Guest post by Reed Coray
Two members of the Penn State University faculty (Seth D. Baum and Jacob D. Haqq-Misra) and one employee of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman) have taken valuable time to address the issue of how mankind might deal with beneficent, neutral and hostile Extraterrestrial Intelligence (ETI). The aforementioned concerned citizens authored an article appearing in the Journal Acta Astronautica (volume 68, 2011, pages 2114-2129). The title of that article was: “Would contact with extraterrestrials benefit or harm humanity? A scenario analysis.”
I would like to provide assistance to those gentlemen so that they may continue their important work with minimal interruption. To that end, I have written two messages that will (a) help ensure ETIs do not disrupt their important work, and (b) remove the need for those gentlemen to devote their valuable time to the generation of comparable messages.
Subject to the approval of Penn State University, NASA, and the authors of the referenced Acta Astronautica article, I recommend these messages be broadcast to space in all human languages.
PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE MESSAGE OF THE FIRST KIND
To: Ecosystem-Valuing Universalist Extraterrestrial Intelligence Possessing The Capacity To Harm Or Destroy The Earth Or Any Portion Thereof (EVUETIPTCTHODTEOAPT)
From: The faculty/staff of Penn State University and the employees of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Date: Gregorian: 2011-08-28; Julian: 2455801.5; Modified Julian: 55801; Hebrew: 5771-Av28; Chinese: 2011-07-29; Islamic: 1432-Ramadan-28; ISO-8601: 2011-34-7; Persian: 1390-Shahrivar-6; Mayan Long Count: 12.19.18.11.19; Indian Civil: 1933-Bhadra-6; Unix: 1314489600; Excel Serial Day Number, 1900 Date System (PC): 40783; Excel Serial Day Number, 1904 Date System (Macintosh): 39321
Subject: Precautionary Principle Plea of the First Kind
Whereas:
(1) EVUETIPTCTHODTEOAPTs might exist,
(2) EVUETIPTCTHODTEOAPTs might be observing/monitoring (a) the composition of Earth’s atmosphere and (b) electromagnetic radiation emanating from the Earth,
(3) Observations might be limited to the last 100 orbits of the Earth about its star (Sun)– Note: We call one orbit of the Earth about the Sun a “year”,
(4) Observations over the last 100 years show a small increase in the level of the atmospheric trace gas carbon dioxide (CO2),
(5) EVUETIPTCTHODTEOAPTs might conclude that the small increase in the level of the atmospheric trace gas CO2 is due to wicked practices of the dominant Earth species (mankind),
(6) EVUETIPTCTHODTEOAPTs might conclude that the small increase in the level of the atmospheric trace gas CO2 is known by mankind to be harmful to the Earth’s environment,
(7) EVUETIPTCTHODTEOAPTs might conclude that based on the harmful effect of the small increase in the level of the atmospheric trace gas CO2 that mankind is consciously and willfully destroying the Earth’s environment,
(8) Although over the last 30 years most of mankind’s “message-related” electromagnetic radiation (and especially electromagnetic messages emanating from Penn State University and NASA) that discusses:
(a) the small increase in the amount of the atmospheric trace gas CO2, and
(b) its harmful effects on the Earth’s
has been
(i) to deplore mankind’s contribution to the small increase in the level of the atmospheric trace gas CO2,
(ii) to warn against such future behavior, and
(iii) to try to limit/prevent future increases in the level of the atmospheric trace gas CO2,
a small segment of mankind (called deniers) disagrees with and even lies about the net adverse effect on the Earth’s environment of mankind’s small increase in the amount of the atmospheric trace gas CO2, and some of those lies have been transmitted to space in the form of electromagnetic radiation,
(9) Members of the Penn State University faculty and of NASA have written an article [Acta Astronautica, 68 (2011) 2114-2129] demonstrating that at least some of mankind is aware of the possible harm EVUETIPTCTHODTEOAPTs might inflict on the Earth,
We the faculty/staff of Penn State University and the employees of NASA do hereby plead to all EVUETIPTCTHODTEOAPTs: Do not destroy the Earth or mankind; but if you insist on destroying a portion of the Earth, please exempt from that destruction: (a) the faculty/staff of Penn State University, (b) the employees of NASA, and (c) like-minded humans wherever they may reside–collectively known as the “good guys”. If a condition that you not destroy us (the good guys) is that you require we (the good guys) submit a list of the wicked (the bad guys), we (the good guys) will gleefully supply that list–in fact, we (the good guys) have a few names already in mind.
