Hawking And Aliens

Professor Stephen Hawking said on a television program recently that meeting aliens wouldn't be good for humans, comparing that situation to what happened when Europeans came into contact with Native Americans. In his scenario, humans would be the Native Americans to the aliens' Europeans.

First, that view likely tells us more about Professor Hawking's mindset than it does about anything else. Second, Hawking is a physicist, not a historian, cultural anthropologist, or political scientist. That he knows about black holes doesn't necessarily mean he knows more about possible alien philosophies and motivations than any other human. Comparing fifteenth century European cultural attitudes to those of a culture that has mastered interstellar travel probably borders on nonsense.

Let's vastly simplify a complex historical situation and say Europeans came to the New World looking for natural resources. If aliens came into this solar system searching for natural resources, the simple fact is that the vast majority of that stuff in this system is beyond Earth. Even most of the water in the Solar System is beyond Earth. There is no obvious reason aliens would confront humanity to take the wealth of Earth when they could get the same stuff elsewhere. The one possible exception to that is life. They may be as interested in learning about Earthly life as we would be in learning about Them. Would such an interaction, however benign, change human culture? Probably-- just as it might change the alien culture. Should we, therefore, shy from contact? That's not clear.