The Paramters of Justifiable Genocide

[Alyrium Denryle]

But there's sort of a middle ground-- if Earth's economy (and maybe the environment) has become so dependent on Unobtanium that removing it would create serious hardship-- but not death-- what then? If Earth's population suffers a catastrophic war or loss of services to support their lifestyle, and they degenerate into a Mad Max or Medieval style standard of living, what then? The Human species manages to survive, but in a serious degraded status... you've technically avoided 'genocide', the destruction of all humanity, but does it count?

Frankly, if humanity let themselves become that dependent on something like Unobtanium that they can only get from another world, then the consequences fall upon them. They have no right to inflict their stupidity on others.

Maybe because in most forums there are more civilized people that try to discuss without shouting moron at each other every post.

Oh look, another hypocrite who will call people uncivilized in the same breath that he complains about insulting people.

Maybe you didn't realize that "radio" is a method for transmitting data, just like a piece of paper.
Just having a radio does not make your translation job easier.
Ever tried to understand the sounds that a old days modem emitted in a telephne line? Could you?
But they are Sounds! And it is Telephone!

You are a moron. You start by transmitting an image (or sound pulses, images would work better) that show your mumerical system. A dot (or pulse) followed by the symbol for 1. Go on until people understand your mathematics. You can then send equivalent images with the words for verbs attached etc. It may take a long ass time to decode, but eventually you can get your linguists together for a tea party.

Using the same carrier signal does not help you a lot in understanding the message.

That is what teams of linguists and a supercomputer are for.

Do you realize that any communication that is not FTL will take an entire lifespan or even more to just reach its frikkin destination? (and maybe get even out of range due to inverse-square law?)

And you realize that radio contact is the most likely way we will make first contact right?

Maybe you don't realize that how they will interpret what they can get from the images depends form their mindset. Images are a language too. If you try to transfer any meanignful concept of course.

That is why you start with stuff that is really basic. Like dots combined with your mathematical symbols.

What the fuck do I care for "future" Na'vi if I risk extinction (or social collapse that is about the same)? Also, their "living as one with the nature" will pevent any decent advancement in both science and technology. They will repeat the same things their forefathers did until destruction.

Maybe you should take responsibility for your fuck ups and not punish someone else for them. They are people, just like we are. Not humans, but people. Their moral worth is not diminished by the fact that they have different DNA. If you(we?) are in a position where we have to cause the extinction of another sentient species to survive, because we fucked up our planet/economy/whatever then it is better for us to suffer for that mistake than others.

You say that we should suffer MASS CASUALITIES for to allow bunch of worthless blueskins to live in peace with nature? Are you fucking insane?

Yes I do, you racist sack of shit.

Do you know enough history? War has always been with us from day 1. Won't go away easily.

That does not mean it should stay.

Realize that it is bullshit. How much you resemble an octopus? Or a dolphin? Both are quite different while relatively smart. But both evolved on Earth. You really expect to find aliens with the same biochemistry that are also so similar to us that communication would be doable? On what mindfucking you base this assumption? Star Trek?

Possible differences in biochemistry are actually very limited. Same amino acids, same sugars etc. About the only thing that is likely to change is what codon codes for what amino acid. The rest will likely be the same. They will probably be terrestrial with some sort of manipulator appendage. They will have eyes (or vestigial ones), be able to hear and have some method of visual or audio communication.

[Serafina]

Maybe because in most forums there are more civilized people that try to discuss without shouting moron at each other every post.
And calling "culture" this habit of sniping at each other with the obvious intent of proving yourself superior is a serious offense to "culture". It is childish. Although somewhat fun.

Here is a quick, friendly lecture on board culture for you:

We call it like it is.
If you make a moronic statement, we'll call you a moron. If you display laughable ignorace, we will laugh about it. If you display breathtaking stupidity, we will mock you.

There is nothing childish about this. Adults don't need protection from being called names. We don't need "miss manner"-rules to keep our discussions objective. Indeed, being free to mock stupid people is a great way to show how stupid they are.

You say that we should suffer MASS CASUALITIES for to allow bunch of worthless blueskins to live in peace with nature? Are you fucking insane?

Present evidence of these mass casualties. No one in the movie ever mentions them. All that get's mentioned is getting good number for the shareholders.

Do you know enough history? War has always been with us from day 1. Won't go away easily.

Murder has been with us from day one. It won't go away easily.
Disease has been with us from day one. It won't go away easily.
Stupid people have been with us from day one. They won't go away easily.

Just because something has been there for a long time doesn't mean it's good or desirable. If you fail to graps that, you are a first-grade moron.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't like how people shot down Purple with so bullshit arguments.
And who the fuck cares if he does not spell correctly Nietzsche.
It's a fucking difficult name to spell.

Compared to what? I've been spelling Nietzsche right consistently for years. If I didn't know, I'd look it up. Not hard at all, I'd say.

See, the problem here is not "if you cannot spell "Nietzsche," you must be an idiot." The problem is "If you cannot spell "Nietzsche," you probably don't know nearly as much about the works of Nietzsche as you imply." It is very difficult to study someone's thought and understand it without learning to spell his name, or at least recognize his name and realize that it is not spelled "Niche."

What makes matters especially bad with Nietzsche is that for every person who actually understands Nietzsche and agrees with him, there are several idiotic blowhards who try to use his name to pretty up their own inability to answer the question "why, exactly, should I not be a jackass?" While I disagree with Nietzsche's conclusions in many ways, I at least respect his work, because he thought to ask questions no one else had. I do not respect idiots who pretend to understand his work without doing their homework because it makes other idiots think they are smart.

Maybe because in most forums there are more civilized people that try to discuss without shouting moron at each other every post.

