>

If they're so advanced to reach our planet, we will be like ants in comparison. The ants have entire metropolises and nations and wars and we have nothing to do with them, but they still need to adapt to the humans terraforming the planet.
They could just want the planet, not the energy or resources. Earth is, for all we know, very rare. >

They could also just want us as pets. A pet hooman to amuse them. >

Free food, shelter and breeding?You son of a bitch I'm in! >

even if their idea of pet is so much like ours that the free food is even more like "human kibble" than r/showerthoughts says cereal is, the shelter is crude with no amenities (as even if you're an "indoor human" they wouldn't take too kindly to you using theirs if you even could) and the breeding, assuming you get bred and not forcibly castrated, is with someone you don't even love but has the right genes that your mating could produce a pageant lineage that fits within their arbitrary "human breed standards" for whatever you'd both be considered? >

So you're saying there's a chance I could be treated like a stud and get milked at the milking table for my spatter batter to be sold off for huge amounts of currency and possibly costing more for the buyer if they're wanted their pet human to get the natural/organic injection of my batter?? 
Where is it that I sign? Next to the drawn X? >

(even assuming that aliens would treat us like we treat our pets (I said pets and was talking about dogs and cats, you seem to be treating your hypothetical treated-like-an-animal self like they're a cow or a horse, animals that are very rarely pets) in the first place)
If there's a chance it's only a chance and not a 100% one (and you aren't guaranteed that "job" just because you have a metaphorical mental image of yourself as Gigachad Thundercock or w/e) as there's also a chance that you could end up getting sent to the pound and/or put down because the offspring you and your mate are forced to have end up getting all the recessive genes and looking like the opposite of "breed standard" so you and them get potentially-euthanized and the offspring given away because your owners were just that hardcore about having a show lineage >

That’s not at all what they would do. They would label you a non show level human and they would sell you at a discount to someone who prefers humans from your area. >

Maybe not to the level of euthanization but I've seen people who get almost this level of crazy regarding show pets >

Maybe they would require a pit stop and we are on their way somewhere. >

pit stops in space are expensive, since you need to decelerate and then accelerate again. if you're on your way from point A to point B, making one pit stop along the way doubles your energy bill, and significantly increases your travel time, unless they are so advanced that things like inertia or speed of light do not matter; but such civilization would be so advanced that i doubt we can come close to comprehending their motivation
Faster than light travel might be very common in scifi, so it might feel like we might have it in a century or two, but it's so far from our understanding of laws of nature that it's effectively magic at this point
Edit: But i do agree, to some degree; it seems silly to come all the way here even from the nearest star just for something we have; but they might come here for completely different reasons, and then decide to take our stuff as well since they've gone through all the trouble of coming here >

Ok, but say you have the energy to travel x light years, but you need to go x × 1.5 light years. You would have to make a pitstop even if it uses more energy to make a stop than it does to not >

Great question! To be honest, it's a very mile per gallon way of looking at things
Travelling in space, at least under known physics, is accelerating to a respectable portion of the speed of light, then coasting for a while, then decelerating. The top speed at which you decide to travel depends on several factors, first how much energy you're willing to spend, since you'll be getting diminishing returns as you approach the speed of light; also, at what speed you can safely travel, since at those velocities a small pebble hits with the energy of a small nuke, and you wouldn't want to exceed the speed at which you'll be able to safely deflect the occasional pebble
Thing is, accelerating and decelerating costs a lot of energy; coasting is almost free; of course, you spend some energy on life support, anti asteroid measures, sensors, etc, but compared to accelerating/braking that should be peanuts
I guess it's true that you might need to travel such great distance that you can't cover it in one jump; but it might be cheaper to custom build a ship that can travel that distance without a pit stop than to actually make a pit stop (even if the energy is almost free, wasting let's say 20 years can't be cheap). Of course, the economy of interstellar travel is entirely the realm of speculation, and there might be valid reasons for a pit stop other than refuel; but i believe it's important to remember that a pit stop during an interstellar flight is something you would want to avoid at all costs >

I mean, someone could also just want a Big Gulp >

That's true. when you want a big gulp, energy costs matter very little >

We would be at their mercy which is the problem. Benevolent or not, in our experience that kind of relationship only goes one way. >

