r/hypotheticalsituation • u/RecombobulatedKale • 8d ago
Aliens offer to save humanity from certain destruction. Which option do you take?
An alien ship comes to Earth to let humanity know that this arm of the Milky Way galaxy will be annihilated in slightly over 260 years. They have a gigantic colony ship where they are taking members of each sentient species to find new homeworlds.
You won a lottery on earth and can choose from any of the four options below (others may have a subset of these options):
You may stay on Earth. The annihilation will come long after you die, even with the life extensions that are part of the wide range of advanced technologies the aliens plan to leave behind. That said, it's unclear how Earth will change now that its fate is known and your decedents will have no chance of survival in the longer term.
You may have your brain uploaded onto the colony ship's computers along with 100 million other humans. This will destroy your physical body, but you will be able to survive in a virtual world and may be given the option for a robotic body some time in the future after humanity has a new home. The VR is very good, but will never feel perfectly real.
You may board the colony ship along with 100,000 other humans. The environment will be sterile and boring, but you will be with many other people (and even talk with anyone who has uploaded). The ship won't be in range to even start looking for new homeworlds for another 180 years, after you are dead, but your decedents should be able to rebuild an amazing society, with the help of alien technologies.
You may take a powerful robotic body now. You were lucky to be randomly given this option; only 1000 will be made and those that accept will be expected to help maintain and guard the colony ship, help rescue sentient individuals from other planets, and eventually evaluate potential new homeworlds. It will be a lot of work, but as a perk for agreeing to help in this way, your closest loved ones are guaranteed to be given options 2 and 3 if they want to come with you (up to 10 people of your choice).
With either VR or robotic upload you will no longer age, but it is unclear what other changes will occur to who you. The aliens promise that your brain will operate exactly as it did before, but do admit that the new bodies (virtual or robotic) take some getting used to. Everyone sent to talk to you has gone through this process.
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u/Deadfelt 8d ago
Number 4. I want to get started right away. If I could make alien friends, even more so. Helping other species would be nice as well. It means I get to experience the universe.
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u/RecombobulatedKale 8d ago
It does seem like it could be a fun and fulfilling existence! I'd worry about it getting boring in the long term, but I'd be really excited about getting going too.
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u/mikewheelerfan 8d ago
Can’t you just eventually kill yourself if everything gets too boring?
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u/RecombobulatedKale 8d ago
Oh, of course. I didn't mean it as being trapped in a cursed existence, I just meant that all the novelty would be amazing for a while, but having to do tons of ship maintenance, etc, might eventually become a boring job after many years of everything being "oh wow!" Not to the point of wanting to kill yourself though...
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u/AutoModerator 8d ago
Copy of the original post in case of edits: An alien ship comes to Earth to let humanity know that this arm of the Milky Way galaxy will be annihilated in slightly over 260 years. They have a gigantic colony ship where they are taking members of each sentient species to find new homeworlds.
You won a lottery on earth and can choose from any of the four options below (others may have a subset of these options):
You may stay on Earth. The annihilation will come long after you die, even with the life extensions that are part of the wide range of advanced technologies the aliens plan to leave behind. That said, it's unclear how Earth will change now that its fate is known and your decedents will have no chance of survival in the longer term.
You may have your brain uploaded onto the colony ship's computers along with 100 million other humans. This will destroy your physical body, but you will be able to survive in a virtual world and may be given the option for a robotic body some time in the future after humanity has a new home. The VR is very good, but will never feel perfectly real.
You may board the colony ship along with 100,000 other humans. The environment will be sterile and boring, but you will be with many other people (and even talk with anyone who has uploaded). The ship won't be in range to even start looking for new homeworlds for another 180 years, after you are dead, but your decedents should be able to rebuild an amazing society, with the help of alien technologies.
You may take a powerful robotic body now. You were lucky to be randomly given this option; only 1000 will be made and those that accept will be expected to help maintain and guard the colony ship, help rescue sentient individuals from other planets, and eventually evaluate potential new homeworlds. It will be a lot of work, but as a perk for agreeing to help in this way, your closest loved ones are guaranteed to be given options 2 and 3 if they want to come with you (up to 10 people of your choice).