Here, we have a bunch of civilized people that discuss plenty of things without calling each other morons. The problem is that you aren't one of them. You're one of the morons. So you get called a moron a lot. Go figure.

To me, wiping out all of anything is more extreme than destroying some part of something else. If the RDA bombed Pandora into glass and killed all the Na'vi, then not only would they be killing all living Na'vi, but all potential future Na'vi. All the opportunities Na'vi society has, all the things it could develop into, all the ideas and concepts it could teach the larger universe, are gone.

What the fuck do I care for "future" Na'vi if I risk extinction (or social collapse that is about the same)? Also, their "living as one with the nature" will pevent any decent advancement in both science and technology. They will repeat the same things their forefathers did until destruction.

How do you know this to be true?

Do you have a comprehensive model you can use to predict the course of future civilizations? If so, please share it. If not, your assertions about the Na'vi lack any real weight. They're a handwave, an attempt to excuse genocide because you can't be bothered to think of an alternative.

Of course, it's certainly true that you don't give a fuck for the future of aliens. But that doesn't mean you have an argument.

Whereas a civil war on Earth, even one that causes mass casualties, does not, as long as people are left alive and civilization continues to exist.

You say that we should suffer MASS CASUALITIES for to allow bunch of worthless blueskins to live in peace with nature? Are you fucking insane?
What kind of political leader will EVER do that? It's just ridiculous.
And then you shoot down others as "sociopaths" just because they show some sign of self-preservation instinct.

You probably missed my point.

See, I'm saying that there's a fundamental difference between totally destroying something and damaging something. Damage can be devastating, crippling, dreadful beyond belief. But there's a special horror that goes with total annihilation. So I don't think you can justify totally annihilating an intelligent species for the sake of preventing damage to another.

Also, I find your choice of words like "worthless blueskins" interesting, because of historical associations. Are you trying to tap into that legacy on purpose, or do you not know about it?

I ask again: Do you apply this principle to your own species?

YES.
Do you know enough history? War has always been with us from day 1. Won't go away easily.

Hmm. Wait. So... does this mean you're a sock puppet for Purple, then? Or vice versa?

Well, anyway. The principle in question is "If exterminating something will bring benefit or avoid harm to you, then to not do so is treason to your own race." Now, you declare all-caps allegiance to that principle.

How far do you take it? Do you advocate slaughtering all the funny-colored people on the other side of the hill, knowing that it will "bring benefit to you" because you can loot their stuff? How about selling them into slavery?

Or do you first try to pretty it up a bit by pretending they're a threat and then slaughtering them all or selling them into slavery?

Or maybe you just move onto their land, proclaim that it's your land, start using their stuff as if it was yours, and then when they get angry and start fighting back, you say "Oh, they're dangerous savages! Exterminate the brutes!"

Do you honestly not see the problem with this?

The problem is that without a suitably unearthly population of aliens... communication becomes far more likely. Creatures that evolved in an environment like ours will have to adapt to conditions like the ones we adapted to, which makes it much, much less plausible that we will be unable to talk to them.

Realize that it is bullshit. How much you resemble an octopus? Or a dolphin? Both are quite different while relatively smart. But both evolved on Earth. You really expect to find aliens with the same biochemistry that are also so similar to us that communication would be doable? On what mindfucking you base this assumption? Star Trek?

What does biochemistry have to do with communication?

First of all, the natives of that era weren't hippies any more than the people who live in those same areas today are. They were just as violent and ferocious as the people who conquered them. The difference is that they were, by and large, not as well organized. Guess what? Organization requires the ability to recognize that there are times when it isn't smart to try and kill someone for being inconvenient.

I think that technology also played a part. Y'know, if they attack with guns and you have spears and bows....

Guess what you need in order to manufacture firearms and use them effectively?

Organization. Seriously. This is why, say, China lost to European powers. The Chinese knew how to make guns. They could buy anything the West made, take it apart, and see how it worked.

So why did it take them nearly 150 years of humiliation to become a first-rate power by global standards? Lack of organization. By the 1830s, China was a clunky, badly organized state compared to the nations of Europe. That weakened their economy and made it very difficult for them to become stronger militarily.

It wasn't just the guys with bows and spears who lost out to European colonialists, because when you get down to it, the use of bows and spears was only half the problem.

[Serafina]

What does biochemistry have to do with communication?

Oooh, that's a good one!

You see, if we concur with some other moronsomeone else, we can therefore conclude that it is very difficultto communicate with something if it's chemistry is differnt from ours!
By that logic, it must be nigh impossible to communicate with non-living things such as computers.

Waait a minute, something is not right here...perhaps it's because we built computers to be able to communicate with us?
But if we can cross such a gigantic gap, why should it be impossible to cross the gap to another organic species? Hmm....

[Formless]

Maybe you didn't realize that "radio" is a method for transmitting data, just like a piece of paper.
Just having a radio does not make your translation job easier.
Ever tried to understand the sounds that a old days modem emitted in a telephne line? Could you?
But they are Sounds! And it is Telephone!

1) That's why you do anti-cryptography and math, moron. Precicely to make the translation job as easy as possible.
2) Who said ANYTHING about transmitting sounds? Have you ever heard of Morse Code? Using just a single tone you can transmit messages of extremely high complexity. You don't even have to decode it in the form of sound and it would still have the same meaning. The same holds true of digital transmissions. Again, make it as easy to decode the message as possible precisely so we don't have these problems.

Same brainfucking as above. Using the same carrier signal does not help you a lot in understanding the message.

That's why you make the transmission as easy to understand as possible. Even attempting to communicate shows that you aren't hostile.

They may prefer to dock ships and communicate directly or their language might be heavily dependent on their history or culture for context.

