What is the point of separation between Homo sapiens sapiens and other animals?

[Donnadogsoth]

I don't want to be killed by my neighbour (or anyone else for that matter). Almost everyone else thinks the same way. I'm pretty sure you don't.

Most people don't want to kill their neighbour either*.

Hence, people generally agree not to kill each other*, and to "deal with"** those who do.


* Without good reason.
** This may or may not count as a "good reason" for breaking the more general "no killing" rule.


I don't know of any society that has not had a "no killing each other (without good reason)" rule. Even people like the Vikings (or the Mafia) had or have rules against that sort of thing. No Viking would be willing to go out raiding (in their view, a "good reason" for breaking the no-killing rule) if they thought their neighbours would pillage their homes while they were away. If you walked into a Mafia base and robbed/killed some of the people, the rest wouldn't just say "This guy is a robber and a murderer, just like us - what a great guy!".

No society that permitted random murder of its members could survive. It would either destroy itself, decide something else would be better, or be overthrown from within (or conquered from without) by people who agreed not to kill each other (but were prepared to work together to fight against the Random Murderers).

It's still an accident of history that non-murder-tolerating societies out-compete others. That just means the clever murderers have to be more clever (or more reckless). That doesn't speak to the essence of a man that makes him worth anything, specifically worth more than other animals. See my response to warty goblin, above.

[noparlpf]

It's still an accident of history that non-murder-tolerating societies out-compete others. That just means the clever murderers have to be more clever (or more reckless). That doesn't speak to the essence of a man that makes him worth anything, specifically worth more than other animals. See my response to warty goblin, above.

It's not really a fluke, though. A settlement of two hundred people is going to have more resources and structures than a settlement of, say, three people (say, a mated pair and one offspring). If one person can provide food for four, then three of them can work on other tasks like building better shelters, raising/teaching children, or experimenting with medicine. And you can only have a settlement of two hundred people if they're all reasonably certain that they won't be killed over minor arguments.
And with more resources and more specialised knowledge, they're more likely to survive to breeding age and be healthy enough to produce healthy offspring. Non-murdering people are therefore going to proliferate more overall than wantonly-murdering people.

What could make humans different from (most) other animals, in my opinion, is the ability to communicate complex abstract ideas and work out solutions to disputes (e.g. over food, territory, mates) in a way other than exercising physical force. That hasn't worked out very well so far (I don't think there's been a span of one year with no wars like, ever). But it's hypothetically possible.

[warty goblin]

I'm not sure what we're arguing, that it's not just language difference. Man's uniqueness and moral supremacy is indeed rooted in his biology and the particular type of mind associated with that. What this amounts to is a species that has its own reason to exist: self-conscious existence for the sake of survival and creativity. Man is therefore his own measure of all things. We do not derive our morality from a chicken or centipede, but from ourselves and our own potentiality. So, that gives us a basis for morality and deciding that humans on the whole are worth more than non-humans, by virtue of what makes humans humans. And that's identical to calling man sacred.

Yes and no. Mostly no. We have no more or less reason to exist than any other species; like all the rest we're a particular outcome of natural selection. We measure all things in human terms because we are human, but this is neither unique nor based on our moral supremacy; because we do not have any moral supremacy. I would say instead that humans are worth more to humans than non-humans, because we're the ones doing the judging. There's no 'on the whole' about it; this is a conclusion baked into us by dint of natural selection, is dependent on the entity doing the judging being human, and requires no appeal to human creativity or special value or anything else. We like humans more than non-humans because we're humans. Get between a mother bear and her cubs, and she'll likely maul you; because to her the lives of her cubs are worth more than you are. Yet I don't think you are arguing that bear cubs are sacred. Ergo humans are not sacred either.

For a slightly different example, consider a space alien. Let's suppose that it comes from a planet that ranges from the tropical to the desert, but has no arctic or equivalent habitat. In its view polar bears and seals may be simply the most remarkable things on our planet; because it's never met anything remotely like them before. We on the other hand are a random ape that got smart; but the alien already knew that could happen since its species was smart and creative enough to travel between stars. We would be less interesting, less remarkable, and less valuable to this alien than a polar bear - particularly given the differences in abundance - even though it's at least as smart and creative as we are.

