Random Blog Post #2 - Aliens vs. Humans: What Would Happen?

One idea that I've always been fascinated with is how humanity would manage an invasion from an alien civilization. Movies like War of Worlds and Alien depict this type scenario happening, however, it's interesting to consider what would happen if one were to think about technology/technical advances. As human civilization has developed, our technologies like our weaponry and communication strategy have grown more and more sophisticated. On the contrary, many believe that even though our technologies as a human society have vastly improved, it still would not compare to what an alien civilization has or may eventually produce. 

In the event of an invasion, aliens may find value in humanity, the society, and the technologies that we’ve developed here on Earth. There could be the potential that aliens could evaluate our civilization and the technologies we've created as unique and advantageous for them (i.e. our weaponry, developments within artificial intelligence, machine learning, and/or the various gadgets we use to communicate with like laptops and phones). In addition to their capabilities and resources, they could see a benefit in sparing our species and developments. With this, the aliens could look to develop a relationship with humanity that's mutually beneficial where we as civilizations would potentially collaborate to advance our own and their technological devices. Additionally, the alien civilization could develop/could have already developed an emotional way of thinking like humans where there is a respect for morality and life. Thus, within this and the option to exterminate humans, the alien civilization could be empathetic and sympathetic towards our species and this would ultimately lead to altruistic behavior (i.e. sparing humans and deciding to collaborate with us and develop a relationship). 

On the contrary, human history demonstrates that violence was/is often imposed on a variety of minority groups as their human economic value has historically been perceived to be lower than Caucasian males. For example, prior to the “rights revolution”, it was a norm for women to be regarded as property. Therefore, our relationship with the alien civilization will be dependent on their determination of human worth/economic value to them. If humans prove to be productive to aliens, it wouldn't be difficult for aliens to productively coerce human beings, especially if they have a higher level of superiority to humans. Alike how humans previously treated animals, the alien civilization could potentially extort humans for their own benefit. An alien civilization may also be threatened by the technologies that humans have developed and could grow violent with humans to defend themselves. The aliens could also determine that it's costly and/or taxing to treat us humans well. Thus, in this scenario, it’s likely that humans would be captured and enslaved. However, if the aliens were to determine that humans are permanently inferior and lack value, there could be a genocide/widespread extermination of humanity. In this situation, a war would probably break out between humans and the alien civilization in which we utilize our different weapons and technologies to try and annihilate one another. In earlier history, primitive humans had a similar reaction towards the Neanderthals when humans eliminated them after determining they were inferior and valueless. 

Therefore, would be this be enough to determine how an alien civilization would interact with us? Could our technologies be the only reason they decide to spare us, or could it be even more reason for us to be determined as a threat?