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Re:In search of ET: Fear of what’s out there causes split am... by evolvedcleaning on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @02:12PM (#19266016)
Being enslaved by evil aliens is among the worst of fears. The risk isn’t death or annhilation; it’s being denied the mercy of a short (100 years) existence, in bondage and suffering.

I fully support a careful approach to combing the cosmos.

Edit: May I ask why this is being downvoted?

Re:In search of ET: Fear of what’s out there causes split am... by blotter_paper on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @02:53PM (#19266383)
I didn't downvote you, but this seems extraordinarily unlikely to me. Why would our extraterrestrial overlords want to use us as slaves? They travelled a long way to get here, surely they should have robots or a genetically engineered underclass or something. We're in the process of making human labor obsolete ourselves. The only scenario I can imagine where this makes sense is one where the aliens have interstellar travel but lack decent genetic engineering, and they're interested in exploring/building/mining in places that are inhospitable to both their own biology and robotics but not our biology (like a planet whose gravity would crush them that also has an EM field that would fry circuits without exceptional shielding). This seems like a stretch to me. I feel like wiping out a potential future threat is a much more reasonable incentive, with exploitation/study of an already existent biosphere being a runner up. Most of the things they could want humans for would be more efficiently accomplished by phytoplankton and krill. You're right that nigh-perpetual enslavement is the most horrifying possibility, it just seems implausible.
Re:In search of ET: Fear of what’s out there causes split am... by fsloth on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @02:27PM (#19266162)
Bondage, you say? Sounds like Rocky Horror Picture show.

The point is not some specific fate, but that anything could happen. And anything includes loads of bad outcomes , most of which we are probably unable to imagine.