Having evolved as a unified culture, the Alori have no qualms about "gently" (!) exterminating other intelligent species to appropriate their planets whereas human beings have learned through a history of conflict that it is necessary to respect all intelligence. The Alori are not a familiar kind of threat but they are a threat.
However, we have previously discussed this issue in:
- so let's call it a night!
Even what seems like just an action-adventure story by Poul Anderson is rich in significant issues and, unfortunately, this novel is very near the end of his Psychotechnic History which is about not only mankind in the universe but also mankind.
14 comments:
You may respect all intelligence, but that's no guarantee other intelligences will. Nor would human beings, IMHO.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
You beat me to saying something very similar. I was going to say I don't believe all human beings will always respect all intelligences. We also need to be wary about what other intelligent races might be like.
Ad astra! Sean
All human beings will never always do the same thing but cultural assumptions and attitudes can change profoundly and vary enormously.
The first and only certainty about aliens is that they will be alien and different from anything that we have imagined.
Paul: they'll be the product of an evolutionary history. And evolution is competitive. There's a reason we're the only surviving variety of hominid.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Exactly, all intelligent races had to be competitive to even survive to become intelligent. And they will be even more prone to being violent if they have Fallen.
Homo sapiens wiped out all the other hominids. Still wish the Neanderthals had survived. Or the "Hobbits" of Flores!
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: yes, but cultural change operates within limits set by the genetic nature of human beings.
I take two points:
any aliens will be an outcome of competitive evolution;
human beings have genetic limits.
However:
genetic limits include obvious physical points like we can't fly under our own power (also, we don't need to because no one organism can do everything and we have the ingenuity to design and build vehicles of various kinds; we have even proved that we can fly to the Moon);
unlike dogs, horses etc, our genetic make-up enables us to internalize and speak a language within our first two years; think; imagine; participate in a very wide range of different social milieus - we "learn" to be competitive or cooperative, xenophobic or tolerant, individualistic or sociable etc depending on the tone of the culture around us. (Very diverse cultures.) Some of us just conform whereas others have the capacity to question and criticize whatever is being presented to them. Thus, I think that genes place obvious physical limits but also enable a very wide range of psychological and social differences and that we have not come to the end of that yet. We are only just beginning.
Kaor, Paul!
Disagree, we are always going to remain flawed, imperfect, prone to strife/violence, etc. Because they are ineradicably a part of all of us, our protean enemy. Things which can only be managed, not eliminated.
Ad astra! Sean
Disagree for all the reasons already stated. (I don't know how merely repeating something establishes it!)
Kaor, Paul!
Except there is plenty of evidence for what I believe about human beings, and you have not convincingly presented evidence for your beliefs. I've only seen hope, speculation, etc., from you.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
What are you trying to do here? I have not convinced YOU of my beliefs. I have pointed out that life and society have changed out of all recognition in the past, are changing now and have at least the potential to change much more in the future. This much at least is fact, not hope, speculation etc. Are you requiring me to prove with mathematical certainty that society WILL change in the ways that I hope it will? I have pointed out from the beginning that no one CAN predict the future and indeed that parts of our society seem hell-bent on destroying our environment, and us with it, very soon. The future (obviously) includes alternative possibilities, some of them extremely unpleasant.
Either you have not understood what I am saying or you insist on a standard of proof that is impossible, unnecessary and even undesirable. We need a future of potentialities, not of certainties.
And I have to ask yet again, "Why all this repetition?" Do you have a problem with the fact that someone out here disagrees with you? I am not obliged either to convince you (clearly impossible) or to accept your views either. I have explained my reasons for disagreeing with those views innumerable times by now. This disagreement will continue and does not need to be endlessly repeated. Do not keep asking me to convince YOU. I have said repeatedly that I am not trying to do that. (But communication seems not to work.)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
You keep saying "life and society have changed out of all recognition in the past," while what I see is that human beings have not changed.
Correct, I am asking for evidence that does not exist.
We are at an impasse.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Correct. I cannot provide evidence for what will happen in future but we can infer various possibilities, both good and bad.
I keep saying what has happened.
Our prehuman ancestors changed themselves into rational, linguistic beings by cooperatively changing their environments with hands and brains. Why should what they have become now become unchanging? Is there no difference in consciousness, knowledge, understanding and motivation between our earliest human ancestors and the best of our civilized contemporaries?
I now regard this entire exchange as mechanically repetitive, pointless and sterile. Maybe the only way to stop the otherwise endless repetition is for me unilaterally to stop it from my side.
Paul.
Note that about 80k-60K years ago, there was a fairly major drop in H. sap. sap. male testosterone levels -- you can tell from differences in the skulls and so forth.
This made social cooperation and larger groups working together more practical.
This was probably what spurred the modern-human dispersal from Africa and the supplanting of other hominids.
We just outnumbered them and cooperated better. Including at things like war.
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