[anal_reactor]

> will be so far beyond our human technical abilities that we stand basically 0 chance of survival.

Not if we also develop technical abilities before the invasion. Here though you could make an argument that it would be much more effective if we cooperated instead of fighting.

> I think it's absurd to justify killing one another in wars because it might one day save us from some hypothetical invasion.

Well, the modern western moral system holds human life as the highest value. But even nowadays we still have moral systems that place the existence of a group much above the existence of an individual. Imagine that the whole humanity is like an organism - you don't really care about individual cells in your body, do you? A vaccination hurts, but ultimately, it leaves you stronger, right?

I'd say, "let's keep killing each other in wars so that we can maybe defend ourselves in a hypothetical alien invasion" is indeed absurd, but the general idea "wars allow humanity as a whole to practice self-defense" isn't. Europeans didn't die from native American diseases because millions of Europeans had already died in the past from similar diseases, building the collective immunity.

[estimator7292]

I don't think you have any concept of the technologies involved here.

This isn't a case of who has the biggest gun. This is a case of someone has a gun that can wipe out your entire planet and you have a rock.

No, a planetary society cannot stop an invasion once they're in orbit. It simply is not possible, not with any technology we can even imagine.

You very much do not at all understand the argument you're making.

[beAbU]

I hope war reaches you one day, in all it's terrifying glory. The we can circle back to this conversation and reflect on how you feel about contributing to humanity's readiness against that alien invasion.

Humans aren't cells. We are individual sentient beings.

[anal_reactor]

> We are individual sentient beings.

This is exactly what cancerous cells would say if they could.

[Xerox9213]

This is a baffling statement.

[daymanstep]

What is baffling about it? It makes sense to me. A normal cell will kill itself if asked to, a cancerous cell will refuse. On some level you could interpret this as, the cancer prioritizing its own survival over the survival of the organism. Obviously the cells aren't conscious, but the analogy seems clear to me.