The discussions of intelligent life in the cosmos always depresses me because it is already here and our heads are too far up are asses to realize it. These things animals do that resemble what we do are genuinely the same process of evolution as what humans once went and continue to go through. This sort of ritual or any other ritual elephants practice is a community building ritual, not out of some intent to build a community, but because a community knit together by spiritual practice is stronger and more resistant to extinction. The same goes for any phenomena that appears independently in humans and animals. They are evolutionary phenomenons, not some development of the human mind, but of sheer accident that gave the species an evolutionary edge. Farming, tools, symbiotic relationships, social organization, religions, etc. All are just accidents that could emerge or are emerging in other species than humans
In the same way, our conceptions of invading alien species and the stories we tell of them are entirely a projection of our relationship to animals (and oftentimes other humans). The saddest thing is that if we did discover intelligent life on another planet, our first instinct would be to hunt and eat them.
It hinges on the premise that superluminal travel is a limited resource sentient races are all trying to control and that alien races need to commit Ecocide in order to prevent competitive consumption. It also posits an eternal state of civil war between races, as communities diverge from one another geographically only to come back into conflict out of the same resource conflict. I don't think this pans out, even on Earth. Humans seem to have grown more passive over time, and more social. Our Dunbar Number is expanding to fit the needs of our increasingly interconnected world. Those bigger networks are rewarding their members with longer lifespans, healthier offspring, and an infectious ideology.
I'm more prone to adopt the theory that humans simply wouldn't recognize an alien if we saw one. We're peering out into the infinite abyss of space, looking for flying saucers and asteroid robots and big blinking Dyson Spheres. Has anyone bothered to check under the clouds of Jupiter? Or the oceans of Europa, even? If a spatial body was transmitting a superluminal radio signal, would we even know how to listen to it? We're like ants searching for other ants by waving our antenna at the moon.
Maybe Dark Forest Theory is correct and extraterrestrial life really is an All-Against-All war of attrition. Or maybe we're just a bunch of primitive assholes hanging out on the rural end of a galactic empire and we just can't see it for the glare of ten thousand suns.
Your comment resonates with me a lot because I've thought about the same thing. As a communist when you think about the existence of actual alien intelligent life tomorrow the prospects are really bad.
Humans aren't capable of accepting another species that may be intellectually/morally/economically superior.
As humans most people can't even accept other humans in those situations.
And then when you think about the evolution of the next intelligent life form on earth, even disregarding the destruction of the environment, it is also pretty clear we are the dominant species in such a way that no intelligent life form could exist that resembles anything more than a human child level of intelligence because again we are simply not capable of understanding or handling the responsibility of co-existence.
People always wonder why we feel empathy for some animal suffering but allow other humans to suffer.
I wont go into all the other reasons(and there are plenty) but one of them is undoubtedly that we know these animals are less intelligent, therefore "innocent".
This is because we rely on agency to determine morality. Animals are perceived to not have agency because they are dumb. As soon as they are understood to be intelligent, some people will start to attribute agency to their actions and then you'll see the shift in morality, now our actions will be(more) "justifiable".
The discussions of intelligent life in the cosmos always depresses me because it is already here and our heads are too far up are asses to realize it. These things animals do that resemble what we do are genuinely the same process of evolution as what humans once went and continue to go through. This sort of ritual or any other ritual elephants practice is a community building ritual, not out of some intent to build a community, but because a community knit together by spiritual practice is stronger and more resistant to extinction. The same goes for any phenomena that appears independently in humans and animals. They are evolutionary phenomenons, not some development of the human mind, but of sheer accident that gave the species an evolutionary edge. Farming, tools, symbiotic relationships, social organization, religions, etc. All are just accidents that could emerge or are emerging in other species than humans
In the same way, our conceptions of invading alien species and the stories we tell of them are entirely a projection of our relationship to animals (and oftentimes other humans). The saddest thing is that if we did discover intelligent life on another planet, our first instinct would be to hunt and eat them.
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On the other hand, the Dark Forest theory the Three Body Problem... https://blog.usejournal.com/the-dark-forest-theory-of-the-universe-a52012529e0f
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I absolutely loved this series and cannot recommend it enough.
It hinges on the premise that superluminal travel is a limited resource sentient races are all trying to control and that alien races need to commit Ecocide in order to prevent competitive consumption. It also posits an eternal state of civil war between races, as communities diverge from one another geographically only to come back into conflict out of the same resource conflict. I don't think this pans out, even on Earth. Humans seem to have grown more passive over time, and more social. Our Dunbar Number is expanding to fit the needs of our increasingly interconnected world. Those bigger networks are rewarding their members with longer lifespans, healthier offspring, and an infectious ideology.
I'm more prone to adopt the theory that humans simply wouldn't recognize an alien if we saw one. We're peering out into the infinite abyss of space, looking for flying saucers and asteroid robots and big blinking Dyson Spheres. Has anyone bothered to check under the clouds of Jupiter? Or the oceans of Europa, even? If a spatial body was transmitting a superluminal radio signal, would we even know how to listen to it? We're like ants searching for other ants by waving our antenna at the moon.
Maybe Dark Forest Theory is correct and extraterrestrial life really is an All-Against-All war of attrition. Or maybe we're just a bunch of primitive assholes hanging out on the rural end of a galactic empire and we just can't see it for the glare of ten thousand suns.
There are VERY probably microbes are on venus.
Certain possible. And it's just incredibly expensive and difficult for us to check.
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Stories about invading aliens just rip off the european conquest and genocide of the americas
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Your comment resonates with me a lot because I've thought about the same thing. As a communist when you think about the existence of actual alien intelligent life tomorrow the prospects are really bad. Humans aren't capable of accepting another species that may be intellectually/morally/economically superior. As humans most people can't even accept other humans in those situations.
And then when you think about the evolution of the next intelligent life form on earth, even disregarding the destruction of the environment, it is also pretty clear we are the dominant species in such a way that no intelligent life form could exist that resembles anything more than a human child level of intelligence because again we are simply not capable of understanding or handling the responsibility of co-existence.
People always wonder why we feel empathy for some animal suffering but allow other humans to suffer. I wont go into all the other reasons(and there are plenty) but one of them is undoubtedly that we know these animals are less intelligent, therefore "innocent".
This is because we rely on agency to determine morality. Animals are perceived to not have agency because they are dumb. As soon as they are understood to be intelligent, some people will start to attribute agency to their actions and then you'll see the shift in morality, now our actions will be(more) "justifiable".
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