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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by wabafee@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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[-] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago

At this point?

I see 100% of the world, all the narcissists and psychopaths in power, asking them to please take them away from this horrible world

[-] Aneb@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Take me wit u?

[-] FanciestPants@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Do you mean like if an alien just showed up on my doorstep and was like, "take me to your leader"? Because I would ask, "How about we just chill here for a bit?" because nothing good is going to come from the next part.

[-] Lasherz12@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Maybe we can all just pretend that Bernie is our leader. It's a nice thought anyways.

[-] JennaR8r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Okay but whatever the case, please remember that Barack Obama volunteered to be the emissary for such an event. So if an alien shows up at your doorstep please contact Barack obama.

[-] Lasherz12@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

We'd better hope they don't have healing technology to share with us because he'll give it to the insurance industry to manage after slapping a few guard rails on it.

[-] pelley@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Watch the movie “Contact” for a good depiction of this.

[-] NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

War, then our extermination.

[-] Lasherz12@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I think in the event of war, it would be about as long as the time it takes for us to announce the war until it's over. The technology to freely planet hop from another solar system is like the large hadron collider vs an ant using a leaf to cross a puddle.

[-] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago

To be realistic I think they would have scanned our airwaves and observed from afar and decided to get the hell out of this quadrant of the galaxy. If they needed our resources then it would be like the "Independence Day" movie, only the aliens would easily win.

[-] T156@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

A fantastic amount of talking. The militaries would want to be in readiness, for example, just in case the extraterrestrials are not friendly, and the diplomatic corps would be doing their best to figure out how to communicate with them.

A lot of religions might also be thrown a bit into the air by the arrival of aliens, so there would be some chatter there, too.

Are aliens subject to human rights? Are they beings also made in God's image, etc.

[-] Steve@startrek.website 2 points 2 weeks ago

They would be sick of our shit in 5 minutes

[-] HiTekRedNek@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

When one civilization meets another,.far more advanced, civilization, ehat tends to happen to the less advanced one?

Yeah, that. It's gonna suck.

[-] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Not sure but I have said that it'll happen under Trump. It has to. The way things go lately this is just expected at this point

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago
  1. They remove our ability to leave the planet.
  2. Continually

Done.

[-] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Seeing how incohrrent and fractured humanity is, we'd meet them with a jumbled mix of:

  • Rabid xenophobia
  • Aggressively trying to convert them to a dozen of our different religions
  • Forming multiple cults worshipping them as gods
  • Creating a shit load of really weird rule 34 AI-generated porn focused on them
  • Dismissing their existence as some sort of a deep fake conspiracy
  • Trying to sell them some worthless shit for a massive profit
  • Trying to sell them fellow humans as slaves
  • Trying to steal their technology to conquer the galaxy
  • Flooding then with brainrot memes for the lolz
  • Trying to destroy them with conventional weapons

And they would see all this and either destroy us in disgust or get the hell out of the solar system ASAP and cordon it off with hazard signs.

[-] Lasherz12@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Pretty sure we'd have no communication with the alien that wasn't just corrupt politicians trying to speak for us to get some sort of trade out of them to increase their own power. It's too important for any/all normal people to have a voice, and then when the aliens dislike the abhorrent greed we'll probably just suffer some how more than we already do. I'd say we're better off not reporting any alien sightings. I would trust almost any human on earth more talking to aliens on my behalf than a so called leader currently. Maybe Ireland, Spain, a handful of others have better than regular Joe leaders, but it's rare.

[-] Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 weeks ago

If they came to us it would not be for the resources on earth, there are plenty more in space easier to get. I think it would be curiosity. They would study us, and probably all life on the planet.

Hopefully with curiosity comes empathy and they uplift us.

[-] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 1 points 2 weeks ago

Also could just be determined exterminators or want to diversify diet.

[-] Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 weeks ago

Exterminators could just throw a rock at 0.1c no need to land.

Diet though, reminds me of the Peter Jackson masterpiece, Bad Taste.

[-] RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

Trump will post on Truth that we had a war and we won.

[-] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Given that they have the means to have travelled from another world (presumably from outside the Solar System, as there are no signs of space colonising extraterrestrials in our neighbourhood we can observe), they must be technologically far superior to us. My guess is that they would treat us, little guys on a blue marble, like we do with ants.

Although ants have a very intricate way of life, with jobs, conflict, infrastructure, etc., most humans don't put too much thought into keeping them safe, we trample on their cities that we say are primitive compared to our own, and we export some ants to new worlds. Additionally, even among our own species, colonialism was commonplace in all parts of the world throughout the world and its remnants still exists today, as one group of people believed they were superior to another.

Intelligent extraterrestrials capable of interplanetary (and probably interstellar) travel would definitely outclass us in every metric, and they could easily wipe us out, either by accident or on purpose (through disease, conflict, colonisation, etc.)

