Would an alien race necessarily be pro-social

Great Debates
1

Assume there are aliens, if they exist would they be a pro-social species, and would those pro-social attitudes extend to life on this planet?

I am assuming no species would develop the level of technical sophistication necessary for interstellar travel unless they had pro-social tendencies. Those devices cannot be built in isolation, as far as I know. You need millions of organisms working together as a society for long periods of time to achieve that goal. You have to respect the wants/needs of other people in your civilization to be advanced and big enough to eventually develop interstellar travel.

But social insects are pro-social, however they won’t hesitate to attack an outsider. And humans are no different we are pretty adept at shutting off our pro-social attitudes at the edges of the society we identify with and depend on for protection.

According to computer models, the best survival model is one where organisms cooperate, unless and until one becomes a threat or a welcher (these work better than everyone for himself models or models where people are too nice that they get taken advantage of). Then that organism who is cheating or a threat is punished and/or shunned. Wouldn’t that rule apply across the universe? Would most technologically advanced species have developed a pro-social attitude, but they turn it off when individuals threaten the collective or are not important to it?

On another note, I’ve heard humans are more egalitarian than some other apes, and it could be because we evolved to throw stones. As a result of this, no alpha male could bully all the other males in a small tribe. If one did, the others would gang up and beat him to death. This led to the selection of egalitarian traits in hunter gatherer societies. With the advent of agriculture the opposite happened and bullies could roam free again since they controlled the military and police. So I have no idea if an alien species had this in their background. What if humans had evolved from babboons (who are generally assholes) rather than going through a phase of egalitarian hunter-gatherers in our history?

Wouldn’t a species capable of interstellar travel also be capable of advanced neuroscience, and as a result change their own brains to become whatever is productive based on their goals? It is obvious that we as humans are still relying on failed cognitive programming that worked in our past environment but doesn’t work now (xenophobia, eating unhealthy diets, not taking risks like climate change seriously while freaking out over spiders, being easily distracted by celebrities and wedge issues, religious superstition, etc).

Would an alien race be benefited by programming themselves to be capable of extreme evil in the face of outsiders? Or would there be more benefits from programming pro-social tendencies into their brains? If an alien species could program and reprogram their minds, what kind of ethics and morals would they pick and how would that relate to contact with the humans?

So aside from evolution affecting possible alien behavior, there is also the reprogramming of cognition by aliens. Any species advanced enough to travel across space would be advanced enough to rewire their own brains (or whatever they have). Are there any reasonable benefits to aliens intentionally making themselves hostile to other intelligent life?

On the subject of aliens being hostile, I can’t really see many motives. What do we have that they want? Would they keep us as slaves? Machines are more productive than slaves and aliens have nothing to gain from enslaving us. Our natural resources are dwarfed by the natural resources a truly advanced civilization could find in the galaxy not to mention make themselves out of fusion. Any hyper advanced society has probably perfected fusion and by proxy alchemy, the ability to make any element out of (abundant) hydrogen. So our natural resources mean nothing.

If they find our atmosphere hospitable (which would be a major coincidence) they would probably know how to terraform a different planet.

The only realistic reason I could see them being hostile to humans is if aliens wanted to study biology and preserve biodiversity, and saw humans as a threat to the biological life on this planet. Humans are causing a 6th extinction right now, so if an alien race was interested in preserving biodiversity, I could see them killing us all. Aside from that I can’t see any real reason aliens would be dicks.

2

The Europeans who sailed to North America in the 16th and 17th centuries were technologically far ahead of the North American aborigines, and very well developed culturally and philosophically. They didn’t need to be dicks to the native peoples … but they slaughtered them. They also enslaved them and tried very hard to stamp out their cultures and traditions. The natural resources and land could very likely have been shared comfortably, but genocide and aggression suited the white explorers and immigrants more than negotiations and diplomacy.

Why would intelligent aliens be more altruistic than our planet’s most forward thinking nations? We are warlike … why wouldn’t aliens be the same?

3

As far as I know, “slaughter” wasn’t universal. It’s also not really a similar situation. There is a limited amount of land and resources on the planet and Europeans were driven by a desire for those things, not some kind of bloodlust. If the aliens came from Mars, I could see why they might decide slaughter on Earth is the way to go. But otherwise, what would be the point?

4

The visiting alien ship might be populated by a single individual who is the last survivor of his/her/its species because he/she/it killed them all.

