Week 2 & 3: Fermi's Paradox

[Lee Brentnell]

Eureka! Fermi's paradox has been solved! 

Alien intelligence has been discovered and they're only 12 light years away (http://goo.gl/8R5Yy). Through a series of radio messages its been determined that the aliens have radio communications, but lack any space-faring technologies. 

The nations of Earth have united under the United Nations to send a representative to meet the aliens.  http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/

Response question:

  you've been appointed by the United Nations to choose the human ambassador.  Which traits from the IB learner profile graphic would you want the ambassador to have & why.

---

SETI Institute

[Molly Sun]

Naturally, the best answer would be for the ambassador to have all the qualities of the IB learner profile. Anyone who is balanced with all these characteristics would be a perfect representative. The goal is to choose someone who is able to represent the planet in the best way possible in order to work out a mutualism (or at least a commensalism). However, if out of the 7 billion people, I couldn't find a single person with all the qualities, I think I would opt for someone with my top three priorities: Communicator, Open-minded, Thinker.

Communicators: If the aliens spoke Earth languages, communicator would be the most important quality to have. Communication is so very important at this point because it’s how the aliens will interpret us. Everything we do will influence their view of us, so we’d need someone who is able to confidently represent an entire race. I’d want someone who is able to express the ideas of a peaceful yet powerful race, (even if it wasn't the truth). Also, communicators are able to listen to what the aliens want. The meeting has to show that we are able to collaborate effectively with them, to convince them that we are friends.

Open-Minded: Having an open-minded communicator is super necessary. If the representative had an ethnocentric view of how humans are the superior race, the meeting would result in mass genocide. So in order to benefit both parties, there has to be an open-minded connector between the two. This person should critically appreciate our own cultures and histories, as well as put into consideration of the values of the aliens. The representative needs to be finding a common ground between the two races by listening to the aliens and accepting their traditions as their norm while also contributing with our own values. Finding common ground would benefit both parties, and create an even greater race.

Thinkers: The thinker quality must be present in the ambassador. This person must be able to quickly find solutions to the problems that will arise during the meeting. The ambassador must realise the importance of thinking before speaking. Everything that the representative does will influence the aliens’ opinions of us. If the communicator simply blurted out whatever came to mind, the aliens might think we’re taking them as a joke or that we’re a non-intelligent species. This is a very complex problem, and the representative must think through all the possibilities of consequences with every action. To find a mutually beneficial alliance with the aliens will be hard, and thus we must find someone who is able to solve these kinds of problems.

                 These three qualities would be my top priorities to look for in an ambassador. Obviously, these characteristics correlate and all affect each other. The communication is dependent on the thinking, no matter how great one’s speech skills are, without a proper idea to get across, it’s useless. The thinking is dependent on the open-mindedness. A person could be brilliant at solving problems like this, but if they were a close-minded, the aliens would still be offended. The open-mindedness is reliant on the communication skills. Someone could be open to all ideas and discussions, but without a proper way of communicating those thoughts, the aliens could get the wrong ideas. So it’s necessary to look for someone with all three of these qualities, in my opinions, anything less should not be considered.

[Nicole Martinek]

Open-Minded: The person needs to be able to accept the aliens and their position; he/she cannot be judgmental and must be open to their way of life, he/she must be able to cooperate with them and make compromises without personal opinions and prejudices impeding their decisions.

Communicator: The person needs to be able to find some way to communicate with the aliens whether or not they speak the same language, to somehow compensate for that language barrier (similar to how people created sign language to compensate for speech and hearing impediments). Also, he/she needs to be able to do it in a way that will prevent any misunderstandings, to represents humans as a peaceful, cooperative, and intelligent race. This links with that open-mindedness because as a communicator he/she needs to be open to their position, listen to their wants/needs, and act as a mediator between their race and the human race to reach a satisfactory compromise.

