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Everybody talks about eventual aliens we contact like they're either going to be evil conquerers (space fascists) or peaceful explorers (space commies), but I think the funniest outcome would be if they ended up being enlightened centrist space libs.
Like, they'll have aliens on board who'll want to enslave us, but they'll first have to debate and vote on what to do back on their home planet.
Actually, aliens found us years ago, but haven't made any action towards us yet cause they're trying to figure it out through liberal democracy. Basically, every 4 years a different government comes into power and they change plans on what to do with us which has resulted in like 20 years of inaction -- they mainly use us for bullshit political campaign points at this point.
EDIT: Actually, isn't this basically Mass Effect? If I remember the story correctly, aliens observed us until we reached a certain level of technology and then they showed up and invited us into space NATO lol
The space alt-right just elected space Trump and they're building a wall around our solar system
That would be justified though.
Also, aliens can you build us a dyson sphere to live on instead?
That would solve a lot of problems and adequately encapsulate us. I know it's expensive but like... please?
If you have built dyson spheres it nbd to do another right?
if you haven't you know you wanna... you know you do. great experiment actually
You don't really live on a Dyson sphere. It's used to harvest power from a star. You can have orbital habitats that orbit with the rest of the Dyson sphere and live on those. If you really want to live on an impractical megastructure then you want a Ringworld.
What's wrong with living on a dyson sphere?
edit: no gravity and it can drift.
Dyson was proposing a swarm.
Star Trek lied to me. :(
You got it, Dyson spheres don't naturally have 'gravity'. You could build habitats that orbit the sun just outside the Dyson sphere. I'm partial to O'Neill Cylinders myself, a big cigar shaped space-station that spins to provide artificial gravity. You could also make Bishop Rings which are basically tiny ringworlds that don't have the sun at the center. Alternately, genemod our dependence on gravity away and you don't even need to provide artificial gravity, we could just live in a large swarm of non-rotating artificial space stations.
Not exactly. There was a race that was observing humanity 50,000 years before called the Protheans that the series until 3 posited that they were a super enlightened democratic society, until 3 dropped that they were actually marauding imperials who were planning to enslave humanity and the other modern dominant species to fight their fascist wars until they got owned by the Reapers who imo rightly slaughtered them. Humanity accidentally discovered modern day space NATO because they just aggressively activated Mass Effect relays and colonized other planets until they accidentally ran into a turian patrol fleet, immediately attacked them, fought like a 2 month war over nothing, got owned, then got invited to space NATO as one of the shittier races. So PRETTY much how I envision a future confrontation with an alien species assuming we have a united space military headed by the west.
Why have no space missionaries defied liberal space law to visit us anyway?
Nah there is no way sophisticated space travel like that would happen under capitalism. They'd run out of resources/destroy their planet before they make it.
Besides, privately run companies are inefficient and waste a bunch of time chasing profit and doing stupid shit like sending burgers into orbit.
Look at Space X, they can't even do anything worthwhile with the technology Nasa invented 50 years ago. They've created nothing new and have just made their own bastardised version. They don't give a shit about Space exploration (outside of exploiting it) so they do stupid shit that cripples astronomy like sending a fuckton of super-bright Starlink satellites into orbit without thinking things through.
Edit: Just pray that they aren't Vogons.
You're telling me if capitalists discovered a planet with huge amounts of resources and a primitive population that could be enslaved they wouldn't find a way to colonize that shit? You're way too optimistic.
Getting resources off earth is a lot harder than getting resources out of the asteroid belt. There's undoubtedly a lot of asteroid belts between us and them.
With our dumb ass stupid technology, we're within a few decades to rendering human labor obsolete. If they can get here, I think they're more likely to eat us than enslave us.
This is literally why the Anunnaki created humans in the first place
Oh, I think they would if they could. I just think they'd either have destroyed their home planet/themselves before they achieve that level of technology, or they would be too incompetent/stupidly run to ever get to that level.
hot take but there's no way an interstellar society could be capitalist
If someone invented hyperdrive or whatever I could see it being used to colonize and mine and exploit new planets. But given our current understanding of the laws of physics yeah you're right, that would require long-term planning and cooperation, both of which are incompatible with capitalism.
Capitalism is inherently inefficient. If a species becomes interstellar it will almost certainly not be capitalist.
Considering modern physical constrains interstellar travel is one of the most wasteful things you can do. It's basically a golden toilet of civilizational development. If aliens are stupid enough to travel to Earth at sublight speed they are probably capitalists.
There's an incredible short story I read about aliens who just wanted to come to Earth for sex tourism.
I don’t know. If everyones needs and desires are met because they don’t live under capitalism why wouldn’t they explore space?
the man is an 87 year old who says he didn't say anything 5 years ago becasue people would say he's crazy.
He claims the US has a base with the aliens on mars.
We can't manage COVID.
counterpoint: the galactic federation is using covid-19 to weed out the liberal mask wearers
Don't worry Earthlings, our exploitation of your planet will create jobs and enrich our economy, rejoice!
Yeah, I do wonder sometimes if the people calling our current epoch "late stage capitalism" are being wildly optimistic.
Gonna be Latter Day Capitalists for the next 400 years.
If you're a good Capitalist, when you die the Invisible Hand will pick up your soul and carry you to your own Corporation where you get to be Boss.
That’s fair. I was thinking about water/atmosphere/Goldilocks climate actually but there’s probably other places less of a nuisance to get that from as well.
Our transendence starts with the appearance of the monoliths and earth will change exactly as it did in AI. Kubrik is scary sometimes XD
I'd commit head in microwave or bullet in mouth. Literally no reason to exist at that point.
Kind of hope the aliens are dummy thicc and I can clap cheeks
