You must log in or register to comment.
This writing prompt from about a year ago on the other site is relevant:
Aliens take over the Earth. They then announce that they will be forcing the humans to work a “tyrannical” 4 hours a day 4 days a week in exchange for basic rights like housing. Needless to say they are very confused when the humans celebrate their new alien overlords.
Link, if you wish
I did a similar one a few months back too.
Is there a good, active writing prompts community on Lemmy?
No, none that I know of.
Aliens have probably intercepted internet traffic at this point and without setting foot on the planet have decided that it isn’t worth the visit.
eating popocorn from a distance, wearing safety gogles like galactic adults
Calling their friends around the galaxy to watch this new content they found that’s hilarious
protected by rain ponchos and plastic sheets like expectant audience members at a gallagher show
A civilization capable of interstellar imperialism* would be focused on long-term exploitation of less primitive societies, so they would probably manage us better than the current elites do. A more educated, healthy worker is simply more productive than the alternative, especially in the long term.
- unless it is some kind of swarm of space locusts that just devour everything in their path.
Or they would manage us to their own desires. I wouldn’t say imperialism of conquered peoples went well for people on Earth.
Hell, there are several noted cases of deindustrialization, like the British Raj in India, where the imperial power pushed a civilization back into resource extraction. Why would an alien civilization colonize us for anything other than natural resources?
And there are several examples where humans weren’t treated well in a resource extraction economy. Sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean were where slaves went to die.
Why would an alien civilization colonize us for anything other than natural resources?
Space is full of mineral resources, going to a random planet with a relatively high gravity well just for some rocks would be counter productive. And an advanced civilization would probably use a lot of automation for resource extraction.
And there are several examples where humans weren’t treated well in a resource extraction economy. Sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean were where slaves went to die.
That part is true. But the question is what could the aliens get from us that couldn’t be made for cheaper closer to their planet?
It doesn’t have to be mineral wealth. It could be biological in nature, like cash crop farming.
Ass
Eh, natural resources are far easier to extract from asteroids and moons than to haul out the gravity well of the biggest rocky planet in the area. And they wouldn’t have to mess with the nasty apes for any of them.
The only interesting thing on earth is life itself, as well as intelligent life and its culture. Literally everything else can be found everywhere else
Resource extraction includes farming.
Why would they farm on alien soil? That sounds like a terrible idea. Just make space bases dedicated for farming
No, they’d just use earth for scientific reasons, exploring and cataloguing our life. And perhaps maybe for artistic/cultural reasons, enrichment basically
Escaping the gravity well is difficult for us. They can travel who knows how far or how fast. The gravity might be of little importance to them.
I would find it more likely that they wipe us out to make way for colonizers of their own. They probably have no use for us, save maybe a couple to keep on display in a captive breeding program. They would likely have the technology to perform any work we could, but better and faster.
A civilisation that can travel between stars will probably see us as we see bugs. If we are annoying they destroy us, if we don’t bother them, they won’t care about us. We think we have some merit and knowledge and that we are special to be interesting to higher species, how often do you wish to uplift, enslave or destroy ants?
Enslaves us and treat us like property? Oh how original
Kidnap me, take me to an undisclosed secret location, probe my bodily orifices, water board me, hold me for several days or weeks and them dump my naked self back in some random location?
If I can put it in as medical leave, I’m in.
“we’re here to take over your planet”
“Yes please”
.
Is there a scifi story where the aliens are actually benevolent? Could be funny; they are just genuinely kind but the human mind cannot grasp that and continues to distrust them.
“IT’S A COOKBOOK”
Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke.
Just finished this. Pretty unique story.
Does Star Trek count? I would be remiss for not bringing up Star Trek given the opportunity to insert it into a conversation. I bet the aliens will love that.
Ironically that argument only works for the USA, and definitely the country more fixated in UFO is USA, maybe because of the military idk
I dunno, 3 Body makes a good argument for China being the country of origin for the person that ultimately betrays humanity to the aliens because how much worse could it actually get?
Yes don’t work only for US… North Korea, China, Afganistan, some places in africa that still have dictators…
I for once have free health care, sick leave, maternity leave, many vacation days a year (by law) an mostly everyone works 40 hours a week, with the exception of special cases.like doctors, fireman etc. … I’m ok without an overlord
But what if they take you to their planet and show you their advanced society that everyone works a 3-days week and have great healthcare, just to send you back to Earth afterward??
OOP has clearly never played “Stellaris”.
Oh you sweet summer child of a blog poster. The aliens could make us live like say, how things are going for the Ethiopians, Syrians, Congolese, Lebanese, Palestineans, Yemeni, Russians etc.
Or like people have lived through most of history. Especially as a someone who presents female, that seems especially non ideal.
I think along these lines when someone talks about the dangers of agi suggesting a terminator type thing.
The rise of the robots isn’t what most ‘AI doomers’ are worried about. What a truly malicious AGI could do would be along the lines of simulating your consciousness and placing you in eternal simulated hell. However, the more realistic fear is that it might treat us the way we treat ants. We have nothing against them, but we’ll wipe out a colony without a second thought if we need to build a house there.
Yeah this is still along the lines of im not worried about it. Im worried about non general ai being programmed for the service of humans to gain advantage over others.
Don’t forget the universal truth that it can always get worse.
You mean will
“No one will save you” entered the chat
there is no one to help
you helped them all
Don’t forget the anal probing they’ve been known to dabble in
There’s always the possibility that they’ll improve the status quo.
This is pretty mich the plot of Three Body Problem.
It’s really not even close…
Not in the books, it isn’t.
Well, there’s at least one character and organization that thinks the aliens couldn’t do any worse then what humans have already done.
