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Cover author: Michał Kałużny http://astrofotografia.pl/

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First contact with aliens could end in colonization and genocide if we don't learn from history (www.space.com)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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How humanity responds to the first contact with intelligent alien life could determine the very fate of our species.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

we have basically no way at all of influencing or thwarting them.

Maybe. The Spanish conquistadors, and the British in India, all found that it was easier to "divide and conquer" by picking local allies.

But surely no human would sell out their own species... right?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Those examples involved a "colonizing" culture that was nearly identical in technology and psychology to the "colonized" culture. If aliens exist and they travel here then they're from an entirely different culture that is likely millions or years removed from the state we're in now.

The proper analogy is not the British conquering the people of India, it's the British coming to a small island somewhere that's populated by monkeys. We're the monkeys. We likely won't be able to comprehend what the British are or what they want, let alone thwart their goals.