraterrestrial First Contact: That Which Does Not Kill Us

You have probably heard the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s quote "That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Quite often this is the case with humans. We learn from past mistakes and go on to do things more effectively. The novel coronavirus, COVID-19, is an example of this occurring in human society. The pandemic may better prepare us for worse disease outbreaks in the future. Health authorities in China will hopefully learn from their mistake of hiding the initial outbreak. In the United States, it is clear that the Strategic National Stockpile of medical emergency materials is woefully under prepared. Testing has also been a big issue in the United States. Now, can we guarantee that nations will learn from their mistakes? Of course not. Sometimes governments and institutions fail, even after learning from a crisis. We could become complacent about the Strategic National Stockpile in a year or two. Coronavirus vaccine research apparently dried up a few years ago because of a lack of interest and funding. But hopefully some lessons will be learned from this pandemic and responses improved for future events.

So, why do I write about this topic for a blog about extraterrestrial First Contact? If an advanced extraterrestrial civilization knows that we are here on Earth, “That which does not kill us…” may be the reason they haven’t contacted humans. Our human civilization advances in lurches and sometimes that includes going backwards before going forward. Progress is not a straight line. We learn from our mistakes and we work to make things better. The same is true of our scientific system. It is just as important to have scientific failures as it is to have advances. The failures lead to the advances. By learning what doesn’t work, we can get a clearer picture of what might work. It’s possible that an advanced alien civilization doesn’t want to interfere in this process here on Earth. They could very well be watching this unfold and tracking our progress.

There could be situations that would cause such aliens to change course and decide that it is time for them to make contact. Perhaps it could be a backwards slide that they worry we won’t recover from? It’s interesting to note the stresses that COVID-19 has put on our global interaction. Some people are questioning the wisdom of globalization efforts. It seems that COVID-19 may be a harmful, but not catastrophic event for humanity. But what if it was much worse? What would that do to the human civilization? What if tens of millions die in a future pandemic or if there is a nuclear war? One possibility is the so called “Dark Ages” for Europe. The Little Ice Age, thought to be caused by a massive volcano eruption, caused famine across the western hemisphere around 1300 AD. The Black Plague struck a few decades later and killed 20 million people in Europe. The result was a return to smaller, fractious governments in Europe and a decline in science and literature. It lasted for centuries.

If humans were facing a “Dark Ages” scenario again, would aliens intervene? That would, of course, depend on the intentions of the extraterrestrials. For all we know, they could be watching and hoping that our progress is stunted so that we don’t develop the technology to go out into the wider universe and bother them. If they did have good intentions towards us, they would want to carefully weigh each disaster to decide the impact. Under the “That which does not kill us…” philosophy they would be hesitant to get involved unless they had to. Humans often view aliens as potential saviors, rescuing us from our problems of climate change, dirty energy production, and other pollution. However, it seems unrealistic to expect aliens to have better ideas than us when it comes to human conditions. Take a look at COVID-19. It’s a human virus. We have many years of experience examining viruses here on Earth. Why should we expect aliens to have more knowledge about something so specific to Earth? I’m not ruling out the idea that extraterrestrial insight might assist with human progress. But it seems likely that information would be much more general in nature, if they decided to share at all. Perhaps it could be insight into better data mining techniques? It could be a key idea in physics that could change our way of thought.

If high-information, Direct First Contact does occur someday, we should be prepared to be disappointed in what aliens offer us in terms of scientific and social help. I think, though, we would get over such a disappointment. The realization that we are not alone in the universe may be enough to spark a social renaissance in human society. Just that change in perspective could be the best gift of all.