If aliens are more advanced than us, and if they are interested in helping us, they will open up many opportunities for our civilization. They could teach us math and other sciences, provide solutions to unsolved problems like hunger, poverty, disease, and so on. While this might seem like a wishful thinking, it fits well into one of the explanations for the Fermi paradox. That is, if technologically advanced aliens exist, then where are they, why haven't they colonized the Earth yet? One of the explanations implies that if exponential development lies in the nature of all intelligent beings, it can, as a result, destroy species, for example, during man-made disasters. The opposite is that if sentient beings existed long enough to outlive us,they probably understand something about sustainable ecosystems. They are unlikely to colonize our planet for resources, as this could lead to the extinction of our species. If people were a little smarter, they also turned their views to nature, which is dying and suffocating. But we have not yet reached this level of development, although we are approaching it. Aliens of this level can visit us at least out of curiosity, but not for destruction. And if they do not want to settle their colonies here or survive us from the planet, most likely they will have to help us. But we have not yet reached this level of development, although we are approaching it. Aliens of this level can visit us at least out of curiosity, but not for destruction. And if they do not want to settle their colonies here or survive us from the planet, most likely they will have to help us. But we have not yet reached this level of development, although we are approaching it. Aliens of this level can visit us at least out of curiosity, but not for destruction. And if they do not want to settle their colonies here or survive us from the planet, most likely they will have to help us.
There are several areas of our development that can significantly progress as a result of contact with an extraterrestrial civilization:
1. Traveling long distances
It is assumed that the aliens who visit our planet will arrive out of nowhere, having covered a huge distance. The nearest potentially habitable planet is located at least 13 light years from us. It can be assumed that the aliens will use technologies similar to the warp drive predicted by Miguel Alcubierre and which is being developed in the NASA laboratory, or something else that lies beyond the human imagination. Aliens may also have anti-gravity technologies, if one believes that flying saucers can perform impossible aerobatics (well, let's leave out that their existence has not been proven). Of course, alien guests will be happy to share new technologies with us.
2. Improving our biology
People are gradually getting used to the ideas of transhumanism - they are developing exoskeletons and electronic devices like implantable microchips that improve vision. But if an intelligent extraterrestrial species has existed even for several thousand years longer than we do, they could well have become completely postbiological beings, whose brains represent a fusion of natural and artificial intelligence. Perhaps they don't even need bodies - they live in machines of their own design (let's hope they don't look like the "terminator" Arnold Schwarzenegger - that would be too strange). The same NASA scientist Stephen Dick spoke about this in 2006. We could make a qualitative transition to the future with the help of transhumanistic devices of aliens. Or enter into symbiosis with them.
Promotional video:
3. Curing the environment
It is likely that aliens with a much more advanced civilization have mastered planetary engineering - the ability to make important and special changes to the environment. They could help us patch holes in our atmosphere and reverse the destructive process of climate change.
The closest intelligent life to us may be thousands of light years away from us, but aliens with a structure similar to ours, most likely, at one time went through the same stages of development as we do. And it's worth assuming that they transitioned to a low-carbon economy before their biosphere fell to pieces.
Astronomers Adam Frank and Woodruff Sullivan believe that when it comes to the crises of the 21st century - global warming, ocean acidification, the sixth mass extinction - the solution to these issues may well be in space. Most likely, this has already happened there and more than once. We may not be the first intelligent species to balance stability and self-destruction.
4. Resolution of conflicts
International conflicts kill far fewer people than in the past - each year until 2010, approximately 55,000 people died from wars. This is a third of the deaths from accidents in the 1980s. But people still want to kill each other: according to various estimates and according to the UN, in 2011 there were 468,000 murders worldwide. If an intelligent extraterrestrial species lives longer than we do, they probably created a deadly technology, at least as powerful as ours, or they built a "Death Star" for which earthlings do not have enough money. However, the further development of civilization should have led to the settlement of conflicts without the use of violence. We could ask them to share this method with us, or make us stop killing our own kind.
What is noteworthy, many theorists of extraterrestrial life agree on one thing: if there is a coalition of intelligent aliens of different races in space, civilizations that have reached a certain level of technical development, world outlook and, most importantly, that have stopped internecine wars, are accepted into this coalition for its harmonious existence. Which does not shine for us in the near future.