What if a "Benevolent" Alien Invasion happen?
- Thread starter The Great Khan
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tankdrop24
Tread First into Hell
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Imagine saying that to any colonized country. That they're only resisting because they're being contrary.
I'd assume nations like China would go down fighting to the last man because they've been through this shit before, and it's left scars.
the atom
Anarcho-Kemalist Thought Leader
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These things already barely work against first world militaries so I can't imagine an army that's centuries ahead of us would be even momentarily perturbed by these tactics.
Eh...depends. If they're not here to brutalize us, ruin our languages and cultures and strip us of our wealth then I think an argument could be made that resisters are just being contrarians. I mean millions would still do this but still.
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tankdrop24
Tread First into Hell
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The answer is: Of course not. Not even if they think they have the best of intention. That's just the nature of the relation between colonizer and colonized.
I think you are mistaken conquer yes colonizer no they are not here for resources that is stupid why would advance space society care about a planets resources when you have entire planets and others to take like mars or better yet asteroids and don't want forced their religion on earth since if you read the bio I gave to them later on the forum they don't mind other religions as long they don't hurt them, the humans, or others. I assist you read th bio I made but to simplify it the aliens have Dr. Doom mindset were they think would do better job at ruling then the humans but unlike humans don't have alternate goals and simply want betterthe life's of humans even if they have to kill some of them because to them it better fate then allowing us to almost wipe out themselves and almost destroy the planet like what happened to them. I am not saying its right but to them its right thing to do.
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tankdrop24
Tread First into Hell
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Mmmh. They don't want to force their religion on us, just the entire culture context and worldview entwined with it. In all the history of Colonialism, good intentions have almost never stopped cruelties.
If they don't respect human self-determination, and enforce said disrespect with lethal force, then the relationship between humanity and these aliens will always be one of colonized periphery and imperial metropole, unless a campaign of deep cultural genocide is carried out.
If they don't respect human self-determination, and enforce said disrespect with lethal force, then the relationship between humanity and these aliens will always be one of colonized periphery and imperial metropole, unless a campaign of deep cultural genocide is carried out.
Put simply: There is no such thing as a benevolent invasion.
If they understand us well enough to make our lives better, they should understand us enough not to try forcing it at gunpoint.
If they don't understand us well enough to think that force will work... then sure as heck they don't really know what's best for us, eh?
If they understand us well enough to make our lives better, they should understand us enough not to try forcing it at gunpoint.
If they don't understand us well enough to think that force will work... then sure as heck they don't really know what's best for us, eh?
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I'm pretty sure that imperialistic alien invasion and benevolent are mutually exclusive. However if we accept that Alien Man's Burden will somehow not have the issues that have plagued every previous effort by a "developed" society to intervene in a "developing" society I still see it as getting ugly pretty fast. Earthly politics would rearranged into "pro-interventionists" and "anti-interventionists". Propaganda would make people feel hurt by the intervention even if they aren't, while frankly to a lot of people, making a truly egalitarian and prosperous society IS hurtful to their need to have others be beneath them.
More broadly speaking rinsing society of its sins is never going to be quick, easy, or clean. The powerful have worked hard to embed themselves into our institutions and present themselves as essential to it. Toxic groups like reactionaries have worked similarly hard to embed themselves in our culture. To them our society being inefficient and inegalitarian is a feature not a flaw. They will claim that any attempt to purge them from the system to be an attack on the system... and to be honest they wouldn't be wrong. Entrenched as they are, uprooting them would cause a shitton of damage to society, even if the effort is well-intentioned.
This reminds me of a quote I came across:
More broadly speaking rinsing society of its sins is never going to be quick, easy, or clean. The powerful have worked hard to embed themselves into our institutions and present themselves as essential to it. Toxic groups like reactionaries have worked similarly hard to embed themselves in our culture. To them our society being inefficient and inegalitarian is a feature not a flaw. They will claim that any attempt to purge them from the system to be an attack on the system... and to be honest they wouldn't be wrong. Entrenched as they are, uprooting them would cause a shitton of damage to society, even if the effort is well-intentioned.
This reminds me of a quote I came across:
This is why there will be resistance to a truly benevolent alien invasion... but its also why an alien invasion along the terms described would be unlikely to benevolent in the first place. Unless they were to entrust us with their technology and infrastructure, their monopoly on force would be unmatched by that possessed by any terrestrial nation, for whom there is at least some hope of resistance, reform, or revolution.
the atom
Anarcho-Kemalist Thought Leader
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The relation between colonizer/colonized is always about resource extraction or assimilation or extermination. There's never been such a thing as a benevolent colonizer in history, so the usual parallels don't necessarily apply.
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Not sure this will work, first scanning something requires interacting with it this is the cause of us being unable to know both postion and speed, bouncing off light does not have a effect on large masses but huge one on subatomic particle. barring magic a scan detail enough to map the planet on the atomic level perfectly would inject a lot of energy in the system, also a perfect map of people brain would be a living thing, a perfect simulation of a living being would be a living being giving this approach massive ethical issues.
