The Nation, a very politically progressive magazine, has decided to take seriously the idea that Earth is being visited by aliens. Naturally, having decided to take up this idea as a real possibility, the magazine is most interested in this question: "Are Aliens Who Visit Earth Likely To Be Socialist?"
A.M. Gittlitz says, "Yes." Corey Pein says, "No." If you care to judge the arguments, click on the link in my first paragraph.
I tend to think that any extraterrestrial visitors are not, likely, going to be understood using our own Earthly categories; however, if I had to choose, I think I'd go with the "Yes" response. Those alien spaceships are probably piloted by socialists! After all, getting to Earth from some other galaxy, somewhere, is likely to require a good deal of cooperation, of a kind we might denominate "socialist." Still, remember who is leading Earthlings into space: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, both big "capitalist" type guys. That could be true elsewhere, too!
Are flying saucer aliens socialists? Or not? It's a fun question to ponder (if you don't have anything truly worthwhile to do). Probably, The Nation can sell a few magazines to those who have strong views on this matter.
I suggest that the idea of spending any significant amount of time pondering whether or not it's likely that visiting aliens will turn out to be "socialist" (if there even are any aliens) is a gigantic waste of time.
Much more important than the political views and systems to which hypothetical aliens might adhere - at least so it seems to me - is whether or not we will be able to avoid an atomic war, vastly reduce global warming, and deal in a positive way with our current economy (globally) - which is based on radical inequality. Can we, perhaps, find a way to make housing, health care, education, and meaningful work into things that are broadly available to everyone?
That would be a lot better than new spaceships (in my opinion), and I do confess that there is an air of "socialism" about trying to achieve any of those things, since bringing about these needed and necessary changes will require us to understand that we are "all in this, together."
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