this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
280 points (98.3% liked)

science

14767 readers
29 users here now

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

rule #1: be kind

<--- rules currently under construction, see current pinned post.

2024-11-11

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

We keep certain aboriginal tribes secluded so we can properly research how societies arise, I don't see why they wouldn't.

Any space faring civ also has the tech to make human bodies to control from a distance and would have some of their members chilling with us down here. Likewise, I think a lot of people here would enjoy spending a bit of free time in different eras in our past, even though they are much more barbaric by todays standards.

I can't even imagine them just not caring.

[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

All life would be precious to them.

That's a really bold claim. As the only sapient species we can draw for comparison, we largely don't respect life even when it comes to our own species, let alone the graveyard of entire biomes of species we found inconvenient to the placement of our strip malls. If our space faring age is led by people like Musk and Bezos, expect generational labor camp colonies and being born into company stores you can't escape.

I hope the majority of space faring civilizations out there have more respect for life than us, but that's not a high bar. Our most advanced technologies are born out of a desire to kill one another. Power generation is a bonus we half assed upon harnessing the power of the atom explicitly to murder one another in greater numbers at once.

[–] ikanreed@mastodon.social 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@AllonzeeLV I think the basic logic is that if they're as bad as us, they don't make it past their own global environmental catastrophes.

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Yeah I actually edited that out right after submitting the comment, it does assume a lot.

I do think empathy in general grows in step with technological progress, if lagging behind a bit, and the chances of alien civ being benevolent are higher.