https://nitter.net/rmcentush/status/1731050675923239268

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    7 months ago

    There's an old folk thingy from Borneo that claims Orangs can, in fact, talk. But they don't, because if humans found out they'd be forced to get jobs and pay taxes.

    • FALGSConaut [comrade/them]
      ·
      7 months ago

      Makes sense to me. If I got to spend my whole life chilling in the forest and some weird bald fuckers came and tried to make me work and pay taxes I'd do whatever needed to convince them I'm just another ape and continue to chill in the forest

      • Juice [none/use name]
        ·
        7 months ago

        work and pay taxes

        I'm just another ape

        Colonialism: "Why not both?"

    • Fishroot [none/use name]
      ·
      7 months ago

      This is like in Liu Cixin's 3BP when some human try to make the population more stupid in order to devolved from being an advance civilization to not get destroyed

  • Dolores [love/loves]
    ·
    7 months ago

    plays stellaris once

    why can't i make the bonobo population into a client state? galaxy-brain

    • Venus [she/her]
      ·
      7 months ago

      Imagine trying to enforce our volcel rules here in a world where bonobos are posting

  • KarlBarqs [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    7 months ago

    this is a classic sci fi plot

    And every single fucking time it goes bad for the people involved

    Like literally every single instance of a species being uplifted in sci fi is a cautionary tale about interference with others, and usually has the uplifted species be violent/used as a weapon

    Literal fucking Torment Nexus bullshit

    • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      All (good) sci-fi is an exploration of issues that already exist in our world, just with the added distance of future/tech that allows those issues to take an even greater shape.

      This whole "uplifting primates" bs is just sci-fi talk for neoliberal development economics, it's just saying the quiet part out loud, in that people from poor countries are an inherently inferior species.

    • QuillcrestFalconer [he/him]
      ·
      7 months ago

      The Culture Series would like a word. Although sometimes when they interfere things do go bad and that's part of the narrative, but the majority of time they don't interfere it results in self destruction of civilizations

      • Dolores [love/loves]
        ·
        7 months ago

        i dont think the Culture ever engaged in anything so crude as this suggestion. they do really fantastical manipulations of biology and physics but just to themselves and minds. the less intelligent animals are still pets

    • regul [any]
      ·
      7 months ago

      Stuff doesn't go bad per se in 2001, where it's heavily implied that humans were uplifted. It just gets real trippy and then the sequels sucked.

      • CarbonScored [any]
        ·
        7 months ago

        My thought too. Isn't this the prime example people think of when they think of uplifting in scifi?

    • Lodespawn@aussie.zone
      ·
      7 months ago

      Would you bother reading/watching/playing scifi media that didn't have some sort of conflict, like everything just went great?

      • iridaniotter [she/her, they/them]
        ·
        7 months ago

        I've actually read some utopian literature. It's cool to see what people in the past saw as an ideal future. We could use a little rebirth of the genre tbh

        • Lodespawn@aussie.zone
          ·
          7 months ago

          Maybe you're right, maybe the Tomorrowland concept is what the world is missing right now? Everything is a conflict to be overcome, noone imagines everyone just working together to achieve amazing things.

          • regul [any]
            ·
            7 months ago

            I've read a couple utopian novels where the conflict is largely interpersonal drama against a backdrop of an ecologically sustainable world.

  • TerminalEncounter [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    They used to extract value from animals on industrial scales, like horses and stuff. They still do now of course but it's very grisly (watch dominion) because it's more about getting their flesh, skin, oil, etc.

    Anyway, we used to use them in "jobs" but it turns out machinery and mechanization was way more profitable, dumbass.

  • POKEMONGOTOTHEGULAG [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    We don't need more workers you fucking idiot, like half the Western population pushes around numbers on a spreadsheet for living. If we want more productivity maybe we should force these assholes onto an assembly line building stupid bullshit before we fuck with porcupines.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
      ·
      7 months ago

      Yep, if we weren't burdened by the Protestant work ethic that dictates that everyone should work, we could have a society where everyone takes turns working on a farm once a month and can do whatever the fuck they want the rest of the month. We'd still be able to feed everyone and society wouldn't collapse.

  • FourteenEyes [he/him]
    ·
    7 months ago

    Those Planet of the Apes movies are all about how this is a super great idea

  • drhead [he/him]
    ·
    7 months ago

    Really? Dolphins are by far the obvious candidates for first uplift. (They will be immediately sent the the Hague for perpetrating a genocide against porpoises)

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      ·
      7 months ago

      Wot if they didn't and the police came to put them in prison?

  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
    ·
    7 months ago

    Anyone who considers something like this seriously has to die immediately. This is pure evil in like the way Michael Myers is described by Dr Loomis. It has to be destroyed.

  • iridaniotter [she/her, they/them]
    ·
    7 months ago

    What? The cutting edge of domestication science was a Soviet fox project, genetic engineering is in its infancy, and a comprehensive understanding of the brain and sapience is nowhere in sight. How the fuck would we uplift an animal even if we wanted to?