OK, looks like I misunderstood as well. This is a slightly different question than whether a “moral right” exists in the first place.
I think we would argue that the resources on a planet inhabited by a sentient species are the property of that species, even if the species does not yet have the technology to make use of those resources. We would argue that the federation should have a rule against forcibly taking resources from other species to promote intergalactic peace (because humans may at some point be able to visit the alien planet and may then seek revenge).
These are of course just arguments made to try and get our way–there’s still no “moral right” involved.
So force is all that matters? In that case, I’ll be over soon, you got nice stuff I’ll bet. :eek: Seriously though is really how you view the world? I’ll grant that rights and moral truths are both subjective and malleable, but surely some basic principles are derived from our shared human nature. Nearly every culture has some variation on the golden rule after all.
Just thought of something else (in line with my “avoidance of intergalactic violence” plea above): we could argue that other planets will find out what they are doing, and some of those planets may have the technology to harm the aliens.
We could also go full retard on the violence idea by swearing to seek vengeance in a few thousand years (which could prompt a pre-emptive strike against us if their commitment to not hurting us isn’t so strong after all).
There is such a power imbalance in that scenario that it doesn’t really matter what answer we give.
People are comparing this scenario to colonialism, but perhaps a better comparison would be, for instance, to the “rights” of the creatures that inhabit a block of land on which a human being wishes to build a house. Because compared to an alien species that can do the things described in the OP, we are animals. (Talking animals, yes, but whatever. Considering the majority of the stuff that actually gets said, I’d hesitate to describe the ability to talk as an indicator of significant intellect. Cite: talk radio.)
We have laws to protect endangered species, and humans can get in big trouble for cruelty to animals, but when a mining company builds an oil rig, we don’t negotiate with the fish for property rights. Nor do we pay them for the use of “their” resources.
In the OP’s scenario, I’d say that homo sap is getting something very valuable out of the deal: a lesson. I’d ask them for a decent general history of their civilisation, translated into Earthish, because we have a lot to learn. As it is, I wouldn’t want the human species to be zooming around the galaxy with powerful weapons any more than I’d want, say, a family of chimpanzees with submachine guns to move into my backyard.
If we can get to a comparable point of civilisation to them, then we’d have earned the right to be treated as equals. Demanding that they give us stuff that we’re clearly too uncivilised to have come up with by ourselves… well, we wouldn’t give guns to chimps, would we? That’d be crazy.
Remember that we are talking about interactions between people that are not members of the same society. In that situation, yes, force is all that matters. There’s no “ought” here.
You and I are members of the same society (assuming you are in the US). In addition to the laws against theft we have in our society, I am willing to accept the existence of an “ought” for members of society (i.e., that members of a society ought to comply with the rules of that society, both written and unwritten). I think the basis for this “ought” is the definition of society and the voluntariness of society membership (i.e., membership in the society is a social contract to abide by the rules of the society). This gets more complicated because of the different types and levels of society (again, the voluntariness issue–choosing to leave the New York Friends of the Library isn’t such a big deal, but choosing to renounce your US citizenship is). So, I think that the NYFotL can have fairly stringent and arbitrary rules that members must follow, but the US needs to not have such detailed rules for all members to follow.
But their heirs, assigns and successors will be alive. This isn’t a declaration of war, it’s a invitation to participate in a lawsuit. You seem to be making this all up as you go along! If you had said that they would respond to purely paper attempts to assert jurisdiction with extinction of humans, then I wouldn’t have suggested it. I merely invited them to come to court to discuss it like civilized people. They can come and discuss it, ignore it or start war. You decide that they will start war. All I’m doing is passing around paper so that when the tables are turned we won’t be like black people asking for reparations, we will already have them in place. With interest!
I take your point, But I need another of clarification. If I understand you correctly, you are fine with the idea of me going to another country, beating up a lot of people, and taking their stuff merely because they are weaker and not part of the same social contract as myself?
Well, if you do that, I don’t think you’ve violated some “moral right” of those people not to get beaten up, and you haven’t done anything immoral (i.e., you have not done something that you should not do). There’s no “ought” applicable to this situation. That action is something you can do if you want to.
Now, it has practical implications for you, and for the society of which you are a part, so our society may have rules against you doing that. I could even see some argument that you’ve violated the unwritten rules of our society (and so therefore ought not do that). But if our society is, say, the Vikings, then that would be out the window.
First, I send Oakminster et al some Apple notebooks and some manuals.
