Could we Change if We had To?

originally posted by: The Vagabond
a reply to: Entreri06

That's why I put in the point about we'd nuke our whole planet just to scratch their paint. If you take away a person's right to live on their own terms then they will die on their own terms. And our terms seem to be something like, "Life isn't good enough, so if you want me not to die, what's in it for me?".

I disagree. It depends on what "their terms" means. If that means watching your daughter be raped and beaten, most would choose death. If it meant getting rid of money and swapping to solar, while getting to watch your daughter get married and have your grand kids, not so much.


They aren't offering to spare us if we agree to live in slavery. They are offering to spare us if we stop acting like idiots on a global scale. A totally different senerio.

originally posted by: Rocker2013

originally posted by: Metallicus
Threats don't work. I assume an alien race would offer help not destruction. Otherwise they are no better than us with better tech.

But why do we assume they would be better than us? Is it just wishful thinking?

We have existed for a pretty long time, and we still fight wars over pathetically stupid things, we still squabble to death attempting to impose religious beliefs or political will on each other, and yet we're currently sending tech out to other planets and will probably be going further than we've ever gone before in the next 50 years.

I think it's naive to believe that an alien race would be peaceful, just because they have developed advanced space travel.

Were the white Europeans more peaceful than the Natives of any land they arrived to conquer in their modern ships?

Are we any more peaceful than the only untouched tribe found on Earth in the last five years?

Given all the information we have about our own race and history, and the fact that every other species on the planet has a predator apart from us, I think it's far more plausible that any race arriving here from space would either find us irrelevant (treat us like animals/insects) or want to conquer us for their own gain.

I might just be cynical, but as we only have our own history to go by, it makes more sense to assume that the arrival of a more advanced race would not be a peaceful and pleasant experience, for us as the native species.

While I agree with everything you said, I think your forgetting where we started compared to where we are today. Contrary to conservative beliefs, this is by far the best humanity has been to each other. As we have gotten more knowledge and technology, we have gotten far more moral. So assuming that trend continues wouldn't it prob work the same for them?

a reply to: Entreri06

I don't think the poor buggers would even get the chance to open up their landing gear to make a touch down before we'd be blasting them to smithereens.

We're still too savage and juvenile of a species... we've still got a helluva long ways to go.

Which is probably why they haven't driven up and shaken our hands yet.

a reply to: Entreri06

I see what you are saying, but I am suggesting that you are underestimating what it would take to fix the situation. It is not a simple matter of don't act like idiots anymore. The idiocy results from a very confusing and competitive struggle to survive in a precarious artificial environment. If you don't want war, disrespect for nature, etc, then you've got to have machinery in place to provide for the uncompromisable needs of all people. We can't even do that for everyone in the wealthiest places on Earth, and what we do have in place is already coming apart at the seems.

I'm suggesting that the time, resources, and labor required to establish a sustainable way of life for all humans without any humans being gotten rid of would be so vast that it would leave no room whatsoever for personal choices relating to career, reproduction, and way of life. Maybe you want to be a preacher and coach the church softball team and improve the next generation and make music for god and all kinds of great human stuff like that- too bad, we need a billion guys with nets picking up the pacific garbage patch and you're one of them, if you don't like it go tell the aliens, maybe they'll only disintegrate you as a warning to the rest of us.

Its very easy to say we would comply if the alternative to destruction is a cute little house with solar panels where our children are happily raising our grandchildren.

But suppose that the alternative is your son living in a bunkhouse working 80 hours a week at taking down and recycling building materials from his beloved hometown, and having just enough money for room and board after paying the kind of taxes that would be necessary to do everything that would be needed? Perhaps you don't have grand kids in this future, perhaps your son couldn't get a license to reproduce- because these austerity measures will never end if population growth doesn't level off while we catch up.

We can even take aliens out of the equation. President Clinton could have told the whole world to fall in line and stop being lousy or else if there was any chance of it working on paper. The fact that nobody even seems to have floated the idea tells me it doesn't even work on paper.

originally posted by: The Vagabond
a reply to: Entreri06

I see what you are saying, but I am suggesting that you are underestimating what it would take to fix the situation. It is not a simple matter of don't act like idiots anymore. The idiocy results from a very confusing and competitive struggle to survive in a precarious artificial environment. If you don't want war, disrespect for nature, etc, then you've got to have machinery in place to provide for the uncompromisable needs of all people. We can't even do that for everyone in the wealthiest places on Earth, and what we do have in place is already coming apart at the seems.

