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Civil Rights For Aliens?
CoolBoys writes "Has anyone considered what would happen if first contact is made, and some alien (say, a Vulcan?) wants to stay on earth for a while. He has no acceptable passport, right? Does he even have any rights? What about rights for other sentient life forms (AI, perhaps?)"
I love you Annette
What if a South American cannibal tribe moved to New York City and started eating people. What would we do? Why is an extra-terrestrial different? And you may want to be careful about defining something immoral. As long at it's not illegal, for the most part people don't care if it's immoral.
Well, the aliens aren't human beings, so would our laws that are made for us also apply for them? They would be more like animals in that sense. However, then again maybe not. We would have something in common; intelligence. Maybe we would reat them well because of that, only.
What's with the TROLLBAIT???
I would like to say that this is the worst Ask Slashdot EVER!
Why? Do you want to ban racial interbreeding too? And if we have a continuum of individuals ranging from "most definitely gorilla" to "most definitely human" what about your "absolutely"?
I recommend giving everyone the rights they need no matter what race, species or whatever they are.
No there aren't.
They aren't aryan.
Does a plant have rights ? Not quite. Did negros have rights? Not quite.
And they shouldn't have.
There's no such thing as an universal bill of rights. And the concept is pretty stupid too. Not to say useless.
Jeremy Bentham, 1789
This should be what decides the treatment of someone, alien or not.
may I suggest that when we say 'human' rights, we mean 'rights of all conscious beings'.
No, unfortunately "we" mean "someone belonging to the human species", analogous to the older "someone belonging to the aryan race". I agree we should care about everyones conscious experiences instead though.
in this day and age of one-species consciousness (or the pretense thereof at the expense of certain primates and dolphins)
Shit, do you really believe that a dog or pig does not even feel pain if you, say, pour petrol over them and lights it or cut out their testicles (routinely done without anaesthesia with males in pig farming)?
Basically, anything capable of abstract thought (our only real judgement at this point of what is and isn't consciousness) should be accorded these rights
Uh? What the hell does abstract thought have to do with experiences, like the one of pain or the colour green?
The logistics of fighting an interstellar war (barring some mysterious FTL device) are horrendous to the point of being pointless.
Ever played Warcraft? Start with a single worker, drop it on an asteroid or something, have it build another one and exploooode!
You are confusing "race" with "species". And thats beside the point anyway. I was trying to say that what biological grops (like race, species or sex) someone belongs to have nothing to do with how much moral consideration they should get. Are you saying I should only care abount people I can have children with or what?
I don't watch "star trek". But I do read some litterature on ethics, I can really recommend Animal Liberation by Peter Singer.
Although am interested in SETI, Art Bell and all things alien, I'm far more concerned about what corporations and the government are doing to our human rights right now.
I'm sure whatever aliens arrive will be screwed in turn, just like the natives.
Bureaucracy is blind.
There was a case in Canada where a man, who claimed to be an alien, thought he was being discriminated on based on that fact. The case went before the courts and the court ruled that since he was an Alien, he had no rights...
This is offtopic, but if churches become obsolete, I'd like to buy a cathedral and turn it into a cool geek house.
I'd turn the main body into a ball hockey court, turn the balconey at the back into a bedroom loft, and replace the altar with a dining table. Confessionals would be remodelled into convenient liquer cabinets and expresso machine alcoves. I'd keep the organ, though, because those are just damn cool. The front balconey would be computer room, and I'd put an indoor, in-ground pool in the basement.
"Contact". But it was unintentional.
I went back and read that comment, imagining Comic Book Guy's voice saying it. Everyone else should try it, too. :)
Executive Order 13112 on Invasive Species
pronoblem
When on earth, do as the humans do.
And if we visit them, the same applies in reverse.
-- Out of cheese error! Redo from start.
>>the only animals we have ever empathised with, as a species, are apes and monkeys
>Methinks you have forgotten about DOGS
unlike apes and dolphins, I don't think anyone has ever done serious research into teaching dogs to communicate. apes have been able to formulate new grammar structures, and it has been proven recently that whales learn and develop songs from each other. I get your point, but there are 'animals' on this planet that are showing signs of intelligence that we had previously considered uniquely and definingly human.
>They lack this ability to fiddle with things - a crucial ingredient for a baby learning how to think. Apes are way smarter than whales and dolphins, because they actually have hands with which to learn things about the world around them
this is true, as long as your definition of intelligence is based around human criteria. It's like the old joke about horses being smarter than people - when did you last see thousands of horses turn up to watch people running around in circles?
I really really do hope we meet smarter aliens than us, so we are *forced* to have a less self-obsessed view of the world as ours, because we are the 'smartest' species.
Yes, fairly offtopic, but an interesting question to pose. Oh, and to make it on topic....what if aliens have a completely different viewport then us. Human beings of this day and age tend to believe, no matter how much they know about QM, they are in a universe based on Newton's physics, where actions have reactions and events have causes.
This hasn't always been true. In the past, people thought most causes caused events, but not all events had causes, or, at least, not earthly causes. Some native american tribes believe something where, while it normally appears to us that the last person, for example, to walk on a bridge broke it, they'd see the 'cause' as all the people who walked across it.
And these are just humans, who share genetic instincts and are seperated by less the 10,000 years genetically. Our entire legal system is based on someone 'causing' or 'doing' somethng else, what if they don't even have the concept of that. Or what if their concept of that is no different then their concept of thinking about it? What if, instead of figuring things out though science, they have managed to build a warp drive using pure trial and error, simply trying every single thing they can think of, with no theories underlying it? What if they have decided they can do impossibly things, like walk on air, and the mere fact they can't actually do these things has no bearing on the fact?
What if the aliens truely are 'alien', and we have some places where we have no common ground? How do we relate?
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
You missed one option, one that I think has some likelihood:
* It's just not as big a deal as Sci-fi readers might think. It would be the big story on the news for a long time and life would go on unchanged for 99% of the population of the planet.
-W-
"Is it all journey, or is there landfall?"
-W-
Is it all journey, or is there landfall?
--Ellison & van Vogt, 'The Human Operators'
Contact?
domc
Been there, done that! To the point where for a while, I just avoided it, and let my visa lapse. Of course that didn't help matters any!
I eventually figured out that, at least for me, the sanest way to deal with the U.S. government is through lawyers. It took me a while - years! - to figure that out, coming from a somewhat different culture.
Reminds me of a quote from Seth Shostak, of the Seti project:
"(Discussing our first contact with aliens) is a bit like iguanas on the Galapagos Islands sitting around trying to figure out how to treat the first human visitors. Should we offer them dead flies, or live flies? Shall we line up the flies in a row? How shall we defend ourselves? All of that is irrelevant."
Naah, someone at area 51 problably has their gene's and technology patented so they'd be sued if they ever come here! that's why they haven't dared making any more contact except for crashlanding! :)
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
in Jesus' day there were many people in the area of Judea that claimed to be the son of God. Most of them atracted a cult following for about 6 months, they attempting to 'liberate' Gods people lead an attack on some Romen Governmet building and would get killed in the raid or crusified soon after. That was considered commen in those days. After his death his followers would disapear or join some other group.
Jesus managed to get a huge following, some Romen acounts say it was any where from 10 to 100 times the size of the next largest 'Messiah cult'. His follower weeks after his death reapeared and continued to teach in his place, even though many of them were tortured to death for their teachings.
So either he was just better at faking it than the others or he was the son of God.
It was his skills that made him what he was, no mater the source he did have the 1337 134d3r $ki11z.
reminds me of a story i read about a middle east ruler who is allowed to have 10 wives i think. so he has 9 permanent ones, and each friday he picks a girl, marries her, and then divorces her on sunday.
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
Did you know they removed the word gullible from the dictionary?
Why don't you ask the "resident's" of Area 51.
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
Well.. to follow your logic, I guess we should respect the AIDS virus? It has been icing people for 20 years, but I still wouldn't want to sit down and have a conversation with one.
Actually, that is the whole point.. whether or not we can have a conversation. I personally talk to animals, but they don't talk back much. However, if a peaceful alien race showed up on our doorstep one day, I don't think respect would be an issue. They made it here, didn't they? If we can talk to them, they will become in our minds more 'human' or at least be put on an equal standing. It has been a long time since I read Orson Scott Card's Ender series, but as I recall he had designations for alien races depending on how well we could understand each other. As he says, and as history has proven, communication is the key. If you can't talk, you will end up either ignoring or killing each other.
Tell him to come to Miami. We don't give ANY aliens much hassle about being here, with or without passports :)
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
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Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Duh, from the movie First Contact. :-)
It's a good one, even if you're not a Trekkie. Go see it.
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Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
A guy named Erbo said commented on
this article
saying that the Prime Directive didn't exist when the Federation was formed.
--
Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
heheheh
Is he communist or capitalist?
There is some paper/essay floating around the internet that explains why aliens would have to be communist (or is it capitalist?). It has to do with capitalists being too concerned with making money to explore the outlays of space, and only communists could bother with it or something. I'm sure someone reading this knows what I'm talking about...
Apparently has a standing policy that if extraterrestrial/alien space vehicles are detected, that they will shoot first and ask questions later.
I don't know if this is an urban legend or not - but it fits with the Cold War paranoid mindset.
It does beg the question (presuming the first ship is destroyed) what happens with the _second_ ship arrives?
Cyano
Don't like my sig? I don't either.
I beg to differ.
How we know is more important than what we know.
well back in my day it was 1. Guess I'm not that observant.
How we know is more important than what we know.
ah sweet sarcasm, take me now.
And it would be "negroes", btw.
Why is that? I mean, what makes you so sure that "aliens" would be much more advanced than us? In particular, why should anyone assume that they will be more advanced "intellectually, morally, and spiritually?"
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
This is just ridiculous.... aliens? Aliens? ALIENS????
"I Want To Beleive" indeed....
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
WARNING: Read slowly. Wittgenstein writes an unusual, compressed style that many find frustrating. You won't be able to follow this unless you read it v-e-r-y-s-l-o-w-l-y.
+++++++++But a machine surely cannot think! -- Is that an empirical statement? No. We only say of a human being and what is like one that it thinks. We also say it of dolls and no doubt of spirits too. Look at the word 'to think' as a tool.
The chair is thinking to itself:...
WHERE? In one of its parts? Or outside its body; in the air around it? Or not anywhere at all? But then what is the difference between this chair's saying something to itself and another one's doing so, next to it? - But then how is it with man: where does he say things to himself? How does it come about that this question seems senseless; and that no specification of a place is necessary except just that this man is saying something to himself? Whereas the question where the chair talks to itself seems to demand an answer. - The reason is: we want to know how the chair is supposed to be like a human being; whether, for instance, the head is at the top of the back and so on.
What is it like to say something to oneself; what happens here? - How am I to explain it? Well, only as you might teach someone the meaning of the expression 'to say something to oneself'. And certainly we learn the meaning of that as children. - Only no one is going to say that the person who teaches it to us tells us 'what takes place'.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly -- G.K. Chesterton
We'll be instant dinner for them, or worse, we'd become their sex slaves. Sheesh... And we have the nerve to ask what about THEIR rights!
I think the guy that submitted this "Ask Slashdot" has been sniffing the plasma manifold exhaust again.
How can you know that supernatural beings could not arrive tomorrow? How do you know that aliens are only one hundred or one thousand years away from coming to earth? It sounds like you are basing their arrival on the evolution of humans (since we have not come very far and don't fly in hover cars yet).
Also, how do you know that the being would not be human? Is it so unbelievable and impossible that creatures like us could be living in another galaxy? Please respond.
Might there already be supernatural life from another planet existing on earth? Could this explain the plethora of phenomena that occur daily? Might supernatural beings be invisible to the human eye? Sort of like.....spirits and mysterious forces? Maybe other life attends to the earth in other dimensions, which humans have no accessed yet. Or have we?
Don't those rights only apply to people? AFAIK they do not apply to, say, whales, let alone anything unearthly.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Well, for an alien to even *reach* this world as-is would suggest a comparatively high level of technology. After all, either they're REALLY REALLY good at hiding themselves, or they're outside of the solar system -- and the nearest planets are quite far, IIRC. Far enough that it would take a *rather* long time for, say, our current technology to send a manned vessel, due to propulsion and life-support issues (ISTR that we can't send manned craft on as rapid trajectories, since people are fragile...) and so forth. And if the civillization at the origin of a vessel is similar to ours in that technological developments seem to accelerate with a greater overall level of technology, then they may be significantly more advanced than such a traveller and his craft would indicate. So by his presence he (especially if an engineer or other with technical skill -- which would be likely given the possible maintenance issues regarding interstellar flight...), or at least his vessel, would be of extreme interest in at least that respect.
I'd say that he would merit careful treatment by the host, and quite probably more so than a "normal earthling" -- or even an exceptional one, at least until his capabilities can be fully assessed.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Well the dolphins ARE the second smartest species on the earth (right after mice).