Granted this might be able to be fixed by assuming a less precise simulation that produces mostly correct results in the big picture.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
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How about we turn this one around? Let's ignore for a moment the conditions of the opening post; let's say the aliens, after studying Earth, realize that threatening military action would not work for their purpose, and instead decide to take an economic approach.
Thus, they introduce themselves as visitors, proving their FTL capabilities in some manner that at least scientists would be able to confirm works (past experience has proven that facts aren't enough to persuade politicians not to deny scientific proof), and then, immediately proceed to start uplifting the least developed nations on earth; it's not even necessary that they give up any of their own technology, they can just buy technology that already exists in Earth's first world nations and distribute it freely to the poor nations. We already know that this is technically possible right now, it's just that those with power would oppose it, but since those people are willing to let climate change exacerbate for profit, I can't imagine that they'd refuse to make a profit, especially if the aliens are coy about what they're buying the technology for.
Then, in the span of a couple decades at most, a majority of the poorest nations are sporting things like a completely independent energy grid from solar/other renewable energy plants, have access to enough food, and since most of this work is done by the aliens, Earth's imperialist powers can't just sabotage the regimes or cause revolution, when the regimes the alien wants will have a new, much stronger superpower (the aliens) to back them up. As long as the aliens are genuinely helpful to the poor nations and truly raise standards of living there, it won't be long before a majority of the Earth is a genuine alien protectorate, at which point, what would the richest nation be able to do if the alien started making demands of them? I find like this would make for a more interesting scenario - the aliens are still "benevolent" to an extent, in that they're helping humans, but they're only helping some humans, and with the ultimate intent to slowly build up a reputation for being benevolent, while using human's factionalism against them.
Also, I imagine the aliens would make it very clear that any harm to their envoys, even accidental, would be met with severe retaliation - assassinating an alien ambassador, or bombing a marriage that an alien ambassador was attending, could be considered acts of war, and with orbital surveillance, trying to trick the aliens would be a pretty difficult proposition.
Is there anything that Earth could do to avoid assimilation in such a scenario? And, as is the spirit of the OP post, how many people would actually be willing to provoke the aliens, when they're doing nothing openly hostile (such as threatening bombardments) while still savagely taking apart the advantages that most of the modern exploitation economy uses to prop itself up? How many would actually help and work with them?
Because, the way I see it, a species with access to FTL travel should be smart enough to be able to spot the obvious weaknesses the current system has (since we on Earth can do it already) and use them to tear it down without ever firing a shot. And how the world would deal with that seems like a much more interesting question than merely facing off against a better armed thug.
Thus, they introduce themselves as visitors, proving their FTL capabilities in some manner that at least scientists would be able to confirm works (past experience has proven that facts aren't enough to persuade politicians not to deny scientific proof), and then, immediately proceed to start uplifting the least developed nations on earth; it's not even necessary that they give up any of their own technology, they can just buy technology that already exists in Earth's first world nations and distribute it freely to the poor nations. We already know that this is technically possible right now, it's just that those with power would oppose it, but since those people are willing to let climate change exacerbate for profit, I can't imagine that they'd refuse to make a profit, especially if the aliens are coy about what they're buying the technology for.
Then, in the span of a couple decades at most, a majority of the poorest nations are sporting things like a completely independent energy grid from solar/other renewable energy plants, have access to enough food, and since most of this work is done by the aliens, Earth's imperialist powers can't just sabotage the regimes or cause revolution, when the regimes the alien wants will have a new, much stronger superpower (the aliens) to back them up. As long as the aliens are genuinely helpful to the poor nations and truly raise standards of living there, it won't be long before a majority of the Earth is a genuine alien protectorate, at which point, what would the richest nation be able to do if the alien started making demands of them? I find like this would make for a more interesting scenario - the aliens are still "benevolent" to an extent, in that they're helping humans, but they're only helping some humans, and with the ultimate intent to slowly build up a reputation for being benevolent, while using human's factionalism against them.
Also, I imagine the aliens would make it very clear that any harm to their envoys, even accidental, would be met with severe retaliation - assassinating an alien ambassador, or bombing a marriage that an alien ambassador was attending, could be considered acts of war, and with orbital surveillance, trying to trick the aliens would be a pretty difficult proposition.
Is there anything that Earth could do to avoid assimilation in such a scenario? And, as is the spirit of the OP post, how many people would actually be willing to provoke the aliens, when they're doing nothing openly hostile (such as threatening bombardments) while still savagely taking apart the advantages that most of the modern exploitation economy uses to prop itself up? How many would actually help and work with them?
Because, the way I see it, a species with access to FTL travel should be smart enough to be able to spot the obvious weaknesses the current system has (since we on Earth can do it already) and use them to tear it down without ever firing a shot. And how the world would deal with that seems like a much more interesting question than merely facing off against a better armed thug.
