Seriously, I doubt it would even take that long. We get used to shit so quickly, and the news cycles have to keep feeding us new things, the only way we’d keep talking about the aliens if they kept doing new and interesting things. I’d be willing to bet a year later there would be some people who straight up forgot about it. “Oh yeah, aliens! Are they gonna, like, visit at some point or just keep exchanging calls with the Whitehouse?”

  • @Cocodapuf
    link
    112 hours ago

    If nothing else developed from the talks, then yes.

    But if it started a new conversation with academics, if it opened trade opportunities, if it brought meaningful new technology, it would dominate world discussion for decades.

    But if it was a single message sent at the speed of light and we had to wait 50 years for our reply to get back to them, and then 50 more years to hear any more communication…

    Yeah, nobody’s going to remember that happened.