A civilisation that can travel between stars will probably see us as we see bugs. If we are annoying they destroy us, if we don’t bother them, they won’t care about us. We think we have some merit and knowledge and that we are special to be interesting to higher species, how often do you wish to uplift, enslave or destroy ants?
Don’t think about how the average person acts towards insects, think about how a farmer does. Plow the field, plant crops, fertilize, spray pesticides.
An alien civilization far in advance of our own which has travelled the stars and colonized millions of planets would just scour all life from the planet (while perhaps sucking up the genetic information into a database) and then reform the biosphere to suit their own needs, siphoning up all the mineral and energy resources they need as well.
Fair point. But that’s assuming they are like us. And with how different lifeforms are on Earth we can assume that the alien species are completely different from us both physically and psychologically.
Though the farther we go the more we don’t want to kill other biological life that doesn’t bother us. Partly because we are kind, more so because we don’t need to and other life is fun.
I don’t think it matters much what we want, it’s what we do that counts. What are humans doing? We’re causing a mass-extinction event that puts us in the same camp as Cyanobacteria, the ice ages, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, etc.
Yeah, but a lot of people don’t want to do that and if we ever going to go to the stars we won’t have to do it. Those things you mention are caused by the society we have right now that clearly is not capable of long-term investment that is required for interstellar travel. So I think if we ever do interstellar travel we will be more kind to other life by that time.
A civilisation that can travel between stars will probably see us as we see bugs. If we are annoying they destroy us, if we don’t bother them, they won’t care about us. We think we have some merit and knowledge and that we are special to be interesting to higher species, how often do you wish to uplift, enslave or destroy ants?
Don’t think about how the average person acts towards insects, think about how a farmer does. Plow the field, plant crops, fertilize, spray pesticides.
An alien civilization far in advance of our own which has travelled the stars and colonized millions of planets would just scour all life from the planet (while perhaps sucking up the genetic information into a database) and then reform the biosphere to suit their own needs, siphoning up all the mineral and energy resources they need as well.
Fair point. But that’s assuming they are like us. And with how different lifeforms are on Earth we can assume that the alien species are completely different from us both physically and psychologically.
Though the farther we go the more we don’t want to kill other biological life that doesn’t bother us. Partly because we are kind, more so because we don’t need to and other life is fun.
I don’t think it matters much what we want, it’s what we do that counts. What are humans doing? We’re causing a mass-extinction event that puts us in the same camp as Cyanobacteria, the ice ages, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, etc.
Yeah, but a lot of people don’t want to do that and if we ever going to go to the stars we won’t have to do it. Those things you mention are caused by the society we have right now that clearly is not capable of long-term investment that is required for interstellar travel. So I think if we ever do interstellar travel we will be more kind to other life by that time.