Do you realize just how horribly inefficient this communication setup (ed note: docking ships to communicate) would be? There is little need to worry about bothering them or them bothering us if this is the case because their ability to expand in any decent ammount of time will be significantly hampered by the sheer waste of fuel. Hell, it would even give us something to trade: better communications in exchange for... whatever they want to give us. Preferrably peace.

Do you realize that any communication that is not FTL will take an entire lifespan or even more to just reach its frikkin destination? (and maybe get even out of range due to inverse-square law?) Docking ships is the most efficient way to have two-way interaction within the diplomat's lifespan.
Assuming that the aliens use ships and are not the ship. Or something weirder.

What a gigantic red herring. No, seriously, that has to be the most irrelevant observation I have ever seen put forward as an objection to an argument. Even on its own its completely idiotic-- in Einstein's world, the light speed limit means NO interstellar project can be accomplished within a human lifetime, and radio is faster than starships. Second because of the assumption that diplomats are a necessity for communication between civilizations (hint hint, only in the minds of hack sci-fi writers). Third because we may not even be able to survive in the same environment as ET (say because they breath methane or some shit) which would mean we would have to resort to radio ANYWAY. Fourth, because as is fucking obvious I was addressing the fact that if ET does NOT have a communications scheme that uses the electromagnetic spectrum as a signal carrier, they are shit out of luck as far as making any headway into space, and are therefor no threat to us.

Go back to start, and try again.

Have you ever tried diplomacy with a 5 years old? That's the closest thing we have to aliens imho. And they're interactive too.

Funny, but if you think its right to punch five year olds just because they don't think or communicate on the same level as you (which is the difference between ET and a five year old, ET presumably can think in, communicate, and grasp abstract concepts that a five year old cannot or we wouldn't be concerned with them) you really are an asshole.

Oh, that's right, I guess you forgot what the topic of the thread was. Asshole.

[someone_else]

Oh look, another hypocrite who will call people uncivilized in the same breath that he complains about insulting people.

I was explaining why people usually don't understand the forum's attitude. I actually enjoy the forum rules, and this qualifies me as "uncivilized" too. I actually call you moron, below in this post.

You are a moron. You start by transmitting an image (or sound pulses, images would work better) that show your mumerical system. A dot (or pulse) followed by the symbol for 1. Go on until people understand your mathematics. You can then send equivalent images with the words for verbs attached etc. It may take a long ass time to decode, but eventually you can get your linguists together for a tea party.

You are a moron. What makes you so sure that the alien will actually recognize the images beyond the math and the "we are here" map? I mean, if it is supposed to be truly alien what the heck of images are you going to send to let it understand even basic concepts like "peace" or "friendship" or "trade"?

That is what teams of linguists and a supercomputer are for.

May I remind you that some ancient human civilizations have an undecypherable language? (Egyptians left that stone block with some greek translations that helped us understand, but many others do not, Etruscans) Were are those Uber linguists and Uber computers? Are you pulling them out from your arse?

And you realize that radio contact is the most likely way we will make first contact right?

It will be a two way communication with more than decades between any answer. Also it has a max range determined by the power of the carrier signal and the inverse-square law.
It may well be the first contact, but will be a very very limited communication. And unless aliens manage to get here (or we to get there) there is not a lot to talk about, let even trade.

Maybe you should take responsibility for your fuck ups and not punish someone else for them. They are people, just like we are. Not humans, but people. Their moral worth is not diminished by the fact that they have different DNA. If you(we?) are in a position where we have to cause the extinction of another sentient species to survive, because we fucked up our planet/economy/whatever then it is better for us to suffer for that mistake than others.

While from a purely moral standpoint you are right, in reality i really dubt that any and all civilizations will EVER decide to self-destruct to save someone else.
There are no known examples of this behaviour in history.

Yes I do, you racist sack of shit.

I'm not saying to annihilate aliens for the sake of it. But that if I really must choose between them or me without any chance of settling the issue without bloodshed I'd choose me. (while I'd annihilate Na'vis due to my hate for Avatar, they are fictional aliens so wo really cares about a 3d image sitting in a HDD)

That does not mean it should stay.

Do you care to say why it should change? I'm not in your mind.

Possible differences in biochemistry are actually very limited. Same amino acids, same sugars etc. About the only thing that is likely to change is what codon codes for what amino acid.

On what you base this? These are speculations at best.

The rest will likely be the same. They will probably be terrestrial with some sort of manipulator appendage. They will have eyes (or vestigial ones), be able to hear and have some method of visual or audio communication.

about like the Octopus and the Dolphin i mentioned above. And we are talking of a very different mindset too.

Indeed, being free to mock stupid people is a great way to show how stupid they are.

The main problem here is when both believe to be right they will mock themselves silly. Even if one is a moron and the other is not.
Anyway, This is a good place to discharge random anger.

Present evidence of these mass casualties. No one in the movie ever mentions them. All that get's mentioned is getting good number for the shareholders.

I was answering to the claim of Simon_Jester. Ask him hard data.

Here, we have a bunch of civilized people that discuss plenty of things without calling each other morons. The problem is that you aren't one of them. You're one of the morons. So you get called a moron a lot. Go figure.

You really think that I don't know that?

See, I'm saying that there's a fundamental difference between totally destroying something and damaging something. Damage can be devastating, crippling, dreadful beyond belief. But there's a special horror that goes with total annihilation. So I don't think you can justify totally annihilating an intelligent species for the sake of preventing damage to another.

In the past (roman empire) complete annihilation of losers was common, but yes, this has changed a little with time.
Anyway, for aliens able to destroy us, killing them first would be the best choice imho. (assuming that we actually can)
If the aliens are unable to destroy us, there is much more space for talk.

The main problem is that any kind of civilization able to reach us in a decent timescale is also able to build a relativistic missile (that is in practice a starship that does not decelerate at the end of the voyage). And a relativistic missile can fry a planet easily.

