That’s right!
It is the best way to study them!
heh, there is always some bleeding heart xenobiologist who says alien abductions are wrong,
but at the end of the day, it is better than jumping straight in and disrupting their culture with unregulated contact.
Isn’t it?
If it were organized contact, which would be complete with vaccinations and immunizations, it’s highly unlikely they’d even be decimated (10%), much less obliterated (100%). But I think you meant their culture would be obliterated. As far as this goes, I don’t understand what’s so sacrosanct about culture anyway. Most of the culture that would be wiped out would be based on the needs of the people that would no longer exist…creating handmade weapons for hunting and defense. Gathering herbs and performing rituals for medical treatment that would either be less effective than modern science, or more effective and therefore absorbed into modern society. (Though we probably wouldn’t chant when drinking it.)
Look at any culture today and you could find countless aspects of that culture that had long since been abandoned. There is nothing inherently wrong with that.
What if they believe that Ra pulls the sun around the earth with a golden chariot? How can it possibly be wrong to show them the truth?
It is not right to exclude anyone. We don’t need to force anyone to do anything, but at least give them a choice. Explain the good and the bad of modern society, and let them decide what they want to do. Most of the history of humankind is progress. It’s a basic human desire to improve the quality of life. Why would they be any different?
Also, the isolated patches of humanity have a severely limited population base. This not only stunts their ability to progress, but also severely limits their ability to adapt. What if a 3-year drought hits them? Let 'em starve, because it’s worse to eat at McDonald’s and wear Levi’s? Please.
The two examples are completely incompatible. The primitive society of the National Geographic example have one belief system and no ability (or desire?) to assimilate technological advances. (Without our intervention.) The primitive society that is Western Civilization is designed to accomodate myriad belief systems and embrace technological advancements. We could easily incorporate virtually any technology into our society without being obliterated. I mean, we’ve had nukes almost as long as cars, and we’re not obliterated yet. And on a smaller scale, we already have guns. How much more portable lethality could these aliens really give us? Biological weapons? Already got 'em.
And do you really think it would be a bad thing if this advanced race could explain to us how/why the universe began? Or explain quantum gravity? How would that undermine our culture?
As may be obvious, I say they should land immediately and hook us up. At least let them explain to us how they survive the radiation bath of space.
Ew, I don’t know.
Imagine how different the world would be today if we hadn’t made any significant contact with the Third World.
Remember that we don’t just give these peoples health care. We also share our weapons.
Ellis Dee…
Your points are valid.
However, there could be one huge threat to Western Civilization from meeting a vastly superior alien race. There is a possibility that it would have an effect on our drive to learn. Right now many scientists are striving to learn things never known before. If there was a contact with a much more advanced alien race then people could adopt a ‘why bother’ mentality.
Or not. Who knows.
Please. :rolleyes: Aside from the Americas and Australia “we” have been in contact with the “third world” forever.
First, for the actual case of whether we should intervening with the some primive tribe’s culture:
I definitely think we should leave them alone. Native populations that have come in contact with more advanced cultures (and not necessarily western ones) have rarely benifited as a people in any significant way from that contact. Most natives that died of foreign disease brought to their shores never had a chance to see their more “advanced” benefactors.
At best, native populations have survived contact. Their civilizations are destroyed, their social fabric destroyed, their culture marginalized or obliterated. The only places where natives aren’t complaining is where they have been whipped out or completely absorbed in a population that completely outnumbered them. Not a pleasant prospect. The few native populations that have had time to recover from their culture’s destruction now struggle to retake whatever they can of their traditional culture and language before it’s completely forgotten.
Advanced cultures have always found ways of justifying intervention in “primitive” cultures. Always there is the claim that it is for their own good. Some might even believe it. However, the interests of the powerful leave no room for people who have no way of comprehending the destruction of their culture.
Some examples:
Japan and the annexation of Okinawa and Hokkaido;
Korea’s division by the Soviet Union and the U.S.A.;
England hooking China on opium;
Spain and Portugal “civilizing” the Americas;
Rome pacifying the Gauls;
New Englanders bringing the word of the Lord to the natives, and a few new vices like alcohol;
The Canadian and Australian goverments removing native children from their uncivilized parents;
The Crusaders slaying the Infidel Easterners (even the Chritian ones!)
