Until the next budget hearing, at any rate.
Sure, there will be some segment of the population that will think about this and have it influence what they do, how they proceed.
Unless they're hovering overhead, though, the average person is going to be much more concerned with putting groceries on the table, paying the rent/mortgage, their kid's next soccer game, etc.
I just don't see it causing wide spread panic or having a daily influence on anyone unless there's an immediacy that has to be dealt with.
I guess I have a bit of a cynical bent.
Most of us prefer to live as ostriches. Maybe we're just cynical from experiencing too many decades of "duck and cover" (non)emergencies. I'm hoping to stumble through my span before the tsunami. Every so often I have to fight that old Farnham's Freehold fixation, though.
posted by Idamay
over 2 years ago
Contrary to images of 'V', the aliens don't need to be hovering overhead and landing on a restricted site like Devil's Tower to cause pandemonium. All it will take is the realization that civilizations are next door; and, in fact, surround us. If they don't contact us but keep us at arms' length and use us as a bad example for their off-spring (my present opinion), the consternation will even be greater.
By the following day, there will be ten thousand plans about how to travel faster than light while securing our own backyard, the solar system. No one likes being a laughingstock, especially humans.