Also, I find your choice of words like "worthless blueskins" interesting, because of historical associations. Are you trying to tap into that legacy on purpose, or do you not know about it?

"worthless" is because i find them disgusting (they are so fake that they shouldn't even exist), "blueskins" is because I remeber Orks in 40K to be called Greenskins. And general skin tone is the most obvious difference that will identify them in one word. "Giants" would have been shorter, but is misleading.

Hmm. Wait. So... does this mean you're a sock puppet for Purple, then? Or vice versa?

I have some points whre I agree with him, yes. This was one of them.

How far do you take it? Do you advocate slaughtering all the funny-colored people on the other side of the hill, knowing that it will "bring benefit to you" because you can loot their stuff? How about selling them into slavery?

Or do you first try to pretty it up a bit by pretending they're a threat and then slaughtering them all or selling them into slavery?

Or maybe you just move onto their land, proclaim that it's your land, start using their stuff as if it was yours, and then when they get angry and start fighting back, you say "Oh, they're dangerous savages! Exterminate the brutes!"

You are answering yourself. These are all storical events where that principle was enacted.
I don't like that principle myself, but I see that humanity seems to follow it.

Now the "exterminate" has become more an "exploit" but the attitude is about the same.

What does biochemistry have to do with communication?

Biochemistry depends from the environment. Amminoacids and DNA (and RNA that should be the simpliest form of self-replicating material) behave well only in a specific environment. If you change environment, you must change biochemistry. And expecting that out there there are so similar conditions to our own is wishful thinking.
Aliens will be very different. Both mind and body. Even here on earth we have only a passing resemblance to most of the other lifeforms.

Guess what you need in order to manufacture firearms and use them effectively?

Point taken.

By that logic, it must be nigh impossible to communicate with non-living things such as computers.

Do you always fail so hard when reasoning?
First: computers are not living beings with a complex social structure and an alien mindset. They were rather dumb, the last time I checked.
Second: we built them from scratch, thus we invented their language from scratc. We cannot expect to have the same luck with an alien race.

1) That's why you do anti-cryptography and math, moron. Precicely to make the translation job as easy as possible.
2) Who said ANYTHING about transmitting sounds? Have you ever heard of Morse Code? Using just a single tone you can transmit messages of extremely high complexity. You don't even have to decode it in the form of sound and it would still have the same meaning. The same holds true of digital transmissions. Again, make it as easy to decode the message as possible precisely so we don't have these problems.

You still fail to understand. One thing is decoding the message and another thing entirely is understanding the message. If I draw something that you never saw, no matter how easy is to decode my message, for you it is impossible to comprehend what the fuck you are looking at.
Still. What image can express the concept of "peace" to an alien? Or also "mum".

That's why you make the transmission as easy to understand as possible. Even attempting to communicate shows that you aren't hostile.

I'm not really sure. "Knowing your enemy" is a good motto. Attacking at random is stupid, before you must know with who is the guy in front of you. And if it is actually possible to win.

in Einstein's world, the light speed limit means NO interstellar project can be accomplished within a human lifetime, and radio is faster than starships.

Radio is faster on paper, but to get an answer you must wait a boatload of time.
In that time your civilization may have lost interest in alien communication, the governments maintaining the (costly) antennas may have decided to cut the cost to increase pork barreling, and so on. We are talking of 50 years or even more, just for close star systems.

Docking ships (or, more realistically, talking with radio between ships relatively close to each other) is instead the best way imho, to get a two-way communication. Sure, they will need a lot of time to get there, but they must travel only half as far, and are supposed to be self-sufficient.

Second because of the assumption that diplomats are a necessity for communication between civilizations (hint hint, only in the minds of hack sci-fi writers).

The entire concept of communicating with aliens is more or less bullshit. First because there are no aliens detected anywhere, second because it will take forever, third because there is nothing really important to tell them.
It will be a scientific curiosity at most.

Interstellar warfare without a FTL gimmick is even more bullshit. (this is the point where I disagree with Purple, in case you were wondering)

Funny, but if you think its right to punch five year olds just because they don't think or communicate on the same level as you

Who said to punch children? You are. I'm not. Bullshitter.
You said it, 5 year olds don't think or communicate in the same way as an adult. This is the thing they should have in common with aliens imho. Their brain is not fully grown, so they are not exactly the same as an alien.

Oh, that's right, I guess you forgot what the topic of the thread was. Asshole.

Considering that it has degenerated into the usual slugfest, it does not really matter anymore. Bullshitter.

Still, communication is critical to the main point here. Because if you cannot communicate, your options decrease to just "shoot" or "ignore". And then runs full tilt into the Prisoner's dilemma, with predictable results.

[Serafina]

The main problem here is when both believe to be right they will mock themselves silly. Even if one is a moron and the other is not.

Apparently, you have no knowledge on how to have an actual discussion.

If both people think they are right, they are supposed to be able to present evidence for their claims.
If sufficient evidence is gathered, it can be determined who is right and who is wrong.

Furthermore, you are not labeled a moron just because you have a different oppinion. You are labeled (and ARE) a moron if your arguments lack substance and you are not willing to accept that. The more they are lacking substance, the lower the threshold for being a labeled moron is (if you make a truly stupid "argument", you will propably get slapped with that label immedeately).

Academic discourse is usefull. We are however dealing with incredibly stupid people here - thus we are taking the liberty to insult them when necessary. In discussions where such people are absent, you will find that insults are near absent.

[someone_else]

Apparently, you have no knowledge on how to have an actual discussion.

I have seen enough slugfests here to believe in what I said. Any further discussion on this won't change my mind, and would just go OT.

Ah, by the way, did you notice that you are a moron? I disproved your claim on computers and biochemistry.

