# If aliens became aware of us, would they conquer/enslave/exploit/displace/exterminate us? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 12, 2010, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124 "2010-05-12T00:52:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/1 "2010-05-12T00:52:06Z")
[Stephen Hawking](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7107207.ece) compares the hypothetical situation to Europeans discovering the New World and enslaving or brushing aside the Indians. But, the Europeans had **uses** for the New World; it was almost exactly like where they came from only less crowded. For the Earth to be any more useful to ETs than Mars would be, their physiology would have to be similar enough to ours for them to breathe our air, eat our plants/animals or grow their own here, etc. How likely is that? ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/2 "2010-05-12T00:55:09Z")
They may conquer you. They ain’t taking me alive. (Chambers a round. Spits. Squints.) ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/3 "2010-05-12T00:55:23Z")
I think there was just a thread about this. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/4 "2010-05-12T00:59:58Z")
I would say that it depends on some basic assumptions. One of those assumptions would be that life, as we know it, can only occupy a fairly narrow band of what is or isn’t habitable. So, basically, whatever alien is out there would also find the Earth to be in their zone of use. Which leads to the next assumption…that habitable planets like Earth are fairly rare, and thus become valuable. Not for the raw materials available, but because of the intrinsic value of a world where life can exist outside of an manufactured, artificial environment. Assuming those things to be true, I could certainly see an aggressive alien life form who, discovering a world they could use (and having the ability to do something about it), wanting to come here and brush us aside to use the planet for themselves. Of course, I’m not sure if those assumptions ARE true, so… -XT ---
**Author:** ![CutterJohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/91b2a8/32.png) [@CutterJohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CutterJohn)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/5 "2010-05-12T01:27:32Z")
Not very, imo. Even if very similar to us, there will be something _really_ wrong with the planet that makes them not want to live here. Maybe they are putting on winter gear when it dips below 100f. Maybe their star put out a LOT less UV, or had a much better ozone layer, and they fry in minutes. Maybe their atmosphere has 10% oxygen, and ours is poisonous. Maybe our heavy metal content is way too high for them. There are thousands of things that could be major deal breakers for the planet. Its quite unlikely they would want to live here, at least outside of controlled environments, and if they are living in controlled environments, there is no point to conquering us. Most definitely they would not be here for the food. Earth food would be pretty low in nutritional value for any alien. They may share a few of the more simple proteins, but most would be like you or I munching on grass, and some might be extremely poisonous. They might get some calories from sugars and fats, but few if any vitamins would be vitamins to them. So coming to grill up some human burgers is pretty damned unlikely(except perhaps for the novelty factor). Resources… This could be a reason. Not that earth is really special(at least we presume its not), but we have spent the better part of a couple of millenia digging up vast amounts of mineral wealth and concentrating it handily on the surface for our new alien overlords. Whether they kill us and unleash the minebots, or hold us for ransom and use us as slave labor, or just unleash the minebots and let them chew out the mineral resources in us, or purchase vast sums off of us for the equivalent of shiny beads, I cannot say. Then again, an interstellar society has the pick of a trillion planets, so even the resource angle isn’t much likely… There are any number of planets out there that will be far more mineral rich than earth is. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/6 "2010-05-12T01:44:18Z")
Why bother with our impoverished mineral access when they have the riches of the asteroid belt? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/7 "2010-05-12T01:46:56Z")
Of course, a lot depends on the psychology of the ETs . . . They might want us to worship them just 'cause, you know, it’s kewl. Like Cartman and the Sea People. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/8 "2010-05-12T01:48:31Z")
> [@thirdname](#): > > I think there was just a thread about this. It was [not in GD,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=560993) therefore never existed, so there. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/9 "2010-05-12T01:49:12Z")
It’s hard to predict. It would depend on how similar Earth is to their ideal planet and how rare those ideal world are. And it would also depend on how similar our cultures are. The aliens might decide that humanity is a better resource for exploiting than Earth is. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/10 "2010-05-12T01:52:08Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It’s hard to predict. It would depend on how similar Earth is to their ideal planet and how rare those ideal world are. And it would also depend on how similar our cultures are. The aliens might decide that humanity is a better resource for exploiting than Earth is. I would like to let them know that I could be useful in rounding up others to toil in their giant underground sugar-caves. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/11 "2010-05-12T02:06:31Z")
