Would you Allow Yourself to be Enslaved by an Advanced Species?

[Kithelle]

Why would an advanced race that is able to warp across the stars even need slaves?

Robots would be much more efficient.
They also last longer.

Why does anyone need slaves? Cheap labor...lesser beings doing tasks they see below themselves...

[Deleted]

Cows don't know what situation they're in. They're too ignorant and they will never care, cause they are just stupid animals. Humans are above them.

[derpkitteh]

slave.

maybe they'd have their own sickfucks that like to fuck the animals they're enslaving.

[Blackmist]

You are talking about the plot of Half Life 2.

If a sufficiently advanced species domesticated us, we wouldn't have any damn say in it.

[SirCowdog]

In short, if aliens or AI offered you your idealized life in exchange for your enslavement, then which would you choose?

My idealized life would include immortality of some form. And when I say that I don't mean complete immunity to damage or death. Just not dying from old age.

So it really depends on how they define slavery. If I become like some kind of pet to them, but otherwise have equal, or more, freedom than I have now, then would I even consider it slavery?

Keeping in mind here that an alien species that's as far ahead of us as we are ahead of cows, then it seems like they wouldn't need to harvest us for meat or anything like that. I suspect it would end up being more along the lines of the Matrix, which I could find entirely tolerable given the above stipulation of immortality.

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Cows are slaves? um... are you trying to diminish slavery or justify it?

Historically speaking, there have been plenty of times and places where cows were considered more valuable than human beings. Ponder that screwed up situation for a moment. Slavery is one of the most evil things humanity has done to itself.

A LOT depends on the context, however.

[Deleted]

If the aliens needed to harvest people and kill them when they turn 20 it might be closer, given the short lifespan in that scenario I probably wouldn't agree. If it was something like 60, then I might, assuming the quality of life was higher than I could ever reasonably achieve myself.

[SirCowdog]

only way a alien race will come to this rock and slave us is because they need cannon fodder.. I mean soldiers for their intergalactic war to conquer or destroy all in the galaxy, oh wait thats the burning crusade.

If that was the situation, they wouldn't need all of us. Just enough for genetic diversity to avoid a single engineered plague wiping out their entire army. I also suspect that any alien race sufficiently advanced to conduct an intergalactic war wouldn't need canon fodder. The scale of the warfare would be on the level of destroying planets, not ground-based warfare.

Maybe they'd need minds, though? Sounds like the plot of that super terrible B-movie "Skyline".

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If they're advanced species then why would they want humans as slaves? Then they're not advanced enough.

Well, as far as we can tell with the limited range of science we have so far, sentient, intelligent life is pretty rare. It could be that an advanced alien species might value our minds and intelligence the same way human beings value rare materials or works of art. I mean, given the technology levels capable of faster than light travel between stars, you can find just about any raw materials you could ever need. But finding intelligent, free-willed beings that developed on their own? That's not so common(as far as we know).

And it might not even be about current levels of human intelligence, but POTENTIAL. Given how fast we've advanced in only the last 100 years or so, it might be that a sufficiently advanced species of aliens would want to "mine" our way of thinking by having us come up with new approaches to problems they face. Similar to how a human being might train a hunting dog because it has a better sense of smell and hearing. Or perhaps how a service dog can lead around a blind human.

[PL-Cibo]

I mean. the first thing that'd probably happen when they try to enslave us would be to become sickened with disease from contacting a environment they're not accustomed with, unless of course they have environmental-suits for that purpose.

They came through space, they have suits. Maybe they are not carbonbased, why would they care? Would nerver happen. They question was: more advanced race. Not stupid idiots.

Then there's the situation that we have weapons they probably have never faced before. Maybe their planets don't contain lead, gunpowder or the sufficient materials for polymer, so combustion-based firearms are foreign to them. What if they, while a space-faring race, haven't made the discovery of harnessing the potential energy of the atom and by proxy the nuclear bomb? What if our planet doesn't have a necessary resource they need to survive, and we use that to our advantage to strike back against them?

Ehm nope why would they fear ballistic weaponry when they have the technology to fly through space? Micrometeors are a lot faster then bullets... And of course they would have access to nuclear energy... Or maybe they get their energy through spacemagic and never learned anything about how every sun in the universe works.

I highly doubt we as a race would face immediate defeat by the aliens to become subjugated, it's a lot more complex than that.

