Seriously, I doubt it would even take that long. We get used to shit so quickly, and the news cycles have to keep feeding us new things, the only way we’d keep talking about the aliens if they kept doing new and interesting things. I’d be willing to bet a year later there would be some people who straight up forgot about it. “Oh yeah, aliens! Are they gonna, like, visit at some point or just keep exchanging calls with the Whitehouse?”
My friend and I came to this conclusion like 20 years ago. Once the shock wears off everyone’s minds will adapt, with most people falling into “great, there’s aliens, but I’ve still got to get to work.” I mean the US only sorta screeched to a halt for like a week after 9/11, and most of that was the airline industry. The pandemic was way worse, but the problem was very different. So unless the aliens do something (good or bad) that affected everyone directly - war, disease, super powers, apotheosis, free global WiFi, w/e - we’d all be back up and running in like 4 hours.
This POV is too extreme but there’s some truth to it. Not only is the news cycle always relentlessly moving on, and not only are attention spans short, but TBH we’ve seen so much sci fi that discovering real aliens would practically feel like old news.
But two things:
-
you’re underestimating how much the news cycle would make of this - it’s a honeypot of ongoing intrigue. It’s got elements of science, government conspiracy, threat of war, and spirituality to it: the media would set up camp around this topic and make a permanent circus of it.
-
there are a lot of smart people in the world who would pay a great deal of attention to the details and facts coming out of this. Yes there are more stupid people than ever but I think there are also more smart people than ever. If you belong to those circles and subscribe to the right media outlets then you know. If you just consume an IG feed everyday, you don’t.
It would be another outrage lever to push in America between Maga and dems.
When the Pope said it was likely they existed EVERYONE knew that meant they are likely out there. I know that religion is not the best cross section of rational science going folks, but that’s the point. When even the angry sky daddy is saying they are somewhere, we are definitely not alone.
Now do we know what they are or if we can even communicate? Fuck if I know.
-
Counterpoint: we’re still talking about ChatGPT and that, I hope, is not as smart as some aliens capable of intergalactic communication between intelligent species.
People as a collective are incredibly stupid. And because of this they’re incredibly easy to manipulate. It has always been this way- it’s just that now, the powers-that-be have figured out exactly how to use them to a perfect advantage.
It’s not because of a lack of interest. It’s not because we “get used” to things to quickly. It’s because it doesn’t matter. Like, alright. So aliens are real. Aliens have secretly been communicating with all the world’s government.
So… What actually changes?
Is this new information going to fix the housing market? Is capitalism going to change? How is this information going to change corporations squeezing everything dry? Aliens being confirmed is awesome, wondrous news! But… How will I, an average dude, be part of it? What is the point if I wake up tomorrow and everything around me is still the same? Wars are still the same, religions are still the same, the economy, hell, even the information these aliens bring to Earth, only benefits the top 1%.
If I still have to work a shitty job just to barely afford living in a single room, what difference does knowing aliens exist make?
Nah. It’d be alien themed-halloween.
If nothing else developed from the talks, then yes.
But if it started a new conversation with academics, if it opened trade opportunities, if it brought meaningful new technology, it would dominate world discussion for decades.
But if it was a single message sent at the speed of light and we had to wait 50 years for our reply to get back to them, and then 50 more years to hear any more communication…
Yeah, nobody’s going to remember that happened.
Given how obviously impressionable and just not “on top of things” the politicians are in the US these days, I’m not sure someone could come up with a argument that convinced me that alien life with the ability to do interplanetary travel would waste their time trying to communicate with our leaders.
Within a day they would just decide to kill all of us for the safety of the galaxy.
Depends on how attractive the aliens are.
Dude. We already know they’re hot chicks and looking for the continuum transfunctioner.
A human male will stick their dick into anything.
Let the Aliens run for president
For a month, we’d talk about aliens. Then, we’d talk about Trump or Musks latest shit takes about aliens.
This has already happened. And your prediction is correct: nobody talks about it.
