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Post #1
It's a common theme in movies regarding alien invasions (or even peaceful arrivals) that upon contact, Earth will put away its domestic squabbles and unite as one.
Usually it's done by humanity rebuilding itself after an alien invasion wipes out a great deal of Earth's governments, people and infrastructures - basically eradicating "borders" of countries in a way. Forgetting the scifi horrors, I think it's safe to assume that any intelligent, civilized extraterrestrial life that contacts or reaches Earth will be fairly peaceful in reality.
So, if aliens make contact with Earth either by landing or other means, would Earth unite itself?
I think not. Or at the very least, not at first. If mankind has the ability to simply "unite" itself out of the blue, it would have done so already. There are too many cultural, economic and political conflicts across the entire globe to simply drop at the appearance of an out of this world people. If the extraterrestrials are peaceful like I'm assuming, Earth may grow to unite itself but it'll be years - maybe decades - before we truly become "one people" among the stars.
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I'm inclined to say yes, but it would take quite a long time. how long would depend on many factors such as the nature of the aliums, current/alien technology, what we could glean from contact, societal progress at the time...
nothing ever happens instantly, though. it's asinine to believe that everybody would drop their prejudices just because of contact with aliums. I think there would be a large number of incidents involving groups (Earth 'nationalists' for example) fighting change, trying to secure a place of dominance (formerly dominant countries), even just random acts of terrorism.
even in the star trek universe, which is pretty much the most optimistic hand-holding vision of humanity's future among the stars I've yet encountered, it took over a hundred years for humanity to really put their conflicts on earth to bed.
tl;dr i agree with you
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No, Earth would not unite, nor would any other planet in my opinion. There will always be those who want control over others, and they would all fight to be the supreme ruler, but no one would ever reach that goal.
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Depends on the extent on how they meet us, in my opinion. Really I see one of two options;
1. If they come as invaders, then we will most likely unite otherwise we may face extinction, and surely most people would relise this.
2.If they come in peace then, I can personaly see countries not banding together as there isn't anything that requiers this change to happen, plus there would be arguments over who should represent our entire race, and rule.
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Say we defeat the invaders and kick them off our planet.
Would unity stick? Or fall apart once the threat is gone?
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I think any sort of major change, and this is a pretty big one, will lead to war (between ourselves). One main reason is that the aliens will have more advanced technology to us (as they came here), and a large number of people will surely want this technology. However, this might actually have the effect of uniting rather than war, as if people think that they will need to act together to get to this. There will always be conflict from people who see the aliens as dangerous, possibly religious leaders. I can see the Arabian nations fighting among themselves to weather it is permitted, and the majority of the western world fighting over who will get the tech, who will meet the aliens etc.., in the end it will probably be the Arabian and Asiatic nations who will get it in the first place and possibly integrate better with the ET's
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I for one think that Earth would unite to solve the alien problem through an ancient plan that always works: Beat the everliving fuck out of it. It that doesn't work, beat it more.
Even if the politicians were against it, they would quickly be replaced because aliens need bashing, no time for politics.. Truly, you would be surprised over how humans would react like that.
After the threat is gone, however, humanity would quickly fall and revert to their original state.
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I agree with the above poster.
Destroying the aliens would be pretty easy, don't you think? We could just nuke them before they reach Earth.
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or, you know, be destroyed by the backing force of the aliens
Edited:
nukes are very unuseful in space, as their em radiation could easily knock out our electronic grids whiles probably doing minimal damage to the aliens who have much more advanced tech to us
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If the aliens had developed FTL speed travel to get here in the first place, I think it would be a safe bet that they would have exponentially superior technology to ours and we'd probably be fucked.
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In my dreams the earth would unite and would in a way become "one" with itself.
The moment when we will recognize ourselves as "humanity" instead of Americans, Asians and Europeans. This is all wishful thinking though. The path for this future is long, but I believe that if we don't blow ourselves up, that day will come.
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I think it would unite really. At least against the aliens if they invade us.
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Travelling at those kind of speeds through space means colliding with a tiny particle of dust can result in a collision with much, much more energy than any nuke we've ever created. I'd have guessed the aliens would have solved this problem, probably by a shield of some sort. Our only hope is to recruit Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum for the case.
In asnwer to the question I would think at first we would unit but cracks would show in the relationships when particular nations appear to be getting too friendly with the aliens in a possible attempt to recreate their technology without the knowledge of the other nations.
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What if the aliens were less advanced in technology etc but had just been floating through space on a derelict shuttle? I think in that case humanity might unite as an oppressor.
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Doubtful considering those like me would trade our friends to the aliens in exchange for leniency and dope-ass alien shit.
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anyway, there would be peace at the start, even if it is not at the top levels
Edited:
i would hate to see district 9 happen
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I think it would, though not necessarily for the right reasons.
Uniting as a single planet would be somewhat a form of continued territorial behavior. If we united as a single planet before contact, it'd be a different story.