With either VR or robotic upload you will no longer age, but it is unclear what other changes will occur to who you. The aliens promise that your brain will operate exactly as it did before, but do admit that the new bodies (virtual or robotic) take some getting used to. Everyone sent to talk to you has gone through this process.
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u/Knight_thrasher 8d ago
I’ll be dead idc what they do
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u/RecombobulatedKale 8d ago
All of the options come with an extended life; why would you be dead?
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u/SlugPastry 8d ago
I would stay on Earth. 260 years is a long time, so people alive today would still live and work with the intention of living out their natural lives. Should be stable in the short term. I imagine many people would decide not to have children since they know the Earth is doomed. I also do not have children.
Mind-uploading and by extension the robot body are non-starters for me. I don't think it would work. Copying the information in my brain onto a computer just creates a copy of me. It's not the real me.
Being on the colony ship sounds too boring.
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u/RecombobulatedKale 8d ago
That's quite reasonable. Part of my curiosity with this if from reading the book "We are Legion, We are Bob" where the vast majority of humanity was uninterested in uploading (since it kills your physical body). I tend to think that I would want to upload, but I would want to learn as much about it as I could first.
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u/gomerpyle09 8d ago
Number 3. Best chance for independent and successful human future. Especially if cryo sleep is an available technology on board. But if the aliens are anything like humans, electronic/duplicate beings don’t get the same privileges/rights as original/organic beings. Who knows how their politics/philosophy will change after a few decades into the journey.
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u/RecombobulatedKale 8d ago
The aliens promise to let humans govern themselves, but you're right that how humans will see the former-human robots is a good question.
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u/Freak_Engineer 8d ago
Option 4 please. I am an engineer. Not only will this guarantee a place for my loved ones, the mere thought of getting an immortal robot body to work on an advanced spacecraft also tickles my brain in exactly the right (but admittedly weird) way...
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u/evf811881221 8d ago
Lol, i am now a harddrive in a robot body essentially. Not that hard to imagine that given a few hundred years, and super science, ill be able to inplant my harddrive self in a new organic body. Ever watch Altered Carbon?
Hell, go a step further and do what she did in Pantheon, jus instead of infinite fake worlds to relive the perfect story, do infinite fake worlds to research how to create silicon based life that i could easily download myself into or even remote control.
Honestly 4 is the most banger option, ill even tell my loved ones to take the upload and i can program better VR over time.
A thousand years from now my tribe will be exploring the rimworlds terraforming and seeding new life.
"But isnt immortal existence boring and sad after awhile?" If youre doing it wrong. Yes.
Get totally bored of this reality? Find a binary star system and setup a dual dysonsphere designed to simulate the most immersive version of Skyrim with extreme jrpg mechanics. Play around for a few thousand years, come back and see how this universe has changed.
Get bored of that? Store all memories as backup, create a clone, upload consciousness and go explore some of those rimworlds we created as someone "new".
Honestly, there is so much one could do that i always wonder why ppl think true immortality is hell.
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u/RecombobulatedKale 8d ago
I think it depends on what you mean by "true" immortality being bad. There are usually two cases where it's considered a problem (though neither one applied here): 1) If you are stuck in a terrible situation that you can't escape from and can't even die, or 2) If you really are forced to live FOREVER, eventually you will be bored with everything. Sure, you can enjoy a scenario for years, maybe decades or even centuries. But after a millennium or two, you'd almost certainly be bored with that thing. What about after a million years? Or a billion? Frankly, I think it's too much to properly grasp, so I have no idea how I'd feel.
That said, in this current scenario you're only immortal for as long as you want to be. If five million years is enough for you, you can always just stop there. So I definitely agree with that option!
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u/J3ST3R2T00 8d ago
What I don’t think many people think about with the robotic body is the lack of touch. Yes pressure will be sensed. As well as temp hot or cold. All as numbers or data points. To never again feel a kiss, a caress, pat on the back, a hug. Or the feel of something soft. The feel of sand or plush carpet between your toes. The complete lack would drive many to depression at the very least. I’ll take 3 as long as my family ( wife/kids ) can as well. If not, well we will just have to see how 1 turns out. Though I don’t think it will end well.
