If aliens arrived tomorrow what’s the first thing you’d ask them?
If aliens arrived tomorrow, I think the first thing I would ask them is: Did you make the same mistakes we did?
It sounds slightly whimsical, but it is really a question about ourselves. If they had managed to reach Earth before we had reached them, we would probably assume they were far more technologically advanced than us. They might understand things about physics, space travel and the universe that we can barely imagine.
But I am not sure that would be the knowledge I would most want from them. I would want to know whether they had struggled with the same things we do. War. Greed. Tribalism. Environmental destruction. The tendency to become increasingly clever without necessarily becoming increasingly wise.
Did they ever develop technologies powerful enough to threaten their own survival? Did they exploit their planet before learning to care for it? Did they divide themselves into groups and decide that some lives mattered more than others? And, if they did, how did they get through it?
Perhaps the most important question facing any civilisation is not how technologically advanced it can become, but whether it can survive its own cleverness.
If aliens arrived tomorrow, what’s the first thing you’d ask them?
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