However, I hope that these extraterrestrials eventually acknowledge our existence as a civilisation. A little like how there are entomologists who study ants for a living and conservationists who preserve their habitats. Or perhaps organisations like UNESCO, in charge of protecting dying cultures and lost traditions, could be formed by these extraterrestrials. Maybe treaties of reparations and acknowledgement of past crimes would be signed between our species, like how many countries do today.

That's just my thoughts though.

[-] neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

Id think they'd treat us like how we treat a remote tribe that's been isolated from humanity for hundreds/thousands of years.

[-] Fleur_@aussie.zone 1 points 2 weeks ago

Something similar to what happened to india or Indonesia when the British/ Dutch showed up

[-] wraekscadu@vargar.org 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I don't think it would be in the advantage of a smart civ to willfully contact another smart civ till it is confirmed that the "to be contacted" civ has a really good understanding of game theory.

You cannot negotiate mutually assured destruction with a civ that does not understand what mutually assured destruction means.

Do I think we would be destroyed if some other alien civ finds us? No. If civ A observes civ B destroying civ C, everyone would want to destroy civ B immediately. The possibility of there being peaceful contact for civ B goes away.

Also, contacting us must be in the benefit of the civ that contacts us (assuming they are rational).

[-] darthelmet@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Die of some random common illness we don't have any antibodies for.

Hopefully a species advanced enough to master interstellar travel would be mindful of that kind of thing though. I suppose at least they would probably be protecting themselves against that, so maybe it would go both ways?

[-] upandatom@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Our strongest EMP rays did nothing to them, but in the end they succumbed to a simple stick.

There is also just the possibility that their common illness affects something biologically they possess that we do not.

I too hope the protections would go both ways. I guess it depends if whatever they'd exhaust is toxic to us

[-] Lasherz12@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I've heard that carbon is not necessarily the best basis for self replicating structures. Silicon is able to form a lot of similarly complex bonds that carbon is with a similar chain of reactions to our own. I don't know if another life form from the ground up would even have diseases, although I guess cancer is pretty likely in any self replicating system due to cosmic rays. That would make it pretty hard to space travel though, one would expect their repair mechanisms to far excel beyond the durability of our own, which is actually pretty crap and easily confused with symmetrical DNA chains, excessive damage, repeating sequences, etc. There are other animals on earth that have better repair systems in place than us allowing them to live virtually forever, but none are mammals. Biological Immortality Wiki

[-] chaosCruiser@futurology.today 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

boom

But seriously though, it depends on the type of aliens we’re encountering here. If they’re malevolent, they will probably wipe the earth clean and take all the resources.

If they’re more benevolent, they’ll just take pity on us, and turn back. Humanity is a problem that will fix itself if you just give it some time.

[-] Solumbran@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago
[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

Or they try to kill us.

But also possibly convert us.

Then try to kill us.

[-] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

If a civilization has the kind of power to reach us, we wouldn't pose any problem at all.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t try to kill us. Options include:

  1. it’s possible they have cultural reasons (genocidal xenophobia, paranoia.

  2. they find us annoying

  3. we’re just in the way.

  4. they don’t even notice us and they’re xenoforming Earth.

  5. they’d rather hang with the whales

One thing is certain, though. The only thing special about earth is the life it holds. (Not that it has life, just that that life is unique.) so if they do show up it’s almost certainly not going to be covertly.

[-] WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 weeks ago

You clearly haven’t watched Star Trek. /s

The aliens could be coming here covertly to observe us like a nature documentary. They may even have non-interference rules for primitive cultures. Or maybe they’re just shy.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

physics is a bitch.

Voyager 1 is likely going to be the first probe of human make to pass close to another star ("Close" means a closest approach of 1.7 lightyears, roughly), Voyager one is headed towards Glease 445. That journey will take roughly 40,000 years, and it won't have the power to slow down as would be needed. It would require considerably more fuel to make a helocentric insertion.

Sure, it's possible some more advanced probe is going to come along and 'get there' first. but whatever.

The kind of delta-v required for that would also be incredibly obvious. the platform coming from another star would be massive, and if the goal was to stick around, there is absolutely no place in space for it to hide. which means if they come, they're not coming quietly.

(fun fact, the IRL counterpart to Star Trek's warp drive is called the Alcubierre drive. It's just theoretically possible. But, it's not able to go FTL since it violates causality.)

(also fun fact... it's quite the opposite. I've watched far too much star trek. and star wars. and farscape. and babylon 5 and sg1 and, uhm. lots of trashy b-rated stuff we're not going to mention.)

[-] altphoto@lemmy.today 0 points 2 weeks ago

A little bit of pee comes out.

[-] tomiant@piefed.social 0 points 2 weeks ago

I'd be PSYCHED. For whatever comes. It'd galvanize humanity. I think our problem is that we don't have enough external enemies. That's why we fight each other. Best game on the planet. Bet if aliums showed up we'd come together to destroy them and have a barbecue, and we'd lose, but it'd be nice to all feel like friends for once.

[-] jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

I think if we didn't unite when the air could cripple people, we aren't uniting over anything external.

this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
6 points (87.5% liked)

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