What do you think realistically would happen the moment we meet extraterrestrials?

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• ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Seeing how incohrrent and fractured humanity is, we’d meet them with a jumbled mix of:

  • Rabid xenophobia
  • Aggressively trying to convert them to a dozen of our different religions
  • Forming multiple cults worshipping them as gods
  • Creating a shit load of really weird rule 34 AI-generated porn focused on them
  • Dismissing their existence as some sort of a deep fake conspiracy
  • Trying to sell them some worthless shit for a massive profit
  • Trying to sell them fellow humans as slaves
  • Trying to steal their technology to conquer the galaxy
  • Flooding then with brainrot memes for the lolz
  • Trying to destroy them with conventional weapons

  And they would see all this and either destroy us in disgust or get the hell out of the solar system ASAP and cordon it off with hazard signs.

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  • bitteroldcoot@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The reality of course, is they already have seen what we are like and chose not to talk to us.

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  • finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Don’t forget, someone from 4chan’s /x/ would try to fuck one of them. In public. At the reveal.

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  • tomiant@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You forgot “eat them”.

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  • fraksken@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Or maybe they’d be totally into the rule34 thing.

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  • daggermoon@piefed.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I like the one about the memes.

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• sbeak@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Given that they have the means to have travelled from another world (presumably from outside the Solar System, as there are no signs of space colonising extraterrestrials in our neighbourhood we can observe), they must be technologically far superior to us. My guess is that they would treat us, little guys on a blue marble, like we do with ants.

  Although ants have a very intricate way of life, with jobs, conflict, infrastructure, etc., most humans don’t put too much thought into keeping them safe, we trample on their cities that we say are primitive compared to our own, and we export some ants to new worlds. Additionally, even among our own species, colonialism was commonplace in all parts of the world throughout the world and its remnants still exists today, as one group of people believed they were superior to another.

  Intelligent extraterrestrials capable of interplanetary (and probably interstellar) travel would definitely outclass us in every metric, and they could easily wipe us out, either by accident or on purpose (through disease, conflict, colonisation, etc.)

  However, I hope that these extraterrestrials eventually acknowledge our existence as a civilisation. A little like how there are entomologists who study ants for a living and conservationists who preserve their habitats. Or perhaps organisations like UNESCO, in charge of protecting dying cultures and lost traditions, could be formed these extraterrestrials. Maybe treaties of reparations and acknowledgement of past crimes would be signed between our species, like how many countries do today.

  That’s just my thoughts though.

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  • neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Id think they’d treat us like how we treat a remote tribe that’s been isolated from humanity for hundreds/thousands of years.

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    • tomiant@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I think this is basically us.

      I feel like we are not alone because the Universe doesn’t do things just once, and the only thing less likely to be the case is if there’s just two species for some reason, they and us. Which gives that life is ubiquitous and therefore not that interesting, so if we were to be contacted it’d be some alien researcher writing another boring thesis on uncontacted civilizations like ours that are about to kill themselves off due to dumb.

      Like, maybe they’d catalogue us for posterity or something.

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    • MousePotatoDoesStuff@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Was that one guy that tried to contact them their Roswell moment?

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  • a4ng3l@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I would assume that it would take a lot of stability to reach a technology level compatible with interstellar travel. It would be only achievable for a specie that reached a very peaceful way of life. So I would assume they would be rather benevolent and avoid any accidental wipeout.

    Now would they care at all… maybe as scholars of the universe ?

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• Adderbox76@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Within less than an hour, Rule 34 will come into effect and someone will make a porn-film about them.

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• Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  If they came to us it would not be for the resources on earth, there are plenty more in space easier to get. I think it would be curiosity. They would study us, and probably all life on the planet.

  Hopefully with curiosity comes empathy and they uplift us.

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  • Spacehooks@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Also could just be determined exterminators or want to diversify diet.

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    • Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Exterminators could just throw a rock at 0.1c no need to land.

      Diet though, reminds me of the Peter Jackson masterpiece, Bad Taste.

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  • Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Perhaps they’re after the resources which aren’t so common elsewhere, like oxygen. Maybe they would turn Earth into an oxygen farm.

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    • Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Water is common out there, pretty simple to get oxygen.

