Yeah, that’s what I mean by romantic. It’s an exciting thing to imagine, even if it did take an immediate, existential calamity to make it happen. Shared trauma can quickly form very powerful bonds in humans (veterans often attest to this).
However, in reality, humans still find the most petty shit to disagree on, even at their own expense. A real post-Independence Day would immediately start an arms race to savage and assimilate all that alien tech before other nations do; tyrants would use the weakness of the fallout to grab power and wealth; people would begin endlessly arguing about how to rebuild and/or prepare for another invasion, etc.
After a few generations of humans, people would form conspiracy theories straight up denying it even happened despite entire cities being reduced to rubble. With 8.2 billion people, complete consensus on literally anything, even reality, might just be impossible.
But it’s nice to imagine what we could accomplish if we did…
Yeah, that’s what I mean by romantic. It’s an exciting thing to imagine, even if it did take an immediate, existential calamity to make it happen. Shared trauma can quickly form very powerful bonds in humans (veterans often attest to this).
However, in reality, humans still find the most petty shit to disagree on, even at their own expense. A real post-Independence Day would immediately start an arms race to savage and assimilate all that alien tech before other nations do; tyrants would use the weakness of the fallout to grab power and wealth; people would begin endlessly arguing about how to rebuild and/or prepare for another invasion, etc.
After a few generations of humans, people would form conspiracy theories straight up denying it even happened despite entire cities being reduced to rubble. With 8.2 billion people, complete consensus on literally anything, even reality, might just be impossible.
But it’s nice to imagine what we could accomplish if we did…