Slashdot Mirror
How Do You Greet an Extraterrestrial?
The LA Times is running a story about Earth Speaks, a companion project to SETI, which focuses on how we would communicate with intelligent extraterrestrial life, should we happen to discover it. Far more effort has been devoted to searching for signals or a means to communicate than the question of what we might say once contact is established, and the folks at SETI have set up a website to gather opinions on what the best questions and statements are. "So far, the messages break down into a few distinct categories. Some people want to throw a block party to welcome the aliens to the neighborhood. Others, less trusting, would warn the aliens that we've got guns and know how to use them. Another group, possibly influenced by having seen too many movies, would have us hide under the bed until they go away. 'If we discover intelligent life beyond Earth, we should not reply — we should freeze and play dead,' wrote one contributor." What would you say first to an alien?
got any new porn we haven't seen yet ???
We should definitely show them that we are rational, well behaved lifeforms, with broad interests and predictable interaction
For starters we can offer them a free subscription and RSS feed to /.
Oh wait...
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
I, for one, would welcome our new alien overlords.
Roll for initiative... :D
I need a new sig...
...any alien that lands on planet Earth will likely be pale-skinned, dressed in strange clothing & only grunt monosyllabically at you having been sat in front of a console screen for the past 50 years - so just practice your alien communication skills on the average British teenager...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Please fill out these entry visa papers or we'll have to ask you to leave...
Citing that evidence suggests that they have been monitoring earth broadcasts, and that their planet is not within the distribution zone of the earth's intellectual property, and that royalties must be paid immediately for the past 50-100 years of received carrier wave based entertainment that they have received free of cost.
Further, a gag order is hereby issued forbidding the aliens to discuss either this suit or the entertainment materials (hereto fore "content") with any other audience, known or unknown to the residents of earth, until after trial or settlement has been concluded,
Yadda yadda yadda
Give us all your money,
Signed, the MPAA and RIAA industries.
Apparently you are unaware of Japanese tentacle porn. We've got that angle covered, thankyouverymuch.
Next.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I'd ask them if their political views are left or right wing.
DAVIS: We are a benign species, opposed to interplanetary conflict, and believe in equal opportunity for all beings, regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation or planet of origin
STAN: That's nice. Look, let me start over, OK? I want you to tell me what the people on your planet are gonna do to make Stanley H Tweedle a happier man
DAVIS: Is this right?
PRINCE: Stick to the cards, Mr President. All possibilities have been anticipated. Do not deviate from the cards
DAVIS: Congratulations on your birthday!
sic transit gloria mundi
Didn't any of you know? You say, "Gnorts, Mr Alien". Back in the 60's, NASA realised that the Apollo might encounter aliens on the Moon, so they named the leader of the expedition appropriately (in an anagram, to demonstrate our intelligence and puzzle-setting ability).
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
In that case, why have we as a society still failed to find common ground with Dolphins?
You bring up a good point. Monkeys and chimps share up to 90% of their DNA with humans, and yet the last time I tried to teach my capuchin sign language, I got beaned with a fecal fast-ball.
Yeah, I think it's that 10% responsible for our neocortex that's going to make a difference here...
Are you suggesting that the reason we can't communicate with squids is because scientists have been trying to make love to them all these years? Instead of sharing intelligence?
Or did I misread something? Because that's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. :)
Comment of the year
ba weep gra na weep nini bon
A convenient snack on those long journeys across the galaxy.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
If they turn out to be hostile, just beam them the rules of cricket - if that doesn't act as an interplanteary virus, they'll think we're all crazy and won't want to come anywhere close, in case it's catching.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
"Don't probe me bro"
Xaotik Designs
Well what do you expect? Maybe if we stopped eating them and showed them more respect, they might talk to us. Like, if we banned fishing them for food, and instead establish bilateral talks with them, that could be a new beginning for man-squid relations. Then perhaps we could go on to establish trade links - like - we could trade them sardines and anchovies for ink and cuttle fish bone, to begin with. From there, perhaps we could get them to represent our interests with the octopus... When you begin treating others with respect, all kinds of possibilities begin to present themselves, as Obama has demonstrated in his recent speech in Egypt.
Common ground? Shit, dolphins like fish and swimming, humans like fish and swimming. There's common ground right there.
that's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. :)
Welcome to the internet - you've got a lot to see!
Yep and George Bush is being unfairly attacked as a war monger even through he clearly said: "I believe that human beings and fish can coexist peacefully"
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I would grab my towel.
printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
-- myself
You managed to involve DRM in a discussion about extraterrestrial life. I am impressed by your mastery of Slashdot.