The powerful destroy the weak, for the weak will become stronger and destroy the powerful if they have the chance. >

Dark Forest solution to the Fermi paradox >

Whats thT >

Lets just say if they are the first to find us then its either likely they have found others or we are the first intelligent species they have found.
If we are the first, it would be just as ground breaking for them as it would be for us. Going to war would be extremely stupid.
They have no idea what we are capable of. But it would be a fair assumption to assume we are weak if we have not had any contact with any intelligent lifeforms outside of our own. >

Their definition of intelligent species could be totally different from us. We could just be the ravens of the apes in their scale. >

While true, the fact we have made it this far along would absolutely be noteworthy to them. >

Human imperialists have committed atrocities just to steal spices. If aliens are anything like us, we're fucked. >

That was on our planet within our species though. If we develop interstellar travel, it’ll have meant we’ve finally stopped hating each other and have surpassed the necessity for greed >

Or that we’ve nuked those we disagree with? >

If we nuke ourselves to devastation then there won’t be interstellar travel, so if there eventually is then that wouldn’t have been a problem >

The great filter solution to the Fermi paradox >

We have crossed oceans to hunt animals to extinction. Often coz we liked their skins. >

We’d be used as their boot liners >

Finally found my calling >

Humans that can build ships, and navigate across the ocean wouldn't steal resources, and enslave the natives. >

Yeah humans did that. But we are a product of our evolution, our greed, pride, anger are all part of our evolutionary process. Its likely that we wouldn't even be able to communicate with aliens nevermind have similar behaviours. This is an entirely unrelated and distinct species, probably would not be anything like us. That's not to say they wouldn't wipe us out, but assuming they'll react to humans with human standards and human traits is very human-centric. >

I think physics, mathematics, computers etc would be common across many intelligent spacefaring species >

If they try to enslave us, we will just cancel them. Works everytime >

If it helps you sleep better at night, go ahead and think that. I am less optimistic.. Aliens wouldn't waste their time contacting us for no reason.. >

Their superiority would be why they have no issue using our planet as a resource and disregard our civilization.  Think Europe/Africa. They wouldnt need to steal, they could simply offer some technology thats is inane to them, but life changing to a human. >

Yes, Europeans making contact with Sub Saharan Africans worked out so well for them, just like it did for native Americans. >

No they'll completely wipe us out without any regards. We're akin to ants to an alien species that has the capability to reach us. >

You’re projecting primitive human behavior on a species that can travel between stars >

Human behavior? Literally everything we know as life competes with other life for resources and territory so why would you think any species from anywhere else would be any different? >

Everything we know with our single datapoint. So not much. >

Every single life form on the planet is "a single data point"? >

Yep. Everything on our single planet is a single datapoint. >

Well one data point is a hell of a lot more information to make a prediction than zero data points isn't it? >

Yea, but you have to be pretty careful about what kind of conclusions you draw though. >

If they're anything like us they wouldn't mind "playing" with us(You're free to interpret that however you want, its gonna be true whatever you think that means) >

Good sub for this comment, but I think you vastly underestimate the value of liquid water. >

luckily, water is abundant in the universe, and ice-water is actually better for interstellar civ, since it can be easily towed as iceberg asteroids, without the need for a tank. >

Maybe poison ivy tastes amazing to them. Maybe rubbing it in their skin given them a high like Heroin.
Maybe they eradicate all humans on the planet just to harvest all our poison ivy. >


If an Alien species is able to harness the massive amount of energy it would take for interstellar travel, they would have no need for the relatively tiny amount of energy that our planet contains.

