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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