Colonization of Earth
Colonization of Earth
The colonization of other parts of the world by European countries can be used as an analogy for the colonization of Earth by the inhabitants from other worlds.
The idea that there are beings with advanced enough technology on other planets to visit Earth by traversing space seems more and more a possibility – an idea that might seem more possible as astronomy and astrophysics are making more and more discoveries about the cosmos.
Just as the vastness of the oceans was crossed by European ships, the vastness of space might be traversed by those beings. It is obvious more advanced technology is needed to do this and a social-economic setup to support exploration. Whether the Europeans had VERY advanced technology and whether beings from other world will have advanced technology so much further advanced to that of Earth is not clear (were native Americans really that far behind in terms of technology?) – the fact of the matter is that in both cases the technology was more advanced. Still, even today it is no easy matter to cross the oceans and that technology is still needed to do it.
It might be also true that the less advanced the technology and the closer that civilization is to the one being visited and explored, both in terms of that technology and the society behind it, the more likely it is that follow-up visits might turn into a suppressive, coercive and abusive interaction/relationship. The initial visits of Europeans were benign and filled with mutual curiosity and the exchange of trinkets, but as the visits increased and the actual technological disparity became apparent the interactions also became more malign. It seems therefore unlikely that any visitation of Earth by beings from other worlds will not include some form of enslavement and enforcement of laws and practices they might desire to enforce. Many conceptions of contact with aliens include the idea that such contact and interaction will usher in an age of space exploration. This is unlikely as the ability of humanity to learn their technology might be limited, or even if it can be understood access to it might also be limited and thirdly for humans to really co-opt technology from another species the hard work first has to be done to make those technologies and information a part of the fabric of your civilization. Only a small number of Native Americans crossed over to Europe. The arrival of Europeans did not herald a globe trotting world crossing era for them – only a small number made the journey to Europe as captives or exhibits of the “new world” and I think this will be the same with humanity when beings from other worlds visits Earth.
It is also unlikely that this visiting civilization will be hundreds of thousands of years ahead of earth, both in terms of technology and society, since these type of “enlightened” far advanced beings will probably just leave Earth alone and will not need something from Earth or get something out of visiting Earth.
A fascinating concept is that, yes, those beings that end up visiting Earth might be visiting to come and see what is going on and explore, but it is not likely that they would be visiting and exploring Earth in order to exploit it for its minerals, since minerals are very likely abundant in the universe or can be manufactured artificially. The fact that humanity has reached 7 billion in population, however, might be the very thing that is attractive to them, since human capital/flesh capital, intelligent and schooled to a certain extent is perhaps not that easy to come by – in other words a ready made slave population ready to be exploited.
Earth might represent by default an insulated terrarium where, just like with ant farms, humans are abundant and…well ready to be harvested.
Will Smith as Captain Steven Hiller in Independence Day (1996) said: “Look, I really don't think they flew 90 billion light years to come down here and start a fight. Get all rowdy.”
Perhaps they will. We as humans will have to see what happens.
Written by Omar Daniel FOURIE, 3 August 2018.
I see 2 scenarios:
Hard to tell what is more likely, what do you think?
Thanks for your input. I appreciate it. I used the analogy of European colonization of the world (and famously the Americas), but this analogy is inefficient, or falls short when I consider your first point. I think none of the colonizing countries had at that stage had a policy or ‘codex’ as you put it to interact with people they encounter on their journeys of exploration and limit any negative impact of that interaction. On the other hand I said in the piece that I wrote that only the most advanced civilizations, far ahead of even the mean, or general space-faring civilizations might have a policy when interacting with “lesser” more primitive sentient beings. So, on the other hand perhaps my European colonization analogy does not break down, because I think in general your second point might be accurate in that it is a winner-takes-all situation out there. The ‘wild west’ scenario as you put and the movie “Guardians of the Galaxy” comes to mind.
About signals into space: They (who are ‘they’? Ha-ha), they say that we are here on Earth on the brink of encountering one of these space traversing species. I think this might be because we are making a lot of noise and that we are using and can use nuclear weapons - a lot of noise itself.