I'll run the risk of redundancy (as I have not gone so far as to read all of the threads in response to this--dare I say it--excellent query) and suggest that the far right would make any push for the civil rights of non-human life negligible.
The best we could hope for would be something like PETA, but rather People for the Humane Treatment of Aliens, and we can hardly count their noble achievements in the realm of animal rights as even a shadow of what we enjoy as civil rights.
In short, the outlook is grim for Earth as a universal tourist site unless our extra-terrestrial vacationers plan on sightseeing incognito.
As for the rights of AI, I consider these very sketchy, and I would almost certainly tend to agree with the conservatives on this one. Consciousness is a difficult thing to fully grasp (ironically), and I would say virtually impossible to test. Furthermore, it is most likely that the only reason we endeavor on the path of artificial intelligence is to exact a certain e-slavery from our virtual companions.
The greatest among us are those who have sacrificed their navels to the Potato God. -Terov
---
All your old jokes are belong to sigs.
In recent history you only have to look to what your government did to those who tried to enforce better human rights in any country in south america.
Your government supported the dictorships, and not those who tried to enforce rights for the suppressed masses.
Why?
a) because your big companies(resources and food) like the cheap labor there (and feared to loose properties)
b) because most fighting parties against the government where comunistic (and you US guys do not get that not everything in comunism is bad, in fact half of the world is ruled by comunistic governments and even bad ones just because the US fighted that countries when the revolutions tried to libarate the population)
Back to the point of your question: still 40% of the world population are slaves(have no ruling power).
Nealy every big US corporation still has properties, land or fabrication plants, in countries where the population nearly has no rights, e.g. India, Malaysia, south america.
And what is the US aiming at? To get the same influence on countries like China.
Nothing is happening/tried to bring freedom and peace to any country currently.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
> imagine a grey driving a taxi, or working in a 7-11.....
Or better yet, McDonald's:
"Welcome to McDonald's. You'll have a Big Mac, large fries, and a medium Coke. And you're allergic to pickles..."
at least according to the US government. Tonight, I am going to camp out all night outside the INS office in San Jose so I can be near the front of the queue on Monday morning so I have some chance of getting the next stage in my permanant residence application processed in less than 6 months. I started at 3.30am on Thursday, and there were 120 people in front of me, and by 9am the next morning 150 behind me, and all but the first 110 were sent away.
There were a good variety of peopel there, but I didn't ntice any Vulcans.
Has this stopped us from doing it TO humans???
Check out my sysadmin blog!
All Vulcans are required to attend their own schools, because their IQ are not comparable to human children. If co-ed was allowed, Harvard and MIT would be filled with Vulcans students, so would be the trend for faculty members.
Vulcans are considered as atheists by Southern Baptists Church, which causes a lot of resentment from local populations. But unlike steorotypical rebellious Catholic high school graduates, Vulcan doesn't hate God. They have no past issues with him/her/it. People from California are dissapointed because they found out in order to understand Vulcan culture, they have to read Quantum Physics Theory.
Barber shops used to have "Humanoid only" sign, because barbers claim that Vulcan's hair strands are so hard that the scissors gets damaged easily, Every now and then groups of vulcan and human college students pickets outside local barber shops until police are called. Things are changing after UN ruled that since the scissors are made in China, Vulcans could sue barber shops in World Court in Hague.
Many supermarkets have a vulcan food shelf in "ethic food" section. But the buyers are normally curious humanoids. Vulcans prefer to drive to downtown and buy from shops bearing names like "Galactic Food and Supply" and "Out-of-this-world Grocery". The name of the store in vulcan script also appears on the sign, normally means totally different thing if translated into human languge literally.
And in Vulcan language the Earth is called "Rosewell" when the first Vulcan ship landed a confused Vulcan asked a apparently equally confused local "Where am I?" and the local answered truthfully, "Rosewell".
Politically, Vulcans are treated equally like other human aliens, they pay taxes but can not vote. Justice Department haven't find a way to deport illegal Vulcan immigrant yet. To solve the problem, they make every Vulcan found in US a legal resident and give them special ID card. But abuse of interchanging identities are common because all Vulcans look alike in their ID photo.
--- You make things foolproof, and they'll find you a damn fool.
Why would sentient being wish to stay here? 1) The enviorment is polluted. 2) The majority of "setient?" inhabitants are ignorant, prejudiced, savages who are more apt to shoot at than talk to you.
And Ask Slashdot has sunken to a new low!
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
It's about aliens who, erm, somehow got involved in a holodeck story, and played the roles of the nazis. I don't recall the details, but it was quite scary (but then, nazis are).
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Exactly. Very good movie. Also, don't read the AC post below, it's a spoiler.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Right?
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
What if the aliens see the Star Trek broadcasts, and actually think they're true? (Either in the way that the humans are portrayed as nice folks, or that they have advanced technology, in which case they might go after Hollywood producers and torture them for the technologies...)
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
The brains of a mouse, a person, and a computer are basically the same: a bounch of neurons (or transistors, or whatever the aliens have). We have to determine what is it that make us different from the mouse. Then we'll know if we can kill the alien, just like we kill a mouse, or a bigger animal.
It's also a matter of the society. We could kill a dolphin if it wasn't in extintion, but we can't kill a retarded person (that probably has a less developed brain than the dolphin). I wonder what would happend if the alien was part of a big 'collective inteligence' thing, and it comes alone, and it's not that smart.
--
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
if they get past the armed security that keeps havenco's servers safe.
jon
-- http://www.cerastes.org
> > If someone isn't hurting anyone, no one has the right to restrict them from walking free.
> Tell that to the White cop pointing a gun at you just because you are Black or Chicano. Are you gonna argue with him and take the risk of getting shot or are you just going to submit quietly?
I'd submit quietly. The cop in question would still be scum, and still wronging me, though. I didn't mean that it doesn't happen, I was saying it shouldn't happen. AFAIK, we agree completely.
I was referring to the moral right to restrict others, not the legal right. The legal right goes to those who most people fear the most for the longest period of time.
Now *there* I agree with you totally. First thing we'd need is a way to translate our languages. Second, both sides would need to train experts in the other's many cultures and values.
:)
Harm... well, that is tough. Like you say, even humans can't agree on that one. From abortion to animal rights to the war on drugs, there are many opinions. How about this: anything that makes the other side angry is defined as harm. That might work as long as both sides are honest with each other.
Well, they say there's no such thing as a sure bet, but that right there was a garunteed failure.
Apologize and make up... humble oneself, admit to wrongdoing, offer favors for free in return. That seemed quite a bit easier than harm.
"There's no such thing as an universal bill of rights. And the concept is pretty stupid too. Not to say useless."
1: Do no harm.
2: When you do harm, apologize and make up.
3: Turn off your cellphone before entering the theater.
"Today, the person is taken off the streets where he won't be a danger to society."
Danger to society? Don't you actually have to be a convict or a child to be "taken off the streets" as you say?
"Back then, he was allowed to walk free"
No kidding. If someone isn't hurting anyone, no one has the right to restrict them from walking free. We should all be treated like that.
>What if there's something they consider a basic right, which we consider immoral? Or vice-versa?
Sounds like the story of my life!:]
I believe if aliens came to earth, the only place where they may be able to stay is in Sealand. Just hope that no information that the aliens can use to take over our world is being co-located there.
On the other hand, if an alien looked like a used plumbers snake, had a completely different value system from ours, and lived by draining the body fluids of giant slugs, the chances it's rights would be respected are pretty slim.
Absolutely. But the assholes who created them should be roasted over a slow fire.
Elsewhere: If an alien gets a passport to travel around the world because he's just a new species and could bring new insight to our own worldview, then people will think of a new racism and complain that their contries don't give them passports that easily.
Imagine the issues of allowing an extraterrestial to work in a company or college where normal earthlings need a lifetime of experience to even consider the job. Then, again, SCI FI has shown how easily and comfortably humans live among aliens. Take Star Trek, Earth: Final Conflict (umm, maybe not...), Outer limits and many of those space fictions.
Let's hope the earth won't give them too many "unfair" priviledges that might spark a controversy on views on discrimination and 'racism.'
"Wireless : LAN
Like
Assimilating a human for lunch behind closed doors
vs. Humans eating in public?
Religion? Sexual practices? Speech vs. Telepathy, etc.
What others can you think of?
"Wireless : LAN
Oops, when she said this, she was just the Chancellor's daughter. She didn't become Chancellor for another few hours.
If I don't post this correction, I'm sure to get flamed from here to Rura Penthe.
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Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
Oops, sorry. Thought it was going to be a parody making fun aboot the folks in Canada, eh?
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Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
As long they undergo a naturalization process, and follow the rules set within, then, as far as I am concerned, they can stay.. We (US) has enought illegal aliens to want to worry about ones NOT from Mexico and SE Asia.
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
Just wanted to mention that "Kannada" has nothing to do with Canada (as the parent poster probably assumed). It's a south Undian language. Infact it is the official language of the state which is home to India's Silicon Valley - Bangalore and is spoken by a few million.
Well, as vegetarians prefer to torture animals to drink their juices and wear their hair I think you should go back to the cruelty free drawing board.
.oO0Oo.
the only animals we have ever empathised with, as a species, are apes and monkeys.
I'm not sure who the "we" is here. Medical science uses all sorts of monkey and ape experiments, heck it even uses homo-sapiens when it can.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Something else I'd like to say (offtopic, but don't hate me for this).
Has anyone looked at the different languages supported by Google? By personal favorite is their made up language named "Bork, bork, bork!". Check out Google prefs in Bork,bork,bork for an example. This is my default now
Seems to me that the alien would probably be treated better than our own citizens. Seriously though. Think about it. When an illegal alien comes into the USA what happens? They get a FREE place to stay until there's enough of them for the border patrol to take back. Then there's the FREE ride back to their country. Sometimes there is even a FREE dinner involved.
I'm done complaining now.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Well, don't we owe pretty much all our technology to one nut job who just happened to invent it? Life is all about coincedences.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
The poster replied with examples of how we deal with sentient or near-sentient animals that are native to our own planet. We know how intelligent dolphins and whales are, and yet countries like Iceland, Japan, and Norway are still happily killing them for no clear reason. For that matter, scientists also know that the octopus is on the verge of self awareness, yet people thing nothing at all of eating one.
you know - this is a good point, however i would like to make one point of contention here. Meat tastes good. Regardless of the whole self-awareness thing, we have no idea whether or not X animal is self aware because they can't communicate to us that they are. for all we know, cocker spaniels could be plotting humanity's demise and we would be none the wiser.
But, in all honesty, i'm not really in a position to care whether or not animals that are lower on the food chain are self-aware. Cows don't really ponder the thought of whether or not the grass they're eating is crying out in it's own form of plant pain, and if i ever meet a cow that shrieks out "dear god no!" as i am selecting which portion of it's tasty body to eat, i will simply slit it's throat that much more quickly and say, in afterthought, "i wish that cow would have shut up."
Brutal? Insensitive? Base? Perhaps. But that is all a matter of perspective. IMNSHO, i believe that mother nature set up this universe better than any "sentient" being could have, whether they be humans or cows or octopi. Moreover, one of the basic systems in this grand scheme of life is the food chain. This has nothing to do with how high up you are, but where you are in a great cycle. After all, if we're talking about who's the highest up, it's gotta be the decomposers. They'll eat anything at all, provided that it's already dead. Simply put, i do have a respect for everything that i eat, be it a cow, a moose, an ostrich (which tastes surprisingly like hamburger), corn, or anything else for that matter. But the respect i give the things i consume for energy is only in proportion to the amount of respect that i hope worms give me when they feast on my body when i am long dead and buried, and, in consequence, the respect that the birds and fish and other animals give to those worms when they, too, help to maintain the energy cycle that keeps all of us alive.
What does this have to do with aliens? Not much at all.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
If you're not getting this idea from Robert Heinleins book Stranger in a Strange Land then you should go read it.
The 'Prime Directive' was a Federation rule, and there was no Federation back then (dunno if the Vulcans had a similar rule).
Anyways, I'd rather the first aliens we meet be a bunch of peaceful logicians 20 minutes after we discovered warp, than their aggressively militant neighbours (the Klingons, the Romulans, the Gorn, etc) 20 months down the track just as we're getting cocky with our squeaky new tech. :)
More like a one way ticket to Roswell.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
Won't they set up us the bomb first??!
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Ok, sure, last line WAS arcsim, but I was being utterly serius here folks. It is quite plausable to make a servent that ENJOYS being under slavery. Sure, it would invite ALOT of jokes, heh, the B&SD, heh, but still, it is perfectly possable. Remember, happiness is whatever you are porogrammed to believe it is, here you owuld have a system that has no idea what to define "reality" as being. not to mention that the ONLY reason we care about others hapiness is because we are told too. If it was depressed as hell and we had it print "I am happy" then the AI rights activsts would be happy as hell. Shit, it is an AI folks, you can program it!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Imagine a world without hypothetical situations. It's a much better place isn't it?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
I'd say that person gets only one vote but is encouraged to work in politics. That is, I believe that would be the politicians point of view (assuming they don't feel threatened).
