The discovery of alien life could turbocharge religious division and hatred, the UK’s leading UFO expert has warned.
I think this idea is pretty legitimate. People in first world societies, with generally decent minimal education, will mostly be ok, maybe. We forget that a majority of the 8 billion people on the planet live in 3rd world conditions, significantly less or no education, and lots of severe religious indoctrination. There are still countries that execute people for apostasy.
We’re not certain it would be all bad, but it’s not a topic to dismiss. The possibility of societal disruption due to real disclosure resulting in any disruption to say, the economy, for whatever reasons, could be a reason the powers that be don’t want to disclose. Maybe the risk is too great in their view. Just speculating obviously.
It definitely would depend on what disclosure entails. I believe just disclosing the existence of and government engagement with a non-human intelligence could be easy to embrace or shrug off for most. However, introducing details of their culture or beliefs would redefine a lot of people’s ideologies. Collectively, humans never fare well with introducing new culture into their lives. And, if there comes a day that we publicly engage a non-human intelligence then we’ll be facing a range of new social and psychological conflicts.