How to make a bad first impression

How to make a bad first impression

Posted 06-13-2008 by Jeremy McGovern

The EISCAT European space station in the Arctic Circle will pepper an unfortunate solar system in Ursa Major with a Doritos ad. EISCAT

How little do we think of potential extraterrestrial life? Not much, it seems.

The University of Leicester helped Doritos — yes, THAT Doritos — send a message to a solar system 42 light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. What was the communication? A peaceful salutation? A threat? Nope, it’s a Doritos ad. From a University of Leicester press release:

Today Doritos makes history, taking the UK’s first step in communicating with aliens as they broadcast the first ever advert directed toward potential extraterrestrial life.

The transmission is being undertaken as part of the Doritos Broadcast Project, which invited the UK public to create a 30-second video clip that could be beamed out to the universe offering a snap shot of life on Earth to anyone "out there." Sixty-one percent of the UK public believes this is just the start of communication with ET life and that we will enter into regular communication with an alien species at some stage in the future.

Let’s see, of all the messages we could send to life out there, do we want it to concern synthetic-tasting chips bursting with enough chemicals to preserve a corpse for the next 50 years?

Not necessarily putting our best foot forward. Sending a junk food ad to extraterrestrials is like showing up for a job interview dressed like the Dude or taking out a person you are courting on a dinner date to KFC.

Anyway, I suppose kudos should go to Matt Bowron, the winning video director. His creation shows a tribe of Doritos sacrificing a chip to a salsa god. You can see his ad here.

I guess it could be worse. At least our target audience out there won’t receive a commercial featuring Matthew Lesko and his suit that would make Frank Gorshin turn in his grave.

Comments (6) | Tags: Jeremy McGovern, deep sky, life

Comments

Antitax said:

If alien civilizations do exist, they must practice some form of commerce because life in a group entails exchanges. So they should not be disappointed to receive an ad from us because they surely also have to advertise whatever they produce. Besides, if all they get from us is serious, then we might make a bad impression. Who wants to communicate with humorless creatures ? (I surmise humor is universally part of intelligence). And don't fear exposing human bad taste. Their bad taste might be worse than ours, although we should not assume they are guilty of that without proof.

June 14, 2008 3:35 PM
Starwolf said:

I disagree with your statement Antitax. If we look at the most primitive form of "exchange", I think it would be the bartar system that humans adopted at the dawn of civilization. Not so much was this a trade of money for objects, but objects for objects. There was no set price (i.e... Doritos going for $3.99 per bag) but rather a haggle system of wheeling and dealing per each transaction. Besides, I think it's safe to say no matter HOW intelligent the aliens are, they would have NO idea what the heck they were watching anyway. My thoughts are, that if the aliens are very intelligent, they would have progresses to a much higher level tahn advertising a product for profit. I think that they would have a much greater respect for life than profit margins and would probably work as a whole toward a universal goal. Hence advertising to them would be a primitive idea.

June 16, 2008 7:52 AM
zeketolliver said:

I'm not surprised. I think to movies like Species and Fight Club. Until corporations start throwing some of their profit margins at space exploration, it will continue along at the pace at which it's been moving. Although, I find it strange that space exploration seems to have taken more of a front seat during the tenure of a president whom I despise. (but that's besides the point). I'm okay with the use of a Doritos commercial, to me the content of the message is less important than the active attempt to make contact. Let's face it, even if intelligent life exists, the odds of it being received are independent of and greater than the odds of it being received AND understood.

June 17, 2008 8:07 AM
Antitax said:

Hi, Starwolf. If aliens don't profit from their work, they waste their efforts. Would intelligent beings do that? To avoid wasting, they must seek profit. Building a civilization requires ambition, the will to grow. If these assumptions are true, sentient aliens want their profits to grow, so they want the number of customers to expand. The only way to achieve that is to tell as many people as possible that the producer proposes this or that service or merchandise. Caveat: this might be an anthropocentric view.

Hi, Zetekolliver. I could live without bad taste. I never needed it. If I communicated with foreigners of another planet, I would not display anything bad. But that's only my personal opinion, I can't pretend to represent humanity. One must be his honest self; if humanity has disappointing traits, trying to hide them would be one more disappointing behavior. Humanity must show itself as it really is; besides, images of mass murder and senseless aggression have been broadcast from Earth for decades. Nothing will prevent them from reaching alien antennas. The Doritos ad will look very innocent compared to that. And corporations do throw money at space exploration whenever they pay taxes. Some of that money finances government space programs, although I would prefer to see the money going directly to manufacturers, without any administration taking a bite out of it.

Wow, I finally spurred a debate as I wanted!

June 17, 2008 4:36 PM
Ellenj said:

My opinion is that we should all lighten up about this. I love Astronomy, but I sometimes think we all take ourselves too seriously.

www.ellenjackson.net/work11.htm

June 18, 2008 11:16 AM
Starwolf said:

Antitax,

I stated that I didn't think the alien civilization would care about "profit margins" (i.e. making a 25% profit this quarter).

Obviously they would "profit" by expanding the realms of their civilization, curing ailments or disease, repecting one another instead of screwing each other over for a monetary profit, providing a stable environment or excelling at teaching their young.

Are these not ways that an existing civilization could "profit"? There are more ways to profit than just $.

Also, not to dabble in politics but our current president has put forth more $ into a vision for space than probably any other previous president EVER. As an astronomer, you should respect the fact that we currently have probes at multiple other planets and that the vision for space has once again been renewed.

Whether you like or dislike a political figure is IRRELOVANT.

June 19, 2008 12:50 PM