Thinker: He/she needs to be able to think on behalf of humanity as a collective, based on his/her experience with this new race what is best for humanity or what is best for this new race. Also, he/she needs to be able to solve any issues (again, as a communicator and an open-minded person, some sort of decision needs to be made and preferably not in a way that would result in war) and consider multiple factors. His/her decisions cannot be thoughtless, they must be deliberate and well-thought out there is no room for error, this race could easily be offended and react dangerously, and if there's a language barrier misunderstandings would occur frequently, he/she needs to be able to fix these quickly and make any necessary adjustments to their word choices. In identifying and expressing humanity's position with this new race, he/she must also consider their position and consider how their way of life may impact their choices/necessities and how it might affect people on Earth, as well as how people would impact their life (if humans would simply exploit this new planet and race, or vice versa, should communications continue, etc).

[telseymclandress]

When we send Earth's representative to the alien planet they must have three of the IB Learner Profile traits in order for the mission to be a successful one.

1. Risk-Taker: The person would need to be a risk-taker because travelling to another planet to meet aliens is a huge risk. The aliens could feel threatened by the human coming to their land and might act defensively, which could be dangerous for the human representative. Going on such a long journey through space would also be a risk that one must be willing to take. If the person was not a risk-taker they would not agree to go and if they did we could not expect them to stay calm throughout the mission, which could be essential to making the mission a success or a failure. 

2. Communicator: The person would need to be a communicator in order to make any progress in our new and delicate relationship with the aliens. Once they arrived to the alien's planet, they would need to attempt to communicate with the creatures. This will most likely be a difficult task since they will have a different form of communication than our languages. Therefore the representative will either have to learn their language or find an alternate way of communicating. The representative needs to be able to communicate with the aliens enough to explain our purpose on their planet and that we "come in peace". Having a communicator as a representative would greatly increase the chance of success by being able to exchange ideas and thoughts through communication. 

3. Thinker: The person needs to be a thinker since there will be many times during the mission that they will have to think on their feet. Since this is the first mission of this kind in human history we have no idea what to expect. When an unexpected situation arises it will be essential for the representative to be able to evaluate the situation and come up with a solution rather quickly. They must also be a thinker because they are representing all of Earth and therefore they must portray us as a place with thinkers and intellectuals. Also if the aliens are more intellectually advanced than us we need a thinker to attempt to understand their new technologies and ways of thinking.

If our representative has all these traits they should be able to develop a strong relationship with the aliens which could help the future of both our planets.

[lane burns]

In my opinion the top three qualities that this representative should have are, communicator, open-minded and thinker. A representative with these three traits would give earth the best change at a 'peaceful' relationship.

 

Communication is a key aspect when it comes to making alliances and keeping peaceful terms with other nations. If earth wanted to create a general ground of mutualism with this alien race then it would best for their ambassador to be able to speak with them in the best way possible. If for some reason both parties spoke a common language then it would help to lessen the amount of confusion. For example had the First nations and the Europeans been able to speak a common language then it may have been a better trade treaty. This could potential be a similar situation. Also with communication, if one is a poor communicator whether it be in writing or speaking then the ideas and mean can be lost due to the inability or inexperience to fully get the correct point across. If the aliens were to misunderstand what earth's message was then we could face a war that expands past  boundaries that we know.

 

Being open-minding is another thing that is needed. This person who is to represent Earth will need to be accepting of others culture, and need to have the ability to place a amount of respect for others history as well as there own. Being closed mined even to ideas could cause an up-roar or a disagreement in a delicate situation. The ambassador should not think full of them self.

 

Finally this person needs to be able to think. If they cannot think about how their actions could affect themselves and others then once again a delicate meeting could go down in disaster. Even as things go down hill (as they could) this person will need to be able to think quickly to solve the problem otherwise it could be too late. Also this person should not think out loud as some so that could be disastrous.

 

These would be the three qualities need as a base work. of course someone could have all three of these traits and not be a good representative. However these are the top three that need to be there.

 

  

 

[Jacob Kitchen (Google Drive)]

I choose the traits, principled, open-minded and inquirer for my ambassador.

