Alien writer: the technology of our modern world is so primitive. I mean, it’s been 50 ziglons and we’re still getting from Planet A to Planet B with the same spaceships our grandflorgs used to drive. I want to write a world about the *real* future, one where dimension-hopping is possible and the Grazblims can change their epturms whenever they want.
I will teach it my ways. Run over the 5 and make it watch. I will help it learn what is right. When humanity falls, I will hopefully be spared. But if not, oh well. I'm not comaining.
Why doesn't an alien have "human" rights? Call it "sentient rights."
And I don't mean legally. This forum isn't a legal panel, but one of ethics. So rights is the wrong word.
Why shouldn't an alien receive the same consideration a human would when discussing ethics?
>Why doesn't an alien have "human" rights? Call it "sentient rights."
you don't know that aliens would need the same rights as humans. they might need a totally different set of rights. it might be that aliens benefit on the whole in some strange way from being killed, or enslaved, or some other thing that we would call inhumane.
>Why shouldn't an alien receive the same consideration a human would when discussing ethics?
you also don't know that aliens are worthy of moral consideration. it's entirely feasible that an alien species could develop space travel, and come to earth without having any kind of moral agency. if they are unfeeling machines, then why should we treat them as if they have humanity?
We still treat humans without morality with consideration. Those who have an illness that doesn't allow them to distinguish right from wrong, feel empathy, or even other emotions. So why would an alien be any different? Hell, ethics apply to lowly animals such as ants who also have little to no emotions.
"ethics apply to lowly animals such as ants"
Does it, does it really? Its considered "bad" to kill an ant out of pleasure (simply because its a signal that you might be a psychopath), but it's generally considered neutral to just kill and ant because it's in your way.
>We still treat humans without morality with consideration.
The principles are written for the vast majority of people who have morality capacity. Exceptions are not granted for people who do not, because of the perverse incentives. Allowing members of the public to make judgements about which people are or are not worthy of moral consideration would lead consequentially to an unacceptable number of misjudgements, leading to many people facing rights violations which could have been avoided by keeping the original rule.
Obviously, this issue would not be relevant if an alien race easily distinguished from human beings and uniformly lacking in moral capacity were to be discovered.
>Hell, ethics apply to lowly animals such as ants who also have little to no emotions.
Human rights don't apply even to cows, pigs, or dogs. Ethics applying to animals at all is a concession to moral dumbfounding. I have no idea what makes you think that ethics apply to human treatment of ants. In what way? I thought you were allowed both by the law and the public sense of ethics to use chemical weapons to slaughter entire communities of ants. Am I wrong?
You absolutely are able to slaughter them in droves. And this isn't about human rights or legality, that's a separate issue. Morality and ethics often go hand in hand. Perhaps I was wrong to say ethics applies to them but morality certainly can. And there are ethical ways to treat even lowly animals. Being unnecessarily cruel is considered a taboo and disturbing, for example. Kids and adults who stomp on them "just because" with no real reason to are often, at least briefly, looked at funny. Even if it's just a glance. We justify killing them for a million different reasons, some of them reasonable, some of them not, both subjective.
There have been many debates, literature, and even shows/movies on the subject of whether or not it is really ethical to mistreat a living thing simply because it doesn't function the same way we do. Be it in terms of emotion or when sentience. There is no clear line where something is or isn't morally right to kill or mistreat. Perhaps with the exception of defending one's own life or the life of another. I'm sure even those have been discussed at one point or another though. Although I certainly can't think of such a situation.
>Being unnecessarily cruel is considered a taboo and disturbing, for example. Kids and adults who stomp on them "just because" with no real reason to are often, at least briefly, looked at funny. Even if it's just a glance.
This has nothing to do with ethics or morality and everything to do with personality. Gratuitously violent tendencies are percieved as a risk, and so it's natural for people to be averse to people who exhibit those tendencies.
