The "Freak Out" factor

Originally posted by crispexi
Oh yes i forgot to say how this knowledge would begin the collapse of religeon around the world.

Religion will never collapse. Its a living, changing system.

Look at modern christianity. Its a mix of roman and greek relgions with the some of the bible. It accept many scientific facts and has always changed to take in new ideas and discoveries. Religion is based on the UNSEEN and therefore no matter what situatons encounter will always be valid by its own terms.

Heck, most of the UFO believers have made UFOlogy a religion with full blown history and prophesy.

My opinion is,that we are past the 30's mentality(War of the worlds broadcast)and reaching a different level of acceptance as a whole,particularly as our own technological capabilities reach new frontiers.I do not believe that everything would self destruct,I believe that the human species is capable of adaption to just about any revelation.Just my.02 though.I know personally I would have no problem,and neither would anyone in my immediate family.In fact,we all are hopefull to see such an event occur.

I'm sorry to say that I'd be one to FREAK OUT... I don't know if I'd freak to the point where I'd do something crazy like kill myself but I'd totally panic.

The only reason I can say that I'd freak was because in the mid 90's I remember turning on the t.v to watch a report about CONTACT being made with the aliens and people ontop of the NY buildings waiting to WELCOME them and seeing this is a TRULY wonder day in the worlds history.. bla bla bla

I was in a state of SHOCK and thinking OMG.. staring at the television thinking about everything and nothing..

(little did I know this was a special to promote the new Will Smith movie "Independence Day" )

LOL hahaha funny stuff... kinda cool to know that I've felt that fear in me before of knowing how I'll feel if CONTACT is ever made.

Any society is based upon a certain model for the allocation of resources whether it be a free market or a market controlled by a governing body or entity. While a primative society may be able to sustain itself for a time with a single controlling body that sets values of certain resources and determines where they are allocated (e.g. a communist model) it will become apparent over time that this is not the most efficient model and the local economy will stagnate and eventually collapse.

I think it is safe to assume any alien race technologically advanced enough to navigate the universe has an economic model at least as advanced as ours and therefore they will have a set medium of exchange to facilitate the trading of resources amongst themselves and probably other advanced races. While they may not use "physical" money as we do any medium of exchange must be measurable for it to be traded and therefore can be valued against any other resource or medium of exchange. This is precisely why the world governments would have to have economic and trade agreements in place to prevent shocks to both economies and help an economic equilibrium be achieved as painlessly as possible. To be sure this would be a costly and time consuming process but once completed then potential benefits will be unimagineable.

All this is based upon an assumption intelligent aliens are visiting and communicating with humans. I have no proof either way but I do know if they are visiting obviously they are interested in something we have to offer, and I am sure they have plenty to offer to us as well.

I think, that there are so close relationships with ETs and government officials, that top officials just could be genetically engineered ETs/humans... In this case, even G. Bush could be an ET in a human body. ETs don't want us to recover them, and they do everything about that. Perhaps, this whole silence is related to the officials' mindscan, or they obey the instructions of the ETs.

But do we know that Alien's are not harmful? For all we know these Alien's could have weapons or advanced technology which could kill is. Also, would massive numbers of Aliens come down to earth or just one single ship?

Originally posted by Minime
But do we know that Alien's are not harmful? For all we know these Alien's could have weapons or advanced technology which could kill is. Also, would massive numbers of Aliens come down to earth or just one single ship?

There are another thread about this

I would not "freak out" I did that long time ago.

My question to you is could you handle it?

I already believe it, so it'd simply be confirmation. As to how I'd handle it specifically, I guess that would depend on their apparent intentions.

Personally, I think there are a number of valid reasons the government can be perpetuating the secret...

1. CYA, covering their butts. They sold us out. Not a good thing to do to your voters...

2. Hard to justify billions on defense when an enemy or intruder can invade your airspace and abduct your citizens at will.

3. Religious/social problems stemming from such an announcement, mass exoduses, looting, rioting, etc.

4. Secrecy. If there is a tech deal between them and the US, then the other nations will suddenly want in on that action.

5. Culture shock. The induction of new but superior tech may destabilize the society (see Star Trek and their Prime Directive, etc.).

And that's just a few off the top of my head, hehe...

While there would probably be people running for the hills, I don't think that's really what the-powers-that-be fear the most. Actually it wouldn't take much for our industrial society to start collapsing. Just a simple thing like people not bothering to go to work anymore would be a huge problem. I mean think about it; if you suddenly were presented with the knowledge - by your government - that we are being and have long been visited, hell even abducted by ETs - isn't it possible you would tend to change your priorities just a little bit? Or would you simply shrug it off, go on working 9 to 5, pay your bills, watch you favorite TV-show and go about your life as if nothing's changed?

IMHO, there's a big difference between assuming and believing in the existance of ETs and being presented with this as an actual fact.

