Discussion: The notion that UFOs/ Aliens are here to help humanity solve some of our problems is dangerous and counterproductive

TLDR: We don't know what an ET visitor's intent may be. It's problematic to ignore our earthly problems with the naive hope that we'll be bailed out by beings of a higher power. What are your thoughts?

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I see this mindset somewhat frequently. The assumption that ETs are here to help prevent nuclear war, or to help us solve climate change. Some hope they're here to share advanced tech, allowing us to solve some of these problems on our own.

I think this belief is pretty dangerous. It helps remove human agency and responsibility to solve our own problems. Managing climate change, pushing for nuclear de-proliferation, creating foundational ethics around the development of advanced AI, etc are all incredibly challenging problems. To solve them, we'll need to do the hard work of creating enough consensus in an already fractured global society to find solutions we can stick to. Our track record is not great, and things are not currently looking positive for our ability to do this. It means we'll need to work even harder, as the consequences of not dealing with a problem like climate change are potentially devastating.

Now let's say we're moving into a post-disclosure world. (I'm not sure this is the case, but for discussion purposes...). The societal consequences of disclosure would be profound, and entirely unpredictable. But I do think it's likely there will be a large contingent of people who would group around the idea that the ETs are here to help us and that our top priority should be to unlock that reality. I agree with others who have speculated (eg: Pres Obama briefly in a podcast with Ezra Klein) that new religions would pop up in the aftermath of disclosure. Regardless of how much we understand or don't understand about our alien visitors, there will be new belief systems that attempt to make sense of it all.

Do I think it's impossible that aliens could be here and are "open" in some way to helping humanity? No! Likewise, in a post-disclosure world I think it's entirely appropriate for us to spend as many resources as possible to better understand the phenomenon that we're dealing with, and understand "their" intentions (acknowledging the risk of anthropomorphizing beings we probably can't begin to comprehend.)

But I also think it's incredibly dangerous to take focus away from the problems in front of us, like climate change, that we know we'll need to solve. Investigating UFOs may well unlock a deeper understanding of the universe, but there's certainly no guarantee it will help us solve our earthly problems in a timeframe that matters to our brief existence here. And the prospect of new religions cropping up around the idea of ET visitors makes me worried it will make it that much harder to build consensus around the tough problems facing us. I genuinely think that this challenge may be a reason officials are hesitant to be more transparent around disclosure.

What do others think? I'm really curious to know and expand my thinking on this

submitted by /u/radiofiend
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/ofnh1z/discussion_the_notion_that_ufos_aliens_are_here/