They would not care about energy, but about resources, like minerals. >

There's a hell of a lot of all the minerals in space that they don't have to fight anyone for, if that's what they're after, and they have interstellar travel.
I'd be more concerned about them harvesting us for the exotic pet market. >

Sure but Earth might be also a great source of water which an alien race is likely to need, unless they have a very different biology.
Or they might just want to wipe us out before we might become a problem too. >

Water is just what you get when you combine the most common element in the universe and the 3rd most common element. >

Farming gasses is not so easy, especially from stars, where most elements are.
Also note that Oxygen, despite being 3rd is still just 1%
Much easier to get water from a planet or perhaps comets, if you want to setup a mining operation in a star system >

It is much easier to farm solid ice, but there's less ice on earth than there is on most other planets in our solar system. Comet farming would be easiest, and while there is a lot of ice in the asteroid belt, there will be better solar systems for that than ours out there. >

I tend to agree in reality. In Scifi though interstellar travel is almost always trivially easy once the special technology to do it has been discovered (that most likely won't be the case in real life). But in that situation who wants to wait for teraforming or other slow processes when you can just go attack some primitive monkeys with your anal probe and disintegrator ray? So of course they invade us so they can live like kings on a planet with nice weather. >

The chances of them being similar enough to us to share our atmosphere are slim at best. They would have to teraform either way which is why they probably wouldnt do it. Unless you evolved in our atmosphere it would be highly toxic for other complex life to exist in. Our 'nice weather' might be their version of hellish. We cant look at how they would interact with us through a human lense because they wouldn't think, act or look like us at all. >

They're coming for a habitable planet. Those seem to be fairly rare in the galaxy. >

The aliens want to have sex slaves we all know it >

burh, i am  fine as long as they are beefy hunky dudes. >

I recently picked up No Man's Sky. 
In the video game, I explore the cosmos. I travel to new worlds, where I collect resources. This is what all life everywhere on Earth does. It uses resources to fight entropy, and it tries to defend whatever source it has for those resources.
Earth is a relatively large rocky planet with a diverse subset of rare materials, including liquid water. Liquid water, with sufficiently advanced technology, can be used to produce fusion fuel and rocket fuel. Aliens would have a stake in this. Humans are also large, hardy organisms with high fecundity and a capacity for teamwork. We would make excellent slaves if we could be controlled - humans know that better than anyone lol
There's just about no way for you to defend this point lol. Yes our ideas about how aliens behave do come from our historical experiences with colonization - there is absolutely no reason that an alien species wouldn't act like that, and like us they're in the forever fight against entropy, so it's us with our resources, or them with our resources. Unless aliens are so sufficiently different from us that their thoughts and desires are different, at which point we may not even recognize alien life, they will also need resources from rich planets, and Earth is one of them. >

Did your video game teach you that the amount of energy it would take to travel multiple light years is orders of magnitude higher than the total amount of energy contained on Earth? Aliens would need to harness the energy of stars to travel far enough and fast enough to reach us. The only way I could see aliens stealing our resources is if they steal the energy from our Sun. 
Aliens coming to steal our resources on Earth would be like humans stealing crumbs from an ant colony. Lol >

Besides, maybe they have organic tech. 
The Matrix already proposed turning people into batteries. There are so many unqiue ways to apply resources - and a space-faring civilization must necessarily take advantage of them all. >

I love the matrix, but the specific point in the matrix about turning people into batteries is probably the least logical scifi premise I can think of in a series with comparable popularity.  Human bodies are never going to add energy to a system.  if you need them for digestion there's WAY better animals to pick, and still yet better lab processes to use. >

Human bodies were used as a source of heat and electricity as I recall. I recall the Matrix basically creating a self-sustaining economy here by breaking down the dead to feed the living in the form of liquid food, and their machines seem to take both elecricity from the nervous system and heat from metabolism. 
I'm not prepared to talk at length about the possibilities of alien technology >

I am sorry do you understand anything about energy efficiency?  In this example, the loss in energy feeding human remains to feed further humans is pretty substantial.  It's akin to perpetual motion not being a thing, the setup on the matrix wouldn't even be sustainable for a month, let alone in perpetuity. >

What if that energy is our planets core or us? >

Sounds like the plot of Independence Day: Resurgence >

Yeah which was absolute shit lool >

I liked it :( >

Each to there own but that film made fuck all sense lol, very much a case of look at the shiny shiny and dont think...at all lololol >

I mean, very true. Still good fun if you switch your brain off. Haha >

What if they want lumber and this is the only planet with trees? >

Do you really think a species capable of interstellar travel would need lumber…? 
Even if they did, don’t you think they could find ways to grow their own trees? >

