First Contact With Aliens Happens Tomorrow. What Do We Do?

What would actually happen if humanity made first contact with intelligent alien life, and would discovering an advanced extraterrestrial civilization unite us, divide us, or completely change our future?

Support Entropy Rising on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/EntropyRising

In this episode, Jacob and Lucas explore several very different first contact scenarios, starting with what may be the most realistic: detecting a technological civilization 50 or 100 light-years away. Even if communication took centuries, simply knowing another advanced civilization exists could completely reshape science, religion, politics, and humanity’s plans for the future.

But things get much stranger if the aliens come to us.

What if a generation ship entered our solar system? What if an alien civilization had faster-than-light travel? Would their arrival unite humanity, trigger a new space race, create new religions, or cause global panic?

We also discuss Dyson swarms, the Fermi Paradox, the Dark Forest hypothesis, alien motivations, first contact in science fiction, and the unsettling possibility that an alien intelligence might not consider humanity important enough to communicate with at all.

First contact might be the greatest discovery in human history. The bigger question is whether humanity would be ready for it.

Support the show

Website: https://www.entropy-rising.com/