Monkey sense
There could be huge cultural difference between species from different planets, it might not be possible to solve it by giving them basic human rights.
Monkey sense
A non-human entity has no rights whatsoever. Full stop. You can place it into the same class as non-threatened species of insects, rodents or plants. If a visitor from another world or an alien invader came here from outer space, anyone could kill them or take them as souveniers or pets without any legal obligation.
Since they are not of any class of protected animal, the rules regarding mistreatment of animals do not apply. (Anyone ever been arrested for torturing or killing rats or cockroaches?)
Since they are not human beings, there are no 'human rights' available to them; they can be treated as property of someone, they can be sold or given to someone and destroyed at the pleasure of their owner.
A non-human extraterrestrial has no rights at all.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
If these aliens have space travel, ray guns and stuff, I'd think the humans should be worried about their very own human rights.
Basically, there is but one right: might. The society grants you something called as "human rights", but these are by no means natural or universal. Only by force, or by its threat, we have any rights. Someone violates your right of, say, freedom by enslaving you. He has all the power -- and thus the right -- to do that, so be it. But the society has (hopefully) even more power. Police and army can be used to your protection. Should the need arise, then your society-granted right of freedom is given by use or threat of use of violence.
Its an inperfect world and the mankind is imperfect, foolish, greedy, self-centered and generally just moronic as well. Idea of universal solidarity and human rights are just nice ideas from guys with thick beards and notebooks, sitting in nice Parisian street cafés next to the Seine river. Sigh.
-P--
I hate people who quote
Also, think of the real estate possibilities of space - once the population gets so big we've each only got one square yard of land area, don't you think living on other planets will start seeming more attractive than sleeping in your slide away coffin-bed and being crushed in the crowds anyy time you descend to street level?
There a rumors that you do not even have to leave earth to run in to problems like these. (No, I'm not talking about a non-homo sapiens species).
Claus
AFAIR the prime directive came[1] only into effect when the federation had been founded and after there had been first hostile contact with the Klingons.
Claus
.. Babylon 5 or Deep Space Nine! Nasa really should do something about this. Or perhaps we should just put them on ISS..
lonkero.
Who's gonna teach these aliens, especially the dumbass democratic-leaning ones, how to vote? And what if they become 'disenfranchised'-whatever that means?
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
the first alien head stuffed above the gun rack.
Or vice versa.
--
assuming that they landed on us soil, and werent immiediately killed/captured by rednecks or the government, they would be extended all the rights set fourth in your constitution. the constitution doesnt apply to citizens, but to anyone on us soil. they wouldnt be allowed to work, or stay any longer than six months untill the proper paper work is filled out however.
imagine a grey driving a taxi, or working in a 7-11.....
.brad
Drink more tea
organicgreenteas.com
flesh eating ants records
The only religion equipped for this is buddhism, and maybe hinduism. In buddhism, all lifeforms are respected, and the question of alien life won't change that point of view. Another reason to embrace animal rights I think. tony
-- "maybe happiness is a fragment of existence, but with better packaging"
Well, we know for sure their life-support system aren't running M$. If they were, we would definitely be talking about the Blue Screen of Death...
- "Every demand is a prison, and wisdom is only free when it asks nothing." Sir Betrand Russell
ears make sense to be placed on the sides of the head
Fish have internal ears. Mollusks's sense of hearing is not well understood, but is basically is nothing like ours.
a nose makes sense to be located above the mouth
...unlike elephants?
Goverments, echonomy, wars, art, etc. would be expected in a society of social intelligent animals.
I haven't seen any evidence that dolphins, whales, elephants, chimps, squids, or octopi have anything like these. What would a dolphin care for international boundaries? Why would a solitary-living whale species invent government?
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The Predator itself (or it's Lawyer) could make a convincing case case for insanity by claiming that it was common in the rest of the Universe to hunt pre-warp spiecies, and therefore the Predator had no knowledge that his actions were "wrong". True or not, this would be very difficult to disprove.
If convicted, The Predator would have to be placed in special custody for the safety of itself and other prisoners. The nature of the prisoner, would suggest an isolated military prison.
In the realpolitik world, it would be captured, and whisked off the a secret government lab for interrogation, study and dissection. A cover story would be created to avoid mass panic over Predators falling out of the sky. If the story had been made unspinnably public, there would be a massive military buildup, and Cold War II would be on.
Is he communist or capitalist? :-D
Honestly, if this alien is from a race that has mastered intergalactic space travel, I doubt that he will care very much about our immigration laws... people will be panicking too much to really care anyway...
Humorless sig goes here.
Of course there would be differences in the appearance and proportions, but ears make sense to be placed on the sides of the head, a mouth (if it is in the face) would be best under the eyes, so that they are not obscured while eating, a nose makes sense to be located above the mouth, where it can sense the odours from the food, etc.
Similarily, cases can be made for parallel cultural evolution. Goverments, echonomy, wars, art, etc. would be expected in a society of social intelligent animals.
Of course, there is very likely a large number of probable non-humanoid intelligent species, and possibly cultures with very different components than found on earth.
For a number of very good articles of potential ET life and intelligence, take a look at the The Life Sciences Site.
pinkNoise
'homo' would be human. Homo Sapiens is a species / race of humans. A term that includes other sentient beings could be 'person', 'sentient', etc. Various terms have been invented and used in science fiction, they could be a good source to borrow from. (For example the neutral pronouns 've', 'ver', etc, found in Greg Egans books (not sure if they were used somewhere else before)).
pinkNoise
Jon Katz is a space alien, and he at least thinks he has rights.
As does Will Smith beating the shit out of one of them and dragging the body across 300 miles of desert in an hour.
Not to mention some crazy drunk crop dusting pilot flying an F-18 hornet up the asshole of their big laser beam to destroy the ship just like the death start and the exhaust port.
.. don't get me started on that cross platform skull and crossbones virus written in a day for a foreign computer system. I suppose the aliens will come with microvaxes or macs or something.
--
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
That the "alien come as big game hunter" plot from Predator is much more likely.
The real questions would be, when such a hunter is caught, what are its rights within the US legal system, and could they put such an entity though our prison system? Maybe an alien zoo is more likely.
--
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Are you talking about Xenu? I wouldn't worry about him, he has lots and lots of lawyers.
(If bored /.ers have nothing to say, why must they always speak with such proliferation?)
You're welcome.
Sheesh. If people must march around with some meaningless & moronic banner slogan, I wish they'd pick one which hasn't already come out of Bart Simpson's mouth.
Please tell me you were joking.
"This is your brain on stupid, pre-fab ideas." Nice on toast with a touch of Dijon. Until you decide to think for yourself, you'll always be some rich fuck's low-cal lunch & handi-wipe combo.
-Fantastic Lad
If you're superior, then why the heck do you read and post here? Can't "Keep it Real" all by your self? --Newsflash, moron: If you feel the need tell everybody how superior you are, you're not.
-Fantastic Lad --Spending the weekend slumming around, bashing on the other low-brow morons; Kinda like a mosh-pit for assholes.
-They're already here and they have been for a long, long time.
-They control everything. They control your thoughts. They control your genetics. They control your environment. They control your past, present and future.
-We are food. While some mammal blood products can be consumed, primarily, it works like this: Fear, trauma and the extreme emotions created upon drawn-out painful death create surges of energy which are consumed. And the plate of the world is getting full and fat and ripe. (Look at the U.S. Filled with stupid Taco-Bell eating non-thinking lambs.)
-The world as you know it is already on borrowed time and is slated to change radically and/or end sometime in the next 11 years.
-The Wave is coming.
The signs are there for those who aren't too scared/stupid to ignore them: Crop Circle messages from concerned parties, Cattle Mutilations by both hungry aliens and military copy-cat actions performed to confuse the information, daily U.F.O. abductions world-wide, Thousands of temples destroyed and energy-aware practitioners slaughtered whole-sale throughout China, (didn't know about that one, did you?) Cell Phone and CRT radiation dulling your brains, (The body is 70% electrolyte. --Of course EMR is affecting you. There's tons of solid research supporting this.)
And on, and on.
You may now return to your calming collective delirium and the dream that all is well. After all, these sorts of things are just pranks and silly stories told by whackos.
Thank you for your time.
Try using different word combos than the ones I just burned your sad ass with if you want to TRULY be an Anonymous Coward.
And yes, I am without question desperately unusual, but at least my world view didn't come in a box with a Nike swish on it. --Anyway, the weight of evidence tends to support what I'm saying, whereas you're just clinging to what the popular lemmings tell you to believe. In the words of Brad Pitt: "How's that working out for you?"
Gotta fly. Have a nice rest of your life!
-Fantastic Lad --He's just crazy, right guys. . ? Right?
Then a mix of colonists and missionarys will show up next. Many of us who do not belive in their alien philosophies and religion will be killed. This won't be a hudge problem, since most of us will automatically assume since they have all this high tech stuff, they must have a more advanced faith system (They may even slightly modify their religion to make it more familure to us).
They will want to settle on our resource rich land. Most of the time they will be able to trade our land in exchange for elabroatly dectorated peices of green paper and shiny chunks of gold. If we refuse they will take it by force. We will fight them, but ultmatly loose because they will have more advanced weapons.
Ultimatly humans will be deemed to simple and savage to run the planet, and we will be forced en masse with others of our country to relocate to bits of other, less desirable planets.
The good news is, in a few hundred years we can open up space casinos.
The Internet is generally stupid
As far as i'm concerned, the Alien might as well not even bother trying to get any rights whatsoever. He'd more than likely spit in our faces becuase in some countries humans don't even give other humans the same basic rights that the Alien might be asking for.
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
100% agreed on that one. if it wasn't for slahdot's creative slant (and excellent technical coverage) I might as well use the MS network. so 3 cheers for slashdot!
Its pretty safe to assume that any alien who comes here will be much more advanced than us
by the sheer fact they can reach us would indicate that they have had longer to perfect their technology and therefore longer to perfect their society (not that it would be perfect by this theroy, it may be quite mucked up, just for longer ;-p )
In fact, I think we would have to be grateful that any aliens would want to have anything to do with us, after they witness the violence we've done to each other, and to our planet.
O.K. here's the bit that begins to tick me. Why do we assume that any alien society that May come across our tiny corner of the galaxy has a utopian existance. I am going to ask that we pretend for a moment
let us suppose that we didn't give up the space race after the moon landing (lets be honest, after that the entire thing fell down). Let us suppose that after man took the moon the Russian's and American's decided to work together and that the Secret Service dicided NOT to assassinate the US President because of it (Kennedy wanted to work with the Russians to reach the moon and soon after was assassinated. Hmmmmmmmm)
Anyway, within 5 years we (mankind that is) manage to establise a Mir like base on the moon. this event of the two biggest superpowers on earth working together to establish co-operation outside the confines of earth based politics inspires mankind and many inquiring minds turn to the goal of space and space travel, and not commercial/financial pursuits. 10 years after that with the weight of the world behind it the first human travels to Mars. so in 1984-85 mankind reaches the next planet. With the techniques we discovered in our quest for the moon we manage to get a base and/or an orbital station set up in 2-3 years.
So lets say it is now 1988. we begin to construct a craft to reach Pluto and return to Mars. 5 years later it is complete and we launch it. Lets say it is a 4 year round trip (I am presuming that we make some big advances in drive/engine technology). so in ~1995 mankind reaches the edge of out solar system.
10 years later (2005) we manage to propel a man just past the speed of light and make the trip to Pluto in a few hours, orbit Pluto and head back to Mars, the entire journey taking under a week. 5 years later (2010) we have faster than light engines, lets say we can max out at 7 X the speed of light. meaning that we can reach Alpha Centuari in only 8 mths. So in 2011 we plant our flag in a new system and we happen across what appers to be a space station. it appears that another species has the same goals as us and reached alpha centuari 2 years ahead of us. First Contact is made.
Now who is to say that these aliens are massively more advanced than us. they only achieved what we were trying to do 2 years ahead of us. the astronaughts of both species manage to figure out a common interpration of each others languages and begin to trade technology. a few engine ideas here, a faster computing method there, tiny bits and pieces, nothing that will change society.
So the astronaughts being a trusting bunch decide to do an exchange. the Humans take one alien and the Aliens take one Human. (after figuring out the basics of a new language that we can use to communicate, Let us also suppose that one of the scientific advances the aliens had was a faster than light radio wave, so that the two teams of astronaughts can communicate in more or less realtime,. so our two teams have, say 3 mths to figure out an effective language. So 5 mths out of communication range the Humans arrive back at Mars with a visitor, now he has had 8 mths of human contact and he decides that he wants to live amoung humans as a representive of his species so that we can learn to get along.