We still go deep into the jungle to cut down exotic trees so I wouldn't doubt it. What if they really love mahogany? >

If they just really really love mahogany then we might be in trouble >

If aliens are advanced enough to master intergalactic travel then they're probably smart enough to know not to physically visit planets with other life forms on them due to the risk of disease >

The risk of disease is virtually non existent. Even on earth, among species we share an evolutionary history with we only really have to worry about diseases jumping species from our closest relatives (mostly mammals, occasionally more distant relatives like birds - but we never catch ducth elm disease). >

There is a theorical way of hatvesting the power of the sun. It is believed to be the natural way of evolving for us. 
Maybe thats why they'd visit us. That and make sure we wont attack them in a few centuries. >

Dyson swarms are so cool >

Yeah ^^ i forgot the name. >

They would maybe think it's a waste of time to go against us because we are dumb enough to fight for ridiculous things like who has the best imaginary friend >

You assume that whatever power source they need is here on earth as well, then you also assume they have done this before. This might be the alien species first contact, a one way trip to expand their species. Thus coming here and killing us all to redo their own civilization. Or onto the second part of what you said, maybe they aren't that much more advanced than us, they can just sleep /hibernate for extended periods of time, or possibly just focused more on science and got that figured out quickly, one they realize we have those head scratching things they might steal them all or force us to continue to make them. >

You have no idea if that's true or not, you have no knowledge of them >

Sir this is unpopular opinions, not unpopular facts >

Depends the species, but I’m willing to bet they wouldn’t play nice.
Empathy is selective. The only empathy we evolved to have was the empathy necessary for passing on our genes. It’s why many humans care more about their fellow humans than any other species. Of course, there of exceptions, especially in a day of age where humans in first world countries aren’t really evolving anymore. But if those aliens have the technology to travel light years away, I’m willing to bet they lived in so much comfort that they don’t need to depend each other anymore causing the less empathetic ones to not be naturally selected. >

So no probing ? >

Unless there is an energy efficient way to travel space we haven't discovered yet. >

What if their source of energy is something we have a ton of? Or what if we could be used as cattle for them. You (or anyone else) have no idea what they'd want. >

Energy if orders of magnitude more abundant elsewhere. They cannot use us as cattle, due to incompatible biology. >

I mean if we really are that insignificant… what if they, for example, really love eating desert made with salt water (they don’t have a lot of it). Then they basically just suck up our oceans without a care and leave. Same thing we do with idk truffles or vanilla or something >

There’s no intent to kill us for fun or anger
It’s just their apathy kills us anyways >

It's just kinda the human thing to go somewhere new, kill or enslave the natives and take all the land and resources. So when writing our alien fiction, we write what we know. >

Let's hope they won't pour molten aluminium on all >

Sex tourism will always be the greatest risk from alien visitors. >

We can be food, I’ve heard we’re pretty tasty. >

Yeah, it would be like enslaving bacteria for us, so small and insignificant, it wouldn't be worth coming here. >

And yet, in our search for 0 emission energy and food that’s exactly what we are doing >

Yeah, by the time we would travel among the stars, we would have figured that out. >

To the bacteria we traveled thousands of lifetimes to get harvest them >

Small and insignificant was meant to describe our race, it's meaning and it's culture in comparison, not our body size. >

So the assumption is that the aliens would be our size. All else is up in the air? >

They won't try to kill us if we don't try to kill them first. Very simple.
I love how we think a race that is thousands of years more advanced than us is going to act like a group of chimpanzees upon meeting a new species. >

I love that you think they definitely wouldn't kill us as a footnote in their  xenoforming of Earth. We've no idea what morals they may or may not have. >

