"Would we do it?" Topic

nemopholist,

What kind of a fantasy world are you living in?

They may find that we are not so easy to kill???

I do not know if you have stuck your head out of the door lately, but people are DAMNED easy to kill. We do it all the time. The USA is doing it RIGHT NOW in Afghanistan and Iraq. AlQueda is trying to figure out how to bring in another few thousand "Infidels" to their "deserved end" (In the fanatic's PoV)…

If some Aliens cruised in from Light Years away, I imagine that it would be no small feat for them to go and select an appropriate sized rock to drop on anyone who they considered "Recalcitrant" and there is damned little that we could do to stop them.

Oh… we could throw nuke's at them… some might say…

Nuclear weapons in space are no-where as effective as they are on a planet. Plus, we would have to hit a target that could move itself. We currently have nothing that could chase down an alien ship that was trying to avoid being nuked…

Plus, as others have pointed out… The planet is WAY overcrowded. Is it any more or less humane to use this situation to out advantage than to just let the excess population starve to death?

As to the point that any alien society yhat cruised in juust to set up an interstellar ranch would be able to help us out…

That was one of my main points: That with the combined technology between our own and theres would allow us to solve many of our own social problems as well as provide them with whatever "food" they may need, and to find a solution to the problem that would not require them to constantly "feed" off of us…

In another thread there was a quote from Arthur C Clarke "Whatever is possible in imperitive"… If the Aliens have the capacity to take the food that they want they will, and all we will be able to do about it is watch.

If they give us a choice, then we will be able to make certain decisions about who should be given to them, and in the process rid the world of "Undesirables" (I know that is a VERY contintious word, but try to avoid what exactly is meant by "Undesirables" for the moment) and those who are doomed to die anyway.

If they give us the choice, we would be able to make use of cloning technologies to allow them to just take the genetic material that they need and clone all the food that they want. That is still a rather grim solution, but at least they would not be TAKING someone from the planet who might otherwise have lived their life out here….

As far as "Cleaning up" the earth… If they were pragmatic aliens… That would be their first duty, as any rancher knows that if the cows are in chaos, getting them corraled and fed is the first job… Happy cows make the best cows and the best beef…I would think that a Human Ranch would be no different. That it would be bad for their "stock" to be half starving…

Who knows… There may be some ID4 or WoTW solution where some intrepid individual may come up with a solution all on their own…

But, I have discovered that the real world just doesn't seem to work like hollywood.

Ok, every one seemed to have ignored my third option so I'll go down the path with the rest of you.

Let's say the aliens are being pragmatic about this and giving us the choice. Problem is do you want to eat a sick looking animal? No. Well I seriously doubt the aliens would want to either, fact they'd probably get upset if we kept trying to past off our worst on them. Then they'd just turn around and say the deal is off, we're taking what we want.

Now the real problem, you will have groups of people all over the globe that will not be able to come to a descision on this matter. Some will gladdly sell their fellow humans to the aliens as food only to save their own hide. And even if the goverments mandate a lottery for who will be given as food, it will meet with heavy resistance.

The alien's offer no matter how pragmatic will only serve to further the divide between the haves and the have nots. Any way you look at it no one will be happy with the out come. Some would rather go down fighting even if there is no chance of winning, and others will gladdly surrender for the hopes of a utopia that will come from such a deal.

That's why I'd still go for my third option of let's just blow ourselves up. Aliens might not find us as edible once they found out what a lot of humans are like in the end anyways.

I agree with Otto here. Right is right, and there can be no compromise – ever! So the question becomes "Do we deserve to survive?". Are we the kind of people that can so timidly surrender?

I think not.

Right is right?

This is a discussion about hypothetical aliens who want to use us as a food source.

Human notions of morality probably have nothing to do with such a decision for the aliens, and any halfway intelligent human will probably want to survive.

The only way to do that is to not be eaten, and not be blown up by people who want to take all of humanity with them simply because they cannot stomach the idea that we are no longer the peak of the food chain or the "most intelligent" on the block…

Do we deserve to survive?

That has nothing to do with "Timidly surrendering", timidly surrendering may be the road to survival…

Best way is to find a way to make ourselves suffienciently poisonous to them that we are no longer a cheap food source. Of course we'd have to find a way to do that without posioning ourselves.

@palaeoemrus….that 'poisoning the well' idea was what was used in an episode of STARGATE:ATLANTIS…where the 'wraiths' (who feed on life-force energy like vampires)…ran into a human race that found a 'toxin' that the MINUTE a 'wraith' locked onto a human…they were 'poisoned' and they died shortly thereafer…or something like that.

The human who 'volunteered' to test the 'poinson' was already 'dying' and had 'nothing to lose'…Then the people started giving themselves the shots and found out that the toxin/innoculation had over 50% mortality rate…but as a people…they decided it was better to die trying….so that some of their race would survive…and be 'indigestible' to the wraith/their civilization would survive. (They also built underground libraries, etc…where before each 'culling' by the wraith…(which pretty much decimated the planet population-wise)…their knowledge would survive).

