Friday, June 8, 2018

Will Aliens Say “Take Me to Your Leader”?

Old-time cartoons would sometimes show a flying saucer having landed on Earth and a ramp open, with an alien standing on it saying “Take me to your leader.” It seems like a reasonable thing for aliens to do, in that they might envision themselves as ambassadors to Earth. But does it make sense, or is it simply a product of our lack of questioning of our own assumptions?

From the dawn of recorded history there has been somebody in charge of each group of humans. Back when humans lived in clans, there was a boss of the clan, the big guy, who made decisions and enforced whatever rules they had. When clans merged into tribes, there was a tribal leader, and when settlements became permanent, every settlement had somebody to be the top person, except in rare anarchic situations, like after a death, or a loss in battle, or some natural disaster. When some settlements got large enough to have warrior classes, and one settlement conquered another, leading to small states or regions, there was a king or some other titled person who was on top. When we graduated to large nations, there had to be some emperor or prime minister or president or someone else at the top of the ladder.

Doesn't this mean, that since it has always been that way in human societies, that it will always be, and in alien civilizations as well? To answer this, there needs to be an accounting of what alternatives there might be. One possibility is that there is nobody in charge of any large region, or the whole planet, or pretty much everything. Decisions have to be made, and disputes settled, but that might have been automated in an advanced alien civilization. After the civilization reaches asymptotic technology, and changes from that source aren't happening any more, and politics and sociology and everything else is understood, completely and absolutely, why couldn't decisions simply be made by some intelligent automaton. There wouldn't be any new items coming up for decisions, as everything has been stabilized and just goes on, century after century after millennium, and any disputes would have as precedents identical ones already decided long ago, and decisions would be abstracted rather than being unique. There would simply be no need for any individual to concern themselves with making decisions or judgments or influential choices. It would all have been done so many times before, and would be so organized and simplified and logical and reasonable that no subjective human or alien intervention would be necessary. There wouldn't be any place in the society for that.

This does not mean that individuals would be pets or vegetables, just the opposite. They would be able to engage in decision-making regarding their own lives, to advise friends, to make whatever subjective judgments still existed, such as possibly meal quality, living space arrangements, clothing, and so on. There would however be no options for changing the system of laws, however, as that would be worked out and optimized as part of the diffusion of science thinking into all realms of life.

Since space travel between solar systems is a very large endeavor, time-consuming both in preparation and execution, it would be expected that asymptotic technology would be achieved long before any aliens left their home solar system to come to Earth. Thus, they may have lived for centuries without any 'leader' existing, and it could be many thousands of years since there was any such position or even concept in their civilization. So, when they get here, they might just start interacting with whoever they meet, oblivious to the idea that we Earthlings might still arrange ourselves in hierarchies.

No one on their flying saucer, or whatever craft they have built, is in charge of anything, and no one needs to be. There is no Captain, no First Mate, no anything. Everyone knows what has to be done and what is the logical way of getting it done and if there are tasks still done by aliens, which one is to do each one. They know this, and if they forget, their AI box will help them remember.

Consider another aspect. What would the aliens expect to do here, if they did come to Earth from some solar system tens of light years away or even further? If they did look up their own history, or used their own branch of science which predicts how primitive societies organize themselves, they might know that there would be leaders and hierarchies on any planet they managed to get to. But why would they want to meet them? They aren't there to set up diplomatic relations, as the interstellar distances are so large no reasonable communications could be carried on, and it would make no difference anyway.

Maybe they came to simply start a colony here. Their idea is to get off the ship, and start to build some dwellings, set up some food supply, and do the other various things that someone arriving on a new planet might do. They would be not so naive as to assume that there would be no reaction by the population, so they would not have chosen a planet with civilization on it, unless they could deal with it. No alien civilization which goes to the immense effort of building a ship capable of transporting something of their culture to another solar system is not going to be prepared for any contingency, and certainly with multiple options. Surprises do not happen to advanced civilizations, as they would be able to predict potential scenarios without any difficulty.


Science fiction writers like to reduce the difficulty of interstellar travel in order to make a good story, and so there are stories of aliens who are the last of their species coming, or renegades escaping from some expanding empire, or various other options. These stories all ignore the progress of technology, except in the area we are familiar with or at least have imagined the most, such as starships. Technology will cover all aspects of life and physical existence, and this will happen in a quite short time compared to the lifetime of an alien civilization. Aliens that do come to this planet will not be suitable for being the heroes or villains of a science fiction story, but instead will be completely prepared to do whatever it is that was accepted as the mission of their civilization, vis-a-vis interstellar travel.  

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