06 of 30 - IV - When the Aliens Arrive

[emosnail]

   Many many movies, books, and television series have addressed the idea of what happens if aliens arrive at Earth. Usually the aliens want to kill us all, but sometimes they just want to probe a few people and draw pictures in their fields. But what happens if the aliens are friendly and helpful

Comments

[neugotik]

starbucks Klingon? heh. Nice photo of you drinking what - Belgian Beer? Yum. That or some brandy or wine,er anyhows.

I also am guilty of picking up some of the star wars stamps today: I thought I would just get one sheet but they're cool painting/drawings and nicely done - I got a few sheets - they're neat. the ships are very cool stamps.

Where's my towel? I need my towel to fall asleep now: heh.

[emosnail]

Hah my dad got some of those stamps. This time I had some coffee porter or something. It was extremely good. Last time I had a barleywine though, which was quite good as well. What I love about going there is in addition to their own products they carry a lot of really good craft brews from elsewhere as well.

[witless_nerd]

Uhm is stone brewery in Mission Viejo? or where is it? I always wondered actually.

[emosnail]

San Marcos, just north of San Diego. Its definitly worth a visit if you're ever in the area.

[witless_nerd]

Still twenty, but yes, one day

[metalphoenix]

But see, the aliens would also see the human race as a vast pool of cheap labor! Obviously we'd become third-world (third-universe?) overnight, but over time as the money flows into our planet as they outsource(because why wouldn't they use our resources first if they can afford it?) we will slowly start developing and maybe someday overthrow their economy! Of course, our planet will be completely devoid of any resources to use for ourselves, so we'll just have to follow their lead and find some other planet and start the cycle all over again.

[emosnail]

Yeah thats an interesting other alternative. In that case, the economic political power relationships on Earth would suddenly be thrown upside down, as the "advanced" technology of the Western World would account for nothing, and the population and resource rich current third-world countries would probably be handling most of the intersteller business. Suddenly Angola is a world power, etc!

[eazyt]

Awesome Klingon bird of prey.

I have always thought that any race capable of interstellar travel (assuming we don't have aliens hiding underground on Mars or camping out on Europa) would be socially evolved enough to know not to interfere with lesser-developed people. Then again, there may be those out there who are malevolent, only wishing to exploit others for technology and supplies and whatnot.

So I guess ultimately we won't find until either we attain the ability ourselves for interstellar travel, OR it gets around that we have something someone out there wants.

Prime Directive

[emosnail]

I dunno, why would they necessarily "know not to interfere with lesser-developed people"? That seems like an ethical axiom that really aliens from a different perspective could easily take in a completely opposite direction.

Anyway my tenet here is that, the possibility that they'll juts want to exploit our supplies has been gone over in a number of movies and such, but what if their ethical take on the "prime directive" is to be benevolent and charitable and solve world hunger on Earth. Personally, I think its just as likely they'll come to that conclusion as they'll come to either the noninterference or the exploition one.

[nibot]

I disagree with your view of economics. If Aliens provided us with every thing we needed, there would be no need for jobs. Jobs are a cost, not a benefit. There is no such thing as a trade imbalance, in the long run. Money only has value insofar as you can and do exchange it for goods and services. A "trade imbalance" of infinite duration just means that someone is getting something for nothing. Your note about a welfare state is nonsense.

[emosnail]

Well, certainly if everything was in infinite supply, its true that everyone would be happy, BUT to get from point A to point B our economy would have to be completely restructured. Because the first effect WOULD be a significant loss of jobs, and even if stuff is cheap, there'd still have to be an organized way to parcel things out to this new mass of the jobless. And people would still be presumably expected to pay their property taxes and such with valid Earth currency which they are expending to the aliens and not earning any more of themselves