I'm suggesting that the time, resources, and labor required to establish a sustainable way of life for all humans without any humans being gotten rid of would be so vast that it would leave no room whatsoever for personal choices relating to career, reproduction, and way of life. Maybe you want to be a preacher and coach the church softball team and improve the next generation and make music for god and all kinds of great human stuff like that- too bad, we need a billion guys with nets picking up the pacific garbage patch and you're one of them, if you don't like it go tell the aliens, maybe they'll only disintegrate you as a warning to the rest of us.

Its very easy to say we would comply if the alternative to destruction is a cute little house with solar panels where our children are happily raising our grandchildren.

But suppose that the alternative is your son living in a bunkhouse working 80 hours a week at taking down and recycling building materials from his beloved hometown, and having just enough money for room and board after paying the kind of taxes that would be necessary to do everything that would be needed? Perhaps you don't have grand kids in this future, perhaps your son couldn't get a license to reproduce- because these austerity measures will never end if population growth doesn't level off while we catch up.

We can even take aliens out of the equation. President Clinton could have told the whole world to fall in line and stop being lousy or else if there was any chance of it working on paper. The fact that nobody even seems to have floated the idea tells me it doesn't even work on paper.

I think a Star Trek type society could do it. Ones who has evolved past capitalism so the labor , know how and materials are all that's required. Cost is what's always stopping us. Not man power. Not materials.

originally posted by: Entreri06
While I agree with everything you said, I think your forgetting where we started compared to where we are today. Contrary to conservative beliefs, this is by far the best humanity has been to each other. As we have gotten more knowledge and technology, we have gotten far more moral. So assuming that trend continues wouldn't it prob work the same for them?

Hm, I see your point, it is true that in many respects we have improved as a species. But we also developed nuclear weapons capable of destroying all life on Earth.

We're also assuming that any tech they have is actually theirs to begin with. There's just as much chance of them having taken any technological developments they have from other races. If an alien race came here there would be tech that we currently have that they wouldn't have, archaic in comparison perhaps, but inevitably we have developed things they haven't.

The same could be true for any previous race they have visited.

If this is possible, and if technological advancement would correlate to evolution of morality or our notions of decency, surely we have to also agree that any shortcut taken in that technological advancement would mean they don't posses that morality?

We could also argue that only certain technological advancements might improve a collective race. Did the creation of the atom bomb really move us forward? How about the development of chemical weapons? What about the development of the simple bullet? I think it's hard to say that any of these things actually improved our species. While we can certainly say that the development of the Internet has, and our understanding of science and nature etc, there are also plenty of things we have developed which really haven't moved us toward being a peaceful race.

If you went back in time and gave a Neanderthal an iPad, he would still be a Neanderthal, just with an iPad - and he'd possibly beat you to death with it lol

I just feel we make a lot of assumptions about any possible alien race, things that have no foundation in reason. Do we (as a species) consider the lives and considerations of any other animal on this Earth, or do we basically treat them as a resource to be eaten? We know the answer to this, and we justify it to ourselves by saying they are "just animals" and it's "just nature".

Well, what makes us so special? Why do we think that any advanced race coming here would not view us the same way we view a cow?

Like I said, I think we're being naive, and I think we're just assuming a lot about any potential visitor because we don't want to consider the alternatives. I was about to say we have no evidence either way, but then if we believe some of the stories of abduction, we actually have more evidence to suggest that they do indeed views us the same way we view certain animals.

When someone gets invited aboard a ship for a cup of alien tea and a chat, maybe I'll think differently. For the time being we can only go on common sense and the potential evidence we might have about such a species - and all of this suggests to me that we're either making a lot of assumptions about their motivations and attitudes about us, or that they do indeed view us as animals to be studied.

originally posted by: CranialSponge
a reply to: Entreri06

I don't think the poor buggers would even get the chance to open up their landing gear to make a touch down before we'd be blasting them to smithereens.

We're still too savage and juvenile of a species... we've still got a helluva long ways to go.

Which is probably why they haven't driven up and shaken our hands yet.

I used to think the same way, and it is a depressing thought.
But, these days, I actually do hope we have a plan to defend ourselves. There really is nothing to suggest that any alien race arriving here is going to be acting like a stoned Woodstock attendee. We've manufactured a personality for these entirely unknown beings without any reason to do so, and in direct conflict with what we know about our own history and motivations as a species.