Go with GAIA.
PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE MESSAGE OF THE SECOND KIND
To: Extraterrestrial Intelligence Looking To Destroy Stupidity/Arrogance/Wasteful-Activities Wherever They Might Exist In The Universe (ETILTDSAWAWTMEITU)
From: The faculty/staff of Penn State University and the employees of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Date: Gregorian: 2011-08-28; Julian: 2455801.5; Modified Julian: 55801; Hebrew: 5771-Av28; Chinese: 2011-07-29; Islamic: 1432-Ramadan-28; ISO-8601: 2011-34-7;
Persian: 1390-Shahrivar-6; Mayan Long Count: 12.19.18.11.19; Indian Civil: 1933-Bhadra-6; Unix: 1314489600; Excel Serial Day Number, 1900 Date System (PC): 40783; Excel Serial Day Number, 1904 Date System (Macintosh): 39321
Subject: Precautionary Principle Plea of the Second Kind
Whereas ETILTDSAWAWTMEITUs may exist and receive the electromagnetic broadcast of our PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE MESSAGE OF THE FIRST KIND, We state that the content of our PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE MESSAGE OF THE FIRST KIND was made in jest–ha ha; and we plead that ETILTDSAWAWTMEITUs not destroy the faculty/staff of Penn State University and/or employees of NASA and/or like-minded humans.
[Dupl. removed, 2011-08-30, Gregorian. 8<) Robt]
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Even though we have sent spacecraft to outside the solar system proclaiming our peace loving nature it is really not true because you must remember that spacecraft was placed into orbit with rocket fuel of hydrogen and oxygen. Therefore even the spacecraft proclaiming peace added to our terrible greenhouse by emitting H2O which btw is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. I am sure those aliens will see right through our sham.
Sorry, unnecessary as they were/are already here 🙂
http://www.amazon.com/UFOs-Generals-Pilots-Government-Officials/dp/0307716848
John Whitman says:
August 30, 2011 at 12:12 pm
Yes, I enjoyed it.
ChE
ROFLMAO!
50% of American believe in alien abduction. Perhaps it is no coincidence that a similar percentage believe in AGW.
http://articles.cnn.com/1997-06-15/us/9706_15_ufo.poll_1_ufo-aliens-crash-site?_s=PM:US
Alien President; Threat assessment?
Alien Advisor #1; We’re screwed sir. The masses have figured out that CO2 is good for the planet, and that we’ve destroyed our entire global economy as a means to control them, knowing the truth all along. They’re likely to revolt at any moment sir.
Alien President; Alternatives?
Alien Advisor #2; We need a new emergency to fight sir. We’re proposing Planet Earth as that emergency sir.
Alien President; Planet Earth? Aren’t those the dohunks that sent out that EVUETIPTCTHODTEOAPT message? Sounds like they’re scared sh**less of us, how does that make it an emergency?
Alien Advisor #1; Well sir, actually that message took almost 100 years to get here.
Alien Advisor#2; Here’s how we spin it sir. These earthlings are very war like, just watch their History Channel to see what we mean.
Alien Advisor #1; So… we have to prepare for their invasion sir. Its pretty easy to see that the EVUETIPTCTHODTEOAPT message was sent by the Peaceniks and Green Momvement. The real power on Planet Earth is held by the Warmongerers and Big Oil. It is only a matter of time before they switch to DUOATWDUYBBSTGTBTGY. They could be half way here by now.
Alien President; DUOATWDUYBBSTGTBTGY ??
Alien Advisor #1; Do Unto Others As They Would Do Unto You But Be Sure To Get Them Before They Get You.
Alien Advisor #2; Essentially a pre-emptive strike sir.
Alien Advisor #1; The matter is urgent sir.
Alien Advisor #2; The stakes high sir.
Alien Advisor #1; We surveyed the top 100 scientists and 30% are in consensus sir.
Alien Advisor#2; But then we discovered that only 30% of the top 100 scientists are qualified sir, so we did the survey again, and 30 of 30 are in consensus. That settles it sir.
Alien Advisor #1; Even if there is some tiny doubt sir, the Precautionary Principle….
Alien President; Enough! I’m convinced! Get the press release ready. We’re putting our efforts to save the planet on hold to fight an even bigger emergency. Invasion from Planet Earth. We’re preparing for war, and the enemy has a 100 year head start on us. Cancel all those fake climate research programs and divert the money to fake arms research. Uhm….can we wait a day? I need to change my stock portfolio…
This is all hilarious!
