The Day The Earth Stood Still: Redux

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the movie which I derive the title of this thread from (with the witty "redux" added, a la Coppola). Quick rundown of it is, Earth enters the atomic age, gets new toys of death. Alien comes down, warns Terrans that if we don't play nice when we leave this planet, he'll fuck us up.

Fast forward a bit. I'm interested in knowing, given the strife, ignorance and pure evil we have endured since we came down from the trees, whether you can make a good case for Homo sapiens, as a species, having a future. Not just ten years down the line, or even a hundred. If we spread, do you think - assuming other species of intellect exist out in the black vastness of deep space - they'd really accept us?

Say there's a network of tests around the galaxy (I'm in no way borrowing this concept off an author I just read, honest) which entice a species of starfaring ability in. It reads the minds of anyone who enters the artefact and, given the past of that species as alluded to in the mental picture of a selection of that species, decides whether to allow the species to thrive, or invoke a cull; a total wiping out of said species.

Leaving aside the possible future events I, nor anyone short of Criswell can predict, what case would you make for our species passing or failing the test? A nice summarised paragraph will do, just to give examples of why humanity has what it takes to achieve peace and harmony, or why it deserves to have no future among supposed, enlightened beings across the starscape. You can refer to political, social, technological/scientific, cultural or whatever events in our past to justify your position. But you have to make a good case, else the machines of our undoing come out (unless, of course, you want that, then the opposite).

[SeeingRed]

If we spread, do you think - assuming other species of intellect exist out in the black vastness of deep space - they'd really accept us?

Well, this is almost too general of a question. If species of intellect really do exist out there, and we somehow manage to come into communication with them, it is likely that their methods of communication (and indeed, their sensory perception itself) would be so drastically different from ours that there would be no possibility of communication between the two species.

Say there's a network of tests around the galaxy (I'm in no way borrowing this concept off an author I just read, honest)

I liked him too ;)

which entice a species of starfaring ability in. It reads the minds of anyone who enters the artefact and, given the past of that species as alluded to in the mental picture of a selection of that species, decides whether to allow the species to thrive, or invoke a cull; a total wiping out of said species.

How would such a test work? Speaking in general terms, I think that by just considering the history of our species alone, while we have shown a dangerous tendency to degenerate into superficial conflict/warfare/competition through time and hang on to unnecessary and destructive belief systems, the macro-scale trend in our species has been, I think, towards improvement and self-betterment. So, tentatively, having nothing to compare to, I would say that humans might pass this test. However, I also feel that it'd probably be fairly easy to "beat" the human race at this game, mainly for the reasons i mentioned above, so if the "test" you speak of was comparing our species to some other species that was also expanding, any comparative test would probably be hard for us to pass.

[Simplicius]

I suspect it would depend somewhat on the nature of the test administrators. They are evidently an old species, having developed galactic travel and the ability to completely annihilate another species with negligible risk and effort. Likewise, they have existed long enough that, apparently, the personality characteristics which permit effective evolutionary competition are irrelevant, and have been suppressed by some process, natural or artificial.

Humans, by comparison, are an extremely young race - just barely industrialized, only capable of local space travel, and hardly temporally removed from the wild origins of our most negative characteristics. Hell, humanity today wouldn't even be able to take this test, if its parts are scattered around the galaxy. By the time we were so able, we would have gained millenia of experience as a species, and perhaps even encountered (or confirmed, on Earth) another sentient species. Imagine how radically that may change the perspective of humanity.

Putting the question, "Why do you deserve to live?" to contemporary humanity, then, I think there is one fair answer: because we are a sentient species, and we are capable of recognizing that life is precious. It is true that we frequently do not. But we are young; if it is not proper to destroy a child because he has not yet learned what he needs to know to function in a society, why is it proper to do so to a species? In their short time, humans have already produced work of lasting beauty and value and have become increasingly aware of themselves as time has progressed. To destroy that potential, particularly when it poses no threat to the existence of these 'enlightened' species, would throw into question just how enlightened these species really are - and if they are ultimately unable to transcend their own violent nature after so much time, then why should they begrudge us our inability to do so after so little?

