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What if aliens occupied Mars?
January 31, 2026 at 5:13 pm
What would you do if tomorrow some aliens from another star system arrived on Mars and settled there, completely changing it so that it suits their biology? Would you feel some sense of ownership towards the red planet and thus be angry at aliens because they are taking Mars without asking us, or would you be indifferent, or would you totally support it and say, "Well, nobody lives there, so you might as well take it"?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: What if aliens occupied Mars?
January 31, 2026 at 5:31 pm
(January 31, 2026 at 5:13 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: What would you do if tomorrow some aliens from another star system arrived on Mars and settled there, completely changing it so that it suits their biology? Would you feel some sense of ownership towards the red planet and thus be angry at aliens because they are taking Mars without asking us, or would you be indifferent, or would you totally support it and say, "Well, nobody lives there, so you might as well take it"?
I’d be careful about expressing anger towards a species capable of crossing interstellar distances and terraforming (if that’s the right word) a planet.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
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RE: What if aliens occupied Mars?
February 1, 2026 at 12:06 am
It wouldn't bother me.
I'd still encourage Elon Musk to go there.
Playing Cluedo with my mum while I was at Uni:
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RE: What if aliens occupied Mars?
February 1, 2026 at 1:26 am
It's kinda of a silly and pointless question. If an alien race capable of crossing interstellar distances landed anywhere in our solar system, they would be free to do absolutely anything they wanted to do and we would have absolutely no say in the matter. We would be powerless against them because of the technology gap.
I don't think any alien race would actually do this. Gravity wells are for suckers. Google 'Gerard K O'Neil', 'Planetary Chauvinism' and 'Isaac Arthur'. You don't terraform planets, you build them from scratch to suit your needs.
Hypothetical invaders would almost certainly be far more interested in our asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt and the Oort cloud. Even more likely, they would find stellar systems with even greater resources of raw materials than ours's - without the complication of it being home to an intelligent, technological civilization with a love of guns, bombs and action movies.
We need not worry about invaders from outside. We are under far greater danger from ourselves. Our challenge is to grow up emotionally before our ability to do self harm outstrips our maturity.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
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RE: What if aliens occupied Mars?
February 1, 2026 at 4:51 am
(February 1, 2026 at 1:26 am)AFTT47 Wrote: It's kinda of a silly and pointless question. If an alien race capable of crossing interstellar distances landed anywhere in our solar system, they would be free to do absolutely anything they wanted to do and we would have absolutely no say in the matter. We would be powerless against them because of the technology gap.
I don't think any alien race would actually do this. Gravity wells are for suckers. Google 'Gerard K O'Neil', 'Planetary Chauvinism' and 'Isaac Arthur'. You don't terraform planets, you build them from scratch to suit your needs.
Hypothetical invaders would almost certainly be far more interested in our asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt and the Oort cloud. Even more likely, they would find stellar systems with even greater resources of raw materials than ours's - without the complication of it being home to an intelligent, technological civilization with a love of guns, bombs and action movies.
We need not worry about invaders from outside. We are under far greater danger from ourselves. Our challenge is to grow up emotionally before our ability to do self harm outstrips our maturity.
They probably wouldn't even need to hunt for resources. If you have the tech to cross interstellar distances and build planets from scratch, you're not that far from being able to create whatever you need out the spacetime continuum.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax