this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
35 points (90.7% liked)

No Stupid Questions

41000 readers
1642 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

By workplace I mean everything that requires labor, I don't mean just the employees but also the employers

top 25 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] T156@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

No. Because any advanced civilisation capable of sending a colony ship across light-years to another planet is already so far outside of our current technological ability that it matters precious little.

We would be easy to colonise either way. Doubly so if they have some form of FTL technology to make that trip in reasonable time.

But there's also an argument that anyone who can do so would have a much easier time not dealing with all of that and just colonising an uninhabited planet, or outright using materials to make a thing to colonise instead.

[–] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 days ago

I’ve thought about the way an excavator moves huge rocks and ant hills like they’re nothing. The driver doesn’t care about the ants, because he is focused on the construction site and staying on schedule. Maybe humans on Earth will one day be nothing more than an ant hill in the bucket of an excavator.

If super advanced aliens can carry out galaxy wide construction projects, one planet won’t matter at all.

[–] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I was colonised by an alien, once. It's never been the same since.

[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Probably not.

I also don't see why any spacefaring civilization would have any interest in colonizing inhabited planets. It would just be more hassle for the same resources you could get on lots and lots of planets. If they have the technology for interstellar flight, they can probably extract whatever they want from wherever they want. Regarding living space, you wouldn't even need planets, there are far more efficient structures you could devise when you don't have to limit yourself to only what nature has provided.

[–] OpenPassageways@programming.dev 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

It's an interesting thought, but an alien race could be more like hive insects and are just sending out ark ships as part of an instinct to survive and thrive in as many places as possible. Like the aliens in the Ender's game series.

Or like the race that created the Protomolecule in the expanse, they sent a probe into a system that looked promising possibly even before humans existed and had no way to know if it had intelligent life and their probe is basically going to autonomously consume organic material as part of building a highway off ramp.

[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

Sure. It's certainly not impossible, just unlikely when we consider all the possibilities.

[–] Drbreen@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

Unless they really really like gold and unbeknownst to us, gold is a scarce element in the universe and we happen to have a shit tonne of it.

Then we're fucked.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Who's to say that for a civilization that advanced wiping us out in the process would not be any more hassle than just resource Gathering normally on any other planet? Who's to say we be more than gnats or any other pest we deal with during resource extraction?

[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Just adds an extra, unnecessary step. It'd be like if you had billions of grocery stores to choose from and went to the one crawling with ants.

I would think the same so-called AI that told us to eat rocks regularly, or that thinks it's still 2024, or that "hallucinates" other stuff will make conquering our planet harder. Particularly, if these aliens are unaware of the concept of deception.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

In that it will lead to the complete collapse of our society and eventual Extinction of our species? Yeah probably

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I don't think I understand what the point of colonization would be. At some point, the cost of keeping slaves exceeds the benefit of the "free" labor you get from them; likewise with colonial administration. I think if a species had access to the kind of energy capabilities necessary to make an Alcubierre drive run, then that's functionally a post-scarcity society for a number of reasons, and the only possible reason they'd want to colonize or enslave is if they're just kind of hard wired to go out of their way to be major league assholes, even by human standards. Even if you somehow figure out a configuration of an Alcubierre drive that makes it so you could power it with a conventional energy source, that still bumps us way up towards post-scarcity because of all the cheaty/hackey bullshit we can now do in space. Deploying even a small array of solar panels around the sun to beam as much electricity as we could want to wherever we want would become a trivial task. Oh, an asteroid with sixteen quadrillion dollars of gold? Ez. Just pop on over and scoop up as much gold as you can fit on the ship. Want to colonize and mine the moon for a laugh? No problem, just pop on up there and set up your tent, no giant fucking rockets needed, that'll be two seconds, please. Transporting goods, people, and cargo across the earth becomes comically fast and easy, no more need for big ass jets and airports. The Alcubierre drive would probably have a bigger impact on our QOL than the discovery of electricity.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Why bother sending humans at that stage?

Send the AI to colonise the place and treat it as a tourist destination.

[–] mrpres@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I meant them colonizing our planet and do whatever to us (maybe experiments or something else they'd need since all the labor would be sustainable by AI itself)

Not to not consider your hypothesis though, I think we would be indeed better sending robots with AI to outer space than ourselves, we already sort of do just not with AI, Mars is basically a human-made robot colony if you think about it I guess.

[–] etchinghillside@reddthat.com 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Lots of Alien theme with the newly created OP account.

Are you the one whispering into every CEOs ear about AI?

Aside: Yes - more susceptible to electronic warfare.

[–] mrpres@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

gosh forbid a human deeply into aliens

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Seems like a good time for shameless self promotion. I moderate a comm you might be interested in.

https://lemm.ee/c/close_encounters

[–] mrpres@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

joined thanks, you can link to it this way by the way !close_encounters@lemm.ee (!communityname@instance)

[–] Kurious84@lemmings.world 1 points 1 day ago

I just assumed they would not want what we produce and just have the planet.

[–] Thwompthwomp@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Your question assumes a disconnect between labor and AI systems. AI is built on mounds of cheap labor already. It’s going to have to replace things like mines and miners and a TON of labor all the way up the chain (including data center upkeep). It we can do that and build this thing capable manufacturing the autonomous robots that replace human labor, then humans would be in a pretty good place technology wise to defend ourselves. We’re also talking like many many many years in the future when we could do this. We’re far more likely to run out of resources and be forced to be a multi planet species to seek out this dream.

[–] mrpres@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We’re also talking like many many many years in the future when we could do this.

Thats why I mention no timeframe, my question is based on whenever the conditions I mention are met, not about how things are today which isnt nearly any good to get to that point

pretty good place technology wise to defend ourselves

Maybe but it would be hubris to assume if an advanced civilization capable to travel to other planets would be totally defenseless from us

[–] Thwompthwomp@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think a lot of this is kinda what I’m getting at too — it’s such a far fetched question, that it almost doesn’t matter. We are making so many assumptions (since this is not something remotely feasible at the moment) that it’s all completely up on the air.

I think maybe a different question might be: is there EVER a point where we are able to defend from an alien invasion. Which I’m not really sure what that answer would be. I think it’s not a technology question, but more of a political one since it would require a massive solidarity movement to unite.

[–] mrpres@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

it’s such a far fetched question, that it almost doesn’t matter

its not about whether this will ever happen which if it does i doubt it will be in our lifetime but more of a thought experiment of how such situation would go down

is there EVER a point where we are able to defend from an alien invasion

thats a good interesting question but a very different one

[–] Thwompthwomp@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

I'm enjoying thinking about it, but I just don't understand the constraints you are interested in, or assuming. If all human labor is replaced, then I'm already envisioning what is in essence an entirely different planet. Resources would be gone, politics are reorganized around supporting and building this AI takeover, and then re-aligned again once there is free time. I'm thinking of what is the cost of that


are we spread out on multiple planets, and on earth no one works? Is it some dystopian earth with the humans left there having nothing to do? Is it a utopian future, where humans have all the free time in the world, and we had did figure out how to solve the resource problem. I'm not trying to deflect your question or not answer, I'm actually really trying to answer it and consider things but see an AI takeover completely tied up in a whole host of other issues. I'll read through the other comments and see what others are thinking. Thanks for the thought-game for this Sunday though :)