Not that I am down on humanity or anything...

[susie_flo]

Dear fiends, here is a random thought that bothers me while I am eating lunch...

Do you ever wonder what might happen if mankind made contact with an alien life form?

Suppsing they were less intelligent than us... how long do you think it would take us to start farming/enslaving them - or keeping them as pets?  Or would we just inadvertently wipe them out by nicking all of their resources?

On the other hand... supposing they were more intelligent than us.  (Do you think America could cope with something scarier than China?)  Imagine if they just turned up one day as friendly tourists, bringing with them the terrifying realisation that humans are no longer top of the intelligence chain.  Would we still end up wiping them out in a sneaky pre-emptive move + vague mutterings about alien WMDs?

How would you rate the chances of us just leaving them alone?  Or becoming pen-pals and gently aiding each other in our development?

Would all of the above simply depend on how cute they were?


PS:  apparently THIS is the LHC's online dashboard, so you can pretend you're in charge.   How endearingly vintage does that look?

Comments

[whiteshadow.livejournal.com]

Have you seen District 9 - it kinda touches on the points you raise ...

Also I have been to some places in London which make me strongly suspect that alien liferforms are already here!

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Yes, I thought District 9 was great.

See, in the "cuteness matters" scenario, they made the prawns ugly/scary enough to be reviled but also just cute enough to be ghettoised rather than annihilated. (They had rather lovely expressive eyes and the little prawn was *really* cute.)

But imagine a species turning up that is kindly and intelligent but looks like giant oozing slugs... (I bet people would think twice about playing nice.)

[whiteshadow.livejournal.com]

I think however we are pre programmed to assume aliens will be hostile ... Space Invaders ... Defender ... Independence Day, unless they turn up looking like models from the catwalk I think that our position would be to try and destroy them!

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

...or shaped like fluffy little teddy-bears.

I reckon they could be 100% evil and humans would still be incapable of destroying something shaped like a teddy bear.

[ivory-goddess.livejournal.com]

The little prawn was adorable. And smart.

But on the 'ghettoised rather than annihilated' front, I'm reasonably sure that was to do with the fact that we hadn't figured out how to get their superior weaponry to work yet. Once that was sorted and humans could use their guns, they'd be offed in a heartbeat...

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Yes, I concur. The humans were def planning no good for those poor prawns.

[(Anonymous)]

Imagine if they were more intelligent than us and decided to start farming humans and keep us as pets!

Alistair

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Well... then it would be justifiable homicide and we could plot to overthrow and kill the mo'fo's (probably like sheep are plotting right now)

[ivory-goddess.livejournal.com]

Given how much SF I read/watch, no I don't think about this much at all.

I reckon that, regardless of their level of intelligence or intentions towards us, raw fear would lead us to try to kill them asap. There'd be scientists and liberals and even religious people begging us not to, but the military would take over & it would be bye bye aliens, the end.

I don't have a high opinion of humanity en masse. Individually we can be great, in groups we're dumb animals.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Ah, tis sad but you are coming from a similar angle to me... I too tend to assume the worst of humanity en masse and had had similarly cliched thoughts about the military charging on in. (I mean, I don't know about you, but I am already mentally casting actors for the role of macho, gung-ho US army general who first makes the decision to attack...)

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

Aliens? Blimey, we don't even like the French. And that's probably what it would take to get us fighting on the same side.

These tap into quite Freudian fears don't they - the fear of being powerless, the fear of being belittled, the fear of someone having cooler kit than you...

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Heh... the French thing is funny. This morning a French woman sat next to me on the tube and was on the receiving end of evils all the way to South Ken from an old lady sitting opposite. (I am equally ludicrous because I LOVE the French, for no reason that I can justify...)

As for the alien thing... I do think that this is humanity's deepest, darkest fear. We've been top dog for so long, the idea of something stronger and cleverer than us turning up is, frankly, terrfiying... even if it is friendly.