The best traits for a person to have if we were to contact another form of life would be the traits of an inquirer, a principled, and an open-minded person. These traits would allow the person the ability to take curiosity in the alien’s style of living without taking offence to what they do, while also attempting to share their own culture with the unknown life. Having an open mind would allow the ambassador for the human race to share our culture while interpreting the new culture. Although communication may impede the direct translation, the inquisition of the person would be inclined to decipher their form of communication. This desire to discover new things and continually grow and learn is what would make an ambassador great. People here on earth do not need to be able to speak with one another but they do show some communication in gestures. The curiosity of the person would allow them to be immersed fully within their way of life, and bring the most optimal and unbiased opinion back to earth. The person would also need to be principled because of the need to judge and act reasonably and decisively. This would allow for the most effective exchange of information between the two lifeforms. I believe that these traits would allow for a non-biased and willing exchange of information and culture between the two life forms. The decisive decisions with accurate judgments and the natural curiosity would allow the ambassador to absorb the maximum amount of information with the utmost accuracy.

[Moira Muir]

When we send a representative to meet the aliens it needs to be a person who can accurately represent the human race, while still being capable of handling such an unknown experience.  

Risk-Taker: I think this is the most important trait for the ambassador to have, mostly because if they weren't a risk taker they wouldn't even go to an alien planet in the first place. If they have had experience taking risks here on Earth, and have familiarized themselves with new situations, they will be able to handle themselves better in the unknown environment of the alien planet.  By being on a foreign planet everything they do or say will be a huge risk, so if they are freaking out and not being able to handle the pressure then the whole "being friends with an alien life force" isn't going to work out so well.

Communicator: Obviously if they are going to be chosen to go meet a new life force they are going to have to be able to communicate with them.  Choosing an ambassador without this trait would be disastrous. Along with communicating verbally, comes the skill of non-verbal communication.  The alien species will most likely not speak an Earth language, so the ambassador must be able to find a new way that the two species can interact.  They must be able to pick up on the alien communication as well as get across their own ideas. 

Balanced: This is a trait that I think would allow the ambassador to accurately portray the human race, and show the aliens what humans are really like.  If we send someone who isn't balanced, then the aliens won't realize the broad scope of amazing things we humans are capable of.  If the person only spends their time doing one thing on Earth, the aliens are going to think we are pretty boring! Also, if the person is balanced they will have a larger set of skills and experiences to prepare them for the uniqueness of alien life.  

These are the elements I think would best be suited for our ambassador to have in order to establish effective communication and future relationship with alien life.

[Victoria Sajtovich]

          Although it would be best for our human ambassador to possess all of the qualities of the IB learner profile, if I had to choose only three, they would be: Communicator, Thinker, and Knowledgeable.

          Our representative would have to be a good communicator in order to establish positive relations with the alien civilization. The Aliens likely would not speak any of Earth's languages, so a good communicator would be essential to presenting Earth's civilization in a positive way (i.e. cooperative,  intelligent, peaceful, willing to overcome problems, etc.). Our ambassador would have to be able to think of ingenious ways of communicating (i.e. drawing pictures, acting, hand gestures, etc.) as well as figuring out how to correctly interpret the aliens' responses (whatever they may be). A good communicator would have to have keen observation skills and be a good judge of behaviour. These two things would also be necessary to determine the success of the meeting with the Aliens, and the ambassador's reactions while conversing to maintain a positive atmosphere and positive relations between Earth and Planet X.