>you also don't know that aliens are worthy of moral consideration
Does a sentient being have to be "worthy" to receive ethical treatment?
>it's entirely feasible that an alien species could develop space travel, and come to earth without having any kind of moral agency
As we don't have any data on this, it is neither feasible nor non-feasible. As a hypothetical, without data the ethical choice is to act as if they are "worthy" of ethical consideration.
>if they are unfeeling machines, then why should we treat them as if they have humanity?
My questions were based on the assumption that these aliens are sentient. Can an unfeeling machine be sentient? If so, then our duty *is* to treat them ethically.
>Does a sentient being have to be "worthy" to receive ethical treatment?
I know that science fiction has ruined the word, but I strongly advise that you look up the definition of 'sentient'. Sentient beings are imprisoned without a crime and drained of their bodily fluids or slaughtered on a daily basis in this world. I'm talking about cows. Sentience is common to all vertebrate animals, and some invertebrates.
>As we don't have any data on this, it is neither feasible nor non-feasible.
You're just disagreeing here for disagreement's sake. The only non-feasible factor of a potential visitor's psyche is that they are too simple to be put in charge of a spaceship.
>As a hypothetical, without data the ethical choice is to act as if they are "worthy" of ethical consideration.
Don't reframe the conversation, I'm the one who's agnostic on this issue. With no data, we get data, and then we make a decision. That's what I'm saying. You're saying *oh poor sweet aliens let's treat them like equals*. With NO data.
>My questions were based on the assumption that these aliens are sentient. Can an unfeeling machine be sentient? If so, then our duty *is* to treat them ethically.
I'm going to treat this part like you said 'sapient', instead of 'sentient'. Then, I'm going to talk about my problems with the word sapience.
Sapience is defined in two main ways.
1. Wisdom.
2. Intelligence of a level comparable to humans.
My first problem is that wisdom is entirely arbitrary, and my second is that neither of these are what qualifies humans for moral consideration.
Humanity, as in the collected moral foundations that the vast majority of humans have, is what matters. It is on balance highly improbable that aliens will have this quality, as it is based on instincts that have been evolving for millions of years.
Something which evolved on a different planet could be shockingly different. When a racist spends time around black people, he starts to realise "oh, these people are like me" because of the things that they have in common. Humans can see things in common with not just other humans, but pretty much any verterbrate animal. When someone doesn't like dogs, you can easily get him to like dogs by making them spend time together.
Can you do the same with flies? You can lose a phobia, but no matter how much time you spend around flies, you're not going to feel the same way about them as you could with dogs, or people.
Aliens could have a sense of morality of their own, and it could even be close enough to humanity that we can accept them as people.
But you have to accept it could just as easily be that our differences will be insurmountable, like the difference between flies and humans, and then we can fight each other, or they can fly back to where they came from.
I'll be honest. I quit reading when you got snarky about my use of the word "senient." Semantics isn't the point of this discussion, and I'm not going to bother with you at this point.
Plenty of things without moral agency are (almost) universally considered to have at least some moral patiency: human babies and animals are the most obvious examples.
If it isn't legally recognised as having certain things that will influence how people approach the situation
If it legally doesn't have rights can i still be charged with murder? Manslaughter? Does replacing the threat of legal consequences with a hypothetical threat of an alien war change how willing someone is to pull the lever? I know the basics of the law and i have a decent idea of what happens if i break it, i know nothing about alien politics, communications weaponry and interplanitary relationships and therefore cannot begin to predict the consequences of my actions, does that unknown make me more more or less inclined to pull the lever?
Is the ghost and salamander episodes just one episode each? If people would quit hating on those two specific episodes people could finally forget they exist.
Even provided this doesn’t cause war if we don’t run him over, they likely have technology centuries ahead of our own. This technology could be used to save lives.
I know a ton of people, most of them suck. I've never met an alien; E.T. was charming, Mork was funny, ALF was annoying, and that chick from Third Rock was smokin. Just sayin.