[ray245]

First: computers are not living beings with a complex social structure and an alien mindset. They were rather dumb, the last time I checked.
Second: we built them from scratch, thus we invented their language from scratc. We cannot expect to have the same luck with an alien race.

Do you even know anything about computer programming at all? All computer programs is based on logical operations, and I find it hard to believe that an intelligent alien species that can build spaceships cannot even understand the concept of logical operations.

[PeZook]

Anyway, for aliens able to destroy us, killing them first would be the best choice imho. (assuming that we actually can)
If the aliens are unable to destroy us, there is much more space for talk.

You know, I really have to wonder if at some time in history, somebody reasoned the same way about some Roman legionairres he saw marching through his woods and proceeded to kill them.

It's funny because in one sentence you claim it's impossible to communicate with aliens, and then you say we should preventively kill the aliens capable of destroying us, when we won't even know the kind of capabilities they have until we establish regular contact

You may prepare your RKV at great cost and launch it, only to find out they're a gigantic interstellar empire, or friends with one, and have abandoned their homeworld long ago anyway.

The main problem is that any kind of civilization able to reach us in a decent timescale is also able to build a relativistic missile (that is in practice a starship that does not decelerate at the end of the voyage). And a relativistic missile can fry a planet easily.

Yeah, we should totally launch RKVs at every civilization we see without knowing anything about them.

By that same reasoning, the US should've nuked China the moment they started industrializing. Strange funny people trying to become a threat...

[Alyrium Denryle]

You are a moron. What makes you so sure that the alien will actually recognize the images beyond the math and the "we are here" map? I mean, if it is supposed to be truly alien what the heck of images are you going to send to let it understand even basic concepts like "peace" or "friendship" or "trade"?

You start with basic symbols and move from there. Symbols representing objects and actions come first. If you want you can lump all the basic stuff into a massive document. Movies can be used to demonstrate certain concepts. If they are an advanced civilization, in order to have gotten to the point that they are using radio, they will have to have similar concepts.

May I remind you that some ancient human civilizations have an undecypherable language? (Egyptians left that stone block with some greek translations that helped us understand, but many others do not, Etruscans) Were are those Uber linguists and Uber computers? Are you pulling them out from your arse?

There was no systematic attempt to make something that could be decoded in the case of the Etruscans. Which BTW, linguists have made good progress translating.

It will be a two way communication with more than decades between any answer. Also it has a max range determined by the power of the carrier signal and the inverse-square law.
It may well be the first contact, but will be a very very limited communication. And unless aliens manage to get here (or we to get there) there is not a lot to talk about, let even trade.

Except for the excitement of "OMG OTHER INTELLIGENT LIFE!". That is more than enough reason to chat.

On what you base this? These are speculations at best.

No. It is not. Carbon based compounds are necessary. Silicon, the only other possibility, does not have all of the properties that make carbon the molecule used in life. Electronegativity etc. It can form four bonds but does not have that nice perfect balance of reactivity and stability.

The rest follows from that. Chemical properties are inherent. If you need to catalyze a specific reaction with a protein then the active sites of that protein must be pretty similar to the ones we use. There may be some small differences (like whether they used DNA or some other nucleotide chain for their genetic material, or how their gene translation system works exactly), but overall the biochemistry will be the same.

about like the Octopus and the Dolphin i mentioned above. And we are talking of a very different mindset too.

Neither dolphins, nor Octopi could ever have developed advanced technology. Being terrestrial, or at min semi-terrestrial is a requirement. One needs to be able to work metals. You cant do that under water.

The mind set, again while there may be differences, are probably somewhat similar if they have developed a technological civilization. They must be cooperative, forge friendships etc.

Biochemistry depends from the environment. Amminoacids and DNA (and RNA that should be the simpliest form of self-replicating material) behave well only in a specific environment. If you change environment, you must change biochemistry.

And nothing else will actually work.

You still fail to understand. One thing is decoding the message and another thing entirely is understanding the message. If I draw something that you never saw, no matter how easy is to decode my message, for you it is impossible to comprehend what the fuck you are looking at.
Still. What image can express the concept of "peace" to an alien? Or also "mum".

That is why you send an image. An actual god damn image of the strange beast.

Peace you send a video file with two people behaving in a peaceable manner. Shaking hands, talking, signing agreements. It is not the actions that matter, but what can be seen from the interaction, in these case, cooperation and non-conflict.

Mum... You just show someone giving birth and then raising the offspring to adult hood in a series of say.... 20 second clips. With a little arrow pointing to the same person every time. Something similar to this will work. Pointing at something BTW, is also probably one of those cosmic universals.

Radio is faster on paper, but to get an answer you must wait a boatload of time.
In that time your civilization may have lost interest in alien communication, the governments maintaining the (costly) antennas may have decided to cut the cost to increase pork barreling, and so on. We are talking of 50 years or even more, just for close star systems.

The idea that we would discover alien life and then become disinterested is laughable. The radio antennas are dirt cheap.

Also, 50 years for radio, several hundred to thousands of years for physical travel. To reach alpha centauri would take us 200 or so.

Docking ships (or, more realistically, talking with radio between ships relatively close to each other) is instead the best way imho, to get a two-way communication. Sure, they will need a lot of time to get there, but they must travel only half as far, and are supposed to be self-sufficient.

See above dumb-fuck.

[someone_else]

Do you even know anything about computer programming at all? All computer programs is based on logical operations, and I find it hard to believe that an intelligent alien species that can build spaceships cannot even understand the concept of logical operations.

Logical operations (AND, OR, and somesuch) add concepts together to form a reasoning. If the alien cannot understand concepts, knowing logical operators is useless.

It's funny because in one sentence you claim it's impossible to communicate with aliens, and then you say we should preventively kill the aliens capable of destroying us, when we won't even know the kind of capabilities they have until we establish regular contact

Would be good if you looked at the whole post before commenting.
I also said:

That's why you make the transmission as easy to understand as possible. Even attempting to communicate shows that you aren't hostile.

