What if martians invaded?

[Litmus]

If a hypothetical arrival could reshape how people live at the systemic level just by being here and persistent, do you think most humans would be comfortable with that, or would they reasonably try to maintain their own way of life?

Well, if we're talking space aliens, then the question is wide open, because we have no idea what they'd be like. I mean, what if they are too small to be seen and subsist entirely by consuming harmful viruses. Some pharmaceutical companies might lose money but I don't see how other people would be much changed by it, except by being healthier. 

But to extrapolate from known experience, we have to talk about human immigrants. And here of course we get into all kind of ideological and other issues. 

I'm sure you're right that there is a tipping point at which the presence of non-native people would change a society in noticeable ways. Taleb's essay indicates that the tipping point might arrive earlier than we'd imagined -- well before the population reached 50%. And of course different places absorb people differently. The New York borough of Queens, for example, when I lived there seemed as if it was entirely made up of recent arrivals. In the stores on my block people would greet me in Greek and seem surprised if I didn't understand. But other cities, which have traditionally been more homogenous, would feel the influx more strongly. 

It's hard for me to know about the real situation in Europe now, or about the cities in England which (some people say) are not what they used to be. It seems likely to me that some people are exaggerating -- for example when they claim that large areas of Sweden are now lawless zones where the police don't dare enter. But I haven't been there in a while, and I know a lot of people have moved in. I saw a photo of Paris recently, where everyone on the street was black and dressed as though they were in Nigeria. I don't know what street it was, but the architecture was Haussmann-era classic Parisian, so it was clearly the heart of the city. Naturally I think people should be able to move to Paris if they want to, and dress however they want. But I can understand that someone who grew up there, and feels that Paris had a unique culture worth preserving, would not feel at home any more. Something has been lost. 

I suppose all we can do is recognize the inevitable -- everything changes. The things we like won't last. The people who change it are not malicious, they are just different. πάντα ῥεῖ.

I agree that change is inevitable in the abstract, but inevitability doesn’t really settle the question of legitimacy.

Even in the alien scenario, I don’t think resistance would automatically be read as fear or hatred. It could just as plausibly be about continuity. Humans are a species that developed in a particular place, with shared histories, norms, and even biological adaptations shaped by that environment. Wanting to preserve that, socially and biologically, doesn’t seem strange to me.

Most animals are territorial in this sense. They don’t need hostility to want boundaries; they need familiarity, stability, and a sense of belonging. Humans aren’t exempt from that, even if we intellectualize it differently.

So if an external presence, alien or otherwise, gradually altered not just laws or economics but the character of daily life, the look and feel of shared spaces, and the sense of who “we” are over time, I’m not convinced it would be unreasonable to say something valuable is being lost, even if no one intended harm.

Framing that reaction as irrational or immoral seems too easy. It avoids the harder question: whether a people are allowed to remain recognizably themselves, or whether change is something they’re simply expected to absorb without consent.

[Litmus]

Even if an outside group is vastly more capable and not hostile, their arrival still isn’t neutral. Large numbers, arriving quickly, inevitably reshape norms, institutions, and everyday life—whether that’s intended or not.

I know I'm belaboring the obvious, but even in the event of a peaceful encounter, I think the largest effect will be in humans learning that they aren't unique in the universe representing intelligent life. The religious and cultural implications of that knowledge will have far-reaching ripples in our own history.

I agree, that realization alone would be profound. Losing the sense of uniqueness would probably reshape a lot of beliefs and stories we tell about ourselves.

What I find interesting, though, is that even that shift wouldn’t be purely abstract. Once another intelligent civilization is present, the change isn’t just philosophical, it becomes lived. Daily reference points change. The idea of who “we” are stops being something humans define entirely among themselves.

Knowledge can be unsettling, but presence is different. It alters status, norms, and self-conception in a way that can’t really be opted out of.

I suspect most people would accept the truth of not being alone in the universe fairly quickly. Accepting a permanent external presence shaping the future of human civilization is a deeper question—and probably a harder one.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Aliens getting themselves booked on the chat show circuit should soften the blow.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

People have trouble defining "we beyond the borders of their own immediate communities when the aliens are human. I wouldn't expect us to do better if they were from mars.

[Litmus]

People have trouble defining "we beyond the borders of their own immediate communities when the aliens are human.  I wouldn't expect us to do better if they were from mars.

