A fleet of alien spaceships appear in orbit and broadcast messages to Earth

This situation would require from us to reorganise UN to be truly democratic, like abolishing security council permament membership. Also humanity i not ready for so deep changes that meeting intergalactic races would involve.

>truly democratic
Please no, that'd be the worst possible thing imaginable.

They would snatch up a random everyman off the street.

Why? That doesn't serve anyone's needs.

John Motherfucking Kerry
Best diplomat of our time
He would kick the shit out of first contact.

Karl Pilkington

What's wrong with democracy?

I can't say who would end up being sent, because the revelation that advanced aliens exist and can reach our world would probably spark a massive shift in the geopolitical landscape of Earth, probably throwing us into chaos for a number of years.

This is the sort of thing that is going to spark idiots into end of the world frenzies no matter what the aliens actually say, and all sorts of alliances are going to get shifted around now that global powers are having to worry about human interests beyond Earth.

Whichever government has control over the guy who is our representative would wield tremendous power that effects every single living human. I could every easily see WW3 starting simply as a result of different power blocks nominating different members and wanting to silence opposition.

Because whatever nation gets their hands on space tech first wins, either militarily or economically. No power is going to risk not being that guy.

Complete shitshow.

Not him, but reasonable states are vastly outnumbered by retarded poorfag religious extremists and socialists so it wouldn't take long for everything to go completely to shit without the guidance of the US, EU, etc. I mean the UN is already an ineffectual globalist cluster fuck but it could and would get much worse.

It takes the opinion of plebeians seriously.

>>as a member, we are obligated to send a representative to the galactic senate and supply the federation with any technological innovations we have come up with the other species do not have

we send them our best memes. Humanity might be dumb as a rock when it comes to their technological advancements but our meme game must be through the roof. Those peasants probably haven't even heard of memes before.

Democracy only works in a setting where the people are informed and the situation is stable, neither of which work on a global scale due to massive inequality between nations.

You can't have a fair vote if you have people standing outside the polling center with crowbars that will break your knees if you vote for the 'wrong guy'. In geopolitics, what that crowbar is can be very diverse and even subtle, like holding trade deals hostage instead of threatening military action. It encourages the already powerful nations to go around and collect everyone weaker than them like pokemon to create voting blocks.

And you certainly can't up the granularity down to the citizen level, because not only does that turn it into a numbers game (which China would win) but those people are simply not smart enough to have a say in global events. The average American only knows as much about the rest of the world as they got out of a public school education and the top 10 results of Google News on any given day. Which is enough to say that Africa is where Eqypt is, and the rest of the continent is ruled by Tarzan who is constantly putting down civil wars.
And lots of places will know even less than that.

This guy knows his stuff.

There would be a private arrangement among the G8 (plus Russia and plus China). At that point, it would be rammed through the Security Council. The UN General Assembly is more or less a joke on major global security questions.

The final Representative depends greatly on which party controls the Presidency. John Bolton is another (republican) possibility, much harder-edged. If the democrats are running things, you could expect someone like Wendy Sherman instead. Negroponte's advantage is that he's well-respected across the political spectrum-- with someone more controversial, you run the risk that the Euros would sandbag him as they did with Wolfowitz and the world bank.

China has considerable political and economic power. So does Brazil, India, and South Korea, so they'd probably get roped in. If China lacked political power, then the crises in the South China Sea and over Korean fisheries wouldn't be an issue. Or all those troops we recently put into Vietnam(!) due to their demographic attack.

I'd have a delegation. The main ambassador. Then a "senior staff" that's really an advisory committee with representatives from major nations, and some understanding about how they can exert some kind of formal control over the ambassador's vote.

Then the real staff: subject matter experts in scientific and engineering fields, at least one good microeconomist, a military strategy guy (NOT american; probably from a country like India or Canada), and an intelligence officer (probably british). Then the support staff: servants, at least one or two security guards (possibly unarmed, but intended to keep the staffers under control), an IT guy, and at least one assistant for each staffer. Plus an office manager.

The TO&E of a US Senate office is about the same. Figure at least a couple intelligence officers slipped in among the staffers. Figure the SVR will send at least one person from Line X, plus maybe econ.

who knows, human memes could be some of the slowest-moving and least dank in the galaxy. we only have a sample size of one.

I am pretty sure we have the only pepe economy in the entire known and unknown universe.

The Ambassador is ready.

You have a long list of assumptions buried in this that are basically all false.

You're also working from what you think is ideologically acceptable to you, rather than what is likely or practical or strategically/politically acceptable to the lead nations of the world.

Not as crazy as it sounds. The "ambassador" might well be a political plum given to someone with political pull, rather than a professional diplomat. In fact, that's one possible complication: an American is the official "ambassador" with few or no americans on staff, but he's a stuffed suit. Bill Clinton or Barack Obama might be given the job, for example. Republican presidents are more likely to select someone with strategic/diplomatic experience, due to the way internal party politics work (also look at Condi Rice's resume-- hell if you go to Stanford you could take a class with her and learn all about her).

Remember, this isn't purely about what's the optimal policy decision for a given country. It's also about their political maneuvering internally, and about the ambitions of individual politicians.

Yeah, but what about when we bring pepe to the galactic table and their politely cough and inform us that this is just a shitty knockoff of a meme that has been stale for hundreds of years, and then they show us their superior space memes and it literally breaks the internet because we can't handle it?

pepes are timeless. We inform them that they have shit taste in memes and simply do not have evolved the mental capacity to see the value of pepes.

Do you really think that Kek would hide his glory from them?