Ref: Gallaxhar.

5

True, but I just realized that we are getting better, if suddenly a new continent would appear any nation that would attempt to follow the lead of the Spaniards of the past with the native population would be put behind the 8 ball like South Africa was by insisting on continuing with their Apartheid policies in the 20th century.

While there had been more recent ugly incidents like Iraq, the trend is to discourage aggression, although I do not expect to see a complete eradication of abuses like that in my lifetime I do think we will eventually learn how costly is not to negotiate and use diplomacy, because the alternative takes care of the OP’s dilemma.

I guess I will go for what others concluded is likely: We are bound to see a pro social alien race because otherwise they would had killed themselves long time before thinking it would be important to reach for the stars.

6

Not if they’re Nietzscheans.

7

My mother was an adult during the years Hitler was in power. We were once talking about the Nazis, and I asked her how the rest of the world could not have known what was going on there. She responded that there had been rumors, but nobody believed them, because Germany had been one of the most “civilized” and “technologically advanced” countries on the earth.

If such a country could have produced the Holocaust, I don’t think we can assume anything about an alien race, neither good nor bad.

And don’t forget: *“It’s a cookbook!”
*

8

Aliens would have motives that they both engineered into their own brains due to their neuroscience being advanced, and whatever motives were evolved in them via natural selection.

Comparing this scenario to the world of the 17th century isn’t applicable. Nor is comparing it to 1930s Germany. The motives in these situations is not the same, nor is the method of achieving those motives (why would aliens want our land or resources, there is infinite land and resources in the universe).

I’m assuming any alien species would be pro-social, but that doesn’t mean they would be humane. I might be confusing the two terms. Humans can be humane (not always though). We can extend our empathy for not only those who are outside the social group, or those who threaten it or us, but also to different species. I don’t know if an alien species would do that.

We humans are warlike, and we’ve had the ability to make the earth uninhabitable for the last 70 years or so via nukes. It will (as a guess) be 100-200 years before we master inter-stellar travel. So any species that was ‘too’ prone to war might not make it through that kind of period of having the tech to destroy themselves.

9

In Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar series, the Lizards invade Earth and try to conquer humanity, not because they appear to have any particular need or use for either that would justify the expense of interstellar warfare, but because of a cultural predisposition. The Race must rule.

10

They might be somewhat less pro-social than humans, but still just barely social enough to achieve industrialization and avoid nuclear extinction. Humans sometimes seem to push up against the boundaries of supportable anti-social behavior, but there might be some wiggle room toward the outside of the bell curve.

If cats had thumbs…

11

Your presumptions aren’t necessarily any more accurate than mine. By the way, my mother’s family went through the Nazi occupation and concentration camps in Germany and France, also. The polite, technologically developed, scientific, erudite, and philosophic Germans weren’t so nice during that period.

What evidence do you have, besides imagination, that any intelligent race would be more altruistic than the Chinese have been to the Tibetans, or the Russians to the Afghans? I don’t see your reasoning that advanced aliens will be liberals, Democrats, and pacifists. Only some modern nations tend that way.

12

Morning-Light-Mountain: “There is only one Universe and it can only contain one life. Me.”

13

Whether it’s a fairy tale or history book, the bible does not talk of friendly alien visitors or positive cohabitation on the planet.

Genesis says the half human offspring of angels where aggressive giants that caused the earth to be filled with violence. Their fathers. angels that took human form, are also condemned as a corrupting influence. So much so the earth had to be cleansed.

Even if it’s a fable, our ancestors did not write optimistic about alien settlers.
PS Don’t Democrats bomb and drone civilians just like Republicans do?
I would certainly hope visiting aliens to be just pacifists and nothing more.

14

Firstly, by the time a species is interstellar it’s likely they will have full mastery of genetic engineering and/or AI (these look like far more tractable problems that FTL). I don’t think we’ll be encountering an organism acting largely instinctively. Why keep behaviours that are a hindrance in the current environment?

So, we can look at things logically, and doing that it’s hard to see the rationale for “Exterminate! Exterminate!”.
Given how long the universe has been around for, every species the romulans will encounter will be either vastly more advanced, or vastly less advanced.

Wiping out the latter is just a waste of time and energy: there’s plenty of space to go round, and the primitive species are no threat. Of course maybe they know better than me. But at this time, I see no more reason for them to do that than go from planet to planet painting every blue object yellow.

