If the aliens are out there, they would contact every opportunity they had, says conventional wisdom. But what if they are having a ‘bad mood millennium’ and are simply antisocial creatures that don’t care at all to communicate with other conscious (and perhaps not so conscious) creatures outside their planet?
One only has to look at the varieties of species on our own planet to understand that some creatures are more affable than others. But qualifying extraterrestrials as being antisocial does not mean that they are necessarily the kind of scoundrel hustlers shown by Hollywood. On the contrary, extraterrestrials – for whatever reason – are more ‘associative’ than ‘antisocial’.
To have a context, let’s take as a base Douglas Vakoch, president from METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence), based in San Francisco – USA, which put in perspective some of the reasons why ETs could have chosen to hide from the radars:
Aliens can be ‘schizoid’ and just don’t want to communicate
Do not confuse this with the term schizophrenic. People who are ‘schizoid’ are generally psychologically independent. For example, like polar explorers who like to live in secluded environments.
Vakoch these:
We often consider this lack of desire for contact with others to be abnormal on Earth, because many of us are very social. But much greater independence from others could be the norm in other worlds.
Imagine extraterrestrial cultures made up of individuals who care little about socializing with others.
Vakoch elaborated:
We see something similar with octopuses, which are very independent animals and generally like to be alone. Nobody could call an octopus a social creature, but in environments where they need to cooperate to survive, they can overcome this innate tendency to be antisocial.
Super-advanced aliens can have a swarm mentality
Perhaps advanced aliens may have a swarm mentality, in which the needs of individuals are secondary to those of the collective, says Valoch. In such civilizations, the coordination of efforts can occur only between species, and not through engagement with others.
In other words, they are so consumed with their own stratified existence, that communicating with the Universe may not be on your priority list. Like the band The Beatles once said: “Nothing’s gonna change my world” (Nothing will change my world).
They can be completely artificial and do not require social interaction
On a planet where artificial intelligence has supplanted biological intelligence, says Vakoch, it may be inconceivable for that civilization to communicate with us. If they found one of our targeted radio broadcasts, he says, it could be very challenging for them to even conceive that this signal was sent by another intelligence.
They may have a value system that makes them self-reliant
We, homo sapiens, we left Africa to cover most of the globe and beyond. But Vakoch says that an extraterrestrial civilization stable enough to engage in interstellar exchanges that could take centuries or millennia, can operate with fundamentally different values.
“We continue to reach beyond,” said Vokach. But this may not be the case with a civilization that is inherently more patient and sedentary than humans.
They may have given up on space travel
Very old alien civilizations may have given up their exploratory interests, either by chance, or by choice, says Vokach. They may be going through a very long period of solipsism in their civilization; for example, it’s all about us and nothing about anyone else – choosing to explore your inner lives more than those of the Universe out there.
Vakoch these:
Such aliens can be very difficult to communicate.
But what about the idea of super-advanced aliens who would be more interested in us than we would be in communicating with ants ourselves?
This notion is continually presented as a reason why aware aliens and space explorers do not leave us behind. “Ah, no, we dare not stop here; these humans are very tribal, childish and bellicose, etc. ”, is a familiar refrain.
But as Vakoch points out, if we could suddenly find ourselves being able to communicate with insects like ants, for example, we would certainly embrace the opportunity.
If ants were trying to make intelligent contact with us, our recognition of that fact would be something that would change the game, says Vakoch. For some extraterrestrial civilizations, it wouldn’t make a difference if they received a message from Earth, he says, but for others, it could simply be enough to put them in communication with us.