I’m not sure defining “we” is actually that difficult, at least at a descriptive level.

In human societies, groups have usually been identifiable through a mix of shared ancestry, culture, language, and long-term co-residence in a particular place. Anthropologists don’t tend to treat these as mysterious or arbitrary; they’re observable patterns that persist precisely because they’re reinforced over time.

What is difficult is maintaining those patterns once the conditions that produced them disappear. Diversity, whether biological or cultural, doesn’t really sustain itself through constant mixing. It tends to arise through separation, local adaptation, and continuity. Once everything blends into everything else, distinctiveness (and ironically, diversity) erodes.

Bringing it back to the alien scenario: if it is true that humans already struggle to maintain coherent “we’s” among themselves, introducing an external intelligent group into the same shared space wouldn’t make that easier. It would likely accelerate homogenization in some dimensions and fragmentation in others.

So I’m not convinced the issue is an inability to define “we,” but rather discomfort with admitting that stable identities often depend on boundaries. This seems pretty consistent across both human history and the natural world.

[Belacqua]

a mix of shared ancestry, culture, language, and long-term co-residence in a particular place. Anthropologists don’t tend to treat these as mysterious or arbitrary; they’re observable patterns that persist precisely because they’re reinforced over time.

You've explained these things in a way I hadn't thought about before. (Though, granted, it isn't something I've really worked on.) 

So the issue is that a significant number of new-comers introduced into an existing society will inevitably bring about changes in that society. Culture is, as you describe it, a complex system that may be disrupted by changes that aren't all that obvious -- that is, the new immigrants don't have to demand major changes in local laws or traditions to cause significant change. And if we think of the existing local culture as something valuable, and worth preserving, then losing it is something to be regretted. 

You have been careful NOT to describe the new-comers as bad people, which I think is important. That is, we don't have to think of them as intending to make things worse, or intentionally destroying something, or maliciously taking advantage. 

The difficulty, or course, is that for every Roger Scruton or Theodore Dalrymple, who wish to preserve what's good, there are probably a dozen much louder voices who simply don't want to be around people who are different. The noisier people make the discussion about race, even when that isn't specifically what the problem is. [I've chosen British examples here because I'm guessing you're British -- earlier you spelled "colonisation" with an s.]

Much of this will vary according to place. New York or LA are by their nature immigrant cities, which can absorb different kinds of people. Paris and London have been, until recently, less so. And I'm sure there are smaller cities, which you are probably thinking of, which have changed a lot in the last few years. 

One way to frame it, which I'm not so comfortable with, is "cultural purity." Which of course sounds way too much like an idea from certain bad people we can all name. I was thinking of examples in which the introduction of a foreign culture enriched and enlightened a place. Both Renaissance Italy and Heian Period court culture come to mind. The Renaissance was encouraged very much by the Greek-speakers who fled the fall of Constantinople. And the Heian court was entirely focussed on Chinese culture, though we could say they had their own idiosyncratic take on it all. But both of these examples are about homogenous societies which took in the foreign culture largely through intellectual influence, and a relatively small number of visitors. The culture could be improved in this way because it started out as firmly rooted in its own long-standing traditions. Christianity, of course, for Italy, and Buddhism for the Heian capital. The intellectual and artistic additions didn't threaten the existing social structure. (And whether that structure was a desirable one from our own point of view is a separate issue.) 

American culture was very much improved by thinkers and musicians who fled Nazi Germany. But again, America is an immigrant nation. And anyway, the German refugees didn't cluster all in one place. 

Sorry -- I expect you know all this stuff better than I do. I am mostly thinking out loud here. 

Sometimes I hear very racist-sounding people talking about "white replacement," and I am skeptical that anyone is intentionally planning this. But I did see video of a Spanish politician recently, in which she stated very clearly that the way to defeat the fascists in Spain is to bring in enough immigrants to outnumber them. I'm not sure why she is so confident that immigrants won't be fascist.

Anyway, I wanted to clarify what (I think) is the important topic here -- the desire to preserve what's good about a culture without making it all about race.

[Deesse23]

Quite amusing to watch how just one particular person seemed to get along so well with the quite obvious racist undertones of the op.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Quite amusing to watch how just one particular person seemed to get along so well with the quite obvious racist undertones of the op.

Coincidence? I think not!

Boru