[veti]

It's still an accident of history that non-murder-tolerating societies out-compete others. That just means the clever murderers have to be more clever (or more reckless). That doesn't speak to the essence of a man that makes him worth anything, specifically worth more than other animals. See my response to warty goblin, above.

The most recent XKCD is remarkably pertinent to this point.

No, it's not "an accident" that society doesn't tolerate murder. Societies evolve traits that are advantageous to maintaining the society, much as biological species evolve traits that are advantageous to maintaining the species. A rule against murder, however defined, is pretty much a necessary starting point for any kind of society at all.

This "essence of a man that makes him worth ... more than other animals", as goblin says, is simply the fact that it's humans who are doing the judging. Another animal wouldn't come to the same conclusion, and we have no moral basis for concluding that, for instance, goblin's Mother Bear who just mauled you was doing something "wrong".

To be sure you have a reasonable basis for not wanting her to do that. But what would be the obligation on a dispassionate observer who watched the whole thing? If they were human, they'd probably (probably) side with you. But I think that "probably" would become less certain if, for instance, you'd actually been deliberately threatening the cubs - which implies that it's less about "humanity being sacred" than about "knowing, from our own understanding of humans, that the bear was overreacting". It's that "understanding", which we more or less automatically extend to all humans (and only humans), that makes us treat them "specially".

[Eldan]

If "not killing others of your kind" is morality, then most animals have that. I'd say that most animals only rarely kill others of their own kind.

[Kislath]

We can talk AND we have the power to use tools.

A few other creatures can talk with an actual spoken language, like dolphins for example, and a few can use tools like crows and apes, but only we humans can do both. Out thumbs and larynxes make us unique.

[Coidzor]

If "not killing others of your kind" is morality, then most animals have that. I'd say that most animals only rarely kill others of their own kind.

Hell, most animals don't kill senselessly either, IIRC, although there are some that do, like some tigers and lynxes and house cats and zoo-bred tigers that get the opportunity to kill or that get released into the wild somehow.

Generally there's some reason for killing, or at least more of one than raw petulance or boredom.

[SiuiS]

2. Experiments have already found that certain monkeys have a very strong sense of fairness, so we know the foundations of morality are not an exclusively human thing.

Exactly.

3. Just because morality is subjective and evolved doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Subjective is not the same as arbitrary, and indeed the fact it's evolved (in both the biological and social sense) means it's almost certainly not arbitrary and rather serves some very important purposes. Beauty and love are subjective products of evolution too, but few but the most hard-line abstract-thinking nihilists and pragmatists would claim those are arbitrary and meaningless.

Just the opposite, right? Our base conditions were insufficient so we developed morality so things would be better. That makes it more valuable and germane to sentience, not less.

Is roach-squishing murder or not?

Is ending the life of a non-human life form a socially unacceptable method of ending the life of a human? No. What does that have to do with anything?

Please actually use terms that mean what you want. Murder is an entirely legal construct, not a native one. What makes something murder as opposed to killing is the agreed upon context. It is relational, and that's okay.

If humans are animals, then we can behave like animals, as we please, unless you wish to appeal to a human self-interest that transcends animalism by saying that what we can achieve is, in essence, sacred.

Your statement is utterly laughable. Saying "we could act like animals, or like humans" is asinine and only makes any sense to people who already believe humans must somehow be above animals. It is not an argument which proves anything, it is a loaded term which functions to establish the legitimacy of a prejudice.

We can behave like animals! Animals like the bonobo or chimpanzee which develop social methods of handling conflict instead of violence. Which cooperate to raise their clan in a healthy mental environment. Which can have third parties provide outside arbitration and decide what is fair past the inherent biases of the two parties involved.

You are saying "agree with me or I'll take my ball and go home".

Different moralities impact people's lives differently, and therefore make real differences in people's lives. It is fallacious to suppose that simply because something fails to be universally or transcendentally true it cannot be locally and conditionally true.

Just so.

[Mx.Silver]

We can talk AND we have the power to use tools.

A few other creatures can talk with an actual spoken language, like dolphins for example, and a few can use tools like crows and apes, but only we humans can do both.

Several species of primates seem to have at least some claim to language, as least as far as we can observe. Some dolphin species have also been observed using tools.
Parrots also seem to be capable of both, in at least a few species.

If humans are animals, then we can behave like animals, as we please, unless you wish to appeal to a human self-interest that transcends animalism by saying that what we can achieve is, in essence, sacred.

Technically, if humans are animals then by definition we're already 'behaving like animals' regardless of what specifically we do.
Unless you mean 'behaving like non-human animals' in which case that also wouldn't be implied consider that rather a lot of species of non-animals also don't behave like each other.

[noparlpf]

So I just typed this post out like an animal? Whoa. Mind. Blown.

[SiuiS]

Well, you know. Monkeys and typewriters.

[Wardog]

Man is therefore his own measure of all things. We do not derive our morality from a chicken or centipede, but from ourselves and our own potentiality. So, that gives us a basis for morality and deciding that humans on the whole are worth more than non-humans, by virtue of what makes humans humans. And that's identical to calling man sacred.

Not by any definition of "sacred" I am aware of.

Definition of sacred in English:
adjective
1Connected with God or a god or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration:
‘sacred rites’
‘the site at Eleusis is sacred to Demeter’

1.1Religious rather than secular:
‘sacred music’

1.2(Of writing or text) embodying the laws or doctrines of a religion:
‘a sacred Hindu text’

1.3Regarded with great respect and reverence by a particular religion, group, or individual:
‘cows are sacred and the eating of beef is taboo’

1.4Regarded as too valuable to be interfered with; sacrosanct:
‘to a police officer nothing is sacred’

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/de...english/sacred

[Jeff the Green]

Not by any definition of "sacred" I am aware of.


http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/de...english/sacred

By 1.3 you could argue that humans are sacred to humanism, but a) that's not a term most humanists would prefer and b) I'm not entirely sure Donnadogsoth is aiming at humanism. If so it has a much larger human superiority complex than I'm used to in modern humanism.

[Lheticus]

I'd just like to say quickly that I clearly did NOT know what kind of worm can I was opening with this topic. XD

[Donnadogsoth]

Not by any definition of "sacred" I am aware of.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/de...english/sacred

Re: definition 4: In what way will you allow Nature to interfere with our destiny?

[noparlpf]

When y'all bring up words like "sacred" or "destiny" it gets pretty hard to answer without breaking forum rules. I don't think this is going to go anywhere productive from here...

[Donnadogsoth]

Technically, if humans are animals then by definition we're already 'behaving like animals' regardless of what specifically we do. Unless you mean 'behaving like non-human animals' in which case that also wouldn't be implied consider that rather a lot of species of non-animals also don't behave like each other.

I'm not speaking to technical definitions that flatly declares man an animal. Technically elephants have language and canaries sing but that doesn't mean that what they do is a component of increasing their potential relative population density, which is what language and classical symphonies are doing with humans. That's the quality of distinction I'm speaking to.

[Donnadogsoth]

Is ending the life of a non-human life form a socially unacceptable method of ending the life of a human? No. What does that have to do with anything?

So it's not murder. It's not the killing of an innocent being, the consequence for which should be grave to reflect the dignity and worth of the one killed. In other words, roaches ain't human. Only humans are subject to being murdered.

But now, say you kill my roach—my pet roach that I raised from an egg and feed breadcrumbs everyday. It's suddenly worth something more, it partakes of my dignity and value, and stomping it becomes a more serious matter because it is my property. But the value always flows from humans. Nature has no value outside of man. Not a reason to go around blowing natural landscapes up like corporate Taliban, because Nature has a value to us, in the state that is is in—it contains beauty in its original state, and it behooves us to preserve that beauty unless it is needed to advance the species through development, mining, etc. (speaking towards Space exploration).