I'm not really sure. "Knowing your enemy" is a good motto. Attacking at random is stupid, before you must know with who is the guy in front of you. And if it is actually possible to win.

You start with basic symbols and move from there. Symbols representing objects and actions come first. If you want you can lump all the basic stuff into a massive document. Movies can be used to demonstrate certain concepts.

Sounds somewhat doable, but at what image quality? That thing they actually transmitted some time back cannot allow a lot of detail. Also, I don't know how easily they will recognize objects or actions.

There was no systematic attempt to make something that could be decoded in the case of the Etruscans. Which BTW, linguists have made good progress translating.

The last time I checked they were stuck because the available data to study was only that much. I seem to recall a centroamerican culture that used images instead of text that was still undecypherable, but may be outdated info too.

Also, just to help your point, Aliens are probably supposed to do the same for us, send a book of images and movies to let us understand them, while Etruscans and whatever lost civilizations are not really cooperating in translation.

Except for the excitement of "OMG OTHER INTELLIGENT LIFE!". That is more than enough reason to chat.

Dunno. The fact that you cannot reach them and the communications arrive every century or so makes this more or less background in most lifes imho.

Carbon based compounds are necessary. Silicon, the only other possibility, does not have all of the properties that make carbon the molecule used in life. Electronegativity etc. It can form four bonds but does not have that nice perfect balance of reactivity and stability.

While not an expert myself, I think this is interesting. If you scroll down it lists also boron and phosphorus.
And talks about some drawbacks of Silicon too in the relevant section.

Neither dolphins, nor Octopi could ever have developed advanced technology. Being terrestrial, or at min semi-terrestrial is a requirement. One needs to be able to work metals. You cant do that under water.

Point taken.

The mind set, again while there may be differences, are probably somewhat similar if they have developed a technological civilization. They must be cooperative, forge friendships etc.

And also if they came from animals they will have killing istincts and other things that plague us as greed and so on.

Mum... You just show someone giving birth and then raising the offspring to adult hood in a series of say.... 20 second clips. With a little arrow pointing to the same person every time. Something similar to this will work. Pointing at something BTW, is also probably one of those cosmic universals.

Heh. It's harder than explaining Peace isn't it?
Probably this won't work. While "cooperation" is a much easier concept to show.

The radio antennas are dirt cheap.

Not really. The "antennas" are in fact radiotelescopes. A common radio antenna cannot hear a so feeble signal.

Also, 50 years for radio, several hundred to thousands of years for physical travel.

Yes, thousands of years of (apparent) physical travel (while the crew will experience somewhat less than a century or so) are a given.
But with this kind of tech, the "kill em all" argument becomes moot, jsut because of the ludicrous costs. Both will sit on their planets and exchange long SMS with radio once a century. Simply because the other has no real reason to put up the impressive structures needed to send a ship at so high speeds (not even antimatter alone can cut it) and then wait frikkin centuries or more to invade a new system. When the same resources could have been spent way better to improve his home system.


So this thread should becomes more or less focalized on "Is justifiable a jenocide of our species?"
Just because interstellar warfare has been banned for above reasons.
Or not?

At least noone called me a moron this time. That's definetly a good thing.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Sounds somewhat doable, but at what image quality? That thing they actually transmitted some time back cannot allow a lot of detail. Also, I don't know how easily they will recognize objects or actions.

Start with common stuff. Chemistry is universal. Show them a diagram of an atom (complete with electron shells) and label the parts. Then give them the periodic table, with diagrams if the atoms. The names are different, the objects are the same. Move on from there to compounds. That gives some basic objects. Water for example. The document would of course need to be massive.

As for image quality, that thing that was transmitted a while back was dont just then. A while back. If we make radio contact with an alien species,you can bet we would develop the necessary technology (of we dont have it already) to boost our signal strength and the amount of power we can pour into a transmission.

Also, just to help your point, Aliens are probably supposed to do the same for us, send a book of images and movies to let us understand them, while Etruscans and whatever lost civilizations are not really cooperating in translation.

Exactly

Dunno. The fact that you cannot reach them and the communications arrive every century or so makes this more or less background in most lifes imho.

Sure. But it is something no one in their right minds would defund, and it is cheap enough to keep running.

While not an expert myself, I think this is interesting. If you scroll down it lists also boron and phosphorus.
And talks about some drawbacks of Silicon too in the relevant section.

Not enough Boron, Not enough possible Phosphorus compunds, Ammonia may work as a solvent, but that does not change the underlying necessity of using carbon compounds.

And also if they came from animals they will have killing istincts and other things that plague us as greed and so on.

And if they are advanced enough to be capable of contacting us, they have dealt with those to the point that they have not killed themselves.

Not really. The "antennas" are in fact radiotelescopes. A common radio antenna cannot hear a so feeble signal

You know what I mean. And in the broad scheme of things, they really are dirty cheap.

[Serafina]

I have seen enough slugfests here to believe in what I said. Any further discussion on this won't change my mind, and would just go OT.

Aah, pre-conceived notions. Aren't they fun?
Just like being unable to change ones mind - seems to be fun, i must try it one day. Perhaps when i want to become a brainless idiot.

Ah, by the way, did you notice that you are a moron? I disproved your claim on computers and biochemistry.

Apparently, you are unable to grasp the concept of an analogy.

Besides, making a wrong claim doesn't make one a moron.
Making totally outlandish claims does, and being unable to conceed errors shows that you are a moron too.

Besides, you hardly disproved my "claim" - your point that biochemical differences have any bearing on inter-species communication is still soundly demolished.

