It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
originally posted by: hutch622
a reply to: Entreri06
Good question , no . Catholics would convince themselves he was god , Isis Allah so on and so forth . We would be doomed . But given time and a few countries disappearing yes . Thats not an option in the OP though . I for one havent done any of the above , perhaps i could get a leave pass .
originally posted by: Metallicus
Threats don't work. I assume an alien race would offer help not destruction. Otherwise they are no better than us with better tech.
originally posted by: DAVID64
All this time and we are still using the most profitable energy sources, not the best for us or the planet. Seeing as how we keep doing things for money and power and not what we should do to make this a better place for us all, the answer is no.Aliens come down with an alternative power source and the big boys would fight to see who's first in line to make a deal and get the rights to charge us out the ass for it.
originally posted by: Astyanax
Why they would be so interested in the welfare of a planet they don't live on?
But if they were, they'd just ask us to stop breeding for ten years or so.
originally posted by: The Vagabond
I don't think we would even attempt to stop- I think it's more likely that we'd all set aside our differences just long enough to unite and fight for the right to go back to being divided and killing each other- even if we had no prayer of winning.
We've hacked the population capacity of the planet, and we've done it unwisely. There's an ever growing amount of lives nature won't support, an ever growing amount of slack to pick up to keep them alive, and an ever-growing mess from the shortcuts we've had to take to keep up.
The only wiggle room we have left to get ahead of this problem is our freedom- either everyone admits this is a life and death situation and works full bore for no reward so everyone can stay alive, or we draw straws to see who takes the fall for our collective mistakes. And in our culture we glorify people who would risk death rather than be cornered into something resembling slavery by circumstance.
Suppose that you're in the zombie apocalypse and you can join either of two communities.
In one community, every available bit of effort goes into killing zombies- no time off, no luxuries, no raising families- the only thing anyone there ever does is make sure nobody dies. If they let you in, you will agree to work 18 hours a day every day in exchange for a bowl of gruel and a patch of dirt to sleep on, and you are guaranteed not to die.
In the other community, you will be free. They have a list of things that need doing and what you'll get for it, you can pick as much or as little of it as you want to do, and spend the rest of your time as you see fit. A lot of stuff goes unfinished there, somebody dies because of that weekly, and the zombies are slowly building up in the area, leaving some question as to whether they could eventually be overrun, lose half their people, and have to start over.
Which do you join? I think most choose the second community, and I think that's why if the aliens come down and say, "fix your stuff or die", we'll say, "we declare war on you. give us everything we need to fix our problems without any effort and we'll make peace- otherwise we're gonna nuke our whole planet, and we know that won't destroy your ships but you'll probably have to repaint them at least, so we'll do it just to spite you". We're stubborn like that.
originally posted by: Metallicus
Threats don't work. I assume an alien race would offer help not destruction. Otherwise they are no better than us with better tech.