• GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Wait so a super technologically advanced life form that is able to travel through the universe easily doesn’t have the knowledge to create technology that can mine for gold on a different planet? That instead they need slaves?

    I mean if you are going to go down this crazy route at least make it more plausible!

      • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Yes. What gets me is how people devalue humans. That if our linage doesn’t come from aliens then somehow we are not special?

        I’d say everything that had to happen for humans to exist is more impressive than “aliens”

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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          2 months ago

          I agree completely. We’ve achieved amazing things with our limited primate brains which evolved to be hunter-gatherers, but that’s not enough for these people.

      • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Also with differentiated asteroids like Vesta, Ceres (and maybe Psyche) they’re entirely cold. So rather than scrabbling around for the flecks of gold on the surface like on Earth, you can just tunnel down into the core and mine all the heavy metals that sunk during the planetoid’s molten era.

    • Seleni@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Sadly that is the most plausible part, for two reasons.

      For one thing, machines need constant maintenance from qualified professionals, or they break down. And, once they’re broken, you have to pay for even more expensive repairs or buy a new one. Slaves, on the other hand, you can abuse almost to the point of death and they will keep functioning; they’re also somewhat self-replicating.

      The second reason is why so many people want to bring slavery back: the cruelty is the point. There’s a certain mindset that really loves lording it over people; and even better if those people are so in their power that they physically/legally cannot escape. See also: people who verbally abuse wait staff.

      Of course, it’s up to debate whether a truly alien lifeform would be thinking in such a human way, but it’s certainly possible.

      (That being said, these people are lunatics. Douglas Adams once said, ‘Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?’ and I think that sums their insane rantings up perfectly.)

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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        2 months ago

        I can’t argue against the cruelty part, but I would think that it would be very likely that aliens with the power to travel across interstellar distances and subjugate entire planets would have developed self-repairing technology.

    • uid0gid0@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Also if this was even remotely true we would never see surface level minerals since they would have all been collected first. Easiest way to debunk the ancient aliens here for our resources stories.

    • odium@programming.dev
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      2 months ago

      Humans still use horses, cows, sled dogs, etc., even though we have cars, tractors, and many other machines which can do the same tasks.