Alien conquistadores?

[Ghostrider]

But that is hardly a reason to invade Earth and pillage our resources.

Maybe they're space hooligans.

 

[Urwumpe]

1. Sun Tzu said: In the operations of war, where there are in the field a thousand swift chariots, as many heavy chariots, and a hundred thousand mail-clad soldiers, with provisions enough to carry them a thousand mile, the expenditure at home and at the front, including entertainment of guests, small items such as glue and paint, and sums spent on chariots and armor, will reach the total of a thousand ounces of silver per day. Such is the cost of raising an army of 100,000 men.
2. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.
3. Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.
4. Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.
5. Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.
6. There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.
7. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.
8. The skillful soldier does not raise a second levy, neither are his supply-wagons loaded more than twice.
9. Bring war material with you from home, but forage on the enemy. Thus the army will have food enough for its needs.
10. Poverty of the State exchequer causes an army to be maintained by contributions from a distance. Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes the people to be impoverished.
11. On the other hand, the proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause the people's substance to be drained away.
12. When their substance is drained away, the peasantry will be afflicted by heavy exactions.
13. With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the homes of the people will be stripped bare, and three-tenths of their income will be dissipated;
14. While government expenses for broken chariots, worn-out horses, breast-plates and helmets, bows and arrows, spears and shields, protective mantles, draught-oxen and heavy wagons, will amount to four-tenths of its total revenue.
15. Hence a wise general makes a point of foraging on the enemy. One cartload of the enemy's provisions is equivalent to twenty of one's own, and likewise a single picul of his provender is equivalent to twenty from one's own store.
16. Now in order to kill the enemy, our men must be roused to anger; that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy, they must have their rewards.
17. Therefore in chariot fighting, when ten or more chariots have been taken, those should be rewarded who took the first. Our own flags should be substituted for those of the enemy, and the chariots mingled and used in conjunction with ours. The captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept.
18. This is called, using the conquered foe to augment one's own strength.
19. In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.
20. Thus it may be known that the leader of armies is the arbiter of the people's fate, the man on whom it depends whether the nation shall be in peace or in peril.

 

[Suzy]

Humanity is already damaging or destroying itself though overpopulation, wars, environmental devastation, etc., so a potential alien invasion would make little difference in my view (maybe a “hostile takeover” with Earth “under new management” would be an improvement!). Also there are plenty of resources in the Solar System (such as water), so I doubt aliens would invade Earth just for these!

 

[Urwumpe]

Yeah - why attack a "heavily" defended Earth, if you could get more of the better stuff somewhere else... Except human slaves for our insectoid overlords.

 

[Keatah]

All I gotta say is I agree with mr hawking, if aliens can make their way here either by just passing by or on purpose, then they have the capability and power to wipe out life here. or enslave us all. it is common sense!

 

[Urwumpe]

it is common sense!

There is no difference between common sense and ordinary nonsense.

 

[AirSimming]

I think that we live in a world that is going to be better rather than worse. There is war and environmental destruction of course. At some places more, at some less, and in fact at most places none. But compared to the past century I think especially the developed world is as peaceful as almost never before. Almost nobody here in Europe certainly wants to live like an average citizen of the 19th century or the Middle Ages. I imagine that 100 years ago I would have been one of those who aimed for a one-way trip to the USA because they have seen the deep **** comming. Life has become rather easy and peaceful these days and I'm thankful rather than prone to be a sad naysayer. I do not see environmental pollution and wars causing the end of the world at all. I think that such thinking is a little bit too pessimistic/exaggerated. Or I'm too much optimistic, but I doubt.

Anyway, if a species is able to travel through universe fast, they may have seen things we possibly can't even imagine. They certainly might own resources we can only dream about. They may have seen more earth-like planets than we can imagine. So I don't think that our earth would make them be astonished, nor would they be deeply interested in it, well, in our non-renewable resources that are going to be exploited anyway. I think the most likeliest thing is that they would be surprised the same way we would be, to meet another intelligent species. That would be such a strange event that possibly would change our world and their world forever. I think it won't cause war at all, but quite careful and interesting meetings. Especially if they do not travel fast through space. If they would have been on the way for generations and ages, they wouldn't do anything but war. They would be just as amazed and careful as we would be.

And hey, just imagine their spaceship would land, the hatches open and thousands of pretty females climb out of it...

 

[ar81]

A human goes to the bottom of the sea and says "hello, noble fish, bring me before your leader"...

We are just fish in the gas waters filled with oxygen. Why would an alien race want to contact us?

Or just imagine that Valles Marineris could have been caused during a space war... our only defense would be the umbrellas we use against rain.

 

[Urwumpe]

We are just fish in the gas waters filled with oxygen. Why would an alien race want to contact us?

Because we are biggest meanest fish in these waters. and who ever decides to dive here, should better care to know where the shark has its teeth.

 

[T.Neo]

And hey, just imagine their spaceship would land, the hatches open and thousands of pretty females climb out of it...

If it's too good to be true...