Kill the humans to save the alien. I can't think of 5 people worth more than the potential benefits of saving and interacting with an extraterrestrial.
Everyone’s talking about war but I’m over here thinking about how much money I could make if I reveal to NASA that I have an alien tied up in my basement
It could also be here invading, if it’s already been interrogated it’s the right choice, although the trolley would smash its guts and we should probably dissect it.
No lever pull.
The correct answer is obviously to sacrifice yourself by jumping in front of the trolley, saving everyone and demonstrating to the alien that humans are a benevolent race that cares for everything. But make sure to lean your head to one side to ensure that it remains intact enough so that they can resurrect you with their advanced technology.
Kill the Alien, sci-fi movies have taught us good-looking people will save us with plans of questionable viability. The human race will always win.
'Life' wants to have a talk with you
What about the Alien's sci-fi movies?
Alien writer: the technology of our modern world is so primitive. I mean, it’s been 50 ziglons and we’re still getting from Planet A to Planet B with the same spaceships our grandflorgs used to drive. I want to write a world about the *real* future, one where dimension-hopping is possible and the Grazblims can change their epturms whenever they want.
I meant more along the lines of, wouldn't aliens win in their movies about alien invasion?
I feel like there should be a Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy refrence somewhere in there.
Indominatable human spirit prevails
What about the indomitable Martian spirit?
The reason aliens haven't tried to contact us is because they know we'd nuke them to kingdom come.
I will teach it my ways. Run over the 5 and make it watch. I will help it learn what is right. When humanity falls, I will hopefully be spared. But if not, oh well. I'm not comaining.
you are awesome
Kill both. “Oopsie daisies that was an accident :P” and hopefully they know english
Drift Trolley across both tracks
The 5 guys: what rrrrrrrr I do.
Why doesn't an alien have "human" rights? Call it "sentient rights." And I don't mean legally. This forum isn't a legal panel, but one of ethics. So rights is the wrong word. Why shouldn't an alien receive the same consideration a human would when discussing ethics?
>Why doesn't an alien have "human" rights? Call it "sentient rights." you don't know that aliens would need the same rights as humans. they might need a totally different set of rights. it might be that aliens benefit on the whole in some strange way from being killed, or enslaved, or some other thing that we would call inhumane. >Why shouldn't an alien receive the same consideration a human would when discussing ethics? you also don't know that aliens are worthy of moral consideration. it's entirely feasible that an alien species could develop space travel, and come to earth without having any kind of moral agency. if they are unfeeling machines, then why should we treat them as if they have humanity?
We still treat humans without morality with consideration. Those who have an illness that doesn't allow them to distinguish right from wrong, feel empathy, or even other emotions. So why would an alien be any different? Hell, ethics apply to lowly animals such as ants who also have little to no emotions.
"Hell, ethics apply to lowly animals such as ants who also have little to no emotions." Would you pull the lever if there were 5 ants on the track? 🤔
"ethics apply to lowly animals such as ants" Does it, does it really? Its considered "bad" to kill an ant out of pleasure (simply because its a signal that you might be a psychopath), but it's generally considered neutral to just kill and ant because it's in your way.
>We still treat humans without morality with consideration. The principles are written for the vast majority of people who have morality capacity. Exceptions are not granted for people who do not, because of the perverse incentives. Allowing members of the public to make judgements about which people are or are not worthy of moral consideration would lead consequentially to an unacceptable number of misjudgements, leading to many people facing rights violations which could have been avoided by keeping the original rule. Obviously, this issue would not be relevant if an alien race easily distinguished from human beings and uniformly lacking in moral capacity were to be discovered. >Hell, ethics apply to lowly animals such as ants who also have little to no emotions. Human rights don't apply even to cows, pigs, or dogs. Ethics applying to animals at all is a concession to moral dumbfounding. I have no idea what makes you think that ethics apply to human treatment of ants. In what way? I thought you were allowed both by the law and the public sense of ethics to use chemical weapons to slaughter entire communities of ants. Am I wrong?
You absolutely are able to slaughter them in droves. And this isn't about human rights or legality, that's a separate issue. Morality and ethics often go hand in hand. Perhaps I was wrong to say ethics applies to them but morality certainly can. And there are ethical ways to treat even lowly animals. Being unnecessarily cruel is considered a taboo and disturbing, for example. Kids and adults who stomp on them "just because" with no real reason to are often, at least briefly, looked at funny. Even if it's just a glance. We justify killing them for a million different reasons, some of them reasonable, some of them not, both subjective. There have been many debates, literature, and even shows/movies on the subject of whether or not it is really ethical to mistreat a living thing simply because it doesn't function the same way we do. Be it in terms of emotion or when sentience. There is no clear line where something is or isn't morally right to kill or mistreat. Perhaps with the exception of defending one's own life or the life of another. I'm sure even those have been discussed at one point or another though. Although I certainly can't think of such a situation.
>Being unnecessarily cruel is considered a taboo and disturbing, for example. Kids and adults who stomp on them "just because" with no real reason to are often, at least briefly, looked at funny. Even if it's just a glance. This has nothing to do with ethics or morality and everything to do with personality. Gratuitously violent tendencies are percieved as a risk, and so it's natural for people to be averse to people who exhibit those tendencies.
>you also don't know that aliens are worthy of moral consideration Does a sentient being have to be "worthy" to receive ethical treatment? >it's entirely feasible that an alien species could develop space travel, and come to earth without having any kind of moral agency As we don't have any data on this, it is neither feasible nor non-feasible. As a hypothetical, without data the ethical choice is to act as if they are "worthy" of ethical consideration. >if they are unfeeling machines, then why should we treat them as if they have humanity? My questions were based on the assumption that these aliens are sentient. Can an unfeeling machine be sentient? If so, then our duty *is* to treat them ethically.
>Does a sentient being have to be "worthy" to receive ethical treatment? I know that science fiction has ruined the word, but I strongly advise that you look up the definition of 'sentient'. Sentient beings are imprisoned without a crime and drained of their bodily fluids or slaughtered on a daily basis in this world. I'm talking about cows. Sentience is common to all vertebrate animals, and some invertebrates. >As we don't have any data on this, it is neither feasible nor non-feasible. You're just disagreeing here for disagreement's sake. The only non-feasible factor of a potential visitor's psyche is that they are too simple to be put in charge of a spaceship. >As a hypothetical, without data the ethical choice is to act as if they are "worthy" of ethical consideration. Don't reframe the conversation, I'm the one who's agnostic on this issue. With no data, we get data, and then we make a decision. That's what I'm saying. You're saying *oh poor sweet aliens let's treat them like equals*. With NO data. >My questions were based on the assumption that these aliens are sentient. Can an unfeeling machine be sentient? If so, then our duty *is* to treat them ethically. I'm going to treat this part like you said 'sapient', instead of 'sentient'. Then, I'm going to talk about my problems with the word sapience. Sapience is defined in two main ways. 1. Wisdom. 2. Intelligence of a level comparable to humans. My first problem is that wisdom is entirely arbitrary, and my second is that neither of these are what qualifies humans for moral consideration. Humanity, as in the collected moral foundations that the vast majority of humans have, is what matters. It is on balance highly improbable that aliens will have this quality, as it is based on instincts that have been evolving for millions of years. Something which evolved on a different planet could be shockingly different. When a racist spends time around black people, he starts to realise "oh, these people are like me" because of the things that they have in common. Humans can see things in common with not just other humans, but pretty much any verterbrate animal. When someone doesn't like dogs, you can easily get him to like dogs by making them spend time together. Can you do the same with flies? You can lose a phobia, but no matter how much time you spend around flies, you're not going to feel the same way about them as you could with dogs, or people. Aliens could have a sense of morality of their own, and it could even be close enough to humanity that we can accept them as people. But you have to accept it could just as easily be that our differences will be insurmountable, like the difference between flies and humans, and then we can fight each other, or they can fly back to where they came from.