Now, Who's to say that his species didn't have a world war, maybe that was what inspired his/her people to reach for the stars. Maybe a nuclear weapon was deployed and wipped out an entire culture and it was decided that that the species must unite to avoid this ever happening again. Or maybe a Nuclear accident trigged a chain reaction that made the planet much more unhospitable and the species decide to find more alternative homes until they could reverse the effect.
point being that there are most likely (in fact I am sure) other species out their developing their own technology and looking at the stars and wondering if their is anyone out their.
Hey, or here is another one, let us suppose that we are the most advanced race in the galaxy and in 500 years we may be the agressors in a galatic war.
It is not a lame question, is is a damned good one. But I, for one, and not holding my breath for a highly advanced alien species to come down here, observe out dirty little planet, shake his head and say, "hey, here is some technology and ideas that will fix everything". We need to fix our own prolems
Trav
Leg Godt!
Yeah, that would be awesome. I coul'd hear it now. "I'm sorry I have to be the one to break this to you little earthling"
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
he says imagine a planet whose inhabitans have only two sexes she says imagine a planet whose inhabitans oppress themselves it says imagine a planet whose inhabitans exploit the weak they look at the stars and laugh on this planet he says imagine beings poisoning their oceans she says imagine these beings destroying their environment it says imagine these beings polluting their air they shake their heads and think how funny on this world he says imagine a race who say they're the most intelligent she says imagine this race annihilating the other species it says imagine this race annihilating themselves such suicidal stupitity can only be fiction they finally say
Funny. In a democracy, legality is merely the tool people give themselves to ensure that their morals aren't violated.
Of course, there is no such thing as a democracy in this world so I guess I'm just offtopic here.
There's a more important question we're overlooking here, concerning the tax-exempt status that we give to religions.
If Xenu shows up, will he have to pay taxes?
crib
Please don't read my journal
Of course, it wasn't until quite some time later that women were mentioned in the Constution at all.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Ah, I like voting systems that dispense with the actual tedious process of casting and counting votes -- it's obvious how prisoners would have voted, so we can save them the trouble. Clearly gentlemen like this are Gore voters.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
I'm neither completely clueless nor a recruiter for any party. ("Clever" I'll leave out of it). My point was simply that the AC who was assuming that the US prison population would clearly align itself one way or the other apparently had a somewhat limited view of the range of people in America's jails, and furthermore was making the frankly goofy assumption that convicted felons operate from a position of enlightened self-interest, overlooking the fact that if that were true most wouldn't be in prison in the first place.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
If you go to the UK, where carrying firearms is illegal, even if you hold a US Federal concealed weapon permit, and you bring your gun with you, you are breaking their law. Therefore, are will be subject to arrest in the UK. Your passport only assures that during the LEGAL process, you are allowed to have legal counsel from your country of citizenship.
Simply put, you break a foreign law while on their soil, you can be tried and prosecuted as if you were their citizen.
This was demonstrated in the case where an American was caned as punishment in the Phillipines after he was proven guilty vandalizing an automobile while on Filipino soil. There were a lot of civil rights questions asked. I think the US Supreme court upheld the right of the Filipino government to prosecute the criminal. It may have violated his right from "cruel and unjust punishment" in the US, but that has no bearing on the fact that he committed the crime on foreign soil while knowing it was illegal.
Ya know, this could really throw a wrench in that whole affirmative action thing; I'm pretty sure that non-earthlings have been highly under represented in all fields.
Kurdt
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
This isn't funny :) (*) Look at mankinds history of colonization and/or exploration of other countries - there is one common thread that runs through almost all of them. In almost every case, there are (roughly) three things that have been done to natives found living there: (1) kill them (2) enslave them, and (3) try convert them to Christianity.
I keep wondering what we are going to do when we start exploring other planets and we find native life forms there. I can't think of a single reason why it is going to be any different.
((*) For the semi-illiterate out there, I do actually think its funny and yes I can take a joke, all I'm saying is that this is actually funny probably because it is so close to the truth, and that itself could be quite unfunny.)
I think that in general, in Western civilizations, the cuter an animal is, the less likely it is to get eaten. Fish are ugly. I don't know anyone who feels sorry for fish when they get eaten. Even many vegetarians think its OK to eat fish because "the meat is white". I'm sure fish go through a lot of suffering when being caught, they just don't have the facial expressions to show it (and they don't scream), so I guess that makes it OK to eat them. Health reasons, that I could probably understand.
Of course, as you say, the poster you are replying to has a completely Western perspective (and doesn't like cats, on top of that). Cats were sacred to the ancient Egyptians. He's right about one thing though, that our ideas of who "belongs" are very diverse.
So some key remapping software utility for Windows is more important to mankind than the ethical issues relating to the (possibly inevital) future contact of mankind with intelligent alien life forms? God, I sure hope history doesn't see it that way 1000 years from now.
OK, just joking around, don't get too upset. Perhaps this goes under "stuff that matters" rather than "news for nerds"? Man has done so many major things in the past without 'thinking it through' properly. It would be nice if, when we do first encounter intelligent aliens, we had actually thought it through some. It is pretty important stuff actually. But slashdot is probably not the most appropriate forum.
In the future (next 30-40 years) we will be forced to pass laws that give computers the power to make decisions that we are not able to make anymore, due to our primitive thinking.
Be really careful! Technology already owns you.
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$_='hfflbwfsbhfzp vs';s/(^.{4})(.{7 })(.+$)/$3 $2 $1/
Well, I imagine this alien could find work as a housekeeper or gardener while trying to acquire a green card. In the end I'm sure some slashdotter would offer to marry the alien, easing the naturalization process.
Ooh, then on the census form the alien could check the new "mixed race" box...
...to rescue the nice aliens from the evil government agency that wants to kill them and cover everything up, right?
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
The show was Babylon 5, and said assumption *did* lead to war. Earth got pasted, though.
Written by a single drunk monkey in 30 minutes with a copy of MS Word 2000.
Actually, you need to distinguish between a common AI [artificial intelligence] and what is typically meant by the term, which would more properly be called an ACI [autonomous computer intelligence]. Why? Well, we already have 'AI' of a sort, at least in limited scope. Intelligence is a many leveled and varied word. The real issue is sentience, hence the 'autonomous' part. An ACI would be self aware, self determining, like other sentient beings. A simple AI simply does what it is told and nothing more [within a given set of parameters. Check the AI for games. It IS all deterministic, its just really well specified, so it seems to act nearly like a human player].
Coomon use of 'AI' seems to connote 'ACI', hence the confusion. You use AI in the correct, specific sense, the article uses it in the more generally accepted sense.
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
thank you slashdot, for addressing what may be my worst alien based worry.
fsjfucerk.
WOULD ALIENS HAVE RIGHTS? FUCKING IDIOTIC.
what are the criteria for being a "possible alien"? if you're not carrying your wallet and you appear of hispanic descent are you then a POSSIBLE ALIEN? do you think they turned in whitey mcwhite who didn't have their IDs (and could therefore be a possible alien from FCUKING CANADA? CANADA?) i'm guessing not.
people tend to get pretty pissed off when you decide to create procedural guidelines that emerge not from someone's actions, but rather their appearance.
fisfhcuerk.
i'd just like to point out you have a shitty grasp of logic.
I've noticed a couple of major assumptions in this post and in many of the replies to it, which while providing some super-interesting food for thought, do seem pretty unrealistic ones to make. One is that our opinion of what should happen will really count for anything. In this little "what if" appears the implicit notion that THEY HAVE ARRIVED HERE FIRST. Flash to the history of even our own small little ball Investigate almost any of the episodes where a civilisation crossed a great distance and "discovered" another one who hadn't figured out how to do that yet. (aside -- perhaps they just didn't care to try to figure it out) It seems a fair conclusion that our opinion of what rights to grant/deny THEM will be pretty much moot. To think otherwise is romantic maybe, arrogant definitely. I'm not pitching a xenophobic attitude here. Not the hollywood pre-enactment we keep seeing ("Oh no, the aliens have arrived and they are bent on Universal domination! They eat mice too!") They don't necessarily have to demonstrate our notions of evil in order to wipe us out. They'd just have to follow and be subject to a set of apparenty universal tendencies we've labelled "survival of the fittest". All of this is without even mentioning the fact that we're prejudicing ourselves as to the kind of scale we're talking about. Who says it's gonna be civilisation-to-civilization contact? Ask your neighbourhood chimpanzee how well his/her "basic chimp rights" have been observed so far by the bigger, "smarter" lifeforms who showed up and just sort of... well, took over everything. -- What's that you say, there isn't one in your neighbourhood? Come now, that neighbourhood's huge! Why, thousands of people live there! Surely at least ONE of those families must own a chimp or two... Further scale divergence possibilities: What about slug rights? amoeba rights? "Human rights" could seem just as unfeasable to them as those two do to us. A fellow slug, kf
[Signature omitted due to copyright restrictions.]
If we have any brains at all, the first thing this visitor will experience is total quarantine. Or did all of the recent Andromeda Strain ripoffs leave everyone jaded on extraterrestrial epidemics?
We can reduce ideas to bits and people to genes, but "can" does not imply "should".
Long time reader, first time poster, blah blah blah. I'm pretty sure we all know what _will_ happen with AIs and Aliens: vast hordes of unthinking peons will declaim them as challenging God's creation, and demand the execution(deletion in the case of AIs) of all specimens, lynch the scientists involved, and then burn all the papers so that we'll never be able to figure out how any of it was done. (Tesla and Wilhelm Reich as great examples of the 1st amendment being violated whenever science is inconvenient for the people in charge) On the other hand, the question can be looked at from a more optimistic point of view. You know, the kind where we all pretend we're in a world of rational, compassionate beings with a penchant for reflection and forethought to help them deal with life, the universe and one another. So, with that delusion firmly in place: First, you have to determine _what_ qualifies as 'human' enough to get those rights. That's not too hard for us, in this day and age of one-species conciousness (or the pretense thereof at the expense of certain primates and dolphins) where all that's needed is to be born with the right bit of genetic code, and boom you've got more rights than the fellow with 99.6% similar DNA sitting next to you smoking a cigar and in rollerskates. Now, obviously simple genetic code can't be the only determiner of one's rights, or else we open up a lot of scary doors, and besides, it's useless when it comes to aliens and whatnot. Who wants to be the first man to tell the giant slobbering thing with the raygun that it's 'Not genetically pure enough'? Therefore, as a tentative alternative, may I suggest that when we say 'human' rights, we mean 'rights of all concious beings'. In Star-Trek speak for the geeks, yes, 'Sentient beings' can be inserted. Basically, anything capable of abstract thought (our only real judgement at this point of what is and isn't conciousness) should be accorded these rights. That way, both aliens and AIs qualify for rights - in fact, the same rights that you or I do. Now, there are a few problems with AIs if you do this that I'll get to in a moment, but in general, I can't see any real reason not to count aliens under the UNCHR except cultural prejudice. Someone else pointed out that they may not have the same values as we do, but that's immaterial. If they want to use our planet, they're going to have to obey our laws. The logistics of fighting an interstellar war (barring some mysterious FTL device) are horrendous to the point of being pointless. It's not worth their time. So, obeying our laws, and getting our rights, is worthwhile simply because it's impossible to do anything else and survive. (1 space-monster versus 6 billion humans engaged in almost daily combat with one another across the face of this wonderful planet we call home? Hah!) And now this post has become far longer than I thought it would be, so I'm going to skip those 'AI rights' things until some other time.
I suspect they'd be treated much like ambassadors from another country, which would give them significantly more rights than your average citizen!
There would be nothing else for it but to wage terrible war for centuries.
"WELCOME BACK TO TEEGEEACK LORD XENU"
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
They can watch all the TV they want from orbit. And frankly, after a couple of hours of Super SmackDown, Jerry Springer and Survivor, I'd bet that they feel fully justified in nuking our monkey asses to a fucking cinder as a favor to the rest of the galaxy.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
I'm guessing it's just like when you visit foreign countries. I enjoyed smoking weed in Holland, but I sure can't fire the ol' pipe up back here in Denmark. Doesn't really matter what morals you have or what laws your country/planet has, you'll have to follow local restrictions.
Handing over fines to a 7 feet tall, green monster with a ray-gun is another topic...
A hacktivist for sure. The Ai will get their message out to the entire world in the billions.
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
"If aliens are just crashing in the desert, the they're under the airforces jurisdiction. But when they start taking jobs from Americans...well thats then they're under the jurisdiction of the INS". Or something like that. I haven't seen the movie in a long time.
Why?
Not long ago, a city here in California (can't remember if it was Sacramento or Anaheim), the city council was approached by the Hispanic-american community.
Why? Well, it seems that the city police were turning over anyone that they had caught who might have been an illegal alien to the INS.
It was claimed that this was a violation of their CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if they *are* illegal aliens, then they have no constitutional rights to begin with. If they're not, then no problem. Thank you have a nice day.
I'd like to point out that the people being turned over to INS had ben arrested for *commiting a crime*.
