comment: >
  
  I recently picked up No Man's Sky. 
  In the video game, I explore the cosmos. I travel to new worlds, where I collect resources. This is what all life everywhere on Earth does. It uses resources to fight entropy, and it tries to defend whatever source it has for those resources.
  Earth is a relatively large rocky planet with a diverse subset of rare materials, including liquid water. Liquid water, with sufficiently advanced technology, can be used to produce fusion fuel and rocket fuel. Aliens would have a stake in this. Humans are also large, hardy organisms with high fecundity and a capacity for teamwork. We would make excellent slaves if we could be controlled - humans know that better than anyone lol
  There's just about no way for you to defend this point lol. Yes our ideas about how aliens behave do come from our historical experiences with colonization - there is absolutely no reason that an alien species wouldn't act like that, and like us they're in the forever fight against entropy, so it's us with our resources, or them with our resources. Unless aliens are so sufficiently different from us that their thoughts and desires are different, at which point we may not even recognize alien life, they will also need resources from rich planets, and Earth is one of them.
context: They could just want the planet, not the energy or resources. Earth is, for all we know, very rare. >
  
  They could also just want us as pets. A pet hooman to amuse them. >
  
  There's literally a song about this by Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction >
  
  We would be at their mercy which is the problem. Benevolent or not, in our experience that kind of relationship only goes one way. >
  
  Human imperialists have committed atrocities just to steal spices. If aliens are anything like us, we're fucked. >
  
  That’s true, I bet our organic matter would be of more interest. Plants/species etc.
  That being said… if these species are able to communicate with us, I bet the main issue would be force occupation and the political issues that follow. >
  
  If it helps you sleep better at night, go ahead and think that. I am less optimistic.. Aliens wouldn't waste their time contacting us for no reason.. >
  
  Maybe they would require a pit stop and we are on their way somewhere. >
  
  Roadside picnic reference confirmed >
  
  If they try to enslave us, we will just cancel them. Works everytime >
  
  What if that energy is our planets core or us? >
  
  Why would it be our planets core?  We’re very human centric. The only unique resource we have is life, everything else is easier to get elsewhere. >
  
  They could want water as far as I’m aware it’s only present in one other body in the solar system >
  
  It is not only present on one other body. It’s also present in greater quantities with a smaller gravity well elsewhere (such as Europa) >
  
  I thought the () at the end said Europe 😭 >
  
  Their superiority would be why they have no issue using our planet as a resource and disregard our civilization.  Think Europe/Africa. They wouldnt need to steal, they could simply offer some technology thats is inane to them, but life changing to a human. >
  
  No they'll completely wipe us out without any regards. We're akin to ants to an alien species that has the capability to reach us. >
  
  You’re projecting primitive human behavior on a species that can travel between stars >
  
  Human behavior? Literally everything we know as life competes with other life for resources and territory so why would you think any species from anywhere else would be any different? >
  
  Because an interstellar species would have no need for the tiny amount of resources in earth. It would be like humans stealing crumbs from an ant colony >
  
  How do you know this? Maybe biomass is rare and that's what they came for. Maybe crumbs produced by ants are special and only exist under very rare circumstances. If an alien species wants to take earth for whatever reason they'll do so without issue. >
  
  I don’t think the crumbs we produce are as rare or special as we think they are. Interstellar species would likely be more than capable of advanced chemistry and could create whatever elements they need 
  And yeah maybe biomass is rare, but that doesn’t mean they need it. They definitely wouldn’t need biomass for any sort of fuel because all the biomass in our world wouldn’t provide enough enough energy to travel between stars >
  
  We can't really tell what aliens would do or could do because we are writing from the point of view of the humans. The aliens could have completely diffrent morals than us. They don't have to be rational - humans aren't rational too. >
  
  We have crossed oceans to hunt animals to extinction. Often coz we liked their skins.