Questions Aliens Should Ask Us

I like to imagine a first-contact conversation between humans and aliens. I think the aliens might have a lot of questions for us, and some of them might go like this:

71% of your planet is covered with water, and yet you named it “earth?”

I think this question should really be asked. But more than the question of why we named our planet after dirt, we should ask ourselves why we have ignored the vast majority of its surface: the oceans. We have explored so little of the water on our planet, and we treat it like a toilet. That’s a shame, because there is amazing bio-diversity in our oceans.

Why are you continually fighting among yourselves instead of improving the lives of your people?

The United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars on its military, but for good reason: we have assumed the role of the world’s constable. But many questions have been raised about whether we should have such a military presence all around the world. It makes sense that there is a significant footprint in South Korea, with the North Korean dictator performing nuclear tests just on the other side of the DMZ. But what if we drew back our forces just a little bit? What if one percent of the military budget could be spent on education or health care? (The math for “Medicare for All” made my head hurt, so I had to stop).

Why is maximizing profit more important than health and safety?

Okay, this would not actually be something aliens would care about. But corporations are notorious for cutting corners to maximize profits, often to the detriment of the workers’ safety. (I learned more about mine safety than I wish I had.)

Explain what you mean by “justice.”

Over the years I have become quite cynical, and I have replaced the word “justice” in certain contexts with “retribution” or “punishment”. Our “justice” system has no interest in righting wrongs, which I think is the ideal. Instead, people who want to see justice delivered are really interested in an “eye-for-an-eye” payback solution to appease their outrage. Many people are locked away to be changed into people they would never have become otherwise. They are removed from our society because they seem to be monsters beyond redemption. I have ceased to believe in the concept of justice, especially on a cosmic scale. That is too intense a topic for this post.

Why can’t everyone get an education?

The actual question will be, “why is not everyone well-informed?” And I don’t have a good answer to that.

Why do you deliberately make yourselves unhealthy?

Again, I do not have an answer.

Why do you create objects intended to be thrown away?

Wow! Yes, why do we do that?!

Why are some sounds you make forbidden?

This is going to be tough to explain because people on this planet can’t agree. My friends in Europe have totally different attitudes regarding profanity than we in the States appear to. For some reason Americans are very sensitive to certain words, so much that we have labels  like “profanity”, or “swearing”, to name just a couple. I can remember a time when the word “damn” was forbidden on television. I think you couldn’t use the word “pregnant” at all in society for some time. “Obscenities” are in the ear of the receiver; I still cringe when I hear my British friends use “cunt” casually in a sentence.

What do you plan to do with planets you eventually visit?

This is a good question, especially when you consider what we’ve done with this planet.

I believe I will see humans on Mars in my lifetime. I look forward to the sight, and I think humanity will benefit from further exploration of our solar system and beyond. I don’t know if there really is intelligent life beyond our planet, but we are discovering more and more planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy. Perhaps one of them supports life we might recognize as intelligent. But realistically, there are vast distances between stars, and travel between them is inconceivable to say the least, for us. Maybe someday, as Carl Sagan optimistically predicted, we will reach the stars.

Democracy?

Here in the United States there has been a lot of discussion lately – both before and since the election – about protecting American democracy. We Americans (the US type) talk a lot about democracy, so much so that you’d think we know everything about it. Maybe we should base our own government on its principles. The thing is, democracy is more of an ideal than an actual form of government. Furthermore, the United States does not choose its president democratically. And that’s something not many voters understand.

One of the pillars of democracy is the idea that everyone’s vote counts. This is a noble sentiment, and it might actually have some basis in fact, albeit anecdotal. In the case of US presidential elections it is far from reality. The recent 2020 election on 3 November brought out a record number of voters, and they are still counting the ballots. So far about 160 million votes were cast across 50 states and the District of Columbia, the highest number ever in the US. This is partly due to an increase in the number of those eligible to vote, and the motivation many had to make their voices heard, as it were. For local elections and US House and Senate seats, one can truly say their vote mattered. But it is harder to see it that clearly when you explore what happens when we vote for president.

The Electoral College is a system whereby designated electors, who are chosen as proxies by us, the voters, and by their respective parties, cast the real ballot for president and vice president. It is a uniquely American setup. In every state, and D.C. (excluding Maine and Nebraska), the number of electoral votes is awarded to the winner of the state based on a determination of who won the popular vote. Maine and Nebraska split them up, with four and five electors, respectively. But for Texas, for example, whomever comes out ahead in the vote count, that party’s electors will be chosen to cast their vote in January. Texas has 38 electors in 2020, and their winner-takes-all approach means if candidate A gets 50.1% of the vote, that candidate will receive all 38 electoral votes, regardless of the number of actual ballots for him or her.