[Noble Ire]

I'm a bit wary of the assumption that any other alien species in the galaxy could be any less depraved, in their own way, than us. After all, many of the evils that mankind has committed against itself have been born from the neural "mis-alignment" of some certain individuals, inevitable due to the sheer complexity of the human brain; I don't see how any species at or above you level of cognitive ability would be any different. Of course, many of our other faults do stem from more general weaknesses of instinct and mind, but I suspect that other species would have those too, if perhaps in smaller amounts. Taking this into consideration, for these test not to kill everything they came across, I'd think they'd have to forgive many of our deparivities by default; after all, we do have plenty of achievements and good points to balance them out.

Then again, these other races of the galaxy might be arrogant enough to forgive their own weakness and not ours, in which case, I wouldn't really know what to tell them, at least not without knowing more about their value systems and history.

Still, there are a few points that I'd likely include no matter what:

- The very fact that humanity survived and worked together long enough to make it into space at all without killing itself our destroying our homeworld (assuming we haven't by that point) suggests a non-inconsiderable capacity for reason, restraint, and drive.

- Humans have the resolve to percervier through even our darkest of times, and still when they have passed (as in the Cold War, or the Bubonic Plague period).

- For all our wars, humans as a whole tends to prefer negotiation and compromise, even if such course does often have a postive outcome for themselves as well.

- Though great evil has propogated itself in humanity in the past, history more and more has shown that there are always other humans who will stand up to it, even in the face of tremendous odds and great personal danger.

- While not a universal trait, altruism exists in abundance; concepts like honor, charity, and naturalism demonstrate that we are more than purely selfish creatures.

[Rye]

If we spread, do you think - assuming other species of intellect exist out in the black vastness of deep space - they'd really accept us?

I was going to say no, initially, since warfare has been the default in our species and presumably any other species that rose to supremacy like we have. But then I thought, what if we discovered H Floresiensis alive this year on one of those islands? Would we go to war with him and wipe him out totally? Or would we attempt first contact, cooperation, and civilisation? The only people I could see doing them harm would be other primitive people or maybe some drunks or something.

I would think that if an alien species got into space, chances are they'd not resort to constant violence when some nublets joined the server.

Leaving aside the possible future events I, nor anyone short of Criswell can predict, what case would you make for our species passing or failing the test? A nice summarised paragraph will do, just to give examples of why humanity has what it takes to achieve peace and harmony, or why it deserves to have no future among supposed, enlightened beings across the starscape. You can refer to political, social, technological/scientific, cultural or whatever events in our past to justify your position. But you have to make a good case, else the machines of our undoing come out (unless, of course, you want that, then the opposite).

I don't know. Depends on their standards and whether they like Red Dwarf, really.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

There's quite a lot of variability possible. If by chance we made it to one of these tests, it would mean enough of us learned to cooperate for the propagation of the species (which, admittedly in itself could pose a potential threat to other species) that perhaps some of our evils have been suppressed or controlled. Who knows what convulsions our society will have been through then to cull off institutions of rampant greed, intolerance, or fundamentalist stupidity. And I think one of the biggest arguments in our favor is the heterogeneity of our societies and individuals, which I don't really think will disappear altogether; indeed I think some sort of space diaspora will make it more pronounced. For every society that practices violence as expedient or even desirable, there are others who prefer to use it only as a last resort, or others who detest it and refuse to use it on principle, even if it exposes them to danger or loss. A lot may depend on the specific group that comes across the artifacts. Will it be a military force with political orders to secure alien hardware that would reinforce the hierarchy's hegemony? A mega corporation looking for exotic resources to exploit for profit? A group of idealistic refugees looking to found a utopian colony free from persecution by the dominant regime or philosophy back home? Perhaps just curious scientists in search of interesting data? If supremely advanced aliens do find elements of our society objectionable, they may not find it acceptable to commit total genocide when there are groups that they may wish to nurture, while the others can perhaps be countered by the superior force and knowledge of the aliens.

[Surlethe]

Depending on the threshold, I think we'd pass the test. While humanity's past has certainly included strife and evil, it's also been a story of increasing knowledge and understanding of the universe around us, and, as we increase our knowledge as a race, we've seen a general progression toward enlightenment. While it's been a struggle, and has been cyclic, I see no reason for that progression to end before it's reached its goal, and I don't think the alien artifact would disagree.