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Does it have to be aliens when the Earth starts to get their shit together if ever?
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Why not?
Wasn't the European Union and the United Nations the result of conflicts?
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yes, but alliances made with conflicts generally don't last very long, you can already see the cracks in the UN and the EU is leaking like...something which leaks a lot?
If ET did say 'hi' there would be conflict between the big hitters and whilst no one's looking someone with slip by and say 'hi' back
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Yeah and they're never at odds with one another.
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I mean, both of the organizations were the results of conflicts with the goal to unite us and prevent large scale conflicts like the two world wars. Obviously it's not that effective, but at least they're trying.
I mean if god damn Reapers drop down from the sky, I'm quite sure people would stop fucking around with each other.
Edited:
Alternatively they'd fuck each other harder in panic.
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Doubtful. Paranoia and mistrust tend to run high under stress.
Keeping with the Mass Effect example:
Remember that shit EDI said about the Reapers offering leniency for information on resistance fighters? And how nobody gave any real information? Yeah, that's bullshit. That shit happens for real here, and people play turncoat all of the time. It is incredibly easy to drive a wedge between allies out here in the real world. Aliens wouldn't even have to try. All they'd have to do is go to, say, the US and go "okay, we're going to kill everyone except the Mexicans. Dominicans, they can fuck right off, but the Mexicans we're cool." Do you really think the rest of the country wouldn't turn right around after that and start beating the fuck out of Mexicans? Hell, they'd probably start wailing on Dominicans, too, even though Dominicans weren't granted space-leniency, because it's not like anyone here can tell the difference. That sort of thing happens for no reason already.
With everyone in a panic, it's incredibly easy to create an outlet for violence within their own ranks. The CIA does that shit weekly.
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Yeah the thought struck me after a bit of thinking, but you were faster than my edit.
Edited:
We act so intelligent and reasonable before and after conflicts, making up cool rules and all. But when something happens, all you can do is guess what we'd do.
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Place a message on my profile stating how you feel towards me. (obligatory: scriptkiddy destroyer)
March 2012
3,123 Posts
I think not, seeing as there will always be irrational people, and misguided people who then follow these misguided people.
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there will be no peace untill every human child is forcefully educated in the exact same manner. there will be conflicts as long as people keep growing up in different environments and societies.
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there will be no peace, because if there is then there is no reason to live
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Unite? No. Work towards a common goal? Yes. Look at the space station, or the united nations.
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just as an aside, can we please stop referencing the united nations as something good
they are united to letting their peacekeepers get away with raping brown people in impoverished nations.
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If the topic was about uniting as a force of good, sure. But it's not.
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Well I mean, if they came to destroy us we would be gone in an instant. If they had the technology to travel to Earth they would probably have the capabilities of bombing the shit out of us without even entering our atmosphere. Shit would be fucked.
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I honestly believe that Humanity will reach a developmental stagnancy until we can fully begin to cooperate with each other, even in the presence of extraterrestrials, nations would probably try to either be the heroes to ally with them, or heroes in defeating them, the Human race is far to extreme and selfish in order to create a stable and unified Earth.
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possibly, but (I dont know that much about history, but it must have happened some times in the distant past) generally the people at the cutting edge, eg astronauts, generally are exempt from the pettiness surrounding politics, eg the "co-operation" between the cosmonauts and astronauts. Also, there will probably be more independent groups capable of contact who probably will
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Well yeah, countries hate one another then aliens start to pwn earth, then other countries say"what? we have to join together even so how much we hate one another we'll force ourselves to defend our world for the sake of other countries we despise?".
Pretty much the jist of it. Even terrorist groups would force themselves to fight along side to survive. But only that they would just fight for themselves and let others do their own shit.
I doubt aliens would come out nowhere for no apparent to start killing off beings they hardly even need to kill in the first place as some stupid excuse.
"oh noes our planet is now dead, we come to earth to rebuild and destroy some pesky humans that settled upon a new planet we think we should own"
jelly aliens?
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"people give DBS shit all the time but he's really a good guy and i'm glad he's my friend" -no one
March 2009
17,005 Posts
Yes we would unite because it gives us a common foe. For the first time, we could partition the world into an ingroup/outgroup, where the ingroup contains the entirety of humanity. That has never before happened in Earth's history, but it's not an extraordinary step to take. People form communities form small towns form citystates form coalitions form countries. We're already well past the limit on how many individual relations a human brain can form (~150) and we seem to be chugging along fine, so there doesn't seem to be an upper limit as to how large a human society can get.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbers...ave_Experiment
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If the current state of the world is "Chugging along fine" I'd HATE to see "Utter bloody chaos.
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Look at our planet; do you believe any higher intelligence would become public to such a global condition? If any attempt were to be made, it would then be private, with whom appropriate; thus leaving injections to question.
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He's talking about society, not global economic and political status.
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Even if humans pulled together and nuked the shit out of some alien invaders, that still wouldn't change the way we are, like today. Not unless we want change, or force it, or whatever.