>You are now part of the galactic federation
Okay buddy, let's get one thing straight: You have no right to waltz in here and MAKE us part of anything. Around these parts we believe in a little thing called self-determination.So you can roll up that offer along with all your fancy space technology and shove it up whatever sphincter you find least appropriate.

You can have a representative, but we're warning you; you're not gonna like him.

Read Alvin Toffler's books "Future Shock" and "The Third Wave".

Contact between very low tech and very high tech societies are likely to result in conflict, upheaval, and revolutionary turmoil in the low-tech culture pretty much no matter what you do. Issues rise up that can challenge or make obsolete entire religions and ideologies-- and those NEVER go down without a fight. Existing elites are overthrown, usually along with the political structures that they operated in.

That's where we get to one (of many) of the problems with this guy's statement. You're essentially quibbling about how we need the Holy Roman Empire restored so that the One True Church can represent us to the Transhuman Galacticist Synarchy. It's not just illogical-- it's completely besides the point. And, btw, extended contact will probably bring down the HRE, the Church, and basic assumptions about divine right and what consitutes legitimacy and what even is good vs evil and what is the goal of good political policy.

Our westphalian system probably won't survived extended friendly contact with aliens, and while republics and democracies might, they won't be in forms familiar to us today.

>self-determination
top jej

>Around these parts we believe in a little thing called self-determination.

Yeah that never lasts.

I'm trying to think of a low-tech culture that survived contact with a higher-tech culture without losing their independence. The only example I can think of is Thailand.

Remember, California and Texas (and Japan, Germany, etc) might as well be aborigines as far as even a moderately advanced galactic federation will be concerned.

Nuke em.

>join
>take tech
>spread
>destroy the other races
>assume mankinds rightful place in the stars

Manifest destiny.

I like the cut of your jib, user.

>technology
The stuff of fools. They have no clue who they're messing with. We have the greatest backstabbers in all the known universe.

DA JOOS

I could see this happening

too bad mr. rogers isn't available. I think he would be a very good representative for his calmness and strength of character. but he should probably be backed by people who have actual knowledge of issues.

Whole lotta pol threads on Veeky Forums lately.

If you actually look at the thread, there's a lot of thought-out, informed discussion on the matter.
I haven't actually been to /pol/, but I'm going to assume that that is decidedly not /pol/-like.

That's another good question, what do you think we can give them tech wise?

>racism
>hurr durr commies
>Republicans would find the best guy
Right, no /pol/ here.

*teleports behind you*
*unsheathes BFG 9000*
ayy

Time for you to grow the fuck up, then, since your lack civic responsibility will very soon be punished.

>Saudi Arabia has, or is about to have, a representative on the HUMAN RIGHTS commission on the UN

They chair the human right commission bra
Truly a tragedy

>Because whatever nation gets their hands on space tech first wins, either militarily or economically. No power is going to risk not being that guy.
Even Vatican City?

You don't want guys who operate with morions and mp5s piloting space ships. Trust me.

Surely if there was anyone we wanted being the proto-space marines, it'd be the Swiss Guard?

That sounds EXACTLY like what I want. Swiss Guard with Spaceships, power armor, and laser cannons!

Shit this is giving me some major ideas now.

And we should have whatisname, Habsburg, the one who punched out Ian Paisley for saying the Pope was the antichrist, as their leader.

Either make a thread about that race-war based TTRPG you guys made, or keep it on your containment board, because your "lets turn other boards into /pol/ because election season excites us" threads are obvious as fuck.

Otto von Habsburg? He's dead, man.

Though come to think of it, how do we know the Emperor wasn't a Habsburg at one point? Aside from the lip.

Would written and extensive history change this?

If we went in to the process knowing about this tendency we might be able to avoid it.

>written and extensive history

You know, Hong Kong's only been part of China again for a few decades.

That's like saying studying the tapes might make a fa/tg/uy beat a trained MMA fighter in the ring.

>any technological innovations we have come up with the other species do not have

Depends upon what sort of sci-fi stuff they use. Probably the best example of our tech is the Internet as a whole: a vast communication and information highway accessible to anyone with a computer and either a hardline or WiFi. No other barrier to entry other than needing to know how to read (assuming you are in good health and have no issues with motor control and vision).

These are great.

There is only one planet where they are made- prior to contact, they were just another atomic age backwater, but now galactic investment is pouring in as they are the only source of this seemingly humble tool.
"He who controls the cheese slicers controls the universe"

>in b4: federation destroyed by a civil war between lovers of soft cheese and hard cheese.

Well we already sent that pod with 2000 celebrity tweets up there, so I think we lost our nomination for induction into the federation.

Plenty. In a democracy, if enough people say they want it, it happens.

Odds are, where you live has a republic. Substantially better system.

On the contrary, the aliens are intrigued and wish to meet these 'Kardashians'.

We tell the space niggers to kindly fuck off.
>the UN
>having any authority

There would be arguments over which country gets to send a Rep (and keep all the high tech inventions for themselves) leading to threats, military posturing and finally ww3 and the extinction of the human race. The aliens (who after studying our psychology had determined that a simple radio transmission would be the easiest way to wipe out a stupid, warlike bunch of dickheads) would then carry on with their lives.

Duct tape.

>implying
Even Russia wouldn't reject an american ambassador, but it would be obvious with the arrangement that the information the ambassador receives would be made a matter of international knowledge.

And WD40?

Can use it for sex? If so yes.

I imagine most of our unique contributions would be gastronomic, fruits, vegetables, meats and methods of preparing them that will be tied to us.

Even more so if intergalactic conservationists have made it illegal to ship invasive species off-world so the mango and the Angus cattle will never be grown anywhere but Earth.