Advanced Alien Cilvilizations

 

I have no insight on the recent claims of alien craft in the possession of governments. I have always thought that, because of the extreme distances, travel from another solar system was improbable. To make it possible, almost necessarily, an alien civilization would have to know how to travel not just through space, but through time. This would also explain the “impossible” maneuvers the craft are reported to make.

But if the critical factor is time travel, there is no need to assume space travel as well. These uncanny visitors could be from our own future; Occam’s Razor.

But whether or not they are alien visitors, commentators on UFOs are shockingly ready to assume the possibility of civilizations “more advanced” than ours on other planets. Shockingly, because in any other context, claiming that one civilization is more advanced than another is rank heresy. It is racism, and will come, quite possibly, in Canada, with criminal penalties. We cannot, for instance, suggest that the European culture that appeared on American shores in 1492 was more advanced than that of the natives, or that contact was likely to be a boon to them on balance. No; such an idea is “cultural genocide.”

Worse, the government scientists are reputedly trying to "reverse-engineer" the acquired crafts, to learn from them. This is blasphemy. Necessarily, as all civilizations are equally advanced, we can have nothing to learn from any aliens. This is all blatant alien supremacy.

Yet it is obvious that one civilization, or culture, can be more advanced than another. Advanced not just in this way or that, but even overall. It may, as is theorized about the UFOs, have had more time to work out the various kinks of mortal existence; less time preoccupied with mere material survival in a state of nature.

A culture or a civilization is a tool for achieving the best life. Not all tools are equal. 

Some tools are even harmful. One thinks of the need to wipe out Nazism in Germany, or the cult of the divine emperor in Japan. The ancient Israelites, Greeks, and Romans similarly saw a need to wipe out the Canaanite and Punic practice of child sacrifice. The British felt justified in wiping out the Thug cult or human sacrifice in India, and the practice of widow-burning, suttee.

An immigrant society like Canada, the US, or Singapore, can take advantage of this fact of cultures living cheek by jowl by choosing the best from each. A wise workman chooses the best tool for the job, not the one manufactured closest to his home. It is no accident that immigrant and outward-looking trading societies have been the main sources of culture and technological improvements over the centuries. 

Tragically, more recently, we have instead deliberately tried to halt the progress of civilization, with concepts like “multiculturalism,” “cultural appropriation,” “affirmative action” and “equity.” In the natural course of things it is likely that different ethnic groups will dominate in different spheres, in which their culture gives them expertise, and which their ethnic culture most values: Irish in policing, say; Dutch in luxury trades; blacks in preaching; aboriginals in the military; English in accounting; Italians in the food industry. It is cruel and artificial to try to prevent this, barring people from their dreams, and we all lose as a result.

We’ll never achieve time travel with this approach. 

So it may indeed be aliens.