Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[LuckyR]

So if an alien landed tomorrow with superior (yet beatable) technology/power and made similar demands on you as you have proposed in this thread, you would personally curl up in a ball and capitulate?

Not me.

[UniversalAlien]

So if an alien landed tomorrow with superior (yet beatable) technology/power, you would personally curl up in a ball and capitulate?

Not me.

What if we offer you your dreams come true? A Paradise beyond your wildest imagination
- With a life expectancy that only ends when you can no longer stand all the joy and happiness.

We have the technology to do this right now! What say you Human, are you ready for an end to
your suffering state of existence?

All you have to do is give up your illusion of 'free-will' - Give up your false illusions and it's all yours!

What say you Human - ready to party with us? - Ready to see how much fun life in the Multiverse really is

[LuckyR]

So if an alien landed tomorrow with superior (yet beatable) technology/power, you would personally curl up in a ball and capitulate?

Not me.

What if we offer you your dreams come true? A Paradise beyond your wildest imagination
- With a life expectancy that only ends when you can no longer stand all the joy and happiness.

We have the technology to do this right now! What say you Human, are you ready for an end to
your suffering state of existence?

All you have to do is give up your illusion of 'free-will' - Give up your false illusions and it's all yours!

What say you Human - ready to party with us? - Ready to see how much fun life in the Multiverse really is

To be honest I liked The Matrix movie. Personally, before concentrating on moving folks from neutral to nirvana, I would prefer work on getting folks from incredibly negative to neutral.

Though, I (as a very happy individual on a day to day basis) am probably the wrong person to approach with a promise of alleviating my suffering.

[Sy Borg]

Eh, if I stamp my feet on a few schools, kids and all, I think they'll be too petrified to pull a stunt like that. The sight of dozens of little red splotches that used to be their children on the bottom of a giant white sneaker should be a good deterrent. :P

Somehow this scene comes to mind :) https://youtu.be/W-mgdUdOjhs?t=74

[Thrylix]

So if an alien landed tomorrow with superior (yet beatable) technology/power and made similar demands on you as you have proposed in this thread, you would personally curl up in a ball and capitulate?

Not me.

True. I may resist but only in secret.

But if I were the giant alien to flea sized humanoids, I'd want to be as cruel as possible and terrorize them for fun. I'd obviously stamp out any signs of resistance. To avoid any uprisings I'd command them to offer up their political and military leaders, with their families, to be squished. And demolish all their government buildings. They can't coordinate a rebellion without organization.

[LuckyR]

So if an alien landed tomorrow with superior (yet beatable) technology/power and made similar demands on you as you have proposed in this thread, you would personally curl up in a ball and capitulate?

Not me.

True. I may resist but only in secret.

But if I were the giant alien to flea sized humanoids, I'd want to be as cruel as possible and terrorize them for fun. I'd obviously stamp out any signs of resistance. To avoid any uprisings I'd command them to offer up their political and military leaders, with their families, to be squished. And demolish all their government buildings. They can't coordinate a rebellion without organization.

We get it. You have made your ideas on the matter boringly clear. Good for you.

I am not arguing with you on your behavioral motivations, merely agreeing with you (as it turns out) that intelligent oppressed folks look to find a way to defeat their oppressor.

BTW fleas are much smaller to humans than your 1000 foot stature would be to humans. Just saying.

[Thrylix]

Flea sized then. Like in the picture at the beginning of the thread. Not sure what demands you're referring to?

Anyway, while I agree they'd try to resist, I don't believe would be successful in doing anything to stop a giant at that size at least without harming their own citizens.

[Thrylix]

Sorry for the bump, but another thought came to mind: what do you guys think would be the most effective way to force such an imagined race of tiny humans into submission?

My first thought when I made this thread was "That's easy, just annihilate their military and government buildings." But that actually might not be the best way to instill fear. A race of flea-sized people would already recognize that a military strike against a giant alien would be ineffective. If I were that big, I'd definitely try to eradicate the military at some point but what is even better is to get them not to use it.