The Normans invading England;
Napoleon unifying Europe;
The list goes on and on. They all had the underlying idea that it was for the good of the people they were conquering or that their cause was morally just.
Offering them a choice is only a cop out. Does anyone seriously believe that a lone tribe in the Brazilian rain forest could comprehend the choice that would be given them? Or that we could adequately prepare them for the changes we would offer? If we offer them a choice between their bad culture and our good culture, then obviously they will choose our culture, right? If they choose to keep their culture, then obviously they have made the wrong choice. Should we then force the choice on them?
“Safe” or “organized” first contact is based on an enormous assumption: that science can resolve anything and that we are wise enough to predict and control the problems we would cause in the first place. Just look at industrial civilizations and their poor track record when it comes to long term thinking.
Disease have been mentioned several time in this thread already. Disease control is almost always after the fact. Industrialized nations are still reeling from cattle diseases that threaten some of their vital industries. Human diseases such as AIDS and SARS are just two example of diseases that industrialized nation still don’t control or understand. Native populations have not fared well with “after the fact” disease control. Imagine if SARS were to strike some recently discovered tribe. How would they fare? It took drastic measures here to protect our populations. What help would we provide them when we barely know the disease ourselves? There is no vaccine yet. Only “after the fact” treatment.
Look at Native Americans. Look at Africa. Look at the Austrialian aborigenes. How many lives and cultures have been sacrificed to benefit a few that could adapt.
I don’t mean that industrial civilizations are bad, but they are adapted to their problems. Dumping our problems on an unprepared culture is criminal.
Arguing that other cultures are not worth preserving is self-serving, to say the least. How about getting rid of your culture? Consider also that primitive cultures have proven to be reliable means of preserving the human species for thousands of generations. Industrial cultures have proven that they can destroy primitive cultures, not that they are a viable course for the human species in the long term.
“It’s all for their own good.” Wake up! The best thing we can do is leave them alone, not tell them how to live.
But what if they have a medical genius, who would have cured AIDS and SARS and cancer had she been brought up in a first world country with access to schools of higher learning, research grants, and state-of-the-art labs? Instead she is left in the primitive tribe where she impressively (no sarcasm) invents writing? Okay, that’s a poor argument.
To respond, I would have absolutely no problem giving up my culture. As long as there is personal freedom to pursue happiness, I could care less about…erm…what is my culture, anyway? Television? Movies? Music? I’m confused…do I have a culture to give up? I think of latin music as being cultural heritage, for example, but if you look at my MP3 collection, it’s a diverse collection of different styles of music. I’m an atheist, so I have no religious culture to call my own. As far as food goes, I like all sorts. (Except vegetarian…I require meat to be served in every meal…hehheh)
I guess it’s all about freedom. In every single example you cited, the more advanced civilation was not offering freedom. So as I see it, that’s the crux of the biscuit. What is the more advanced civilization planning to offer? Slave trade bad. Trade school good. Or advanced degrees in chemical engineering. Or whatever each individual is interested in.
And as far as the Romans pacifying Gaul, the vast majority of civilizations conquered were helped out and were proud to call themselves Roman. (Excepting the slaves, of course, but even a few of them earned their own freedom.)
I’m not saying we should conquer the tribes and take over their land. I’m saying we should send an anthropologist to greet and study them (with a truckload of medicine/vaccines/whatever) for, say, 10 years, and slowly introduce them to nifty concepts like electricity and running water.
If we are suddenly contacted by a race of intelligent snails who think they are specially chosed by the great Snail in the sky to gather all the stars together in the observable universe,
and create a single black hole which will never evaporate;
Alternatively if we allow a primitive alien culture to progress at its own rate, the primitives might develop a scientific cosmology radically different to our own,
and produce (for instance) a faster than light drive,
only because no-oneever introduced them to General Relativity…
could happen, you never know.
