Page Content (OCR)
294 If the current rate of technological change increases, many humans could find themselves quickly outdated. Fear of such possibilities could provoke a new Luddite movement against alien technologies. Being in Style Science and technology are not the only drivers of change. Alien ideas could influence our codes of behavior and styles of social interaction, our arts, and our tastes. Many humans might emulate alien ways, as we rush to fads and fash- ions now; this impulse could be stronger if we thought we were imitating superiors. Others would resist the adoption of alien modes, perhaps forcefully. Even if a more advanced civilization did not engage in physical imperial- ism, we could be affected profoundly by the imperialism of ideas. “The purpose of any communication,” Tipler argued, “is to change the knowl- edge of the person to whom the message is directed, to colonize a mind with memes (complexes of ideas).” He claimed that meme colonization necessarily extinguishes other memes; it is necessarily imperialistic.” Optimists like Sagan have argued that we are free to ignore the contents of an extraterrestrial message that we do not like; we can select only the information we find acceptable. However, the information might not be ignored if it were made available to the general public. As Jill Tarter put it, we would not be able to put the genie back in the bottle. We have learned from our own history that a receiving culture cannot take in only those practices it likes from another society; it is affected by the context of those practices, including the broader alien culture. A Syrian scientist, addressing the impact of the West on the Arab world, acknowl- edged that the arrival of innovations brings with it, directly or indirectly, the lifestyle and socio-cultural values of their innovators.” We might not see the impact coming until it was too late. Historian Bernard Lewis described how the Islamic world was slow to interest itself in the West. By the time it did, Western impact on Muslim societies was irreversible.” Some optimists assume that superior extraterrestrials, knowing what will damage us, would act with restraint. Papagiannis proposed that if a galactic civilization exists, it may know that bringing less advanced cultures into the wider society cannot be rushed. Jill Tarter thought that a “medi- ated paradigm shift” is less likely to have negative consequences than if it is left in inexperienced human hands.” Again, we are shifting the burden of responsibility to the alien civilization. Bracewell expected that, as the extraterrestrials would anticipate that their probe’s message to us would be disturbing, they would prepare that machine with “sociological resourcefulness.””° One wonders how an alien Assumptions: After Contact