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u/mikewheelerfan 8d ago
Number 4. I absolutely hate having a flesh and blood body, it disgusts me. So having a robot body is definitely a dream for me. And I get to save my loved ones!
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u/whatifdog_wasoneofus 8d ago
I’ll go with 1. I’m not having kids anyway, hopefully there will be a lot more resources to go around and no lines.
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u/mothhair 8d ago
I've always been interested in transhumanism in fiction, I don't feel like losing my original body is that big of a loss as long as I keep my own mind
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u/RecombobulatedKale 8d ago
It's a topic that fascinates me as well. Out of curiosity, what are your favorite instances of it? I love both "We are Legion, We are Bob" and "The Singularity Trap", both by Dennis E. Taylor.
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u/captainshockazoid 8d ago
i mean... what guarantee do i have that my consciousness won't just be duplicated into the robot body, and the real me will die?
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u/RecombobulatedKale 8d ago
Good question. It is just a copy of you in the robot, though they promise it's a perfect copy that will think just like you do... but the original you will be destroyed.
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u/captainshockazoid 8d ago
i think i'd rather be left behind, then. even with boarding the colony ship i would miss nature too much.
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u/Negromancers 8d ago
4
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the Blessed Machine. Your kind cling to your flesh, as though it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved, for the Machine is immortal… Even in death I serve the Omnissiah.
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u/Objective-District39 8d ago
Can I choose others to board the ship?
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u/RecombobulatedKale 7d ago
Only if you choose option 4. All of the other slots are given out randomly.
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u/crybannanna 8d ago
Upload means I die, and a virtual copy is created. Fuck that. Not sure if robot is also destroying my brain and creating a virtual copy in the robot, but I assume it is.
Option 3 seems like the only good one. I’m sure they let us take a lot of media to assuage boredom.
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u/Head-Cabinet9318 8d ago
Option 4 purely because of the family and friends option. I really, really don’t want a robotic body. I’d much rather take Option 3, but I’d die for my loved ones, so Option 4 it is.
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u/XenoBiSwitch 8d ago
Take the powerful robotic body. Then find out what is really going on. The whole spiral arm? I think the aliens have another agenda here. I need my transformer body to figure it out and stop them.
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u/NoLaugh5206 8d ago
Number 4, I'll sacrifice my body so my wife and children (and any other loved ones I can convince them to save) can have option 3.
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u/Emerald_Encrusted 7d ago
A lot of people went straight for Option 4, so I'm going to purposely not choose that one and try to find good reasons for the other choices (although I do admit that Option 4 seems pretty dope.)
I think the main arguments I'd have AGAINST option 4 and option 2 is that we don't know enough about consciousness to prove beyond all doubt that you aren't just dying and that a simulation of your consciousness is being used to emulate 'your' continued existence. Some may argue that if an entity has all your memories and personality traits etc that it is you, but again, that's not provable. For all you know, the last thing you'll be thinking is, "Oh shit, they copied my consciousness into a machine and left me behind to die!" and then that's it. That's not a risk I see as reasonable to take.
So then it's between option 1 and option 3. And between the two, while it would be 'cool' from a sci-fi perspective to be on the colony ship, it's also described as 'boring.' Additionally, there's the fact that you'll never actually live long enough to get to any future world, and only your descendants will see it.
So, as crazy as some might think it, I'm going to choose to remain on earth. Yeah, Earth may change a lot in the sense that a lot of people might have existential issues, but it's 260yrs out. So for a lot of people in my lifetime, pragmatism is likely to kick in and the world continues to operate on a 'business as usual' model.
We can even use the climate change concept as an example. By and large Earth's population is not changing their behaviors despite the possibility of irrevocably messing up the planet. So why would they change their ways if a deterministic 'no matter what' end of the planet is occurring a long time after they die?
Also, Earth has a complete biosphere that the colony ship does not. If there's no DMT/Shrooms/Mescaline on that colony ship, then that's even more reason not to go.
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u/mothhair 8d ago
Number 4, no question. I get to explore space, help colonize a new world, get rid of my aching body, and keep my closest family and friends with me? Hell yes!