621
rule
(lemmy.zip)
Ever played Stellaris?
no, I haven't
The game is a grand strategy game set in space, and it let's you do some horrific stuff. It let's you set the rights of every species in your empire, and one of the options is "undesirables", which means they are going to be the victims of genocide. The game even let's you pick what method of genocide you prefer. There's extermination, where they are hunted down by extermination squads and presumably shot on the spot. Then there's forced labor, where they are worked to death. You can also turn them into food, energy if you're a machine intelligence, or paperclips, if you're that kind of machine intelligence. If you prefer a softer approach, you can forcibly sterilize them, so that they die out. Alternatively, you can displace them.
Imagine if alien life is common in the universe, but we are so ruthless and evil as a species compared to every other alien species they just don't want to have anything to do with us.
Issac Arthur is a fantastic YouTube channel that delves into the many possible types of alien civilizations and how they could fit into the Fermi-paradox (where is everybody?).
What you propose is generally not accepted as a likely state of the universe. If a civilization is ruthless, evil, and expanding the last thing a more powerful, peaceful civilization would want to do is allow its expansion. The logical choice would be intervention either in guiding their morality (probably hard), or just extermination (quite easy if you posses even modest interstellar space travel capability).
Fun to think about! We've only been broadcasting our existence for about 100 years, so it could be we've only recently been noticed and our doom is already en route!
But if a civilization is peaceful, would it exterminate another just because they are a threat? It seems quite ruthlessy egoistic. Maybe they would just intervene at some specific point, without extermination but by somehow gatekeeping our expansion and letting us live without spreading evil.
As even a type 1 civilization it costs you almost nothing to send a big ball of death a few million years into the future to wipe out a possible future rival.
The timescales are where things get tricky. If you wait for them to become a problem they will be a problem for millennia. and that problem will metastasize.
Now if you have FTL figured out. I mean. Carl from accounting could wipe out all life on earth because he had a bad day.
I think of it the same way as the paradox of tolerance. If a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance.
If a peaceful civilization allows the expansion of a non-peaceful society, it could spell the end of the peaceful civilization.
Dark Forest Theory
Shoot everything you see
doable now. I'm pretty sure we're just about at the "reorbit an asteroid into that thing" level of tech
no like imagine what we do to the cattle. Yeah we would be them instead.
This thought experiment is perfect to rethink our moral values. We wouldn't agree that it's morally right to do that to us, just because aliens would be much smarter. But that's how most people justify how badly we treat farm animals
I don't care if I get called out and hated for it, but I wish the aliens do come about and exterminate humanity and this is my longest standing prayer. I will even be the first in line as a sacrifice if it means all the bad humans get it.
We share this planet with other living beings god damn, but all we do is exploit everything and everyone. Not even different species, fuck no, we even do it to our own. Fuck yeah I am a xenophobe, I don't believe humans are altruist, we are selfish scum.
For some people, your comment might sound radical. For me it sounds like a sane and rational conclusion when someone reflects on how humans treat animals and nature
and such arguments tend to pipeline towards veganism or whatever. I am not saying don't eat eat meat, I just mean, control your gluttony. again I am an atheist, but I think this is rational thinking.
Yeah. This is really the most terrifying version of aliens. Not ones that want to take over the world in a grand dramatic fashion. Instead, I find truly indifferent aliens to be far more terrifying of a concept. We are literally animals to them. Or, more they view us as we view other animals.
Imagine being abducted by aliens. Instead of showing you the universe or trying to communicate with you, they don't even bother. They just proceed to vivisect you. They dissect you alive, without any anesthetic. They only give you a paralytic to keep your from screaming or resisting. They're doing the equivalent of wild animal research and they're simply indifferent to your suffering. You are not a person to them. Your pain means nothing. Your family will never know what happened to you, and the aliens don't even bother trying to justify their actions to you. They make no attempt at communication. They slowly take you apart piece by piece, silently going about their work. You'll never know who they are, where they're from, or why they're doing this. They do not owe you an explanation. To them you are no different than a plant.
To be fair, taking away our universal free healthcare would be extremely bad. It's a lifesaver, literally.
Take my father, for example. He got hurt recently and has needed many scans, tests, pills, meetings with Doctors, more tests, etc to get better. Imagine if we had to pay for that?!
I don't want to fight aliens, but if they tried to take that away I think we'd have to fight.
See your mistake in reading this meme was being from not-America.
Have you seen their probes? Goals
I thought we were talking about the bad stuff.
trust me glowing from the inside is not as fun as it sounds
It’s even more fun!
Those bitches better beam up by bad dragon collection or I’m gonna be hella bored
Aliens probably own Bad Dragon, you’ll be experiencing next gen prototypes
Abduct me, Aliaddies
What if they're here to lick buttholes
Okay, let them land.
What could possibly get worse?
Oh sweet summer child...
I bet you have so much karma on reddit.
Idk how much is "much" but I was way less active on there than I am here. Just the handful of top posts I've made in the fediverse on this account already surpass 8 years I frequented reddit.
be nice
you too
They are going to take over all radio & streaming and play "Baby Shark" 24/7.
Ye Wenjie Rule
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
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