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Define a “hello” alien civilization as one that might, in the next million years, identify humans as intelligent & civilized, travel to Earth, & say “hello” by making their presence & advanced abilities known to us. I just asked 15 Twitter poll questions on such aliens, each of which got 200-300 responses.
Respondents mostly agreed to estimate a high chance of having internal status hierarchies (78%), being artificial (68%), trying to talk to us (64%), having morals (64%), and being descended from land animals (60%). Respondents mostly agreed on a low chance of being green (27%), once having had a nuke war (34%), and having internal conflicts (34%). They mostly agreed on a middle estimate (46%) on how much morals we’d share with them.
Respondents were split into two groups with strongly opposing views regarding if they could talk in our language, or if they feel materially threatened by our descendants. Respondents seem basically confused, with nearly even choice among the four options, regarding if hello aliens came from two genders, have identifiable agents, want to impress and lead us, or are led by a single government.
Here are the main ways I disagree: Any aliens arriving here now on Earth must be very old; recent origin would be an incredible timing coincidence. As we don’t see them elsewhere in the sky, they have somehow prevented themselves from greatly changing nearby galaxies. This suggests they are green, and have a world government to enforce green rules.
Which suggests their reason for visiting: to get us to go along with their green rules. And a way to do that is to look very impressive but not talk to us, as talking would likely reveal things about them we’d hate.
Hello Alien Polls
It seems unlikely that a galaxy-scale civilization would adopt a "no visible impacts" ethic given the civilizational-lifetime benefits of active stellar and galactic husbandry. Defensive camouflage is the only potential rationale I can imagine for doing so; but AFAICT that would be ineffective against SRAs or electromagnetic malware which could be sent by a distant aggressor at such low cost that it would not have to be targeted, thus negating any camouflage benefits.
You often acknowledge limits to growth, yet you also seem to assume almost no limits to engineering. I admire (and sometimes share) your optimism, but it isn't obvious to me that any intelligent beings anywhere in the universe will necessarily ever possess such abilities.