If humans are animals, then we can behave like animals, as we please, unless you wish to appeal to a human self-interest that transcends animalism by saying that what we can achieve is, in essence, sacred.

Your statement is utterly laughable. Saying "we could act like animals, or like humans" is asinine and only makes any sense to people who already believe humans must somehow be above animals. It is not an argument which proves anything, it is a loaded term which functions to establish the legitimacy of a prejudice.

We can behave like animals! Animals like the bonobo or chimpanzee which develop social methods of handling conflict instead of violence. Which cooperate to raise their clan in a healthy mental environment. Which can have third parties provide outside arbitration and decide what is fair past the inherent biases of the two parties involved.

You are saying "agree with me or I'll take my ball and go home".

I'm not sure what you mean here. Nature is a great teacher. We can surely learn from bonobos and rabbits and lyre birds, and take delight in it all. But we, at the end of the day, must realise that ideas rule the human world, that ideas are the Doom of Man, and we must be ruled by one capital idea or other. Here, I am gesturing in the direction of the idea that man is the measure of all things, that we have no other moral compass that is relevant to the deepest desires in our hearts, than the compass of our own design, in terms of man as a creative being, capable of wilfully increasing his potential relative population density. Contributing to that is acting like a human, most properly speaking; contributing against that is to besmirch the office and behave, I'll amend, worse than an animal.

[Donnadogsoth]

The most recent XKCD is remarkably pertinent to this point.

No, it's not "an accident" that society doesn't tolerate murder. Societies evolve traits that are advantageous to maintaining the society, much as biological species evolve traits that are advantageous to maintaining the species. A rule against murder, however defined, is pretty much a necessary starting point for any kind of society at all.

It's an accident in the sense that the fact we have an evolutionary universe itself is an accident. Like how the reason there are only five Platonic solids is an accident. It's how reality happened to shake out.

...we have no moral basis for concluding that, for instance, goblin's Mother Bear who just mauled you was doing something "wrong".

No, of course it's not being immoral. Animals are amoral. It requires free will to be moral or immoral.

To be sure you have a reasonable basis for not wanting [the bear] to do that. But what would be the obligation on a dispassionate observer who watched the whole thing? If they were human, they'd probably (probably) side with you. But I think that "probably" would become less certain if, for instance, you'd actually been deliberately threatening the cubs - which implies that it's less about "humanity being sacred" than about "knowing, from our own understanding of humans, that the bear was overreacting". It's that "understanding", which we more or less automatically extend to all humans (and only humans), that makes us treat them "specially".

If you mean understanding of our free will, that grants us a moral nature, then I agree. If we recognise we are the only source of morality in accordance with our nature, then we have become, in seed, what we need to be, what that nature commands.

[Donnadogsoth]

Yes and no. Mostly no. We have no more or less reason to exist than any other species; like all the rest we're a particular outcome of natural selection. We measure all things in human terms because we are human, but this is neither unique nor based on our moral supremacy; because we do not have any moral supremacy. I would say instead that humans are worth more to humans than non-humans, because we're the ones doing the judging. There's no 'on the whole' about it; this is a conclusion baked into us by dint of natural selection, is dependent on the entity doing the judging being human, and requires no appeal to human creativity or special value or anything else. We like humans more than non-humans because we're humans. Get between a mother bear and her cubs, and she'll likely maul you; because to her the lives of her cubs are worth more than you are. Yet I don't think you are arguing that bear cubs are sacred. Ergo humans are not sacred either.

For a slightly different example, consider a space alien. Let's suppose that it comes from a planet that ranges from the tropical to the desert, but has no arctic or equivalent habitat. In its view polar bears and seals may be simply the most remarkable things on our planet; because it's never met anything remotely like them before. We on the other hand are a random ape that got smart; but the alien already knew that could happen since its species was smart and creative enough to travel between stars. We would be less interesting, less remarkable, and less valuable to this alien than a polar bear - particularly given the differences in abundance - even though it's at least as smart and creative as we are.

