If a peaceful alien race were to make contact with the world's governments offering solutions for global harmony and inclusion in an intergalactic community how do you think they would be received?

If it was the U.S. then we would probably shoot now and ask questions later. Kind of like in the movie, "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Then Gort would come along and kick our asses!

Well we would probably shoot at them if they landed in America, but I'm hoping that they would have studied us and made a choice to land somewhere safer than America and I would hope the different governments would be willing to listen to them and accept their help. Of course, they could be posing as being peaceful (think the TV series V) and have ulterior motives of their own.

We'd kill them all,

After some of the sci-fi stuff I have seen, I figure the world governments, especially that of the U.S. would act very cautiously and with a lot of suspicion. Think of all the movies where the aliens said they came in peace and then proceeded to destroy Earth. I've got that Twilight Zone episode going through my mind, "To Serve Man". "It's, it's...A COOKBOOK!" (hehehe!)

With a nuke.

We would all be smiling our fake smiled, as we are trying to back-stab them and take what's worth of their technology.

I think they'd be greeted with great suspicion and distrust as well as with great hope and unthinking acceptance. There'd be all the disagreements and debates that we engage in for all other issues.

Yeah, great episode. Nothing like the old Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock series. Grew up on those.

The doves would be pleasant and the hawks would blow them off the face of the earth with big guns.

Suspiciously.

With a fake "Artist of the Millenium" award?

So did I, but my all time favorite is the old Outer Limits. Did you watch that? I didn't like Alfred Hitchcock as well as my sister, but we were both huge fans of Outer Limits and Twilight Zone plus my sister also like a show called One Step Beyond which I didn't really care for. She also watched the original Dark Shadows as well and I didn't care for that either, but I'm not the huge vampire loving freak she is! (HA!)

with suspicion, distrust and missiles.

on metal slabs

Hmm. Outer Limits was dicey - some good, some bad. When it first came out my parents wouldn't let me watch it. One Step Beyond was okay, but I don't recall being a big fan of it. Dark Shadows I watched every day in high school during the summer only of course 'cause there wasn't anything else to do. I was 15 then. I loved Lost in Space too until it got corny, like with the robot wearing a straw hat. "Danger, Will Robinson!"

We didn't get Lost in Space or Gunsmoke for that matter when my sister and I were growing up. We got 2 channels and neither of them carried Lost in Space. Outer Limits could be cheesy at times, but there were some memorable shows as well. My sister was outraged when they changed Dark Shadows from 3:30 p.m. to 10 a.m.! She could only watch it during holidays and vacation. She told me that when she had cable she watch DS everyday on the Sci-Fi channel as she has missed close to 2 seasons because of the time change. Of course in those days they didn't have VCRs.

Paranoia, hostility and disbelief.

I think they would be received suspiciously. We would definitely look that gift horse in the mouth! I think humans would be afraid they would be giving up power to aliens. Plus, different countries would probably want to do different things in response.

hym!, to answer this question seriously and accuratly, I would have to forget all the bullcrap alien movies I have seen.

More than likely, we would be pretty suspicious of them, depending on what culture or land they land on.

Judging on the replies of a lot of people earier, us Americans would be most likely to act violently, not neccesarily because we have more of a bias against them, but because we have more violence in our society overall. Also, if they were to land in middle America, they may fudge up religion as we know it, and piss off a lot of relgious conservatives.

If they were to land somewhere in Europe, then I can't imagine what would be the reaction. Most people would probably welcome them, but thats depending on what their "solutions" would be. For instance, if it were to involve new socialogical approches on how people should live in harmony, then yeah. But if the alines started to bring in new life saving technologies such as geneticly alftered food, or ideas such as globolizations, they would probably treat the aliens with a lot of contempt, especially Paris dwellers who get all ralied up everytime Americans come to their town, much less imagine some form of life outside our planet. Thus in Europe, these aliens especially France, would probably experience a good bit of snobery.

Canada and England would probably react somewhere inbetween the US and Western Central Europe, because if I am not mistaken, their views are somewhat of a mix, with the exeption of Quebec, who from what I have heard, just as the French, are doing everything in their power to keep Spoken and Writen English from entering their culture, just imagine alian lanages based on telepathic communication.

Most of the third world would probably welcome them, because as of now they seem pretty fudgeed and any form of possible progress, wheather its Marxist ideas or glogolization, can help them out, would be the most inclined to be open to new ideas.

This includes most of Africa and Asia with the exeption of China. They seem to be doing ok with little or no help from the Western culture, and seem pretty much independant. Also they have suffured a lot of Imperialism from the US and Europe, and unlike Western culture, they have exerience cultral opression first hand from other human culutrs, I doubt that they would like to be a victim of a non-human oppressor.

The Austrains, I don't know what they would do. I know that Peter Singer is Austrainan, and I have a pretty good idea of how he would like for them to be treated, but then again he's just one person, and I doubt that his vies reprersent that of all, or even the majority of Auzies.

Personally I wouldn't trust them. After what us white men have done to the American Indian: First we came, then we and the Natives were befriended, exchanged ideas and traded, but then we started killing them off and spreadind like locus. Considering how history has a funny way of repeating itself, if some aliens w/ superior technology were to land, yeah sure, they may be freindly at first, but later on, wheater planned or not, future generations may decide to get a little greedy and slowly take over earth. First, they will take over a bit of some major continent. Then we nuke their asses, then they nuke us back, and then we sign a peace treaty.

You can pretty much more or less guess what would happen next.

Ask the anonymous in the killing something larger than an insect survey...he is in charge of the alien business here.

Like a windshield receives a bug.

They would probably be treated with hostility. Politics is about power and no government would want to submit to an advanced race. They would only agree to it if they could be on some important decision making committee at quite a high level. They may accept the help simply because the have to to survive as a future planet and share technological advances but there would always be a kind of racial disharmony.

Probably not well.

I think Military leaders would be mounting "alien heads" on their walls.

Bush would have him killed I'm afraid. Foreign = evil.

Of course, good to see you got that memo....

Hey, I missed you at my birthday party. Where were you?!

I was hiding in the big cake that was supposed to be wheeled out for you. But there was a mix up.....I ended up at a funeral "Hooray, hooray, what a wonderful happy day!" didn't go down too well there.

Ooops.. big mistake! But I'm glad you survived it!

I almost didn't. It was a mafia funeral and they weren't best pleased.......

But when they heard you were about to start in Oxford they let you go?

No! That just made them madder. They were confused, they thought that Oxford dons were some kind of threat to their family.....

So how did you talk yourself out of it?

Well, talking just seemed to make it worse......I had to try a new tack! I started to sing a requiem instead. Unfortunately I'm really not very good at singing so they started to throw food at me. But at least they didn't shoot me......

I'm so sorry I got you into this mess!

What? Oh of course, I'd forgotten to tell you that THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!! I got distracted picking tomato seeds out of my hair....

Hey, I'm a guy remember? It's ALWAYS our fault!

Don't I just know it!

I think the media would cut them to pieces and try to find out if they'd ever broken the law or had an affair, then they'd expose them and they would be the laughingstock of the universe.

We'd try to kill them

Suspiciously, as is right and proper.

we would corupt the hell out of them

We'd kill them.