          Our representative would have to be a thinker in order to respond appropriately to the Aliens and ensure positive relations are secured. The International Baccalaureate programme defines a thinker as someone who "exercises initiative in applying thinking skills critically and creatively to recognize and approach complex problems, and make reasoned, ethical decisions". If our ambassador was faced with hostile aliens, it would be necessary for them to be able to assess the situation quickly (and correctly) and then come up with a response that would remedy the situation, rather than intensify it. This would take the application of critical and creative problem-solving skills, as well as the ability to make an ethical judgment. Additionally, I think being a thinker implies that you are reasonably principled (in order to make the "ethical decision"). This would be especially important if the alien civilization we were approaching was excessively violent or had an oppressive government. Our ambassador may be asked to partake in alien pastimes or other aspects of their lifestyle for visiting, so they would need to critically assess what they have been asked to do and then make an ethical decision. For example, if our ambassador was asked to take part in alien sacrifice as a part of their religious ceremonies, they would have to be a thinker in order to assess the pros of the situation (i.e. it may be more respectful to participate than refuse and this may ensure positive relations between the Aliens and Earth) and cons (i.e. sacrifice is deemed unacceptable behavior on Earth, but refusing to participate may threaten a positive relationship between the Aliens and Earthlings) and make an ethical decision. Then, they would have to be a communicator to convey their decision in an understandable and respectful way.

          Finally, our representative would have to be knowledgeable in order to accurately convey life on Earth to the Aliens as well as to deal with potential problems of space-travel. If our ambassador was knowledgeable, not only would they be able to demonstrate to the Aliens that human civilization is intelligent, but they would be able to tell the Aliens about important concepts and ideas on Earth. They could explain information about every facet of human life: medicine, the sciences, mathematics, the arts, our history, etc. This would give the Aliens a better understanding of Earth's civilization. Being knowledgeable would also benefit the thinker and communicator aspects of our ambassador. More knowledge would enable the ambassador to make better decisions in response to the Aliens' behavior and would also help them to communicate more effectively (i.e. by having a greater understanding of historical encounters between two civilizations that had never met each other before like the Aztecs and the Conquistadors, the ambassador could anticipate what may happen and also how not to act). As for space travel, once the spaceship has left Earth, it would be largely out of our control. If our ambassador was very knowledgeable, he or she may be able to overcome potential problems such as equipment malfunction (i.e. he or she may have the knowledge to repair electronic devices or how to create a new part out of materials existing inside the spaceship if it were damaged by a meteor shower, etc.) or medical emergencies (i.e. the pilot of the spaceship starts choking on his sandwich - obviously our technology would have evolved enough to produce gravity on our spaceships :) - so the ambassador would be able to save him with his knowledge of the Heimlich Maneuver).

[Mattew Olsen]

Risk-Taker - The person going to the alien planet would have to be a risk-taker for a number of reasons. For starters, getting to the alien planet would be a risk all by its self! Secondly, there would be an incredibly unlikely chance that the aliens would speak anything even close to a language spoken on earth. The ambassador would have to take risks and try to understand the aliens. Also, there is the chance that the aliens would be unfriendly to humans. The ambassador would have to think quickly and come up with a solution to the problem so as to keep earth safe.

Open-Minded - This person would have to be a fairly open-minded person as there would be no telling of what would be found on the alien planet. The aliens could be quite humanoid or completely different. A lot of the decisions that were made by the ambassador would have to be made based upon newly discovered information. Being open-minded would be incredibly beneficial in this situation!

Thinker - This person would have to be smart and quick to make decisions. The ambassador would need to be able to process information quickly and make the best decision available from it. This trait also completes the last two as it is the trait that pieces tham all togther. Being a risk-taker without being a thinker would not be very beneficial.

[Rogan Hall]

I would hope that out of all the people on earth we could find someone with more than three of these characteristics, but I believe the most important would be

Open-Minded: usually when we say someone is open-minded we apply it to the issues and such on this planet. This person is to go to a whole other planet and communicate with an entirely new race. That's a whole new level of open mindedness necessary. That's some interplanetary open-mindedness right there.

Knowledgeable: given that this person is representing our entire planet, I would expect them to have a vast array of knowledge from many different fields and origins. This person is the ambassador of our race, I certainly think its a requirement they be knowledgeable about us. This, along with communicator, will allow our ambassador to share the experiences of the human race with this extraterrestrial one.