The hypothetical aliens would be acting immorally if they valued bears more than us, by virtue of said aliens' minds, capable obviously of the same increase of potential population density--power over nature--as we. They would be denying our commonality as sapient species. It would be inclining towards murder.

Let's consider another: can you give any example where the life of an innocent human is, in principle, worth less than any non-human life form or nonliving thing? I say "innocent" because I'm not arguing in favour of criminals who have depressed their own worth to humanity by their chosen actions, I mean someone who is a human of no crime, such as a child or thereabouts. If you can find no such example, I give you the sacred species. Bears' opinions do not matter because bears do not form opinions in this manner; if they did, they would be one of us.

[noparlpf]

Here, I am gesturing in the direction of the idea that man is the measure of all things, that we have no other moral compass that is relevant to the deepest desires in our hearts, than the compass of our own design, in terms of man as a creative being, capable of willfully increasing his potential relative population density. Contributing to that is acting like a human, most properly speaking; contributing against that is to besmirch the office and behave, I'll amend, worse than an animal.

I don't have anything to do with increasing potential human population density or whatever. If anything I do more to increase potential non-human population density. (Vet student; absolutely zero plans to procreate.)

Let's consider another: can you give any example where the life of an innocent human is, in principle, worth less than any non-human life form or nonliving thing? I say "innocent" because I'm not arguing in favour of criminals who have depressed their own worth to humanity by their chosen actions, I mean someone who is a human of no crime, such as a child or thereabouts. If you can find no such example, I give you the sacred species. Bears' opinions do not matter because bears do not form opinions in this manner; if they did, they would be one of us.

Like, all the time. If I'm on a sinking ship and I see an unfamiliar human kid and an unfamiliar bear cub I'm gonna pull the bear cub onto my lifeboat first.

[warty goblin]

The hypothetical aliens would be acting immorally if they valued bears more than us, by virtue of said aliens' minds, capable obviously of the same increase of potential population density--power over nature--as we. They would be denying our commonality as sapient species. It would be inclining towards murder.

Or it decides it can best increase its population density and exercise control over nature by killing all but a couple of us, keeping the survivors in zoos as curios, and turning Earth into luxury condos for aliens. With giant freezers where the polar bears can roam. Seems quite in keeping with this strange philosophy of moral worth through screwing like rabbits that you're proposing; after all space filled with us is not filled by aliens, and apparently controlling nature to fill space with lots of one's own species is now the one true path of destiny.

Is it me, or did the goalposts suddenly sprout legs and move?

Let's consider another: can you give any example where the life of an innocent human is, in principle, worth less than any non-human life form or nonliving thing? I say "innocent" because I'm not arguing in favour of criminals who have depressed their own worth to humanity by their chosen actions, I mean someone who is a human of no crime, such as a child or thereabouts. If you can find no such example, I give you the sacred species. Bears' opinions do not matter because bears do not form opinions in this manner; if they did, they would be one of us.

edit: on reflection I can't answer this within the board's politics rules at all.

[Murska]

Let's consider another: can you give any example where the life of an innocent human is, in principle, worth less than any non-human life form or nonliving thing? I say "innocent" because I'm not arguing in favour of criminals who have depressed their own worth to humanity by their chosen actions, I mean someone who is a human of no crime, such as a child or thereabouts. If you can find no such example, I give you the sacred species. Bears' opinions do not matter because bears do not form opinions in this manner; if they did, they would be one of us.

Well, for an example, I would definitely allow a single innocent human to die before sacrificing every dog on Earth.

But the value always flows from humans. Nature has no value outside of man.

This would be because it's us humans speaking of our values. Obviously our values are based on things we value, that's a tautology. Other minds value different things.

The hypothetical aliens would be acting immorally if they valued bears more than us, by virtue of said aliens' minds, capable obviously of the same increase of potential population density--power over nature--as we. They would be denying our commonality as sapient species. It would be inclining towards murder.