Scenario #1: A citizen of Brazil decides to come to the U.S. for educational purposes. He needs a passport, student visa, proof of financial responsibility, proof of ties with his country, etc. He is to return to his country after his studies are completed. Scenario #2: The citizen above wants to bring his dog pupi (10 yr old schnauzer) along with him. The dog doesn't need a passport or a visa, gets a cheaper airfare ($200 as opposed to $1,458), and on top of it, free permanent residence and/or citizenship. The only requirement was for the Brazilian government to provide proof of vaccinacions taken by the dog. human vs. non-human rights?
You have dominion when you can demonstrate dominion.
--
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You sure got a purty mouth...
Do not pretend that the animal is empethetic to you. Thats what makes us different.
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You sure got a purty mouth...
There's this reasonably good book by Iain M Banks called The Player of games, where a game player (yeah, that's his profession!!) in the far future goes out to this civilization whose entire workings is based on a very complex game called Azad, and the profession, status etc of everybody else is chosen based on this! Otherwise, the status of this alien civilization is pretty similar to ours.
:-)
Ultimately, our man wins the game, against the emperor (the winner shall be the emperor), bringing out the msg that if we'd lost the game, we'd leave you alone till the next game. Else, all your games are belong to us
The interesting part is how the aliens treat him, and how his whole victory is hidden etc etc.
So *how would* the aliens treat our games of democracy and wars and silly divisions among one another? Wouldn't that be fun to think about?!
"...Fear the people who fear your computer"
We'd just say thanks for all the fish ;-)
"...Fear the people who fear your computer"
Not anymore...
They passed a law saying you can't do that anymore
Slashdot Hypocrisy at work?
Any visitors who would visit us would not be intelligent visitors. Think of it this way - and I atrribute this analogy to Scott Adams, for all who care - how many of you know how to build a car? Not many. But I'd say most of you know how to drive one. Our first ET contact will probably be some random hick family lost on vacation (oops, that's not Pleasora 4, that's the slipgate to the Dark Zone! hold on to your seats Blorp, Klorg and Mindy-k'a'qra!) which of course means that they'll use the ET version of a sawed of shotgun (read - planet destroying plasma weapons) to scare off them crazy wildlife that're sendin' im all dem radio messages. Thats why we need nuke platforms all trailing in Jupiter's orbit... blast the damn aliens before they get close enough to screw with us. Or - maybe an even better idea - advance computer research until we can download ourselves into the Matrix and hide on some asteroid somewhere.
Who says they aren't here already!?!
*Hiding under desk in cube*
Move 'zig'!
blahblahblah
Please don't force me to change my startup page to something else...
Kuro5hin even did a nice piece.
- I am made of meat.
>I am running OS/2 Warp 4 at the moment. >Now when is the Federation coming? vulcan commander: You can't be using os/2 warp. You can put 2 sentences together.
> I don't think that I will ever consider AI to be a life form.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then some idiot gives the computer the ability to "feel" "emotions."
Suddenly, robots get "bored," and "feel pain," and want to "do art," and start asking for "genetalia."
Then they rise up to kill us. Skies are scorched. People are going back in time. Gas-hog campers pulling biplanes are fleeing for days through the desert.
And all because YOU doubted them!
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Alien rights would depend on a lot.
1.If they had a big public arrival, they'd get more respect.
You will now line up to be fed into our food processing units.
2.What about keeping them safe from fanatical religious folk?
You will now line up to be fed into our food processing units.
3.Fanatical government folk (military) might quarantine them.
You will now line up to be fed into our food processing units.
4.Quarantine might be a good idea until establishing that they don't have any bugs that would kill us.
You will now line up to be fed into our food processing units.
5.What do they eat? Us? (unlikely - if they can space travel, they can farm food. See also: "To Serve Man" Twilight Zone episode).
You will now line up to be fed into our food processing units.
6.Negotiations for visiting rights would include behavioral norms. Anyone inside the U.S. would be required to abide by U.S. law.
You will now line up to be fed into our food processing units.
7.What if they wanted to trade for something that we held precious - art, DNA samples of people or animals, etc. Ethics of DNA samples from humans are interesting if they intend to clone you.
You will now line up to be fed into our food processing units.
8.Are the aliens best described as ET, Mork, Alien-the-movie, Independence-Day, Starman, Spock, Marvin the Martian, or Bill Clinton.
You will now line up to be fed into our food processing units.
9.Why not just treat them like Canadians? Limited right of travel, polite deportation if nasty, various kinds of visa requirements.
You will now line up to be fed into our food processing units.
10.And, my wife asks, what kind of shoes would they wear? Styles are important, you know.
Our females are wearing spaghetti-strap high heels this year, with leather sandals for daywear.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
They would like to continue the spirit. The problem is that once warp drive is invented, it won't be long before they start stepping out into the middle of a busy highway.
If an unknown civilization on earth suddenly invented jet planes, wouldn't you want to merge them into international flight plans, and warn them not to go into other areas that are already spoken for?
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
It's an interesting legal question. We'd be inclined to think they'd be considered legal people with respect to rights.
However, that is not actual human history, or even US history. "We" required ammendments to grant equal rights to people of "other" races, and of "other" genders.
Well, not so much "grant" as "extend recognition of rights naturally present in these others with respect to law" which, ass-wise, likes to tread on rights.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
I think you mean overpaid Star Trek "writer".
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
> Organizations like the Great Apes Project(http://www.greatapeproject.org/)
Dammit! And monkey brains were such a delicacy, I was about to start a breeding program to grow them with larger brains!
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
> Heck, G.W. passes for a sentient being, can't
> imagine a machine doing worse.
Turing Tester: What is your level of education?
Turing Candidate: I was edumicated at Yale.
Turing Tester: Hmmm, they could have deliberately misspelled some words in the lookup table...Too obvious! BOT!
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
> Then the other aliens on the mother ship would
> figure out that we're some kind of horrible
> parasite devouring all of the planet's
> atmosphere and natural resources,
You've been watching too much self-praising ecospeak.
More likely, they'd see we were advancing rapidly in technology, notice there were no real environmental issues (it wouldn't even come up in their analysis), perhaps be a little concerned with the way people extend claws of ownership over other people (again, eco-people, take the plank out of thy own eye first) and then assign a protect-o-bot to each of us to react to aggression.
"You haven't paid your taxes yet this year." "Oh? Speak to my protect-o-bot."
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
And H. G. Wells did it much better a hundred years ago...
And of course, there's The Day The Earth Stood Still, where the aliens tell us to keep our arguments at home.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Instead of wondering whether they have souls, we should be praying they think we have souls.
We're "some microbes on an anthill in Africa" wondering whether we sould grant them equal rights. Uhhhh, ok.
Any politician who thinks they shouldn't have rights should be INSTANTANEOUSLY executed for high treason, the likes of which this planet has never seen.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
As long as the cannible tribe had the permission of those they ate, I have no problem with it.
Your, their, everyone's definition of morality, propriety, and the like end where my nose begins. My life and my freedom are not contingent on getting your permission to live and be free.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Oops, I left one "b" out of nibble.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
> But what if they also want to collect nazi memorabilia?
Oh, come on now! I can't think of any major science fiction movie where the aliens showed any interest in anything of the Nazis.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
If this is such a silly question, why does SETI@Home boast about 2.9 million users?
- If they had a big public arrival, they'd get more respect.
- What about keeping them safe from fanatical religious folk?
- Fanatical government folk (military) might quarantine them.
- Quarantine might be a good idea until establishing that they don't have any bugs that would kill us.
- What do they eat? Us? (unlikely - if they can space travel, they can farm food. See also: "To Serve Man" Twilight Zone episode).
- Negotiations for visiting rights would include behavioral norms. Anyone inside the U.S. would be required to abide by U.S. law.
- What if they wanted to trade for something that we held precious - art, DNA samples of people or animals, etc. Ethics of DNA samples from humans are interesting if they intend to clone you.
- Are the aliens best described as ET, Mork, Alien-the-movie, Independence-Day, Starman, Spock, Marvin the Martian, or Bill Clinton.
- Why not just treat them like Canadians? Limited right of travel, polite deportation if nasty, various kinds of visa requirements.
- And, my wife asks, what kind of shoes would they wear? Styles are important, you know.
Just some ideas.Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
Nice scenario, you left reality somewhere along the way, though.
The race to the moon was just the biggest, most expensive, most foolish "my dick is bigger than yours" fight that humanity ever saw.
Now, technologically, you are undoubtfully correct, except for FTL travel. Even if we had it, it's going to be one *hell* of energy expense, you aren't going to be able to afford that just to jump to pluto.
Economically, I don't think so. You would be throwing money at something that gives no visible (there was a lot that was gained from race to space) return for the invesment.
Socially, also, it's quite hard for people to plan something that will take twenty five years to see if it was at all successful.
All in all, up to the point where your argument goes against nature, I agrees with you, too bad it also goes against nature's laws.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
of that culture would come into play methinks!
I'm going to submit quietly then afterwards I'll sue his ass.
__________________
Just a guy with an opinion
Enslave them? I hope by the time we do explore/colonize/whatever enslave won't even pop into peoples mind as an option.
Kill them? Only if they shoot first.
__________________
Just a guy with an opinion
i don't have time to read through all of the other posts but remember in Ender's Game where valentine wrote under the name Demosthenes and described Ramen Veralese etc... In theory she stated that there were different levels of intelligence and that it was murder only at a certain level of inteligence. there was animal lvl. of intelligence for they can't understand what they do. alien but human for they can understand what they do but their ways are so different from ours that we may see them for something other than what they are. there is also human but foriegn as in they are of the same race but their ways are as foreign as they alien races. last, there is human human as in those who are human and grew up in the same society or one close enough to it that they don't seem foreign. one of the reasons it was brought up into the discusion is that there is always a chance that a law will be broken and we don't know if there are laws against whatever was done by them where they came from or if it was a seemingly harmless thing on their part in THEIR own mind done ranting, c-bob
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
Well not all of us at least.
If you people would just do as you're told, everything would be OK.
Though it would make his eventual death and resurrection into heaven even the more remarkable.
If you people would just do as you're told, everything would be OK.
if you really want to know about what would happen if vulcans landed on earth, read the book "Strangers From the Sky." it's quite a good read, set pre-federation, pre-eugenics wars.
No there aren't.
They aren't human.
Does a plant have rights ? Not quite. Does a fish have rights ? Not quite.
And they shouldn't have.
There's no such thing as an universal bill of rights. And the concept is pretty stupid too. Not to say useless.
"Aryan" and "negros" are the exact same race. They have the same genome. They can reproduce. They are human !
You have more chance to reproduce with an christmas tree than with an alien from another planet.
Pure chance tells that they won't have a double-helix DNA or anything of the like, and their sense of ethics (or whatever) will be nonsensical to us.
You people are watching way too much star trek.
Define "harm". Define "apologize". Define "make up".
Aliens most likely won't have the same notions about this as we do. Hell, even some humans don't have the same notions.
The easiest thing to define on your list is "cellphone". And "theater".
I think we're beyond racism there... shouldn't it read "speciesist" (and yes, I did just make that word up, so it can't be spelled wrong)
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Hmm. Sounds very similar to the situation that the Messiah 2000 years ago faced. He was assumed to be psychotic for claiming to be the Son of God. He was homeless, didn't have any possessions, and had no money. But, there was something special about him that changed the world. People followed him, and believed in him. It's kind of amazing isn't it?
God became man to enable men to become sons of God. -C.S. Lewis
That is an anime series in which some aliens teamed up with the Nazis. The brits then countered by using stolen alien technology to make giant steam-powered robots called Kishins. The Nazis then countered that buy creating a mass-producable superior Kishin, but only the normal tech parts were superior(the alien interface basically assimilated their pilots, so no pilot could survive using the Nazi Panzer Kishin more than once). The aliens were armed with Tommy-guns and were almost liquid; they would try to force themselves into your blood vessels and take over your body! They also exploded if you blasted them, so Japanese guys used katanas to kill the japanese.
:P
The series ended with a big free for all battle, Brits vs Nazis vs Aliens vs Japanese.
No, I did not make this up.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
I say we grant them H1-B visas and put them to work for Transmeta..
I just singled out christians because they seem especially intent on evangelizing to others who have virtually nothing in common with them.
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"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
-George Carlin
But could anyone tell us what DOES imply should?
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
-George Carlin
stupid question.
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"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
-George Carlin
Today, the person is taken off the streets where he won't be a danger to society. Back then, he was allowed to walk free and he started the most successful cult ever. Hopefully we've learned the lesson well enough never to make that mistake again, and all messiahs will get the appropriate treatment.
(really, if you believe half the things you guys say you do about God, don't you think he'd "find a way"? Or is He just that incapable?)
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"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
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"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
-George Carlin
That will be precious.
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"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
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"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
-George Carlin
If we ran across some life form capable of interstellar travel, they would probably be so advanced compared to us technologically that we would be at their mercy.
Rights, schmights.
evanchik.net
Yeah, as I recall the AI in "ghost in a shell" actually applied for political asylum. It's right on to the problem :-)
GITS on Animefu
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
... this is already a matter of law; non-humans do not have legal standing.