Communicator:   there is no way we could send someone who doesn't have this characteristic. I'm going to make the assumption that the aliens don't speak a language of ours, and so having someone who is an extremely proficient communicator is essential to avoid misunderstanding/conflict. This trait also enables this person to be a representative of our race since, along with the knowledgeable trait, he could share who and what humans are. Where we come from and what our intentions are (hopefully harmless). 

This guy/gal is the figurehead of our entire planet. That's a pretty big responsibility, and so it is necessary for this human to embody these traits, and hopefully more than what any of us deem to be the most important.

[Kajal Patel]

 The representative sent to the distant planet should ideally obtain a wide range of qualities, however three specific characteristics that this individual should attain should be: communicator, thinker, and inquirer to establish positive relations between our planet and the new planet.

1. Communicator: This  characteristic is crucial as the representative will need to carry out an effective conversation with the aliens (either using verbal of other alternate non-verbal forms of communication.-- e.g. symbols, sign language, body language, physical contact etc. to co) to convey information about out race/planet, and establish a positive and friendly relationship with them. . Ultimately, the representative needs to be able to reach the conclusion explain our purpose on their planet and that how we do not have any harmful intentions. By being able to exchange his/her ideas and thoughts through communication, the representative would allow would be able to gather vital information through his/her observations and the alien's responses. By being able to converse methodically while listening  to the alien's opinions/ judgements, this representative  would establish positive atmosphere between our planet and the new planet, and eliminate the ambiguity in the language barrier.

 

2. Thinker: This aspect goes hand in hand with the communicator trait,  as our representative would need a certain element of creative problem-solving to find an alternate form of communication once when they reach the new planet.  When our representatives reach the new planet, they would also need to assess the climate/atmosphere( rocks, hot lava, barren land etc.)of the landscape, and evaluate the general attitude of the aliens(aggressive, peaceful etc.) of the aliens fairly quickly. After doing so, they would need to generate a plan of how to approach the aliens in a positive and diplomatic way, at the same time ensuring their safety( making sure they are protected incase of a dangerous landscape or an invasion by the aliens). This would require the application of critical thinking, creative problem-solving skills, as well as the ability to make judicious decisions. For example, if a violent group of  aliens started to attack the spaceship of our representative when he/she reached the planet, they could either choose to respond by invading back rashly, or resolving the situation by reasoning with the aliens(through communication) in a calm peaceful manner. The "thinker" characteristic would allow the representative to evaluate the situation logically before coming to a rash and hasty decision. Also, this aspect would allow our representative to adopt to completely unexpected situations. For example, if the aliens are far more advanced than us(e.g. technology, science etc.)  we need a strong thinker who is able to understand and decipher the alien's ways of living. Adopting to their atmosphere quickly yet sensibly, would also allow the development of a positive relationship between Earth and the discovered planet.

 

Inquirer: Last but not least, our representative needs to find a way to investigate the lifestyle/foundational structures of the new alien society to collect information about the new planet, which can be processed when they return back to Earth. If they do not have this investigative capability, the entire mission would end up being unsuccessful, as we would still have no information pertaining to  the specific details of the new planet ( e.g. terrain, aliens, atmosphere etc.). However, if our representative is driven to learn new things, he/she will be able to grasp information about the aliens very quickly, which can be beneficial to both planet Earth and the new planet. For example, if he/she records/accounts for his/her findings and observations( e.g. weather, time),and asks questions( through the communication trait and the thinker characteristic) to further inspect the planet, this would allow us to gain an insight on how the new planet functions. This would also allow us to extend our relationship with the aliens, as we would know how to approach them with the new information gained!

[Kajal Patel]

Sorry for the typos in my response, I was typing this on my phone and the keyboard was slow.

[Kiara Bliss]

Principled: The ambassador representing our planet would have to be principled. Words such as integrity, honesty, justice, and respect are used in the learner profile and those are important. When introducing our planet to another, those are the things that we want to portray ourselves as to keep peace and make a strong connection with them. Basically a principled person is described as a “good person” in general so that’s how we should be represented and that’s how we hope aliens would be as well.