According to our morals, yes. According to theirs, no. Morality_Humans is different from Morality_Aliens, and neither is more objectively correct.

OP: There are a lot of obvious differences between humans and other animals. We have different biology, a variety of different attributes and so on. Just like all animals are different from each other. 'Human' is a concept meant to act as a term for an object with a whole bunch of characteristics such as 'two legs', 'two arms', 'two eyes', 'walks upright', 'can talk' and so on. We also accept many objects as humans that don't have all of these characteristics, such as an one-armed, peg-legged mute pirate with an eyepatch who's stuck in a wheelchair. There are some more fundamental things we associate with the concept, though there's plenty of debate as to what exactly they are. I'm going to throw out the word 'consciousness', poorly defined as it is. Probably most people would agree that to be human, one must have DNA that's very close to human average (when compared to other species). Of course, if a human mind is uploaded into a machine, many people, myself included, would agree that it is still a human. Some people wouldn't agree that people from particular parts of the world are human, or people who follow a particular ideology. One important attribute would be a mind constructed in a certain way, but then I (and most others) don't know enough about brains and mental architecture to make more than a hazy guess at what specified a 'human' mind from any other possible mind.

In fact, the concept of a 'human' becomes difficult to precisely define when you start looking at it more closely instead of just intuitively boxing things into 'humans' and 'non-humans'. For everyday use it's easy - I can look at a glass or a phone and instantly sort them into the non-human pile, and I can see my friend on the street and recognize that he is, in fact, a human. But it's not a precisely defined concept so when you get into edge cases, mostly through transhumanism, it becomes hard to use and we should not cling to it when we don't need it. Who cares whether an uploaded human is still a human, when it is abundantly clear that they are a person? Is it important to know whether a largely networked AGI is a person, when it obviously has moral worth? Words are meant to convey information, not to hide our confusion.

[Dexam]

It's all a classification error. To steal blatantly from Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, and Jack Cohen in The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, we are not Homo Sapiens, the Wise Man; we are Pan Narrans, the Storytelling Chimpanzee. What marks us as different from other animals is not only the ability to tell stories, but to also tell stories about stories.

Another factor is our extelligence, our ability to pass our cultural capital on to future generations. Lessons, stories, songs and poems, drawings and sculpture, writings, recordings of sound and images, the Internet; our extelligence far surpasses any other species that we're aware of.

[Killer Angel]

Well, for an example, I would definitely allow a single innocent human to die before sacrificing every dog on Earth.

I'm also sure that some dog owners, value the life of their own dog, more than the life of many unknown humans.

[Donnadogsoth]

I don't have anything to do with increasing potential human population density or whatever. If anything I do more to increase potential non-human population density. (Vet student; absolutely zero plans to procreate.)

The medical arts as a whole contribute to increasing human power over nature, so you're in there if obliquely.

Like, all the time. If I'm on a sinking ship and I see an unfamiliar human kid and an unfamiliar bear cub I'm gonna pull the bear cub onto my lifeboat first.

Which would be astonishing immoral, but I suppose that's the spirit of the age.

[Donnadogsoth]

Or it decides it can best increase its population density and exercise control over nature by killing all but a couple of us, keeping the survivors in zoos as curios, and turning Earth into luxury condos for aliens. With giant freezers where the polar bears can roam. Seems quite in keeping with this strange philosophy of moral worth through screwing like rabbits that you're proposing; after all space filled with us is not filled by aliens, and apparently controlling nature to fill space with lots of one's own species is now the one true path of destiny.

Is it me, or did the goalposts suddenly sprout legs and move?

You misunderstand. The aliens and we are one. We form one single entity whose destinies are linked. For them to destroy us for the sake of advancing their power to exist is to contradict their own nature. And it's not about actual population density, it's about potential as in power over nature. If we have 10 billion people on planet, we should be striving for power to have 20 billion, as a buffer zone against the hostile universe.