A few years ago (I can't remember exactly when) a man claiming to be a Martian sued a number of federal cabinet ministers and several major corporations, including a drug store chain, for allegedly discriminating against his alien status.
The judge dismissed the case, noting that if she found that the man was indeed a Martian, he wouldn't have the ability to sue under Canadian law.
Does anyone else remember this?
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
I don't think that I will ever consider AI to be a life form.
This really all comes down to your worldview. Do you hold a supernaturalist worldview, or a naturalist worldview?
If you hold a naturalist worldview (which I do) then you don't believe in God (or Gods), and you don't believe that you have a soul, or some part of your mind which continues to exist after death. It's a pretty depressing worldview, but one that makes a lot of sense to me based on my experience. In this worldview, it's rather easy to believe that you are nothing more than a machine. If nature, the tireless experimenter, can do it, then why not us. It may takes us a while, but it's likely a matter of time, and definitely a possibility.
If, on the other hand, you are a supernaturalist, then you most likely believe that you possess something that a "machine" could never have, for example, a soul. I believe the notion of AI as a life form is currently inconsistent with most religions.
"The only rights you have are the rights you are willing to fight for."
Are you so sure? The difference between an ant and a human is huge. But the difference between us, and some other technologically advanced species may not be that large. The main difference might simply be technology.
To put this in perspective, do you think it's possible that we could achieve those technologies within 2500 years? If so, then how different do you think that humans will be in 2500 years? To help answer this, consider looking backwards: do you think that a conversation with Plato would be interesting?
"The only rights you have are the rights you are willing to fight for."
I hear ya.
It appears all doubt has been removed.
"Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds"
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
-Albert Einstein
If there were a need for civil rights for aliens, who would determine what those rights are? Methinks that's a job for some kind of world government... Cave Canis
The Ask Slashdot question should be are aliens people then. How in the living HELL can you say that aliens arent people? We havent even have conclusive 100% beyond a resonable doubt that they even exist! How the heck do we not know they arent human? How do they reproduce, how do they think, how do they feed their young? Until you answer these questions you dont even know what the hell make them up. We assume just because they arent on our planet, that they couldnt possibley be human, or that just because they look different that they arent human. It could possibley be that with all our scientific guidlines, that they could fit the human mold.
The Ask Slashdot question should be are aliens people then. How in the living HELL can you say that aliens arent people? We havent even have conclusive 100% beyond a resonable doubt that they even exist! How the heck do we not know they arent human? How do they reproduce, how do they think, how do they feed their young? Until you answer these questions you dont even know what the hell make them up. We assume just because they arent on our planet, that they couldnt possibley be human, or that just because they look different that they arent human. It could possibley be that with all our scientific guidlines, that they could fit the human mold
Making a sentient being dead intentionally is murder, no matter what you call it. Unless that being actually wants to die. If an AI can fool us that he's not one, then he might as well pass for a living thing. Heck, G.W. passes for a sentient being, can't imagine a machine doing worse.
Aliens should be greeted with joy and given diplomatic immunity. Any such visitor should be granted a federal funded stay in exchange for improving the relations between two species. And no kicking them out like G.W did to russians. I'll bet that 10% of them were not guilty of spying! Oh, and they should be allowed to work at universities as professors. The gray would pass for some of them without students even noticing.
--- Hajotkaa siihen, kapitalistit!
:] You dumbasses! This is leading up to the April fools joke that /. pulls every year... Expect another alien post tomarrow.
Regarding aliens -- If their intent is anything but peaceful, they don't have any rights.
Regarding IA -- *Blade Runner*.
Were the british, french, spanish, portugese and italians more morally advanced than the native peoples they killed and subjegated? No, they were simply barbarians with better technology that enabled them to kill and subjagate everyone they met.
Don't assume that aliens are coming here to be our friends, that could be a lethal mistake that leaves your children as slaves, or worse, food.
On the other hand, they may be as you say and all be born as Saints.
The point that I am trying to make is this: Don't assume. They may be our best friends and only want the best for us, or they might be the cruelist fiends that we could never even imagine. Just because they have technology that lets them travel the stars says nothing about their motives or their moral development.
That's what I thought.
An alien from outer space visits us. We could learn all sorts of things, and there could be all sorts of trouble.
And we're worried that he doesn't have a valid passport???
What dilemma? If you want to shoot down what he said that you DO NOT use moderation to do that. You post a reply, like you did. The sort of spiteful "I disagree therefore I will moderate you down" attittude is NOT what moderation is for. I say that comment was perfectly on-topic and valid, even though I agree with you that the poster is off his rocker. (Whales and dolphins are smarter than the average animal, but they cannot become anything close to being as smart as humans because they lack the physical ability to manipulate their environs (hands). They lack this ability to fiddle with things - a crucial ingredient for a baby learning how to think. Apes are way smarter than whales and dolphins, because they actually have hands with which to learn things about the world around them.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
You've been watching too much self-praising ecospeak.
You've been watching too much Star Trek.
This was IMHO a dumb question, but I'm bored...and I'll jump in.
Civil Rights? They'd have none because...
(Assuming they end up in the US)
1. They are not a US Citizen
2. Thier "government" has not signed any UN, ICJ or World Court agreements that establish Civil or Human Rights that the US has signed.
Same pretty much goes wherever the alien ends up. In China? They'd imprison it, find it guilty and sell the organs to the highest bidder.
So wheel that critter on in and let's alien autopsy his/her/it's ass.
First off, I'm assuming that this is the case where aliens come to make contact with humans on Earth, and not vice versa. The balance of power is very heavily weighted in favor of the party that's going out and making contact on the other party's territory. Our own history of the European settlement of the Americas and Australia shows this quite clearly, and in that case both parties were of the same species. With the even greater potential for misunderstanding between different species, in the long term such contact is going to be even more messy.
Anyhow, the short answer, any human government with good sense will treat alien visitors like visiting royalty, or at a minimum, like foreign diplomats with immunity to local laws. Any being with the technology to cross the interstellar gap is powerful enough to threaten every living being on Earth, so it only makes sense to treat them very carefully, avoiding giving offense or letting them come to harm.
Scientist and science fiction author Charles Pellegrino has pointed out that the energy needed to accelerate a spaceship up to nearly the speed of light is astronomical, and could do unbelievable damage. Life-bearing planets are large and move slowly and predictably, and it's impossible to defend against something coming at you almost before you detect it. If a missile of large mass travelling at 0.99c were to collide with a planet, it would do damage that makes the dinosaur killer look like peanuts. This scenario is graphically portrayed in his novel The Killing Star, which posits that this is the reason why we haven't detected any alien intelligences. It's impossible to defend your homeworld against this sort of attack, so the only rational thing to do is be as invisible as possible, and then go around killing potential threats before they materialize.
Even without planet-killers used by a Berserker race, and hypothesizing some sort of FTL travel with much lower energy, there are lots of ways star-faring aliens could do serious harm to Earth people. The short story "The Flies of Memory" had a particularly amusing example. In it, aliens looking like giant mosquitos came to Earth to tour our famous landmarks. After a human lunatic killed one, it was discovered that the things the aliens view become tied to them in their memory, such that if the alien dies, all of the landmarks it remembers ceases to exist.
And this is just addressing potential physical harm. I imagine that no matter what they do, any visiting aliens would irreparably transform the human psyche. First contact is rather a cultural singularity - after it, everything will be different. Assuming aliens trying to minimize the damage to our worldview, just the demonstration of non-human intelligence and the technology they possess will be a huge hurdle.
So, I guess I'm with the cynics on this one. If aliens come to Earth, the question is not so much what rights they have (in all likelihood, they have enough power to do whatever the hell they please), and the real disturbing issue is how the poor indigenes (ie, us) will fare. Our own history is a pretty disturbing precedent.
First contact and its effects have been discussed and thought about in written science fiction for decades. There are many more stories than the ones I mentioned above considering angles of this issue, so you might want to take a trip to the library.
Are you crazy? Supporting dictatorial regimes whos lax or non-existant human rights laws guarantees cheap goods to western consumers. That's just nuts. Are you saying that you'd really rather pay a few dollars more for a t-shirt just so that the person who made it can earn a decent wage and help their families get out of poverty? Crazy person. Don't you know that the only important thing is for our decent, kindhearted, concerned western corporations is to make money?
Your question is predicated on the assumption that aliens are not already here and (pick any combo):
That should about cover the main sceneros. Oh wait, I almost forgot: writing entries for the Hitchhiker's Guide. . .
-"Zow"
I think one of the main questions here is what does it mean to be human? Does homo sapien == human? This is obviously a philosophical question and art tends to do a good job addressing philosophical questions. The best work of art I've seen that addresses this is Ghost in the Shell followed closely by Blade Runner (esp The Director's Cut), which also happen to be my favourite two films of all time. While they're more centered around androids & AI, I think the same issues would apply to extraterestrials. Check them out.
-"Zow"
A novel which gives a reasonable view of what might happen... If a sentient alien were to land in Canada, anyway. God forbid if one lands south of the border. :)
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Forget space aliens. Look at how the US, and many other, governments treat people from other countries. It's often hard to even travel between countries and moving or working in another country is an impossible pain. To get into the US and be able to get a decent job you have to go through hoops. And the worse the place you come from the less likely you'll be allowed to stay. It's nothing but government sponsored discrimination against people for something they are born with. I certainly didn't pick to be born in the US and am quite certain that other people don't choose to be born in 3rd world hell. Even reasonably well educated and non-criminal people have a hard time moving here. Lots of excuses are given why we need immigration laws but they all remind me of why we need slavery or why women can't work or homosexuals can't get married.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
A lot of people seem to think this is some kind of evil loophole, and it certainly does get abused. But, how do you think an American citizen would react if they were to find that they were effectively prohibited from marrying someone from another country?
It seems to me there's about as much likelihood - and maybe less - of this law ever changing, as there is of private gun ownership being made illegal. Both go to very basic issues of citizen freedom.
Well, I hope that the first extra-terrestrials on Earth are the Organians. If you recall, they're the ones who enforce the truce between the Federation and the Romulans--by making all their weapons red-hot when they try to use them against each other. They could do wonders in the middle east!
Second choice: the space hippies. You know, the drums, funny ears (natch)... Herbert! Herbert! And damn, I'll bet you can grow some good smoke in zero-g.
Third choice: Wookies. They're big, furry, pretty peaceful, and make cute noises... what more do you want? I just hope that they're not all too popular with the ladies.
LAST choices: The Borg, if they're not here already; that Zorn lizard-thing that Cap'n Kirk had to bop in the head with a homemade cannon; Cats--I don't want 'em setting up us the bomb.
As does the alien's response:
Peace?
No peace...
DIE!
We were not a space faring race when the vulcans showed up, we had just been lucky enough to have a nut job who wanted to try out his experimental rocket around the same time the vulcans were in the neighbourhood.
With regards to such evolutionary technology, a race is considered to "have" that technology when it is first demonstrated to work. It implies nothing about the subsequent use or distribution of that technology.
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Consider the nature of the question: how would we deal with non-human intelligence if presented with it? The poster replied with examples of how we deal with sentient or near-sentient animals that are native to our own planet. We know how intelligent dolphins and whales are, and yet countries like Iceland, Japan, and Norway are still happily killing them for no clear reason. For that matter, scientists also know that the octopus is on the verge of self awareness, yet people thing nothing at all of eating one.
The fact is that as much as I don't like it, Mao's old maxim, that "Power eminates from the barrel of a gun" holds true. The reason we don't care about/respect the intelligence of non-human organisms is that they're not in a position to fight back against us. The main reason we'd have to respect an alien intelligence would be because they could toast our butts if we didn't. I suspect, though, that if they were smarter/more technologically advanced than us and thought we looked tasty, we'd have a hard time arguing for our lives considering the human race's own record of dealing with other creatures, even those whose intelligence is surely higher than that of some people you probably know. (and you know that a dolphin is smarter than your boss)
How does one recognise self-independence or sovereignty? Our legal system does pose some administrative bottlenecks (e.g. citizenship and passports) but the systems are usually flexible enough to adapt (though not always painlessly or quickly). For example, the Mabo case which overturned the doctrine of Terra Nullus (the preassumption that Australia was *NOT* inhabitied at the time despite the presence of natives). All the property rights have derived from (OK nicking the place by teh British crown) this early premise and the recent overturn has meant a period of uncertainty as everything is renogotiated. If a superior civilisation did discover Earth, we might be in the position of trying to prove we actually deserve to cohabit this portion of the galaxy (which may prove bloody). As Napolean once said, God is on the side with the biggest guns. Legally, I suppose that the UN would try to ascertain the formal government structure and then organise some sort of protocol. The biggest problem here is whether any of our concepts of governance overlap? For example, supposing they come in and ask for our souls (or equivalent exotic) but we don't recognise the concept. This is much like asking the aborigines for spectrum rights 100 years ago. But once the xenolinguists figure out what conceptual basis of self-control exists, you can progressively match them up with human equivalents (e.g. refugee status) for which there are well established precedences. With formal recognition comes diplomatic rights (or at least the human equivalent). Great civilisations in the past managed to exchange people and even trade (Europe/China in Renaissance) but the evidence also exists that imposing a predetermined mindset can be harmful (e.g. Catholic conversion of the Americas). If you assume that the Prime Directive is a binding law then it is likely that it arose out of historical precedences on their side so again you'd be able to figure out the philosophy and draw upon human parallels.