Thank goodness that I have a spare keyboard!
Brilliant thread.
More seriously, you know something is on its last legs when it becomes the butt of humour.
I know Hrolfr Ungarn from Nuberu, the earth-type planet that close-orbits Sol’s rogue binary brown-dwarf companion called Eversor. As an Anunnaki “Watcher,” Hrolfr Ungarn aka Assur or Enki of Akkad/Sumer busies himself with implanting Crop Circles on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, and doofus AGW types concern him not.
Ever notice how the Precautionary Principle is never applied to *social* engineering by liberals?
Hilarious!!!!
being a long-time fan of the Harry Turtledove’s saga “The Invasion”, I could say that the Race (aka “the Lizards”) will be gratefull to the Big Uglies (aka the uman race) for their effort to make Tosev 3 (aka “the Earth”) a little less cold (there are rumours that, somewhere on that chilly crazy planet, sometime you can see frozen water falling from the sky…) and so more similar to Home (aka Tau Ceti 3).
It shall be done, superior Sir!
Cheers from Italy…
Berényi Péter says:
August 30, 2011 at 11:54 am
I’m pretty agnostic when it comes to extraterrestrial intelligent beings. I have trouble conjuring up “aliens,” as we on Earth refer to them as, and our ideas of them are quite funny. They may actually all be exactly like us (why wouldn’t they be, if we consider the laws of science to be universally valid?), if in fact there are other intelligent beings on other planets. But the “Fermi paradox” seems to me to be paralysis by analysis. Think of it this way: the Milky Way is what, 100,000 light years across? And we haven’t yet found a means of developing interstellar travel that could answer our questions quicker than a 100,000 light year trip across the galaxy? Not to mention, the other galaxies that are even farther away? If SETI hasn’t found anything yet, I don’t think they will EVER find any evidence. So I don’t lose any sleep over this, like some scientists appear to be doing. The universe is too vast for me to worry about it.
Loved the post. 🙂
I like to look at it this way… Assuming that intelligent life does exist out there, we have no reason to assume that it’s peaceful, interested in communicating with us in a non-interfering manner, etc. I think it’s more likely that an aggressive species will move out into space than a really peaceful one.
Would “first contact” be a massive colony ship that has been travelling for a few year through deep space? Maybe the detected a planet with an appropriate ecosystem that their engineers could “terraform?” Or maybe they just want to “buy” Mars in exchange for working fusion technology?
On the probabilities, how about this:
Assume that there are 1 million (or 10 or a billion) planets with intelligent life out there. Intelligent being defined as something that we could have some sort of communication with, at a higher level than man and dog.
Assume the development path for all the life forms was more or less the same and that they didn’t completely obliterate themselves or go 100% green.
When did they begin their path? How many (millions of) years before or after ours started?
Let’s say they all develop just like us and that they don’t kill themselves or go 100% green and do expand outward. (Eventually their economic system would likely allow this.)
Is there a bell curve for tech levels? On one end of the curve we have the races that started a 100 million years before us and on the other end we have Neanderthals. What’s the tech curve look like (assuming it exists?) What’s the likelyhood that ET is anywhere near our own tech level? Would we have the slightest idea of how their science works? Or would it be more like a smart caveman trying to contemplate quantum physics?
The longer a society is established, the greater the beurocracy until it collapses. The aliens will be most like the Vogons from The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. They won’t even visit us, they will simply send us a Tax bill (Universal Property Tax). We won’t be able to pay it and they will simply jot down our planet as a corporate asset via lein-sale. We’ll never hear from them again as they will be furiously busy acquiring the rest of the universe.
Scott Covert says:
August 31, 2011 at 11:12 am
The longer a society is established, the greater the beurocracy until it collapses.
=================
Or they’ll use eminent domain, take our space, and pave it over for an interstellar highway.
Or maybe it’ll be a grand crusade to convert us to their version of Christianity/Islam/Atheism/Greenery.
Friends:
All this talk about communicating with aliens is pointless.
We share a common inheritance of genes, planet and environment with the creatures of the Earth. But we have very limited ability to communicate with members of other species except as a training exercise. We can obtain a limited common language with chimps, and that is about it.
Dolphins have brains with similar degree of complexity to our own, but we cannot obtain significant two-way communication with them.
