Your advisement if we discovered a less advanced Alien Culture?

[WolfOfOdin]

We had this discussion some years back in one of my classes, and thought it'd be nice to see what my adopted Intarwebz home thinks of it.

So, what would you guys do if, after we've perfected spaceflight and the like, we come across a less advanced alien species?

The overwhelming consensus in my class was :They're not human, take the minerals and either turn them into food or dust particles"

I now turn this over to you

 

[ElJuski]

I say, we create forms of ourselves as that race--let's call em avatars--and send them out to assimilate the alien culture from the inside out.

BOOSH!

 

[Rovewin]

If we were able to travel that far to actually find other life we would have plenty of other options for minerals, but this food concept does intrigue. Bring a few back to so they can [STRIKE]infest the earth[/STRIKE] be 'sampled' and just leave a few probes to study the rest

 

[Soliloquy]

We had this discussion some years back in one of my classes, and thought it'd be nice to see what my adopted Intarwebz home thinks of it.

So, what would you guys do if, after we've perfected spaceflight and the like, we come across a less advanced alien species?

The overwhelming consensus in my class was :They're not human, take the minerals and either turn them into food or dust particles"

I now turn this over to you

I'm curious: Where was this school, and what type of school was it? (Public? Private? Magnet? Parochial?)

 

[fade]

I say, we create forms of ourselves as that race--let's call em avatars--and send them out to assimilate the alien culture from the inside out.

BOOSH!

What if they're tasty? Then we could bring make organic skin suits for ourselves and then pretend to benevolently visit their planet, all the while harvesting them for food.

 

[Rob King]

Make peaceful contact, keeping in mind the possibility for the spread of disease on both sides of the racial divide. If they react poorly, back off and leave them be unless they become a threat. Considering we're still dealing with the implications of the Renaissance 400 years afterward, I feel like it might take a similar amount of time for our hypothetical alien race to adjust their worldview to include us outsiders.

Hell, for that matter we'll probably have the same culture-shaking readjustment to make.

 

[Gill Kaiser]

Leave them alone. Humanity has proven that it doesn't have sufficient forethought to make that kind of contact a good idea.

 

[North_Ranger]

Set up a covert outpost to study the aliens - that is, if they are at such as technical level their attempts at opening a hydraulic door will involve throwing sticks at it. Find out if their biosphere is one humans can survive in, get samples to study the effects of common cold or Antaresian Explosive Syphilis to establish whether one group will be wiped out by the others' diseases.

Mining and such permitted if and only if there is no contact with alien lifeforms (I'm thinking of mobile mining bases here). Dig and leave. Come back when they invent spaceflight.

Or the Finnish approach: Go greet them, get them drunk and see if they survive a sauna.

 

[blotsfan]

Don't fuck with them.

 

[WolfOfOdin]

The school this took place in? My College, Stockton, a public liberal arts college

 

[Soliloquy]

Mining and such permitted if and only if there is no contact with alien lifeforms (I'm thinking of mobile mining bases here). Dig and leave. Come back when they invent spaceflight.

If we mine all their resources, how can they be expected to develop spaceflight?

 

[Rob King]

Mining and such permitted if and only if there is no contact with alien lifeforms (I'm thinking of mobile mining bases here). Dig and leave. Come back when they invent spaceflight.

If we mine all their resources, how can they be expected to develop spaceflight?[/QUOTE]

Your doublethink is rusty, friend.

 

[Draxo]

Leave them alone. Humanity has proven that it doesn't have sufficient forethought to make that kind of contact a good idea.

x2

 

[Enresshou]

Leave them alone. Humanity has proven that it doesn't have sufficient forethought to make that kind of contact a good idea.

x2[/QUOTE]

Agreed. I'm in the same boat, and tend to agree with Carl Sagan's thought that, "...if life is found on Mars, even if it is microbial life, I believe we should leave it be. Mars is for the Martians."

 

[Necronic]

Are they hot?

 

[ThatGrinningIdiot!]

Make peaceful contact, keeping in mind the possibility for the spread of disease on both sides of the racial divide.

A little more research should be done before making statements like this.

 

[Allen who is Quiet]

Are they hot?

 

[Rob King]

Make peaceful contact, keeping in mind the possibility for the spread of disease on both sides of the racial divide.

A little more research should be done before making statements like this.[/QUOTE]

How do you mean?

 

[RocketGirl]

See, my answer is pretty simple: Try'n make friends.

I think that'd be AWESOME. I'd certainly want that if the positions were reversed.

'Course, we might still have to kill 'em, you know, if they got snarky or sumfin'. But...I'd try to make friends first.

 

[ThatGrinningIdiot!]

Make peaceful contact, keeping in mind the possibility for the spread of disease on both sides of the racial divide.

A little more research should be done before making statements like this.[/QUOTE]

How do you mean?[/QUOTE]

Bacteria and viruses evolved on a foreign planet would not be compatible with our genetic structure, unless it had an enviroment that closely mirrored our own.

 

[@Li3n]

Gift them some blankets... then come back when the pox killed them off...



But seriously, the only resources you couldn't just get way easier from dead planets etc. would be biological ones...


BlackCrossCrusader

Why would that matter so much for bacteria... one would think at least some would just be able to eat stuff from us if they're also carbon based.

 

[Shegokigo]

Genocide and slavery. Duh?

 

[ThatGrinningIdiot!]

Gift them some blankets... then come back when the pox killed them off...



But seriously, the only resources you couldn't just get way easier from dead planets etc. would be biological ones...


BlackCrossCrusader

Why would that matter so much for bacteria... one would think at least some would just be able to eat stuff from us if they're also carbon based.

Didn't I just say unless their enviroment mirrored our own?

 

[Iaculus]

I think we should descend over their major cities and wait for them to make contact before destroying anything that looks like a culturally-significant landmark (plus a few suburbs for good measure). Move on to the smaller settlements, rinse, repeat. For added fun, make sure that there's an easily-decipherable countdown to big-laser-death time.

The only problems I can see are that we would have to ensure that our computers' firewalls are up to date and our annihilation-beams have recently been redneck-proofed. Other that, just sit back, laugh, and shoot that green shit at them until they give up. Then ??????, then profit.

 

[ThatGrinningIdiot!]

Augh, I hate my stupid internet connection!

 

[Rob King]

Make peaceful contact, keeping in mind the possibility for the spread of disease on both sides of the racial divide.

A little more research should be done before making statements like this.[/QUOTE]

How do you mean?[/QUOTE]

Bacteria and viruses evolved on a foreign planet would not be compatible with our genetic structure, unless it had an environment that closely mirrored our own.[/QUOTE]

While I understand what you're saying, I seriously doubt we would have complete protection. Sure, viruses would look at us strange life forms and not be able to figure it out for a bit, [Ian Malcolm]but life ... finds a way[/Ian Malcolm]. If nothing is ready to jump on us the day we arrive, it won't be long before something evolves to.

Besides, it won't kill anyone to be careful. But it just might kill us not to.

 

[RealBigNuke]

Spend all day hovering out above their most rural areas and steal some farm animals or abduct, probe, and then return one of their farmers every year or two. Oh, and draw funny shapes in their food.

I mean, it's what all the aliens do it to us, right? We should pay it forward.

 

[Dusty668]

I say put something big and shiny in polar orbit, when they come up and sniff at it, it esplodes before they get to it. Then something across their system starts shining and sending out radio/laser calls.

They get to it and...
...it esplodes. At this point something 50 system diameters away starts howling. They get there and, there's a map to where we'll meet them.

Either we meet a friend, or we have a enemy with a decent chance to take us on. Either way, good times.

 

[ThatGrinningIdiot!]

Make peaceful contact, keeping in mind the possibility for the spread of disease on both sides of the racial divide.

A little more research should be done before making statements like this.[/QUOTE]

How do you mean?[/QUOTE]

Bacteria and viruses evolved on a foreign planet would not be compatible with our genetic structure, unless it had an environment that closely mirrored our own.[/QUOTE]

While I understand what you're saying, I seriously doubt we would have complete protection. Sure, viruses would look at us strange life forms and not be able to figure it out for a bit, [Ian Malcolm]but life ... finds a way[/Ian Malcolm]. If nothing is ready to jump on us the day we arrive, it won't be long before something evolves to.

Besides, it won't kill anyone to be careful. But it just might kill us not to.[/QUOTE]

Wrong again!

Life also chooses the simplest way to exist. Assuming they have the capabilities to metabolize the nutrients from the indigenious inhabitants, evolving a method to consume our cells would be risky, wasteful, and time consuming. As long as their food source remained abundant, bacteria will continue on as usual.

What you really want to be afraid of is any interaction between the bacteria WE bring and the bacteria already present.

 

[SpecialKO]

See, my answer is pretty simple: Try'n make friends.

I think that'd be AWESOME. I'd certainly want that if the positions were reversed.

'Course, we might still have to kill 'em, you know, if they got snarky or sumfin'. But...I'd try to make friends first.

I agree with this.

No one says we can't kill 'em later if they get too frisky.

And not in a good way.

 

[Green_Lantern]

Hardly there would be any need to mine the place, but if it was necessary, I would say to try peacefull contact after sometime analising they culture.

If there is no need to set foot on the planet I would suggest to just... not do it, the sheer chaos caused by a peacefull contact would likely to cause more harm than good.

 

[strawman]

Pretty sure that the only way we're going to find another living species is by finding that their planet is in the way of our hyperspace route and must be destroyed.

Of course we'll destroy it, but only after posting notice in the hyperspace lane authority 30 days prior.

 

[phil]

I guess it depends on how less advanced we're talking. I've been watching the shit out of Stagate SG1 on hulu, so when I initially read the prompt I thought of human like creatures that are simply less advanced technologically, as if in the dark ages or even cavemen or something. If that were the case, I'd want to help them and perhaps bring them up to a level similar to our own. Certainly not all at once, and not in a way that could bite us in the ass, but we could educate them, introduce modern medicine and stuff in exchange for resources.


If it's an animal life I'd probably want to leave them alone, or at least like any other wild animal we would encounter on earth. I'd want to impede their evolution and habitat as little as possible.

Even lower forms of life like bacteria or something I'm not sure how I would feel about our messing with them. Certainly I could understand experiments to determine if they're safe to be around and if they have any use to us. Otherwise I'd say treat it like we would anything else of the same level.

 

[Allen who is Quiet]

I guess it depends on how less advanced we're talking. I've been watching the shit out of Stagate SG1 on hulu, so when I initially read the prompt I thought of human like creatures that are simply less advanced technologically, as if in the dark ages or even cavemen or something. If that were the case, I'd want to help them and perhaps bring them up to a level similar to our own. Certainly not all at once, and not in a way that could bite us in the ass, but we could educate them, introduce modern medicine and stuff in exchange for resources.


If it's an animal life I'd probably want to leave them alone, or at least like any other wild animal we would encounter on earth. I'd want to impede their evolution and habitat as little as possible.

How would you be able to tell the difference?

 

[Philosopher B.]

Share sexual positions with 'em.