So in short, I think the fear factor and the possible consequences of people's reactions has to be considered as something that could pose a very real problem for our society. On the other hand, maybe it would only be a good thing.

EDIT: Didn't see Gazroks post before I wrote, but he covered most aspects very nicely, whereas I only elaborated on one.

[edit on 25-8-2004 by Durden]

Originally posted by Gazrok

My question to you is could you handle it?

I already believe it, so it'd simply be confirmation. As to how I'd handle it specifically, I guess that would depend on their apparent intentions.

Personally, I think there are a number of valid reasons the government can be perpetuating the secret...

1. CYA, covering their butts. They sold us out. Not a good thing to do to your voters...

2. Hard to justify billions on defense when an enemy or intruder can invade your airspace and abduct your citizens at will.

3. Religious/social problems stemming from such an announcement, mass exoduses, looting, rioting, etc.

4. Secrecy. If there is a tech deal between them and the US, then the other nations will suddenly want in on that action.

5. Culture shock. The induction of new but superior tech may destabilize the society (see Star Trek and their Prime Directive, etc.).

And that's just a few off the top of my head, hehe...

Lies begat Lies begat Lies.

Would have saved a lot of trouble to just be up front in the first place.

Hindsight is 20/20....

They genuinely believed they were doing the right thing at the time...and there were too many unknowns to go public...at least that's my thoughts on it....

Once it had gone on for a while, the coverup kind of took on a life of it's own, and those in charge of the coverup became even more withdrawn and secretive...cloaking their agency within agencies within other agencies, in order to keep the secret.

Thanks every one for your opinions on this. Let me present the same question with different variables.

If you woke up one morning, rolled out of bed, flipped on the morning news just in time to catch the part that says "Our Government has come clean! UFOs are real and so are the aliens. They are peacefull and have actually been here for a long time. Oh, sorry for all the lies."

Woud this change your opinion one way or the other? I know that some of you believe and some of you dont. Im not here to judge one way or the other. Call this a case study of human reaction. Im actually going to use all this Info for a paper in my Comp class.

Okay Kidfinger, so the aliens turn out to be for real and the government has been lying the whole time.
I'd be angry at our government (which I already am anyway) and wonder what else they could be hideing.
I'd be glad though that they finally decided to come clean. Because if they admitted that then they probably would come out with everything else they've been hideing from us.

I agree with Elaine, but I don't believe the gov't would then feel the need to fess up about all the stuff it keeps from us. The gov't only gives up what it has to give up. And only the bare minimum at that.

Originally posted by elaine
Okay Kidfinger, so the aliens turn out to be for real and the government has been lying the whole time.
I'd be angry at our government (which I already am anyway) and wonder what else they could be hideing.
I'd be glad though that they finally decided to come clean. Because if they admitted that then they probably would come out with everything else they've been hideing from us.

I wonder if they would be forced to change policies on other secret info? One scenario could be that the population would be angry and demand to know what else is going on. If that happened there is a chance that we could actually have more than 2 or 3 senators on our side. But then agian, with all the comotion raging in society from the news of E.T. would we even be thinking about any other Government secrets?

Well if the government had been hideing the existence of aliens for decades then think of all the other possibilities there are for other stuff they might know.
You're right though in that there might be a big commotion at first about E.T.s. But then I think it would"nt be long before our attention was turned to what other secrets might be kept by the government.

Regardless of what the "visitors" came to do, my reaction would be the same.
Grab my survival gear, call my friends, and head out looking to kill as many of them as possible.

Originally posted by AnonymousID
Regardless of what the "visitors" came to do, my reaction would be the same.
Grab my survival gear, call my friends, and head out looking to kill as many of them as possible.

Holy s**t man thats pretty harsh! Why would this be a course of action you would choose to take?

My life is so entwined with the ETs and the U.S. Government (GOOD GUYS) that I would NOT freak out. In fact, I would be relieved. HOWEVER, my life would be in danger from the people who did freak out. I am a contactee/hybrid/genetic experiment and walk-in. In other words, SOMEONE THREW THE BOOK AT ME, so to speak. (Gave me a LOT of weird attributes. How odd can my life get?)

SOME people would be upset. We are in the Space Age now, so people might not be upset for more than one week.
(As recently as a few days ago, a Reptilian HEALED my left arm.)

Originally posted by Imzadi
My life is so entwined with the ETs and the U.S. Government (GOOD GUYS) that I would NOT freak out. In fact, I would be relieved. HOWEVER, my life would be in danger from the people who did freak out. I am a contactee/hybrid/genetic experiment and walk-in. In other words, SOMEONE THREW THE BOOK AT ME, so to speak. (Gave me a LOT of weird attributes. How odd can my life get?)

SOME people would be upset. We are in the Space Age now, so people might not be upset for more than one week.
(As recently as a few days ago, a Reptilian HEALED my left arm.)

Intresting. so, you had contact with E.T? Give us some details. What kind of "wierd attributes" do you have? Are they physical, mental, or both?