So, I fail to understand why anybody thinks it is possible for us to obtain meaningful communication with creatures from another planet who have no genetic relationship to us and who use a different technology to ours (their technology must enable interstellar communication and/or transport to enable the contact needed for communication between them and us because our technology cannot do it).
Indeed, the technology issue is the main reason why the paper by Baum et al. is daft. The feared space-aliens would require greatly superior technology to our own that gives them abilities to notice and to react to our activities on our planet. That technology needs to be able to monitor, to travel and to communicate over interstellar distances. With that capability which we lack they have no conceivable reason for them to expend any effort on creatures like us because they could swat us like flies if we ever were able to become a potential problem to them.
Richard
No problem, we’ll just have Captain Kirk settle his differences with their leader in bed.
John David Galt says:
August 31, 2011 at 11:59 am
No problem, we’ll just have Captain Kirk settle his differences with their leader in bed.
===============
Or in the arena or bar fight. 😉
ROFLMAO.
Will Anthony get royalities from future movies produced from ideas generated by the posts and comments on this blog? Surely someone is looking and Anthony is a contributing factor.
When the first satiricle movie is produced and hits the top of the charts, many others will likely follow. There will be lots of smiles! I want to be a sceptical star in high-definition (shining brightly on the alien invaders)!
Oops, If I get to star in the movie, I doubt that it will be as a spelling teacher.
Would it be churlish of me to point out that the increase in CO2 levels thus far has been about 40% since the pre-industrial period?
– so that’s not a slight increase.
True, the concentration of CO2 is low – about 390ppm, or 0.039%
– but very few people with any scientific understanding would deny that without CO2 in the atmosphere the planet would be about 30C cooler
– so, whether or not anyone chooses to classify CO2 as a ‘trace gas’ is irrelevant to the argument about the impact of increasing it’s concentration.
I had another thought–this from either the department of The more things change, the more they stay the same of from the Ministry of Silly Walks. In the past, academia discussed the problem of how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Today, academia discusses how mankind should prepare for possible contact with extraterrestrials.
PhilM:
At August 31, 2011 at 3:32 pm you say;
“very few people with any scientific understanding would deny that without CO2 in the atmosphere the planet would be about 30C cooler”
which is true.
Then you say;
“- so, whether or not anyone chooses to classify CO2 as a ‘trace gas’ is irrelevant to the argument about the impact of increasing it’s concentration.”
which is completely false.
Anybody with “any scientific understanding” knows that about half of the 30 deg.C you mention is induced by the first 20 ppmv of CO2 in the air, and there is so much CO2 in the air (~390 ppmv) that any increase to its concentration has a logarithmically diminishing effect. So, the fact that CO2 in the air is a trace gas is very, very relevant to “the impact of increasing it’s concentration.”
Please do not provide propoganda dressed up as science.
Richard
Richard S Courtney:
I agree that the effect of increasing CO2 logarithmically decreases as more is added
– so, the effect of doubling the CO2 concentration from 140ppm to 280ppm, is the same as the effect of doubling it from 280ppm to 560ppm, and ditto for 560ppm to 1120ppm
– which is why it’s useful to talk in terms of the effect of doubling the concentration.
However, calling CO2 a ‘trace gas’ is misleading, as it implies its effect is insignificant, and to do so 8 times in a short, albeit light hearted, article, is …. somewhat propagandist IMHO.
PhilM:
At September 1, 2011 at 12:03 pm you say;
“However, calling CO2 a ‘trace gas’ is misleading, as it implies its effect is insignificant, and to do so 8 times in a short, albeit light hearted, article, is …. somewhat propagandist IMHO.”
Bollocks!
CO2 is a trace gas in the atmosphere: it is less than 0.04% of the atmosphere. Such a small amount is a trace.
To object to calling CO2 trace gas when CO2 IS a trace gas is propoganda of a kind that Goebbles would have envied.
Richard
PhilM says:
August 31, 2011 at 3:32 pm
– so, whether or not anyone chooses to classify CO2 as a ‘trace gas’ is irrelevant to the argument about the impact of increasing it’s concentration.
To classify CO2 as a ‘trace gas” is also irrelevant to the argument that if all the CO2 in the atmosphere were converted to energy (E=mc^2) that conversion would have an impact. But neither that argument nor your argument is relevant to calling CO2 a ‘trace gas” in our atmosphere–it is a trace gas.