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
Build a faster than light engine and travel the galaxy without first noticing 6 billion people on their own planet? Hey, you never know.
And as far as contact with a superior alien culture goes, we should be wary; the aliens are likely to be much stranger than we can imagine at this moment in time, and might be psychologically far removed from mammalian primates;
a superintelligent plant, mollusc, fungus, ant hill, coeloanth might have a different approach to ethics and morality, including the elimination of potential rivals or of inefficient or rebellious workers.
There is a school of thought that superintelligent entities will converge in their aims, goals, ethics, morality and philosophy; however the level at which this convergence occurs is unknown, so you can’t ass-u-me that any particular advanced alien is already at this nirvana-like state.
It is more prudent to assume the worst until proven otherwise.
Thank you aliens for offering the knowledge of eternal life, artificial intelligence, and faster than light travel. However, I am sure that the introduction of such technologies would greatly disturb our culture. In fact, some of us may not even be able to adapt to it. To protect these people and our glorious culture I cannot accept the knowledge you offer. I will be content with my stupid peers, watching Jerry Springer and listening to Britney Spears, stuck in my happy little backwards mudball forever. But thank you for asking.
Sorry for the double post.
So far as human-alien social interaction is concerned, I recommend reading Terry Pratchett’s “Strata.” To summarize, humans don’t really understand how aliens think, and aliens really don’t understand us either. However, all the unknowns are put under a thin veneer of social etiquette, and the aliens are assumed to have pretty much our way of thinking, albeit a bit more bloodthirsty than we are.
surely eburacum45 you mean giant mutant killer ants and not snails ?? i find your theories of great interest… but shouldnt we be prepared for an iminent alien invasion ? I think we are being very nieve not preparing for an alien species to land on earth and turn us all into food… another thought is if we are invaded and we are to be used as food do you think the alien species would do a deal with us ? say we offered them all the criminals and social rejects in the world as food instead of us ‘normal’ humans do you think they would go for that ??
We may be facing this sort of ethical dilemma in the near future, if non-intelligent life is discovered on Mars;
There is no NASA policy or international protocol yet concerning the discovery of extraterrestrial life; soon we may need one.
Here are two PDF’S considering the situation from a moral and scientific standpoint;
http://www.seti.org/pdf/m_race_guidelines.pdf
http://www.seti-inst.edu/pdf/m_race_ethics.pdf
Three axioms defined in one of these links are of interest; faced with the discovery of extraterrestrial life of any kind, the most important considerations are considered to be the * Preservation, Stewardship and Intrinsic Worth* of the lifeforms concerned.
Some however consider that the preservation of extraterrestrial lifeforms, intelligent or non-intelligent, should be subordinate to the propagation of Terrestrial species and civilisation; it is important to remember that the expansion of terrestrial life into the universe is a respectable aim. If we find lifeforms on every terrestrial type planet this aim will be difficult to achieve without disturbing such lifeforms.
For this reason the policies of Preservation and Stewardship should be observed as far as possible, but if it is possible to remove any primitive ecosystems from a planet and preserve them in smaller, tailor-made environments, preservation could be possible while allowing the planet concerned to be developed for terrestrial life.
This procedure would certainly not be correct in the case of the discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life; any such society should be disturbed as little as possible, while being closely observed and recorded;
eventually it should be contacted and exposed to the full complexity of our terrestrial civilisation (whatever that may be like at the time);
but I am of the opinion that a series of representative samples of the local intelligent race should be extracted prior to that contact, and exposed to terrestrial culture at full strength to produce a group of beings capable of crosscultural interpretation.
This process could go on for decades or millenia before full contact is made.
This idea is partly based on the imaginings of present-day UFO ‘contactees’; the strategy allegedly followed by the imaginary aliens in the equally imaginary flying saucers would be a sensible one, if they didn’t keep allowing themselves to be ‘seen’. Hopefully future human explorers wouldn’t make such a pig’s breakfast of such an important issue.
I can see your point of view but i think we are all missing the point, its all well and good explaining what we should do if we discover alien life but what happens if ‘we’ have already been discovered and the alien beings are putting in place a plan to invade earth !
how would we cope ?
would their main purpose be to wipeout mankind ?