Dear Friends,
I am Prince Fayad Musa H. Bolkiah, the eldest son of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, former Finance Minister of Earth, the tiny fuel-rich planet on the outer realms.
Due to problems with a trading guild I was advised to evacuate my immediate family outside the sultanate to avoid further prosecution from them. Before I could do that I was placed under house arrest.
Before my Incaseration, I went ahead to dispatch large sum of fuel with the assistance of friend in a galaxy far away. The fuel has now been deposited as valuables into different private security and trust company for safe keeping.
In order to get the fuel I will need large quantities of the following chemical products, the mineral Be3Al2(SiO3)6,) and the chemical lement with atomic number of 79, details about this follow.
For your assistance i will compensate you with 25% of the total fuel and another 5% shall be set aside to defray any expenses that may arise.
Please I count on your absolute confidentiality, transparency and trust while looking forward to your prompt response towards a swift conclusion of this business transaction
If anything it would be daft, since such an android would have difficulty using things designed for humans. It might even wind up having to break down doors after applying too much force to the handle, etc...
Yeah, I know that every time I open a door, I turn the handle AS HARD AS I POSSIBLY CAN because I want to MAKE SURE THAT FUCKER TURNS.
For my encore, I'm going to the old folks' home, and I'm going to help some old ladies across the street AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. Shake a fuckin' leg, granny.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If the aliens are just at the level of fungus, it would be hard to discover them in the first place, moreover their existence wouldn't matter much anyways.
Terrence McKenna makes the claim that psilocybin mushrooms are actually an intelligent network of beings, and can communicate with humans because of the psilocybin molecule's ability to mimic human neurotransmitters. It's fairly weird stuff, but if you look at it as science fiction ( or psychedelic fiction? ), you being to understand the difficulty of communicating with an intelligence vastly different than yourself. We are just beginning to understand that dolphins understand grammar, yet we have no idea the mechanics of their communication. They can spontaneously invent sophisticated, synchronized, two-dolphin performances for a research scientist, so it's fairly obvious that they are capable of having complex conversations about aquatic acrobatics, at least.
Anyway, here's Terrence, channeling the mycelia network: "Though I have been on earth for ages I am from the stars. My home is no one planet, for many worlds scattered through the shining disc of the galaxy have conditions which allow my spores an opportunity for life. The mushroom which you see is the part of my body given to sex thrills and sun bathing, my true body is a fine network of fibers growing through the soil. These networks may cover acres and may have far more connections that the number in a human brain. My mycelial network is nearly immortal, only the sudden toxification of a planet or the explosion of its parent star can wipe me out. By means impossible to explain because of certain misconceptions in your model of reality all my mycelial networks in the galaxy are in hyperlight communication across space and time. The mycelial body is as fragile as a spider's web but the collective hypermind and memory is a vast historical archive of the career of evolving intelligence on many worlds in our spiral star swarm. Space, you see, is a vast ocean to those hardy life forms that have the ability to reproduce from spores, for spores are covered with the hardest organic substance known. Across the aeons of time and space drift many spore-forming life-forms in suspended animation for millions of years until contact is made with a suitable environment. Few such species are minded, only myself and my recently evolved near relatives have achieved the hyper-communication mode and memory capacity that makes us leading members in the community of galactic intelligence. How the hypercommunication mode operates is a secret which will not be lightly given to man. But the means should be obvious: it is the occurrence of psilocybin and psilocin in the biosynthetic pathways of my living body that opens for me and my symbiots the vision screens to many worlds. You as an individual and man as a species are on the brink of the formation of a symbiotic relationship with my genetic material that will eventually carry humanity and earth into the galactic mainstream of the higher civilizations.
Since it is not easy for you to recognize other varieties of intelligence around you, your most advanced theories of politics and society have advanced only as far as the notion of collectivism. But beyond the cohesion of the members of a species into a single social organism there lie richer and even more baroque evolutionary possibilities. Symbiosis is one of these. Symbiosis is a relation of mutual dependence and positive benefits for both of the species involved. Symbiotic relationships between myself and civilized forms of higher animals have been established many times and in many places throughout the long ages of my development. These relationships have been mutually useful; within my memory is the knowledge of hyperlight drive ships and how to build them. I will trade this knowledge for a free ticket to new worlds around suns younger and more stable than your own. To secure an eternal existence down the lo
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Unless of course they're being chased by the Cylons.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.