What Would Alien Anthropologists Think?

It isn’t that often that I have time to reflect on life and the world anymore since four kids and a wife keep me plenty busy.  Add a couple of businesses to the mix and it seems that there is rarely time for myself to sit and think.  The truth of the matter is that I don’t have time to write right now either, but there has been something really weighing on my mind:

What would alien anthropologists think?

Now, I don’t want to start an argument of whether or not there are other beings living somewhere in the universe or anything, but let’s just assume that someday in the future after humankind has long since gone (again, another outcome that I don’t want, but let’s just go with it), that someone stops by to check out who used to live on this planet.

There are certainly a lot of possible outcomes from such an event.  They could discover remnants of buildings and cities that our society left behind, some of our art and rich culture tucked away somewhere, and even remnants of ourselves amongst the ruins left behind.  In many respects, I think our world would be like a treasure waiting to be discovered, and could keep these anthropologists busy for years.

But what if they came across some of our less flattering creations and wrote us off altogether?

One of the things that has become popular over the last years has been to glorify stupidity especially on mainstream media.  I know that this week while watching a program on television, I was shown advertising of a show that showcases videos of people doing stupid things and getting hurt.  Granted, some of the shows are funny, but you would think that providing these shows to consumers would only encourage them to engage in this type of behavior.

What worries me is that the same alien anthropologists taking a first look at our little planet would find this material first and decide that we are not worth a second look.  Granted, we can’t look to our future as to what we left behind for others to find, but it would be sad that our legacy would be to be forgotten.