May I remind you that some ancient human civilizations have an undecypherable language? (Egyptians left that stone block with some greek translations that helped us understand, but many others do not, Etruscans) Were are those Uber linguists and Uber computers? Are you pulling them out from your arse?

Yeah, that's because we have no possibilty to interact with the original population and they did not construct it to be translated anyway.
We, however (and aliens as/more advanced as us) are easily capable to give you the first pointers to understand parts of our languagne, which then allows deciphering of the rest of it.

Radio is faster on paper, but to get an answer you must wait a boatload of time.
In that time your civilization may have lost interest in alien communication, the governments maintaining the (costly) antennas may have decided to cut the cost to increase pork barreling, and so on. We are talking of 50 years or even more, just for close star systems.

Yeah, eventually shutting them down since nothing is found is a possiblity. However, maintaining/operating these things is not that hard - building is, but they are already built.

But proposing that we will "loose interest" if we actually discover intelligent alien life?
Sure, it won't be new and exiting at some point - but it getting so uninteresting that it's not worth a couple of million dollars each year?
Yeah, right.

Dunno. The fact that you cannot reach them and the communications arrive every century or so makes this more or less background in most lifes imho.

It doesn't bloody matter if stupid fuckwits like you give a brainshit about it.
Scientists (and other smart people) will.
And we are only talking about a few millions in research grants here. We are already funding the LHC without knowing for sure if it will give us any tangible benefits. Compared to that, the cost for communication with aliens is peanuts.

Logical operations (AND, OR, and somesuch) add concepts together to form a reasoning. If the alien cannot understand concepts, knowing logical operators is useless

Any civisation capable of sending/receiving radio signals MUST understand mathematics.
They are also quite likely to be able to understand nuclear physics.

Both are universal no matter where or who you are in this universe. They are also easily expressable with absolutely no knowledge of each others language (just print .1 ..2 ...3 ....4 in rows - it's not hard to figure out).
Any such civilisation will also know binary code - while that's not an universal language, it can convey a lot of easy concepts

When the same resources could have been spent way better to improve his home system.

You honetly think that it would eat up a lot of resources, do you?

Hey, at least my initial assessment of you was correct.

[Sarevok]

Bear in mind no two civilizations will be of same tech level. We could simply be too primitive to decode signals from older civilizations. It could take us many centuries before we develop the prerequisite technologies to communicate on same level as them. After all consider the advances in telecommunications between 1950s and today.

[PeZook]

Would be good if you looked at the whole post before commenting.
I also said:

That's why you make the transmission as easy to understand as possible. Even attempting to communicate shows that you aren't hostile.

I'm not really sure. "Knowing your enemy" is a good motto. Attacking at random is stupid, before you must know with who is the guy in front of you. And if it is actually possible to win.

Exactly my point. Is it possible to communicate with aliens and do diplomacy or not? If it's impossible, and you adopt a "kill everyone" policy, you run into a significant risk of shooting at somebody more advanced than you. If it's possible, we lose the whole retarded justification for the policy, since we can actually see who they are and talk. It's not like they'd need our PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS or unobtainium.

[Simon_Jester]

Here, we have a bunch of civilized people that discuss plenty of things without calling each other morons. The problem is that you aren't one of them. You're one of the morons. So you get called a moron a lot. Go figure.

You really think that I don't know that?

I don't know what you know. I don't even know if you know. Your words do not give me confidence in your ability to know things.

In the past (roman empire) complete annihilation of losers was common, but yes, this has changed a little with time.

Was it really? Recall the definition of "complete." Merely being savage and murderous (as the Romans often were) is not enough.

Could you show me the statistics?

Anyway, for aliens able to destroy us, killing them first would be the best choice imho. (assuming that we actually can)
If the aliens are unable to destroy us, there is much more space for talk.

That's an interesting problem, though. See, what happens if they are able to destroy us and are already holding that capability in reserve? What if they have a bunch of colonists in cryo-suspension in a bunker somewhere, and an automated system that's standing by to launch relativistic missiles at the planets of anyone who tries to destroy their homeworld? What if they have a deterrent?

Deterrence is a huge problem with your idea of mass preemptive genocide, and one you don't seem to acknowledge. And because of that, you could easily trigger the genocidal war that wipes out humanity with your preemptive strikes... which is exactly what you claim not to want.

How far do you take it? Do you advocate slaughtering all the funny-colored people on the other side of the hill, knowing that it will "bring benefit to you" because you can loot their stuff? How about selling them into slavery?
Or do you first try to pretty it up a bit by pretending they're a threat and then slaughtering them all or selling them into slavery?
Or maybe you just move onto their land, proclaim that it's your land, start using their stuff as if it was yours, and then when they get angry and start fighting back, you say "Oh, they're dangerous savages! Exterminate the brutes!"

You are answering yourself. These are all storical events where that principle was enacted.
I don't like that principle myself, but I see that humanity seems to follow it.

So what? The fact that other people do things does not affect your duties or your obligations. At best it gives you a flimsy excuse for being vile if it pleases you to be vile.

Do you advocate doing such things to other people on the grounds that they are not "your" people?" Please answer the question.

What does biochemistry have to do with communication?

Biochemistry depends from the environment. Amminoacids and DNA (and RNA that should be the simpliest form of self-replicating material) behave well only in a specific environment. If you change environment, you must change biochemistry. And expecting that out there there are so similar conditions to our own is wishful thinking.
Aliens will be very different. Both mind and body. Even here on earth we have only a passing resemblance to most of the other lifeforms.

What does biochemistry have to do with communication?

Why does the fact that a bunch of aliens from Omricon Persei VII happen to have a different chemical instead of DNA mean that they will be unable to decode a radio broadcast? Or that they will attack us on sight, "forcing" us to kill them all?

More to the point, why does this mean that we should attack them on sight, even before they have attacked us, because they might attack us?