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    • yngmnwntr@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Wood. Hard wood usable for building hasn’t evolved anywhere else in the known galaxy. Fine wooden furniture imported from Earth. The Amazon is being cut down and exported to alien worlds.

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• chaosCruiser@futurology.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  

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  • tomiant@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Sigh…. If only…

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• NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  War, then our extermination.

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  • Lasherz12@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I think in the event of war, it would be about as long as the time it takes for us to announce the war until it’s over. The technology to freely planet hop from another solar system is like the large hadron collider vs an ant using a leaf to cross a puddle.

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    • NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Oh yeah, that’s exactly how I see it going down. Before we could finish saying “kill ‘em all!” they’d have killed us all.

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• darthelmet@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Die of some random common illness we don’t have any antibodies for.

  Hopefully a species advanced enough to master interstellar travel would be mindful of that kind of thing though. I suppose at least they would probably be protecting themselves against that, so maybe it would go both ways?

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  • upandatom@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Our strongest EMP rays did nothing to them, but in the end they succumbed to a simple stick.

    There is also just the possibility that their common illness affects something biologically they possess that we do not.

    I too hope the protections would go both ways. I guess it depends if whatever they’d exhaust is toxic to us

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  • Lasherz12@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’ve heard that carbon is not necessarily the best basis for self replicating structures. Silicon is able to form a lot of similarly complex bonds that carbon is with a similar chain of reactions to our own. I don’t know if another life form from the ground up would even have diseases, although I guess cancer is pretty likely in any self replicating system due to cosmic rays. That would make it pretty hard to space travel though, one would expect their repair mechanisms to far excel beyond the durability of our own, which is actually pretty crap and easily confused with symmetrical DNA chains, excessive damage, repeating sequences, etc. There are other animals on earth that have better repair systems in place than us allowing them to live virtually forever, but none are mammals. Biological Immortality Wiki

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• RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Trump will post on Truth that we had a war and we won.

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• altphoto@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  A little bit of pee comes out.

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  • tomiant@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I’d be PSYCHED. For whatever comes. It’d galvanize humanity. I think our problem is that we don’t have enough external enemies. That’s why we fight each other. Best game on the planet. Bet if aliums showed up we’d come together to destroy them and have a barbecue, and we’d lose, but it’d be nice to all feel like friends for once.

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    • jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I think if we didn’t unite when the air could cripple people, we aren’t uniting over anything external.

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• FanciestPants@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Do you mean like if an alien just showed up on my doorstep and was like, “take me to your leader”? Because I would ask, “How about we just chill here for a bit?” because nothing good is going to come from the next part.

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  • Lasherz12@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Maybe we can all just pretend that Bernie is our leader. It’s a nice thought anyways.

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  • JennaR8r@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Okay but whatever the case, please remember that Barack Obama volunteered to be the ambassador for such an event. So if an alien shows up at your doorstep please contact Barack obama.

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    • Lasherz12@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      We’d better hope they don’t have healing technology to share with us because he’ll give it to the insurance industry to manage after slapping a few guard rails on it.

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• JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  One group will sell out the rest of us, guaranteed.

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• spongebue@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Trying to overcome language barriers, probably.

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• slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  A breakdown in society as people report it as hoaxes, missinformation spreading everywhere, religious groups fragmenting over if they prove or disprove their gods existence. The same bullshit whenever world shaking event happens.

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• ultranaut@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It depends on what the extraterrestrials are like. I think its probable they would be as incomprehensible to us as we are to fish or bugs. I am confident that a significant percentage of people will immediately freak out and react with aggression regardless of what they are like, and that the wealthy will be looking for any way to make money from them, even if it means selling out life on earth.

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• pelley@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Watch the movie “Contact” for a good depiction of this.

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• Shellofbiomatter@lemmus.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Image

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• phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  At this point?

  I see 100% of the world, all the narcissists and psychopaths in power, asking them to please take them away from this horrible world

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  • Aneb@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Take me wit u?

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• melsaskca@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  To be realistic I think they would have scanned our airwaves and observed from afar and decided to get the hell out of this quadrant of the galaxy. If they needed our resources then it would be like the “Independence Day” movie, only the aliens would easily win.

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  • Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Hopefully more like war of the worlds.

