OT: A question about the Human Ability to Cope

[El_Phil]

Helpful hint #42: If you want to get off a point the best way is not to mention it. Strange but true.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

During the Napoleonic era, the french army was one of the best in the world.

Present-day opinions are not nessasarily today's truth's and rarely apply in history.

[El_Phil]

Yet still they lost. Of course I'm biased, should I offer the French more than grudging and heavily qualified respect I may well have my Englishness revoked.

[Alneyan]

It is very easy actually: the worse the odds are for France, the better they do. Look: in 1805, we were fighting several countries and won, while in the later stages of the war, we failed to slaughter those silly folks from Albion who barely knew what end of a sword was used for business and... I mean, our most friendly neighbours from England.

Similarly, France did well in the Hundred's Year Wars, especially after the Treaty of Troyes which left France in a very weak situation (1420 or so), and the discovery of Cannon resulted in the English tide receding. On the other hand, despite having more well-fed troops with better equipment fighting on our soil, we still managed to lose at Azincourt. Don't ask. Really, don't.

And the story goes on: we successfully fought after the Revolution against all our neighbours, but failed to quench the uprisings in the Low Countries (England didn't do well there either), and... Well, add more examples as appropriate. The bottom line is: if you want to rely on the French, make sure the odds are plain awful.

Of course, it's not as if you can actually win most wars: Napoleon may have lost at the end of the day, but Europe was pretty much the same as in 1800 once the wars were over. The only point seems to be to weaken the enemy... problem is, you will get weaker yourself in the process, preventing you from achieving much, and bringing you on par with the enemy... so another war can be started, to weaken the enemy, and...

[Thermodyne]

Years ago I read a report on the percentages of a given population that could be expected to resist occupation by a superior military force. Based on WWII up to the war in SE Asia, the numbers were quite small. 3 to 5% for industrialized urban populations. 8 to 12 % for rural industrialized populations. Non industrial populations tended to be pegged to the system of government and there was an index for this. But I don’t remember many of the details. Communists had a higher level of resistance than democracies. Dictatorships had the lowest levels of resistance. Of note is the mention of religious fanatics being seen as an anomaly. The paper was written in the early to mid 70’s. I think that the religious fanatics would be seen as something more than an anomaly today.

IMHO, I think that the numbers would hold true for industrialized populations today. But actual results would rapidly influence the numbers after initial contact. As would the treatment by the invading aliens. If we were to be incorporated into a greater whole that included basic civil rights and freedoms, then resistance would be less. But faced with a situation where we could not win and were about to become a protein source for some nasty aliens, resistance would be greater. Faced with being food or forced manual labor, I would hope that we would have the balls to launch every nuke we had. Leaving them with an inedible pile of glow in the dark ash and a world rapidly descending into nuclear winter. Perhaps the loss of this conquest would throw a monkey wrench into their plans for moving onto their next conquest.

As a whole, people don’t cope; the majority will just try to survive for another day. Look at what the Nazis did during WWII. By 44 the Jews knew what awaited them in the camps, but they went anyway. Sure a few resisted, but less than 10%. It’s not so much a question of coping. Faced with dieing right now, or dieing next week, most people will choose next week and hope for some improvement of their situation to occur.

This brings us to a question. How would you remove 3 billion + humans from the earth? If you wanted to eat us, I would think that it would be a long process. More likely, you would want to just get rid of us and take the planet. Or perhaps make slaves of us and put us to work. If you wanted to take the planet more or less as is, you could kill us with some type of virus, but then you have a bunch of rotting remains to clean up. To invade would be risky, and would take a lot of space lift capability even with superior weapons. I would think that a long term approach would be the most economical. Kill us off with a germ and once we were dead send in an advanced force to care take the infrastructure. Secure the nuclear power plants, get rid of the weapons with limited shelf life. Mothball the chemical plants and such. Then when the stink of rotting flesh is gone, move in as the new owners. With germ warfare, there is a good chance that we would never realize what was actually happening, and would not take steps to make the planet unlivable. To make slaves of humans would be a long drawn out process. As a species we are probably far too adaptable and intelligent. We would adapt to the alien technology and turn it against our masters at some time in the future.

This brings us to another question. Why would an intergalactic civilization want to invade us? What does earth have that they couldn’t get for less effort elsewhere? If they had need of a planet just like this one, then perhaps that would be a reason. But let’s be realistic. In all probability, they would need to sterilize the planet before they could live freely on it. Everything here would be alien to them. The common cold could be a plague for them. Basic earth carbon based life would probably be incompatible with their biology. Perhaps they would just want to incorporate us into their system of government/empire, but why bother? We are a violent species, and would more of a problem than it was worth.