Do you think its wise to gather specimens of local intelligence to present to the alien beings ? dont you think it would be better to protect such humans as we might need their help to fight the alien race and therefore keeping the human race alive ?
If as you mentioned earlier a giant snail was to mess with our planet do you think the easiest way to foil this alien being would be massive amounts of salt airlifted and then dropped on the creature ???
Ellis Dee, you have an interesting point of view concerning the contact of Amazonian tribes, but your idealism doesn’t square with my own observations and experience.
First of all, the idea that these “uncontacted” tribes are also completely unaware of the civilization which surrounds them is probably unsupportable. They almost certainly have occasional contact with members of other tribes which do have contact with the outside world. Even if they don’t share the same language someone is going to show them a shotgun or a steel blade or a pair of underwear, and they will accurately conclude that someone else is out there who is capable of making things they can’t. Even if they somehow haven’t seen a foreign soul in the living memory of the tribe, they’ve almost certainly seen boats on the river, or found garbage floating downstream, or aircraft wreckage, or old campsites. They know we’re out there, or at least suspect it.
Then you’ve got to think about all those South American tribes we have contacted. Have they dropped their spears and followed the anthropologists out of the jungle? For the most part, no. Instead, most of them try to retain their old ways while at the same time facing increasing interference, exploitation, and encroachment. A good example might be the Yanomami people.
And finally, I need only to take a look at the people I work for, American Indian tribes, to know that they don’t have squat for freedom or opportunity now that they’re completely subjugated. We bought this country from them with the written promise of perpetual self-determination, but when tribes actually exercise that self-determination it is met with outrage by other Americans, and their sovereignty is steadily eroded. Once upon a time we tried to forcibly assimilate Indians into mainstream American culture. A good proportion of them went right back to being Indians at the first opportunity, but their original way of life is forever destroyed and that sense of loss hangs palpably over every aspect of their lives today.
We’re offering these uncontacted tribes the very best kind of freedom right now: we are leaving them alone. As I said, I think it’s highly likely that they already know something about us. If they really want to change their way of life, if they really want us to make contact with them, they’ll come to us. I don’t think they will. Rather, I think they’re hoping against hope that we won’t come to them.
I would hope that our little green friends out there see things the same way I do. We see a UFO here, a guy gets an anal probe there, our governments are acting kind of funny about the whole thing. Some of us suspect there might be someone out there keeping an eye on us. Well, dammit, if we really want to leave our quaint little culture behind all we have to do is trudge on over to Barnard’s star and ask for help. Otherwise, I hope they leave us alone, and free.
If it is the alien’s Manifest Destiny to wipe out the human race then it’s OK.
I think that society has the image of the noble savage who is in tune with nature and lives a happy and fulfilling life. Thus, any imposition we make must necesarily be a bad one. To be frank, I think that is bullshit.
The real condition that natives are in is that they are living in a brutal environment in which they are not certain how to get by day to day. Society is rigidly ritualized with little oppurtunity for advancement and theres little you can do if you were unlucky enough to be born as a woman.
In my mind, it would be cruel to leave them in that state for any longer than absolutely neccesary.
Let’s try a scenario:
Small tribe has no idea there is anyone else on the planet. We watch, study, document…but don’t contact/interfere. Then something happens to the tribe–bad harvest, no girls get born, all the boys kill each other in fights–that threatens the survival of the entire tribe. Do we intervene or let them “find their own destiny”?
The consensus that I’m getting here is that primitive civilizations would be better off with the knowledge of the more advanced culture, but the risk of disease and exploitation make contact a less than savory possibility.
Of course, with the former point, keep in mind that the odds of a disease that can survive in both us AND aliens is far less than the odds of humans catching Dutch Elm Disease.
I wonder if the possibility of a “learning machine” would provide an effective compromise. Such a machine would passively observe and provide knowledge, without carrying outside diseases or forcing change. Picture something like a TV on wheels, that can display improvements to the native’s technology. They don’t have to accept it, but it’s there for the taking.