The problem with this system is that it makes it possible for a candidate to receive more of the popular vote and still lose the election. This happened in the 2000 presidential election when former Vice President Al Gore wound up with 48.4% of the popular vote, and George W. Bush with only 47.9%. Bush came away with 271 electoral votes in spite of Gore earning more than half a million more votes than Bush. In 2016 Hillary Clinton lost the election to Donald Trump but had nearly 3 million more votes. The reason this is possible – and more probable these days – is because the number of votes doesn’t really correspond to the number of electors in each state. That number is based on the population. So California with 39.5 million residents has 55 electoral votes. In addition to this, after the threshold is reached to secure a win in any state the number of electors remains fixed. That means that California will award its 55 electoral votes to a candidate who wins 50.1% or 85% of the popular vote.

The idea of the Electoral College was augmented in 1803 with the ratification of the 12th Amendment, then again with the adoption of the 23rd Amendment in 1961. None of the reading is very interesting, but it is important. Suffice it to say that it would take more than an act of Congress to get rid of this thing. Many voters have expressed their desire to abolish the Electoral College. But it is baked into the US Constitution, so it would require some major finagling to just ditch it altogether. Instead, there is a strange law, the The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would effectively cancel out the EC. Colorado voters recently voted to remain in the Compact. The agreement among the 15 states that have signed on have agreed to pledge their electoral votes – again, winner-take-all – to the candidate who wins the popular vote. But this only takes effect when and if the number of electoral votes for the states that have enacted the law equals 270, which is the number of votes required to win a presidential election. The Compact currently needs enough states to equal 74 more EC votes to go into effect, because those states will then decide the election, awarding the minimum 270 electoral votes to the candidate with the most popular votes.

The weirdest thing about this system is that the electors are chosen differently depending on the state. It may not be known who they are until after the election. And it’s the states that get to decide this. Thus, what we really have in this country are 51 separate presidential elections. On election night we don’t watch who has more votes according to the number of ballots cast by the people. Instead we are fixated on the “magic” number of 270. Once a candidate reaches that projection, it’s decided. But then, it really isn’t. That’s because the electors don’t meet until the middle of December to vote certify their ballots. The final list is sent to the “President of the US Senate”, who is the Vice President. Another copy is sent to each state, the National Archives, and other offices. Then the votes are counted in a special session of the Congress on 6 January. This is all spelled out in US law 3 US Code, Chapter 1. If you want to get deep into Constitutional law and all that stuff, have at it. But for the average voter, we can barely keep up with polling locations and which documents to bring, the list of candidates, the propositions, the deadlines, and the misinformation swirling around to further confuse us.

Voting truly shouldn’t be this hard. India has 900 million voters, and they seem to pull it off. Florida, this is for you. As for the idea of democracy, where everyone’s vote counts, I still believe in it, even though my vision of democracy is likely affected by my experience. I have multiple forms of ID, and I have a car. Voting is so easy for me, I don’t even think much about it. But there are places in the US where polling places are very far from where people live, and public transportation may not be dependable.

I don’t know what a “true democracy” looks like, because there are so many forms of it on the planet. The US can do a better job making sure everyone has a chance to vote. We can also improve the flow of information, helping people make informed decisions instead of getting confused about which “truth” to turn to. It has occurred to me that social media platforms are not the place to get news and information. In the old days journalists were trusted, but now everyone can be an authority, it seems. Look at me. I’m publishing my views and my interpretation of the US Constitution, and I don’t have a law degree, and I am not a legal scholar. I don’t pretend to be. And I think this is something we all have to learn here in the 21st century: check the source. When you hear or read some information that seems crucial, look it up further. Double-check the information before making a decision. Don’t get everything from one news source. And never listen to anyone on Facebook or Twitter. My nitwit cousins are always sharing and re-tweeting all kinds of bullshit. And they’re college grads.

It’s a good feeling to vote. Maybe it will make you feel better knowing how the Electoral College works. Maybe it won’t. It’s kind of like browsing WebMD. After combing through the descriptions of diseases and their symptoms, you might start developing an itch or a sore throat. Soon you are convinced you have Dengue Fever. It’s best to just leave it alone in that case. Perhaps ignorance is bliss with respect to the Electoral College and how a US president is really elected.