Quote Originally Posted by Crocodile View Post
I think if you behave like a domestic dog, that might give a wrong impression of the humanity either.
Well, I was thinking more of behaving like a cat, which I consider more intelligent and evolved than a dog - as well as cleaner and more attractive - but I digress.


And if you start singing some of Celine Dione songs, the extraterrestrial might feel like a good opportunity to dive into the north Atlantic to fetch some extra precious stones.
Hmmmm, well, you haven't heard me sing


Off the top of my head, you need to stay still, not run or hide, and not smile, but slowly wave your straight hands palms forward until the other being would do something.
Ah, but if this alien being has no limbs - and thus no concept of limbs - how would such a gesture be interpreted? The alien is not going to "grok"* the human-cultural implications of palms up versus palms down.

Then, you slowly try to imitate what it did until it tries to imitate what you do. If you get to the point the being is trying to imitate you, you've got 90% of the success in the first contact because the being is considerate of you and recognizes you're sentient. The rest depends on what happens next, which is up to you at that point. And what happens if you don't get that 90%?
Imitating is the best idea. But what if imitating is, for all practical purposes, impossible? The creature is globular in shape, right? How would a human body imitate it's movements?

That's why you need to get yourself familiar with at least some concepts of the exopsychology.
And where would I do that? No one has met an alien yet (except George W. Bush and look what the experience did to him!!) so where would be an encyclopedia documenting the various "concepts of the exopsychology"? Can I find it at the library...?


Well, my native language is Russian and I live in an English-speaking country, so I'm still working on improving my English. I think I still speak Russian right most of the time.
Well, I have a tendency to imitate the people I am around (in which case perhaps my success with the alien is better assured). I can't help myself, it's completely intuitive and I cannot even explain it. I mimic their accents and pronunciation without even intending to, often. So after I was immersed in Russian for two years, it actually took me a few months to speak English normally again. Every person is different, of course. My husband could not pronounce Russian words correctly if his life depended on it. If he were to learn Russian, he would have a strong accent and it is unlikely that he would experience the sort of mental changes I experienced. I cannot even describe it, really.


Alright, so you said it yourself, in the personal competition, the most competitive win. The same I think is true with the political forms, even though the "aggressiveness" is much more complex. That is probably a large [off] topic on its own.

That is called "the balance" and I think it's one of the fundamental aspects of the Universe. One of the ways we can avoid war with the extraterrestrials is to become useful to them. That is an open question though as the way they might want us to become useful might not be acceptable by us. And so the politics starts ...
Yes, that would be a very tricky situation. We would not want to be useful as food, for example. I wonder what humans would be able to provide that an alien race would need?


It's coming. Inevitably. Not very long ago, only the very rich could enjoy being passengers on the sea ships...
That is a good point!


*grok
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok