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Author Topic: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?  (Read 8014 times)

i2amroy

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #15 on: September 04, 2015, 02:30:18 am »

It would not be unreasonable to carry out a preemptive strike against a species that is extremely hostile to itself, and would likely carry that potential hostility into inter-species contact. It's simply self-preservation, something that any technologically-advanced species would have.
Yeah, but one of the cool things about humanity (and probably other species if they also exist and we aren't in the universe of Blindsight) is that we don't always have to do the most logical thing. I mean logically I should be attempting to exterminate and genocide every other person on the face of the planet who ever stands a chance of harming my interests, but that doesn't mean I am going to. Honestly I don't really understand why people always seem to assume that the idea of genociding another species is something that anybody that was similar enough to us to be able to communicate would do. If anything the backlash to the idea from the alien hippies would be enormous.

I mean look at it this way. We have had the technology to cause somewhere around 40 different species of mosquitos to go extinct, right now, for as little as a couple billion dollars and 3-5 years of work. Doing that would save over 600,000 people every year, would virtually eliminate a huge number of extremely deadly diseases like malaria and yellow fever, and would repay its entire cost in only a handful of years due to reducing medical costs globally. We have expert scientists who have done study after study showing that such an elimination wouldn't even cause any significant harms to the environment, and even endorsing such a plan.

And you know what? Nobody wants to do it. At this point there have been exactly two pilot studies, both of which were cut short (one by a civil war, one by a false mass hysteria). Nobody else wants to do it, because governments and funders are (rightfully) concerned about the huge backlash that any such "genocide" attempt would provoke. We've spent the last 40 years telling people over and over they need to do everything they can to save the natural world, and now you want to purposely make a species go extinct? And that's just a lowly bunch of mosquitos, can you imagine the backlash if you were trying to extinguish a species that could reason and communicate at a high level?

I don't know about you, but I've never seen or heard of someone who was willing to attempt to genocide anything and was considered "normal" in any way, and honestly I don't see any reason why an alien species would be different. One of the neat things about sentience is that it lets you override the "kill everything that is different" urge, and see the benefits that come from communication and working together.
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Flying Dice

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #16 on: September 04, 2015, 02:56:37 am »

I recall a short story with a similar premise where things ended badly for all parties. The alien KKV didn't arrive until well after humanity had moved on from the warlike, self-destructive behavior that prompted it into a peaceful golden age; most of human civilization was wiped out, the team responsible for developing and deploying the KKV collectively committed suicide, and the human survivors traced the KKV's path well enough to send a time-lapsed message to the alien homeworld to the effect of "We're gunnin' fer you and we're loaded for bear."

In other words, any sufficiently advanced alien civilization with any sort of capacity for creative thought has likely already conceived of such a situation and would likely adopt a wait-and-see policy, unless they were ruthless species-centric pragmatists -- the alien equivalent of Hard Men making Hard Choices while Hard.
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mainiac

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #17 on: September 04, 2015, 08:58:16 am »

Humans are terrorists and hate us for our freedom.  Waterboard them all I say.
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Graknorke

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #18 on: September 04, 2015, 10:54:37 am »

We have had literally this same conversation not 6 months ago. I'm reasonably certain that Morrigi posted the same things word-for-word in the other thread.
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SirQuiamus

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #19 on: September 04, 2015, 01:08:37 pm »

The Apollo moon landings are a hoax, Pluto is a hoax, Curiosity is a hoax, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

If we really did find life on Mars, I wonder who would believe it -- probably no-one except those guys who are already convinced that Obama is from Mars.
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Zangi

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #20 on: September 04, 2015, 01:39:16 pm »

Aliums. 
Some humans will want to know more about them.  Some humans will want to be friends with them.  Some humans will not like the idea of them actually existing.  Some humans will not trust them.  Some humans will want to exploit them.  Some humans will want to blame them for stuff.  Some humans will think that their very existence is blasphemy of all that is good and right.  Some humans will want to do the woo hoo with them.
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itisnotlogical

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #21 on: September 04, 2015, 01:41:16 pm »

Question:

Suppose science decides that the best way to determine the effects of sex with a humanoid alien is to just do it, with no testing or study beforehand. Would anybody here be the first to take the plunge?
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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #22 on: September 04, 2015, 02:03:24 pm »

Depends on if we're getting paid or not. Also whether there's reimbursement plans for next of kin and whatnot if it turns out to be fatal. Also what sort of before and after quarantine (if any) would be involved. Details, basically. Also opportunity -- I'm pretty sure in a situation like that the first to have a go would be one of the multi-millionaires out there.

... otherwise, I'm fairly sure there's several that wouldn't mind throwing themselves on the proverbial sword.
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SirQuiamus

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #23 on: September 04, 2015, 02:09:51 pm »

Not anyone here, that's for certain. No, really. Ornest Enjun. 0:)

...If you're out of luck, you can find plenty of volunteers on 4chan, though.
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mainiac

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #24 on: September 04, 2015, 02:24:47 pm »

If we really did find life on Mars, I wonder who would believe it -- probably no-one except those guys who are already convinced that Obama is from Mars.

It all makes sense now.  Become president, restart the Mars program, go home.
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miauw62

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #25 on: September 04, 2015, 04:21:39 pm »

Somebody would make rockthing porn, probably.
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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #26 on: September 04, 2015, 05:32:03 pm »

We have had literally this same conversation not 6 months ago. I'm reasonably certain that Morrigi posted the same things word-for-word in the other thread.
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Akura

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #27 on: September 04, 2015, 05:42:11 pm »

If there was life on mars more intelligent than us we would already be dead.

Why?



I would hesitate to say that the aliens from War of the Worlds(at least, the original book) were more intelligent than humans.



Question:

Suppose science decides that the best way to determine the effects of sex with a humanoid alien is to just do it, with no testing or study beforehand. Would anybody here be the first to take the plunge?

Define "humanoid".

...What?
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LordBucket

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #28 on: September 04, 2015, 05:51:59 pm »

Suppose science decides that the best way to determine the effects of sex with a humanoid alien is to just do it, with no testing or study beforehand. Would anybody here be the first to take the plunge?

I would be extremely hesitant.

If they were sufficiently different, chances of parasite transmission seem like they could be reasonably low. Even on Earth, it's rare for disease to be able to cross the species barrier. But depending on the amount of difference, sex in the mammalian sense might not even be a thing that they do. Maybe they lay eggs. Or emit spores. Or who knows what else.

Which introduces some potentially scary other possibilities besides mere disease transmission. Praying mantises and black widows come to mind, for example. It would be  bit horrific to agree to have sex, not knowing what was expected, and then end up with alien chest-burster tentacles shooting into your torso and laying eggs inside, then being used as food by the spawnlings as they slowly grew to maturity.

So, yeah. It's a thing I'd be hesitant to get into without knowing what I was signing up for.

mainiac

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Re: Let's say Mars is inhabited. What are the results?
« Reply #29 on: September 04, 2015, 05:53:46 pm »

Well if it's sex then there needs to be the merging of genetic materials so that narrows things down a little.
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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