The ethical nature of superadvanced aliens

[Magical Realist]

Suppose superadvanced aliens make contact with us one day. Do you think they would be benevolent towards us, predatorial, or entirely indifferent? You could compare it to humans coming across some new species of insect. Perhaps some initial excitement in the beginning. And then moving on to more interesting things like time travel, interdimensional exploration, creation of new lifeforms, etc. It might be that these beings would be so preoccupied with other more cosmic matters that they would choose to just avoid us all together. Humans probably would not take the news of their speciel inferiority very well.

 

[Neverfly]

I've seen this question asked on forums for years... it always leads to the same speculations. "We may not even recognize them as life." "The advanced species tends to devour the other" and a lot of "We don't know what to expect at all."

I favor the view that one day, superadvanced beings land on Earth and present themselves as investigating signs of intelligent life on Earth. President steps forward to greet them on behalf of all the people of Earth when the alien ambassador coughs and says, "Um, it's not you we're here to speak to."

 

[Buddha12]

How do you know if they aren't already here and a part of the animal or vegetable kingdom we have around us? It is humans that seem to be the reckless ones , destroying their environment and killing everything that moves. So what about that, we have the more intelligent beings around us and yet we cannot communicate to them.

 

[C C]

Do you think they would be benevolent towards us, predatorial, or entirely indifferent?

I still have no idea what superadvanced humans what do in a reverse scenario, in the long run.

 

[Magical Realist]

How do you know if they aren't already here and a part of the animal or vegetable kingdom we have around us? It is humans that seem to be the reckless ones , destroying their environment and killing everything that moves. So what about that, we have the more intelligent beings around us and yet we cannot communicate to them.

How do I know they're NOT here? I don't. But one usually needs a reason for positing the presence of extraordinary beings on earth other than that we don't know they're not here. What is your reason?

 

[Magical Realist]

I still have no idea what superadvanced humans what do in a reverse scenario, in the long run.

The movie Avatar presented one such scenario.

 

[Buddha12]

How do I know they're NOT here? I don't. But one usually needs a reason for positing the presence of extraordinary beings on earth other than that we don't know they're not here. What is your reason?

If humans cannot communicate with any other species than themselves how do they know they are so superior than the rest? As I pointed out humans are the only species that is polluting the Earth so much that they are endangered by that pollution to perhaps one day themselves be on the endangered list. That, to me, shows ignorance toward the only planet humans know of that can support them. All the while all other species that live on Earth are not doing anything to endanger themselves or other creatures that live with them. Who then is the apex of living things on Earth?

 

[C C]

The movie Avatar presented one such scenario.

These SF depictions are often familiar or stereotype personalities, ideological factions, and issues of contemporary culture plucked-up and plunked down into a future setting, a technological extrapolation. We know that governing agencies of prior eras of modernity were largely missing an approximation of today's "growing conscience / guilt-trip" sub-division about having trampled over less advanced / differing human societies[1]. While these new standards are publicly sported about, the global assimilation nevertheless continues, sometimes even with boldfaced glimmers of past methods. But this revision of the West's collective attitude is still emerging, evolving, struggling; so it's premature to predict it won't eventually expunge the "old" and deliver some idealistic Star Trek version of Earth and a Federation. Yet also, take away the interplay with empathy and more brotherly emotional feelings, and reason's progress could just as much output an unconcern for individual rights and "inferior" cultures again. The gist here is that we can't really predict what our own mutable morality would really be like at a superadvanced stage, especially since this would surely concern transhumans and posthumans rather than beings like us.

- - - - -

[1] Not that alternative groups themselves were really "noble savages" -- in the course of raids, acquiring human chattel, grisly punishments, mass sacrifices, etc., in connections with those no more developed than they. Classic case of mis-associating victimhood with sainthood; like the mixed perceptions that Israeli Jews have conjured.

 

[Engell79]

In questions such as this, there is much room for speculation and not much room for fact...
but to speculate and ponder on your question:

1. I belive that any spicies that's advanced enough to cross intergalatic space, will either need to be highly advanced social beings with a great understanding and respekt for life (Teamworkers!) OR!!
They will be of a hive mentality, were the "queen" is the only important thing and individual life is as of no meaning.