And this brings us to a what if. I would assume that an intergalactic war would be somewhat like WWII in the pacific, but on a larger scale. The opposing forces would be faced with the need to planet hop their way to the heart of the other empire. Setting up points of supply along the way. What if we found ourselves between two more advanced civilizations that were at war? They know we are here. They know we have an industrial base. But they see us primitives of little value. Would they see us as a valuable resource? A possible ally in their war. Or would they just wipe us out to prevent the other side from making use of us. Send us a little note; “Sorry, but because of your strategic location we have no choice but to drop a big rock on your little planet”.

And this brings me to one more what if. What if we are so far off in the boonies of the universe that none of the advanced aliens have found us yet? What will happen when that first alien explorer comes within range of our electronic emissions? I would hope that the first thing they translate is not rap music! I would also hope that the first people they contacted were not lawyers or politicians. I would also hope that the aliens were not Klingons or Shadows[sic]

And this brings us to the big questions. If the major world governments found out that there were advanced aliens out there, would they tell us? What would the impact of telling us be? What would people do if they found out that their god was just an advanced alien who on a whim decided to mess with some primitives? What if SETI found a signal? Who would decide if we would reply and what we would say?

[El_Phil]

Thermodyne said:
And this brings us to the big questions. If the major world governments found out that there were advanced aliens out there, would they tell us? What would the impact of telling us be? What would people do if they found out that their god was just an advanced alien who on a whim decided to mess with some primitives? What if SETI found a signal? Who would decide if we would reply and what we would say?

Fascinating read. On the first of those questions I'm not sure it would be the goverments choice. Everything leaks, nothing is kept secret anymore. The number of people who would know would be large and one of them would spill the beans. If anyone believed them is of course a different question.

Religous types would carry on as usual and dismiss the aliens 'claims' to being their god as nothing more than devils/evil spirit/etc claims to tempt them.

If it was proved aliens existed and were coming I'd expect unruly mobs and riots. I have no idea why I think this I just do. That and a few "I would like to be the first to welcome our new alien overlords."

[Kamog]

The human mind is quite flexible and is able to adapt to new situations. We'll even adapt to outside context problems after the initial shock and surprise has worn off. Young children experience new things completely unfamiliar to them all the time while they grow up and they learn and cope with new situations; adults can do so too.

[Starhawk]

Fascinating read. On the first of those questions I'm not sure it would be the goverments choice. Everything leaks, nothing is kept secret anymore. The number of people who would know would be large and one of them would spill the beans. If anyone believed them is of course a different question.

Religous types would carry on as usual and dismiss the aliens 'claims' to being their god as nothing more than devils/evil spirit/etc claims to tempt them.

If it was proved aliens existed and were coming I'd expect unruly mobs and riots. I have no idea why I think this I just do. That and a few "I would like to be the first to welcome our new alien overlords."

Uh speaking as one of those "Religious Types" that you mention I would not assume it was devils or any crap like that so please don't act like we are all dumbasses that would go "oooh it's the devil" if anything I'd just say "Oh please get over your ego" to an alien that said "I am your god" ala Jack O'Niel

Well actually the less religious or the cultists would be more likely to beleive the god/devil crap because they are pretty frail minded already as has been shown by cults like the Branch Dividians or however that's spelled and the Raelians (sp) who think "Elohim" is plural and describes an alien species when in fact Elohim means something like "God of Light" and is singuluar in hebrew lol.

As far as why we would be valuable well precisely BECAUSE we are a violent species that is used to making war, let's face it if you're an inter galactic Empire humans would be an excellent source for a cheap-effective pool of soldiers give us an advanced rifle some body armor and a way to get somewhere and we would kick *** for you

As has been done by Empires throughout history when they either hire mercs or recruit specialized regional forces, if some Intergalactic Empire came by Earth and told us "Hey your now part of our empire" if they treat humans well and give us basic rights and the ability to leave our home planet I doubt they'd have much problems getting human soldiers into their military, and after a generation or so Humans would probobly be used to working with aliens and I'm sure we'd see all human units fighting on alien worlds for our new Empire.

Let's face it Humans don't much care what we are fighting if we are fighting for what we see as right, and if an Intergalactic Empire that was a decent lot and nice to us we'd probobly have no problem as a species becoming part of their Empire-unless we are considered food/expendable/inferior- in which case we'd probobly turn around and attack them hehe.

[Kevin_Raven]

everyone keeps saying that humans are remarkably resilient and have a good ability to adapt to new situations, but really, we don't have any benchmarks to compare the human race to, making it hard to describe any defining characteristics of the human race. Perhaps our adaptability, or some other trait that seems unremarkable to us would be a useful resource for an alien species, or perhaps humans are a thoroughly dull and useless race... at any rate, I'd imagine that it would be a lot easier and more effective for alien civilizations to simply establish trading bases on earth and use it as a resupply area than to wipe out the entire planet and start over. When you consider hideous invading alien monster-race, it's hard to imagine a good motivation for wanting to destroy the earth.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

@El_Phil: I am well aware of the difference between an alien and a demon.