OTOH attacking a vastly more advanced species will be suicide. Or at the least utterly futile.

</my stock responses>

15

What motivates the Chinese, Russians or Germans? It is a mix of xenophobia, tribalism, demand for land, demand for natural resources, the spread of ideology (some thinkers consider memes to be viruses, and us humans to be mere vectors for the memes to replicate and spread themselves), the desire to assert military power to other nations, etc.

Our natural resources and land mean nothing to aliens, I see no reason they’d care. Is it possible they would exterminate us because we don’t believe in alien Jesus? Possible, yes.

I don’t see what we have that would make the aliens ‘want’ to harm us. Assuming aliens are motivated by incentives like we are, what incentive do they have to harm us? Aside from maybe they want to protect the biodiversity of life I can’t see any reason.

16

In my experience, particularly peaceful, and additionally naive, people tend to have trouble processing the mindset of warlike groups. When guns are discussed, many folks that are fearful of guns and nervous regarding the safety of society in general, will equate violence with ignorance and stupidity … the poor ignorant and drug addicted will use guns, as will the stupid, simple-minded white conservative bigots.
The really dangerous folks with guns are organized criminals and armed forces. They will always be a bigger threat to the peace of the world than petty criminals or rednecks. These groups tend to be clever, well educated, and on the cutting edge of technology.

I’m not getting, from all information available to me at this time, how logical= peaceful. This isn’t Star Trek. We probably won’t be meeting the Vulcans.

17

Again, why do they go to war? If natural resources is not an issue, aliens have nothing to gain from enslaving us, then what motives would they have to declare war on us?

I wouldn’t say that logical = peaceful, but I will say that an advanced species should be capable of reprogramming their minds however they see fit. But again, it would still be goal oriented behavior. Unless aliens have something to gain by being hostile, I don’t see why they would be hostile.

There is also (and this is a stretch) maslow’s hierarchy. As technology advances people go from surviving day to day to focusing on self actualization. Ideally, a life of leisure and self actualization should make people more humanitarian. I think this trend is obvious in the way that our cultural and political evolution has paralleled our technological evolution. Granted, it isn’t perfect but the world today is far less violent than 300 years ago. Something similar may (or may not) exist in alien worlds.

18

No, they’ll be much more different than that.

Most people nowadays can appreciate why the idea of aliens coming here to “take our women” makes no sense at all. But now supposedly they will be like the conquistadors.

But it’s still nonsense. Humans are largely driven by instinct, but interstellar species are unlikely to be because they will most likely have full control of their genome and neurology.

I gave some suggestions. Being warlike is a liability: either a waste of time or risking self-destruction (whether the destruction comes from without or within).

19

I think you’re coming at this problem like a diplomat and a conservationist. Scientists presumably will be able to improve a species through genetics or some other means, granted; but scientists also developed the A-Bomb, the H-Bomb, nerve agents and biological weapons.

There was a sci-fi short story, I’ve forgotten the title, where a couple of older ladies are discussing the advent of giant aliens visiting the Earth. One of the ladies notices that, while mostly ignoring Earthlings, the giant aliens are beginning to disperse clouds of gas all over the planet. The last few lines of the story, they are in a garden and the one lady sees her friend spraying her plants with a atomizer. She asks, “What is that, plant food?” Her friend answers, “No, it’s pesticide.”
Aliens won’t need to be violent, and I doubt we’ll ever know what resources they value that we might posses. If they can get here from other star systems to visit us, they may just exterminate us with no more thought than give when we poison rats.

20

They developed these things because human nature has not changed. We’re still violent, tribal.
Given the choice though, nowadays, we’d rather not be. Behaviours like that are a liability once a species gets to their equivalent of 20th century technology (or indeed earlier).

Given the earth’s size, it’s doubtful that there are resources we have in useful quantities. About the only thing of worth are the things which are unique here: the organisms and culture, if the visitors are curious.

As for “they might exterminate us, like we exterminate rats”, well, they might come here and commit suicide. Some humans do that.
We don’t know for sure what they will do. All we can say is which behaviours appear to make sense at this time, and which do not.

The analogy with rats doesn’t work as rats are many orders of magnitude more of a threat to us than we would be to an interstellar species. Again, given the universe’s age, most interstellar species we would expect to be at least millions of years more advanced than humans.