Page Content (OCR)
316 Although the Galactic Club is a pleasing concept, we have no evidence telling us that it exists. That imagined community is an idealized vision of how international relations should be, rather than how our historical au aa w 1 ° 4 aa ° experience tells us they are. It is only one of many possible models of relationships among technological civilizations. Others include isolation, anarchy, centerless cooperation, alliance, federation, dominance, and empire. Technological civilizations may be so widely separated in their levels of development that they do not ally with each other. Even if something like a Galactic Club does exist, it may be composed of very unequal members. If we were admitted to such an interstellar society, we could find ourselves the most junior partners—the least interesting and the least influential. Would other members of the club treat us as equals, proteges, or inferiors? Societies at very different levels of knowledge and power may not consider themselves even remotely equal. If there is a Galactic Club, gaining membership may not be as easy as some predict. Evolutionary theorist William Hamilton observed that to protect themselves, cooperative groups evolve strategies to make admis- sion into their ranks difficult. These can take the form of being wary of outsiders, long periods of probation, and initiation ceremonies that are costly to the initiate.!”° Societies are not independent agents that are always free to pursue idio- syncratic, “egocentric” ends, Harrison argued; they must operate within contexts set by other societies. Who will prosper, he asked, collaborative societies that seek collective security and cooperate in the pursuit of common goals, or “egotistical” societies that aggressively pursue their own ends? This formula assumes a degree of synchrony among civilizations that may not exist. If the cooperative model prevails, we might hope to be welcomed into a community. Howerer, Harrison recognized that if “self-oriented” states have the highest likelihood of enduring, we will have to be very wary of our new acquaintances.'”” Relations between ourselves and other civilizations might not be binary. If more than one technological species is active on an interstellar scale, contact might draw us into some form of interstellar politics. Discovering that one civilization was capable of transport across interstellar distances would imply that there might be others with similar capabilities. Politics is inevitably implied by the Galactic Club, a grouping of separate civilizations. Papagiannis speculated that advanced societies would have Assumptions: After Contact The Galactic Club Exists There Won’t Be Any Interstellar Politics