Second, I point out that the need to mine Earth suggests that other planets/corporations are not self-sustainable, and cannot utilize certain resources without trade. This addresses/undercuts the argument that property rights are in any way connected to ability to use a resource.
Third, I would base property rights on simple possession. I am taking for granted that by negotiating with us, the aliens recognize that as the (dominant) sentient life on the planet, in a universe ostensibly made up of sentient beings ‘owning’ the resources of their planets. (Clearly this is an assumption, but if the aliens’ version of property rights is so … alien … than all bets are off thread-wise.)
Fourth, I’d note that absent a mutually accepted currency, trade is based on each party giving up a set of goods it deems less (or equally) valuable than the set of goods it is receiving. The key is that each entity parts with a set of goods it is willing to completely forgo access to.
So, because we are in ostensible possession of the planet–and by extension the planet’s resources, and because it is a recognized principle that entities trade for what they do not have access to–and trade items that they are willing to sacrifice/give up, it follows that we Earthlings should be able to expect a reasonable trade of some resource we deem valuable in return for a resource we cannot at this time use. Whether the trade is for the items necessary to make the resource useable or something else is not germane–suffice as to say trade takes place.
That there is no world-government at the moment should not be relevant. An administrative/negotiating body could be established, as could a benefit-distribution scheme. There may be squabbling, but that is not an inherent block to negotiations. Also, a group of miners making competitive bids should be enough to secure reasonable terms (absent collusion, etc.) and protect all parties’ interests.
Lastly, I would note that in th—OAKMINSTER, HIT IT NOW!!!
And if they don’t, I say we wipe the stinkin’ commies out.
Why should we take their word for it? It is in their financial interest to convince us that the stuff they want is worthless so that we won’t put up much of a fight when they come and take it.
Your plan is, of course, merely a distraction, and I will be happy to provide munitions and such from my arsenal, though I of course shall relocate to Oz during the “negotiations.” But I have a question. In what sense is humanity in possession of the Marianas trench?
They have FTL and impenetrable-to-nukes force shields. This also seems to imply armaments that could wipe us out. It’s plausible to me that they simply have moral objections to genocide; even so, fighting’s not gonna work.
I’d respond by saying we are not in “possession” of it – it just happens to be on Earth. We literally can not trade ‘it’ because we do not hace it in our possession, nor could we get it if we tried because it is NOT accessible to us. The closest earth law analogy would be mineral rights to a property.
Next, the property itself. Does any nation currently lay claim to the Marianas Trench? Is it within the territorial waters of the Marianas Islands? If so, it would be up to that government to make whatever deal it could.
As to the UN “owning” it, I would think that many of the Member states, ESPECIALLY the US, would take issue with this.
However, if all these talks of negotiations are in fact a cover for a Nuclear Armed Charge of the Light Saber Brigade, by all means carry on. We humans will be destroyed, but in the long run that’s probably better for the dolphins and cockriaches, who will competing for the top job when it becomes vacant.
Again, HOW to accept/distribute the payment is irrelevant to the question at hand.
The fact that we currently have no planetary body that could take care of this sort of thing does not mean we couldn’t create one. If someone wanted to give me lots of money by PayPal, what am I gonna say? “Sorry, I don’t have a PayPal account” or “Gimme a minute to set up a PayPal account?”
The matter of disbursement on a planetary level is more complicated, but the U.N. could just set up an escrow account in the meantime.
An escrow account for what? These aliens aren’t going to have any form of human currency.
The real questions would be: how valuable is this dilithium to the aliens ( which we can’t really know), and what do we want for it (which we can’t really know either, because we don’t know what they have).
For the moment, let’s think about what we could get that we already have a value for. About the only products I can think of are rare minerals or chemicals. How do we put, say, 5 tons of gold into the world gold market without destroying the market? And for all we know, they have a machine that converts dogshit to gold, which would be a cool thing to trade for in itself, but would also destroy the gold market.
Maybe we can trade for knowledge. Probably a winner deal for the aliens, they can give us plans for their thousand year old verion of the Yugo, and we’d be happy as clams. But you can’t really divvy up knowledge in a useful way. In a case like this, we won’t understand it well enough to divvy it up. Most likely, either everyone gets it all, or maybe the ones who don’t go to war with the ones who do.
No, I think the best appraoch is what they used to tell ‘proper ladies’ about sex: “lay back and think of England”. Just use the whole event to learn what we can about the greater galaxy, and hope they don’t give us Galactic Crabs.