I'm aware of the opposing argument but I still don't fear aliens at all. >

Depends on what you would call 'our' resources. If they come here to mine resources, they would probably start with smaller objects, like asteroids and comets, and then proceed to moons of gas giants, etc; I'm sure some would argue that those resources are still 'ours', even if we aren't using them right now. It is also very likely that they would eventually move on to planets, and might be reluctant to leave Earth be just because some primitive species might not like it. Since they had to pay that massive energy bill to come here, they might want to take full advantage of all resources available.
As for enslaving us, we are not likely to have a good industrial application, but I can imagine a situation where we don't check some boxes that would qualify us as intelligent species by their strict legal definition, and therefore can be kept as pets. Pet humans might become a new galactic fad >


but I can imagine a situation where we don't check some boxes that would qualify us as intelligent species by their strict legal definition,

let me guess, because we haven't solved x y or z current social issue >

Native Americans, Africans, Asians, and Polynesians:
Europeans capable of visiting our shores will not steal our resources or enslave us... >

Not the same. The ROI for those expeditions was more proportionate.
For a species that can intergalactic travel, it just wouldn't even be worth it to conquer earth alone.
Maybe if they had designs for our solar system(and fuck us over in the process) then yeah. >

Is it weird that Im am so sick of human society that I want to be enslaved by Aliens as long as they are not cruel and let me exercise, have sex and give me nice food and also let me watch TV and play video games? >

Sounds like you're just lazy. >

They’ll probably just empty their spaceships’ septic tanks on top of us, then leave. >

If that’s the case, why did European super powers do that in Africa? >

If you are interstellar or even intergalactic civilization no planet would be able to contain you . Also slowing down to the center of gravity well for  what is easy available in open space just doesn't make sense.  Just collect few rouge planets and make Dyson's sphere around rouge star and Bob s your uncle. Few billion years of energy  and enough surface for trillion members of your species.
Also something so advanced we may not be even able to comprehend what we are looking at. 
Just few of my thoughts. >

Unless they figure efficient "alchemy" (or some other science behiond my compensation) they whould still need to harvest elements. And there will probably be some elements that the easiest way to harvest is to harvest planets.
So it will likely be beneficial for them to harvest earth. I can't know if they whould view it as immortal and I don't see a reason they whould. >

We'll never have to worry about it because aliens aren't real. >

Aliens are most likely real but the overwhelming vast majority of alien species are single celled organisms.
Ironically the vast overwhelming majority of earth based life are single celled organisms.
Everything else in the plant and animal kingdom makes up. Comparably minute fraction of the total biomass. >

I think people forget how fun it is to mess with stuff. >

Of course not, theyre just gonna harvest the 8 billion humans. >

Yeah. Well… I saw Avatar recently and for all we know, New York could be placed on top of some valuable mineral called unobtanium! >

That's just people assuming aliens wound be like us >

But our brains are so tasty >

Well, it would save the Earth life by killing us …. Which is, for all the animals and the plants of this planet a very good new >

OP, you are arguing that we would be like ants/bacteria to them, and that the resources our planet has would be insignificant to them. But you are forgetting, that if what you're saying is true, they could just glass the planet to gain the small amount of resources as part of a bigger operation. 
You don't kill the ants to get the few grams of coal they have, but you destroy them if you're digging for it, even if you don't know they are there. >

"It's a cookbook!!!!!!" >

A little bijou at this end of the universe might appeal to some. >

Water is tasty >

Smarter people than you have said exactly the opposite. >

nU uH, wHeEl ChAiR gUy Is WoNg >

ok then explain all the missing cow lips.....
​
checkmate >

There are simple resources that by assumption you think of as common and undesirable, but to a space-traveling race of aliens, something like sugar just may be a complete novelty & delicacy. >


would be like ants/bacteria to them, and that the resources our planet has would be insignificant to them. But you are forgettin

Pretty sure aliens could synthesize sugar artificially   or just grow sugar cane and process it into sugar.
There could also be a trade, spices, sugar fruit  and vegetable plants and other novelties  for technology. >

I wish they would >

I always thought a cool book concept would be aliens have human farms to harvest our adrenaline because it’s the one resource they lack >


I always thought a cool book concept would be aliens have human farms to harvest our adrenaline because it’s the one resource they lack

Don't give up your day job.
(Right now, today, with some biology training, you can clean out your garage and mail order the materials etc you need and make some bacteria that secrete human adrenaline for like a couple hundred thousand dollars. Maybe less if you cut some corners.) >

