So I thought I might curate some Great Debates that have nothing to do with current events but are more ethics and science fictional in nature. If it goes well, I have more.
Situation:
Humanity has achieved faster than light travel. Ships are small but fast so no Star Destroyers or Enterprises.
What is our ethical position vis-a-vis discovering new civilizations that have not gotten into their equivalent of low-earth orbit? Do we have an ethical duty to assist an alien civilization into interstellar space? Do we not? If so, why or why not?
My jumping off point here is Jack McDevitt’s ‘Academy’ series of books. In them, humanity has interstellar capability but civilizations are few and far between, most having collapsed in the past. But one active, technological civilization is stuck in a world war - and has been for a very long time - with a tech level of World War I. It may be that this civilization is incapable of advancing further and the Academy decides to not interfere.
It may be, given our history, that less-developed societies implode on contact with a more developed one. But that is offset, perhaps, with whatever good we might do by creating new interstellar partners. Or it could be that the risk of creating a competitor might be considered too great.
So what are the ramifications? You’re in charge of the world council. Exploration ships have located a civilization that is not yet capable of space travel and may or may not be warlike. Do you order first contact or do you avoid it and allow the new civilization to develop as it may?
If interstellar space travel is “easy” – i.e. it’s not just big governments who can do it, but small countries/corporations and even wealthy private citizens – then contact is inevitable, since at some point someone’s going to try to do it for reasons of profit, curiosity, etc. So we should try to contact these civilizations with some sort of careful organization, study, and planning, lest some idiot or asshole does it and makes things worse.
It such travel is not easy, then we can wait. But at some point it probably will become easy, and thus the above.
It sounds like an interesting book. So I appreciate the recommendation.
I think overall I would say that we should intervene assuming we can do so safely. It doesn’t really help to land on the planet and spread space smallpox to the population and wipe them out.
Andy, that doesn’t really answer the ethics question, though. Bending to the inevitable doesn’t cope with the whys and wherefores.
Would we do more harm than good? In the Academy series interstellar travel is not unaffordable for the wealthy but it is tightly controlled. So freebooters aren’t really a thing yet.
I think we would probably do more harm than good (we’re humans, after all), but perhaps we could set up some process through which contact could be gradual and controlled.
If all we have achieved is FTL travel, then I think the answer is we’d need to be cautious in approaching other, less developed civilizations and probably need a lot of observation before any realistic decision is made on a case by case basis. If our other technological development in other fields, especially bio-tech and genetic engineering, then I’d say we’d have a lot more to offer to lower developed alien civilization, but I think the same caution would be in order…need to observe them for a time, study not only their biology but also their culture and civilization, and determine if contact might be beneficial to them on a case by case basis, then proceed slowly.
It will depend on what level their civilization is at wrt technology, and what we can or could, realistically, do for them. Isaac Arthur did a video series on uplifting lower developed species that’s pretty good, and I agree it’s something we should do…but in such a way as to actually help the species in question, not destroy their culture and civilization.
If physical contact of any kind is made, i.e. home human-made vessel or artifact enters the alien atmosphere even briefly, that may be destructive contact in itself. The real explorers/colonists won’t be us, but whatever microbes have gone along for the ride, and certainly that vessel or artifact can never be allowed back in into our environment. Ethics aside, contact with anything more than radio transmissions is potentially devastating.
Contact with a lesser developed civilization, no matter how benign or well meaning, will destroy the culture of the lesser developed one. So the question that has to be answered is, do we* need* to contact them? Is our judgement so correct that we must destroy the current civilization? Are they so bad that we need to step in?
Without arguing about specifics, when a third or fourth world people encounter the first world and that improved style of living, health, economy, do they wish to remain tribal and impoverished? The answer from our experience here on Earth is no.
The lesser developed may wish to keep many facets of their culture, but in the end the more developed culture will over ride them. Exploratory civilizations tend to be aggressive and conquering. It is in the nature of exploration.
Wagon Train in Space (Star Trek) realized this with their Prime Directive, which was routinely ignored.
Contact will change their culture and possibly eliminate it altogether. Is it necessary?
It’s interesting that everyone seems to be assuming that “capable of space travel” and “more advanced” are synonymous.
