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The aliens are coming!

Iain

An interesting article came across my feed yesterday that may be of interest:

A body called 31/Atlas is approaching Earth and a Harvard Scientist, Avi Loeb has said:

Loeb expressed belief the object was more likely to be engineered than naturally occurring. Not only that, but he's now addressed the possibility that it could contain 'alien intelligence'.

https://www.unilad.com/technology/space/harvard-scientist-avi-loeb-3iatlas-superior-alien-intelligence-634722-20250812

There are lots of caveats and opinions that it is just a natural body so a healthy dose of skepticism should be adopted here.

Some of the facts of the situation are interesting to those who believe in alien intelligence however.

Personally I think that any alien intelligence considering contacting mankind would see out broadcasts and give us a wide berth. What would they make of Fox News for example?!

Can you imagine the impact on the planet if aliens did land, friendly or otherwise?

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  • in reply to Damojo
    Damojo said:
    I'd imagine that the impact would be greater for "otherwise" than it would be for "friendly".

    I remember doing this thought experiment back in the 1980s about what would happen in the best case scenario where the aliens were friendly.

    Some points I can recall:

    1 - the tech industry would suffer massively as people would be waiting for tech advances from the aliens to be imparted - why invest or buy antique tech when there is much newer stuff on the way.

    2 - the investment industry would have an earthquake level shock from the uncertainty this would bring. Which country would the aliens favour, would they condem some of the bad practices we take for granted (think USA treatment of immigrants, Chinas opression of its citizens, racial intolerance in Zimbabwe etc). People would move their investments to safe harbours because of the uncertainty and this would end up crashing markets and overheating other investment sources.

    3 - would our natural resources be worth the same as before? If the aliens could bring tech to mine asteroids then this would massively disrupt the capitalist approach to metal values worldwide, causing huge job losses and investment losses.

    4 - healthcare could in theory be revolutionised by their tech and knowledge, causing many pharmasutical companies to crash, hospitals to need to "modernise" and a clamour for the new treatments as soon as they are available.

    This could also lead to people being healthier, living much longer and puting more strain on the economy (look at the current pension burdon as an example of this).

    there was a long list but these are a few.

    It would cause chaos, unrest and would be very hard to control short of martial law.