Because that's what you're advocating here.

[Alyrium Denryle]

They are also easily expressable with absolutely no knowledge of each others language (just print .1 ..2 ...3 ....4 in rows - it's not hard to figure out).

A little more difficult than that. More like:

*, **, ***, ****
1, 2, 3, 4

Logical operators

****/**=**
******/**=***

etc.

We can train birds to figure this stuff out. An technological civilization should not be hard.

We could simply be too primitive to decode signals from older civilizations.

It is safe to assume that they will have similar radio contact protocols to the ones we use. Regular repeats of pulses in some readily recognizable sequence, such as prime numbers or the Fibonacci sequence. Go from there.

[Serafina]

Bear in mind no two civilizations will be of same tech level. We could simply be too primitive to decode signals from older civilizations. It could take us many centuries before we develop the prerequisite technologies to communicate on same level as them. After all consider the advances in telecommunications between 1950s and today.

Only if they make no effort to make their communications easier to decipher.
Which is unlikely if they want to communicate.

Indeed, it could propably be argued that an advanced civilisation would be better at communicating, simply due to better technology and knowledge.

[Formless]

You still fail to understand. One thing is decoding the message and another thing entirely is understanding the message. If I draw something that you never saw, no matter how easy is to decode my message, for you it is impossible to comprehend what the fuck you are looking at.

Then send them something they recognize. Like, I don't know, AN IMAGE OF A FUCKING SOLAR SYSTEM. If they don't know that, they obviously can't do astronomy, and therefore most likely can't receieve the message in the first place. If they can, but still don't understand what they are looking at, they are of no concern to us because they aren't likely to get into space any time soon. Thus, there is no excuse for a psychopathic first strike policy with regards to them.

Christ, its like you refuse to do even the most cursory research on the subject.

Still. What image can express the concept of "peace" to an alien? Or also "mum".

Aly tackled this one, but here goes. Abstract concepts like moral language comes after you have established a code for them to understand. For example, you can send them images in series to make a crude comic strip in which moral behavior is depicted and immoral behavior is punished. Then attach abstractions to those ideas and behaviors you described in the images.

Use your brain for a moment. We have crossed this bridge every time we've come across other human cultures that speak other languages. Although some of the assumptions that work with humans obviously won't work with alien beings, we can still apply much of what we learned then.

I'm not really sure. "Knowing your enemy" is a good motto. Attacking at random is stupid, before you must know with who is the guy in front of you. And if it is actually possible to win.

And how do you expect to do that without attempting to communicate?

Your mindset is completely wrong-- rather than advocating violence to defend us as a last resort when communication fails and they decide to attack us, you seem pathologically incapable of seeing them as anything but the enemy. What do you think creates enemies in the first place? You start from what is not only an an unwarranted assumption, but a dangerous one, and you just can't seem to be able to let go of it.

Radio is faster on paper, but to get an answer you must wait a boatload of time. In that time your civilization may have lost interest in alien communication, the governments maintaining the (costly) antennas may have decided to cut the cost to increase pork barreling, and so on. We are talking of 50 years or even more, just for close star systems.

Docking ships (or, more realistically, talking with radio between ships relatively close to each other) is instead the best way imho, to get a two-way communication. Sure, they will need a lot of time to get there, but they must travel only half as far, and are supposed to be self-sufficient.

Are you brain damaged or something? How long do you think it will take a starship to get to a star system fifty lightyears away? Oh, yeah, more than fifty years even traveling at the highest relativistic speeds. In the mean time, you waste shittons of resources on the project, shittons of public support from those of us with brains between our ears, and for what? So you can initiate communication using the same toolset and methodology that would have worked if you had just put up a transmitter in our metaphorical back yard.

You need to read a little less science fiction and a little more science fact.

The entire concept of communicating with aliens is more or less bullshit. First because there are no aliens detected anywhere, second because it will take forever, third because there is nothing really important to tell them.

Oh really?

1) we've only been searching for less than a century. Consider how long that really isn't. Consider that we've only been able to detect planets orbiting other stars for a little more than a decade, which is crucial if you want to narrow down the search. We have yet to discover alien life, but that just shows how half assed we're going about it. And you would have us give up before we've even given it a decent shot.

2) we're talking about what we should do in the hypothetical situation that we do discover one; so not only is the observation that we have not discovered any aliens yet completely red herring to this discussion, it misses the point by an impressive degree.

3) every probe we've sent into space has taken forever to give back useful data, does that mean the space program is a worthless pursuit?

4) if we want to find other civilizations, we look for their signals: if other civilizations want to find us, they do the same. It would be ingrateful of us to receive messages and never send them, making their search for other life harder because.... we're too damn lazy?

5) nothing important to tell them? What, the simple fact we exist isn't important? Do you have any idea the philosophical implications of discovering life on another world? What if we're more advanced scientifically than them? Or vice verse? Or technology-- the potential leaps in technological development that could come after a benevolent encounter with an alien civilization are enormous. Use your imagination for once and you might understand why I ridicule you.

Interstellar warfare without a FTL gimmick is even more bullshit. (this is the point where I disagree with Purple, in case you were wondering)

Do you understand why pre-emptive war and genocide is wrong even if we did have FTL?

Who said to punch children? You are. I'm not. Bullshitter.

Hey, you are the one defending the guy who believes in pre-emptive violence towards other civilizations based on communication and thought process differences. Its your fault for leaving yourself open by making a joke about five year olds in that context.

You said it, 5 year olds don't think or communicate in the same way as an adult. This is the thing they should have in common with aliens imho. Their brain is not fully grown, so they are not exactly the same as an alien.

You do realize that you can talk to a five year old with no problems, right? The only thing that gets in the way is their underdeveloped comprehension of ideas. Obviously you haven't dealt with a lot of five year olds recently.