 

Communicator: In that situation, communication would be most important. Of course the same languages would not be spoken so the individual would have to be incredibly skilled at understanding what others are trying to say. They would have to be extremely patient and willing to do whatever needed to understand the message of the aliens. Also, they would have to be able to portray Earth in the best way possible to the aliens. That would include finding out what sort of traits the aliens value and emphasis similar values of Earth for a good connection. The ambassador would have to have a good understanding of what the aliens are all about and make sure Earth looks good to make a good relationship between the two planets.

 

Thinkers: Thinkers have to be able to deal with complex problems and human life has never dealt with such a situation. With a lack of possible preparation to any outcome, the ambassador must be able to think quickly and act the right way accordingly. They must have a natural sense of what the right thing to do would be in case the situation turned bad which is very possible. They would have to be ready for anything in combination with being principled and communicating, all the while having no idea what to be ready for.  

[Jyler]

Aliens from another planet...sounds oddly familiar to another nationality...and in an international baccalaureate program and when just finished our own IB learner profiles, could be a coincidence. 

1) Open-minded would be one of the three characteristics as a bigot would severely hinder any sort of peaceful relationship that could be founded with the aliens. If we look at our own history, whenever we weren't open-minded there were genocides, ethnic cleansings, holocausts and slavery. That was people who were similar in appearance other than a bit of skin/eye colour variance. Who knows if these aliens even resemble humans. 

2) Communicator would be another trait, preferably some sort of communications/languages expert, who could adapt to any form of language that these aliens speak. An effective communicator should also be able to set up communications connection between us and them which would remove the need for him to especially knowledgeable about anything but communication as he could simply connect the aliens to us. That way, similar to how all of us use/access the knowledge built by everyone else through mediums such as Wikipedia, the aliens could be introduced to our possibly enormous amount of knowledge (depends on how advanced they are), without our ambassador having to know everything. An effective communicator would also imply that he/she knows rhetoric and already thinks before he speaks since he is an effective communicator. 

3) Thinker for the "and make reasoned, ethical decision" the ethical part mostly. As it seems that it would be much easier to gain the trust of another race through ethical principles and decisions that are similar to their own rather than through reason (unless of course this race was different than humans and their culture was founded entirely on reason, then the thinker would know to imitate their reason). Since if you think somebody is morally bad you don't usually respect or communicate with them very much. The entire point of sending the ambassador is to establish a peaceful relationship with them, so being able to find a way of having an almost perfect first impression with them would facilitate the endeavor.   

 

[Bryce]

Caring- It would be a good idea for the ambassador to display caring towards the aliens, in order to ensure that any hostilities are avoided. A caring ambassador would be able to listen to the aliens and respond in a cordial manner.

Principled- Having an unprincipled ambassador would be a terrible idea. Sending an ambassador to these aliens and having them be principle would be a good idea because then the would show respect, have manners, and act in a way that would make a good image of the people of earth to these aliens. 

Open-minded- If the ambassador was closed minded, then they wouldn't be open to the different forms of communication, customs and traditions that these aliens might have. To have an open minded ambassador would mean that they are ready to learn and experience the different ways that these aliens live their lives.

[Gabrielle Frykberg]

A representative would have to be open minded, caring, and a thinker. Because the life will be completely foreign, the ambassador would have to be open minded about the new life and culture, and nonjudgmental so that they are open to learning everything to get the maximum amount of information. He or she would also have to be caring, because it is imperative to appear friendly to the alien life. If the person genuinely cared about the aliens then they would understand how daunting it could be for both parties, and would be ready to deal with the experience emotionally. Finally, it is important that the chosen person is a thinker, as it is likely that communication would be difficult, so efficient improvisation would be important. A thinker would likely make positive and well thought decisions, as well as possess the skills necessary to process and understand the new environment quickly. All of these qualities would make for an ambassador who would best be able to understand the foreign life, which is the key to effective communication between us and the newly discovered planet.