What would happen to society if aliens were proven to exist?

Oh, give me a break. What’s the difference?

Unless invasion was imminent, I think society could absorb it.

It would have lots of ripples though. Alien action figures. Religions posturing. Politicians pontificating.

I don’t see why aliens would want to invade us, I imagine they would be friendly.

I do not think it would cause panic at all.

In fact I think that mankind would immediately seek a way to create a business opportunity out of the revelation.

My beautiful question about Bastille Day was modded, and this one wasn’t?

I’m with Dog; expect many mugs, bumper stickers and T-shirts

Well… Think of human society, all messed up, all beautiful in our interactions with each other. Racial riots, interracial marriages, hate speech, love speech, friendships, animosity. Life.

That’s how it’ll be, just on a larger scale.

Of course, it all depends on how they choose to introduce themselves to us. If they send a diplomatic mission with a parade and gifts, we’d probably go down the path I theorised. If they decide to blow up NYC to signal their arrival, our response might be slightly different.

A 1960 report by the Brookings Institute and an internal RAND document from 1968 predicted profound social consequences if contact were confirmed.

It may have already happened.

I just realised that I’m very uncomfortable imagining the government’s posture on anything…

@Makstarn That may well have been true back 50 years ago. But with the advances in technology and education I do not think that is still the case.
Prior to 1960 there was no space travel and no idea what was really out there. Ignorance breeds fear.

The aliens won’t present themselves to us as a whole until we stop fighting with eachother, which isn’t very likely to happen soon….ask fluther again in 3009 when this is more likely.

@Ansible1 Interesting theory. But why would they wait? They can observe us like an ant farm. Who knows how many alien science fair projects we have already been a part of?

Think of it like if you were the coach of a basketball/football/baseball team…would you send them into the finals if they were constantly fighting with each other? or would you wait until they proved themselves to be one cohesive force to take on much larger problems?

@Ansible1 I suppose that would depend on why they were making contact with us.

If they were seeking to partner with us then I agree with your scenario completely. But if they are here to study us or obtain resources there is no benefit to waiting. Also if they have been watching us long enough they will realize that humans have a very long history of not getting along which will likely not change any time soon.

Hollywood already demonstrated that aliens and humans could exist together in a movie called “Alien Nation”. I think our world would be something like that if E.T. and his neighbors came for a permanent visit.

it would vary widely depending on what kind of aliens. we actually share the planet with intelligent non-humans called whales* with brains at least as developed as our own. most people don’t know this.

*—elephants might also qualify

Take a look at the book, The Deep. There are some fairly alien looking creatures living in as alien an environment as one can imagine (the deep sea). I think I could handle aliens from another planet.

The aliens have been here, but they didn’t stay. They only stopped by long enough to drop off their unwanted citizens. You might have heard of them. They are called the GOP. snicker

@shilolo thanks for that link, those were some awesome critters.

@evelyns_pet_zebra The book itself is awesome.

@Dog is right when he says that the “profound social consequences” [were contact confirmed] was the Government’s position in the ‘60’s. Likewise the so called “UFOlogists”.

But today, with countries aiming nuclear missiles at our houses and terrorists hiding in our backyards, a possible alien threat is NOTHING compared to the REAL threats we have now.

In the “old days”, the UFO “experts” claimed the government would not admit to aliens for the panic it would cause. Now when you hear these same people speak, they no longer talk about panic being the reason. They say it’s because our government wants to keep the alien technology it knows about secret from other countries.

It depends on their distance to Earth. If SETI picks up a signal in the Andromeda galaxy, an encounter next week is unlikely. Even returning their call and receiving their answer would take more than 4 million years.

Still, it would change our societies. Finding extraterrestrial life would be a fundamental discovery.

@SirBailey: actually, modern day UFOlogists in the Magonia camp (named after a long-running UFO journal, in turn named after a book) have proposed the Need Hypothesis saying that (to oversimplify) contact with angels, UFO’s, etc. comes out of a deep need to have contact with a higher authority. back in the ‘60’s UFOlogists did not speculate that the public would panic. they did suspect (rightly) that the governments of the world knew more about and had more information on UFO’s then they let on to the public.

UFOlogists pointed out the existence of Area 51, subsequently proven to exist. they also noticed the traingular black wing aircraft in the ‘90’s, which the u.s. government later unveiled to the public as existing. (I saw one in the late ‘90’s while out in the desert. at night, though, so it looked like a big invisible silent thing, visible only as the wing lights. eerie.)

the exopolitics crowd do say what you said in the third paragraph.

lastly, not everyone who believes in UFO’s buys the extraterrestrial hypothesis (or ETH).

a stray thought, I imagine that if we picked up signals from ET’s today, you would get a lot of a) not possible, the Bible/Koran doesn’t mention aliens! b) the Bible/Koran does mention angels! further proof of the validity of the Bible/Koran c) a trick of Satan! d) we must convert these heathens, post-haste! ready up the FTL drive powered by faith itself!

@Ria777 : Your “stray thought” needs editing. I have no idea what you mean.

I listed all the way that I think that literal-minded Christians and Muslims would react. (the last one wouldn’t apply to Muslims, though, as they have less of an obsession with conversion.)

I honestly dont know, the movies and Tv make it seem like if we were to find out they existed some kind of way, we would be punished. I mean its crazy to think that as big as the universe is we’re the only living beings. Thats insane. Especially if you’ve seen them for yoruself. But Shhh dont tell the men in black LOL