Above i state cuz, i dont see any other way for a sociaty to generate the resources needed for inter galatic space exploration with out either being in unity one way or another.

2. IF they contact us they will have peacefull intentions, (peacefull according to their morals, wich might not be like ours at all. They may think its a deed of good killing of the excess human population to ensure human survival in the long run....who kows?)

3. If they don't contact us, they are proberly rather smart, and well...leave us alone... Earth holds nothing of value they couldnt find some were else...well except humans...(slaves/food.) Who knows, maybe we become the
equlant to a rare food...a higly sought after dilicatesse.. lol.....(LETS HOPE THEY DONT GET THE IDEA TO COOK US ALIVE, LIKE WE DO WITH SEA-FOOD.....)

 

[Magical Realist]

If humans cannot communicate with any other species than themselves how do they know they are so superior than the rest? As I pointed out humans are the only species that is polluting the Earth so much that they are endangered by that pollution to perhaps one day themselves be on the endangered list. That, to me, shows ignorance toward the only planet humans know of that can support them. All the while all other species that live on Earth are not doing anything to endanger themselves or other creatures that live with them. Who then is the apex of living things on Earth?

But doesn't holding humans morally or at least rationally responsibility for the survival of all the other species imply already a kind of position of superiority humans are in? I mean we don't expect the rabbits or the whales or the pine trees to take charge and make a difference. The fact that we already naturally assume the role of stewards for our planet suggests we have the power and intelligence to know better and to do otherwise.

 

[Magical Realist]

These SF depictions are often familiar or stereotype personalities, ideological factions, and issues of contemporary culture plucked-up and plunked down into a future setting, a technological extrapolation. We know that governing agencies of prior eras of modernity were largely missing an approximation of today's "growing conscience / guilt-trip" sub-division about having trampled over less advanced / differing human societies[1]. While these new standards are publicly sported about, the global assimilation nevertheless continues, sometimes even with boldfaced glimmers of past methods. But this revision of the West's collective attitude is still emerging, evolving, struggling; so it's premature to predict it won't eventually expunge the "old" and deliver some idealistic Star Trek version of Earth and a Federation. Yet also, take away the interplay with empathy and more brotherly emotional feelings, and reason's progress could just as much output an unconcern for individual rights and "inferior" cultures again. The gist here is that we can't really predict what our own mutable morality would really be like at a superadvanced stage, especially since this would surely concern transhumans and posthumans rather than beings like us.

- - - - -

[1] Not that alternative groups themselves were really "noble savages" -- in the course of raids, acquiring human chattel, grisly punishments, mass sacrifices, etc., in connections with those no more developed than they. Classic case of mis-associating victimhood with sainthood; like the mixed perceptions that Israeli Jews have conjured.

I think with the increasing globalization of our species thru technological advances we are heading towards a kind of hive morality that places absolute value on the collective over the individuality of the members. If we look at a beehive for our model, we see the perfect division of the species into various functional types like workers and drones and warriors etc. I predict an ongoing trend towards this functional specialization of the human for the benefit of the whole. We will continue on a course of increasing crosscultural assimilation of all societies into a sort of secular-based pop culture technocracy. Compare Japan with the U.S. for example. Extrapolated over thousands of years it is easy to see us evolving specialities of human traits thru bio and genetic engineering. The eerie part of this is what will we be losing in surrendering our individuality to the vast assimilating emergence of the Superman. We might not even notice it. Indeed here we sit even today in our massproduced jeans and apts typing to each other on mass produced computers clutching to mere vestiges of uniqueness in our avatars and profiles. Have we really lost anything. Maybe not. Or maybe we have been hypnotically robbed of our very souls.

 

[Buddha12]

But doesn't holding humans morally or at least rationally responsibility for the survival of all the other species imply already a kind of position of superiority humans are in? I mean we don't expect the rabbits or the whales or the pine trees to take charge and make a difference. The fact that we already naturally assume the role of stewards for our planet suggests we have the power and intelligence to know better and to do otherwise.

