The aliens are coming!

What would be really funny would be if they didn't land on the White House, but visited so barely contacted tribe in the Amazon, or another species entirely like crows or parrots?

We always assume that any ET visitors would be interested in us, for good or ill, what if they weren't?

www.physics.ox.ac.uk/.../third-ever-detection-interstellar-object

Stuart333 said:

What's in it for them?

"Likes"?

Why would they want to be friendly and give us loads of tech? What's in it for them?

They might send a drone or robot to see whether there was anything interesting to look at and maybe observe.

It's like us exploring a new bit of jungle and finding some new monkeys. Interesting, catalogue a couple, then move on.

Stuart333 said:

I think it is outgassing like a comet, which seems inconsistent with it being a spaceship

Reaction mass and all that. Maybe it's going to buzz the sun and dip its fuel scoops. (God, I loved Elite back in the 80s!)

Basically yes. Another object from outside the solar system.

I think it is outgassing like a comet, which seems inconsistent with it being a spaceship to me.

It is moving faster too.

Damojo said:

We could finally have Mr. Fusion!

Imagine the fallout from all the power generation companies, the oil and gas companies, the battery companies etc - they would put up one heck of a fight using whatever tactics they saw fit.

Greed is a powerful motivator.

We could finally have Mr. Fusion!

A new source of clean, cheap energy would really shake things up. A lot of the prices of things boil down to their primary resource inputs and the energy costs to process/produce them.

Then, all we'd need is a flux capacitor and a second-hand DeLorean ...

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.

Iain said:

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

I'd imagine that the impact would be greater for "otherwise" than it would be for "friendly".

Is this another 'Oumuamua? I think Avi Loeb (same guy) said that was an alien ship, too. To a hammer, every problem is a nail, I guess.

Iain said:

What would they make of Fox News for example?!

LOL