Would the human race be ready to come in contact with an intelligent alien race?

[Alien826]

I can recommend a book, Childhood's End, by Arthur C Clarke. I think it's still in print.

Aliens appear in giant spaceships hovering over the Earth. They are much more advanced technically and impose various rules that ensure that humans live peacefully. Other than that, they leave us to get on with our lives and usher in a "golden age" of peace and prosperity. Their real reason for being there emerges later.

How is their rule enforced? My favorite example is that they forbid us to ill-treat the other species that we share the planet with. The Spaniards go ahead with their bullfights anyway. When the first bull is stabbed with a lance by a picador, all the audience feels the same pain. Bullfighting ends there.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Let's say an intelligent race of aliens started sending messages to us, a date and a time they request to land and they're asking us to send a Yes or No, and where they should land if Yes.

They send this message to the UN, so don't worry it won't be American-centric in this decision making. I say this just to increase the chances of first world leaders agreeing on some terms for best course of action.

Would humanity be ready? If not, when will we be?

No, not when we can't even treat each other, let alone other species with decency. If there is sapient life out there, they'd do well to stay away from humanity. We're just supercharged murder apes.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Let's say an intelligent race of aliens started sending messages to us, a date and a time they request to land and they're asking us to send a Yes or No, and where they should land if Yes.

They send this message to the UN, so don't worry it won't be American-centric in this decision making. I say this just to increase the chances of first world leaders agreeing on some terms for best course of action.

Would humanity be ready? If not, when will we be?

At the moment we would be placing Earth's populations of every species into danger of extinction. We could, however, arrange for representatives to meet some of them far off planet such as 4 or 5 planets away such as in Jupiter's asteroid belt. No moons. The aliens may take permission to land on a moon as an invitation to live on it or to set up devices on it.

After we knew there were aliens and the microbes and other potential dangers between us and them we could probably be ready within 50 years of that first contact.

A spacefaring race would almost certainly know that merely approaching Earth would be a hostile action. Contacting us and developing a conversation would be a peaceful act. Asking to land prematurely (before a lot of communication and mutual knowledge) would be a hostile action. We should carefully vaporize any such approaching vessel, completely destroying any molecules near it.


Keep in mind that our own Astronomers are very much against us contaminating planets in our own solar system. They say that they don't want us to accidentally harm something which may already live there. If something lives on Mars for example then our own machines might bring a contagion that could destroy that life. A spacefaring race should already know this, so it should be no surprise if we vaporize any surprise vessel sent to us.