John Marlow wrote:
>
> Heh. Or how's this for you: Faced with the Contact scenario choice--
> send a man or a woman to First Contact, which would you choose?
Well, in the novel, there were both male and female passengers in the
contact ship. Don't believe everything you read in the movies.
>
> (I'd lean toward man, to avoid giving them a look at the female
> reproductive system--assuming they didn't know where we came from.)
Irrelevant. They collect dna from skin cells or hair that exfoliated
during the visit of the male and in less than a year they could know
everything they need to know. Cloning the male provides them with gonads
that produce both X and Y chromosomes.
>
> Religious or nonreligious?
Non-religious. Rationality is paramount.
>
> (I'd send nonreligious, every time; wouldn't want irrational
> beliefs/destruction of same coloring judgement or actions.)
>
> On the other hand, women tend to be more interested in true
> understanding and less inclined to macho sh*theadedness...
While women tend to either be easier to drive into irrationality with
fear or else more inclined to appease an agressor (or both). Macho
Sh*theadedness evolved because it has its usefulness when dealing with
strange environments and new animal species.
You are blindly assuming that any alien species will be the
stereotypical space hippie/buddhist. Species that explore and expand
tend to also be agressive. In humans, expansionism tends to occur in
societies infected with dogmatic memes of manifest destiny, holy favor,
etc. A species that travels here rather than just communicating via
radio or laser beams is more likely to be such an agressive species.
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