Would Mankind unite if Earth was menaced by alien invasion?

Question

Would we forget 'internal' conflicts like that taking place in Israel/Lebanon and build a Worlwide Defence Force integrating all national armys, militias, from all cultures and religions and unite as Humans? How close would it get to "War of The Worlds"?

Answer 1

Probably not. There would be those who would side with the aliens because they could get special treatment, and there would be those who would seem to unite, and as soon as they could they would get back to their own enmities.

Answer 2

It is depressing that Mankind has not yet united against the threat of Global Warming, which is in many ways similar to an alien menace. In addition, Mankind has not really taken on board the need to be prepared for a pandemic such as "bird flu": again there are many similarities between a mutated virus and an alien invasion. A third example is the lack of action so far to be prepared to prevent an asteroid strike, despite the awesome collision between Comet Hale-Bopp and Jupiter a few yers ago.

I would like to answer yes to your question, but I suppose from the evidence I have given in the last paragraph the answer is "probably not".

If the alien menace were obvious and fairly, but not absolutely, immediate, it is much more likely that mankind would unite, as happened with the South-East Asian Tsunami.

When considering this question, you have to take into account the possibility that the aliens would have the intelligence to divide mankind, for instance by palying on religious beliefs about the ending of the world.

All in all, it would be unwise to be optimistic that mankind would unite against an alien menace.

Answer 3

Yes

For three reasons.

1. You see human political groups help each other in times of crisis. Wars have stop, or been put on hold during natural disasters.

2. Alligences change, fast. It wasn't all that long ago America was at war with Germany, Japan, Russia, England, Spain, Mexico etc.

3. Individual Humans help each other, even in times of war. Medic's on the battle field help both sides.

Our most impressive move as a species is to host the Olympic admist WWII.

We would unite. If we survived we would sell each other T-shirts, then start bickering amougst ourselves again.

Answer 4

If i was an superior alien inteligent being, then after spying and watching how humans behave, i would either cut down the population and set them back to the age before the electric light bulb, or wipe out every single last human off the face of the planet.
Failing that blow the planet up.from a couple of billion miles away.

Answer 5

I don't think it would be close to war of the worlds, i still have no clue why the aliens died. Tom Cruise stuck two grenades into one of the ships, but other than that i still do not understand why.

I don't think that mankind would unite. back in the old days when everyone was gullible, but since free speach and being alowed to express your own opinion took place, no one will want to side with one popular belief.

same thing with religion, there are many ideas that people come to believe and they want to choose the right one to save themselves. With aliens its the same thing, except instead of religions, it is going to be different ways to beat the bad dudes.

Answer 6

Everyone will unite except the US, which is the only country which will live simultaneously in irrational fear AND believe that nothing bad will really happen. At least, if global warming treaties are any indication...

I think that what's more likely than the people of the world seeing each other as brethren, would be each country doing what's best for its own people, and realizing that accomplishing that will require temporary cooperation with other countries.

Answer 7

It depend on how powerful the Aliens are. If the Alien forces is far superior then I think earth will become one political entity to fight for survival. If the aliens are a little bit better than we will have a fractional alliance at best. People are naturally liable to disagree with each other. Only when fighting for survival would they band together for the time being.

Answer 8

I believe we would, but that it would highly depend on how well the aliens play their cards as well.

If we on earth have it in us to believe that we have a *fair* fighting chance against the enemy if only we were to give *maximum* effort, then yes, it would happen. Read the book, _Starship Troopers_ by Heinlein to see how that would turn out, it isn't pretty.

But if either of the following happen, we likely will turn on each other:

--If the enemy brings such overwhelming force that resistance is futile and there is no hope. Think of the advantage *firearms* gave the colonial Europeans versus the Natives of the American Continents--both up north in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and *further south* in Brasil, Peru, Venezuela and so on....

Think of how quickly the natives died from European firearms, diseases, and alcohol, even in the relative absence of enslavement and open warfare. Then multiply that by a few hundred fold.

In such a scenario, sort of a dark "We Make Good Pets" war, humans would have about as much chance against the enemy as *rats* have against humans. In that situation, people would *go crazy* and everyone would pretty much be an insane batshiite sociopath like your average Muslim on the street.

Or.....

--The Enemy plays it smart and *picks a favorite*. This is the scarier scenario in my humble opinion. We've only been sending everything we know about ourselves *out into space* courtesy of radio waves bouncing out of the upper atmosphere for *how* many decades?

Are you telling me that the Enemy *wouldn't* know our languages by now, or would not know enough about our cultures of unreason, a.k.a. religions, to *hack* our recent conflicts and show up "being on the side of the angels"?

Really. Some folks around here are *stupid* enough to say that if an "alien" shows up and doesn't declare itself an "angel of Jehovah" that it is by default a demon....

I'd really REALLY beg to differ on that one. It is the ones *claiming local holiness or claiming local godhood* that you DO NOT trust. If someone from outside our world showed up and *just so happened* to claim, in perfect, clean English (better than yours or mine, ok?) that they were here on a "mission from The Lord Your God," would that NOT set off nine kinds of red flags and alarm bells amongst *anyone* with a rational mind??

Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. But it would sure as hell divide us. We are already divided much along those lines, in much of the world it is the "Favored Sons" being attacked by those who insist *they* are the "favored" instead, you know?

Answer 9

I really don't believe that could ever happen. Groups in this world will fight and continue to fight regardless of what is going on in this world. Humans have been this way since the dawn of time and I do not believe that it would change. Someone will be mad at someone because they were the first ones to make contact with the aliens...or someone will be mad because we have more ammunition to fight the aliens. There are always some people that will never make peace regardless....

Answer 10

People will be united if that time came. Its between a group to group conflict. group is defined by their identity, category or nationality.

if that time will come, we can have this group "world/human" and other "alien/other planet"...It is our instinct to choose our identity or group sometimes.

Rules may disregarded, because they will be calling for international emergency policy, which everybody must participate in the so called "War of the World"...

Answer 11

that's Harry Turtledove's series, yet there are greater effective than 3 books. The final interior the series is Homeward certain, wherein (I won't show any of the plot, yet) he kills off Henry Kissinger. The Worldwar Saga: Worldwar: interior the steadiness Worldwar: Tilting the steadiness Worldwar: frightening the steadiness Worldwar: outstanding the steadiness (4 books) accompanied manhattan the Colonization series, the 1st 2 of that are Colonization: 2d touch Colonization: all the way down to Earth (my reproduction of which my cat YumYum has achieved unfavourable issues to)