Science fiction media such as Star Trek shows a future where humanity can live alongside aliens. However, current-day scientists are concerned that detecting aliens will cause humanity to burst into abject chaos.
With humanity unable to stop fighting amongst itself, how will the world react to the existence of alien lifeforms? If human beings are already screaming about whether AI is “woke” or not, how would they respect an alien from the other side of the universe?
That’s the role of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), an E.T. detection post at the University of St. Andrews. Alongside searching for alien life, the crew works out how mankind should respond to the possibility of real-life aliens interacting with us.
Computational linguist at SETI, John Elliott, believes that humanity is far from ready to meet any form of alien life. Amongst the search for something else like us out there, Elliott and his team are desperately searching for a way for mankind to deal with a mysterious new species.
“We’d be like headless chickens [if aliens arrive],” he told The Guardian. “We cannot afford to be ill-prepared, scientifically, socially, and politically rudderless for an event that could happen at any time and which we cannot afford to mismanage!”
Elliot explained that humanity needs concrete “strategies and scenarios in place” on the off-chance aliens wish to interact with us. However, the current climate of race politics spell trouble for mankind’s response to beings from amongst the stars.
Despite this, Elliot doesn’t believe mankind should back down from reaching out to extraterrestrials. Instead, humans should continue to reach out, no matter how the general public would respond to their arrival.
“It’s such an opportunity to link up, if there’s another intelligence out there, which all the indications are that there must be," he said. "If we have the opportunity, I don’t think we should miss it.”
Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like we need to worry about aliens anytime soon. While this does mean we’re still far from a Star Trek future, it’s probably for the best. After all, modern day conservatives would probably just scream “woke” at them.