Of one thing we can be sure, any intervention--no matter how insignificant--on the part of these space-faring cousins of ours will have unintended consequences, for both groups. Just becoming aware of this group of humans, changes the people who found them in unintended ways.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd - Voltaire
That sounds a lot like god, does it not?Quote by: Muckraker
Dear Optimist, Pessimist and Realist, while you guys were arguing about the glass of water, I drank it! ~ Sincerely, the Opportunist.
All the gods I've heard of are not particularly concerned with misery or obligation.
The only way I could justify the super-advanced humans keeping their hands off is if we had some Men in Black mindwipe thingies and we could "undiscover" them.
Are there any major objections if we remove the concepts of small-pox-infected blankets and capitalist exploitation from the scenario? I'm not seeing how our advanced descendents' interaction with the aliens would become more of a detriment to their future than they are a detriment to themselves.
"It seems foolhardy, redolent of danger, and doomed to failure. Otherwise, I can find no fault with it." --Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)
True. My reference was more toward our ability to heal in mass. Which would no doubt be seen as a miracle to people whom are so scientifically stunted.
No objection here. I was really interested in the logistics of proceeding after a discovery of this magnitude.Are there any major objections if we remove the concepts of small-pox-infected blankets and capitalist exploitation from the scenario? I'm not seeing how our advanced descendents' interaction with the aliens would become more of a detriment to their future than they are a detriment to themselves.
As in; How do we establish first contact with a people that we are so far ahead of, technologically speaking. Usually when people think of the discovery of intelligent aliens, they think the opposite. Surely it would be easier to go about first contact with a civilization that was comparable to ours.
The intended purpose of this discussion was to establish an ethical balance between our perceived need for knowledge and the good of a people whom should perhaps be allowed to choose the coarse of their own socio-evolution.
The injection of political greed and raping their lands for resources muddies the intent of this thread.
Dear Optimist, Pessimist and Realist, while you guys were arguing about the glass of water, I drank it! ~ Sincerely, the Opportunist.
We should start colonization immediately and begin the borg assimilation.
Seriously, leaving them to their own devices isn't an option. Think of all the misery mankind went through from our 14th century till now. We could save them from most of that.
Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith. - Christopher Hitchens
The Renascence?
Da Vinci?
William Shakespeare?
All Gone! Still talented in their respective genres, but their works were products of their time. Circumvented by our "help".
Albert Einstein.
Sir Isaac Newton.
Steven Hawking.
We don't need your theories anymore.
Centuries of horror, plague, war.........is it worth it for the arts? Their own great historical minds thwarted by our helping hands? Considering we still are plagued by such terrible issues in the 21st century, are we really the ones to help them avoid the same shit we still muddle through due to our inadequacies as a species?
Dunno....
Last edited by ruksak; 13th February 2012 at 05:19 PM.
Dear Optimist, Pessimist and Realist, while you guys were arguing about the glass of water, I drank it! ~ Sincerely, the Opportunist.
It's a nice notion that "We could save them from most of that", but I don't think there is much good evidence to suggest that we know how to do it.
Sure, we could introduce some basic public health principles about sewage and cleanliness, which have saved more lives than all our medical breakthroughs combined, but apart from that I submit it is the worst hubris imaginably to assume we would know how to save them from anything.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd - Voltaire
I would suggest we start with observation as a first step being as cautious as we could be. I would do nothing else for a long time.
What has happened to aboriginal people around the world is not a fate I would like for anyone and we can learn far more by not 'contaminating' their world with our culture at least for a while.
If a probe is located I doubt it would have imminence implications to them. It would be some miracle or freak incident. We could also build in self destructs that could detonate them safely before they hit the ground.
Obviously we would need to be careful about microbes as mentioned, but we may find their chemistry is so different that it is not very important.
The storys been told a million times,
but it's different when it's your life
Human advancement is based on precedent. If we had frozen a 1980's computer programmer, thawed him out today, and set him up in an isolated 1980's lab with 1980's technology what do you think are the chances he would come up with anything "new?" If we bring a whole other planet up to date then we have two planets of people advancing human civilization. While this may not be as applicable to art, keep in mind that a whole new avenue of art will be opened up when human artists get an unprecedented bump that becomes part of their history. Would you rather have two Da Vincis or one Da Vinci and one Cyglop--who comes up with a previously unseen type of art?
"It seems foolhardy, redolent of danger, and doomed to failure. Otherwise, I can find no fault with it." --Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)
I would say a decent route would be to learn how to fluently communicate prior to any contact--then bring the entire fleet of ships into their atmosphere, hover over their main cities, and project an educational video on the sky. :)
I don't think a lack of options amounts to much of a choice, though.The intended purpose of this discussion was to establish an ethical balance between our perceived need for knowledge and the good of a people whom should perhaps be allowed to choose the coarse of their own socio-evolution.
"It seems foolhardy, redolent of danger, and doomed to failure. Otherwise, I can find no fault with it." --Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)
It's true that our knowledge today is not absolute but it's also true that time travelers from today would be able to solve most of the medieval world's biggest problems.
Also remember that we are talking about space-faring humans capable of timely intergalactic travel. We can't assume they would be much of anything we are today. I can't see humans even fifty years from now having much in common with humans today.
"It seems foolhardy, redolent of danger, and doomed to failure. Otherwise, I can find no fault with it." --Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)
ruksak wrote in the OP: "It is always inferred in science fiction, be it Hollywood or otherwise, that intelligent alien life would be advanced."
Actually, some science-fiction is pretty much premised on your hypothetical scenario and ethical questions.
I even remember watching a Russian (Sovet?) movie about this. It didn't end well for the do-gooders.
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