[warty goblin]

You misunderstand. The aliens and we are one. We form one single entity whose destinies are linked. For them to destroy us for the sake of advancing their power to exist is to contradict their own nature.

This is a very strange assumption. And it has to be an assumption, because it follows from nothing observable in nature. It's also a very strong assumption; which so far as I can tell only serves to make the universe be nice to us. This is not an assumption I see any reason to make, and an enormous number of reasons not to. Starting with refuge in uniqueness not being a good argument for anything, and ending with the fact that humans don't even act this way much of the time.

There's absolutely no reason for an alien to regard us as alien-equivalent in value because we have cities and so forth. To the contrary, that makes us more likely to be seen as rivals; competitors for the same ecological niche as tool-users at the top of the food chain. All the more reason to get nova-bombing now, and ask questions later, in case those hairless apes get ideas. Plus it allows a much higher theoretical population cap for the aliens; just another safeguard against an unfeeling universe.

And let's be honest for a second here; the worst possible piece of news you could get about space aliens is that they're fundamentally human in nature. Better get ready for some good old fashioned inter-tribal warfare, and we're the unfortunate schmucks who brought a gun to an asteroid fight.

And it's not about actual population density, it's about potential as in power over nature. If we have 10 billion people on planet, we should be striving for power to have 20 billion, as a buffer zone against the hostile universe.

Here we are at potential as a moral good again. Seems very strange to me, saying the fact that you could in theory do something makes you better. I've always figured you make yourself better by doing good things, not merely by being capable of doing them.

[Lheticus]

This is a very strange assumption. And it has to be an assumption, because it follows from nothing observable in nature. It's also a very strong assumption; which so far as I can tell only serves to make the universe be nice to us. This is not an assumption I see any reason to make, and an enormous number of reasons not to. Starting with refuge in uniqueness not being a good argument for anything, and ending with the fact that humans don't even act this way much of the time.

There's absolutely no reason for an alien to regard us as alien-equivalent in value because we have cities and so forth. To the contrary, that makes us more likely to be seen as rivals; competitors for the same ecological niche as tool-users at the top of the food chain. All the more reason to get nova-bombing now, and ask questions later, in case those hairless apes get ideas. Plus it allows a much higher theoretical population cap for the aliens; just another safeguard against an unfeeling universe.

And let's be honest for a second here; the worst possible piece of news you could get about space aliens is that they're fundamentally human in nature. Better get ready for some good old fashioned inter-tribal warfare, and we're the unfortunate schmucks who brought a gun to an asteroid fight.


Here we are at potential as a moral good again. Seems very strange to me, saying the fact that you could in theory do something makes you better. I've always figured you make yourself better by doing good things, not merely by being capable of doing them.

I've been trying to ignore this since I've got all I really wanted out of this thread, but this really seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Aliens aren't really a suitable example for any argument for or against human superiority because we know nothing of life on other planets save for conjecture. It is just as conjectural to assume a race of aliens would wipe us out as it is to assume that they would not--everything about aliens is a "known unknown". For the sake of what little sanity I have I ask that the both of you make less ridiculous arguments.

[veti]

You misunderstand. The aliens and we are one. We form one single entity whose destinies are linked. For them to destroy us for the sake of advancing their power to exist is to contradict their own nature. And it's not about actual population density, it's about potential as in power over nature. If we have 10 billion people on planet, we should be striving for power to have 20 billion, as a buffer zone against the hostile universe.

"Destiny" seems to me a very problematic idea to introduce to this argument. What does it mean? What does it mean to these aliens, of whom we know absolutely nothing except that they've apparently cracked interstellar travel while we still have no real plans to visit other bodies in our own system? How can you make such a broad assertion about "their own nature" without knowing anything about it?

And this "potential population" theory of morality also seems - eccentric. I get the "buffer" argument, but all our experience to date suggests that population expands to fill the space available for it. Which implies that if we purposely create a buffer, it will fill up, and then we'll be right back where we started. It's like a pack rat moving into a bigger house - it's a temporary palliative, but in the long run it's just going to make for a much bigger problem.