We just "assume" that because they can travel such a distance they must also be advanced enough to be all-wise, all-loving and all-peaceful. There's absolutely no reason to expect that, unfortunately.

Nope .. humans would continue with the usual idiocy ...

a reply to: Entreri06

I'm not a fan of capitalism and am a fan of Star Trek as well, but Star Trek assumes a post-scarcity economy based on the ability to generate unthinkable excesses of energy and convert it into any known form of matter.

We can start moving in that direction, but it will take several lifetimes to get there. In the meantime, since our productivity is much lower, the only way to have a post scarcity economy is to narrow the field of items we must supply for ourselves- we would have to increase efficiency at the expense of selection.

You would be guaranteed enough power to charge your golf cart to take it where you needed to go, and guaranteed never ever ever to take a cross country road trip.
You'd be guaranteed as much as you want to eat, of whatever the government put on the menu for that day.
You'd be guaranteed a certain level of health care and there would probably be consequences for not showing up on time that reflect the fact that you are interfering with them saving other people's lives.

We already have all the tech to fix all the issues on the planet.

We can grow oil from algae, we can grow hydrogen from algae.

We can grow food with 20 - 30 times less water with vertical
hydroponics.

We could use micro hydro, HAWP, ocean current power,
and the newer low temp binary cycle geothermal.

We could have used the Thorium LFTR from the 1960's
that ran safely for over 6,000 full power hours.

Artificial scarcity allows some to get insanely rich, and holds down
the poor and middle class to keep them productive.

Selling fear to the sheep in the US makes them think we need to
spend 25 times as much as the next 25 nations combined when
24 are our allies.

A mind in a state of fear is easier to manipulate.

They didn't spend huge amounts of money studying flicker
rates on TV because they wanted to make a better strobe light...

They don't want the middle class trying to join the leisure class.

The leisure class meanwhile goes around and stirs up the wars
with their various mercenary armies blaming various targets so
they can be looted, and the media they own pumps out propaganda
24 x 7 on most continents and the sheep lap it up like its the truth.

Well they do put some truth in there or it would too easy to see through.

The round table groups run the planet, the politicians are their puppet,
the elections are rigged, and damn near everything else is rigged too.

Basically the aliens could show up and say stop being fooled by
puppet masters tricking you into their Neo-malthusian agenda of depopulation.

Once we stop being suckers for Sociopaths and Psychopaths then
we might shrug off our milgram experiment tendencies and see
the world and the universe for what it really is.

Assuming they shared the ability of interstellar travel......

Stop with the wars

Absolutely. Wars are fought for control of resources. Simple as that.
With all of interstellar space's resources (nearly infinite), no more impetus to war.

Swap to renewables

No, but no need to. Millions upon millions of deserted planets/stars/black holes, etc. to be used as garbage disposals.

Stop with the industrial scale pollution

No, but no need to. Pollutants could be dealt with as above

I think we would probably call their bluff and see if they were really serious. Then after a few cities were destroyed, we'd believe them. So it would basically play out the same way it did in the movie. And hopefully the alien is as hot as Keanu Reeves

yes. but nothing short of such a scenario would make it happen.

It's actually the reason I don't think any interstellar aliens would be interest in conquest.

Simply put, there isn't a need for it.

So, (going from a human example, as it is the only one we have), without a reason to war, doesn't seem like they'd expend the resources in doing so.

If they wanted our water, there are uninhabited moons full of it.
If they wanted our food, could grow their own on any number of uninhabited planets in the galaxy.
If they wanted our minerals, plenty more in asteroids, etc.

So, no motive for war. (other than if they were simply psychologically bent on it).... If that's the case, we'd be screwed due to sheer logistics (can't win against a foe with an infinite supply line...i.e. interstellar sources).

originally posted by: Gazrok
It's actually the reason I don't think any interstellar aliens would be interest in conquest.

Simply put, there isn't a need for it.

So, (going from a human example, as it is the only one we have), without a reason to war, doesn't seem like they'd expend the resources in doing so.

If they wanted our water, there are uninhabited moons full of it.
If they wanted our food, could grow their own on any number of uninhabited planets in the galaxy.
If they wanted our minerals, plenty more in asteroids, etc.

So, no motive for war. (other than if they were simply psychologically bent on it).... If that's the case, we'd be screwed due to sheer logistics (can't win against a foe with an infinite supply line...i.e. interstellar sources).

What if it was curiousity?

Certainly another goal that drives us too (curiosity), but same issues apply.
No need for war, etc. due to having virtually unlimited stellar resources.