The most likely reason for an alien species to conquer us would be as a quick and comparatively painless way to establish control and teach us to live at a higher level of civilization. In their view, allowing us to freely advance just causes needless deaths and suffering and so in the long-run a quick and surgical takeover actually saves the most lives. It’s highly unlikely that they would care about the Earth in terms of resources since there’s lots of other planets and asteroids to harvest. Only the life forms on it would be of interest and those can be studied and harvested via tourism and barter. There’s no need for conquest. And if they can travel from planet to planet in reasonable quantities of time, it’s fairly likely that they could terraform a planet to match their needs. It’s very unlikely that our planet would be any more auspicious an environment for what their bodies are suited to than any other planets. More likely there would be some other uninhabitable planet that was still closer to the conditions they needed and more ripe for terraforming. It’s also fairly likely that the aliens won’t care about land at all. With a suitably large and advanced virtual reality system, physical land becomes meaningless except as a source of mineral resources to create sustenance and power. And as already said, the Earth is no better a source of mineral resources than any other chunk of rock in the sky, so why go through the hassle of conquering or killing a species to do it? ---
**Author:** ![Otara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/12 "2010-05-12T02:08:22Z")
I think at best they’d wave hello or say nasty tihngs, given we havent yet found a credible way to travel interstellar distances and its possible no such practical method exists. Doesnt really matter how great another planet is if you need to virtually wipe out your own solar system to get the resources together to manage it for instance, and it will take 20k years to get there. At this stage its not about psychology its about practicalities. Otara ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/13 "2010-05-12T02:24:15Z")
> [@CutterJohn](#): > > Maybe our heavy metal content is way too high for them. “How ironic…our best missiles and bombs did nothing, and yet a simple band was enough to kill them all.” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/14 "2010-05-12T02:24:42Z")
Then there’s Niven’s Sphere of Potential Awareness, which I just made up the name and probably the idea wasn’t original with Larry Niven but who cares? And that is a sphere defined by how far radio/television/etc. waves emanating from Earth have reached. Being, of course, dependent on when you think sufficiently powerful radiation began to get out into space from here. Say, what? 1930? 1940? Well, then, ok, you got a sphere 140 light years in diameter. And even a half-assed technology is likely to notice an unnatural amount of radio waves coming out of a second rate planet circling a mediocre yellow star. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/15 "2010-05-12T02:33:21Z")
Enslave, but in a way that we don’t realize it, they would draw off our ‘life force energy’ or whatever term you wish to use. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/16 "2010-05-12T02:47:41Z")
You mean, when they say they are here to serve man, you think, maybe… ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/17 "2010-05-12T02:57:04Z")
Yea, to believe aliens would want to come take our stuff, you have to believe that aliens could have the technology to make it relativley easy to travel intestellar distances to get here, but not the technology to get what ever resources they gain by conquering us from some other source that was closer or easier to get. And/or you have to believe that Earth-like planets are both rare enough that we’d be worth conquering, but also common enough that other aliens on a planet similar enough to Earth to want to conquer it are close by enough to notice us and come here. Its not inconceivable that one of these things is true, but it doesn’t seem particularly likely. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/18 "2010-05-12T03:02:57Z")
> [@](#): > > The best way to tell the “good” aliens from the “bad” ones is: If you find yourself abducted and in a vat of mildly burning liquid, you are in the hands of the _good_ aliens, who are about to eat you. > > The bad ones are much worse. – [_Revelation X: The “Bob” Apocryphon_](http://www.amazon.com/Revelation-BobApocryphon-Hidden-Teachings-Deuterocanonical/dp/0671770063) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/19 "2010-05-12T03:54:34Z")
We don’t know. They are going to be unlike anything we have encountered before. You know, completely _ **alien** _. But if they can get here from there either with or without getting around the law of relativity, that would demonstrate that they would be so far advanced that we would not be able to deny them anything they wanted to accomplish by force. That said, I think it very unlikely that humankind will discover anything as complex as even an amoebae within the next 100 years. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124/20 "2010-05-12T03:59:02Z")
I really don’t buy the argument, since most of the arguments for this don’t sound plausible 1. Either we or the aliens will all die due to some cross infection. I don’t believe that because any species advanced enough to traverse the galaxy will have the medical knowledge to avoid germs. Humans aren’t anywhere near the point of interstellar travel, but we have pretty much conquered all microbial infections (assuming people practice scientific knowledge like good sanitation, clean water, vaccinations, antibiotics, hand washing, etc). 1. The aliens will enslave us I don’t see this happening either. Humans are 20-50 years away from functional bipedal robots from what I have heard. As a result, any alien species will have robots capable of levels of stamina, flexibility, strength and problem solving far beyond anything humans can do. Humans gave up on enslaving horses once we developed machines that did the work better. There is no motive to enslave us, machines can do anything we can do much better. 1. They want our natural resources There are tons of asteroids and rocky planets in the galaxy. I have no idea why they’d want the resources in ours. Not only that but a species that can conquer interstellar travel can probably conquer fission. Not only would they get energy from the fission, but they would also be able to create industrial elements out of abundant hydrogen. 1. They want our living space It is unlikely that our planet has the perfect alien atmosphere. Something on our planet is likely toxic to them. The only likely way they’d kill us is if they just didn’t give a damn for whatever reason. We really don’t have anything they’d want from what I can tell. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-aliens-became-aware-of-us-would-they-conquer-enslave-exploit-displace-exterminate-us/539124.md?page=2)