Maybe the other culture would think we’re “less advanced” because we fight each other. Or because we worry so much about what we look like. Or because we can’t klevoar!ch, and don’t even seem to have developed the concept.
Disease transmission would be a concern in both directions, wouldn’t it? Unless, of course, the non-space-travelling society is advanced in some direction that makes disease transmission no longer a concern for them.
At the time of the discovery of this alien civilization how are the “hoomans” treating each other? Do the rich still exploit the poor? Are there still underprivileged minorities? How have we handled the environment?
How we treat each other would be a good indicator as to how we would treat a new group of outsiders so unless our society has made great leaps forward, my suggestion would be a total ban from all contact with the newbies.
I might note that there’s a large difference between reaching a lapsed human civilization and finding aliens.
So much of what we humans consider “ethical” is actually tied to our biology. An alien species could work a completely different way and consider something we consider abhorrent to be ethical:
a. A species where organs can be easily swapped and used to add significant lifespan might routine kill the lower social status individuals in favor of extending the lives of the higher status.
b. All sex could be rape, ducks style (on earth ducks apparently can only reproduce via rape)
c. The death penalty could be practiced routinely for any voluntary act that is a crime
d. A species with direct neural links might actually just have their olders members “imprint” their knowledge and personalities on their younger members. This would be normal and individuals you communicate with would be thousands of years old even if individual bodies live a hundred.
And these are just a few of the things that would be possible.
So “meddling” in their affairs, given that we would be applying our own sense of ethics to a species completely incompatible, would likely be a bad thing. And sharing more advanced technology with them would also be un-good.
“Hello - we are not gods. Let me say that again - we are NOT gods.
We don’t have much interest in your ideological arguments, unless they posit that folks from other worlds should be killed, in which case, we’re out of here. We will trade you items that you can’t quite make yet, but which aren’t magical to you, in exchange for art work and cultural items. After a few years to see how that goes, we’ll discuss changing the rules. Have a nice day.”
Or, to paraphrase my recollection of Dave Barry, “hardy American settlers in the New World found vast expanses of land into which they could expand, which were occupied by no one. Unless you counted Native Americans, which hardy American settlers did not.”
Because we’re the ones being given the choice here. The found civilization we’re discussing is about 1800s at best. They’ve no real ability to know we’re out here looking down and checking them out.
On the other hand, would it be different if it were say, 500s equivalent? Or 500BC?
Think of the deaths that could be prevented through the simple application of basic sanitation, much less modern medicine or vaccinations (presuming such work in an alien eco-system…which I’m willing to postulate).
What responsibility do we bear, as a more advanced society, for failing to prevent those deaths? What do we owe to those weaker and less scientifically advanced than ourselves?
Since the original post says “Science Fiction Debate,” I’ll throw in some SF examples to show my point.
The first is from Star Trek: there was one episode where they were shown to be easing the culture technologically ahead gradually, while another race (can’t remember if it was Klingons or Romulans) tried to have them jump about 500 years technologically to their advantage. I agree with the former; if there’s a way to assist them without pushing them forward too far too fast, then I would attempt it.
That brings up the second, from The Orville: as the saying goes, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” (Also, “Any sufficiently arcane magic is indistinguishable from technology,” but that’s another story.) You have to be careful that the “improvements” aren’t considered magical, or worse, the work of gods (or demons, or witches).
Of course, there’s another question that needs to be answered first: how do we communicate with alien races? We can’t even be certain that our visible, or audible, spectrum of wavelengths is the same as theirs.
Depending on how effective we can travel and how populated the universe is, I think we may either not be interested enough in life on another planet to fuck with them, or we’ll be the ones who spread life and we’re monitoring these planets for when the intelligent life is capable of handling us socially, philosophically, etc…
Could also be that life is so exceptionally rare, that for us to find a planet with life that we didn’t put life on, then we may let that life naturally do it’s thing so we can see what may have happen during our development on earth. Then with planets we actually put life on, maybe we would be more inclined to fuck with them since we made them.
I guess this would come down to how we treat some wild animals in some areas. We don’t go into the jungle and try healing or helping a bunch of wild animals, we try to avoid it and let them live and die as they would normally without us interfering. Going into the jungle and picking a monkey up then taking it home to house and feed it can be seen as immoral or unethical. Perhaps the same can go for life on other planets.
