Tuesday, March 18, 2008

How to Market Humanity

Universe Today takes a look at how the SETI Institute plans to market humanity to alien species. The institute has a Director of Interstellar Composition - the individual repsonsible for crafting humanity's message to any aliens that may be lurking in the neighborhood.

If we're going to be communicating with aliens, we'll want to be careful about the words we choose. Get it right, and we've got extraterrestrial friends, here to uplift us to the galactic community. Get it wrong and we might be looking at radio silence, or worse…"

Worse means the Klingons begin the invasion I guess. Hopefully we run into the Vulcans and make a good first impression. Obviously, humanity has more, shall we say, colorful episodes in our history that may damage that impression. However, the man with the job at SETI, Douglas Vakoch, believes honsety is the best policy, and I would have to agree if we intend on maintaining a long term relationship (hopefully diplomatic, cultural and technological exchanges, rather than the ray gun kind) with any other intelligent species that may be out there. Our flaws, after all, are what really make us human.

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