Was just watching Jack Ryan Season 3 and seeing the display of force and their movements causes some interesting dissonance given what we know now.

  • ramble81@lemmy.worldOP
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    1 year ago

    I often times wonder if an extraterrestrial threat would be a unifying factor or if people would still be selfish unless it affected them. The pandemic was the closest we’ve seen to a world level threat recently and it just increased selfishness IMO (at least in the US)

    • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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      1 year ago

      The aliens would just hack the internet and flood it with bots more advanced than ChatGPT faking support to surrender to the alien overlord, then sit their asses watching humanity fought among themselves.

    • neutron@thelemmy.club
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      1 year ago

      If we’re comparing to human history, the Aztecs weren’t singlehandedly defeated by the Spanish. The conquistadors had plenty of assistance of other nations that wanted to see the Aztecs gone. We all know what happened afterwards, but even if you went back in time you wouldn’t convince a single Tlaxcala warrior that their newfound awesome ally against their sworn enemy was actually the “bad guy” - until much later, that is.

      So, if the aliens started an attack against whoever the superpower happens to be, they would have plenty of assistance as well. It’s human nature.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Meh I would have sided with the Spainards as well. It can’t be fun having to hand over hunks of your population each year to be given to the sun god.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      If aliens can reach us, they aren’t a threat. They either kill us without any issue or they don’t want to. There is no fighting back against it.

      I do think it’d be interesting to see what happens if we do discovery alien life, particularly of the intelligent variety. So many religions are based on the assumption humans are the only intelligent life, and that earth is that place that can support it. Do they mostly all collapse, or do they evolve? Do people finally recognize the stupidity? It’d be fun to see.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Which religion has the assumption that we are the only intelligent life? The ones I have studied didn’t seem to believe that only human intelligence is around. They had demons and angles and gods.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          It’s at least heavily implied in many. It implies that he created everything and all living things on it only talks about creatures being created on earth. If the book is accurate (it’s clearly not, but let’s assume) and if it’s divinely inspired, it should be aware of cresting life elsewhere also. It also calls stars/glalaxies/nebulas/whatever “lights in the dome of the sky” so not exactly a great start for it.

          It being weird or wrong hasn’t stopped it really before though, but it would probably create some kind of shift, especially if it’s intelligent. In that case, are they deserving the same status as man? Are they children of God also? Why do they look different?

      • AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        That’s not necessarily true. If aliens do visit us, they might not be able to wipe us out at all. There’s really no way to say that other races would be capable of wiping us out, because they might not understand the concept of war in the first place.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          They’re either capable of wiping us out or they aren’t a threat. Either way, not a threat.

    • pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      IMO I don’t think humanity would unite. Some people would force their families to surrender to the aliens because they fear for their own lives, others would try to bargain with them for technology. Others would help the aliens simply because they hate humanity. We really can’t count on anything to unite us, and I don’t even think uniting the species should be our common goal. People are too individualistic and diverse for that, and unity would take away what it means to be human.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Depends on so many factors. Sometimes the external enemy doesn’t unite people at all. Sometimes it becomes a race of who can suck up to them so when the war is over they can run things. Traitors and collaboration.

      Also I am betting if there was a threat it would be over in hours. As they hit us with a million nukes while our governments spend the last few minutes wondering why we pointed out best gear at each other instead of up.

      Or heck they could be creative and just block out our sun for a decade and use bunker busting bombs looking for infrared to kill off the stranglers. That way they have a nice non-nuclear wasteland to work with.

      • ramble81@lemmy.worldOP
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        1 year ago

        Nah, if that’s the goal they’ll just use Neutrino Bombs (look them up, they’re crazy what they’re designed to do)

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I saw a discussion about this once and they argued that they didn’t have the range leaving all the rural people still around. Plus the humans who are in nuclear proof bunkers/submarines have nukes to get revenge when you land.

          Blocking the sun works better. You can’t just hide from the earth freezing. Even if you survive somehow you are giving away your location via infared. Also, you could still have some functional ecosystem left with the plants and animals that can withstand a true hibernation and the deep sea life.