What would be most effective, and what I'd do if I were the titanic invader, is to terrorize them by targeting the most vulnerable among them. I'd demolish the structures they'd normally consider sancrosanct -- buildings that wouldn't normally be military targets. I'd stamp my feet down on their schools, hospitals, nursing homes.

I think they'd be too afraid to retaliate when they see that doing so might mean that granny's new will be somewhere in a rubber crevice in the tread of one of my massive running shoes.

[Sy Borg]

Flea powder would seem an obvious choice.

The question then is why, if you had power, you would be so keen to abuse it so repulsively for purely mindless, atavistic reasons. It also begs the question as to why you would parade such an obviously dysfunctional attitude so keenly. Seeking a little flagellation, perhaps?

[Thrylix]

Flagellation is a form of discipline. If anything, I'd want to be the one doing the flagellating.

Secondly, I wouldn't agree that the abuse of my power would be mindless -- atavistic (I had to look that up) yes, but not mindless. I'd have very mindful and utilitarian reasons for the use of my power. For example, say I was stranded in this setting with tiny humans. I'd still have my own basic human needs to look after: food, water, being quite important. I could command the tiny race to build factories to cultivate food to fulfill my apetite, which would surely require a concerted effort at their scale. I might also need them to locate bodies of water for me to consume. As well, I do have male sexual needs. If I were isolated I have to fulfill those needs somehow. Burning Ghost had a nice idea:

You could also get them to march up and down your shaft until you ejaculate I wonder if they’d then adopt your spermatozoa as sacred pets?

Forcing a contingent of the little people to march atop my shaft would definitely arouse some delightful sensations and stir my penis to arousal.
It wouldn't take me long to ejaculate.

So as you can see, none of the use of my power would be mindless. Selfish -- maybe. But definitely not mindless.

[Thrylix]

Anyway, in conclusion, maybe I'm not the shining pinnacle of morality. But when you have absolute power, what good is morality..? If an entire race of teeny humans were terrified of me, why rule beneficently? I'd have more fun making demands that are unfair, unreasonable, and unpredictable. I'd make sure by demonstration that any time they hear a set of thunderously loud and earth-shaking footprints approaching their cities , that it could mean that any second they might be crushed under my unrelenting feet, depending on my mood.

[Arjen]

I would immediately stop the program of kidnapping and performing medical experiments on humans!

[Thrylix]

I didn't know we even did that still. Or who else are you talking about? I'm against human experimentation too.

[runaway]

Why the Mr President ad hominem?

Yes, ants are collectively sophisticated and demonstrate a sort of intelligence. However, as you said, the nest's intelligence is a collective one. But individually they are basically nature's automatons, unable to function well on their own and easily replaceable. Therefore, I wouldn't think much of going and squashing a bunch of them; and I've done that plenty of times. The colony will continue and repair itself.

In that vein, if an ant-sized race of people existed, I wouldn't think it that egregious for me to plant a massive foot on one of their schools or a densely populated residential area in order to get my point across. It would give the little guys something to do and they could always rebuild.

So you wouldn’t have any issues with stomping on a person if they were ant-sized? What would a tiny person have to do to give you a reason not to stomp them?

Also, what if you found a group of tiny people, but you weren’t the only ‘giant’ in the world? For example, if you lived in a village and one day you woke up and everyone in it had shrunk to flea size except you. Would you still act they way you would with a tiny race of people from another planet if it was any-sized people that you knew and other people would eventually discover people had suddenly shrunk?

[Thrylix]

You know this thread is almost 2 years old? Your last paragraph is confusing.

If I were the lone giant among a race of tiny people, ant-sized or smaller, I'd absolutely subjugate them. I would make them terrified of me and enjoy every second of it. I think I made that pretty clear in this thread early on.