I think 80% of the world would look up, go “huh. Well, anyway…”
The remaining 20% would be split at either side of the spectrum, with 10% on one side freaking out and trying to whip the 80% into a frenzy, while the last 10% would be a mix of, “PLEASE TAKE ME WITH YOU DON’T LEAVE ME HERE PLEASE”, “HnnnnnnNNNGGG IM COOOOOOMING”, and “Why do we all have to wear these ridiculous ties?”
It depends, I would say. If the aliens ask unpleasant questions, they would probably be talked about and reported on continuously. Like:
Alien Ambassador: “Why are you destroying your habitat with your eyes open? We don’t understand. Your scientists have proven beyond doubt that you will become extinct if you don’t fundamentally change your ways. Why don’t you care at all?”
Continuous headlines:
“Aliens want to ban humanity from traveling”
“Space fascists want to raise gas prices”
“Go home job-stealing aliens: How outer world wokeness is destroying {any given country}”
…
It could go that way, but on the other hand they could be more like MorningLightMountain in Peter Hamilton’s Pandora’s Star, i.e. fascists who exterminate every other organism that competes with them for resources.
Great book if you haven’t read it!
“The only alien I accept is Jesus Christ.”
cocks shotgun
“Now it’s time for you to phone home.”
Nah, you’d end up with something like
Hard disagree. Yes, all the other crazy bullshit would continue, but aliens are here among us isn’t something that would just go away.
At some point it would. We still gotta go to work and no one has enough energy to even give a fuck about potential aliens around us.
Within a month, corporations would try to monetize the aliens somehow.
Oh, wow, you’re totally gonna love Star Trek when you finally see all 58 years of the shows and films. Then there’s Dr. Who and Star Wars…
Sci-fi has been a very profitable genre for at least 60 years. Arguably over 150. From Jules Verne to Gene Roddenberry to George Lucas and Russel T Davies, the imagination of humanity has been ignited— even stoked to wildfire - by these visionaries.
And they’ve existed and continued far beyond the realm of simple profit, as many times, they weren’t profitable. Yet they endure.
Ad astra per aspera— through adversity, we reach for the stars.
Will I have to keep going to work? Then it doesn’t change my linfe enough for me to care so much. I know it’s a bad thought but life is hard for individuals and it’s hard to care to for aliens if they are not helping feed the kids
I’m with you. Yes, people acclimate to all kinds of things, but sentient aliens are going to take more than a few days.
There’s part of an episode in Orville about this very topic. I need to finish up that show.
Idk. A few years ago the US Government released videos of UFOs taken by US Fighter Pilots, and the conversation about the videos didn’t even last a day.
The clue is in the name. The U stands for unidentified, which means you don’t know what it is, which does not in turn mean that it’s aliens. The only thing those videos proved was that someone’s camera recorded something weird. Prove that those weird things were actually aliens and not some obscure sensor glitch or weather phenomenon or a secret government tech demo, then we’ll freak out.
I remember watching them and the conversation about them. But that’s different than proof and admission that sentient alien life exists. It’s one thing to suspect while also having other possible explanations (could be secret tech that we or adversary nations developed, could be sensor errors or optical illusions) and another for the president to be like “I want you to meet ambassador Xlurg”
People will absolutely have a hard shit about it when it happens, but I think that, after so much sci-fi exposure in our culture, humanity (or, most of it) would be able to wrap their heads around the idea of extra-terrestrial aliens. Unfortunately, a lot would probably just see them the same way they see any other “aliens”, and be xenophobic (or exoxenophobic as the case may be) jerks about it.
We almost certainly will be meeting/interacting with alien tech if it ever happens. Living things just aren’t likely to be evolved to travel the vast distances between stars.
Gonna be AIs talking, if it ever happens.
Yeah. It would trigger a shit storm in 10 years time we wouldn’t spend all day every day talking about the day we found out aliens existed, we would be talking about the ongoing wars arising as a result of their tech or some other thing.