So we learned from the other living things here on Earth , they already knew what to do to keep a good balance and actually did a very good job of it seeing as how it was humans that started to upset the whole natural balance while the other living organisms just kept trying to survive in a inhospitable place with humans ruining everything. So learning from other living things is how humans tried to keep the balance but unfortunately I think humans have screwed this planet up in to many ways that they can't ever put it right again.

To many things are now extinct or going extinct and to much pollution to stop the onslaught of its destructive ways. The whales, as an example, do make a contribution for it is them humans want to save NOW after humans almost made them extinct too. So we can learn allot from everything around us if we only want to do so and learn what all other living things already know....how to live in balance.

 

[C C]

I think with the increasing globalization of our species thru technological advances we are heading towards a kind of hive morality that places absolute value on the collective over the individuality of the members. If we look at a beehive for our model, we see the perfect division of the species into various functional types like workers and drones and warriors etc. I predict an ongoing trend towards this functional specialization of the human for the benefit of the whole.

Yeah, and on the flip side, a superadvanced ET that contacted us might then itself only be looking for one of E. O. Wilson's superorganisms (SO), ignoring or having no concern for the individual components constituting it. Plus, if it considered the SO to be only primitively organized (like the United States / China being equivalent to eidiacaran or proto-ediacaran life), then the conclusion of "nothing intelligent on this planet" might indeed result. Or if an Earth SO is noted to be somewhat sapient from the scale and perspective of a visiting alien SO, it could still be judged a psychopath:

Sarah Jones -- "In the movie 'The Corporation' they use the personality diagnostic checklist DSM-IV to test corporations for pathological symptoms:

Callous disregard for the feelings of others. Check.

Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships. Check.

Reckless disregard for the safety of others. Check.

Deceitfulness: repeated lying and conniving others for profit. Check.

Incapacity to experience guilt. Check.

Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors. Check."

Robert Monks -- "The corporation is an externalizing machine, in the same way that a shark is a killing machine. There isn't any question of malevolence or of will. The enterprise has within it, and the shark has within it, those characteristics that enable it to do that for which it was designed."

 

[R1D2]

Magical Realist I have encountered your threads before. And I do tend to sway away from your threads but I will post here.
-In this situation there could be Borg types. Or star trek types. Either way when the spanish came to the americas. There was more germs and diseases brought over here. Aliens may bring a deadly strain of something and kill a lot of us off. Accidentally of course. Or we may kill a lot of them off.
Either way it might be best to keep a bio hazard suit handy. And some weapons. Just in case.

 

[Magical Realist]

In questions such as this, there is much room for speculation and not much room for fact...
but to speculate and ponder on your question:

1. I belive that any spicies that's advanced enough to cross intergalatic space, will either need to be highly advanced social beings with a great understanding and respekt for life (Teamworkers!) OR!!
They will be of a hive mentality, were the "queen" is the only important thing and individual life is as of no meaning.

Above i state cuz, i dont see any other way for a sociaty to generate the resources needed for inter galatic space exploration with out either being in unity one way or another.

2. IF they contact us they will have peacefull intentions, (peacefull according to their morals, wich might not be like ours at all. They may think its a deed of good killing of the excess human population to ensure human survival in the long run....who kows?)

3. If they don't contact us, they are proberly rather smart, and well...leave us alone... Earth holds nothing of value they couldnt find some were else...well except humans...(slaves/food.) Who knows, maybe we become the
equlant to a rare food...a higly sought after dilicatesse.. lol.....(LETS HOPE THEY DONT GET THE IDEA TO COOK US ALIVE, LIKE WE DO WITH SEA-FOOD.....)

That's a very profound insight you have there about them being teamworkers. They would have to have some morality of social cooperation, altruism, and scientific rationality to have even made such a difficult trip. But like you suggest, there must also be a very powerful motivation for such contact too. Food? Natural resources? A new planet to live on? All typical cliches from the SF genre.