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This would be much harder to break. I remember that this was also a tactic that colonizing countries used, Selling/ Gifting weapons to more desperate groups in order to get those groups to overthrow local tyrants and trade the proceeds (slaves) with their new allies.
A question I would ask at such a point would be if the aliens are homogeneous and all the same species. If they aren't then I would be fairly nervous about them.
One possible scenario would be that a certain nuclear power that shall not be named recognizes the pattern as something they had done in the past and combines that with some religion in order to motivate themselves into a salted earth tactic. In order to remain most dominant power on earth by virtue of there being nothing of value left for the aliens to extract.
A couple thousand years of Chinese history suggests that China will definitely not fight to the last man.
tankdrop24
Tread First into Hell
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Oh course an entire country of people wouldn't.
But they'd probably put up an actual resistance, active or passive, for reasons that can't be summed up as 'secretly cosplays as Eastasisa'
But they'd probably put up an actual resistance, active or passive, for reasons that can't be summed up as 'secretly cosplays as Eastasisa'
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Rule 2: Don’t Be Hateful: The way you refer to China in this thread is beyond the pale.
Ancient China is dead except in Taiwan. China is a communist Orwellian society that has had plenty of time to brainwash its populace.
People in the scheme of things can be herded through many types of manipulations and they don't care in general if their daily life wasn't disrupted or forced. A large majority would be approving if the foreign entity i.e aliens provided improved healthcare, food and higher standard of living. Only those of the few who are the elite, those who are in power and in control who would use propaganda and such to resist in their futile attempts til the aliens grew tired of it.
People are sheep in an analogy, you wouldn't believe how surreal it was to have a jingoistic government a few decades ago that you didn't live through and how it was in comparison on what people think it was normal previously and what was now.
People are sheep in an analogy, you wouldn't believe how surreal it was to have a jingoistic government a few decades ago that you didn't live through and how it was in comparison on what people think it was normal previously and what was now.
This. My reaction to the OP's description of these aliens is it sounds like an imperialist state's propaganda and self-flattering self-conception. Basically no conquerors ever actually resembled these aliens, but lots of conquerors claimed and imagined that they were kind of like these aliens. They sound like the British Empire as imagined by a guy who's nostalgic for it and thinks it was great and thinks it's a tragedy that it collapsed. They sound like American global hegemony as imagined by a George W. Bush type neoconservative. They sound like the future world order imagined by some rich white guy in 1905 who read The White Man's Burden as an unironic pro-imperialist stirring call to action. They sound like the Chinese civilization-state as imagined by a Confucian scholar-official who served the Yongle Emperor.
If I were around in this scenario I'd be noting a dissonance between the aliens' professed motives and self-description and their actual tactics ("we just love you so much and want what's best for you!" while bombing people from orbit), and I'd be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'd be waiting for them to turn half of Uttar Pradesh into a giant open pit mine to get at the Quantium 40 they actually conquered our planet for. I'd be waiting for them to tell us that consuming recreational drugs or eating meat is on the list of things they consider immoral and demand we forbid (just two examples of how the morality they want to impose on us might not be maximally convenient for mainstream Western centrists and liberals, since this discussion seems to be kind of running with the assumption that they're basically The Federation with a Knight Templar Extremist streak). I'd be waiting for this pretty mask to slip and an uglier face underneath to be revealed, because that's always how this sort of thing has worked.
tankdrop24
Tread First into Hell
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Like, even if they aren't really here for our resources, I'm not sure that they'd actually be much better. A certain CS Lewis quote about robber barons and omnipresent moral busybodies come to mind.
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- Australia
This sounds a lot like the Stargate alternate timeline with the race that showed up to "uplift" humans, providing healthcare, extended lifespans, better standards of living and all that, but were secretly practicing eugenics and sterilising the population.
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Wait so where are the aliens taking the troublesome leaders? just out of the public eye, killing them?
My first thoughts on this were: "why don't you just put the whole world in a bottle?" but then I realised that doesn't work cause it was basically what they were doing anyway.
My first thoughts on this were: "why don't you just put the whole world in a bottle?" but then I realised that doesn't work cause it was basically what they were doing anyway.
No; in fact it's logically contradictory since orbital bombardments are "brutal".
In general, their stated goals cannot be achieved without being ruthless and oppressive, whether they employ plain old brute force or something more subtle like mind control. Even if they are militarily invulnerable, there's the issue of passive resistance; unless forced, many people will just ignore their commands or do the opposite out of spite.
If they intend to reshape human society they'll need totalitarian levels of social control and surveillance. For generations at the least, becuse that's how long it takes to totally crush a culture out of existence short of genocide of the population.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
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- Italy
What of the different, economic approach I proposed? Would that require totalitarian levels of social control as well?
No, both because it's less "controlling" in the first place and relies on something other than naked force to enforce cooperation.