An interesting question is can you figure out a culture's philosophy merely from a limited sample of their language? For example, if you make the assumption that since Vulcans have some telephathic ability, then the concept of lying might be foreign to them (cognitive dissonance). Their c'thia (truth) would be OK in the physical sciences (after all the laws of physics can't be broken) but would they understand commerce or the art of illusions/humor? Their Kh'askpetheya'th (definition of thought) would quite likely lead to different values reflected in the kro'el (way). Afterall c'thia (logic, reality-truth) is rooted in our perception of the world which is highly colored by social interaction.
BTW I recall there was a some mention of trying to simulate what the evolution of Vulcan would be based on biogeophysical developments (e.g. hotter sun, less water, etc) but is there any further work?
LL
As with any other newly formed nation, the aliens would need to establish some form of diplomatic recognition with one or mother nations on earth. There are well established protocols for doing this already, which have been used numerous times over last century, at least. Once the aliens had been recognized as a group by one or more nations, the alien 'nation' would be able to issue passports to it's citizens, establish diplomatic missions to earthly nations and do all sorts of other stuff that your run-of-the-mill earthly nations do. Aliens visiting a nation would have the same sorts of rights (or lack thereof) that any non-resident human would have.
Before you get all hot and bothered about rights for artificial intelligences, maybe you should consider the difficulties of recognizing naturally occurring non-human intelligence within current legal systems. I don't think it very likely that whales, dolphins or chimpanzees are going to be recognized as legal 'people' no matter what kinds of intelligence they can be shown to posess. When the intelligent entity happens to be entirely constructed by intentional human endeavor, however, I suspect that recognition as anything other than an owned and ownable object is out of the question.
It's not instant, and it's certainly not cheap.
I was effectively deported after my wedding. The INS do not work to any particular timetable. For a while it looked like I would not be allowed back in the US to see my son born.
If you ever want to see the outermost circle of hell, a place where no hope exists, go down to your local INS waiting room.
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E_NOSIG
This Ask Slashdot is so lame it doesn't deserve a FP?? Never thought I'd see the day.
Don't you run a comic shop in Springfield? Doh!
Huh? Many countries eat dogs, but we don't. We eat cows, but they're sacred in India. In Africa monkeys and gorilla's are just as good "bush meat" as elephants or antelope... and so it goes. We spare dolphins because they're smart/cute, eat pigs who are smart/ugly, but for some reason won't eat rats, although other countries will. In the Phillippines they eat rotting eggs containing half-developed chicks as a delicacy.
So will we eat aliens? I'd say it's a fair bet that someone might.
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
--
Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
man, you could have waited one more day
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
fucking bite me. My moronic posts fit in quite snugly with the rest of slashdot. As for my "outright insulting" statements, at least I have the balls to put my name to em.
How we know is more important than what we know.
No but what I was saying was that in Kirk and TNG ega they are very technical about the prime directive. Not really worried about the intent of it, just that it's a rule and they have to abide by it. The vulcans had a similar policy when they first came in contact with earth (this is stated in First Contact I think, or I heard it in one of the series). One would not think vulcans would be so technical about their rules. You would figure a vulcan would never follow a law that they didn't understand the logic behind. As other posts here have indicated, perhaps showing up as soon as someone figures out warp travel is a good thing, to stop them from trampling on other people's territory, but my opinion was that the prime directive was there to let non space faring races live in blissful ignorance of the rest of the galaxy. Only after it is imminent that the race will discover other species in the galaxy is it important to make contact with them. I dont think waiting the 20 minutes or whatever after the first warp flight was demonstrating the imminency of humans finding the other inhabitants of the galaxy. Cochran could have gone home, looked at his numbers and convinced himself that he had only gone "really fast" not faster than light and thrown his research away.
:)
Anyway, I feel about 20% geekier, how about you?
How we know is more important than what we know.
what I thought was funny about First Contact was that the vulcans were totally technical about their prime directive just like the federation. ie. The human race had just gotten warp technology no longer than 20 minutes ago when the vulcans showed up. How exactly is that honouring the spirit of the prime directive. We were not a space faring race when the vulcans showed up, we had just been lucky enough to have a nut job who wanted to try out his experimental rocket around the same time the vulcans were in the neighbourhood.
How we know is more important than what we know.
He often gave the secret of warp technology to blue chicks on dates.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And, like, who's going to argue with an alien species that has the technology and wherewithal to travel thousands of light years?
While it may have worked in the movie "Independence Day", I doubt we'd have a real prayer if they decided that they wanted human shiskabob or something.
The real question is what kind of rights we think they ought to have, and that depends on what you think of natural rights. Aquinas based them on a fellow-feeling among all of humanity, and seeing as this compassion was the will of God, you had a legal obligation to respect them. Aliens, not being human, and thus not that object which the Bible commands you to love, would not be entitled to these rights.
If you're a Hobbesian, however, then these aliens would need to have no greater fear than that of violent death in order to be worthy of natural rights. If they fear anything else more than violent death, they have no natural rights.
Thomas Jefferson believed more along the lines of Hobbesian natural right, but couched it in the rhetoric of religion, attributing rights to "Nature and Nature's God." (just as an aside, why not the Bible's God?)
Those who discuss "human rights" tend, as a general rule, to base them on compassion and fellow-feeling. They would have no natural rights unless they were cute enough to warrant our compassion.
As you see, how you would have to treat aliens would depend a lot on the possible basis for natural rights. How they would actually be treated would depend a lot on chance.
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under-paid karma whore
You probably eat Pork.
Pigs are smarter than dogs, it's pretty much a proven fact.
Luckily for that dog YOU seem to love so much, it doesn't taste as good as the pig.
...
Cats often treat their owners (and their owner's property) with the disdain you mention because Cats, unlike dogs, learn through very basic problem solving skills typical of an independent nature, while dogs learn through repetitive conditioning typical of pack mentality.
There is safty in numbers, which protect the dog's pack mentality.
As an individual, it's a damn good thing cats really aren't very choice meat.
...
I for one eat almost no meat at all, limiting myself to almost no red meat, a lot of fish and VERY LITTLE turkey or chicken.
It's not a moral issue, really. Them dumb animals are just so bad for you.
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"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
It's not written anywhere.
When they come, I just hope Humans don't taste very good to them.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Here is a more realistic and perhaps inevitable situation to consider than Vulcans landing on Earth.
How about when human and animal hybrids are produced from genetic tampering. Should the resulting lifeforms have the same rights as humans?
Actually, a lot of work has been done in this area. Go back and have a look the abortion debates from Roe v. Wade on. We have largely decided (academically, not legally) that rights all pretty much all revolve around the notion of personhood. Humans don't have rights, persons do. of course, defining exactly what a person is is pretty much up for grabs, but normally we end up with notions like ability to communicate, self-awareness, ability to reason, etc. So if E.T. were to pop on down in Times Square and he exibited the traits mentioned above, then he, theoretically, would be owed the same rights and you and me.
If I were an alien, first thing I'd do is level New York. Personally. Once I was sure I'd put you meat monkeys in your place and assured you that there was NO fucking where in my ship that you could hook up an Apple laptop, I might be willing to grant you guys the rights of some of our lower slave classes (ahem!)
What was I saying here? I think it had something to do with the stupidity of 50 years of TV Sci Fi writers. Or something like that.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"At the very least, for a worldly entity to be guilty of infringing a copyright, that entity must have copied something created by another worldly entity."
aliens..they would be treated extremely well..considering we would need technology from them...and being humans..we like to suck up.. AI..basucally slavery..cause we created it so we would think we were its god or something..
"'Human Rights'. Why the very name is racist."
-- Azetbur (Klingon Chancellor, ST6)
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Borkborkbork is just the tip of the iceberg!--
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...detroit starts selling cars that can levitate and fly over intersections? The traffic code isn't equipped to deal with that!
Or, what if someone discovers a way to read minds and record exact thoughts? What is the legal system going to do!
My advice: it's best when systems (bureaucracies esepcailly!) trail the phenomenon that they control, so the controls adapt to reality, and not the other way around.
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
I don't think that I will ever consider AI to be a life form. I've written plenty of it in my time at university. I've read up on it and coded it and played with it and everything... and no matter how well you simulate life... it's all quantifiable algorithms and equations and so forth. If there is an AI bill of rights. I think that I will have to move to mars. (BTW, if I develop and AI in the future, and it reads this, I hope it doesn't hold this against me... I doubt it will.)
Eh...
You have to consider the psychology of a telepathic species. Such a species would not be big on individualism, even if they didn't have a "hive mind". If everyone can read your mind, crime would be impossible; indeed, the species might not even be able to understand the IDEA of "crime". Such a society wouldn't consider computer security to be necessary -- they wouldn't even know where to start, it would be a totaly alien concept to them.
Assuming their computers worked on similar concepts to our own (reasonable, because the universe only has one set of physical laws), it is conceivable that a master hacker could figure out a way to crash their computers in short order.
It's a stretch, but it's actually the most plausible plot element in the movie. Yeah, it's a lame movie, but it's still fun to watch if you've got a buzz on.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
I can see Lucy Random Cheerleader asking this question, and how everybody would giggle nervously and then change the subject. But as for this being accepted by Cliff as an entire "Ask Slashdot?"? Someone hasn't slept in a while, that's for sure.
As for the passport issue: I'll guess they'll just have to make an exception.
Suggestions for future Ask Slashdots:
- If it was somehow proven that God doesn't exist, what are we going to with all churches and stuff?
- If a tree falls in a forest, and noone is there to hear it, how did it fall in the first place?
- If a giant rock is heading towards the earth and we all die when we collide, who's going to be around to kick Bruce Willis ass for not saving us?
The answer to all of these is of course: who gives a damn? There might be more important questions to address in such a situation.END RANT
Now flame on if you want to, but I seriously think this was a really silly question.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
Pooies, you are forgetting something, AI doesn't have the problem that humans do of not adapting to their situation.
We could insert a simple line reading
If Slavery = True
Happiness = True
If Slavery = False
Happiness = False
I'd like to see them fight for freedom then,heh, a bunch of depressed freedom fighters.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
It is a silly question.
Think about it. If an alien were able to come to Earth, the question would be what rights do we have?
Remember your history, its the ones that arrive from afar that make the decisions. Europeans decided the rights of native Americans, not the other way around. Etc. Etc. Etc.
The President's speech from Independence Day sums it up well:
I know there is much we can learn from each other if we can negotiate a truce.
We can find a way to co-exist.
Can there be peace between us?
---
The AOL-Time Warner-Microsoft-Intel-CBS-ABC-NBC-Fox corporation:
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
The sort of spiteful "I disagree therefore I will moderate you down" attittude is NOT what moderation is for.
;)
Clearly you are one of the aliens the story was about.
What would be really interesting is if we were visited by aliens who turned out to be mechanical beings.
Do we deny the fundamental equality of the visitor? Do we immediately grant rights to all AIs (assuming they already exist on earth, but haven't yet gained rights)? Or, do we act slightly hypocritically and make an exception for the visitor?
Probably the last. Far be it for the human race to act rationally. ;-)
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Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
Now, as far as AI would go, first AI will be created, but the rights of AI won't come for a long time. Historically human societies are loathe to grant new rights to groups not currently recognized. An AI would be treated like a machine for long before they ever get rights. What will have to happen is people who currently DO have rights (living people) will have to take up the cause on behalf os the AI. Possibly the first test of the potential rights of an IA would come if the owner of the machine the AI "lives" in wants to shut it down, or sell the AI, or somehow threaten it's status quo, and another person starts seeking injunctions and the court to recognize the AI as a being. This si going to be an extremely interesting set of legal ground greaking when it finally takes place. Kind of makes you wonder who the AI version of Rosa PArks will be...
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jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
It's an interesting legal question. We'd be inclined to think they'd be considered legal people with respect to rights.
:-)
I'd think the state department would be getting in contact with them to arrange diplomatic relations and exchange of culture, software, etc. I don't believe the question of rights would even be an issue.
However, that is not actual human history, or even US history. "We" required ammendments to grant equal rights to people of "other" races, and of "other" genders.
In the present day, does anyone really believe this would be a problem?
(Maybe it would. Maybe I overestimate the average person's intelligence.) Even if it were not a problem, maybe ammendments are necessary simply to codify it into law.
Maybe people mistreat other people because they consider them to be less than people? (So how would this apply to aliens?)
Maybe people hold slaves because they believe them less than people, or for economic reasons? How would this rationale apply to aliens?