I still have to 'wonder' at the 'Malthusian'? solutions….where it's 'acceptible' in any way, shape or form to allow?/accept such a 'choice'. Earth may be over-populated, resources may be 'scarce' and there are 'dregs of humanity' that we could all do better WITHOUT…but playing 'God' to do it???

You still get down to WHO makes the 'decisions' and for whom the decisions are MADE. The aliens may set 'guidelines' for WHAT/who they would accept…(no sick, chemically 'polluted', stupid?) etc…maybe they only want body-builders, people with IQ's higher than their shoe size etc…because they are more 'tasty/take better care' of themselves…maybe they only want them for their 'braaaaaaaainnnnnsss'…(couldn't resist that)…or just 'overweight' or prefer 'dark meat to white, yellow or other shades'…(flavors)???

I find this whole topic EXTREMELY disturbing no matter that is it 'fictional'…because it does show the 'disparity' just among our little 'community' of TMP…how could we possibly deal with it as a PLANET????

I honestly don't think that if it came to THAT…that we'd 'have a choice'…(ala WOTW/Tom Cruise version)…The humans they didn't 'chum' for fertilizer directly…were 'vaporized'…(leaving their clothing intact????)…which leads me to belive that they were just 'dehydrated/turned into human 'flour'??? as 'fertilizer' too…(not just INCINERATED)…

One has to wonder what the aliens would have done when ALL the humans were gone…to keep the red weed 'going'…or whether it was like the old 'indian trick' of planting corn seed with a 'fish' for 'fertilizer'…to get it 'started' properly??? That after the red weed got going/humanity was all converted to 'fertilizer'…that they wouldn't need us?…and what about all the animals? Were they vaporizing/chumming cattle, deer, horses, etc…or 'vaporizing' them for 'fertilizer' too…or JUST humans? What about sea-life, plants, trees…etc??? There is a lot of 'biomass' other than JUST humans on earth…What about all that???

Maybe they planned to harvest the bulk of humanity to get things 'started' then take the survivors and start 'ranching'???? but they didn't last long enough for us to find out. I think the movie said that the aliens were defeated by the smallest of living things…at the cost of a BILLION human beings…(out of 6BILLION approx on earth???)…so 1/6th of humanity had to 'die' before the bacteria KILLED the aliens???? You'd have thought they would have planned better! 8-/

And even if we 'poisoned the well' and enough of humanity survived it to keep civilization going…what's to stop the aliens from 'burning the bridge' behind them…as an 'example' to other species considering the same????

Kirk may not have believed in the 'no-win/Kobyashi Maru' scenario..but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

What makes anyone think that if we DID give in to such demands…they would HONOR their side of 'deal'…(didn't several countries try that when Hitler started 'annexing' countries for Germany pre-WWII'…placation or something like that??? Give them a big enough sandwich and they'll leave your dinner alone???

I, personally would say…'no deal'…period, no matter what. But, who says that my 'say' will have any effect at ALL…on any level if such choices were to be offered. IF another 'species' decided we were 'chow'…and had the technology to TAKE what they wanted…why would they 'give us a choice'…and what makes anyone think they would have the 'morals' to keep their 'side' of the 'deal'?

Look at our own history…how 'superior technology/higher levels of civilization' have treated lesser cultures'…even when the civilization that was 'overwhelmed' might actually have been a better one than the one that 'conqured' it???

I'm probably going to be 'lunch' one way or another….IF anyone OTHER than me has the 'say'….and IF something as UNTHINKABLE as aliens coming to earth to open a McHuman chain of 'fast food' shops were to happen…I'm sure that the best and worst of humanity will come out. Whether it would be WORTH 'surviving' that is another story. Personally, I'd rather go out fighting or take them WITH us…

Makes you look at 'lunch' a whole new way, doesn't it…(good thing jelly doughnuts don't scream…at least that we can hear????)

Carpe' sicktomystomach'um,
Lt DWW

Hi Parsival and Gang,

[[[Dear Alien Leader:
We have selected option B, and have made provisions to aid your selection process of those volunteering to be in the 10%. An announcement has been published in a Danish newspaper; volunteers who respond will gather in streets around the world, waving signs, throwing rocks and igniting fires. Enjoy your dinner.]]]

Thanks for the amusing byline!

Seriously though, I don't like the idea of setting the precedent that human beings can be sold to alien conquerors, whether the best or worst of us.

And worst of all, too many of humanity's cultures already set a bad example by retaining slavery practices. Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, etc. All have problems with slavery. It's rife through the Arabian peninsula and North Africa. If aliens ever do land, I hope they don't judge our cultural mores from that corner of the world.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.