She meant it and so do I.
From Inverse, October 31, 2024:
The less said, the better.
If we ever make contact with aliens, our best bet might be to say as little as possible.
A recent study, which uses game theory to simulate the outcomes of different strategies for communicating with aliens, suggests that the less we tell them, the better, at least at first. That’s because the less they know about us, the more likely they are to assume we think like them and have similar goals, and thus the more likely they are to cooperate instead of destroying us. University of Haifa psychologists Ilan Fischer and Shacked Avrashi published their work in the International Journal of Astrobiology.
“Humans benefit from extraterrestrials making choices while assuming humans are strategically similar to them,” Fischer tells Inverse.
Prisoner’s Dilemma…But In Space
To simulate how our first contact with aliens might play out, Fisher and Avrashi had a computer play about 100,000 rounds of a very simple game: Two players must each choose to either cooperate with or confront their opponent. If both players choose to confront each other, they lose points. If each player picks a different option, the confrontational player gets a small reward. And if both players cooperate, they both get a larger reward. (This game might sound familiar; one version of it is called the Prisoner’s Dilemma.)"Both cooperation and confrontation are driven purely by a computational rationale," says Fischer. In other words, smart players don't choose to cooperate because they like being nice or confront because they’re annoyed, "but simply because it provides higher expected payoffs" says Fischer. So we don't have to assume aliens are friendly, just that they're strategically savvy.
The game is all about predicting what the other person will do and responding accordingly — and winning it requires you to be good not only at predicting what the other person will do, but at signaling your own intentions. And that, according to Fischer and Avrashi, is something humanity needs to keep in mind when we’re trying to make contact with intelligent aliens (if they exist). Players are more likely to cooperate if they think other players will make the same choice, so the best way to win at the cooperate-or-confront game is to convince your opponent that you think like they do and want the same things and will choose the same strategy to get them....
....MUCH MORE
That argument is not all that sophisticated, It is a variation on the witticism attributed to Abe Lincoln:
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
*Back to mom, her admonition was first trotted out in "In Other News: Possible Evidence of Extraterrestrial Intelligence"
Mom and the neighbor eventually made up but I've seen people smarter than I say something similar:
"If we find ET, don’t talk to it, says the man who wants to find ET"
Well duh, even yours truly, stuck here (along with you and everyone else) "In the outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour, Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way" figured that out....
No.
This is a bad, bad, very bad idea.
There is no reason to think space aliens would be favorably disposed toward humans....
*And Lincoln? He probably didn't say the line attributed to him. From The Quotations Page:
...It's been attributed to many persons, but seems to have its roots in the Bible:
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt . -- George Eliot
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.-- Abraham Lincoln (also attr. Confucius)
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.-- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. -- Bible, 'Proverbs' 17:28.There are no citations for Lincoln or Twain. I have my doubts about Confucius
