SYD!!! STOP OVERANALYZING!!!

Sometime during Friday’s classes PTJ asked something along the line of “is this scenario with aliens parallel to a similar scenario involving other countries?”  Although some said they are somewhat parallel I still do not think they are.  In our class discussion people always began “if the aliens are like this...or if the aliens are like that...” in those phrasing the two scenarios are parallel because when know the characteristics of the aliens, we know their motives, history, and course of action.  If aliens really landed on the White House lawn we could be clueless!  Currently, life outside of Earth is completely unknown, any predictions we make have no reasoning behind them.  

When dealing with other states, or anything else on earth it is easier and safer to make assumptions.  When we are dealing with any relations between any two world forces there is no such thing as a completely unknown force.  We always know about a group’s or state’s history.  Yes, there is always a possibility for change but we do not ignore what has been done in the past.  Obviously we look at the history to determine if the group or state will most likely be our ally or an opposing force.  A complete unknown that we would encounter with aliens is not something we are familiar with and therefore cannot make predictions about.  

Another question we addressed in class is if the world would unify against the aliens.  I argued that there may be a temporary cooperation but eventually state relations would go back to the way they were before the aliens invasion because states would always eventually go back to having only their own self-interest in mind.  If we compared the aliens scenario to conflicts between states I would say that there could never be unity.  First, because there obviously would be at least one opposing state or group.  Second, because there would always be another state willing to ally itself with the first state thinking it would benefit the state.