Maybe consciousness, or biology, is rare and valuable for unknown reasons >

They'd probably only want to play Chrono Trigger. >

Go read all tomorrows >

That's what an alien would tell us >

Aliens capable of visiting Earth would see us as we see ants.. >

Plot twist; they already did… 
Done. Done. Dooonnnnne! >

Xenophobe or Xenophile? >

There are predatory aliens who abduct people and experiment on them such as The Grays. >

Maybe not all of them but i wouldnt doubt some would see us that way >

So what if hydrogen is what they are after. It would be in reason they would some type of devise that just rips hydrogen out of things. But are thos thing just the air or is it going to rip the hydrogen out of our blood. >

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Much easier ways to get hydrogen than to come and get it from us. >

“Please remember what subreddit you are in” That’s good advice, OP. >

Something tells me they won't have the Prime Directive. We will be screwed. I'll upvote because I disagree >

I agree! More likely they'd kidnap a few of us for their zoo. >

We’re food >

Citation required. >

Maybe they’ll come and mine all the Helium-3 from the moon, or just take it and completely screw the earth and its inhabitants? >

stealing the Moon would be energy expensive. Especially since He3 is only on the surface. They would likely build a mining base there and hey, there is a whole planet of unemployed apes who can be paid in tech trinkets to mine He3 for them! Why bother with mining yourself, or bother with some convoluted invasion plan, when you can pay the fuckers to mine and come back ever few decades or so with a space barge? >

If aliens ever do come to earth in peace, humans will be the ones to be violent with them. People can't even get along with other people. I see people snaping at other people for the most random things all the time or just being difficult. Some people hate others just because they can and r prone to violent outburst >

No they would just use us for food. >

More likely to want biological specimens I’d think. >

What if they're just evil and derive pleasure from destroying other planets and enslaving the lifeforms? >

why assume they feel pleasure? Are they mammals? >


why assume they feel pleasure?

I didn't assume that.  I just asked what if? >

Agreed. If you can get here in mass enough to take it, you can get what ever we have easier. There is more water, metal, sun, oxygen, whatever closer to home. >

I don't think the idea has been seriously put forward that aliens would invade earth for energy.  The idea I'm more familiar with is that they might colonize for the habitat that's friendly towards carbon-based life forms, or to harvest our mineral wealth. >

They might know how to better harvest our planet than us, or be able to use elements that we overlook. >

There are no aliens >

Dude - look up the dark forest principle. >

*Laughs in 40k. >

man they would turn us into a tv show >

Honestly it’s pretty smug of us to assume that another planet doesn’t already have way cooler resources anyway. >

asteroids. All the resources you want, in convenient chunks, already hanging in 0g. >

What about if they have a way to exploit a ressource that we dont use/havent discovered? Like if salt water IS like their oil or something. >

How do you know? >

You’re correct. They would have the technology to live sustainably on their own planet. >

Depends on their level of advancement.  If they got here on a hope and a prayer.  Like a generational ark, and were, say only a few hundred years advanced beyond us, I’d worry.
But even then, they’d be more interested in low g high payoff objects around us.  Far less energy spent getting that stuff than entering our gravity well to grab it and take it back.
But if they could just warp in, so to speak, they’d probably just view us as a curiosity.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter.  If they wanted the planet, they would just unleash a biological bomb tailored to kill is all.  By the time they landed, the whole planet would be depopulated, similar to the Americas and smallpox. >

What if human meat is a delicacy to their culture spanning over various planets? >

If there is one or more aggressive aliens species then there is probably just as many if not more that are friendly that will threaten the the aggressors if earth is harmed.
Elemental resources would not be a reason to invade earth they could harvest some dead planet if needed.
Organic life could be transplanted to other planets or plants grown in hydroponics. They could even 
They are unlikely to enslave us  they could build robots or get is idea from us.
Some of our theories could be useful like they use some sort time manipulation to make sustain stars planets and themselves  avoiding universal death forming a micro universe even jumping back  and forth in time or pausing the out side universe out side of time bubbles letting them reach something before it gone (maybe even able to multiverse travel ) all locations are cemented where they are from each other prospective in the time bubbles. (it takes 10,000 years for them to reach earth the time filed makes the voyage just long and boring)  In layman's terms universal eternal youth bubbles for solar system and ships
they reach us  see our theories and research on FTL travel  something they never considered even trying and succeed in making a warp drive now they can combine the time field with FTL drives and basically teleport and go to other universes now the both of us are  a multiverse travailing immortal eternally young intergalactic mega community. >