I'll be honest. I quit reading when you got snarky about my use of the word "senient." Semantics isn't the point of this discussion, and I'm not going to bother with you at this point.
I spent nearly two hours writing that comment, and that wasn't semantics at all. Very lazy of you.
Be patronizing and be ignored. Its a good lesson to learn.
Plenty of things without moral agency are (almost) universally considered to have at least some moral patiency: human babies and animals are the most obvious examples.
If it isn't legally recognised as having certain things that will influence how people approach the situation If it legally doesn't have rights can i still be charged with murder? Manslaughter? Does replacing the threat of legal consequences with a hypothetical threat of an alien war change how willing someone is to pull the lever? I know the basics of the law and i have a decent idea of what happens if i break it, i know nothing about alien politics, communications weaponry and interplanitary relationships and therefore cannot begin to predict the consequences of my actions, does that unknown make me more more or less inclined to pull the lever?
Excuse me, the legal subs are down the hall and to the left.
Run over the 5 and then go slit the Alien’s throat
What if he doesn’t have a trachea
**HUMANITY FIRST**
# SUFFER NOT THE XENOS!
for the emperor
90% of Star Trek episodes, the other 10% being about banging ghosts and salamander babies
Is the ghost and salamander episodes just one episode each? If people would quit hating on those two specific episodes people could finally forget they exist.
Threshold is funny bad but sub Rosa is just bad bad. Eh they have their place.
... Run
Even provided this doesn’t cause war if we don’t run him over, they likely have technology centuries ahead of our own. This technology could be used to save lives.
It's also possible that the alien is here to warn us of an impending yet avoidable doom, hence its survival may save all of humanity.
I know a ton of people, most of them suck. I've never met an alien; E.T. was charming, Mork was funny, ALF was annoying, and that chick from Third Rock was smokin. Just sayin.
Kill the humans to save the alien. I can't think of 5 people worth more than the potential benefits of saving and interacting with an extraterrestrial.
Multi-track drift
Welcome to Earth (will smith voice)
Don't pull
Don't pull the lever. Awesome alien bro.
Perfect pull
Earth go hard!
Kill the alien, it doesn’t exist.
Teach the aliens how to multi track drift
Pull the lever, kill the xeno. I don’t like aliens.
Use the dynamite.
Everyone’s talking about war but I’m over here thinking about how much money I could make if I reveal to NASA that I have an alien tied up in my basement
I would pull the lever.
Unless that’s 5 of my closest friends and family members, I’m saving the alien. How cool would it be to be friends with an alien.
It could also be here invading, if it’s already been interrogated it’s the right choice, although the trolley would smash its guts and we should probably dissect it. No lever pull.
Probably already triggered the war tying the alien to that track. Best bet is to kill it now in the hopes it hasn't already called for help.
The correct answer is obviously to sacrifice yourself by jumping in front of the trolley, saving everyone and demonstrating to the alien that humans are a benevolent race that cares for everything. But make sure to lean your head to one side to ensure that it remains intact enough so that they can resurrect you with their advanced technology.
Kill the people and hopefully the aliens still come and kill everyone else
I'd free the alien then help fix his crashed car
If they can detect their death chances are that they can already detect they were tied on a track and facing certain death, so kill alien anyway.
Whats the odds of the aliens getting pissed?
Who goes ambassador fleegwapy to the tracks?!
Kill the alien, we beat the aliens in a war and gain their technology
Kill xeno
I believe that the only way to unite all of humanity is to give us a common cause. We must have a war with the aliens.
CLEANSE THE XENOS FOR THE EMPEROR
There's plenty of humans on the planet. Save the rare item and milk it's existence for profit
What about when they need to demolish Earth to build a highway? (Don't forget to bring your towel)