Slashdot Mirror
United Nations Names Ambassador To Aliens
Shag writes "Although searches for extraterrestrial intelligence have thus far come up empty-handed, the United Nations appears to be preparing for eventual 'first contact.' Many media outlets are carrying the story that Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist who heads the UN's Office for Outer Space Affairs in Vienna — already charged with things like keeping track of satellites to prevent Kessler Syndrome and coordinating the international response to any earth-impacting asteroids — will be the first person to meet with aliens if they do show up."
Update: 09/27 16:42 GMT by S : Looks like this one's too good to be true — in an email to The Guardian, Othman said, "It sounds really cool but I have to deny it."
Why doesn't the UN nominate one of those guys living in the backwoods to be the Ambassador to aliens? It seems to me that those guys are the people who seem to be getting abducted by aliens the most, not well-known astrophysicists.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
Do they know more than we do? Should we be expecting, "first" contact soon?
Except that it is the US Air Force that actually does the job.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
they will give a book called To Serve Man
I guess it depends on how you want the first meeting to go, but maybe Jodi Foster or Sigourney Weaver would have been better choices. Or Ahhhnold. But he has to get to the chopper.
The best first contact team is clearly an egotistical mathematician, an even more egotistical physicist, a biologist with clinical depression and low self-esteem, and lastly a psychologist that doesn't take his job seriously. We just have to hope the aliens aren't spherical or that the contact is made under water.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
That's very interesting Caller, but tonight we are talking about how and why Kenny Rogers was behind the Kennedy Assassination. Next we have a Clyde from east of the Rockies. You're on Caller.
How do they know the alien will want to make first contact with a human instead of some other life form? Presumably its first instinct will be to reach out to a moving car as the obvious dominant life form.
I'm no rocket scientist, but I for one would feel safer if we put a stripper in charge of greeting the aliens.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Clearly the person with the most experience and knowledge of aliens is: Sigourney Weaver
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
If they set off from the closest sun-like star (18 Scorpi, 46 light years) right now, at the maximum speed we have achieved in space flight (62000km/h - Voyager 1) they would be here in approximately 80,000 years. That long ago, we were using pointy sticks to hunt and living in caves.
Even if they increased their speed by three orders of magnitude, they would no longer be a representation of their own species. First contact with an alien civilisation a century out of time with itself. That's akin to someone coming out of a cave right now, having waked in when Queen Victoria was on the throne.
I don't see it.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Why would aliens intrinsiclly meet with humans?
We are one of the smallest lifeforms by population. If the majority lifeform "rules" the planet it would strike me as odd that aliens would consider us the owners of the planet mearly by virtual of intelligence. If anything there is the possibility they would see us as an unfair blight of a minority species taking a vastly significant share of real estate from the bulk of lifeforms. They might go so far as to cull the herd to ensure the bulk of the lifeforms have a porportional access to Earth. Since we are less then 1% of the lifeforms on Earth, why assume we would get much of a say.
As much as I disliked the Day the Earth Stood Still remake they make a great point. Bate's character says "It's our planet, we own it" in which Neo... err I mean Klatus bluntly states, "uhhh no."
If I were an intelligent alien, I would abduct humans and try and find a way to make them less destructive to an environment they are a marginal, by % of life, participant in. Or at the very least greatly restrict their ability to breed.
It would stike me as more intelligent to survey the bulk of lifeforms and find out what the majority needs to continue to survive. While not intelligent I would expect an ambassador for "those that cannot speak for themselves" to have been appointed who subsequently surveys the ecosystem as a whole.
It is hard to claim Earth has human-kind's personal planet when A: We don't manage it very well and B: are a tiny fraction of the population.
Intelligence doesn't confer ownership, it mandates responsibility in which by and large we have done a poor job so far.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
or with a penguin in the arctic.
If its a penguin in the Arctic then I'd be really surprised
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?