I'm becoming more convinced that aliens are never going to come and go freely from our planet, because the technology will just never get there.
That's not to say they won't have amazing technological advantages over us. I think it's a very real possibility, though, that all interstellar travel will always require a great deal of planning, generations in advance.
So, if an alien civilization arrives at our doorstep, they're going to have good reason to. There's not going to be such a thing as a race with such a mastery over physics that they just show up and start playing with the monkeys for fun. >

They could make us into batteries. >

If anything, they would want the resources of the outer Solar System. Which is where all the really critical resources are. Water, hydrocarbons, phosphorous, rare minerals. They're more spread out than here on Earth, but exist in vastly greater quantities in the asteroids and in the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and in the Oort Cloud than in all the oceans and ore mines of our blue marble.
First Contract, by Greg Costikyan, gets into this scenario. Aliens show up with whizz-bang technology and hoodwink the humans into trading the outer planets for holo-TVs and flying cars.
Not that they necessarily would have taken no for an answer. And might have removed, or gone on a PR campaign to persuade the humans to remove, world leaders who opposed the deal. >

they'd probably just kill us for fun >

i dont think they would care about us at all, if they are able to travel through space we probably just look like a bunch of goofy monkeys >

Big and baseless assumptions. >

Laughs in colonization. >

You think there is a "need" for slavery or that the earth itself isn't a resource, no reason to think that human beings would rate any higher to them then Apes or Monkeys do for us.
I mean, we recognise that apes are intelligent, they use tools, have societies etc, but we don't consider them equals to humans.
They don't have the same rights and we will clear their habitat to make way for our habitation while we put them in zoos and preserves and pat ourselves on the back for doing "the right thing." because our "needs" outweigh theirs. >

if it's really that parallel then by your logic we'd have a common evolutionary ancestor with the aliens they'd refuse to acknowledge >

They might just kill us to remove a future threat. >

What if WE are the energy? >

Probably they would take humans as pets >

You can’t definitively know that. If Alien species do visit earth, I believe they will do one of two things.
One, they will see us as uninteresting and thus leave us alone. Two, they exterminate us as they see us a potential threat. >

I think if they're making a most likely multi generational journey, shit has hit the fan where they are from.  They're probably looking to rehome and either will treat us as a food source or work animals until they build up their tech.... or will view us as too much of a threat and kill us from space before they land. >

I feel like any assumptions we make about what an alien may be thinking will always have some human rationale behind them. I’d say the gap between their thinking/intentions and ours may be too large and different to comprehend. All that to say there’s no telling what they would do or why. >

An oxygen rich planet is proving to be very rare as is a planet with easy water resources plus they’ve heard all about The Kardashians and they are curious. >

Humans have enslaved dogs and cats and any other animal we keep as pets. Do we need their resources? No. Do we enslave them anyway? Yep. >

if you're saying aliens would treat us the same way we treat dogs and cats why would they unless some cosmic force of parallel that meant something would treat them that way someday compelled them to >

We don't know of any aliens yet, so how do we know what their intentions are? I'm not saying aliens WOULD treat us like pets, I'm saying there's a possibility. >

I used to think like this. It's entirely possible that we are their resource. It's also entirely possible that Earth is their closest destination that just so happens to have the right environment for their existence. It may have nothing to do with individual resources but entirely to do with our specific combination as well as our specific orbit, gravity, presence of satellite, pressure, temperature, magnetosphere etc, nearby resources as well as our existence inside a relatively low density and sparse bubble of local space. 
It would be wonderful if it was true that they could get resources elsewhere without harming us but the sad fact is that it may not be. We may just be the easiest solution to their current or future problem/s. >

Sex???? >

If you have a brain and think for more than 10 seconds this really isnt an unpopular opinion. >

I mean most life tries to eliminate threats, even down to the cellular level. Not unrealistic to think that a superior alien species would just wipe us out like a bug on a windshield or see us as a genuine threat learning to travel through soace >

Nice try, ALIEN. im not going to let my gaurd down that quick. >


If an Alien species is able to harness the massive amount of energy it would take for interstellar travel, they would have no need for the relatively tiny amount of energy that our planet contains.