    “hey check out this video, they have a contingency plan if we send in ground troops”

    “They sneeze on us and we die?”

    “… We have to check if that works.”

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• T156@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  A fantastic amount of talking. The militaries would want to be in readiness, for example, just in case the extraterrestrials are not friendly, and the diplomatic corps would be doing their best to figure out how to communicate with them.

  A lot of religions might also be thrown a bit into the air by the arrival of aliens, so there would be some chatter there, too.

  Are aliens subject to human rights? Are they beings also made in God’s image, etc.

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• ace_garp@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Pretty much everything from the graphic-novel Signal from Space.

  General societal breakdown in various sectors.

  Also, it would unite most of humanity in ways we have never seen before.

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  • AstralPath@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Contact is another good novel that explores what would happen if we got verifiable radio signals from an alien race.

    I miss Carl Sagan.

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• akunohana@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  fS32895gW2KeFCJ.jpg

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  • Spacehooks@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    His babies are yummy

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• stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I can see three options.

  1. Division, this would divide a lot of groups, and cause a lot of internal rifts.
  2. Unity, a foreign entity could easily be a powerful unifying force.
  3. Biological disaster, either through incompetence or ignorance, we or the aliens don’t practice good biohazard containment, spreading infection throughout our world.

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• wraekscadu@vargar.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I don’t think it would be in the advantage of smart civ to willfully contact another smart civ till it is confirmed that the “to be contacted” civ has a really good understanding of game theory.

  You cannot negotiate mutually assured destruction with a civ that does not understand what mutually assured destruction means.

  Do I think we would be destroyed if some other alien civ finds us? No. If civ A observes civ B destroying civ C, everyone would want to destroy civ B immediately. The possibility of there being peaceful contact for civ B goes away.

  Also, contacting us must be in the benefit of the civ that contacts us (assuming they are rational).

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• corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  1. They remove our ability to leave the planet.
  2. Continually

  Done.

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• SorteKanin@feddit.dk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  What do you mean “meet”? The way we would reach contact is by radio signals at first, not by actual physical visits. So at first we would only be communicating with probably a very long light delay as they’d be very far away. Realistically speaking neither would be able to visit the other in any feasible way, unless they have technology that is far, far beyond what we can imagine right now. Interstellar travel is very hard.

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  • wabafee@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    In that scenario how do you think of us would react knowing there is someone out there and we just confirmed only through radio.

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    • SorteKanin@feddit.dk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I think there would be a whole lot of excitement, possibly a lot of religious turmoil.

      I’d recommend the movie “Contact” which explores this exact scenario :)

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• early_riser@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I like to think it’s also the aliens’ first contact too, and they’re really happy to find us after groping around alone in the darkness.

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• Th4tGuyII@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Their attitude towards us really depends on what their evolutionary pressures were. If resources were/are plentiful, they might have a less aggressive nature and simply wish to meet us.
  Otherwise, we might be on the chopping block.

  As for us. I imagine a decent portion of humanity would immediately default to rampant xenophobia or weirdly sexual obsession.

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• Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  With every major discovery in science ultimately being pretty boring, I would expect to be disappointed that the aliens look exactly like humans or something like that.

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• HiTekRedNek@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  When one civilization meets another,.far more advanced, civilization, ehat tends to happen to the less advanced one?

  Yeah, that. It’s gonna suck.

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  • Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Doubtful. That happened here because we need both resources and living space while harvesting those resources. Anything aliens need can be gotten from hundreds of dead worlds and asteroids and stars. And any civilization able to cross galaxies should be able to make their own mobile livingspaces just as comfortable as a planet.

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• HubertManne@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Its so hard to say. So much depends on what is possible interstellar travel wise. If light speed is the limit it would likely be with probes and its kinda unlikely that if they could send things out that far and communicate back that they would need many elemental resources and they would have energy needs solved. Honestly I think its very unlikely we would meet any unless we travel outward. Like I think its more likely their probes would meet our probes and maybe we could get somewhat of an idea of where we came from and where we are going but it would take years to have communications. If there is something faster then its essentially magic by our standards and that just makes things more up in the air.

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  • greedytacothief@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    That’s what I was thinking, a probe would gather some information. Maybe we would send a probe of our own in their direction.

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