But let's say we do become overwhelmed and captured; I feel like I'd rather die than become a slave.

Defeat would be hard, annihilation not. But the main question is, why would they even care to enslave us? Well maybe because of how we taste. any other answer would be stupid. and well the taste? you can breed us without a problem. and without educating us there won't be a problem. so the plan would be:

1. get a few humans from earth
2. annihilate the rest of the race with a planetary bomb or whatever
3. get tasty morsels -> profit.

[Deleted]

In short, if aliens or AI offered you your idealized life in exchange for your enslavement, then which would you choose?

Would that be a real choice, or more like "do it or we kinda like to make you an extinct species" ?

[Deleted]

we are already enslaved - we say we have a choice but we dont - work and pay taxes - or get nothing !

[ItachiZaku]

Why would an advanced race that is able to warp across the stars even need slaves?

Locust/Hive species going from planet to planet consuming resources. Need a work force to harvest those resources sometimes. Sort of like Independence Day. Maybe humans are fuel to some.

[Flurryfang]

If these aliens could give me a better life, then i would expect i would get in this life, i would have no problem with being enslaved. Freedom is only good, when i can actually use it for something and get to take actions, that improves my own life. If the aliens will give me a good life just in exchange to have no choices throughout my day, i would have no problem with welcoming our alien overlords.

[Deleted]

Cypher would.

[Rotted]

Where I'm from that would be met with "resistance" The real kind.

Oh you mean by the thousands of people also organizing a group to shoot into the hurricane?

I think you best settle for enslavement

[Daelak]

Cows are essentially slaves to human beings. The meaning of their lives is to either give milk or be eaten. It is true that some cows live in horrible conditions; however, kobe beef cows live a pretty good life. Kobe beef cows get large pastures to roam instead of being constantly confined to a stall, they get to enjoy a top notch diet for cows, daily massages, and they even get several beers a day on the house. Even though they end up as food, kobe beef cows lives a pretty good life.

So, say something similar happened to humans. Say either an advanced alien race or hyper intelligent AI took over the world and gave you the choice to be a slave for them and live an awesome life, or reject slavery and fight back.

In short, if aliens or AI offered you your idealized life in exchange for your enslavement, then which would you choose?

Why would an advanced species that already has interstellar travel with superior computer systems and processes enslave a inferior technological race?

[cuafpr]

need more details on ideal life here... and how i'd be used. but for the perfect life as I can imagine it, with the ability to adjust it if i change my mind, so that i either do some work for them or get ate at a X amount of years.. meh ok why not.

[Tiwack]

You are talking about the plot of Half Life 2.

If a sufficiently advanced species domesticated us, we wouldn't have any damn say in it.

QFT
/thread

[Sevyvia]

It depends on the level of advancement. If we're simply talking "A slightly more advanced species is here, on earth, around us" then the answer is fight. Equally, if it's a planet-bound AI, then the answer would still be fight. If not...

If an alien species arrived in our solar system, came to earth and communicated with us, then yes. Enslavement time. Because the fact that they have the technology to do that means they -easily- had and have the technology to annihilate earth as a life-bearing place, and they wouldn't even have had to leave their own home(s) to do it. But they came here anyway, which means not only are we enormously inferior technologically, but they have already proven that they don't want us dead.

Any ideas of "earth diseases would be a problem" or "they might lack some critical resource" are frankly ignorant. If they wanted us dead, we would be dead. If they want us enslaved, "shut up and do as we say or your planet gets it" is a pretty effective tactic. Fire your guns into the air all you want. Won't help against a hundred thousand, or millions, of relativistic missiles fired at us from far away in such a manner that they all arrived at the same time. Even if you had an effective counter, good luck countering them all at the same time. Again, if they have the technology to go here to make enslavement relevant, they have to technology to totally and utterly fuck us and our entire planet up.

[Raetary]

Why does anyone need slaves? Cheap labor...lesser beings doing tasks they see below themselves...

again, a machine would do the exact same thing.

even 10 times as fast.

[Kithelle]

again, a machine would do the exact same thing.

even 10 times as fast.

Just because they're a advanced race doesn't mean they're wielding robots, androids, or any kind of super advanced machines.

Look at us...we've been using robotic tech for years but there isn't a whole lot more done by robots than there was a decade ago.