CHAPTER 1

What Would an Alien Think?

Imagine for a moment that you are an intelligent alien on your first visit to planet Earth,coming from a planet as richly developed as ours, but with freedom, instead of top-downstate control, underpinning its culture. Your alien civilization may have little in commonwith Earth's, but could include any of the things we enjoy, such as music, dance, literature,sports, architecture, engineering, science, art, fashion, and so on. After all, none of thesethings were conceived, planned, or developed by the state, though at times it may seek toregulate some of them for the declared benefit of us all.

Most people today would assume that this alien must have a central commander andhead of state. They assume this because central command is all that we have in our ownlimited frame of reference, and is the stuff of a million science fiction stories.

Central command is certainly NOT the natural state. We have only to look around us torealize that every other life form sharing this planet has operated successfully for millenniawithout any form of central controlling structure. The dinosaurs dominated for thirty-fivetimes the period that we have been on the planet, as far as we know without the need ofparliaments, kings, or ruling bodies.

I know of no voting council of trees which determines the specific proportions and varietiesof trees in a given forest. In many cases, such as the oak tree, the long-term successfulspecies has figured out how to cooperate with as many other species as possible (up tothree hundred, in the case of the oak). This ability to cooperate with other forms of life is afar more intelligent long-term survival strategy than is that of domination and control byrulers and ruling bodies.

Why do we assume that any intelligent alien species, even more advanced than ours, willhave the same sort of flawed structures as ourselves, with powerful leaders, militaryforces, and lawmaking bodies? Why is it inconceivable to us that any other advancedcivilization could be operating, as does every successful structure in the Universe, in astate of freedom? These aren't deep questions—they just reveal the deep rut in which ourimagination is trapped.

We assume that any intelligent creature capable of space travel will come equipped withplasma guns, ionic blasters, phaser bolts, and a full arsenal of high-tech weaponry withwhich to kill and destroy. Why? We humans have experienced a dramatic and possiblyunique evolution of methods to kill each other. A mainstay of our chosen culturalentertainment involves depictions of us killing each other in countless war andconfrontational movies. Are we to assume that this is a normal or natural element of anyhighly developed civilization?

Is mankind alone in the Universe? Or are there somewhere other intelligent beings lookingup into their night sky from very different worlds and asking the same kind of question?

Carl Sagan and Frank Drake

Our alien may have learned how to travel along the fractal patterns of hyperspace and beable to outmaneuver a missile or fighter jet. But it is quite possible that its civilization neverfigured out how to split the atom. Maybe it never had the fear of a Hitler to inspire itsscientists to tap such a destructive force. The consequences of this discovery have beenextremely negative and continue to pose an ongoing threat to the very survival of ourspecies. Yet we assume that a higher alien intelligence will have even greater means ofself-destruction at its disposal. This is a basically illogical assumption. More destructivepower is neither the hallmark of higher intelligence nor the route to long-term peace andstability.

We assume that our highly developed alien will have a highly developed state overseeinga well-regulated society. Yet what does the central controlling state actually give us—notone specific state here or there, but the beast in general—the totality of states runningtheir own big and little nations throughout the world? They primarily came into being forone reason alone—to protect us from other versions of themselves. It is difficult to findanything else they do that we treasure, or are satisfied by. They take vast sums of moneyfrom us and send back a little here and there, sprinkling it on the poor and hungry if theyare left-wing, or subsidizing the unworthy and unnecessary if they are right-wing. Themajority of it though, whichever wing of the bird the center tilts toward, is wasted andsquandered in useless, unproductive, and often downright damaging activities.

Probably 80 percent of what the state does is unnecessary or unproductive, things we arequite capable of sorting out in society without resorting to one ruling body, supported bypolice, the military, nuclear arsenals, parliaments, dictators, presidents, and vast armies ofbureaucrats. I refer to things such as which side of the road we drive on, what size foodpackaging must be, how we generate electricity, what constitutes an acceptable dwellingor house, how two people make a commitment to each other, what types of medicine weuse, or how many hours we work in a week. Don't imagine that we would live in somedisordered mess without a central command issuing all these rules. Wherever they do notexist in our society we seem to have developed real order.

The other 20 percent of the state's frame of activities consists of valuable and necessarygoverning functions. Unfortunately, the state often delivers inadequate and wastefulservices in these areas—services that are deteriorating...