 

[ex-orbinaut]

The question at the root of Hawking's preoccupation appears to be "Will aliens be compassionate towards us? And, is it a compassion at our level of understanding?"

The unspoken assumption is, if they can 'visit' us, then they are fully capable of 'destroying' us with, like, a swipe of the hand/claw/tentacle/fin/toadstool... whatever.

How compassionate are you to a piece of seaweed? Do you think the piece of seaweed is content with the level of compassion you give it?

I personally already had, and therefore go with, the opinions of following two posts...

Humanity is already damaging or destroying itself though overpopulation, wars, environmental devastation, etc

A human goes to the bottom of the sea and says "hello, noble fish, bring me before your leader"...

We are just fish in the gas waters filled with oxygen. Why would an alien race want to contact us?

//...........................................

Yes, but aren't these people primarily descended from Europeans?
...
Yes, native as in born somewhere. I'm native to South Africa, although many people would like to believe otherwise due to my heritage.
...
When I speak of "Native Americans" though, I'm talking about the people that came to America thousands of years ago via the bearing strait land bridge.

Quite, yes, but please reread carefully. Is there a hint of some contradiction lurking in there? No. It must be me not comprehending something, sort of like an alien... :lol:

However, to answer the very first question, about European descent: No. You are thinking of Creoles. Sort of long gone, now. A reasonable segment of the society is part caste, leaning more towards the original, precolonial denizens than to European descent. The rest are the originals themselves. They weren't as "wiped out" as school-text-book-history portrays, apparently.

Depends on the definition of "get back". Illegal humans? That's an amusing concept...

Amusing, indeed. But a true reality nonetheless among humans. Today.

 

[Star Voyager]

Alien conquistadores? They came in 1938 and wiped out everybody :lol::

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTvU9j3og5k"]YouTube- War of the Worlds (1938 Radio Broadcast)[/nomedia]


This is just a small snippet. The rest is on YouTube.

 

[Enjo]

... so a potential alien invasion would make little difference in my view (maybe a “hostile takeover” with Earth “under new management” would be an improvement!)...

And if a more or less calm species was already influencing the Earth's managment, would small fish like us know it?

 

[SiberianTiger]

We should stop our own expansion, stop sending probes, deorbit all satellites, hide ourselves in vaults (the best on Earth, Moon, Mars, and maybe some other bodies, so we have some extra space for future), so aliens won't notice and find us, and enslave us, when they look at Earth either passively or actively while trespassing through our system, after they caught our earlier radio transmissions, before we stopped all high-frequency radio communication.


:rofl:

... and shroud our Earth in an all-spectrum impenetrable shell, preventing thise darn Oxygen and Cholrofyll from giving away the fact that our planet is harbouring a Carbon life!

 

[T.Neo]

I get a bit annoyed when people talk of us "destroying our planet" and whatnot. We're not destroying the ecosystem, we're part of the ecosystem.

Humans are a very successful organism, and what successful organisms tend to do a lot of the time is displace other organisms in the ecosystem.

Now, I'm not saying this is a good thing, or a desirable thing, and I'm certainly not saying I'd want my great grandchildren to live on a world swarming with humans and owls, but issues like this should always be assessed in a sociological and biological manner, and not an emotional one.

I'd also like to note that you don't have to be a god to traverse interstellar space. Many principles and technologies for doing so have been around since the 1960s.

How compassionate are you to a piece of seaweed? Do you think the piece of seaweed is content with the level of compassion you give it?

The second question solves the first right there; you can't compare a piece of seaweed with all or one of a sophont species. There's a fundamental difference from us and seaweed. And this difference exists whether you are a caveman or a magical interstellar entity.

Amusing, indeed. But a true reality nonetheless among humans. Today.

A human among humans.

And if a more or less calm species was already influencing the Earth's managment, would small fish like us know it?

These "small fish" actively monitor the Earth, so we could detect conscious control of it.

If there was also an operating spacecraft between Earth and the Moon, we would know about it. There is no Stealth in Space.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Again, it makes very little sense to get resources from an earthlike planet.

Why not? Earth's tectonic activity is good for exposing deep residing core metals and metamorphic minerals.

 

[Bendarr]

Maybe he was talking about human resources. Just imagine being gang-pressed into jobs as civil servants, hairdressers and accountants for the conquering aliens ...

Al we have to do is send up one Rabbit as a Hairdresser and the Aliens would pretty much give up. Poor Gossamer!

 

[jinglesassy]

Hey i have proof aliens are already attacking us with a picture they are already here! :lol:

 

[T.Neo]

Why not? Earth's tectonic activity is good for exposing deep residing core metals and metamorphic minerals.

A small asteroid could have trillions of dollars worth of precious metal content, although it wouldn't be in concentrated ores as it is on Earth. But it would not have the issues like our gravity well and atmosphere.

 

[SiberianTiger]

A small asteroid could have trillions of dollars worth of precious metal content, although it wouldn't be in concentrated ores as it is on Earth. But it would not have the issues like our gravity well and atmosphere.

Ok then, so they may be interested in things like coal, oil, carbonates, cellulose, etc., which all are product of organic life.