Ob.Troll: Maybe we've granted equal rights to the various other genders because we have lost sight of the inherent superiority of the male physique -- esp. young cute ones? Or Cmdr. Taco. (How would this rationale apply to aliens?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Imagine all of the patent holders wanting to enforce their IP rights and collect licensing fees from the aliens for all of the ideas that humans have patented.
And think of the people reviewing all of the newly introduced alien technology. Heck, they'd be stumbling over each other to be the first to the patent office with their filings on all that new technology.
Would the RIAA and MPAA be able to get in on any of this?
But seriously...
What about all the existing contracts where party A gives "worldwide" rights to party B? i.e. band signing with RIAA? Or Microsoft acquiring a competitor's software?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I often think about how fundamental a concept it is to our society that you only have *one* partner in a relationship with the opposite sex. Even *looking* at another girl can land you in a lot of trouble, as if you've done some incredible, absolute *wrong*. But this is such an arbitrary thing: many other cultures (even many still around today - the King of Swaziland has 8 wives) it is very normal to have (e.g) multiple wives. And those women don't get petty and jealous, because it is simply normal for them, it doesn't bother them. Hard for us to imagine maybe. But it shows how arbitrary some of our most basic moral principles really are, they are not founded on anything absolute (unless of course you're a Christian). Many of what we consider to be "absolute" morals are incredibly arbitrary, and many are derived from religions such as Christianity - but when you analyze them from a non-Christian viewpoint, they appear arbitrary and ridiculous (e.g. no sex before marriage). This notion of "only one partner" is so ingrained into our consciousnesses from birth we find it very difficult to imagine that this isn't some absolute universal moral principle.
If a woman's husband has an affair in our society, it causes such incredible amounts of pain to her that the relationship will probably never recover, and will most likely end in a divorce. Yet had the same woman been born into a a different culture, she could easily have ended up sharing her husband with many other women - and not experience a day's pain from it.
Those hypothetical aliens had better become Christians fast, or they're going to have a hard time living here on Earth amongst Western cultures - most "modernized" countries legal systems are based to a fair degree on Christian morals.
Yeah, those anal probes would be illegal under Georgia's sodomy laws. It's a big issue among gray rights advocates.
Gray Pride! Keep reaching for that nebula!
Maj. Kong
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Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
So in order to avoid the problems that this will cause, just remember that if someone approaches with open gunports, they are hostile.
Not true necessarily. I forget which Sci-Fi show I saw it on, but that exact assumption nearly led to a war [the race in question flew with totally open weapons ports/systems, to them it was like coming out with your hands up, the other people could see precisely what you were packing {incidentally, I think the origin of the handshake follows similar reasoning}]
Two things would be needed for a first contact: [assuming they or we already knew how to communicate with one another]
1. No assumptions, simply take it as it comes.
2. An ability to let conflicting values slide. So long as they don't plan to push whatever it is they do that we don't like on us, we should ignore it as much as we can. Their culture, their business.
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
- The moral positions of the majority of us hinge intimately on condoning "human bigotry", and would have to be re-evaluated if we come into contact with another race that we must accept as having the same rights. (As some of us have already accepted that it is the right of any animal that can feel pain not to be made to feel pain).
- The above reasoning can be the result only of an inveterate programmer, who alone are able to parse such sentences--the kind no self-respecting English teacher could so much as look at without becoming violently sick.
This has been a public service.There are exactly three predictable ways mankind will react to First Contact:
* If the aliens are massively more advanced than we are and can crush us like the primitive little pre-warp fools we are, then mankind sucks it in and kisses ass. There will be dissident whacko groups trying desperately to foment war on both sides, but the majority of mankind will prefer to survive juuuust long enough to duplicate the alien super-weapons. Then mankind will try to turn the tables, because they'll be damned if a buncha slimy communist aliens are gonna tell THEM what ta do! The likely result in the end is mankind's destruction through its own consistent congenital stupidity. Either that or the aliens will bore of having such conniving and all around useless slaves, and destroy mankind anyway.
* The aliens would be powerful as above, but in this scenario mankind decides to go xenophobic and attack them anyway, that or some terrorist's bomb kills the Xorfunian leader and either way the Earth gets turned into a nice glowing heap of slag. So long, humans.
* The aliens are not too greatly advanced and/or don't have much in the way of military technology. This is very much the least likely possibility. In this case mankind will ruthlessly subjugate the aliens, including I predict attempts to torture secrets of alien technology from them for "National Security" reasons. The alien technology thus gleaned will then be turned on the rest of mankind. Final result: glowing heap of slag, see above.
Makes me want to play that stirring soundtrack to ST: First Contact again! =) If any aliens are reading this, I'll simplfy: Humans bad. Humans stupid. Humans kill anything that's not human and much that is. Don't waste your time with humans.
Of course, any alien race that can't tell what we're like just from the past 50 years of our TV broadcasts in space, deserves to get it. =P
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
... it's all quantifiable algorithms and equations and so forth.
So, just because we can understand the inner workings of an AI, it means it has no rights?
What happens on the distant day when the final mysteries of the human brain are unlocked, and scientists can accurately predict anything anyone will do by mathematical algorithms based on the way the brain works? Will we all no longer have any rights once we become so explicable?
Rather, I think Isaac Asimov had it right in his novel "The Bicentennial Man" (now a weak rip-off movie with Robin Williams! Read the real thing).
In the novel, a U.S. supreme court justice finally granted full civil rights and citizenship to an advanced robot (basically, an AI) with the wording that "It is wrong to deny freedom to any mind advanced enough to grasp the concept and desire the state."
'Nuff said. Beautiful, Dr. Asimov, beautiful. =)
If aliens or AI ever arrive on earth, I hope we overlook the facts of whether they're living, mechanical, equipped with 30 tentacles or merely a hyperintelligent shade of the color blue - we should respect them as kindred minds, thus as equals.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
For Example:
If they are vaguely humanoid looking, they stand a chance of having some rights.
If all of their internal organs are on the outside/their skin is translucent/they have tentacles, etc, they stand a pretty good chance of being locked up/burned/melted/studied/quarantined, etc.
If they have fur, and/or are cuddly, rest assured the soccer moms and cheerleaders of the world will be lobbying for their rights.
If there is any way that the commercial world can capitalize on them, they will have rights. For example, if they have enough appendages to make a kick ass action figure you can damn well assure that mattell will hire the best civil rights attorney's money can buy and those aliens will have all the rights they could ever want.
Would not wnat to spoil it though.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The post I was considering moderating was not the one to which I replied. But once you moderate in a thread you can't post, and vice-versa.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
The feds would scoop up him (her? himher? it? THEM?) under the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.
You've heard of this law: it's the one that allows foreigners to be held without telling them why. It was passed after an American, the soon-not-to-be T. McVeigh, blew up the Oklahoma Federal Building. In the U.S., when our own citizens go looney, we like to crack down on dangerous foreigners.
The sad fact is that no alien, terrestial or extraterrestial, has much in the way of "rights," civil or otherwise, here.
The key word is PEOPLE. Cats & dogs are not people and are not citizens. Until another law is passed "space" aliens are just animals and, depending on the chosen landing spot, would be treated as an exotic pet - off to the zoo for you! Of course if the mother ship's size in measured by the mile and came into orbit on a jet of plasma as bright as the sun, ambassador status would be granted fairly quick.:)
They will have thier technology patented by RAMBUS and get sued off the planet.
Because it's not human, assuming we could easily overpower it, we'd kill it and dissect it, and take apart all of its technology. Then the other aliens on the mother ship would figure out that we're some kind of horrible parasite devouring all of the planet's atmosphere and natural resources, kill us all with some sort of genetically engineered microphage, and make first contact with the dolphins.
we cannot appreciate sentient life as a species; "man shall have dominion over animals" as some bible tells us. We slaughter whales; dolphin death is a fall out from tuna farming.
:-)
so basically, we'll kill them and eat them, maybe entering them into a forced breeding or cloning programme so we have plenty of tasty novelty alien flesh.
the only animals we have ever empathised with, as a species, are apes and monkeys, because they look like us. if they don't look like us, we got no respect for them; they're food. we've essentially *got* alien culture on earth already and we treat it like shit.
just a vegetarian's tuppence, anyway.
What if they have a one-click patent! Or patented all the laws of physics, and demand 10 billion stellar credits as a licensing fee, or we forfiet our planet to make way for their interstellar bypass?
Perhaps we as humans are to precise in our notion of what forms of life any included in our circle of respect. In historical times, anybody who was not part of your particular village or tribe was not consider equal. Even today the remenants of segragation are around, from deciding that other races and ethnicity of people were not equal. Perhaps the next boundry is for a concept of rights that does not force the holder of those rights to be human. Organizations like the Great Apes Project(http://www.greatapeproject.org/) are pushing for similar moral and legal protections for large primates. I see such issues moving to the forefront in the coming century as more people come to discover philosophical that is is very difficult to logicaly construct an idea of equality in which small infants, children, or possibly even fetuses are covered as being "human" or "close enough to human to be given basic rights and protections", yet not extend those same ideas to other living forms of high ability. Unless one accepts the religous view that our own species is "in gods image" or is more unique and special in other ways that reduce animals to having no rights at all. If humans are so special, then aliens should not have rights. If there is some level of reasoning, intellegence, emotion or whatever we decide the guidelines for recieving rights should be, then we should have to test that judgement against the abilities and knowledge of other species.
Ho but I'm sorry, this is not on topic. I wouldn't want to spoil this very important conversation about alien rights. I'd better watch more television cause I think I'm starting to think for myself or something.
PS: Does anyone know how this article actually made it on Slashdot?
Now go away or I shall taunt you with my supreme knowledge of pi
Well, if you've mentioned a Vulcan as your example, then there won't be any first contact, at least not on their part.
:)
I know that the Federation has that pesky law, called the "Prime Directive", and I believe that the Vulcans have the same (I'm not sure about it though). As you probably know, one of the clauses of the directive is that you cannot come into contact with a civilization unless they have warp technology. We don't have it. So no vulcan will visit us any time soon.
As for other species, I'm sure that any concievable kind of aliens have been depicted in movies of all sorts. Movies which also explain pretty well what would happen in such scenarions. And if the predictions in the movies would come true, I'm a lot more concerned about OUR rights rather than the aliens (see Mars Attacks, Idependence Day, etc, etc).
Hope this answers your question.
But first off, they're not likely to be interested in juries and real estate. Look at our own planet. We can't even be sure whether dolphins, whales, and elephants are intelligent. Darn, I hate how the dolphins just refuse to use the #2 pencil properly in order to take an IQ test!
Also, the universe is billions of years old, and the evolution of intelligence is likely to happen at vastly different points in time. Any aliens who land on earth are likely to be hundreds of millions of years more advanced than us, so it won't really matter to them what our laws say.
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An alien couple enters an human house at breakfast. They engage in a conversation. :
-And how do you reproduce on your planet ? asks the man.
The aliens show them, and they get a little alien two minutes later
-Now you show us, the aliens ask.
The humans think fuck it, they're not even humans, let's do it. They do it, and the aliens say
-Funny, on our planet, that's how we make coffee
Its not a lame question. Its actually rather interesting. Who else would put such a fascinating question on the main page of their site? Its this kind of thinking that leads me to come to Slashdot in the first place. Its thinking outside the box. I know that this kind of subject matter makes some people uncomfortable, but one day humanity will have to consider issues like these, and maybe sooner than you think.
I think that there wouldn't be much of a problem with the law if (or should I say when) an alien comes to earth. Its pretty safe to assume that any alien who comes here will be much more advanced than us (not just technologically, but intellectually, morally, and spiritually). Most of us would pretty much intuitively recognize that fact. It would then be obvious that we couldn't possibly ask this higher being to conform to our backwards laws and customs.
In fact, I think we would have to be grateful that any aliens would want to have anything to do with us, after they witness the violence we've done to each other, and to our planet.
It's a virtual certainty that would happen. Even among humans alone (forget aliens!) there's a pretty big lack of consensus. Just 150 years ago (not evan an eyeblink compared to interstellar travel time), you could buy and sell other people in USA. 60 years ago, you could be put to death for being a Jew in Germany. In present day USA, you're required to pay a percentage of your income to the federal government (unthinkable 100 years ago).
If humans themselves don't consistently hold to much in the way of core values, then there's no chance that Joe Alien will happen to have compatable values with you.
So in order to avoid the problems that this will cause, just remember that if someone approaches with open gunports, they are hostile.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What if there's something they consider a basic right, which we consider immoral? Or vice-versa?
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Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
As far as the United States goes, we have set up right's for people that ARE U.S. Citizens, and those who aren't. Heck, we even refer to non-US citizens as aliens. So I dont see the difference if theyre from a different planet. We dont have text saying the rights of every different race or ethnic backround outlined. Although technically we should treat them as just non-americans, I have a strange feeling that we wouldnt, considering sometimes we cant even treat Americans like non-Americans sometimes. \