I think this is probably true, but there could be some things here they would want.
I also think it's because people assume aliens would be like humans. Look at human past and the things humans have enslaved, gone to war, etc. over. Pathetic things. Small things. If aliens are like humans and they could get to earth, they would absolutely enslave or kill us, because that's the exact thing that humans would do.
We don't really have much else to go on, so humans are what we use as the baseline. I'd like to think a civilisation that advanced is far better than us and isn't petty, pathetic, power hungry, revenge driven creatures like humans. But we are just going on hope.
We don't know either way, which is why we can't say they would do this or wouldn't do that. It's all guessing. >

You're right. If they like our planet then they will just kill us and take it. The rare conditions which support life are far more precious than any amount of mining we could for then as their slaves. >

you don't know what other species prioritize. What if enslaving is their natural form of entertainment? >

That's true. But what if they're coming from inside a planet in our solar system? Or are from another dimension? >

What if they are a warmongering species that tries to own as many planets as possible?
Or their fuel is living things? >

More than likely they'll accidentally kill us all with bacteria and viruses we have no defense against. >

Same would be the case for the aliens unless they are prepared for it >

Run by the worlds shit lying governments anyway 🫠 >

We would be their farmed chickens. >

Is that unpopular? >

If anything they will just chuck a rock at us at near light speed. >

Absolutely. If they want to use the Earth, either as living space or for resources, they'd clear it of impediments the same way we clear ant hills off a site when we build a mall. Any extra effort would be in the noise, or they might not even really notice us as a problem.
People are uncalibrated as to how much energy and sophistication is required to do interstellar travel, and the things aliens with those capabilities could do almost effortlessly. >

It could go either way and it'd really depend on availability of resources on their home planet and how they use them, what if say their ships run off Potassium based fuel which is running out the same as our fuel due to extensive use, they come to earth, find out about bananas, bananas don't grow on their home planet, enslave humanity, and all we do is work in sweat shop banana farms providing fuel to an intergalactic silk road, we develop using the resources around us and when those resources run out we either panic or have to adapt and don't see why it wouldn't be the same on another planet >

The aliens are already here. We are mining for them. They’ve been here for thousands of years. >

They probably wont need energy but they might need materials that are difficult to get in space. Water, organics, salts, rare metals, etc.
Enslaving us is too much work though. A race like that would probably just kill us and take our shit. >

What if Aliens don't exist? Have you found any? >

Every road trip is better when you pick up snacks. We may not be the destination, but we may be the slim jims and gas on the way. >

Maybe we taste good. >

You don't enslave a planet because you need resources or labour. You do it for the fun of it. Duh. >

Found the alien ambassador in disguise. >

I have watched enough Isaac Arthur to agree with you. I agree the opinion is unpopular, most folks haven't given serious thought about it so naturally assume our resources are important to them. >

I mean, if they were to exist, u don't really have any way of knowing what they want or why they want it. What is this opinion even based on >

For me it's either we would have something more rare like protein or chlorophyll. Or our existence is someone's science project. >

We are a fast food stop >

The silliest is the latest trend that they will steal our WATER. I mean, to get to Earth, they would pass an asteroid belt absolutely full of Texas-sized icebergs that they could tow home.  
Sucking water out of the gravity well of a planet is ridiculously overcomplicated by comparison.  
Another thing we rarely see in the media or popular discourse is the obvious fact that when Aliens reach us, it will be almsot certainly machines, not biological greys with big heads.  
I mean, interstellar travel takes millenia, is unbelievably boring, dangerous and unpleasant. Everybody who invents a proper interstellar drive will send a million of unmanned AI probes for every manned starship, because its orders of magnitude cheaper and more efficient.  
First Contact is likely going to be an alien AI probe, that will land on Earth, install some communications beacon, use some of our matter to make few more AI probes, and they will fuck off to space to map other planets. >

Aliens will not stop here because they are afraid of Chuck Norris.