[Winston Blake]

If we spread, do you think - assuming other species of intellect exist out in the black vastness of deep space - they'd really accept us?

Well, this is almost too general of a question. If species of intellect really do exist out there, and we somehow manage to come into communication with them, it is likely that their methods of communication (and indeed, their sensory perception itself) would be so drastically different from ours that there would be no possibility of communication between the two species.

I agree. This question is really asking 'If you were freed from the constraints of being human, would you accept humanity?'. Naturally if you watch the evening news, you'll think that humanity sucks. For all we know, there could be aliens out there who who would wipe us out precisely because we are judged to be insufficiently warlike. There are just too many possibilities to make predictions about alien behaviour.

'What's that? You don't regularly bring your species to the brink of extinction? What weak wills you have.'
'You're insane!'
'No, you're insane, and we've got the planet killers, so buh bye'.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Be aware, the test is going to go the way you think it should, that is, your view of humanity being too immature from the past 10,000 years of civilisation would be the key factor in helping an otherwise fence-sitting observer from picking a side. It doesn't matter whether this is what would really happen in reality, it's a hypothetical filling a niche. What is important, is how you would arrive at your decision to deny the species a future or grant it one.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Be aware, the test is going to go the way you think it should, that is, your view of humanity being too immature from the past 10,000 years of civilisation would be the key factor in helping an otherwise fence-sitting observer from picking a side. It doesn't matter whether this is what would really happen in reality, it's a hypothetical filling a niche. What is important, is how you would arrive at your decision to deny the species a future or grant it one.

The human species has a history of being reactive, instead of proactive. We let things drag on well past the optimum point for change, and well into the area where change becomes costly and painful. And we're also much more apt to settle things by violence, or through excessively punitive measures. The species is also remarkably short-sighted, selfish, and barely capable of thinking beyond our biology.

On one hand, I suspect we'd hardly be any different from other species at our level of development. After all, it takes a resourceful, aggressive species to fully exploit their planet and develop power-intensive high civilization. Would I, as a fully mature and ancient species crafty enough to design a trap for budding interstellar empires, want humans as my neighbors? Probably not, but then again, there's no way humans could've possibly gotten far enough to trigger my trap without first learning how to play nicely for long enough periods of time that they could develop their own starsystem to the point that they could support the otherwise ruinous cost of interstellar travel.

So just getting to that point, to me, justifies humanity's continued existence.

[K. A. Pital]

Why should you wipe out a promising biological species if you're "enlightened", anyway? From a moral viewpoint, it would make more sense for the developed races to try assimilating humanity technologically.

Why would they spare us? Probably because they came through same or similar stages of societal and technological evolution and thus a logical basis arises - this hypothesis was proposed also by A. & B. Strugatskie, in their novels about the Noon Universe.

Of course, if the so-called "developed species" are immoral fucks who wipe out K-I and K-II civilizations just for the fun of it or in some sort of weird social-darwinist logic... there can be no good case made.

This can be examined on a select planet Earth. Do developed nations nuke out lesser ones? No, they don't. Why? Is there any reason why we should help the Third World develop? Why not just wipe them out? Well, because this would cause massive unrest within our species, wouldn't it? Destabilize it.

If the "developed species" follow a logic similar to human logic, it will not behave in a "nuke-subraces" way. Also, "genocide = morally bad" rule arose in human society on our latest stages of development, so presumably this will also be true for other races.

As I said, if other races are moral, it's allright. The variant of, so to say, "Nazi in space" eliminates any possibility of survival from the starts.

[Winston Blake]

Be aware, the test is going to go the way you think it should, that is, your view of humanity being too immature from the past 10,000 years of civilisation would be the key factor in helping an otherwise fence-sitting observer from picking a side. It doesn't matter whether this is what would really happen in reality, it's a hypothetical filling a niche. What is important, is how you would arrive at your decision to deny the species a future or grant it one.

Then I'd say that humanity deserves to survive simply because it exists. It doesn't really matter if we're not nice guys, our uniqueness alone makes us important. I don't really care if hellish suffering is inflicted upon trillions of people for thousands of years as long as humanity keeps on existing. Our organisational complexity as intelligent life is too unique, fragile and full of future possibilities to go to waste.